Me4President has decided to become a conservative blogger. This is his first post since his conversion. I think he's going to be a huge hit.
Yeesh
Somebody call a wahhhhhhhhhmbulance! Big baby and apparent lunatic James Sensenbrenner unceremoniously and abruptly ended the hearings on the Patriot Act today because he didn't like what he was hearing and walked out.
Blink. Blink.
Go read Pam, because I'm seriously too tired to bother writing another post on how the GOP is drunk with power and inexplicably determined to flush our entire democracy down the turd tunnel.
Friday Night Name That Movie
Okay, we did this once before, and it was lots of fun, so here’s the latest installment of Name That Movie.
1. I am quite the town freak, which satisfies.
2. Opportunity will move out of the way to let a man pass it by.
3. Murray, lend me twenty dollars or I'll call your wife and tell her you're in Central Park wearing a dress.
4. For us to live any other way was nuts. To us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks, and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls.
5. Right now I have one key, you know? Everything I own is in the car, and I just... I like that; you know? I mean, I just… If I get an apartment, that's two keys; if I get a job, you know, I might have to open or close, that's more keys...
6. How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?
7. If the good Lord had intended us to walk he wouldn't have invented roller-skates.
8. Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.
9. You probably can't wait to run and cash this check and get yourself something to eat.
10. Hey, hey—shh, shh, shh. Come on. Be sensitive to the fact that other people are not comfortable talking about emotional disturbances.
Good Grief
Blogenlust titles this post Not So Classy. I’m inclined to side with the Green Knight’s perspective in the associated comments thread and retitle it Not So Stable.
Reason #1,435,892 Why the Left Shouldn’t Waffle on Gay Rights
Because the Dominionists won’t stop their attack on gays at simply banning their right to marry.
Emboldened by the political right's growing influence on public policy, opponents of school activities aimed at educating students about homosexuality or promoting acceptance of gay people are mounting challenges to such programs, at individual schools, at statehouses and in Congress.This is what I don’t understand: Just because one believes homosexuality is wrong, for whatever reason, what conceivable justification can be offered to remove any and all discussion of it from the public discourse? I’m sure many of the same people who are fighting this battle believe that divorce is wrong, too, and yet I haven’t seen a massive, coordinated movement against classes that mention divorce, nor educators who are divorced, nor literature penned by divorcees. If an after-school club formed as a support group for children of divorced parents, which, one can assume, would necessarily include discussions of divorce, would that be banned too? These people allegedly hate divorce for the same reasons they hate homosexuality—it’s “immoral,” “undermines the sanctity of marriage,” and “hurts families,” the latter two of which are demonstrably provable in the case of divorce, in that a marriage ends and families are split apart, though not provable in the case of legalized gay marriage (indeed, studies done on countries with legalized gay unions show they have had no effect whatsoever on heterosexual unions). The direction of their ire, as anyone who has a passing relationship with reality is already aware, is misplaced; pretending homosexuality does not exist, even criminalizing it, won’t make it go away. The best thing one can do to protect one’s children is to educate oneself about homosexuality, and then educate the kids about homosexuality, and let them know they’ll be loved no matter what. But I guess that’s just crazy talk from a deliberately childless liberal feminazi.
Chief among the targets are sex education programs that include discussions of homosexuality, and after-school clubs that bring gay and straight students together, two initiatives that gained assent in numerous schools over the last decade.
In many cases, the opponents have been successful. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, parents went to court to block a health education course that offered a discussion of homosexuality, while in Cleveland, Ga., gay and lesbian students were barred from forming a high school club of gay and straight youths.
Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of another conservative group, Liberty Counsel, said: "We're concerned about the effort to capture youth through indoctrination into the homosexual lifestyle. Students are a captive audience, and they are being targeted by groups with that as an agenda."Yo, Staver—I’ve been surrounded by queers my whole life; I’m as indoctrinated as it gets. And I’m still a cocksucker (the acceptable kind). So untwist your panties. It just doesn’t work that way.
