A Liberal's Hit List: Aug 21, 2009

Tom Ridge Wants to Keep You Secure

Friday, August 21, 2009

By Rude One

The Rude Pundit

When the wooden horse was being delivered, all the Trojans were exultant, save one: "Cassandra cried, and curs'd th' unhappy hour;/ Foretold our fate; but, by the god's decree,/ All heard, and none believ'd the prophecy." Oh, how Cassandra must have suffered. Imagine: she could see it all, the deaths of everyone, even herself, but because she refused to fuck Apollo, she was damned with the gift of prophecy, of being right but never being heeded. Think about that hell for a moment. Think about seeing the destruction of your city before it happens and then having to live through the actuality of it. Think about telling everyone you love that it is going to happen and then being ignored. All because a simpering god didn't get his rocks off. Eventually, Cassandra got used to it, though. By the end of her life, she merely accepted her fate.

As one of the millions of Cassandras in this America during the Bush administration, the Rude Pundit's initial reaction to the revelation by Tom "Duct and Cover" Ridge that when he was the first Grand Poobah of Homeland Security, the Bush White House wanted him to raise the terrorist threat level as the 2004 election approached was an eye roll. More or less, it was, "Oh, really? Who would've thought that? That's right. Everybody." And as usual when some former Bush official comes clean, he felt the bile poison his throat as he thought, "Thanks, cocksucker, for waiting. Now go back to sucking cock, you scabby-kneed whore."

That's far from hyperbole, because unlike, say, Paul O'Neill and Scott McLellan, who confessed for big advances and their souls, Tom Ridge's book is not really a tell-all. Oh, no, it's merely part of a larger manifesto, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, a book that presumes to scare the fuck out of us so that corporations and governments and even your college campus can hire firms like, oh, hey, Ridge Global, whose President and CEO is...oh, you fucking know already....(Remainder.)

Tobias Wolff and Lou Dobbs, of all People, Rip NOM's Homophobic Cow Maggie Gallagher Over DOMA

Senator Sanders Unfiltered

The Religious Right Tries to Smear the Ameican Psychological Association

By Black Tsunami

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Not happy with the American Psychological Association (APA) coming out against reparative (ex-gay) therapy, some religious right members are now accusing the organization of bias and "approving of pedophilia."

Religious right online publication Lifesite News has come out with a piece, The Psychological Profession and Homosexuality: Lunatics Running the Asylum?, which I guess is supposed to "nail" the APA.

Well I'm sure it does to those not informed enough to look at some of the charges. Those who are informed enough can see several errors with Lifesite News' wannabe smear piece.

Let's see if I can break this down. The piece says the following:

The APA's latest report, done by a task force composed of psychologists with long records of homosexualist activism, also claims as "scientific facts" that "same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, and orientations per se are normal and positive variants of human sexuality-in other words, they are not indicators of mental or developmental disorders" and "no empirical studies or peer-reviewed research supports theories attributing same-sex sexual orientation to family dysfunction or trauma."

These unbelievable statements fly in the face of more than a century of scientific, peer-reviewed studies and clinical observation that indicate that much homosexual behavior originates in deficient family relationships and is associated with a wide range of diseases and pathological behaviors.

A century of scientific and peer-reviewed studies? Hardly....(Remainder.)

Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story"

MSM Tries to Slander Right & Left in Health Care Reform "Debate" When Lies Only Come From Right

By Media Matters

In commenting on the tenor of the debate surrounding health care reform, several media figures have suggested that its supporters and opponents are equally detracting from the "seriousness" of the issue or that its supporters are failing to take seriously the critics of health care reform. These media figures have either ignored the false and extreme rhetoric coming from opponents of health care reform or have backed their claims with questionable assertions, such as referring to labor unions as "fringe groups."...(Remainder.)

CIA Used Blackwater in Plan to Kill Al Qaeda Operatives

By Susie Madrak
Crooks and Liars

Well, well, well. Isn't this interesting:

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda, according to current and former government officials.

Executives from Blackwater, which has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, helped the spy agency with planning, training and surveillance. The C.I.A. spent several million dollars on the program, which did not capture or kill any terrorist suspects.

The fact that the C.I.A. used an outside company for the program was a major reason that Leon E. Panetta, the new C.I.A. director, became alarmed and called an emergency meeting to tell Congress that the agency had withheld details of the program for seven years, the officials said.

It is unclear whether the C.I.A. had planned to use the contractors to capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance. American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations....

Fucktard O'Reilly Thinks He's Set Jon Stewart "Straight" by Getting All of His "Facts" WRONG!

