The Black Pat Robertson

I have been completely unable to find an online link to this, but it appeared in print in the Inquirer today:

Farrakhan: God Punishing U.S. For Iraq With Storm

Speaking to a large crowd in South Philadelphia last night, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan suggested that the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina was divine punishment for the violence America had inflicted on Iraq.

"New Orleans is the first of the cities going to tumble down...unless America changes its course," Farrakhan said.

"It is the wickedness of the people of America and the government of America that is bringing the wrath of God down," he told several hundred people at Tinsley Temple United Methodist Church.

His remarks were enthusiastically received.

He was in town as part of a multicity tour designed to drum up support for an Oct. 15 event in Washington designed to build on and commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March he organized in 1995. The new effort is called the Million More Movement.

Farrakhan made similar remarks at a luncheon hosted by District 33 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which represents blue-collar city workers.

"The justice of God is coming home now," he said in an hour-long speech. Among those attending were (Philadelphia) City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, Mayor Street's son Sharif Street, and Imam Shamsud-din Ali, the Muslim cleric convicted in the City Hall corruption probe.

First, "Reverend," if you think this country is evil, then as far as I'm concerned, you can revoke your citizenship and leave right now.

Second, I have to ask you something. Have you been watching the news? Do you have any idea of who it is who is suffering the most in the South's flood devastation? It is overwhelmingly poor African Americans. Are these people who barely had anything anyway even before this catastrophe somehow "wicked" for just trying to exist? I mean, I can understand that nut job with the bullhorn Michael Mancavage screaming about this since his audience is primarily rich white people with too much time on their hands (oooh - bet I get it for that), but that group has the means to flee from coming devastation, and I'm sure they did that in large numbers already.

Third, I want you and cretins of your ilk retire this whole "God's vengeance" rap once and for all. You know nothing of the mind of God - none of us do. Besides, after 9/11, I heard plenty of people who I would consider to be of high moral character saying that they thought it was God's vengeance upon them for some reason, and I told them to stop thinking like that.

Yes sir, Reverend, you sure have covered yourself in glory. Instead of marching on Washington, D.C. though, why don't you march through the worst hurricane disaster sites, try to lend a hand and do some good?

An Omission

Molly Ivins wrote an excellent column on the destruction in New Orleans from Katrina, but I’m not going to link to it because she mentions near the end, in a fashion that is uncomfortably cavalier as far as I’m concerned, that we should bring back the draft.

I’ve been thinking about this all day, particularly an hour ago when I tucked in the young one and said good night, with his stuffed animals Max the pug and Snappy the turtle by his side.

The thought of any politician deciding to conscript him and send him to some God-forsaken location in this world for reasons that he will never understand and have him kill people of a different skin color starts to induce a rage in me that makes me want to do just about the same thing myself to the person who would be responsible for such a heinous act. This is to say nothing of the very real possibility that he would either be killed or get so scrambled physically or mentally that he would never be the same.

Regarding this issue, I feel that I am about the only person who can look out for him. The Dems and Repugs are going to try and weasel (verb?) this issue into the spotlight once more, especially with our conventional forces and National Guard strength depleted from Bushco’s war and the Katrina fallout. Unfortunately, this all is likely to be inevitable.

I have not finished weighing my options in the event that this happens; I am still very much in that process. Also, if he ever tells me one day, after he has reviewed every single piece of reliable information that he can get and spoken with family members who have served, that he wants to do so also, of course I will support him (I want the recruiters to get out of his face). The military can be a fine way of life for the right person if it is a voluntary choice. If not, he should be allowed to do something else.

Also, a final note about Molly: she is absolutely a titan and continues to be so, but as far as I’m concerned, this is the second major slipup of hers in the past few months. The first one was over her statement that our forces killed more Iraqis in our invasion than those that were killed under Saddam Hussein, and when she realized the mistake, she corrected that immediately and apologized profusely like the true pro that she is. I know she’s battled cancer in the last few years, and I sincerely hope her health is OK and not affecting her work.

The Half-Full Glass

I'm sure you heard about this (from today's Philadelphia Inquirer):

Pa. lawmaker's blog: Funny - or offensive?
By Mario F. Cattabiani
Inquirer Staff Writer

His blog is laced with references to pornography and strip clubs, a lust for whiskey and women, and disdain for President Bush and Céline Dion.

Then there are some politically incorrect quips about Palestinians and "a third-world type" who cleans hotel rooms.

It's not the work of Howard Stern, or even a college kid with too much broadband.

The author of www.leachvent.com - a collection of humor columns - is State Rep. Daylin Leach, a Democrat from Upper Merion.

It's all meant in good humor from an elected official and self-described frustrated comedian.

Written over the last eight years, the columns - which he signs as Dutch Larooo - touch on everything from the birth of his daughter to his 21/2 years in the statehouse. The title of one: "Legislating while drunk."

It's observational humor, the Montgomery County representative said.

"I respect my constituents and all people enough to think that they are not going to think this is real," said Leach, 44. "It's just a joke. It's like Woody Allen marrying a sheep. I don't think he has an attraction to sheep. It was funny."

Some aren't laughing.

"How did he ever get elected in the first place? He needs help," said Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, an anti-obscenity group. "He's fixated on pornography and strip clubs. It should be a real eye-opener for his constituents."

The writings reveal a little-known side of Leach, who has earned a reputation in Harrisburg as a bright and independent-minded legislator. The blog also vividly illustrates what can happen when you put your thoughts on the Internet for everyone to see.

Many of Leach's writings have some reference to body parts, sex or pornography, or a combination of the three.

"We've all seen porno movies. In fact, we've all seen 5 or 6 porno movies a week since we were young boys growing up in Allentown," one reads.

Leach, a father of two, makes several references to young girls, including this passage about legislation he was backing: "The age of consent would officially be lowered to 'When Poppa ain't around.' "

He also quips about renewing his subscription to Hustler's Barely Legal and about knowing very little Italian.

"I've just learned the very basic things you would need to get by in Rome. I can say 'Hello,' 'Goodbye,' 'Where's the bathroom,' 'Is your sister really twelve?' "

Leach has tried his hand at stand-up and was a member of a comedic troupe years ago. "I don't have a sitcom, so it tells you how good I was," he said in an interview.

He said he started writing humor columns about eight years ago as "an outlet," and e-mails them to about 2,000 friends and acquaintances.

About a year ago, Leach started posting his "vents" online.

"I think we want, in society, to have elected officials who are not all the same all the time. And we should want them to occasionally let their hair down," he said.

"This is my private life. This is something I do. It's not obscene. It's not particularly offensive."

His columns, many written before he took office in January 2003, skewer a broad cross-section of America. He attacks the powerful and famous.

On Bush: "If he can become president of the United States, then there is no reason that the dumbest of you can't become Absolute Omnipotent Dictator of the Universe."

Dion, his most frequent foil, "has a voice like a thousand rabid monkeys trapped in a cement mixer."

He jokes about fictional exchanges with famous folks.

Pat Buchanan got a "little huffy," Leach wrote, "when I asked him if he'd ever been to a transvestite bar called the Bunny Hutch." A comment he made to Kitty Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic Convention - "Let's see the Ta-Tas" - spawned the low-cut sweater craze, he wrote.

He also pokes fun at those without any power. In one entry called "Travel Tips," Leach wrote:

"It may be easy to romanticize sleeping in a teepee, braving the elements and mixing with the dung beetles, but trust me, having a cozy bed and a third-world type who cleans your room and you can call 'Consuela' (regardless of her real name) goes a long way towards helping you forget any pending disbarment proceedings back home."

One column in particular has some Arab Americans fuming.

He wrote this about bachelor parties in different cultures: "The Palestinians like to welcome the bachelor to marital bliss by holding him up in the air and cheering, then strapping several pounds of dynamite to his chest and having him blow up a school bus (the groomsmen all chip in for the dynamite).

"Palestinian women are troubled by their future husband being splattered all over the ground, but grateful that he wasn't exposed to any naked women."

James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, called Leach's comments inappropriate and insensitive.

"This is outrageous. We've lowered the standards for our elected officials, but he fits even below those lowered standards," Zogby said.

Leach, who is Jewish, said: "I guess someone could be offended by that. I wrote it well before becoming a legislator. At the time, I had a law partner who was Arabic. It was not meant to be offensive."

His last posting chided the media for sending reporters to Seattle to cover legislators, including himself, as they attended the nation's largest convention for lawmakers last month.

It mentions that a reporter, whom it calls "Mario," would attend, and that knowing that they would be watched, lawmakers were given rules to stay out of trouble. One called for "no using tax dollars to get a haircut, or a tattoo or to get your jimmy pierced."

Such a volume of writings - there are more than 200 "vents" - could smell like red meat for a political opponent in next year's elections.

"In today's world, these are not funny things. Maybe if you are a professional comic on cable TV, you can get away with it. But not when you are in public life," Ken Davis, the Montgomery County GOP chairman, said after reading several entries. "If a candidate, Republican or Democrat, were to run against him, then they certainly would take a good, hard look at these comments."