(If it did, wouldn’t it be likely that an entire society designed around heterosexuality might actually have the market corned on “indoctrination”? Use some common sense, you idiot.)
"We needed to present a counter or Christian perspective," said [J. Michael Johnson, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group that specializes in issues involving religion]...I really feel for liberal Christians. How can you even tolerate reading that shit?
Last month in Montgomery County, Md., a parents' group, alarmed because revisions to a health education course for 8th and 10th grades included a discussion of homosexuality and a video that demonstrated how to use a condom, went into federal court and gained a restraining order to halt them. The county school board then voted 7 to 1 to eliminate the amended program, six months after unanimously approving it.Um, New York Times? That’s called Dominionism, and it’s patently un-American. Making these people sound as though they’re practically innocuous, just the flipside of “secular liberalism,” is an insult to secular liberals. We don’t want to fundamentally change the fabric of the country, particularly the rule of law on which it was founded. Seriously, you need to stop legitimizing this kind of shit, because it’s not just “a different viewpoint.” Applying biblical principles to public policy is an entirety different form of government than our current one; it called a theocracy, and within a theocracy, those who don’t believe in biblical principles will be subjected to them, anyway, which completely eradicates the notion of freedom of religion, for a start. This is an insidious movement that seeks to undermine our existing democracy. Quit treating it so blithely. It’s irresponsible, and it’s bad journalism.
Conservative groups applauded the board's vote as a victory for religious conviction, and described the litigation strategy as a model for school districts across the country.
"This was huge," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, which seeks to apply biblical principles to public policy.
"I just don't feel like homosexual clubs have anything to do with readin', writin' and 'rithmetic," [Georgia State Senator Nancy Shaefer] said.Clever. I’m tempted to make a comment about how, based on some of the dumbfucks I’ve met from Georgia, your schools don’t seem to have anything to do with readin', writin' and 'rithmetic, either, but then again, I’ve met some very nice and very wise people from Georgia, too. Most of them no longer live there.
"The intensity of the culture wars has heated up over the last few years," said [Johnson]. "People are becoming more aware that they have rights, and they're feeling more emboldened to defend them. Across the country, people are saying enough is enough."If you didn’t know that quote came from a conservative lunatic who’s talking about the “rights” of straight, white Christians to breed a new generation of homobigots, you might think he was talking about the GLBT community and their supporters, wouldn’t you? I suspect such irony would be lost on Mr. Johnson.
Friday Limerick
After two weeks of toil and worry
And thousands of emails—a flurry!
We wrote and we wrote,
A collective Deep Throat;
Now we’ve got our formal inquiry!
(I know the rhyming scheme kind of stinks. Give me a break. Yeah, I’m talking to you, Frogsdong!) :-P
I Call Bullshit
This sucks.
Especially when you read the original post based on which the action that reeks of much suckitude was taken.
The killer bit for me was the eradication of RJ’s work. Highly unclassy. As Gordon notes in the comments thread here:
I'd feel bad if Fixer told me to kick rocks and gave me no reason and dumped my posts, too…Totally.
I should add that Fixer would tell me why in no uncertain terms and probably send me a disc with my posts. That's the difference between a stand-up guy and a weasel.
Of course, I can’t even remotely begin to imagine what kind of out-of-line horseshit Paul or Mr. F would have to post for me to ban either one of them, no less delete all his work from the blog. And RJ’s post wasn’t even in the same neighborhood, the same fucking state, as warranting such an extreme response, even if Mr. BOP News Wanker did have dinner with John Edwards. The post didn’t strike me as rude or insulting or reactionary or even particularly emotional; this egregious decision seems purely based on RJ’s criticism of Edwards. Fucking hell—I don’t care if Howard Dean was my goddamned conjoined twin; if Paul or Mr. F wanted to criticize something Dean did with which they disagreed, that’s sort of the point of a democracy, isn’t it? Fuck.
This whole thing is completely antithetical to my understanding of what it means to be a liberal. Very disappointing.