Fucktard O'Reilly & His Right-Wing Corporatist Health Care Fearmongering

Fucktard O'Reilly and "Bovine-Ass Faced" Cavuto Have an Interesting Definition of "Moral Obligation"

The Anti-Obama Teabaggers Can't Really Pretend They Don't Attract Far-Right Extremists Anymore

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

Bill O'Reilly did an interesting thing last night when he reran that footage of Barney Frank castigating that woman carrying an Obama-as-Hitler sign at his town-hall meeting on health care: He completely omitted the fact that the woman who Frank was castigating was in fact a member of the far-right Lyndon Larouche cult.

All O'Reilly could muster was to mention that the woman was "a political activist." But that's like calling a Great White Shark a fish.

No, right-wingers like O'Reilly have been eagerly airbrushing out the existence of right-wing extremists from their worldview for some time now, embodied by their reaction to that DHS bulletin. But it's getting harder and harder to do all the time now.

Because, as we've noted, the far-right extremists are bubbling up everywhere in supposedly mainstream conservative circles these days -- particularly at the tea parties and their associated health-care protests.

Most recently, it turns out that the guys who brought those guns to a health-care forum in Arizona in fact were longtime members of the old Arizona Vipers Militia. These were characters who, prior to their arrests in 1996, had stockpiled close to 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and conducted field training exercises, practiced bomb-making, and trained with illegal automatic weapons....(Remainder.)

Gun-Totin' Crazy and the Secret Service

By John Amato
Crooks and Liars

I caught this on Tuesday and it's not shocking. I mean, the Secret Service agent's reaction to the psychos is not shocking. It's sane. Remember sanity?

CNN's Rick Sanchez had on a former Secret Service agent named on his show to talk about the psycho gun-toting teabaggers showing up at presidential events. You would never see this behavior under a Republican president because: A) They like Republicans. B) The Republicans would never allow it. You needed to sign loyalty oaths just to go to Bush/Cheney events.

Joseph Petro explains that this is insane behavior and it's an intimidation tactic by these yahoos, plain and simple.

Digby:

Former USSS officer: If the police have to go out and deal with these foolish gun nuts with exposed weapons in public crowds, they are being taken awy from activity that is much more important and that is to keep our president safe and to kep the public safe.

Rick Sanchez: In all your years as a Secret Service agent have you ever seen anything like this? Ten to twelve people yesterday were walking around this venue where the president was, walking outside, and they were packing. Have you ever seen a situation like that?

USSS: No, I've never seen or heard of anything like that. And I think it's, you know, I think all of us should be concerned about this. What's the next step? Are they going to ride around in pick-up trucks with automatic weapons? It would be like Somalia....

Hey! Who Let the Smart Guy of Fox News?

By Eric Boehlert
Media Matters

God bless Bill O'Reilly (I know, right?), since he seems to be the only one of FNC's talk show hosts who will even consider (rarely) having an articulate opposing viewpoint on his program. The other night it was Columbia professor and FNC contributor, Marc Lamont Hill, who was invited to discuss the radical right's response to Obama's presidency. And man, was it a revelation to watch (i.e. smart, coherent pushback from the left), even if it only lasted for a couple minutes.

Imagine what somebody like Hill would do to Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity on live national television if given the chance to match wits? (Well, you know what I mean.)...(Remainder.)

(Ramadan Kareem) رمضان كريم

Idaho GOP Leader, Tea Party Organizer Arrested for Assault with a Deadly Weapon (a Gun)

By Logan Murphy
Crooks and Liars

The Republican Party has a huge problem on their hands. They are quickly being taken over by the most extreme, paranoid, fringe elements in our society and this case is just another glaring example of the path they are on:

BOISE, Idaho — An Idaho Republican Party leader who helped oust the state GOP chairman in 2008 faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after an altercation escalated while he photographed a home with a delinquent mortgage.

Challis McAffee, 33, the GOP chairman from the Boise suburb of Garden City and one of 231 voting members of the Idaho Republican Central Committee, was in Ada County jail after being accused of pointing a gun at the homeowner.

McAffee, a backer of libertarian-leaning former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul and an activist in this year's anti-big-government "Tea Party" protests, helped organize Paul backers who aligned at last June's Idaho State Republican Convention in Sandpoint with other foes of then-state GOP Chairman Kirk Sullivan. Sullivan was voted from office in favor of Norm Semanko.

According to police in the Boise suburb of Meridian, resident Robert Lutes called officers just before 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to report McAffee had pointed a .357 Magnum handgun at him during a verbal confrontation. McAffee acknowledged he pointed the gun at Lutes, according to the police account.

"I'm unarmed, I'm an old man," Lutes, 51, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "I'm trying to find out why he's taking pictures of my house. I said, 'Knock on my door, let me know what you want.' Then, I think he's reaching for his business card and he pulls out a concealed weapon and I think he's going to blow my head off." Read on...

A group calling itself Idahoans for Liberty is trying to raise bond money for McAffee, but their version doesn't line up with the police account....(Original.)