Soon after joining the House, Leach wondered in a column whether his writings might affect his political future.

"After I was elected to the legislature, I was encouraged to put the Vent on hold for a while, if death threats can be considered encouragement. Some worried I might say something that would speed up the inevitable impeachment process. Others worried I would say something that might slow it down."

Mike Manzo, chief of staff to House Minority Leader H. William DeWeese, said he had read some of the columns and found them "downright hilarious."

"Daylin is one of the most genuinely funny people I've ever met," he said. "A lot of people will criticize him for this. But they just don't get his sense of humor."

Roderick Millwood isn't sure Leach has a future in comedy.

"I didn't see anything comedic there, and I was looking for something funny," said Millwood, general manager of the Laff House, a Philadelphia comedy club, who reviewed the site. "But he's free to come down on the last Wednesday night of the month, when we have open mike night, and give it a try."

A Leach Sampler

These are excerpts from State Rep. Daylin Leach's blog:

On giving

"I have found it rewarding to take time to do things for others. If Britney Spears needs a back rub, I'll give it to her. If Britney needs a big ol' spanking, I'm there."

On himself

"Do you remember how every elementary school has some kid who is so slow and pathetic that all the other kids beat him up. Well, in my school, that kid beat me."

Why we shouldn't execute Osama

"The minute we kill him we are sending him to paradise where 72 virgins await him (or 71 virgins and one girl who went horseback riding a lot)."

The political risks of S&M

"To me, being sat on by a morbidly obese, leather-clad dominatrix is not fun. But it would probably still be a bad idea to be photographed doing it."

Prepping for a marathon

"My training consisted of running through the streets of certain rural neighborhoods near the capital wearing a "Leave the Sheep Alone!" T-shirt. I thought being chased would motivate me to keep running."

A fulfilled life goal

"Get totally stoned on fine Lebanese Hashish with Henry Kissinger. Check."

On strippers

"Whenever Jasmine, Cocoa, Lolita, Puka-Puka or Clitoris (it's amazing how all the women with exotic names wind up working for strip clubs) came near you, you had to tip them to sit, to dance, to stop dancing, to leave, and to never tell you about their plans for medical school again."

On alcohol

"Specifically, I dreamt:... of a world where every Starbucks also served Whiskey - cheap, 24 hours a day - to absolutely anybody."

From "The Lost Poems of Osama Bin Laden"

Once I glimpsed a woman's foot
as I walked by the forge
I had to halt an execution
my loins were so engorged

OK, now that we've had the "sky is falling" news report, I should let you know that I just went to the site to find out more on this, and this is the message that appears:

There is a good chance you stopped by this site because of an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday.

If that is why you are here, allow me to provide some context.

Other than my family, I've had two main passions in my life: one is politics and the other is comedy. Humor helped me get through a difficult childhood and has frequently enabled me to keep perspective whenever I get discouraged. I was a performing stand-up comic in my 20s and performed with a sketch comedy troupe in my 30s. As my legal career became more demanding, and as I got married and prepared to start a family, it became impossible for me to continue to find the time to perform.

To allow myself the opportunity to continue writing comedy, I started writing a column of mostly political satire called "The VENT," which I sent to friends and colleagues on my E-mail list every few weeks or so. As the years went by, more people asked to be added to the list, and some suggested I set up a website so they could read old ones from time to time. This is that site.

My comedy has always been first and foremost just that, comedy.

I was simply trying to make other people, and myself, laugh. The events portrayed in any VENT were fictitious and the people therein (except for the truly famous, like President Bush) may have been based in part on people I met, but they were all fictionalized.

I also acknowledge that my comedy is sometimes irreverent. All good political satire is. It expresses positions of contention and controversy in order to encourage the audience to look at their own conclusions. I certainly never meant to offend anyone - I have people of every description on my e-mail list, and not one person ever indicated to me that they were offended by something I wrote. Mostly, I think, because they know me and understand who I am.

I'd like to say a word about that. I got into politics because of a commitment to civil rights. On issues such as affirmative action, anti-discrimination initiatives, ethnic profiling, women's rights and gay rights, I don't think there is a more progressive voice in the Pennsylvania legislature. My wife and I named our first daughter Brennan after Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, who is my personal hero in part for embodying our nation's commitment to civil rights.

Any joke I made with a political point was made in furtherance of progressive values, even as I sometimes made fun of those who do not, in my judgment share those values. If anyone has been offended by anything I have written, I am truly sorry. I was trying to make people laugh and think, not upset them.

I was advised that I should temporarily take the blog down, due to the possibility of someone hacking into the site and modifying the content to reflect something that I did not say. I hope to have it back up soon in a secure environment.

Thank You,

Daylin Leach

Call me crazy, but these don't sound like the words of a hateful bigot.

Judge Ye Not...

Two things:

One, this important post from Atrios regarding the Katrina fallout:

I don't think it was that long ago that most Americans had at least some small connection to poverty. Immigrant parents and grandparents, family members who experienced the worst effects of the Great Depression, or simply growing up fairly poor. It's sad that so many people can't understand that if you live paycheck to paycheck, and you don't have any credit, it might actually be impossible for you to fill your gas tank.

Two, this fine column from the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Lucia Herndon on media coverage of the disaster:

What pictures of the looters really may say

I knew it would happen - just didn't know when.

I'm talking about television news footage of looters played over and over in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Looting occurs whenever law and order breaks down as a result of disasters natural or manmade. But since the advent of television, looting seems to be a black thing. From the Watts riots in the 1960s to today, you can count on pictures of black folk hightailing it away from some store with electronic appliances, jewelry and furniture.

So while reporters from 24-hour TV news channels poured into the area almost as fast as the rising waters, I didn't have long to wait for the looting story to flash on my television screen. And even though it was expected, I found myself a little sad. But mostly mad.

We journalists have a collective knee-jerk reaction in certain situations, disasters especially. We look for people, things, quotes that will convey what we want or need to convey. But overuse of this practice leads to cliché and stereotype.

In Iowa, where tornadoes are a summertime surety, reporters are always looking for someone to say that the barn-flattening winds sounded like a freight train. At my old newspaper, the first reporter to get that quote was treated to a beer after work.

For television reporters, shots of blacks looting are quick, easy and downright expected.

New Orleans is more than a party-time tourist destination. It's a city where two-thirds of the population is black, so I'm not surprised to see black people looting. Many are poor: The median income for whites is a low $31,971; for blacks it's a subterranean $11,332. Truth is, life in the Big Easy has never been that way for many.

My question is, are blacks really the only looters? Or are they the only ones deemed worthy of camera time? Does 30 seconds of tape, rewound and replayed, tell the whole story? If pictures of looters never made it onto the air, would viewers be deprived of crucial information? Do these images advance the story of the plight of people?

Or do they play to stereotype, prejudice and fear?

Yes, stealing for profit and personal gain is wrong. And I hope those who decided to take advantage of a disaster to haul off flat-screen televisions and DVD players find no way to profit from their theft.

But during a devastating disaster like this, good, law-abiding citizens may do things they would never do normally. On TV I saw people carrying what appeared to be groceries, water, and bags of ice. With no water, power, or way out of town, it looked to me that the "looters" were trying to survive rather than upgrade their stereo system.

Before you say "I would never," just remember that's pretty easy to say and believe as we sit in our comfortable, dry, air-conditioned homes with ice, water and food a few steps away. Hunger to us means we haven't eaten in a couple of hours.

Think about it: Water's at your knees, kids are hungry and thirsty. You'd call 911 if you had a phone and if someone would answer. How could I say that if this were my situation, I wouldn't be one of those people heading out of the Wal-Mart with things that could help my family survive?

So don't draw conclusions about the ways of black people from the few moments of "de rigueur" pictures of looters. Black citizens are also among the weary, the rescuers and the rescued, the resilient, the righteous... and the dead.

They just don't get much airtime.

And finally, with all this in mind, I present the “Clueless Media Moment Of The Day” from CNN:

Wolf Blitzer was playing all-omniscient-TV-talking-head with a correspondent named Jack Cafferty, and looking over the news footage of looting in New Orleans, Blitzer condescendingly opined: “These people are so poor and so black…”

Ugh...I'm quite sure Leonard Pitts, Jr. will have something to say about this also.

By the way, Atrios and The Daily Kos have the text of what Cafferty said about Bushco's fumbling of the relief effort so far. More importantly, though, this is where to go to get or give help.

Play Nice At The U.N., Johnny

This article to me is proof positive (as if we needed it, I guess) that John Bolton’s job at the U.N. is to make sure that the United States commits to absolutely nothing regarding all of the issues affecting ourselves and other countries. No timetables, no commitments…nothing.

Oh, and by the way, China and other nations have pledged to help us recover from Katrina. Maybe it would be nice to show a little gratitude and not wreck the millennium goals document, OK?