And as an aside, I wouldn’t support a candidate who discouraged or flatly disallowed criticism (not that I think it was an edict from Edwards). If I wanted to vote for someone like that, I’d have voted for Bush.
In any case, you can still find RJ at his blog Night Light and at Skippy, where he’s a contributor.
400,000!
A Non-story the media can afford to ignore?
As Daffy Duck would say, "My feathered fanny!"
If you haven't signed the letter yet, get going.
IMMEDIATE UPDATE: Oh, my mistake... it's actually 450,978.
That sound you hear is Bush wetting his pants.
(Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Cross-Post Squarepants!)
M-m-m-my Sirota!
Have I mentioned I love David Sirota? Because I do:
One of the big arguments by the Beltway elite against Democrats embracing a new economic populism says a political party must always be FOR something, not just against things — and always avoid any tinge of populist anger. Joe Klein's column this week railing against populism epitomized this argument perfectly. As he wrote, "pessimism, anger and unsubtle divisiveness tend to be total nonstarters in American politics" (this line of reasoning, by the way, is not limited to Klein — it is conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C.'s elite media/political circles). Now, I'm not saying Democrats need to fully embrace a politics of "pessimism, anger and divisiveness" — but the idea that they should be so afraid of that kind of populist politics because it doesn't work just doesn't pass history's smell test.It’s so lovely. He’s so right on. Go read the rest and feel warm all over that at least David gets it.
[…]
[T]he idea that voters are inherently turned off by any form of populism because it might be construed as angry is a very, very poor argument from very, very out-of-touch people who either haven't talked to average working stiffs at the local diner, or haven't spent much time thinking about what's really happened over the last 20 to 30 years in this country.
And on a related note, if you yet haven’t read the Rude Pundit’s take on how Howard Dean will fuck your shit up, check it out.
Foxy
Check out this Dan Froomkin piece in the Washington Post about Bush’s interview with Fox shill Neil Cavuto. It’s nothing especially newsworthy, except for the fact that Cavuto is such an unbelievable dickhead that he makes the president look like a genius. I think my favorite part of the transcript is when Cavuto’s blathering on about Michael Jackson, and asks Bush if he thinks the focus on Michael Jackson has hurt him. (?!) Bush says, “I have no idea. I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out, you know, the viewing patterns of American TV audiences. I do know that what my job is, and there's a serious problem with Social Security…”
What a horse’s ass. And for once, I’m not talking about Bush.
Not a Newsflash
Dear Media,
Please repeat after me: Bush is an unpopular president. Go ahead, say it again, because you really need to get used to it. Bush is an unpopular president. The American people, always a little slow out of the starting gate, are finally starting to catch up to the rest of the world who has been distrustful and contemptuous of Bush for years. It’s kind of like meuslix—it took awhile to catch on here, but now some people are really passionate about it.
Anyway, Bush is what you call a “lame duck,” and deferentially yielding the most important part of your job (which, in case you’ve forgotten, is to disseminate objective information to the public) to a lame duck is, well, lame. It’s bad enough that you all clamored to be first on your knees to suck him off when he was vaguely popular, but now it’s just sad. What are you—crack whores? Get up and brush off your pants and reclaim a little dignity, for crying out loud. This guy is less popular with the American people than Clinton was the day he was impeached. You might as well blow Scott Baio.
Listen, I know you’re a little woozy and off-kilter from all the metaphorical suckin’ of the presidential penis, so let me help you get started on the right track again. Go Google “Downing Street Memo,” or scroll down my blog to see the eight gazillion posts I’ve written about it in the last 24 hours alone. Familiarize yourself, then put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or whatever your preferred method of composition, and get busy writing something that the American people need to know.
I know it’s scary, but trust me—there will still be time for Wacko Jacko and Runaway Brides, too. I promise.
Love,
Shakespeare’s Sister
Friday Blogrollin'
Just after midnight edition...
The Cranky Liberal Pages, which has been looooooooong overdue to be added to my blogroll. A terrible oversight.