Now More Than Ever, Bipartisanship is for Suckers

Republicans want Obama to fail. He needs to stop seeking consensus, because it makes him look weak

By Joe Conason
Salon.com
Photos: AP

From the earliest moments of Barack Obama's presidency, the most perplexing question was how he would fulfill his promise to change Washington's partisan standoff – and whether that promise was ever more than a rhetorical and political campaign gambit. More than once, observers have suggested that he always knew he couldn't rely on Republicans to act in good faith, to negotiate reasonable compromises, or even to speak honestly in debate. According to that theory, Obama's commitment to bipartisan solutions was and is theater aimed at persuading independent or centrist voters to trust him.

But if seeking consensus is still his strategy, as he and his advisors insist, it may be time for a rethink. All the months of bipartisanship in talk and tactics from the White House have neither brought congressional Republicans closer to supporting Obama's objectives nor preserved Obama's early support among moderate voters. What they have done is encourage the most outrageous conduct by his opponents – including those who themselves claim the bipartisan mantle – and make the president look weak.

The simple truth is that there is nobody on the Republican side who wants to negotiate with Obama. They are no longer afraid of him, and they unanimously want to ruin his presidency, regardless of the consequences. They are in thrall to the stupid extremism that questions the president's citizenship and suspects that he is driving the country toward a socialist dictatorship – while simultaneously demanding angrily that the government be stopped from interfering with Medicare....(Remainder.)

The Real Death Panels: Insurance Companies that Deny Care

America's Health Insurance Industry

By John Sherffius
Boulder Daily Camera

Nancy Pelosi: No Public Option, No Bill

By Jed Lewison
Daily Kos

Rachel Maddow Mocks the GOP's Increasingly Bizarre Demands for Bipartisanship

World's Ocean Temps are Warmest on Record

At 62.6 degrees in July, that's a full degree above 20th Century average

By Associated Press
Via MSNBC

WASHINGTON - Steve Kramer spent an hour and a half swimming in the ocean Sunday — in Maine.

The water temperature was 72 degrees — more like Ocean City, Md., this time of year. And Ocean City's water temp hit 88 degrees this week, toasty even by Miami Beach standards.

Kramer, 26, who lives in the seaside town of Scarborough, said it was the first time he's ever swam so long in Maine's coastal waters. "Usually, you're in five minutes and you're out," he said.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

It's not just the ocean off the Northeast coast that is super-warm this summer. July was the hottest the world's oceans have been in almost 130 years of record-keeping.

The average water temperature worldwide was 62.6 degrees, according to the National Climatic Data Center, the branch of the U.S. government that keeps world weather records. June was only slightly cooler, while August could set another record, scientists say. The previous record was set in July 1998 during a powerful El Nino weather pattern.

At a full degree above the 20th century average of 61.5 degrees, "the global ocean surface temperature for July 2009 was the warmest on record," the center said.

Large portions of many continents had substantially warmer-than-average temperatures, the center stated....(Remainder.)

Creationist Beaned in Boston

By Phil Plait
Bad Astronomy at Discover

Recently, a young-Earth creationist named Nathaniel Jeanson gave an invited talk in Boston, and besides the usual crowd of believers, a group of skeptics attended as well. Rebecca Watson penned a wonderful description of the event (and on Skepchick as well), complete with audience — and speaker — reactions.

I don’t generally go to talks by creationists, as it would be a rare event indeed for them to say something original, or accurate. But Rebecca noted this:

Because his work at Harvard focused on biology, that was the bulk of his talk, but before reaching that discipline he first dismissed both astronomical and geological evidence for evolution and a multi-billion-year-old universe. Of the former, he declared that when we observe galaxies around ours, they are spread out equally to the “north, south, east and west” of Earth, and therefore we are literally at the center of the Universe (and therefore blessed by God?). This is silly. Mountains of research suggest that the Earth occupies a wholly unremarkable corner of a Universe that is vaster and more ancient than Jeanson’s comparatively puny philosophy can imagine.

I listened to a recording of the talk for this part, and Rebecca reports his argument faithfully. His argument is totally wrong. I know, shocker. His basic assumption is that the Universe has a physical edge, which is incorrect. There is a visible limit for the Universe, a farthest distance we can see. That distance is about 13 billion light years. We can’t see any farther away because there hasn’t been time since the birth of the Universe for a photon to get any farther. You can consider objects that have moved more than 13 billion light years away from us, but we simply cannot see them due to the expansion of the Universe.

You might therefore naively make a map showing all the objects in the Universe, and lo, we are at the center. But that would be true for any and every single point in the Universe. If you are on Alpha Centauri, or in the Andromeda Galaxy, or sitting near a young quasar 10 billion light years away, you would look out and still see yourself apparently centered in the Universe. The whole point here is that there is no special location in the Universe, no preferred point.