Easy Freeper

In the midst of the horrific stories surrounding Katrina, the Iman bridge collapse in Iraq, and the controversy surrounding the John Roberts Supreme Court nomination, I found out something yesterday courtesy of Gail Shister and the Philadelphia Inquirer which truly “shook me to my foundations” so to speak.

Dennis Hopper is a Republican!

"People would be surprised to know that," says Hopper, maverick star and director of the '69 hippie-stoners-on-bikes classic, Easy Rider, in a recent interview.

"I've been a Republican since Reagan. I voted for Bush and his father. I don't tell a lot of people, because I live in a city where somebody who voted for Bush is really an outcast."

Man, how do you like that? I guess that explains some things, though. I can picture Frank Booth of “Blue Velvet” tutoring at the feet of the late (but hardly lamented) Lee Atwater, whose protégé at that time was this obscure hack and opportunist still working out the kinks in his despicable act named Karl Rove.

“Lee, dude, you are so bleeping suave! You’ve got to send a crate of rubbing alcohol to Dukakis’s wife and get photos of the slime in Boston Harbor and blame him for not cleaning it up! DON’T YOU LOOK AT ME!”

Or the stoned photojournalist in “Apocalypse Now” (actually, “stoned” something or other was a standard Hopper role for a long time), talking to Martin Sheen trapped in the tiger cage:

“Like, Kurtz, man, he’s…he’s the master. He is all knowing. And don’t ask how, he just is. You see these guys running around with the machetes and grass skirts? You think they’re Filipino, but noo maan! They’re all Contra refugees. Kurtz called Reagan and got a bunch of Hueys to transport them over….hey, look maan, I know this movie is about Vietnam and not the 80s, but do you think this is reality? Where do you think Brando is getting his dialogue from? He’s making it all up – he read half of it from the box of Cocoa Puffs he ate for breakfast this morning!”

I can also picture Hopper, as the patsy in “True Romance,” giving the speech he gives to Christopher Walken before Walken shoots him to Barack Obama instead (oooohhh – watch it!). Also, I’m sure Dubya rides a horse as successfully as Hopper did as Rock Hudson’s son in “Giant.”

Well, this is just one case where I’m going to respectfully disagree and leave it at that. I give Hopper credit for making a successful career for himself and managing to stay alive. Maybe one day he’ll see the light, but if he doesn’t, that’s OK too.

President Stupid Head Stikes Again

I have only this to say in response to this article:

How about “zero tolerance” for corporate crooks who artificially inflate the price of energy-related futures commodities in Texas and California and gouge people by millions of dollars? How about “zero tolerance” for your friends in the oil biz who use their clout to award themselves billions in pork dollars in the fraud energy bill the Repug Congress just passed (oh, sorry – that was legal thievery, wasn’t it?).

Thanks for giving a lot of people the idea of illegally profiting from our new energy crisis who may not have had that idea before, you putz! Why don’t you go back to playing the guitar with the Presidential seal on it while thousands upon thousands try to figure out how to live amidst their suffering and our people continue to die in Iraq thanks to your illegal war?

And Arianna Huffington calls you on your photo-op “leadership” yesterday, by the way, as well as that of your flunkies.

Roberts Redux

With everyone quite rightly focusing on the destruction of Katrina in the Gulf Coast states, it is important to remember that the hearings on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts are due to start next week. I thought this column from Jonathan Turley in USA Today was instructive (though he dumps on Sandra Day O'Connor a bit at the end...sure she was a political animal - and who isn't? - but though I think she screwed up from time to time, she distinguished herself at the end).

Also, Liberal Oasis (a site I should go to every day) has an excellent summation of the political landscape on this issue (and the sad fact that the Repugs are outspending us like crazy...they'll never run out of money; we can't beat them on that score, but we have to win on getting the word out on what a bad apple this guy is any way we can and making that case).

Bushco's FEMA Follies

What follows in this post is not of primary importance. What is of primary importance is accessing the FEMA site and finding out how to provide aid to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

After doing so, please learn more about what has been going on with FEMA under Bushco. To start, the administration cut $270 million in disaster relief programs in its first fiscal budget submitted on April 9, 2001 (pg. 9 of the attached .pdf document).

This link courtesy of Swing State Project (as well as this follow up link from that site also) provides further background on how FEMA dropped the ball regarding the necessary preparedness for the dreaded “Category 5” hurricane that the region had been fearing for years (though, due to an unforeseen stroke of good luck, the hurricane ended up as a “Category 3,” though I’ll admit that this is a story where it is very difficult to find good news).

Finally, this takes you to an excellent article about FEMA from the Baltimore City Paper written last September (as the article states, Bushco got moving for Florida when it was hit twice, but of course this happened during an election year – more unflattering tales of Bushco favoritism and general incompetence…maybe FEMA should be rolled under DHS, but that doesn’t mean it should lose any funding for that reason).

Update 1: Will Bunch provides more (courtesy of Editor and Publisher and The Al Franken Show blog) as well as The Wall Street Journal (not an editorial, but a news story, courtesy of The Huffington Post).

Update 2: I thought Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., courtesy of The Huffington Post, provided some interesting context also regarding Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's successful effort to squash new regs on CO2 emissions in 2001 and the potential impact it played in creating the conditions for Katrina (yes, I believe there is something to that because, even though hurricanes have been taking place throughout the history of this planet, I think something is wrong when the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is 90 degrees, enabling Katrina to build up strength before it wrought its havoc).

Next, Asians Will Major In English Lit

Boy, isn't it nice to read some good news for a change? This should put to rest some of the whining we've been reading from Bill Gates and other captains of industry in this country along the lines of, "well, gosh, of course I have to hire programmers in Mumbai or Singapore instead of keeping the jobs in this country because they have the math skills and our kids don't."

(Of course, as we know, offshore workers get paid a fraction of what their counterparts in this country earn, and with no bennies. But of course that doesn't factor into the discussion. Sure it doesn't.)

A dark cloud in the story, though, is a decrease in the verbal scores. Students have to be able to think, reason, and communicate as well (oh, but that's that dreaded liberal bias on college campuses seeping in again with a thought like that, as that right-wing ass David Horowitz would cry. Yes siree...let's all read up on "intelligent design" and travel to Kansas and burn some more books. Yee hah!).

They Killed Kenny! You Hooligans!

I read this on Pandagon via Atrios today, and geez oh man, we just can’t let this happen (can we)?

I can see the “read-through” of the next script for “The Sopranos”:

Paulie: “Yo, T, I gotta go (Ed: “confront a gentleman”) over some (Ed: “ill-gotten payment”). (Ed: “That n’er-do-well”) lowlife was tryin’ to (Ed: “delay remuneration”) – you know, your cut from…” (Ed: difficult to locate a comparable contextual English phrase for excessive sports book winnings…have to substitute something or else condone illegal gambling activity).

Tony: (Ed: slamming fist on desk – a stretch, but we can allow it). “That (Ed: unpleasant person). (Ed: not sure how to communicate an act of sodomy with the aid of a hardware appliance, but we can try “I’d like to punch him in the nose” for now).

Or “Cathouse”:

Brandy: “Well, Darrin was new to the ranch, and he was a bit nervous at first, but then I led him into the room with the glass ceiling and the leopard-skin sofa, where I poured him a drink of (Ed: Coca Cola or hot toddies…have to check since we may have just signed a marketing agreement with Pepsico). He had several more, and then I removed my (Ed: “lightweight undergarment”) before we both (Ed: began discussing his new line of insurance products).

Or “Martin Lawrence Live At The Apollo”:

(Ed: Don’t even bother…)

Atrios, as usual, is dead-on with his recommendation about how to put an end to this nonsense (though given the single-minded, tiny-brained ferocity of Bushco and their minions, I think this will be “the big MSM story” 24/7/365 after the Roberts hearings are over).

All But "Mah Daddy," Huh?

I think the commenters on the thread for this communicated my sentiments perfectly (and I added this for good measure).

It just occurred to me that Dumbya's Administration is the best argument for presidential term limits that I have ever seen. Also, isn't it interesting how every chief executive who wins a second four years in office (and of course with Dumbya, you have to put an asterisk next to that) ends up getting cut down to size for one reason or another?

Boy, his poll numbers should be simply smashing after this, right?

Antonin Scalia's Greatest Hits

So our second-in-command (soon to be first I’m sure, sadly) Supreme recently had fun at some conservative stomping ground somewhere blasting those who had the temerity to question judicial appointments (I mean, he COULDN’T have been drawing the lines of battle before the hearings on John Roberts begin in earnest, could he?).

Well, bully for him (to quote TR…literally and figuratively in this case).

Unfortunately, we really can’t do a thing about this character since he’s installed at “the show” for life. In that regard, I hate to give Reagan credit for anything, but I have to admit that, after Robert Bork’s nomination was defeated, The Gipper went out and got someone who was more doctrinaire, and after expending political capital on the first nominee, the Dems didn’t have anything left to defeat the second, and we’ll be living with the result for a long time to come.

However, that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be tried in the court of public opinion from time to time, if for no other reason to remind us all of what a nut he truly is (an extremely intelligent and erudite nut, but a nut all the same).