Pesky Apostrophe, which is, indeed, always better than an unexpected period, and you need to check out if for no other reason than to dig its groovy look.
The Republic of T, written by a black gay father vegetarian Buddhist liberal. A little something for everyone!
Cupie Spew!, a blog at which you’ll find all kinds of goodness, fun, and sass.
Cutting to the Chase, where you’ll find a blend of politics, pop culture, and other good stuff, always with a decent dose of snark. Since I kept meaning to post on Mr. Bloody Chainsaw, but never got around to it, read Chase’s post instead.
Bob Harris, which is another blog that should have been here a long time ago. Luckily, Paul the Spud has been giving him his due props even though I fell down on the job.
Conyers Schedules Congressional Hearings on DSM
They say you can’t always get what you want…but sometimes you can!
Raw Story:
The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled hearings on the 2002 minutes between senior British and American officials which asserted that intelligence was "being fixed" to support the case for war in Iraq, RAW STORY has learned.
The hearings, which will be held next Thursday, will bring renewed attention to what is being called the "Downing Street memo," actually official minutes of a secret 2002 meeting.
Conyers office has revealed that they will introduce new documents that corroborate the Downing Street Memo at the hearings June 16.
[…]
Among those scheduled to testify are Joe Wilson, former ambassador and weapons of mass destruction expert; Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA analyst, used to do presidential daily briefings for Ronald Reagan; Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost her son in Iraq combat; and John Bonifaz, the Boston constitutional lawyer who has called for a resolution of inquiry into what he sees as impeachable offenses in the president's false pretenses for war.
The Democratic Judiciary staffer said the overwhelming online response to Conyers' push on the Downing Minutes has further proven that pressure on issues can be built outside the mainstream press.
Go get ’em!
(Hat tip Republic of T.)
-----------------
UPDATE:
John Conyers also links on his blog to his diary at dKos on the topic, in which he says (in part):
This hearing is just one step in an investigation that I am commencing that will literally span the Atlantic. I am in touch with British officials and former U.S. intelligence officials and I am determined to get to the truth.
At the hearing, I will disclose information found to date, which includes the public release of newly discovered documents. While none of these documents are as damning as the DSM, they nonetheless bolster the accuracy of it.
There is another point that has been missed of late. An article I read a week ago, I can't remember where, quoted a right wing blogger as proclaiming this a dead issue and further stating that this was a test of the progressive netroots. Implicit was his contention that we were failing that test. A week later, the President was forced to respond (inadequately) to a question about it. We have passed the test.
Thanks again for your help and support. This is just the beginning.
Thank you, Congressman.
Great Editorial on the DSM
Geov Parrish in the Seattle Weekly:
I have a three-word response to the media frenzy that followed revelation of the long-secret identity of Deep Throat: Downing Street Memo.Go read the rest. And while you’re at it, check out this story at Editor & Publisher, too.
Here's what John Dean, a key Watergate figure, wrote about Dubya's case for the Iraq war in a June 2003 column for www.findlaw.com: "To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be a 'high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause."
That's exactly what the Downing Street Memo, first reported a month ago by The Times of London, proves…
The problems we find in the mainstream press do not plague the alternative media. We need to promote the good work they’re doing on behalf of truth and accountability, even as their more well-known counterparts refuse to do the same.
Major DSM News!
Two big pieces of information:
1. Since joining the campaign to get signatures on Congressman Conyers’ letter to President Bush this morning, MoveOn.org has received over 240,000 signatures to that letter and is currently receiving several thousand new signatures each minute.
2. House Judiciary Democrats have invoked Rule 11 of the House Rules and requested an additional day of hearings on the Patriot Act and civil liberties implications of the Administration's terrorism related efforts.
