It’s a two-parter.
1. Where is Bush going in his snappy trousers?
So, poor Condi has spent her whirlwind European tour being harassed by questions about our secret CIA prisons, alleged CIA prison flights to Europe, and our accidentally detaining a German citizen and flying him to Afghanistan for questioning. Poor dear—I bet she hasn’t even had time to go shoe shopping!
Condi has assured Europe that “Our people, wherever they are, are operating under US law and US international obligations,” but they’re not so sure. Huh. I can’t imagine why they might not believe her. The Bush administration has always been both honest with and respectful of them in the past.
Think Progress with the smackdown:
Lieberman yesterday: “It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.” Murtha today: “Undermining his credibility? What has he said that would give him credibility?”I totally know who my money would be on in a fight.
Ezra would like someone to explain to him why folks think Townhall.com is important enough to read and wonders if there’s any value (other than humor) in debunking their (and similar sites’) ludicrous arguments.
As you’ve probably noticed, I almost never link to conservative sites, but it’s mainly because I don’t read them. I can't even stand to read a single shitty sentence at drivel depositories like Townhall. Politics notwithstanding, the writing is abysmal.
Michael Schiavo has started a PAC.
But now, as the one-year anniversary of Terri Schiavo's death approaches, Michael Schiavo is changing his approach and preparing to enter the political fray. Terri's fate has already been decided. Now her husband wants to claim her legacy. "For 15 years, I have been watching the politicians working their ways into my case. I felt I needed to do something when this was all said and done," Schiavo told Salon on Tuesday. "I didn't ask for this fight, but now I am ready."
This week Schiavo will roll out a new political action committee, called Terri PAC, with the hope of raising money to defeat the politicians who tried to intervene in the legal battle between Schiavo and Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. "Whatever I can do, I am going to do," says Schiavo, who works as a nurse in the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Fla. Starting in January, he plans to change his work hours to three 12-hour shifts a week, allowing him more time to work on politics.
Seriously, you need to go watch this clip right now. Olbermann barely keeps a straight face.
I've always said... the best way to deal with these ridiculous fundies and conservatives? Laugh at them.
After Paul’s post yesterday about David Neiwert’s critique of Michelle Malkin’s new book Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, I read through the entire six-part series. (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six.) It’s really quite amazing. I was especially interested in it having just posted about the KU professor who was physically attacked after having made disparaging comments about conservative fundamentalists. In that piece, I requested a modicum of perspective on who is really being attacked, citing liberal hunting licenses, Ann Coulter’s suggestiong that a baseball bat is the most effective way to talk to liberals, and Bill O’Reilly’s offering up San Francisco to terrorists, among others. Neiwert has plenty more examples (which I’ll get to in a moment), but also says something rather useful about projection, and conservatives’ predilection for it.
We've known for some time, really, about the right's propensity for projection. I mean, who can forget the claims in early December 2000 that it was Al Gore who was trying to steal the election? Malkin's thesis that the left has been taken over by a cast of eye-rattling loons is of a piece with this: You can always get a good idea where the right is headed (if it's not already there) by what it's currently accusing the left of doing.An ingrained reaction to project one’s own nefarious motives, methods, and assumptions onto their opponents is inevitably wrapped up in shame and repression. To wit, many of the most anti-gay crusaders among the GOP’s ranks are closet queers. Last night, Mr. Shakes and I watched a great documentary on transsexual and intersexed people, and one of the most interesting segments dealt with a study in which self-identified heterosexual men were monitored via a sensor on their penises for their physical reactions to gay porn. The men were divided into two groups—those who held homophobic (or homobigoted) beliefs, and those who were comfortable with homosexuality. Those who were comfortable with homosexuality did not get aroused watching gay porn. Those who had indicated, through questioning, a fear or hatred of gays before being tested did become aroused, and in spite of knowing they had been monitored, all claimed they had not.
"[T]he truth is that it's conservatives themselves who blow the whistle on their bad boys and go after the real extremism on their side of the aisle."[p. 9]In fact, not only do conservatives not go after extremism on their side of the aisle, they have an entire network of operatives whose primary function is to serve as extremist apologists, normalizing the radical, and, worse yet, as conduits between extreme conservative elements and mainstream conservatives.
