I’ve Got Your "Red State" Photo Right Here, Assholes

I’ve received it via email. Friends have received it. People have pointed it out on the web. It is, after all, a great photo. Which is why people have used it for propaganda.

I’m talking about the photo of the latest Marlboro Man – US Marine Lance-Corporal Blake Miller with the caption below “red state” right next to a gay pride parade with the caption below, “blue state.” If you haven't received that specific one, you're surely seen this face by itself -------->

As those with blind support for Bush’s war in Iraq (including the Pentagon) used Pat Tillman’s face to help propagandize the glory of war in the Middle East, they’ve used Miller’s image in the same way. If the Pentagon was run by Nike and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were shoe commercials, Tillman and Miller would have received millions of dollars in royalties for their unwitting participation, even though Miller was barely out of his teens when the photo was taken.

The entire thing is unfortunate - this kid never asked that his photo be used to prop up the war in Iraq - it just so happens that a photographer snapped a great photo and the "liberal media," looking to put a positive, masculine face to the war, snatched it up and plastered it in papers across the country.

However, just like the Pat Tillman story, this one, behind the glorious media hype, on the other side of the curtain shielding many of us from realism, is a sad but incredibly real and far too common story about the damaging effects of war that we don't often see in statistics.

Miller, like the estimated 10’s of thousands returning home from Persian Gulf, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was honorably discharged a few months ago after military psychologists decided he would be a threat to himself or his colleagues if he continued to serve.

And that is exactly what sucks about war propaganda. We take what is inherently ugly and sobering, and turn real lives and real people into symbolic action-figures, often painting with a brush so over-nationalistic, that the real facts and circumstances that surround are masked, and we are unable to reach the conclusions we would have come to had we known the truth. It’s used to impair judgment, and to glorify the gory. It’s used to rally our hearts behind decisions we should be using our brains to make. It is, in effect, a purposeful lie to keep the machine going (To be frank, we on the political Left are not as easily swayed by this nationalistic symbolism, and tend to want to get under the symbols to the real facts, the real costs, and the real picture, rather than just stick a yellow ribbon from Wal-Mart on our car and consider ourselves patriotic for performing that act alone).

As a hyper-media sensitive society, we tend to judge the cost of war by both tax dollars spent and lives lost. We rarely think about the countless thousands who will be returning with lost limbs and other permanent injuries, or the much larger group who are returning with psychological issues. For some reason, the over-masculinized influences of our society are willing to reward and even glorify those with physical injuries (latest estimates are from 15 to 40,000), but PTSD remains stigmatized.

Because of what he’s seen and been through – again like many others returning from the Gulf - Blake Miller is having seconds thoughts about the war and the way in which it was conducted:

The former Marine says he now questions the US tactics and believes troops should have been withdrawn some time ago. He said: "When I was in the service my opinion was whatever the Commander-in-Chief's opinion was. But after I got out, I started to think about it. The biggest question I have now is how you can make a war on an entire country when a certain group from that country is practicing terrorism against you. It's as if a gang from New York went to Iraq and blew some stuff up and Iraq started a war against us because of that…" (read on here)

As one who possesses a degree in psychology, and the son of a psychotherapist who has years of experience working with Vietnam Vets struggling every single day of their lives with PTSD, I can attest to how under-diagnosed and traumatizing this disorder is – both for the individual and their family members.

I’m reminded of this each time I read stories like this one, or see people around Portland holding signs that say, “Homeless Vet, please help.” These are people who have had a very difficult time adjusting to society since having fought under conditions most of us will never experience, and I think the first step in helping them is to understand that PTSD is very real, and very common. The next step is to understand what the government is doing about it, and you can gain a lot from reading this article regarding the political fight over PTSD and how difficult it is to get soldiers benefits to seek treatment.

Oh, and take a wild fucking guess as to which side the “support our troops” Bush administration is on. Go on, see if you can guess.

If you’d like to read more about PTSD in general, click here, or here.

Fun With W. Audio

On Friday, W. made a speech to the American Legion in which he uttered terror, terrorists, or terrorism 37 times.

He mentioned Saddam's name 9 times.

He uttered "port security" not a single time.

Bin Laden? Zero.

Al Qaeda? Zero.

Here's the speech in a nutshell:
Audio:

Here's what he said about nations who harbor terrorists:
Audio:

Now, with that audio clip in mind, and the fact that Bush will veto any attempt to stop the Dubai I'd like you to read this.

On the same subject, Lou Dobbs takes Bush up on his challenge for someone to explain to him why the UAE deal is different from any other nation guarding our ports.
Audio:

Finally, with all you've just listened to in mind, Bush has a final message for you:
Audio:

Open Letter to Julie Bartling

By now everyone is well aware of the troubling state legislation, passed with great help from Democrat Julie Bartling, which will attempt to outlaw all abortion in the state of South Dakota (with the exception of when the mom might die...how sweet).

This means South Dakotan girls who get raped by daddy at age 16 will have to understand that giving birth to your brother-son was just God's will...and unless that baby come out sideways and gonna kill ya, yer gonna have to go to Minnesota to get it all fixed!

Now shut up and get them dishes sparkling the way daddy likes!

Obviously the South Dakota Supreme Court will eventually get this (or will it be the conservative 8th circuit? Evan, help me out if you're reading this) and be forced to rule on the precedent of Roe v Wade, and eventually declare this unconstitutional. Then the Federal Supreme Court *might* decide to hear the case, and that's when all hell is either contained, or breaks loose.

However, over at Jesus' general, an open letter has been crafted to Mrs. Bartling. Here's an excerpt:

Dear Sen. Bartling,

When your husband, Bart Bartling, comes home after hard day of trucking feed, I hope he has dinner waiting for him. I worry about that given all the gallivanting you do down at the Statehouse. Certainly, Bart and the children aren't getting the kind of
service a god-fearing wife and mother should be giving to her family.

There is little I can do about your usurpation of Bart's patriarchal role--you're his property, not mine--but as long as you're going to be in the Senate anyway, I'm willing to help you do God's work by offering suggestions to help you make your forced childbirth legislative initiatives even stronger.

That's where my idea of lady-parts monitoring comes in. All you need to do is pass a bill requiring the implantation of a device that would sound an alarm whenever a foreign object is inserted into a not-man's lady-parts... (read on).

Harbor-ing Terrorists

I really do find the Bush-supporter philosophy amazing. From about 8:42AM, September 11, 2001, Bush supporters have told those who don’t agree with them that they are:

1). Helping terrorists
2). Hurting/hating our troops
3). America-Haters
4). Traitors
5). Treasonous

They’ve taken a triple amputee war hero and morphed his face into Osama Bin Laden's for a political ad. They’ve smeared another decorated War veteran by lying about his record to support their president who didn't fight at all. They’ve taken another decorated, life-long marine and insinuated he was a coward on the House floor. This is their discourse both at the highest levels of government, on down to the College Republican level where they can train dougy, white corporatist kids to constantly mock troops who have served their country – simply because they’re Democrat.

Take a trip around the conservative blogosphere and you’ll see instances of this all over the place. It’s disgusting, but this is the type of person you’re dealing with. This is their character, and this is how they participate in their nation’s citizenship. It’s what they do.

While in no way do I feel that one must have served in the American military to be a qualified politician, it simply blows my mind that Democrats, considering all who have served, get the America-hater label, while current Republican administration dodges this bullet consistently, considering all of them who haven’t.