So, BZZZZZT. He’s wrong....(Remainder.)

Black Site in Lithuania? CIA Accused of Third Torture Prison in Europe

By Britta Sandberg
Spiegel
Photo: AP

As Americans continue to debate the torture era of the Bush administration, a new report has emerged about the alleged existence of a third secret prison used by the CIA in Europe. According to ABC News, the CIA operated a "black site" prison in Lithuania until the end of 2005.

Following reports on "black site" prisons in Poland, ABC News is now reporting that a third jail existed in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. According to the report, as many as eight prisoners were held there for at least one year.

The United States is believed to have used the third black site prison in Europe to hold high-value al-Qaida suspects after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to question them using "special interrogation techniques." These included the simulated drowning of prisoners through the practice known as waterboarding. With the development, the debate in America over government interrogation techniques and torture appears to be taking on a greater European dimension.

ABC News reports that the site wasn't closed until late 2005, after newspapers and TV stations first reported on secret prisons in Europe used by the US after the 9/11 attacks. The broadcaster cited former CIA sources either directly involved or briefed on the secret program to detain the suspected al-Qaida terrorists in Europe.

The US intelligence agency refused to comment on the report. "The CIA does not publicly discuss where facilities associated with its past detention program may or may not have been located," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano told ABC News. "We simply do not comment on those types of claims, which have appeared in the press from time to time over the years. The dangers of airing such allegations are plain. These kinds of assertions could, at least potentially, expose millions of people to direct threat. That is irresponsible."...(Remainder.)

Glenn Beck's Week-Long Vacation Not By Choice

By Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story

This comes in via TV Newser, which reports the words of an unnamed source. And a denial. (I.E. Skepticism is appropriate.)

Glenn Beck's vacation this week from his Fox News show was not planned. We hear Beck was told to take this week off to let some of the heat surrounding him die down. That heat began July 28 on "Fox & Friends" when Beck said he thought Pres. Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people," adding, "This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Of course, several paragraphs later, TV Newser notes: "Beck's personal publicist Matthew Hiltzik forwarded us an email dated July 14th sent by Christopher Balfe, President & COO of Mercury Radio Arts and General Manager of Beck's radio show, addressed to Mercury Radio employees reading: 'Glenn will be off of radio & TV the week of August 17th, returning to air August 24th.'"

Finally, the only cold quote from the anonymous source of the rumor is ... Only partial.

Contrary to that, our tipsters tell us it was Beck himself who was telling Fox staffers last week that he was "forced to take the week off."

Is Color of Change's advertiser campaign having an effect on the bigwigs at Fox? The official answer to that question is unclear. None of this is confirmed, except that Beck is indeed MIA, however briefly.

With over 20 advertisers having dropped out, including Walmart, a vacation may be just what Glenn needed. Put yourself in his shoes. You'd want to take a break too, even if it's just a few days.

But if it really is forced, the atmosphere inside Fox News amid what appears to be a remarkable amount of outrage must be one worthy of a good, journalistic prying, no? Certainly someone has inside angles at the network. Possibly sources who could be named and quoted? Right?...(Remainder.)

The Right Wing's Prince of Gonzo

By Alexander Cockburn
CounterPunch

The "Prince of Darkness" -- aka Robert Novak -- who died this week of a brain tumor was the Hunter Thompson of the right, albeit with predictable differences. Thompson, like Rimbaud, espoused a total disordering of all the senses -- with materials as varied as ayahuasca, LSD , cocaine and tequila whereas Novak stuck to booze. Thompson blew his brains out, whereas Novak fell prey to the Enemy Within - not Communism against which he inveighed for decades in the Cold War, but a brain tumor. Thompson was a gent from Louisville, home of T.S. Eliot, William Burroughs and Muhammad Ali; Novak was a middle-class Lithuanian Jew from Illinois who joined the Catholic Church in the 1990s out of what he described as spiritual hunger, as surprising an admission from this brawler as discovering Mother Teresa shooting craps in Las Vegas. Thompson burned out long before his ashes were fired out of a gun in Aspen. Novak went on slugging, decade after decade until the tumor took him down. Just like the Right overall, Novak went the distance, whereas the Counter-Culture hung up the Out of Business sign sometime in the Nineties, finished off by identity politics and general self-satisfaction. But what both Thompson and Novak understood was that journalism is drama, with themselves playing a leading role.

When I got to America in the early 1970s the supposed barricade between “factual” as opposed to “opinion” journalism was still in respectable shape in the overground press. . The “facts” marched down the news columns, resplendent in the uniform of “balanced reporting” and “objectivity”. The liberal columnists were uniformly dull, with the occasional exception of Russell Baker. The only rays of light and amusement were offered by Jack Anderson, a muckraker who had taken over the old liberal Drew Pearson column, and by the conservative political columns of Evans & Novak.