Here are some quotes of his that particularly caught my eye:

“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.”

“If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless."

"[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored."

These rulings give you a look into what is going on with him also:

Leave abortion up to the states; court should get out of this area…Roe v. Wade should be overturned (June 1992)

Taxpayer funding OK for parochial school materials (June 2000)

Can't sue polluters after they stop polluting. (Jan 2000)

Limit Clean Water Act (CWA) restrictions to navigable waterways. (Jan 2001)

Rape victims cannot sue their alleged attackers. (May 2000)

Felons may possess guns unless state explicitly prohibits it. (Jun 1998)

Limit employer liability for sexual harassment by employees. (Jun 1998)

Miranda rights can be overruled by Congress. (Jun 2000)

Also, it is thought in a great many circles around Washington that Scalia was the author of the majority opinion in “Bush v. Gore 2000,” perversely (but cunningly) twisting the intent of the Equal Protection Statute as grounds to award the Florida election (and the presidency) to Dubya.

As I said, we can’t touch this guy. But that doesn’t mean that he should be ignored either.

The Still-Raw Wound

It may be that way forever...

From Tim Grieve of Salon.com posted today (you have to register).

Sheehan's numbers? Better than Bush's

George W. Bush says that he's met with the families of a lot of fallen soldiers and that Cindy Sheehan "doesn't represent the view of a lot" of them. We have no way of knowing one way or another, of course: The meetings are closed to the press, so it's hard to know what family members have told the president, let alone what they actually think.

But thanks to the wonders of modern polling, we do know what American families think more generally, and it turns out that Cindy Sheehan does indeed "represent the view" of a lot of them. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, a majority of Americans say they support what Cindy Sheehan is doing in Crawford.

The president can only dream about poll numbers like Sheehan's. While Americans support Cindy Sheehan's actions on Iraq by a margin of 53 to 42 percent, the latest AP-Ipsos Poll shows they disapprove of Bush's handling of Iraq by a margin of 58 to 37 percent.

Memo to the right: The demonization of Cindy Sheehan is working just about as well as the president's plan for Iraq. Perhaps it's time to reconsider both.

And for anyone who would still, at this point, take issue with Cindy Sheehan (yes, I know there’s a bunch still out there), I would submit this for your review (I don’t know exactly where this came from, but it sounds pretty legit to me).

Also, “Crooks And Liars” has a video of Perry Jeffries speaking up in defense of Sheehan (I’ll check it out later).

Just Added: Dick Cheney Tells The Truth

I accidentally browsed to the Move America Forward web site (which is the only way I would do it), and it turns out that, because of the sensational success of the “You Don’t Speak For Me, Cindy” tour now frothing bilious right-wing propaganda in Crawford, TX, the group, in conjunction with Free Republic, has decided to sponsor a series of moderated discussions touring across the country. Topics include the following:

“Zell Miller: Backstabbing, Overwrought Zealot Or Unappreciated Visionary?”

“Hillary Clinton, Hugo Chavez: Same Initials, Same Leftist Agendas”

“The Poisoning Of Young Minds By Playstation 2™ Games, Gangsta Rap And The Theory Of Evolution”

“Messages of Homosexual Indoctrination In Spongebob Squarepants™ Cartoons”

“Compared To Franklin Pierce and Warren Harding, George W. Bush Not Such A Bad President”

Also, I have reliable background information that Rick Santorum will moderate several – or possibly all – of these discussion groups depending on the tour schedule (which has yet to be announced), as well as his latest approval rating.

When the schedule is finalized and you find out the library/public meeting place/Greyhound station men’s room/slaughterhouse near you where the discussion will take place, be sure and wear your brown shirts and march in lockstep over right away. It’s important that we cleanse our minds of any contrary thoughts in violation of the latest edict from The High Exalted Leader at the earliest possible moment.

(One more thing: apparently, the guy in charge of Move America Forward is Howard Kaloogian, who I mentioned in a post a week or so ago about the entire group. Kaloogian, among his other accomplishments, is a failed U.S. Senate candidate from California. The reason why I’m mentioning this – and I definitely apologize for being “snarky,” but I have to say this – is that I wouldn’t be a member of any group that is run by a guy with a name like Kaloogian. The name conjures up images of a scatological reference to a bodily function, as well as an imperial leader of a race of aliens.)

Pay No Price, Bear No Burden

This post from Beth Quinn on The Smirking Chimp is simply too good not to link to here.

I described a few weeks ago how Lyndon Johnson reacted and what he said in response to the attack on the Freedom Marchers before the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Quinn’s post describes how Johnson’s predecessor in the White House reacted to a lesser, but still important, national emergency (yes, I know it affected the military, but it affected the rest of us also).

By the way (speaking of the absence of leadership), do you know that Dubya STILL has not vetoed a single spending bill send across his desk (I probably linked to this already, but I think it deserves another “prop”)? He should be known as “The E-Z Pass President”.

Update: OK, to be fair, I'll let him crow about this for a moment or two, temporarily putting aside all of his garbage concerning the war; this does a little towards establishing stability, but not a lot (and I agree with Ron Wyden).

Katrina And The Waves

There are two things we can do about the hurricane hitting Louisiana and Mississippi at this moment:

1) Donate money to the Red Cross, as The Daily Kos points out, since they know how to coordinate relief efforts with FEMA and other agencies (and I'm afraid this is going to be the mother of all relief efforts, so to speak).

2) Pray.

To get some idea of what we could be faced with, go here to read the blog of Miles O'Brien of CNN. Short of the tsunami, this could be catastrophic.

Also, here is a link from Refdesk and the National Hurricane Center about the costliest hurricanes over the period of 1990-2004.

(I wonder which group Pat Robertson is going to blame for this disaster, claiming that it's God's wrath against them, no doubt?).

"Real Time" Update

I caught "Real Time With Bill Maher" again last night. His guests were Cindy Sheehan via satellite from Crawford, author and would-be Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, and the following panelists: playwright/actor Eve Ensler, columnist Dan Savage, and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

There weren't any major blowups on the show - it wasn't as if there was someone like Kellyanne Conway last week lobbing incendiary propaganda all over the place. I thought Eve Ensler was the most opinionated panelist of the three, and she frequently prefaced her remarks by stating that she had traveled to the areas she chiefly spoke about (Iraq and Afghanistan in particular), so it was hard for me to argue with her, particularly because I agree with her 100 percent on the Iraq War. Bill Maher, however, pointed out to her that Muslims, living in strict accordance with their teachings (and I'm trying to distance sane, respectable Muslims from the crazies) can have a problem with the role of women in such a society, and Ensler seemed to take that thesis and imply that that problem is universal for all men in all societies before Maher headed her off. I'm glad he did that because, at that point, Ensler was starting to aggravate me, to be perfectly honest.

Mike Huckabee was a revelation to me. I couldn't believe I was watching a Repug with a self-deprecating sense of humor! My God, I hope Karl Rove didn't see the program, or else he'd have Huckabee kidnapped, sent back to the factory and turned into a good, unquestioning Bushco zombie. He definitely was there to tow the line on the war, but he did sound conciliatory to Cindy Sheehan up to a point (I'll get to her shortly). Maher also had fun with Bushco deciding that Karen Hughes was qualified to be in charge of a U.S.-based network broadcasting propaganda to Arabs about the war, and everybody was laughing over the absurdity of that, and Huckabee defended it also, though you could tell he was trying really hard not to laugh also. I also give Huckabee credit for losing 110 pounds and writing a book about it.

For my money, Dan Savage was the most informed and wittiest of the panelists. I didn't think it was possible to make a humorous remark about the 9/11 hijackers and not have it end up as tasteless or offensive, but he pulled it off (he was talking about the motivation behind the hijackers, which had nothing to do with Muslim extremism in his opinion, but a portion of the female anatomy that is referred to with a "p" word and recalls a feline pet). He also made a witty observation on the just-issued report that there are more single adults in this country than married ones; he stated that, because Maher is single and childless and Savage, a gay man with a partner who is parenting one child and trying to do so with another, in fact Savage is assuming a traditionally more heterosexual role and Maher a more homosexual one, which brought a few hoots. Savage also made what I thought was a telling remark about left-wing versus right-wing pundits (in light of the Pat Robertson fiasco); namely, that left-wingers are snide and sarcastic, but right-wingers are nasty and dangerous (not an exact quote, but close...snide and sarcastic - moi?:-). Something else that came out between the group discussion is that, apparently, these new photos and tapes from Abu Ghraib that have come out must be even more horrific than the last ones (dear God in heaven...).

Now for Cindy Sheehan...she continues to impress me with her courage and forthright attitude. She's definitely bringing some '60s era naiveté to the entire situation as far as I'm concerned, which I believe is truly commendable; I got a kick when Maher referred to her as "the fourth Dixie Chick." I think that there is not a self-glorifying bone in her body, though I was a bit startled to hear her admit that she was glad Bush didn't meet with her because of the momentum generated for the peace movement (maybe I shouldn't be, though). I was glad to hear her say that, not only do they want our forces back from Iraq now, they want to make sure this never happens again (amen, sister...hello, Democratic Party, are you catching this?). The only bad thing was when I heard that Al Sharpton is coming down to meet with her (as I said, the Dems are totally missing the boat on this - it's pathetic that Sharpton is the only outside "name" figure giving her support).