BradBlog reports:
As fallout from the Downing Street Minutes continues to rock Capitol Hill, more unwanted attention to Administration policies on the war and human rights abuses looks to be on the way.Following is the text of the just-issued press release announcing the hearings to be held tomorrow on Capital Hill (also care of BradBlog):
MoveOn.org joined the call for signatures earlier this morning for John Conyers letter to George W. Bush asking for clarification about several matters in the official British minutes now known as the Downing Street Minutes. That recently released information documents an official UK meeting describing the Bush Administration policy to topple Saddam Hussein through military means and to "fix" intelligence around the policy as early as eight months prior to the war. The BRAD BLOG has learned that MoveOn.org has received well over 240,000 new signatures to that letter in just the few hours since joining the campaign, and is receiving several thousand new signatures each minute.
But Conyers and Company is not resting. The BRAD BLOG has learned that the ranking House Judiciary Member has just announced additional hearings will be held tomorrow morning concerning the allegations of Human Rights abuses at U.S. Terror Prisons, including Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. The hearings will feature testimony from a representative of Amnesty International, the first such congressional testimony since the group released their recent report on alleged Human Rights abuses at the U.S. run prison camps.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 9, 2005Pass it on!
HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO HOLD OFFICIAL OVERSIGHT HEARING ON PATRIOT ACT ABUSES
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a rarely used procedural move, House Judiciary Committee Democrats invoked Rule 11 of the House Rules and requested an additional day of hearings on the Patriot Act and civil liberties implications of the Administration's terrorism related efforts. This will be the first hearing in which Members of the Committee will have the opportunity to address in detail, the horrific human rights abuses of detainees that occurred in the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons, as well as the ongoing problems of racial profiling and hate crimes that have plagued Muslim and Arab Americans since the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. In addition, this will be the first time Amnesty International has testified before Congressional Committee since the publication of their 2005 Annual Report on human rights abuses throughout the world. The Committee will also hear testimony how the Administration has abused the immigration system to hold people without charge or bond, and have proceedings behind closed doors.
WHAT: House Judiciary Committee Democratic Oversight Hearing on Patriot Act Abuses
WHEN: Friday, June 10th @ 8:30am
WHERE: 2141 Rayburn House Office Building
WITNESSES:
Chip Pitts, Chair of the Board, Amnesty International USA
Dr. James J. Zogby, President, Arab American Institute
Deborah Pearlstein, Director, U.S. Law and Security Program, Human Rights First
Carlina Tapia-Ruano, American Immigration Lawyers Association
US Editors Persuaded “That this was a story they could afford to ignore”
So says the Washington Correspondent for the UK’s Times Online about the Downing Street Memo. This is, of course, yet another story about the media coverage of the Memo, but it’s slightly more informative in terms of why, exactly, it’s been considered a nonstory, instead of just repeating that it is a nonstory. And it’s interesting that at least one reporter who’s working the “media coverage of the Memo” angle seems to think the media’s finally just getting started.
President George W. Bush has finally responded to a question that much of America has been asking: did a secret memo prove that Washington was gearing for war in Iraq months earlier than the White House has admitted?Not if Congressman Conyers, AfterDowningStreet.org, the Big Brass Alliance, and everyone else who’s determined to pursue this thing until the very end, whatever that end may be, can help it.
The Downing Street memo on US preparations for war in Iraq was revealed in The Sunday Times five weeks ago. But it wasn't until Tony Blair's visit to the White House this week that the resulting controversy made waves in Washington, and revived a long-dormant American debate about President Bush’s march to war from the summer of 2002.
It has also provoked embarrassed questions in the US media as to why so many newspapers and broadcast outlets here ignored the story for so long.
[…]
Both Mr Blair and Mr Bush attempted to dismiss the memo’s central implication that Washington was gearing for war months earlier than has been admitted. But their denials opened the door to an American media scrutiny that had previously been notable for its absence.
Despite attempts by some of Mr Bush’s Democratic opponents to portray the memo as a potential Watergate-style scandal – one newspaper dubbed it "memogate" – most US media outlets ignored the original Sunday Times story on the grounds, now regarded by some as excessively cautious, that they could not verify the memo’s authenticity and were unable to obtain copies of their own.