Think about all of the free passes the Bush administration gets from the media and from those on the Right regarding terrorism, failure to prevent it, and ties to the governments who support it.

From Bush’s ties to Salem bin Laden, to George Bush Senior meeting with Shafig bin Laden as the planes were actually slamming into the WTC, to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar meeting with Bush just after the attacks, to Bush refusing to release a report detailing Saudi Officials' relationship to the hijackers, to Bush fighting the 9/11 commission in terms of funding, time constraints, testifying under oath and limiting cabinet officials' ability to testify, Halliburton doing business with Iraq and Libya during their sanctions, all the way back to Reagan/Bush Sr funding the Mujahadeen, the Iranians illegally and the Iraqis openly – there are so many incredibly strong ties between the Bush family and terrorism originating from the Middle East, entire books have been written just to connect the dots.

I’m not saying every one of these links will work as credible evidence to blame our current administration for every terrorist attack around the globe, but for Christ’s sake, are there any Bush supporters out there that can admit all of these connections at least look bad?

And if Bill Clinton had these same connections? Are you fucking kidding me?

Look, I know in the minds of Republicans, lying about blowjobs in the White House totally eclipses lying about war, eating away the Constitution and getting failing grades from the 9/11 Commission after such a Commission was fought tooth and nail to begin with. I realize this.

But, could someone please explain to me, how after everything we know about this President’s ties to the Saudis, to big oil, to relatives of bin Laden, and everything else we know – how is it that Bush supporters haven’t razor-scraped the W ’04 stickers off their SUV’s knowing that Bush will veto any legislation proposed by any member of Congress concerned that the a giant Oil-tocracy will be guarding our major ports?!?!!

Even if it can be argued that the state-run company (that’s right, it’s not even a private firm within the UAE) coming from one of a small handful of nations that doesn’t legally recognize Israel but did fully recognize the Taliban when it was in power doesn’t pose a security risk, in an Administration where image and PR is literally everything, this just plain looks bad.

In case you’re not familiar with the UAE, here’s a quick primer of the nation who will be in charge, and the ports they’ll be protecting:

– Since the attacks of 9/11, one of the largest vulnerabilities of our homeland security can be traced back to our lack of port protection.

– The Coast Guard has estimated that it would cost roughly $5.4 billion dollars to improve security at our ports. Despite this estimate, last year Congress gave only $175 million in port security grants and $708 million overall, giving them a fraction of the resources they need.

– In experiments designed to test port security during 2002 and 2003, ABC News successfully shipped 15 pounds of depleted uranium into the United States two years in a row

– Even after public concern regarding port security, only 5% of our cargo is inspected when it arrives today.

– If the deal goes through as the Bush administration is hoping, the United Arab Emerits will be in charge of ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia

– The UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

– It is one of several Middle Eastern Nations who does not recognize the state of Israel, and has a bit of history as an anti-Semitic nation.

– The UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia.

– According to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the
UAE banking system, as the UAE is one of the wealthiest Arab nations.

– After 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden’s bank accounts.

Since this story broke, there have been accusations of Islamophobia from those who want to see the deal go through. These are the same people who pretend to be enraged when Civil Rights pioneers look to block nominations of officials who happen to be people of color, accusing them of racism, (i.e. equal rights pioneer Sean Hannity telling an Hispanic Civil Rights organization they’re racist for being against the Alberto Gonzalez appointed).

This isn’t about being Arab, Muslim, or anything else. Liberals have always dedicated a good part of our being toward fighting for the have-nots, so please, spare us your feigned outrage. Instead, this about state-sponsored terrorism, homeland security, and fighting against cronyism, and an entire host of Congressional Republicans and Democrats agree.

(Thanks as always to crooks and liars for the video)

O'Realllllly?

Bill O'Reilly and all 2 million ...200 ...26 of his viewers used to have a field day making fun of Kerry's purported flip-flops.

Bill O'Reilly has constantly insulted everyone who has suggested we leave Iraq:

We have the cut and run crowd. We have the don't know what to do crowd. We have a president who wants to stay the course in Iraq, but a public that doesn't understand what the course is.

If we cut and run out of there like you (Phil Donahue) want to do, we would be putting every American in 1,000 times more jeopardy than they're in now...you're a "cut and run guy," ...and if you don't understand Iraq would be a terrorist state if we pulled out of there, you don't know anything.

Bill O'Reilly now says this:

Audio:

More Liberal Media

Ahh yes, the liberal media is at it again.

Today alone we’ve got a seriously tense situation in Iraq between the Shiites and the Sunni, escalated by the bombings of each sect’s Mosques.

We have more news pouring in about a port deal that could change the landscape of how our Federal government treats issues of national security at our ports.

And CNN.com’s lead story for almost the entire day?

Powerball.

I can’t force this down the throat of the “liberal media bias” crowd enough: OUR MEDIA CARES MORE ABOUT BRITNEY SPEARS AND MISSING WHITE TEENS THAN IT DOES ABOUT REAL NEWS STORIES.

Click the picture below for more amazing revelations CNN has brought us today:

1. Powerball
2. Bank robbery in the UK
3. Some lawyer's email gets published on the Internet
4. Man dies after 10 years in a coma (that's for you soap opera fans)
5. Lindsay Lohan doesn't want to be called a "teen queen."
6. Princess Diana crash law-suit

I Thought Only Liberals Hated the Troops?

Attention Right Wingers: Shine up your Patriot Police badges for this one. Your tireless pursuit of troop-haters has finally lead you to this golden nugget. I've actually discovered a group that really does hate the troops.

Turns out they’re Conservative Christians, just like your annoying born-again cousin from Tampa!

I know, I know. It’s the fanatical Muslims we have to worry about. For the most part, I don’t disagree. After all, in the past decade the fanatical Muslims have taken the lead in slaughtering more innocent people than fanatical Christians (must to the dismay of the white Christian Klansmen of the 20th Century. And the Christians in Northern Ireland. And guys like Eric Rudolph. And born-again president who looked to Jesus for guidance before invading Iraq). You’d have to be an idiot to deny that there isn’t a major fundamentalist, right wing sect of Islam that is impacting the entire global community.

However, right-wing fundamentalists are right-wing fundamentalists. How they behave and act out their insane fundamentalist message has much more to do with economic conditions than it does with anything relating to the core beliefs of the religion itself. In other words, if everyone followed the modern interpretation of the major organized religions, no one would be killing anyone, right?

Enter conservative Christian and ordained minister of the Westboro Baptist Church, Rev. Fred Phelps. He’s also proprietor of the charming web site, GodHatesFags.com.

You may remember Phelps’ group in the news several years back when they graced the funeral of Matthew Sheppard with hand-made signs denouncing him and his sexual orientation. Because after all, nothing is more Christian than shoving hand made signs that depicts Sheppard burning in hell in the faces of the parents who just lost their young son.

In the latest episode of “Where Are They Now?” played by the who’s-who of the right wing, we find the fellowship at the Baptist Church - I can hardly write this – actually protesting at funerals of American soldiers killed in action, while a biker group is doing their part to shut them up.

From CNN:

(Westboro Baptist Church leader, Rev) Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq
are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

"The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword," Phelps-Roper said. "Since that is his weapon of choice, our forum of choice has got to be a dead soldier's funeral."