Wherever he may have originally hailed from, Rowley Evans came on as a registered member of the East coast elites, a lion of the Georgetown salons. Novak was the blue collar ethnic. Together they were a formidable team, primarily because they worked extremely hard and regularly broke big stories in the column they sent out six days a week. Their book on Lyndon Johnson remains to this day an impressive monument to diligent journalism. More of a Democrat in the early days, Novak was a friend of LBJ’s. One’s impression was that Novak shouldered most of the stab-and-gouge duties of domestic politics, whereas Evans handled foreign affairs. Virtually unique in American journalism both mainstream and alternative, Evans & Novak offered trenchant criticisms of Israel’s conduct and support for the Palestinians, a example of courage about which Novak’s obituarists this week have remained mostly silent....(Remainder.)

‘Birthers’ Still Showing Up at Town Halls

By David Weigel
The Washington Independent

I've cooled off on the "birther" movement after the forged "Kenyan birth certificate" debacle killed a lot of their enthusiasm. And one fringe benefit of the popular "Obama joker" poster is that it has been adopted by some of the people, like Alex Jones, who were getting into birtherism. They've gone down the "joker" route instead.

But the "birthers" are still out there.

From an August 17 event in Alabama hosted by Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.):

Oily Taint MSNBC Meltdown Remix

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-Fucking Crazyland) Says America 'Headed' to Becoming Like Iran

By Lee Fang
Think Progress

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show today to continue his near daily rants against President Obama. DeMint, who has repeatedly boasted that he will “break” Obama by defeating health care reform, has made a habit of comparing government under Obama to fascism. This time, DeMint told Hewitt that immigrants from Iran tell him that America is going “down the road” to the type of government they had fled from:

DEMINT: And we’ve seen a lot of countries over the years collapse when they’ve gone down the road that we’re going down. Probably the most heart-wrenching experiences I’ve had over the last several days is when naturalized American citizens who have immigrated here from Germany, Iran and other countries, they come up to me and they say why are we doing what so many have fled from? Why don’t Americans see what we’re doing? And I’ve realized that these people who’ve lived under socialist type economies, and totalitarianism, they know where we’re headed if we don’t turn things around.

Listen here:

(Remainder.)

Rachel Maddow: Rove's Sorry Victim Act

American Justice Is Not Blind, but it is Truly Sick

By Dave Lindorff
The Public Record

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Federal District Court Judge Fernando Gaitan of the Missouri Western District Court have at least two things in common: they are both appointees of President Ronald Reagan, and they both think it’s just fine for the US to execute innocent people. The same can be said for Judge C. Arlen Beam of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a recent dissent in a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling ordering a habeas hearing in federal court for South Carolina death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, a man slated to die after being convicted for the murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer, Scalia wrote, “This court has never held that the constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is `actually’ innocent.”

For his part, Judge Gaitan, in Missouri, had two shots at considering the case of Joseph Amrine, a death-row inmate slated to die for the killing of a fellow prisoner in a Missouri state prison. Amrine had been convicted of the knife slaying on the basis of the testimony of three alleged eyewitnesses—all of them fellow prisoners. [See my May 1, 2003 report published in Salon.]

When two of those witnesses later recanted (suggesting that it was the third witness who had actually been the killer), Judge Gaitan rejected the habeas appeal, arguing that the two recantations couldn’t be believed, because the third witness had not changed his testimony. Later, when the third witness also recanted, Amrine’s attorney brought the case back to Judge Gaitan, but this time, the Judge again rejected the appeal, claiming that none of the witnesses was credible “because they are all criminals.” (Which of course begs the question of why Amrine should have been convicted in the first place based upon the testimony of the same three witnesses.)....(Remainder.)

Obama's Trust Problem

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

According to news reports, the Obama administration — which seemed, over the weekend, to be backing away from the “public option” for health insurance — is shocked and surprised at the furious reaction from progressives.

Well, I’m shocked and surprised at their shock and surprise.

A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months. The fight over the public option involves real policy substance, but it’s also a proxy for broader questions about the president’s priorities and overall approach.

The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.

One purpose of the public option is to save money. Experience with Medicare suggests that a government-run plan would have lower costs than private insurers; in addition, it would introduce more competition and keep premiums down....(Remainder.)

The Treason of Eric Cantor

By Chris Dorsey
After Downing Street

I could not help laughing at the irony when I received an invitation to a job fair put on by Eric Cantor whose policies have destroyed American jobs to benefit multi-national corporations. I was not surprised. Cantor showed no shame when he exchanged money with known child predator Congressman Foley while simultaneously portraying himself as a family values Republican. And he exemplified this verbal diarrhea when he compared Congressman Jim Moran to Hitler merely because Moran correctly pointed out that the AIPAC lobby had too much control over US foreign policy. All the while, Cantor – whose voting record in support of illegal wars of aggression, torture and illegal wiretapping violates the Nuremburg Principals set forward to punish Nazi war criminals -- seems to want the US government to repeat the crimes Nuremburg tried to prevent.