There was also suspicion in Washington that the timing of the memo’s publication, a few days before the British elections, was a politically-motivated ploy intended to damage Mr Blair. President Bush suggested as much on Tuesday, when he declared at his White House press conference that "they dropped it out in the middle of the race".
All of which persuaded US editors that this was a story they could afford to ignore.
[…]
One senior US editor frankly admitted this week that his paper hadn’t touched the Sunday Times memo because it hadn’t been able to obtain a copy from its own sources. Jim Cox of USA Today said his newspaper had tried calling Downing Street, but not surprisingly had failed to obtain "explicit confirmation of [the memo’s] authenticity".
It was not until President Bush was asked about the memo on Tuesday that USA Today mentioned it to its readers for the first time.
[…]
Yet now the controversy is out in the open and there is no further doubting of the memo’s authenticity, or excuse for media foot-dragging. The original Sunday Times report was widely quoted in leading newspapers this week. A Democratic senator entered the memo into the record of a meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
A group of 89 Democratic congressmen has already written to the President questioning him about the claims in the memo, and several of their number have told The Sunday Times they do not intend to let the matter drop, despite the White House’s refusal so far to respond.
[…]
At Tuesday’s press conference, Mr Bush and Mr Blair managed to dodge serious examination of their preparations for war, but the issue does not look like going away soon.
DSM in the Media
Crooks and Liars (on fire, as always!) have up video of Tuesday's Hardball on which Norah, Chris, and Howard discussed the lack of a response from the President on the DSM, as well as Colin Powell guesting on The Daily Show, where he brought up the DSM.
Check it out.
Shorter Jesse Helms
I guess straight people do get AIDS every once in a while, but we were right about keeping the darkies in their place.
There. Now you don't have to read his book. You're welcome. (Bolds mine)
RALEIGH, N.C. - In his upcoming memoir, former Sen. Jesse Helms acknowledges he was wrong about the AIDS epidemic but believes integration was forced before its time by "outside agitators who had their own agendas."
News Flash: Jesse Helms is still a huge fucking bigot. Film at eleven.
In the book, Helms suggests he believed voluntary racial integration would come about without pressure from the federal government or from civil rights protests that he said sharpened racial antagonisms.
Yeah... it had nothing to do with those friendly lynchings. It was those damn people fighting for equality! And I'm sure all of your segregationist buddies across the land would have just suddenly had a change of heart and welcomed integration. "Voluntary racial integration..." is he kidding?
"We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance," according to the uncorrected proof. "We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust."
Yeah, because INTEGRATION caused that, not SEGREGATION.
Jesus, what balls.
Helms also was an outspoken opponent of laws to protect homosexuals from discrimination and of funding for AIDS research, but he writes in the book that his views evolved during his final years in the Senate. He cited friendships he developed with North Carolina evangelist Franklin Graham and rock singer Bono, both of whom got him involved in the fight against the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
"Until then," Helms writes, "it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high risk populations. I was wrong."
Tell it to them.
That photo, by the way, is from 1992. I'd imagine it's a wee bit bigger now, thanks to you and your buddies denying the existence of AIDS and all but eliminating research.
This so-called "apology" isn't good enough. Nothing could be.
Oh, and I'm sure all of the proceeds he'll make off this book will go straight to AIDS research and charities for people with AIDS.
Just watch me hold my breath.
(Sometimes I feel I've got to *cross-post* run away...)
BBA Update: John Conyers/Buzzflash Article
Go here to read the interview.
They're verrrrrry eager to start calling this a "smoking gun." After the little Bert & Ernie performance yesterday, may I voice a small note of caution? I'm worried about being accused of tinfoil hattery when there is so much at stake here.
(Someone left the cross-post out in the rain...)
BBA on CNN (again!)
Honestly, every time I go over to my parents' for dinner, I miss something good!
CNN mentioned the Big Brass Alliance (and Freiheit und Wissen's round-up!). I'm obviously going to have to talk to them about making sure they give The Heretik his due next time.
Congratulations, Freiheit und Wissen and every last member of the BBA!
Video can be seen here.