…A band of motorcyclists rolls around the country from one soldier's funeral to another, cheering respectfully to overshadow jeers from church protesters. They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

Now – of course this group from the Westboro Church doesn’t represent the vast majority of religious people or their beliefs – and you know what? Neither does bin Laden.

And that’s my entire point. All faiths have had a minority of its membership represent and twist the representation and overall message of that faith into something completely unrelated to anything the religion actually preaches. Whether it’s al-Zawahiri justifying a car bomb via the Koran, Eric Rudolph blowing up a planned Parenthood because that’s how Jesus would have wanted it, or Rev. Phelps picketing a funeral because “it says so in this here Bible God ain’t fond of fags,” it underscores the fact that radical faith of any kind leads all kinds of issues, and any one can take any passage in any book of faith and interpret it to what they believe.

That's why I'm just as hard on radical Christianity as I am the extreme interpretation of Islam.

Sound like a “Jerry Springer final thought?” Perhaps. But then next time you think what people struggle through, all around the world, from war to justice to genocide, think about the source. Think about where the early teaching, predispositions, and hatred comes from - not the religion itself, but a small group of it's followers.

Incredibly - More Fake Media. Holy. Shit.

Just When You’d Thought You’ve Seen Enough Fake Media…

From the White House that’s brought you fake news stories, fake journalists, fake town hall meetings, fake Q&A’s with the troops, fake White House Press Corps reporters and lest we forget, fake turkeys, we now have the latest: fake media photos!

That’s right folks. The same Bush administration that has fed you more marketing bullshit than a Superbowl Sunday is now handing out fake photos of events closed to White House photographers.

“What’s the problem with this?” some of you Right-wing, freedom of the press hating, spying on Americans supporting, smaller government begging hypocritical Republicans might ask?

The press corps job is to document the President naturally, in real settings doing real things, and release those real photos to the real public, thus making real impressions. If you are constantly letting the Bush administration decide which pre-ordained, filtered photos are passed to the American public, then you don’t have actual journalism – you have a PR campaign.

Oh, and for the “Clinton-did-it-too” crowd (the same reasoning I used when I was about 5, which today Republicans like to use in order to justify Bush administration behavior), the Bush administration has been doing this at a rate almost 10 times that of the previous administration.

Here’s more:

"They average about two per week," said Susan Walsh, an AP photojournalist and president of the White House News Photographers Association, after directing that review. "The White House staff photographer's role is to document the president.
They have now crossed the line and become public relations photographers for the administration."

"Any handout restricts coverage by the press," said Dennis Brack of Black Star Publications, who has photographed each president since LBJ. "It curtails our access to events we should be covering with an independent eye and it fools the American public into thinking they are news pictures when they are really public relations pictures…”

…she cited some recent events, such as a Bush visit to a Smithsonian Institution museum and the re-signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, that were restricted for no apparent reason.

..the opposition to White House-manufactured images is not just a press access issue, photographers contend. They point out the power such an arrangement gives the White House to literally control news.Although AP, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse were allowed to photograph Bush as he looked out the window at the Gulf Coast ruins, a White House handout photo of him at that moment was also released and used by at least three major newspapers, she said.

Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan did not return several calls seeking comment...

Read on here.

Bush's Approval Ratings Feeling Blue

Here's the latest state-by-state look at what polling data (released on 2/16) shows regarding Bush's net approval ratings (for those in Idaho, that's approval minus disapproval). Click the map for a slightly larger view.

For those of you in Ohio, if you could kindly time warp yourselves back to early Nov '04, most of the country would appreciate it.

Oh, and Rhode Island once again proves that size in fact, doesn't matter. You may view the data for the map I made below, here.

This Post Need Not An Introduction. 11pm Everyone.

New Abu Grab-Ass Pictures

An overweight, drug addicted conservative talk show host once said that the torture at Abu Gharib was “pretty thoughtful,” “pretty effective,” a "fraternety prank," and a “brilliant maneuver.” Oh, and, one for the ladies, “I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.” Certainly the attitude you’d expect from someone thrice divorced.

(Click for audio: )

Take a look at some of these photos (or go to links on this page) and let me know if you think this was a thoughtful prank:

Now that new photos from 2003 have been released to the media in Australia, Limbaugh, along with other faux-conservative Bush supporters continue to point out two incredibly alarming myths:

1). What occurred in Abu-Gharib would not constitute as torture.
Unfortunately Rush, this is a lie. No oxycontin for you.

The mere fact that our Attorney General has authored documents legally allowing torture, our Secretary of Defense has authorized inhumane treatment of prisoners in a document, our government is exporting our prisoners to governments known for torture, we’ve been holding detainees without a right to legal council, high ranking military officials have claimed we’re covering up the abuse, and that President Bush himself issued a signing statement declaring he didn’t have to abide by the McCain anti-torture bill, should give you reason to not totally shut out the idea that our government might be torturing prisoners in a 3rd world nation (you can read the reaction from individual nations to the Abu-Gharib scandal here).

Bush-supporters aren’t into the whole “fact” thing however, so luckily for them we have other accounts, details, and photographic evidence of torture at the Iraqi prison – even by standards set by Alberto Gonzalas.

The new classified military documents offer a chilling picture of what happened at Abu Ghraib - including detailed reports that U.S. troops and translators sodomized and raped Iraqi prisoners. The abuses took place at the Hard Site, a two-story cinder-block unit at the sprawling prison that housed Iraqi criminals and insurgents, not members of Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations.

In one sworn statement, Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, detainee number 151108, said he witnessed a translator referred to only as Abu Hamid raping a teenage boy. "I saw Abu Hamid, who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid's ass," Hilas testified. "The kid was hurting very bad." A female soldier took pictures of the rape, Hilas said. During the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, Hilas saw Spc. Charles Graner Jr. and an unnamed "helper" tie a detainee to a bed around midnight. "They . . . inserted the phosphoric light in his ass, and he was yelling for God's help," the prisoner testified. Again, the same female soldier photographed the torture.

Oh, and if rape with glowsticks doesn’t do it for you, feel free to read documented cases of prisoner death here, not just at Abu Ghraib, but at other Iraq/Afghanistan detention centers operated by U.S. military. Despite all of this, and despite calls from retired military brass, none of the abuse allegations have been independently investigated.


2). Even if we have evidence of torture, we’re using it on terrorists so it’s ok.

Approximately 90% of those incarcerated at Abu Gharib are entirely innocent, grabbed off of the street and released months later with no explanation or accusations against them, not just according to the Red Cross, but the Pentagon. The proof of this is that we released 75-90% of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib after the scandal initially broke.

However – news has surfaced today that might prove this theory wrong, much to the relief of the Bush supporters perpetuating the myth.

American commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that the overcrowded Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers.

The reason is that the confinement allows detainees to forge relationships and exchange lessons of combat against the United States and the new Iraqi government. "Abu Ghraib is a graduate-level training ground for the insurgency," said an American commander in Iraq.

We are clearly concerned about the potential for extremists and insurgents to use our detention facilities as recruiting and networking centers and are aggressively taking actions to disrupt their efforts," Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for General Gardner, wrote in an e-mail exchange…(read on here).