Eric Cantor does the bidding of multi-national corporations and foreign governments like Israel and carries out the agenda of billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Adelson donates gobs of personal money as well as funds from the Interface Group which is the largest campaign contributor to Cantor. Adelson spends millions lobbying for the continuation of the illegal occupation of Iraq and pushing for military aggression against Iran.

Unfortunately, Cantor has a long list of treasonous co-conspirators in government as well as the private sector. Many of the institutions participating in the job fair are guilty of treason against the American people. The list of employers hiring reads like a “who’s who” of known terrorist groups such as the CIA, FBI, DIA and the DEA. These groups carry out crimes against the US Constitution and the people of the world. The leadership of these pawns of the corporate structure are guilty of treason.

The Military Industrial Complex is represented as well. Producers of weapons of mass destruction, Boeing and Northrop Grumman always need workers because 51 cents out of every US tax dollar goes to military spending. (Not to mention the money NG is stealing from the tax payers of Virginia). This is also why every branch of service will be out trying to find Americans to help carry out the terrorist agenda of the multi-national Banking, Arms and Energy industries that control the US military....(Remainder.)

Stephen Colbert to Chris Matthews: Birthers & Town Hall Crazies Have Constitutional Right to be Irrational

Jon Stewart Confronts Right-Wing Whore Betsy McCaughey Over Her Bullshit & Lies

John Ensign and Hypocrisy

Still Waiting: The White House Still Opposes the Defence of Marriage Act

By The Economist

BARACK OBAMA tends to become incoherent when discussing gay rights. During the campaign he said he supported equal rights for gays but also that marriage should be “between a man and a woman”. He opposed both same-sex marriages and a law that bars them, California’s Proposition 8. He favoured repealing both “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, which keeps gays from serving openly in the armed forces, and the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA), which created a federal definition of marriage. As president, however, he has done little. At a White House reception for gays in June, the most notable event was that a mobile phone started quacking. Gays might be excused for thinking their president was doing the same.

It is not surprising that gay rights are a relatively low priority. In 1993 uproar over gays in the armed forces buried Bill Clinton’s early agenda. Mr Obama’s problems already include a recession, two wars, unwieldy bills and citizens warning his congressional allies of judgment day.

But a lawsuit over DOMA has put Mr Obama in a bind. The law, passed in 1996, lets the federal government ignore same-sex marriages (denying partners benefits, for instance) and allows states to ignore those licensed elsewhere. Now a married gay couple is challenging the law in court. The Justice Department usually defends acts of Congress, regardless of the president’s position. So a brief it filed in June was bound to enrage. The department claimed that DOMA does not discriminate, despite granting federal benefits only to straight couples, and that if states can ignore a marriage between an uncle and niece, they can ignore gay marriages too. Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, wrote: “I hold this administration to a higher standard than this brief.”

A moment of clarity came on August 17th. Though the Justice Department continues to defend DOMA in court, it stated that the administration believes the law “is discriminatory, and supports its repeal.” The brief also rejected claims that the government has an interest in preventing gay marriage, writing that children raised by gay couples are as likely to be well adjusted as those raised by heterosexuals....(Remainder.)

$2 Mil Needed to "Maine"tain Discrimination

By James Hipps
Gay Agenda

According to a post on everydaychristian.com, Bob Emrich, who is a pastor and lead figure in the effort to block marriage equality in Maine has estimated it will cost more than $2 million to maintain discrimination against gay and lesbian couples in the state.

Pastor Bob, who also works for the anti-gay organization, Stand For Marriage Maine, also stated fundraising efforts are aimed at “building a campaign war chest” to fight against those working to end marriage discrimination in the state.

According to the post Pastor Bob said:

“It will cost $2 million and possibly more than that depending on what the other side does and how we may need to respond to it. It is a tough time to raise money economically. We are very grateful for the large donations we’ve gotten from some groups. In a campaign everybody makes a big deal about how much groups contribute. It takes a long time to add up, but those small contributions from individual donors that are accompanied with personal concerns are very important. Concerned people from Maine who are giving $25 or $50 and praying for us are money well-spent that might not show up in a fundraising report but it is what will win this campaign.”

So, there you have it. Pastor Bob has waged a Christian war against equality and is planning to spend $2 million on upholding discrimination…rather than doing something good with the money, like…feed and/or house a portion of the one million homeless children in the U.S....(Remainder.)

Fundamentalist Douchebag Pastor Says Minneapolis Tornado Caused by Sin and the Gays!