Kinky Friedman was funny, making a joke out of his campaign, though I think he's serious about getting the 50,000 signatures to get his name on the ballot (and Huckabee chimed in with a joke also about being governor...as I said, the guy is far from a typical Repug).

Best line: In the "New Rules" segment with Maher telling Exxon, Chevron, etc. to stop sounding so benign to the public, Maher said that, "oil company executives are just like seagulls because both would steal a french fry from a baby."

If I can recall other stuff from the show, I'll post it here.

The Bitch Of Bombast

I read this and this and this concerning the female right-wing criminal who, as I noted elsewhere on this page, once said Timothy McVeigh should have blown up the offices of the New York Times instead of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City (setting the precedent, as far as I'm concerned, for other right wingers including Pat Robertson to publicly state that they wanted to kill somebody), and I immediately recalled this quote from David Podvin on The Smirking Chimp last year (Daniel Pearlstine and Time should feel particularly stupid right about now for writing a cover story on her).

Ann Coulter is not merely eighty pounds of toxic sewage wrapped in six feet of reptile skin - she is the vicious ghoul that remains after conservatism has been scrubbed of its camouflage. Satan's concubine has been vocal in her belief that torturing anyone identified as the enemy is good, and that torturing them using the most excruciating techniques is better. Coulter is not alone in the desire to feast on human suffering. Although she is considerably less circumspect than other right wingers, it is instructive that not one prominent conservative has repudiated her.

Update: At least this is a step in the right direction (courtesy of The Huffington Post).

Update (again, 10/24/05): Some people never learn...

Check Your Math, Ricky

Today's great Inquirer Letter #2 (and I am DEFINITELY glad to give this a plug - I wasn't familiar with THIS big lie)...

In an Aug. 10 interview on National Public Radio with Ed Gordon (archived for listening on NPR's Web site) U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa) made the argument that affirmative action is a "government set-aside program" that "benefits a very small number of African Americans" and is "on the way out." Portraying the Republican Party as the victim of an unfair media, he asserted that "more Republicans, by the way, voted for the Voting Rights Act, voted for the Civil Rights Act, than Democrats did."

Let's look at the votes. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed the House with 217 Democratic and 111 Republican votes. In the Senate, the tally was 49 Democratic and 30 Republican votes. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed with 152 Democratic and 138 Republican votes in the House, and 46 Democratic and 27 Republican votes in the Senate.

So on neither act and in neither chamber did more Republicans vote for passage than Democrats.

I hope that now that Sen. Santorum has been informed of the truth, he will not make that false claim again.

Stephen J. Ferenchick
Wynnewood

You would hope so, Mr. Ferenchick. But of course, we're talking about Scumbag Santorum, so anything is possible.

Everyday No Bennies

Today's great Inquirer Letter #1...

Andrew Cassel's Aug. 21 column "From Nielsen to Wal-Mart" ignores some inconvenient facts.

He writes that Wal-Mart has fought unionization of its employees, "which is their right," while they have "declined" to join unions. In fact, there are numerous complaints before the National Labor Relations Board that Wal-Mart has used illegal tactics of intimidation to prevent its employees from unionizing.

Cassel argues that there's nothing wrong with Wal-Mart expecting its employees to rely on government programs for health care. He presents the situation as a choice between paying for Wal-Mart employees' health care with public funds versus paying for it with higher prices, which would be borne by Wal-Mart's customers. But the taxpayer money that pays for the government programs not only helps keep Wal-Mart prices low, it also enriches Wal-Mart executives and stockholders through high profits. This creates a disincentive for corporations in general to pay living wages and health benefits.

Glenn Frantz
Paoli

The Defense Secretary You Have

Whispers (Getting Louder)...

You've probably heard that John McCain is going to meet with Bushco in Crawford this weekend. Maybe Rummy is going to get shown the door in an effort to boost Dubya. Gee, I'd so miss his squint, clipped speech and snarly, combative attitude, wouldn't you (to say nothing of his clueless job performance)?

We'll see.

Pass it on...

Chuck Taylor Hi-Tops For Me

I had meant to critique a column I read today, but I couldn’t find a link for it. Oh well, luckily this Guest Opinion appeared in the Courier Times today from teacher Robert Chesbro (yep, continuing to dump on Dubya…so many reasons).

I almost keeled over in my Eggs Benedict when I read Suzanne Fields’ “Reviving middle class values.” Although difficult to discern after several reads, Fields’ premise was that middle class values are in decline, apparent by the clothing choices of some youngsters today, and that this has certain negative affects on black communities and society as a whole.

Her case in point is the foot attire adorned by the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse players on their visit to the White House. I agree with Fields that even in the presence of the former drug and alcohol abuser that 49 percent of us tolerate as our “mandated” president, I would at least look somewhat respectable. Although if ever there were a president deserving of inappropriately dressed guests it would certainly be Bush.

I agree with Fields that certain clothes should be worn for certain occasions. For example, I would not wear my flight suit to a photo-op promoting the end of a war if the war were not over, and I would not wear my fluffy L.L. Bean down jacket with the detachable fuzzy hood to an Auschwitz memorial as our vice president did.

Her argument breaks down when she insists that Bush must have more credibility than Clinton because he keeps his coat on in the White House. This is like saying a fish likes water if it wears a hat; it makes no sense whatsoever. Fields, in her right-wing diatribe, should apply the same scrutiny to members of her party as well as Clinton.

Fields would undoubtedly advocate proper public behavior and must therefore apply her rationale to Jenna Bush’s antics, who was seen sticking her tongue out to reporters in St. Louis. She must also apply this rationale to the parents that raised this child, the father of whom was recently seen extending his middle finger to a camera, or mumbling to his cohort the infamously distasteful description of a reporter at a press conference years ago. And what about Cheney’s use of the f-word on the Senate floor?

What is most offensive about Fields’ piece is that she ignores the elephant in the room. Has Fields failed to see that the administration of Bush has launched some of the most immoral tactics in the history of politics, all shamefully capitalizing on the aftermath of 9-11?

Bush also coerced Congress into a unilateral approach to international policy by which a prescribed war in Iraq was launched on the premise of phantom weapons of mass destruction. What’s more immoral: lying about sex with a White House intern, or lying to 600 million people to the tune of nearly 2,000 American bodies and $184 billion, and then smearing the credibility of those that demand more integrity?

Fields should be scrutinizing the antics of the White House residents, not its guests. Shouldn’t the Bush Administration be setting examples for moral conduct, like trustworthiness and acceptance of alternative viewpoints, especially if they use moral values and education as a political platform?

With the pathetically immoral corporate criminals that comprise the quasi-fascist regime controlling the United States, it’s no wonder values are declining. What’s the point of adhering to sound moral principles when nice guys finish last, and Karl Rove walks away clean? In the words of Fields: “It’s so sick.”

Save Our Bases!

Good news on the local base-closing front (from the Inquirer: hopefully, this will benefit Willow Grove Air Base – we should know soon)…

A federal judge handed those hoping to save Willow Grove Naval Air Station a significant victory this afternoon, ruling that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must get Gov. Rendell's approval before disbanding the base's Air National Guard unit.

Even before the Base Closure and Realignment Commission could vote on the fate of Willow Grove, U.S. District Judge John Padova ruled in favor of Rendell's position that he, not the Pentagon, is in charge of the 111th Fighter Wing of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, the main unit at Willow Grove.

The judge further ruled that "the portion of the BRAC (Department of Defense) report that recommends deactivation of the 111th Fighter Wing ... is null and void."

The 111th flies A-10 attack jets.

The base closure committee in Washington, D.C., meanwhile, was just nearing the part of its agenda where it was scheduled to take up the Willow Grove closure. The impact of the judge's ruling on the commission was not yet clear.

And nationwide (also from the Inquirer)…

WASHINGTON - The base closing commission voted Friday to keep open Air Force bases in South Dakota and New Mexico - rejecting the Pentagon's plans to close them - as the panel labored toward conclusion of a politically delicate task that has brought alternating sighs of relief and exasperation in communities across America.

Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota would remain fully operational and Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico would stay open - at least until Dec. 31, 2009 - but lose all of its aircraft.

The decisions cheered in the base's home states were setbacks for Pentagon leaders.

The Ellsworth vote was a blessing for South Dakotans who feared losing some 4,000 jobs and a victory for Sen. John Thune and the state's other politicians who lobbied vigorously to save the base. Thune, a freshman Republican, unseated then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle partly on the strength of his claim that he would be better positioned to help save the base.

"This fight was not about me," Thune said just after the vote. "This whole decision was about the merits. It had nothing to do with the politics."