Reason 1,309 Why the "Culture of Life" Movement Promotes Neither

I just sat through a very difficult story to watch on 60 Minutes, regarding stem cell research and the fate of excess embryos that are produced at fertility clinics. The facts were nothing new, as I cover many of them on my Social Issues section of this site, but it doesn’t make the facts any less disturbing.

I say the story was difficult to watch because many stories that uncover or show the reasoning or corruption behind Bush administration policies, are in fact very challenging to sit through due to the sheer lack of common sense of Bush’s guiding principles, but this one in particular was a little harder to stomach than most.

The piece in particular focused on a couple that used in vitro fertilization to get pregnant with both of their boys, and it’s a story repeated across the country by many couples who are unable to have children without assistance from a fertility clinic.

Here’s how it works:

John and Jane can’t get pregnant through conventional attempts. They visit a fertility clinic where Jane, using the miracle of Pfizer, produces and abundance of eggs, which subsequently extracted, and fertilized with John’s sperm. The embryos are then frozen in liquid nitrogen, where one at a time they are implanted into Jane’s uterus, which may or may not reject the egg.

If Jane doesn’t get pregnant, they move onto the next egg waiting in the little –321F tank. If she does get pregnant, Jane and John now have anywhere from 1 to 25 or so little embryos, waiting in storage.

Unlike our current Federal budget, these unused embryos are in a state of surplus. Across the country there are 400,000 or so frozen embryos in fertility clinics, with nowhere to go.

When the embryos are donated to science for stem cell research, they have the ability to take the fertilized eggs and grow them into almost any cell in the human body you can imagine – brain cells, building blocks of the spinal chord, kidney cells, blood cells, you name it.

Why not donate them to other couples for adoption, you might ask? That happens all the time. And of the 400,000 embryos waiting for some kind of action, about 100 were adopted last year by wealthy couples who could afford it. I’ve never been too quick with math, but I’ve calculated this a few different ways and consulted friends – and according to what I’ve come up with, that’s still 399,900 embryos that are sitting in tanks across the country, doing absolutely nothing.

And here’s the kicker – sooner or later, these embryos will die or be thrown in the trash like the overcooked egg you made for breakfast this morning.

Later in the piece, Leslie Stahl was brought to a lab where she and the 60 Minutes viewer observed stem cells growing together as heart cells in a petri dish – they were actually only a small amount clumped together, and they were beating in rhythm, exactly as a heart does. It was a truly amazing site.

To give “the other side” of the argument, 60 Minutes brought on a conservative Princeton University professor who works for the Bush administration, who, to the amazement of the viewing audience, tried to equate the human dignity of embryos in a petri dish, which would get thrown away regardless, with a human being sitting in a wheelchair.

So to recap, see if you can tell me which side of this argument represents the “culture of life.” First, bio-ethicist Art Caplan, from the 60 Minutes story:

"To me it means that the president’s policy is hypocritical and deceptive," says Caplan. "It is not a secret that embryos are destroyed at infertility clinics." Caplan refers to couples who have decided they are finished having children or trying to conceive through in vitro fertilization who tell their clinics to destroy their unused embryos. Caplan and other medical professionals believe the “stem cells” from such embryos – groups of nascent cells that can grow into organs and body parts – will soon provide the means of curing diseases or revitalizing injured body parts like spines.

“So we have a policy that says, ‘Can’t destroy them for research, I, as president, can’t abide by it,’” says Caplan. “[But] every day a clinic somewhere destroys one.” Caplan says keeping thousands of surplus embryos frozen is not much different than
destroying them outright.

And now, the representative from the Bush administration, Robert George:

Embryonic stem cell research destroys the embryo, an entity that must be treated with dignity, says George. “[Embryos] should be treated respectfully, the way we treat the remains of human beings at later stages of life,” says George. “Those bunches of cells are very unique bunches of cells. Those are human beings in the earliest stages of their natural development,” he tells Stahl. “You were one once, I was one once.” He believes embryos should be buried or cremated or even kept frozen rather than destroyed.

Funerals for embryos. Who says the Bush Administration won't stop at nothing to elevate the status of an embryo so high that we're actually going to create caskets measuring .000000000013th of an inch by .0000000000000000028th of an inch? "Well choose the rosewood."

There are two things to say here.

First, the reaction you will hear from those on the Right is the same reaction you get from them when you mention 60 Minutes. They’ll discredit this story simply because the source it’s coming from is seen as “liberal” in their eyes, and because of that, obviously none of the facts presented here count for anything. They’ll point to Dan Rather (who didn’t even contribute to this story) as a scapegoat simply because he did a poor job on the Bush National Guard story the facts of which still remain to highlight Bush in a very shaky, pussified light, and was determined to have no political bias by a friend of the Kennebunkport vacationing family.

Because of this, the actual merits of Bush’s policy will remain un-debated by most conservatives, and the fact that 60 Minutes produced a great story regarding Bush’s stem cell policy won’t make a difference in the world to them.

When you’re in today’s Republican party, you don’t debate policy; you smear the source that told you about it.

Secondly – the very important issue of Stem Cell Research has absolutely nothing to do with Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, or any kind of journalism. This type of research promises to yield real benefits for living, breathing human beings. The opposition to this of course, has nothing to do with the embryos themselves. Conservatives couldn't give a shit less about fertilized eggs or what we do with them. They're after the abortion issue. The more you can elevate the status of a fertilized egg, the harder it's going to be for the 17-year old living in the projects to get rid of the one growing in her body - or the Republican Congressman's daughter to get rid of hers.

To yield to a small contingent of Religious Right zealots instead of siding with the scientific community on this issue, and then cover your conservative Christian “science” with the marketing term, “Culture of Life,” is so beyond respect, so anti-life and so anti-culture, that those who support president Bush on this issue should fully and completely be ashamed of themselves.

How anyone with a grandparent or parent suffering from Alzheimer’s, a son in a wheelchair due to a spinal chord injury, or a loved one with heart disease could ever make a checkmark next to Bush’s name at the ballot box, is completely and totally beyond me.

Forward This To Your Bush Supporting Friends

I was listening to the Majority Report last night, and heard a fantastic interview with First Amendment litigator Glenn Greenwald. (If you listen to one piece of audio on this site, I advise you to stop now and listen to this interview by clicking here:

Have you ever felt passionate about a particular issue but just couldn’t find the appropriate angle or specific way to verbalize your theory on something, only to find someone out there who took the thoughts you’ve been having and did it for you? Eloquently? Typically Mark Morford is that guy for me. Last night, it was Glenn Greenwald.

On this site, I try to be very particular about distinguishing “Republicans” from “conservatives.” Most Republicans typically lean a certain way, and as a result, I typically blue the line between the two in my writing. However, considering I come from the state that will forever re-elect Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, I realize there are some small nuances in some Republican behavior.

Instead of being careful to single out differences between conservatives and Republicans, I should instead use the term Bush conservatives, or Bush Republicans. After all – considering this president has never vetoed a single spending bill, and has set records for the largest federal government and national deficit in the history of America, Bush is neither conservative or Republican.

In Greenwald’s latest blog, he makes some very important points about the political ideology, or lack there of, as it pertains to Bush voters. Specifically he calls Bush Republicans out on supporting Bush’s warrentless wiretaps, where during the Clinton administration, Republicans were sick with anger about the FISA court granting legal permission for such a 4th Amendment violation. I think what he says is not only accurate, but incredibly important as it starts to answer one of the questions 50% of our country, and 98% of the world have when we think of the Bush Administration: How in the hell do people put a check next to this man’s name at the ballot box?