By J. Shane Mercer
INFORUM

MINNEAPOLIS - A blog post by John Piper, a Minneapolis pastor, called Wednesday's tornado in Minneapolis "a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality."

The post references the human sexuality social statement that the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Church in America considered Wednesday, and states that "The issue is whether practicing homosexuality is a behavior that should disqualify a person from the pastoral ministry." The sexuality statement does address same-gender relationships, but Piper may have confused the social statement, which was voted on yesterday, with the ministry recommendations, which addresses the issue of non-celibate gays and the ministry and will likely be up for vote tomorrow. Some have, however, seen the social statement as being soft on the issue of homosexuality.

Piper is the pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church. The blog appeared on the desiringGod Web site, which features resources from Piper's ministry. VirtueOnline, an orthodox Anglican Web site, also posted the blog....(Remainder.)

MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia"

Now Christian media have started digging into the story.

By Bruce Wilson
AlterNet

In a new August 17, 2009 Maddow show segment [link to MSNBC page with viewable show segment], Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss, among many new revelations, the disturbing fact that the "Christian Embassy" scandal, propelled by a complaint to the Department of Defense from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, was investigated by a Pentagon Inspector General who is in fact a Family member.

The Family, also known as "The Fellowship", is a secretive fundamentalist Washington DC ministry which runs the National Prayer Breakfast and Bible study groups attended by numerous US Senators and Congress members, wields global influence, and celebrates the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.

Over the course of the summer of 2009, Washington's Family-run "C Street House" has become notorious as a string of sex scandals have engulfed national GOP political figures who live at or have lived at, or attended Bible study classes at, the secretive former convent turned church-cum cheap-rent high end boarding house: Senator John Ensign, former Congressman Charles "Chip" Pickering, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford....(Remainder.)

Violence at Immigrants' March in Connecticut Suburb as White Nationalists Turn Out to Harass

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

The New Haven Independent has a complete report on the ugliness that emerged from last weekend's march by an immigrant-rights group marching in the suburb of East Haven, Conn.:

The clash happened during an event organized Saturday by New Haven immigrant advocacy organization Unidad Latina En Accion. More than 100 people marched through the streets of East Haven on Saturday, protesting alleged racial profiling on the part of East Haven police. They met groups of counter-protesters along the way, including a visiting band of white supremacists.

... Two arrests were made following a brief fistfight between a female marcher, Jessica Maldonado of East Haven, and Chelsea Fiorentino, an 18 year-old New Haven woman who was standing with a counter protest made up of members of two white pride organizations. Maldonado’s father, Dimas Maldonado, said that his family has suffered from police harassment. (Click on the play arrow to watch the fight and arrests.)

The argument allegedly started after Chelsea Fiorentino yelled an insult at Maldonado, who then crossed the street and confronted her. East Haven police quickly separated the women, placed them under arrest, and kept the march moving. The women were charged with breach of peace and assault; Maldonado was also charged with interfering with an officer.

It appears, from watching the video compiled by the Independent, that there were other near-brawls along the way. That's not terribly surprising: White supremacists and other haters turn out to these things in the hopes of starting fights, and they often succeed....(Remainder.)

Protesting Anti-LGBT Bigotry in R.I.

By Josh Kilby
SocialistWorker.org

WARWICK, R.I.--It was a beautiful summer day on August 16, despite the dark cloud cast by the National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) first annual "Marriage and Family Day," a fundraiser to "celebrate marriage between one man and one women and the families that come from them."

The event, held at the Catholic Diocese-owned Aldrich Mansion, featured performances by Christian rock bands, a heterosexual-only marriage vows renewal ceremony and a speech by NOM president Maggie Gallagher.

Outside the Aldrich mansion, 50 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists from two newly formed groups, the Providence Equality Action Committee (PEAC) and Queer Action of Rhode Island, lined the streets in protest under a banner that read, "We Solemnly Vow to Fight Against Inequality."

In a symbolic ceremony, PEAC members renewed their vows to fight the inequality and oppression that LGBT people face under the law.

PEAC is comprised of community groups, including Marriage Equality Rhode Island, and individuals who are united against oppression of LGBT people. Although PEAC takes on a broad range of LGBT issues, it recognizes marriage equality as the cutting edge of the struggle and is the leading organization in the state mobilizing for the National Equality March in Washington, D.C....(Remainder.)

President Obama: NASCAR and The Face of America that You Show to the World

Anderson Cooper and the Dems Plan to Kick the Repiglickins to the Curb

By John Amato
Crooks and Liars

Well the news is percolating something very positive about the White House, health care and the obstructionist-teabagging republicans.

Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Republican lawmakers, “Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out.”The Democratic shift may not make producing a final bill much easier.