Right, and I’m the tooth fairy – if it involves Bushco, it involves politics. Someone in that cabal must read The Daily Kos, though, because he was posting about this earlier in the week. The bottom line, though, is that jobs are saved, and politically, I don’t care if that benefits Dems, Repugs, or both.

I came across a story that provides more background from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (here). I thought the very last paragraph was a bit curious in this one:

Though the focus of yesterday's hearing was the impact of base closings on homeland security, all invited Homeland Security Department officials, including Secretary Michael Chertoff, declined to testify.

I wonder why? Chertoff is the guy who said a few weeks ago that DHS has to decide whether to devote resources to preventing attacks from planes that could kill 3,000 people versus a train or subway attack that could kill 30, or words to that effect, and I immediately took issue with him on that claim. It’s curious to me, and a bit startling actually, that Chertoff wouldn’t speak up regarding the impact of base closings on the safety of the affected communities.

Update: Damn! (may have to register). Maybe the Air National Guard will be saved by the ruling.

Never forget that Bushco was responsible for this. Given that, even with the problems the Dems have, why would you EVER vote for a Repug again?

Bambi On The Run

From the “Air America” Web site (re: “Hundreds Of National Park Officials Protest New Rules”)

Proposed revisions of National Park policy have created a furor among present and former park officials who say the changes will weaken protections of natural resources and wildlife while allowing an increase in commercial activity.

"They are changing the whole nature of who we are and what we have been, I hope the public understands that this is a threat to their heritage. It threatens the past, the present and the future. It's painful to see this." said J.T. Reynolds, superintendent of Death Valley National Park.

The Bush administration official pushing the changes is Paul Hoffman, appointed in 2002 as deputy assistant secretary of the Interior, and was formerly the director of the Chamber of Commerce in Cody, Wyoming.

The controversy is yet another attack by the administration on our national parks; including diverting up to 28% of park funding to 'anti-terrorism activities and competitive sourcing studies', and misleading the public on scientific issues.

As long as we're exploring Bushco's environmental policy, I should republish the following item from the old site (gives me a good excuse). This is a Guest Opinion from the Bucks County Courier Times written by Deborah Colgan, R.N., in response to a writer named Robin Hoy who voted for Dubya last November because she was under the mistaken impression that a good "christian" man of such "moral values" would take it upon himself to actually exercise sound stewardship of something handed down to him that he doesn't own and is obligated to preserve for future generations.

Robin Hoy’s March 13 Guest Opinion states: “While many of us helped vote Bush into office…(we) did not intend our vote to translate into a green light to harm God’s earth and its creatures.”

Excuse me? Just what did you think Bush was going to do? Voting for Bush declared your approval of his policies. If environmental protection was a concern, as Hoy states, she could never have voted for him. When she cast her ballot in November, Bush’s environmental stand was clearly established.

In 2001, Bush began his assault on the Clean Water Act by relying on flawed studies that claimed regulation of CO2 would be too costly and that CO2 wasn’t covered under the CWA. He suspended a ban on the awarding of contracts to companies that violate federal laws. Bush sought to relax requirements of the Endangered Species Act and considered lifting the ban on the recycling of radioactive waste in consumer scrap metal.

He began his move to weaken CWA rules that required power plants to employ anti-pollution devices when upgrading their facilities – a key rule that would significantly reduce polluting emissions. He proposed relaxing Army Corps of Engineers rules designed to protect streams and wetlands and furthered the opening of protected National Forest lands to road building.

In 2002, Bush announced his Clear Skies initiative that would allow three times the mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur and more nitrogen oxide emissions. He slashed toxic waste cleanup funding. He began efforts to exempt the military from federal environmental laws. He took actions to make mountaintop mining easier, which literally removes mountaintops and fills in surrounding streams, completely destroying the habitat.

He further weakened the CWA by redefining areas that are designated as waterways and changed the rules that identified a waterway as polluted. He refused to finalize rules that limited pollution from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), a major point source of pollution.

In 2003, Bush refused to ban the herbicide atrazine, whose presence in our drinking water is a known carcinogen. He continued his practice of eroding protections against mercury in our rivers by using bad scientific data and exempting chlorine plants from emissions restrictions. He exempted some oil and gas drillers from regulations designed to reduce pollution run-offs.

He ordered administration staff to keep quiet on the debate regarding the toxic chemical percholate. He speeded up the process for oil and gas development in order to side-step environmental protection examinations. He lifted the ban on the sale of PCB-contaminated land and he proposed allowing low-level radioactive waste in landfills.

In 2004, with his campaign in full swing, government scientists, as well as 48 Nobel laureates, decried the administration’s practice of ignoring sound scientific advice when developing public policy. The National Council of Churches publicly denounced the administration’s actions that “weaken critical environmental standards.” The White House manipulation of scientific reports on mercury was exposed – language was changed to minimize the real threat of mercury on public health. Bush proposed increasing the amount of selenium releases, a toxic metal known to be poisonous.

The sale of Bureau of Land Management lands for drilling, mining and development were increased. Logging rules that require wildlife populations to be considered in the management of National Forest lands were altered, as well as limiting the process for public input in such decisions. Bush violated an international treaty by allowing certain agribusinesses to continue with the use of methyl bromide, a known contributor to ozone depletion and cancer rates.

And this is only a brief glimpse at Bush’s destructive first-term environmental record.

If someone says they share the tenets of your faith, it doesn’t mean he will act within your personal definition of morality. So be careful if you vote for someone based solely on religious ideology. Ms. Hoy asks, “Whose mandate is this, anyway?” Well, if you voted for Bush, it’s yours.

Such Good Friends

Gee, doesn’t it make you feel good to know that our dear buds the Saudis managed to turn the horror of 9/11 into the beginning of a period of prosperity by divesting from us as much as they could? Why, it seems like only yesterday when Henry Kissinger and his pals hooked up with these characters to make each other richer than they already were. Now, the Saudis (through a combination of deceit, cleverness, and our own greed and stupidity) are venturing elsewhere and leaving us to try and manage a war in Iraq with no end in sight and an economy barely producing wealth for the have-mores and doing very little else.

(Oops, I forgot to mention how the Saudis bankrolled all kinds of foreign “intelligence” escapades for us during the Reagan Administration, who could conveniently pass the buck to Bill Casey when it all hit the fan on account of the fact that he was dead. If you don’t believe me, fine; read “Veil” by Bob Woodward, and you see what I mean).

John Roberts Update

P.U., this guy looks stinkier all the time, doesn't he?

More than 80,000 people signed on to our Freedom of Information request for all the work done by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts on 16 crucial cases during his tenure in the first Bush administration's Office of the Solicitor General. This week we delivered your signatures -- tens of thousands of them -- as part of our request.

So what will we learn if the Bush stonewall ends and the Department of Justice fulfills our FOIA request? We'll know what John Roberts actually thought about the vital Constitutional issues at stake in each of the 16 cases. We'll get his unvarnished opinion, expressed in the memos he wrote to the people he worked with every day.

Once we know what he thought of these issues, we'll know more about the kind of Supreme Court Justice he will make. Will John Roberts fight to protect our most fundamental freedoms? Or will he advocate a narrow, partisan interpretation of the Constitution that strips Americans of our rights or erodes the progress we have made?

Just looking at the public record, you can discern a pattern of hostility to civil rights. Here are a few of the cases we requested information on:

Metro Broadcasting v FCC (1990)
Roberts argued against letting the FCC use affirmative action in distributing broadcast licenses. This case was a rare instance of the Solicitor General stepping in to block an action of the federal government to increase opportunity.

Board of Education of Oklahoma City v Dowell (1991)
In a brief signed by John Roberts, the Solicitor General's office argued against a court ruling that ordered a school district to prevent racial segregation. Roberts's brief opposed the efforts of African American families to argue that Oklahoma schools would become segregated again.

Freeman v Pitts (1992)
Roberts signed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn a lower-court decision that required a Georgia school district to ensure its schools were fully desegregated.

Lee v Weisman (1992)
Roberts filed a Supreme Court brief arguing that a school district should be permitted to invite clergy to lead public prayers at a graduation ceremony.

Voinovich v Quilter (1993)
Roberts co-authored a brief supporting an Ohio redistricting plan that minority voters said violated the Voting Rights Act by concentrating minority voters in a small number of districts.

What little we know about John Roberts's record on civil rights is troubling -- at the very least. In his work in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, he demonstrated a consistent hostility to efforts to ensure equal opportunity and justice as guaranteed to every American under our Constitution. But there's more that we just don't know. That's why we need the full story.

The Bush Administration now has less than 20 days to respond to our FOIA request. We'll continue to update you as we learn more, and tell you about some of the other important issues covered in the cases we requested.

Thank you for your support,
Tom McMahon
Executive Director

Oh, and by the way, I think these characters are just more Repug shock troops. I'd really like to know more about their credentials; the CNN story gets into that a little bit, but not much. The key is this language:

(Jennifer) Braceras and others referenced recent opposition to Roberts' nomination voiced by liberal activist organizations such as People for the American Way. Those groups' attacks on Roberts, Braceras said, "are as predictable as the sunrise and as preposterous as the man in the moon."