Here are some excerpts from Greenwald’s piece, and again, I’d really recommend reading the whole thing here. It is important (hence me recapping so much of it) because it really encapsulates something I see occurring each day, even on this web site.

I have been accused by an anonymous Bush supporter as someone who should wear a towel on my head, and that because I am against some of Bush’s wildest policies, that I am in effect aligning myself with terrorists. The anonymous reader shouldn’t necessarily be considered a conservative or a Republican, as he is defending Bush ideology, not conservative ideology. He’s not along in using this tactic, and some of what Greenwald writes about highlights this:

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

That "conservatism" has come to mean "loyalty to George Bush" is particularly ironic given how truly un-conservative the Administration is…As much as any policy prescriptions, conservatism has always been based, more than anything else, on a fundamental distrust of the power of the federal government and a corresponding belief that that power ought to be as restrained as possible, particularly when it comes to its application by the Government to American citizens.

Is there anything more antithetical to that ethos than the rabid, power-hungry appetites of Bush followers? There is not an iota of distrust of the Federal Government among them.

We need no oversight of the Federal Government’s eavesdropping powers because we trust Bush to eavesdrop in secret for the Good. We need no judicial review of Bush’s decrees regarding who is an "enemy combatant" and who can be detained indefinitely with no due process because we trust Bush to know who is bad and who deserves this. We need no restraints from Congress on Bush’s ability to exercise war powers, even against American citizens on U.S. soil, because we trust Bush to exercise these powers for our own good.

The rhetoric of Bush followers is routinely comprised of these sorts of sentiments dressed up in political language – accusations that domestic political opponents are subversives and traitors, that they ought to be imprisoned and hung, that we ought to drop nuclear bombs on countries which have committed the crime of housing large Muslim populations.

It’s not an accident that Ann Coulter and her ongoing calls for violence against "liberals" (meaning anyone not in line behind George Bush) are so wildly popular among conservatives. It’s not some weird coincidence that the 5,000 people in attendance at the CPAC this last week erupted in "boisterous ovation" when she urged violence against "ragheads,’ nor is it an accident that her hateful, violence-inciting screeds -- accusing "liberals" of being not wrong, but "treasonous" -- become best-sellers. Ann Coulter has been advocating violence against liberals and other domestic political opponents for years, and she is a featured speaker at the most prestigious conservative events. Why would that be? It's because she is tapping into the primal, rather deranged rage which lies in the heart of many Bush followers. If that weren't driving the movement, she wouldn’t provoke the reactions and support that she does.

…What I hear, first and foremost, from these Bush following corners is this, in quite a shrieking tone: "Oh, my God - there are all of these evil people trying to kill us, George Bush is doing what he can to save us, and these liberals don’t even care!!! They’re on their side and they deserve the same fate!!!" It doesn’t even sound like political argument; it sounds like a form of highly emotional mass theater masquerading as political debate. It really sounds like a personality cult. It is impervious to reasoned argument and the only attribute is loyalty to the leader. Whatever it is, it isn’t conservative.


For a glimpse of how actual conservatives quite recently used to think, one should read this article at FreeRepublic.com, which decries the dangerous loss of liberty and privacy as a result of the Clinton Administration's use of a "secret court" something called the "FISA court") which actually enables the Federal Government to eavesdrop on American citizens! Worse -- much worse -- the judicial approval which the Government (used to) obtain for this eavesdropping is in secret, so we don't even know who is being eavesdropped on! How can we possibly trust the Government not to abuse this power if they can obtain warrants in secret?

Conservatives used to consider things like this to be quite disturbing and bad -- and the eavesdropping then was at least with judicial oversight…(read the entire blog entry here.)

The War Against Valentine’s Day

The humorous and sickeningly entertaining Christian Right never fails to make me so incredibly thankful that my friends and family are completely contradictory to their thought process.

Again – for those of you ready to sound the alarm on the Pope-Mobile each time someone fails to mutter “Under God” while reciting the Pledge, please note I’m speaking of the Christian Right, which is much different than your open-minded church going neighbor who sent you a Christmas card a couple months ago.

The latest smoldering pile of bullshit this group just unveiled from under the velour covering? The war against Valentine’s Day!

When not complaining about the war against Christmas – because we’ve hardly heard a peep about the holiday in the last couple of hundred years – the Christian Right casts stones from their own glass church by recognizing a new competing celebration on February 14th: The Day of Purity, otherwise known as a day to pledge abstinence before marriage.

Seems harmless enough, right?

The idea itself is not inherently bad. Obviously the only way to surely prevent all STD’s, pregnancy (and arguably depth, growth and maturity in a relationship) is to not have sex.

There are however, several reasons, supported through research and common sense, to argue that such programs do more to hurt than help, and simply don’t make sense.

- First of all, pledging abstinence has proven time and time again to be and unfulfilable goal for many with a success rate of 20 to 30 percent in most studies (back when I was in school that was an F.) A psychology professor at Northern Kentucky University surveyed 527 college students and found 61 percent broke the pledge in the very next year alone. As a result, teens are much more likely to experiment with unprotected vaginal and anal sex, as well as oral sex.

- According to a recent 8-year study, those who make abstinence pledges are statistically just as likely to obtain STD’s than those who do not for the reasons listed above.

- Many of those who advocated abstinence education are in favor of abstinence-only education. This leaves teens ignorant about birth control and STD protection with incredibly reliable success rates. Common birth control methods are then viewed with a negative stigma, and not used when the pledges are broken because they’re not on hand.

- Abstinence-only education tends to advocated by conservative Christians intentionally guiding teens toward philosophies stemming from Christian ideals and values instead of using science, research and advice from the medical fields. If you question this point, I challenge you to think of people or organizations that urge abstinence-only education who don’t have a religious affiliation... from organizations such as “Concerned Women of America (which was run by men last time I checked)”, to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, on up to our born-again president. Just as those who battle evolution in public schools have conservative Christian undertones, a push for a religious agenda, and contempt for the scientific community, so do those battling sex education. They’re the same people, coming from the same groups.

- Lastly, and this is my favorite – How can gay kids be asked to wait for marriage until they have sex by the same Christians who continue to try to make it illegal for them to marry? Do they have to wait until same-sex marriage is legal? Do they have to not ever have sex because same sex marriage is supposed remain illegal? Doesn’t this entire program ignore the sexual education of one of the higher risk groups in the first place?

In closing, I’d like to leave everyone with some words of wisdom on the subject, from Bill Maher (who happens to be back on HBO, Feb 17th!!)

New Rule: Abstinence pledges make you horny. A new eight-year study just released reveals that American teenagers who take "virginity" pledges of the sort so favored by the Bush administration wind up with just as many STDs as the other kids.

But that's not all -- taking the pledges also makes a teenage girl six times more likely to perform oral sex, and a boy four times more likely to get anal. Which leads me to an important question: where were these pledges when I was in high school?

Seriously, when I was a teenager, the only kids having anal intercourse were the ones who missed. My idea of lubrication was oiling my bike chain. If I had known I could have been getting porn star sex the same year I took Algebra II, simply by joining up with the Christian right, I'd have been so down with Jesus they would have had to pry me out of the pew.