--

Democratic senators might feel more empowered, for example, to define the authority of the nonprofit insurance cooperatives that are emerging as an alternative to a public insurance plan.Republicans have used the Congressional break to dig in hard against the overhaul outline drawn by Democrats.

The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, is the latest to weigh in strongly, saying Tuesday that the public response lawmakers were seeing over the summer break should persuade Democrats to scrap their approach and start over.“I think it is safe to say there are a huge number of big issues that people have,” Mr. Kyl told reporters in a conference call from Arizona. “There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill.”The White House has also interpreted critical comments by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican negotiator in a crucial Finance Committee effort to reach a bipartisan compromise, as a sign that there is little hope of reaching a deal politically acceptable to both parties.”

Rep. "Batcrap Crazy" Bachmann Tells Hannity that Health Care Protesters Doing What He Told Them

Lying Sack of Crap Guest Host, Gray, Attacks Katrina Victims "They Stayed Behind"

Paul Begala Slams the Idea of Bipartisanship

Cable News Falsely Reports on AARP Membership Losses

By Media Matters

Media figures on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News continue to attach significance to reports that 60,000 senior citizens have canceled their AARP membership since July 1 because of the organization's support for health care reform, often displaying large graphics of the number while discussing it. However, the Associated Press has reported that, according to the AARP, the organization regularly loses 300,000 members a month and has also gained 400,000 new members since July 1....(Remainder.)

Tom Delay is a Masterbirther

By John Amato
Crooks and Liars

Tweety's love for Tom Delay is mythic as we all know so it's funny that he has to try and argue with him against the looney-birther movement. The fact that he loves them explains a lot. By the way, watching the Bugman talk about how he dealt with town halls is hysterical. He obviously treated town hallers better than members of his own party, but even Delay would probably have brought some pesticide with him at one today because many of the birthers are Ron Paul fans and they hate Republicans almost as much as they hate Obama.

Matthews: You're a man of the right and proudly so, I wonder whether you're even comfortable with the way it's headed. We've got people that we have people that question whether the president is legitimate or not. Whether he was born in the US or not and they mean it viscerally. It isn't something they just want to check his papers. They don't think he is. Where are you on that one?

We have people on the far right but they say they are birthers. How far do you go these days, Mr. Leader? Are you over with the birthers are you over with them?

Delay was trying not to answer the question and Chris kept coming back to it.

Delay: Well, I’d like the President to produce his birth certificate.

Fox Resident Douche, Doocy, Thinks Barney Frank is "Rude" but Nazi Protestor is Just Fine

Fox News Hosts Wingnut Birther Mark Williams to Promote Teabagging Express

By Media Matters

On its August 19 broadcast, Fox News' Fox & Friends told viewers "how you can join" the Tea Party Express, a bus tour organized by the Republican PAC Our Country Deserves Better, whose mission is to oppose President Obama and the Democrats. In promoting the tour, Fox News hosted Tea Party Express organizer and OCDB vice chairman Mark Williams, who has said Obama lacks a valid birth certificate and who has compared "Obama's death panels" to Nazi experiments....(Remainder.)

Juan Williams Amazingly & Accurately Calls George Allen a Hypocrite on Reconciliation

Uber-Nazi Flesh Limpball Repeats Lie About Nancy Pelosi Called "Us" Nazi

Tweety Slams Wingnuts Who Bring Guns to Obama Events

Gun-Toter’s Interview Was Staged – And Interviewer Has Ties to Arizona Viper Group

By Larry Keller
SPLC

As President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have learned this month, an anti-government, pro-militia mentality is alive and well in the United States. On Monday, a guy named Ernest Hancock staged a videotaped interview with a man carrying a semiautomatic rifle slung over his shoulder outside the venue where the president spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix.

Hancock freely admitted that the interview he conducted – it was posted YouTube – of a rifle-toting man named "Chris" was a publicity stunt to demonstrate that people can lawfully carry guns. Hancock himself packed a 9-millimeter Beretta on his hip. But Hancock is not just another ardent Second Amendment supporter. An online radio show host and publisher of a website called freedomsphoenix.com, he has been a vocal supporter of Arizona's Viper Militia – a paramilitary group that stockpiled weapons and bomb-making equipment in the 1990s.

A grand jury indicted 10 men and two women in 1996 on weapons and conspiracy charges after an undercover state officer infiltrated the Viper Militia. Among those arrested was Dean Pleasant, who had run for the Arizona Senate on the Libertarian Party ticket. Police confiscated more than 400 pounds of ammonium nitrate and other bomb-making components in one of three homes they raided in Phoenix. They seized dozens of shotguns, rifle and other weapons, as well as home videos, including one that purportedly showed members casing Phoenix buildings as potential targets. Eleven of the 12 defendants, including Pleasant, entered guilty pleas or were convicted at trial and received prison sentences of up to nine years....(Remainder.)

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