She dismissed PFAW President Ralph Neas' comment this week that Roberts would try to turn back the clock on civil rights as a boilerplate radical agenda attack that special interest groups would make on any Bush nominee.

"The truth is that, contrary to the cartoon-like portrayals of John Roberts by special interest groups, John Roberts is a fair-minded jurist who will judge each case on its own merits," Braceras said.

Braceras is a Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Of course she is. This is just another orchestrated attack on people who actually have the unmitigated gall to disagree with Our Grand High Exalter Leader, President 36 Percent Mandate, just like the omnivores (note to anonymous poster: not a bad word) confronting Cindy Sheehan's supporters in California from Free Republic and Moving America Forward ("forward" into what, God only knows).

Thursday Roundup

It looks like tomorrow is the day of decision for Willow Grove Air Base (not holding out much hope, to be honest, knowing Bushco as we do…maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised). Also, Connecticut has had a good week between challenging “No Child Left Behind” and saving the New London submarine base…congrats to them.

Marie Cocco sized up John Roberts pretty well in her most recent column, I thought (how could we have expected anything different, and what a tool to tell Reagan not to appoint Sandra Day O’Connor, by the way).

Interesting stuff at The Chimp today, comparing the U.S. with Great Britain at the height of its power (here)…Molly Ivins on Karl Rove and Plame-gate…Cenk Uygur (who is rising fast up my list of fave columnists) weighs in on Bush’s approval rating vs. Clinton (and Nixon’s while Watergate was raging, interestingly enough)…and finally, this details something in the “No Child Left Behind” scam that may be too far “under the radar” to get noticed, so I’m pointing it out here (Salasin should check on former Defense Secretary William Cohen, because if he even served in the military at all, I’m sure he wasn’t a general).

A Repug After All?

I’ve admired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in the past for his rulings and his outspoken nature, because I usually think he’s right (he was dead-on in his assessment of the court’s performance in the Florida vote recount in November 2000, for example).

However, this particular quote from a recent speech in Las Vegas concerns me (as documented in "The Waah" as Atrios calls it...couldn't find any lamenting of poor, victimized Judy Miller today):

His own view (concerning the Connecticut "eminent domain" decision), Justice Stevens told the Clark County Bar Association, was that "the free play of market forces is more likely to produce acceptable results in the long run than the best-intentioned plans of public officials."

(Yes, I know I initially defended the eminent decision in a half-hearted way because I thought, based on the way the judges ruled, that they would rather let private entities have the right of eminent domain than the federal government, and in this particular case, Stevens and the majority thought it was an appropriate use. However, upon further reading and consideration, I realize what a bad precedent the Supremes set by this, though I expect that another case will one day make it to a hearing with them and they will rule in such a way as to invalidate the initial decision and probably create a new set of problems in the process.)

I think Stevens, at this stage of the game, is trying to just play the “elder statesman” and go out being loved by all (go ahead and rip the death penalty – that plays well). In a way, I can’t blame him, but in the process, I hope he doesn’t accidentally give aid and comfort to all of the right-wing zanies trying to get Roberts confirmed to “the show.”

Randy "Old Europe" Gets Down!

I highly recommend the travel videos by Rick Steves if you ever come across them in a bookstore, video seller, or some online service. He goes to some obscure locations in his journeys and really digs for some out-of-the-way treasures and gives you, I think, the best overview of the local culture and history that he can.

I’m giving him a plug because I came across an editorial he wrote in today’s issue of USA Today which continues to be timely under these dark days of Bushco dominance, with these fundamentalist crazies getting WAY too much media attention (re: James Dobson writing a book that supposedly teaches your son how not to be gay, Pat Robertson and his lunacy – and by the way, I could care less that he apologized; he would never have done so if he hadn’t been called on his outrageous behavior).

Memo to Bushco, by the way: note what Steves does when he sees that a TV is showing a program that is objectionable to him because he doesn't want his kids to see it. He turns it off and takes it out of the room. It's called using your brain and exercising parental judgment. We're capable of doing this ourselves; we don't need you or your fundamentalist hypocrites to make up our minds for us in that regard.

The Uncle Sam Collection Agency

Looks like a lot of people are trying to declare before Bushco sics Silvio and Paulie Walnuts on you with the brass knuckles and truncheons (a “Sopranos” reference for the uninitiated).

And this column from Molly Ivins reminds us just what a reprehensible piece of garbage this law truly is.

Eat Up, Red Staters

I came across this a few minutes ago from the AP again (made it to today's Inquirer after all)...

U.S. puts on more weight, mainly in the South

Of all states surveyed, only Oregon didn't get fatter between 2002-04. All fell well short of federal goals.

By Kevin Freking
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Like a lot of people, the nation's weight problem is settling below its waistline. The states with the highest percentages of obese adults are mostly in the South: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Louisiana and Tennessee.

Kickin' back too many "Little Debbie's" while watching those tractor pulls on "Spike" TV in between country music videos, ah reckon...

In the entire nation, only Oregon isn't getting fatter.

Over the 2002-04 period, 22.7 percent of U.S. adults were obese, up slightly from 22 percent for 2001-03, the advocacy group Trust for America's Health reported yesterday, citing data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yes, I'm aware that this is a legitimate issue pertaining to diet and lifestyle, and I'm really not trying to trivialize it. It's just that this article poses the problem and then presents a "solution" that...well, let me put it this way; calling it "simplistic" is being kind.

Alabama had the biggest increase. Its obesity rate rose 1.5 percentage points to 27.7 percent.

Pennsylvania ranked 15th among the states in obesity, at 24 percent, and New Jersey ranked 40th at 20.3 percent.

Oregon held steady at 21 percent, and Hawaii was not included in the group's report, "F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America, 2005."

Catchy title - sounds like Bushco putting our tax dollars to work for us again.

While certain regions of the country fared worse than others, particularly the Southeast, the organization said no state met the federal government's goal of a 15 percent obesity rate for adults by 2010.

"2010," huh? Wasn't Roy Scheider in that one? Well, you know what they say - the sequel usually isn't as good as the original anyway.

An adult with a body mass index - body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared - of 30 or more is considered obese. The measurement is not a good indicator of obesity for muscular people who exercise a lot.

"Bulging waistlines are growing and it's going to cost taxpayers more dollars regardless of where you live," said Shelley Hearne, executive director of Trust for America's Health.

Families and children are hungry, and that's going to cost taxpayers more dollars also, though filling that need is a genuinely worthy cause. However, it's easier to produce a scare headline with a dramatic-sounding quote like this, so there you are.

Why the geographic patterns? Experts don't have any one clear answer. Some suggest urban sprawl plays a role. Others say it is easier to find a burger and fries than apples and asparagus in poor communities.

Assuming that's true (and it very well may be), how about doing some genuine reporting and try to find out why?

Delia West, a professor of public health in Arkansas, said demographics play a part. The South has a larger percentage of minorities, who have shown an increased risk for obesity, West said. She said Southerners also tend to lead a more sedentary lifestyle than their counterparts in states such as Colorado or Oregon. People will find fewer jogging trails in Little Rock than in Denver, she said.

Also, the Southern diet probably plays a role, said West, a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

"We know the difference between purple hulled peas and speckled butter beans," she said. "But we make them with bacon fat or salt pork, so even though we're getting the micronutrients, it often comes laden with these extra calories."

The left hand defeating the purpose of the right again, I see. That's what I like about the South.

Hearne said the United States is stuck in a "debate limbo" about how to confront obesity. She urged government action on several fronts, such as ensuring that land-use plans promote physical activity, that school lunch programs serve more healthful meals, and that Medicaid recipients have access to subsidized fitness programs, such as aerobics classes at the local YMCA.

All good ideas.

OK, now here is where it gets interesting (and this is why I bothered to post this). I don't know where they drug up this character from, but I can guarantee you that if he came from The Cato Institute, then he's another one of these professional know-it-alls who probably read "Atlas Shrugged" at some point or went to a Dale Carnegie course and considered one or both to be life-altering experiences, became a Republican if he wasn't already, and then decided that anyone in the world who wasn't just like him was automatically wrong.

Radley Balko, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said he was wary of the call for more government action on obesity. The institute is a think tank that prefers free-market approaches to problems.

Oh yes, it's all that bad, bad government's fault, isn't it? I mean, the free market has produced such wonders, hasn't it, such as mass airline bankruptcies, lax adherence to safety regulations in every industry you can name, massive offshoring of jobs, fouling of the environment, and consolidation and concentration of media monopolies. Sure, the free market; that's the ticket!

"I think obesity is a very personal issue," Balko said. "What you eat and how often you exercise, if that comes within the government's purview, it's difficult to think of what's left that isn't."

No it isn't, but you're saying that to try and scare people, like this Freaking guy did earlier in the story. Nice try.

Health policy analysts say obesity increases the burden on taxpayers, because it requires the Medicare and Medicaid programs to cover the treatment of diseases caused by obesity. The report issued yesterday said taxpayers spent $39 billion in 2003 to treat conditions attributable to obesity.