For a bunch of teens raised on creationism, these red state kids today are pretty evolved -- sexually, anyway, and for that they can thank all who joined forces to try and legislate away human nature, specifically the ineluctable urge of teenagers to hump.

Yes, the "What do we tell the children?" crowd apparently decided not to tell them
anything. Because people who talk about pee-pees are potty-mouths. And so armed
with limited knowledge, and believing regular, vaginal intercourse to be either
immaculate or filthy dirty, these kids did with their pledge what everybody does with contracts: they found loopholes. Two of them to be exact.

Is there any greater irony than the fact that the Christian Right actually got
their precious little adolescent daughters to say to their freshly scrubbed boyfriends: "Please, I want to remain pure for my wedding night, so only in the ass. Then I'll blow you." Well, at least these kids are really thinking outside the box.

There's a lot worse things than teenagers having sex, namely, teenagers NOT having sex. Here's something you'll never hear: "That suicide bomber blew himself up because he was having too much sex. Sex, sex, sex, non-stop. All that crazy Arab ever had was sex, and look what happened."

Well, that's our story -- of how faith and the party of smaller government combined to turn your kids into a generation of super-freaks. Which shouldn't be surprising: Prohibition didn't work, "Just say no" didn't work, and I understand there's a host of Americans who illegally obtain and smoke marijuana. They're the ones who've been giggling every time I say anal sex.

Bush Doesn't Know Jack?

Oh, apparently he does.

For weeks, Scott McClellan, perhaps the WHPS who has been caught straight out lying more than all others combined in the history of the United Sates, claiming Bush doesn't have a clue who Jack Abramoff is. He may have been at a few of those notoriously famous White House Hanukah parties around 2000-2001, but as McClellan has said, "Trying to say there's more to (their connection) than the President taking a picture (with Abramoff) in a photo line is just absurd. "

Right. If you recall, Bush didn't know Ken Lay, or Jeff Gannon very well either. If Cheney was arrested and carried out of the White House tomorrow by his hands and feet, McClellan would claim, "the President has no recollection of who this man is...he has probably been present at the White House during large gatherings, but the President meets thousands of people."

Bush himself has said the following:

"You know, I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him. And this investigation will -- needs to look into all aspects of his influence on Capitol Hill, and if there's some in the White House, I'm sure they're going to come and knock on the door. But I -- I can't say I didn't ever meet him, but I meet a lot of people. And evidently, he was just like you were the other day, at a holiday party -- came in, put -- the grip-and-grin, they click the picture and off he goes. And that's just -- I take thousands of -- I mean, somebody told me I maybe take over 9,000 pictures this holiday season. And he obviously went to fundraisers, but I've never sat down with him and had a discussion with the guy. "

Well, allow me to connect some dots for those who don't understand how close Abramoff is to the President, and the Republican party.

- Jack Abramoff is a lifelong Republican. In college he organized Massachusetts campuses for Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, was chair of the College Republican National Committee, and was a very close friend of Ralph Reed.

- He also served as chairman of the United Students of America, a rightist student group based at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

- Abramoff went on to raise $100,000 for the Bush/Cheney campaign, elevating him to "pioneer" status for the amount of funds raised.

- Abramoff and his wife gave $10,000 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund in 2000.

- As the Bush-Cheney Administration began in 2001, Jack Abramoff was an official member of the Administration's Transition Team.

- Susan B. Ralston was Abramoff's closest assistant before she went on to be hired as the most senior assistant to Karl Rove. In July of 2004, she was promoted from "Executive Assistant to the Senior Adviser" to "Special Assistant to the President and Assistant to the Senior Advisor” at the White House.


Unfortunately for Bush, Abramoff's emails to his close friend, Washington Magazine editor Kim Eisler, reveal some candid details about the relationship between the two Republican crooks.

- Among other things, one email stated, "(Bush) saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids."

- Abramoff emails also stated, that despite the Alzheimer's-like picture McClellan is painting of the president, he "has one of the best memories of any politicians I have ever met." When asked about the emails, McClellan has stated, "I think what the President said still stands."

- Kim Eisler also recounts, "There’s a picture of Abramoff’s wife with Laura Bush. In one of the meetings, it was not at a Christmas or Hanukkah party as the White House keeps insisting, but in fact was taken in the Old Executive Office building where Jack had taken several of his clients up to shake hands with the President."

Faulty Intel? Not Exactly.

You will hear over and over from those on the Right that it was the intelligence, rather than the Bush Administration, that got in wrong pertaining to the Iraq war.

While there is PLENTY of evidence to suggest the intelligence community was ignored by the administration, the “liberal media” has failed to pick up most of these points, and generally covers the “invasion of Iraq” story as if the CIA is to blame, rather than the active members of PFNAC in Bush’s cabinet. Boy, that liberal media sure takes a while to do it’s job, doesn’t it?

Finally today, a story is breaking from news outlets, details a piece in the journal Foreign Affairs regarding Paul R. Pillar’s criticism of the Administration’s handling of intelligence. Pillar was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia for the past 6 years.

"In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made," Pillar wrote.

Although the Clinton administration and other countries' governments also believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction, they supported sanctions and weapons inspections as means to contain the threat, he said.

The Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," Pillar wrote. "It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

It is…the first time that such a senior intelligence officer has so directly and publicly condemned the administration's handling of intelligence… (read on here)

With that said, I’m curious to see when the swift-boating by the Right of Mr. Pillar begins. Several choices are on the table for the Bush administration.

1). Pillar was fired by the administration (he was not, he retired after 28 years at the CIA) and therefore holds a grudge.

2). Pillar hired an illegal alien from Mexico as a maid back in 1974…and rumor has it that she was photographed at a gay night club in Tijuana.

3). Pillar’s daughter dated a black man when she was only 15, and has been rumored to have had an abortion 3 years later.

4). Pillar never really “worked” for the CIA – he had a desk job, right next to Valerie Plame.

5). Pillar was jealous of the medal of freedom awarded to Tenet, and is just doing this to get back at the Bush administration.

Another Republican Family Value: Blackmail

If you’re following the judiciary committee’s NSA hearings, as we’re grilling people like Alberto Gonzalas while he’s not under oath, you may not be surprised to learn someone else is quite interested in the outcome.

My doughy Republican friend and yours, Karl Rove.

When not busy implementing the Republican post-9/11 way of thinking by outing CIA agents, Rove is making goddamned sure that no Republicans on the judiciary committee votes against the President’s ability to wiretap Americans without judicial oversight.

Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Rove has been calling in virtually every Republican on the Senate committee as well as the leadership in Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove's message has been that a vote against Mr. Bush would destroy GOP prospects in congressional elections.

Some have raised doubts about Mr. Rove's strategy of painting the Democrats, who have opposed unwarranted surveillance, as being dismissive of the threat posed by al Qaeda terrorists.

"Well, I didn't like what Mr. Rove said, because it frames terrorism and the issue of terrorism and everything that goes with it, whether it's the renewal of the Patriot Act or the NSA wiretapping, in a political context," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican.

Read more here.

Blackmailing and bribing are nothing new to Republicans leaders, and seem to be consistent with their family and patriotic values. Just ask Tom Delay.

Click below to see the Daily's Show's take on the testimony thus far - thanks as always to Crooks & Liars.

How Dare MLK Make a Eulogy Political?

There has been a transcript floating around the blogosphere that I'd like to post here, ragarding a eulogy for 3 girls killed in a Church bomging, that Martin Luther King himself delivered in 1963. How dare he interject politics at a funeral?

This afternoon we gather in the quiet of this sanctuary to pay our last tribute of respect to these beautiful children of God....They are the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity.

And so this afternoon in a real sense they have something to say to each of us in their death.They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows.

They have something to say to every politician [Audience:] (Yeah) who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.

They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats (Yeah) and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans.

They have something to say to every Negro (Yeah) who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.

They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution.They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers.

Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream [...]

Coretta Scott King Remembered - Bush Uncomfortable

I'm watching the replay of the CSK services on C-Span right now. The services were amazing - powerful, incredibly well done, and yes, political.

It's because Coretta Scott King's public life, and that of her husband's, was totally political. Civil Rights, Social Justice, and fighting for equality - they're all political. Remember - they're not just celebrating her life specifically - they're celebrating her and her husband's legacy, and what they stood for. They're celebrating their mark on history and what it means for our country today.

I found the setup on stage incredibly interesting. Bill Clinton sitting with Hillary. George W. Bush sitting right next to his Stepford wife Laura, right near the former President.

I'd like to write something very important here:


Make no mistake - none whatsoever - this gathering of civil rights leaders, African American leaders, anti-war leaders, marchers for peace, workers for justice and fairness, and people associated with Martin Luther King Junior - was not a comfortable setting for W. He was after all, in a church full of Democrats who range from not supporting him, to despising him, his presidency, and everything his administration stands for.

Why is that do you think? Perhaps because Bush denounced affirmative action in 2003 during the week of Martin Luther King's birthday (dissenting from both Powell and Rice). Or maybe it's the fact that our current Vice President, Bush's boss, opposed MLK Day when he was a Senator in Wyoming.

Martin Luther King, and those who dedicated their lives to his work - those who agreed with his anti-war stance and fought for justice, in no way - no way whatsoever - see eye to eye with this current president. King himself, had he been alive today, would have been one of this president's biggest adversaries for the entire 5 years he's been in office.


As a result, up on stage, Bush looked like the Pope in a Planned Parenthood clinic. He seemed out of place, awkward, unwanted, and a very small man indeed.

How embarrassed Bush must have been as Jimmy Carter spoke about the King's history with wiretapping. How ashamed he must have felt when the black faces of Katrina were mentioned. How uneasy he must have felt when the Iraq war was mentioned.

No, these were not his people. This was not his crowd.

If you have any doubt - any doubt whatsoever in your mind where the foremost leaders of Civil Rights stand in terms of President Clinton's legacy, and the current legacy this bumbling president is making for himself - watch the reaction of the room when Bill and Hillary Clinton were introduced, and the doubt will disintegrate from your mind immediately.

At one point, Bill Clinton said how proud he was to stand in front of his former president, and current president, when someone yelled from the crowd something to the effect of, "and future president!" (obviously referring to Hillary), and the place erupted in cheers.

Typically when I hear President Clinton speak, I'm drawn in, I'm educated, and I'm proud to be an American. I think of his level of speaking and comprehension, compare it to my current president, and I'm totally embarrassed.

Tonight, I felt different. I felt as if everything right and just that the Kings stood for - everyone in that crowd who personally knew them and worked with him - were all feeling the same thing as Clinton spoke. He was on their side. He understood. He worked with them, and they considered him on of their own. As for the current president - they did absolutely did not.

Clinton spoke, seemingly without a goddamn note in front of him. Bush Sr. - lost his place while fumbling through his. The passion the speakers had, minus our current president was enough contrast I could stand for one evening.

After tonight, I don't want any right-winger trying to talk to me about Civil Rights, perhaps ever again. It's just not your thing. Stick to tax breaks and dividends for stock holders.

You will hear tomorrow throughout the corporate and Right Wing media that the funeral was turned into a political event. Fuck them. AmericaBlog has already written a great piece about the obligatory Swift-Boating of this funeral, and I advise you read it here.

Open a history book and read about the Civil Rights movement, and tell me how that's not political. Look up King's legacy and read about the FBI files on him - and as President Carter said, the wiretaps - and tell me that isn't relevant to what is going on now.

If anyone tells you this, they obviously didn't watch the entire thing. As if the party who doesn't have a single black member of Congress can lecture black people about how to behave at a funeral? Are you kidding me?

The speeches were amazing, eloquent, and when appropriate, had political and religious undertones. Bush was there because all former presidents not dead or ill were there - but just as he became the first president to snub the NAACP since Herbert Hoover, Bush had no reason to even set foot in this Church in front of a crowd that resents him, and at times I felt embarrassed for him as he sat up on a stage like a party guest who showed up uninvited.

What a pathetic sight.


With that said, one speech in particular struck me was that delivered by the Reverend Dr. Joseph Lowery. I'm still on the hunt for the transcript, but have provided a video link to his entire speech above. As always, this video is simply unavailable without the excellent work done over at Crooks & Liars. Here's an unforgettable piece:

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there [standing ovation]... but Coretta kew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty aounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor."

Highlights from all the speeches can be found here.

***Update***

Here is the transcript from Dr. Rev. Lowery's speech:

REVEREND JOSEPH LOWERY: I am neither a gambler, nor better, but who could have brought this crowd together except Corretta? (applause)

How marvelous that presidents and governors come to morn and praise, but in the morning (applause)...will words become deeds that meet needs? (standing ovation)

What a family reunion!

Rosa and Martin reminiscing, they had just begun to talk, when Martin seemed not to listen. He started to walk. The wind had whispered in his ear. “I believe somebody is almost here. (applause) Excuse me, Rosa,” Martin said as he did depart, his soles on fire, he just couldn't wait. His spirit leaped with joy as he moved toward the pearly gates.

Glory, glory, hallelujah. After forty years, almost forty years, together at last, together at last, thank God Almighty, together at last! (applause)

Thank you, Coretta. Didn't she carry her grief with dignity? Her growing influence with humility? She secured his seed, nurtured his nobility. She declared humanity's worth, invented their vision, his and hers, for peace in all the Earth.

She opposed discrimination based on race, she frowned on homophobia and gender bias, she rejected on its face.

She summoned the nations to study war no more. She embraced the wonders of a human family from shoulder to shoulder. Excuse me, Maya. (laughter, applause)

She extended Martin's message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions.

We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there (standing ovation). But Coretta knew, and we know there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance, poverty abound. For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.

Well, Coretta had harsh critics. Some no one could please. But she paid them no mind. She kept speaking for the least of these. As we get older, or so I'm told, we listen in to heaven like the prophets of old. I heard Martin and Coretta say, “do us a favor, Joe, those four little children I spoke of in '63, they are fine adults now, as all can see. They already know but tell them again. We love them so dear. Assure
them we will always be near. Their troubles to bless and sanctify to them their
deepest distress.

Tell them we believe in them as we know you do. We know their faith in god and their love for each other will see them through. Assure them at the end of the tunnel awaits god's light and we are confident they will always strive for the right. Tell them don't forget to remember that we are as near as their prayer -- and never as far and we can rest in peace because they know who and whose they are.” (applause)

What a family reunion. Thank you, Lord. Just the other day I thought I heard you say Coretta, my child, come on home. You’ve earned your rest, your body is weary. You have done your best. Her witness and character always strong. Her spirit, her melody from heaven's song, her beauty warms like the rays of the sun. Good night, my sister. Well done, well done. (standing ovation)

The NSA is Listening to Terrorists Only? Mostly? Half? Hardly.