Do these "health policy analysts" have names or affiliations? Or are they one-eyed, incandescent microbes from the planet Zorblatt spewing love spores into the ionosphere?

(Sorry, too much coffee...time for a fistful of Xanax again.)

It is not clear that the government really knows how to persuade people to make better decisions, Balko said. He said open-ended entitlement programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, don't provide much of a financial incentive for people to watch their weight.

No, but they do provide a safety net (growing smaller all the time) for patients dealing with severe or life-threatening illness or physical pain (oh, I forgot...have to let the free market do everything again, right. Drat that burdensome instinct of compassion again!).

The government just picks up the cost of treating diseases for those patients, regardless of the amounts, he (Balko) said.

He said he preferred that the government give Medicaid and Medicare recipients an incentive to open medical savings accounts, which would allow them to save money when they do not access the health-care system.

"If they knew they only had so much to spend, or what they did not spend could be saved," Balko said, "then maybe you could instill a certain sense of responsibility and ownership."

Oh mah god...typical Repug boilerplate again. Savings accounts, savings accounts...WHAT THE HELL GOOD DO THEY DO WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO PUT INTO THE ACCOUNT! And people who don't eat right don't have "a certain sense of responsibility and ownership"? You sanctimonious jackoff!

If you're interesting in hearing a serious answer, here it is. People don't eat or exercise right because of the stress of juggling jobs and family lives in some cases. In others, it's because bad eating habits are highly desired by the fast food and pharma industries, since the profitability of both are enhanced. In still other situations, people just make "dumb as meatloaf" decisions about diet and exercise.

I know, as a parent, juggling time to eat, among other things, comes with the territory. But here is what I remember growing up...my dad worked, my mom stopped working for a few years to take care of my brothers and I until we got older, then she went back to work, my dad worked pretty regular hours, we went to school at regular hours, and WE ATE AT REGULAR HOURS. We were blessed and lucky to be sure, but we were also typical in this regard.

Give people good jobs so they don't have to work two, three or more jobs in a household to make ends meet (assuming you can even do THAT as things are now), and one of the ripple effects, if you will, will be more family time around the dinner table because everyone will be together. That will have all kinds of good consequences, and eating better is one of them.

But no, you Cato Institute puke, you can create better sound bites and media moments by making it sound like John Q. and Jane American are at fault across the board, right?

Spare me.

Memo To A Horse's Butt

PA political stuff coming up (consider yourself warned)…

Boy, did I see red when I read about this (haven’t gotten to the Inquirer yet today, and I don’t know if I will).

So Andy Warren of PennDOT is going to give up his $110,000-a-year job to run for the Democratic nomination to oppose Repug Mike Fitzpatrick in the general election next year for the 8th-district seat in the U.S. Congress, huh? No two-week notice either, I gather (how professional, even for those life forms in Harrisburg).

Warren is an opportunistic turncoat who bailed on the Republican Party to join the Dems. I don’t have a problem with someone leaving the Repugs, but please spare us this phony baloney excuse that you would have “reformed the party from within” if you had risen higher in the Repug ranks. You’re trying to pad your resume by taking a very-ill-advised shot at the U.S. Congress with the only party that will let you do that, and in the process, you’re diluting an already-crowded field of good, decent, and marginal candidates.

All of that being said, Warren is undeserving of holding public office (as opposed to the appointed patronage gig he just stupidly walked out on) because he has one of the worst temperaments for an official that is supposedly representing the public that I have ever seen. Like many major metropolitan communities, major road construction projects have been a fact of life in this area for as long as I can remember, and whenever a story appeared in a newspaper about it (usually documenting driver frustrations along with other information), you could bet that Andy Warren would be quoted representing PennDOT with some incendiary words to get people even more aggravated than they already were (witness the Schuylkill and Route 202 construction projects, anything related to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, etc.).

As proof of what I just said, I offer Exhibit A.

Since I live in Bucks County, it may seem strange for me to side against Warren and support residents in Huntington Valley, PA just outside of Philadelphia in Montgomery County. But I do (and yes, partly because I’m one of those baaad people from Philadelphia who moved out into the pristine hinterlands of Repug dominance).

As background, I should add further that the Woodhaven Road construction project (of which I am personally familiar, because it affects family members and friends of mine), the subject of Warren’s idiotic remarks, has a long a dubious history in this area. It is a consequence of poor-to-nonexistent regional planning and development. Basically, the road is a three-to-four-lane highway in each direction that is forced to abruptly end at Roosevelt Boulevard (part of Route 1).

Two main options have been pursued to improve the road access: 1) building an interchange between Woodhaven and Route 1 and 2) expanding Woodhaven into Montgomery County (the most popular option, with PennDOT anyway). Both of these options have very painful consequences for area businesses and residential communities alike. Every few years, PennDOT announces that they’re going to resurrect this project (in all honesty, something needs to be done to improve traffic flow, but it’s easy for me to say that because I live elsewhere), and every few years, residents and businesses go nuts over it and it gets shelved again (Joe Hoeffel honestly tried to get it moving again and got his nose bloodied over it, and I don’t think Allyson Schwartz is even going to go near it).

So maybe the fact that the Woodhaven Road project could possibly turn the lives of the affected people upside down would tend to make them “less civil,” wouldn’t it? And by the way, with all due respect to the good people in Newtown, Pa., I’ve read of plenty of incidents where they haven’t been very “congenial” (specifically when it comes to development of office complexes near their plush, vernal surroundings).

Don't Ask About RU-486 Either

Also in today’s Bucks County Courier Times is a Guest Opinion from Theresa Strenge, R.N., of Lower Makefield, who lambastes Planned Parenthood and its founder Margaret Sanger as being a racist bigot and a supporter of Hitler. I’m not going to do research into Sanger’s life to try and refute these charges since it’s quite possible Strenge is right. However, Henry Ford also supported Hitler as he documented his philosophies on the workplace, including theories which Hitler and the Nazis parroted in their own propaganda (you can look that up). Does that mean that we should never buy one of his company’s automobiles again? I have my own reasons for avoiding Ford for all time, but the company founder’s philosophy isn’t one of them.

Strenge puts out some genuine crackpot stuff in her screed, saying that government funding of contraception for the poor is “adored by adult male predators,” and she rails against contraception saying that it increases divorce, child abuse, and both teen and unplanned pregnancies without offering a shred of statistical evidence to back up these fantastic claims.

The true goal of Strenge’s column, though, is to extol the virtues of Natural Family Planning. This is of interest to me because I said a week or so ago in a post called “Those Who Can’t Shouldn’t Teach” that NFP is not a means of birth control, but is instead a means to determine the optimum conditions for conception.

Not being a woman or a medical professional, I can’t speak authoritatively on the effects of birth control pills or other forms of contraception. However, I believe it is better for our kids to have the best information and means at their disposal when it comes to issues of physical health, which this is first and foremost. Abstinence is the best policy for many reasons, but if something happens with our kids, they deserve protection instead of being left to fend totally for themselves when it comes to pregnancy and the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. And according to the polling data I see on this subject, the vast majority of the people in this country agree with me.

One more thing: Strenge describes herself as stay-at-home mom for the last 10 years with 6 kids. Hmmm…just a hint of a double standard there, do you think?

Propagandizing Even Unto Death

I couldn’t find the AP link for this one yet, but I’ve included most of this story from today’s Bucks County Courier Times:

ARLINGTON, VA. - Unlike earlier wars, nearly all Arlington National Cemetery gravestones for troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the slogan-like operation names the Pentagon selected to promote public support for the conflicts.

Families of fallen soldiers and Marines are being told they have the option to have the government-furnished headstones engraved with “Operation Enduring Freedom” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at no extra charge, whether they are buried in Arlington or elsewhere. A mock-up shown to many families includes the operation names.

The vast majority of military gravestones from other eras are inscribed with just the basic, required information: name, rank, military branch, date of death and, if applicable, the war and foreign country in which the person served.

Families are supposed to have final approval over what goes on the tombstones. That hasn’t always happened.

Nadia and Robert McCaffrey, whose son Patrick was killed in Iraq in June 2004, said “Operation Iraqi Freedom” ended up on his government-supplied headstone in Oceanside, California, without family approval.

“I was a little taken aback,” Robert McCaffrey said, describing his reaction when he saw the operation name on Patrick’s tombstone. “They certainly didn’t ask my wife; they didn’t ask me.” He said Patrick’s widow told him she had not been asked either.

“In one way, I feel it’s taking advantage to a small degree,” McCaffrey said. “Patrick did not want to be there, that is a definite fact.”

I truly grieve for the McCaffrey family, and Mr. McCaffrey is showing great understatement, I think. It sickens me almost beyond words to see our young men and women tossed onto the pyre at the altar of Bushco’s unbridled avarice. And to see them continuing to link Iraq with 9/11 – and make no mistake, that is the point of putting these slogans on these markers – makes me just about physically ill.