The primary justification the Bush administration deploys for going around the FISA law to wiretap American citizens without a warrant is that we need to act fast to catch terrorists.

“If you're talkin’ to a member of al Qaeda, we want to know why (how media outlets are quoting the word “talking” with a ‘g’ on the end is beyond me).” Cheney has said, “The activities conducted under this authorization have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people.” This is of course, vastly different reasoning than the administration offered (and lied about, while the corporate media hasn't paid much attention to it) just a year prior.

Anyone I’ve had a conversation with about this issue who supports the illegal wiretapping will typically say, “well, if you’re not talking to Al Qaeda, don’t worry about it.” Apparently these are the same people who would post an “open house” sign on their front law for the FBI, as long as they’re not doing drugs in the living room.

This rationalization may be more sad and twisted than once thought – because now it’s being refuted not only on principle, but with emerging facts as well.

That’s because, according to intelligence officers, most of the telecommunications on which they’re eavesdropping are not terrorist related. Therefore, if the vast majority of Americans we’re wiretapping are innocent, it blows apart the picture that the Bush administration has painted of surveilling only or even mostly terrorists. It also sheds light into why they wouldn’t want to seek a warrant. It’s much harder to get a judge to approve your eavesdropping if there is no probable cause, or even raised suspicion.

From the Post:

Officials conversant with the program said a far more common question for
eavesdroppers is whether, not why, a terrorist plotter is on either end of the call. The answer, they said, is usually no.

National security lawyers, in and out of government, said the washout rate (of Americans not speaking with or about any threat) raised fresh doubts about the program's lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment, because a search cannot be judged "reasonable" if it is based on evidence that experience shows to be unreliable…

Read the full story here.

My thought is – obviously you need to pursue some dead ends in order to get to what you’re really listening for. However some sort of impartial medium needs to justify and attest to the lawfulness of this incredibly wide executive power, and that’s exactly what the law states as it pertains to the FISA court (see the section on “checks and balances in your kid’s 7th grade U.S. History book”). In other words - no one is against listening to those tied to extremism is the Right continues to assert - however most Americans are against unlawful wiretapping.

Otherwise, why not wiretap anyone at any time, and justify it by saying you had a .001% hit rate, which saved lives and helped stopped crime?

End Global Warming's Threat by Threatening the Scientists Who Say It Exists

Despite their flip-flopping ally in the Global Warming debate, Bush just “don’t know” whether or not the whole environmental concern angle should be considered all that much.

As you may recall, the Bush administration isn’t really a big fan of science, what with all that monkey talk and that stem cell tomfoolery (perhaps they’ve yet to lose a family member who died from…well, anything).

But as I was trying not to vomit the other night as I watched the stand-up act of Dennis “180” Miller as he auditioned for the blue collar comedy tour, I was reminded of how much conservatives love to debate the existence of global warming.

They’re actually the only ones left debating it. The entire world-wide scientific community, in which debate over this topic ended about 20 years ago, must look upon this small contingent of conservative Americans and want to bitch-slap the oxycontin-enduced hallucinations right out of them.

Sure, you’ll be able to find specific “scientists” who’ll say anything. There are even anthropologists the Right Wing has either paid or threatened to say that “Intelligent Design,” the “God did it. Period” is a competing theory against 100 years of evolutionary science.

Speaking of which – enter NASA's chief climate scientist James Hansen. He recently went on record saying that 2005 was the warmest year since record keeping began, and that didn’t make the Bush administration too happy.

Hansen says threats from NASA officials came only by phone, with nothing in writing.

"One threat was relayed to me that there would be 'dire consequences — not specified,'" he told ABC News. In December, ABC News' "Good Morning America"
reported NASA's announcement, linking the record high temperatures of 2005 to
greenhouse gas emissions.

Said Hansen, "When 'Good Morning America' released our data showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year on record, I got calls that they were very unhappy."

Over the past year, a growing number of American scientists who study global warming have been complaining about the federal government's efforts to silence or alter their reports or to discourage them. Continue reading here.

Read more here, here and here.

If the whole “screwing with global warming scientists and data” thing sounds familiar, perhaps you’re thinking of Phillip Cooney, the Bush administration energy official who edited scientific government reports on climate change to intentionally mislead on the issue of global warming (more here). He later resigned.

Because after all, if you’re not a fan of what the government report says, just change it. Or, get rid of it altogether!

A-C-C-O-U-N-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y

Remember how the Republicans tried to cover up the federal response to Katrina by spreading blame to local officials – including the mayor and Democratic Governor of Louisiana?

Well, the story making small headlines in the “liberal media” recently (other than the White House withholding information from the congressional investigation panel) is the latest from the Government Office of Accountability:

For the first time, a nonpartisan government investigation Wednesday put principal blame on Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not lower-level officials, for the fumbled response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Government Accountability Office, an independent agency of Congress, said in its preliminary report that Chertoff had failed to move quickly to mobilize resources despite advance warnings that Katrina was likely to be a devastating storm. And, the report said, Chertoff's failure to name an individual to spearhead the response was a prime factor in the delays and confusion that followed.

Read on here.

Freedom is on the March – Right Out of the Capitol Building

Everyone knows by now that Cindy Sheehan was arrested for exercising her freedom of speech in the Capitol building, as was Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Young (R-FL). Oh, wait, Beverly Young simply left on her own accord – the mother whose son was killed in the war Bush was about to promote in his speech was handcuffed.

I must admit – I don’t agree with every single point Sheehan has made, but agree with the vast majority of the issues she raises. I also must admit, uncomfortably so, that when I sat down to watch the SOTU address with my girlfriend Tuesday, I heard that Sheehan had been arrested and thought to myself, “come on Cindy, this is just going to get negative publicity.”

In fact, my local nightly news (part of the “liberal media”) said Sheehan was, “a protestor trying to ‘get in’ to the State of the Union address (as if she was a ticketless lunatic trying to scale the capital wall to get in and raise hell).

After I heard what really happened, I felt embarrassed for my earlier thoughts.

From the SF Chronicle:

The rare ejections prompted Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer to apologize
late Wednesday to both women and said charges would be dropped against Sheehan.

"The U.S. Capitol is not private property that belongs to the president, or even the speaker of the House, it belongs to the people," said Jamin Raskin, a constitutional law professor at American University in Washington who has discussed legal options with Sheehan.

"The great irony was that Bush was extolling the virtue of freedom and civility in America, at the same time the police were dragging Cindy Sheehan out of the chamber.

"Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts," (Capitol Police Chief) Gainer's statement said...

Read on here.

Those on the Right are painting a picture of Sheehan walking into the Capitol building with a huge banner and a megaphone, and perhaps a sniper rifle.

I understand they’re upset with Sheehan’s criticism of the war that their sons and daughters aren’t fighting (by and large), but if the smaller government Republicans are supposed to have a monopoly on supporting the troops, then

Why are they so hateful toward this military mother who lost her son and,
Why are they OK with people getting unconstitutionally arrested for things like Freedom of speech?

If Democrats were giving a military mother who lost her son a hard time, the Republicans would lose it. Totally fucking lose it.