And while conservatives zealously police their own ranks to exclude extremists and conspiracy theories, extremism and conspiracy theories have become the driving force of the Democrat Party. [p. 169]
By absorbing so many extremist elements, the conservative movement has itself become more extremist. Many of these elements -- particularly the racists and neo-Confederates -- would eventually wither and fade from society if they weren't being sustained. And what's sustaining them is the access to power and influence they enjoy within the conservative movement. Moreover, that access is growing. And that's bad news for everyone (except, of course, those extremists).Most concerning is that this propaganda war has escalated to the point where there are a shocking number of examples of eliminationist rhetoric. In addition to those I mentioned above, Neiwert has a compiled a disturbing collection. A selection from Ann Coulter:
The work of "transmitters" like Malkin, Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh in bridging the former gaps between extremist elements and the mainstream right is essential in creating the opportunities for that access. Their role is to provide media cover -- a constant barrage of talking points, wielding words as weapons in a propaganda war -- for the advance of this extremism.
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."A classic from Rush Limbaugh:
"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too."
“In [Clinton’s] recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about whether he ‘did it,’ even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate.”
"I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus -- living fossils -- so we will never forget what these people stood for."Another fun one from Bill O’Reilly:
Everybody got it? Dissent, fine; undermining, you're a traitor. Got it? So, all those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care, couldn't care less.From the blogosphere:
At LGF, for instance, you can regularly find comments that call both Muslims and liberals "vermin" and "subhumans" and say that "targeted genocide ... will become necessary." At the Rottweiler, you can read threats of violence against other bloggers, as well as assassination threats against John Kerry. Misha, the site's proprietor, has posted himself in support of the notion that antiwar dissenters were asking to be lynched.And this morning I read that Michael Reagan, radio show host and son of the former president, has suggested that Howard Dean should be hung for treason:
Michael Reagan, son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is blasting Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for declaring that the U.S. won't be able to win the war in Iraq, saying Dean ought to be "hung for treason."This kind of rhetoric is incredibly alarming, and its intensity is escalating as conservatives see themselves losing their stranglehold on unilateral control. Consider for a moment that I have only scraped the surface of the eliminationist rhetoric spewed for public consumption—and that this is what’s being said while they’re in power. Any thought that things will “get better” if Democrats regain control of the House, the Senate, or the Presidency is foolish at best. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. I dread what lurks below the surface.
"Howard Dean should be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war!" Reagan told his Radio America audience on Monday.
Because you are all good Shakers, and because your Uncle Spud loves you, he has put together an ongoing Holiday Present just for you. Think of it as a bizarre musical advent calendar. I'm not sure how this "linking to posted files" thing works (is it multiple-link friendly?), so I won't crosspost them. You'll just have to head over to Spudville, you little dickenses.
Currently suffering from the misapprehension that elaborate beard-growing can garner a guy an Oscar—a theory disproved in 2000 by Tom Hanks—Mel Gibson, foremost purveyor of religious gore-porn and son of Holocaust denier Hutton Gibson, has been tapped to develop a mini-series for ABC about the Holocaust.
Mr. Gibson's television production company will base the four-hour miniseries for ABC on the self-published memoir of Flory A. Van Beek, a Dutch Jew whose gentile neighbors hid her from the Nazis but who lost several relatives in concentration camps.Call me old-fashioned, but generating buzzzzzz for a program about one of history’s most appalling tragedies by giving cash to someone whose best attempt at repudiating deniers of its existence is “Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps,” seems, oh, I don’t know, kinda nauseating.
The project is in its early stages, so there is no guarantee that it will be completed. Mr. Gibson is not expected to act in the mini-series, nor is it certain that his name, rather than his company's, will be publicly attached to the final product, according to several people involved in developing it.
But Quinn Taylor, ABC's senior vice president for movies for television, acknowledged that the attention-getting value of having Mr. Gibson attached to a Holocaust project was a factor.
"Controversy's publicity, and vice versa," Mr. Taylor said.
Last Wednesday, I posted about H.R. 550, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2005, a House Resolution introduced by Congressman Rush Holt which would require all voting machines to produce paper trails, and would prohibit the use of secret software and all wireless and concealed communications devices in voting systems, the connection of any voting machine component to the Internet, the use of software or software modifications that have not been certified or re-certified, and political and financial conflicts of interest among manufactures, test laboratories, and political parties.
There's more, about which you can find out here.
Currently, H.R. 550 has 159 co-sponsors in the House, 9 of whom are Republican, and has been strongly endorsed by the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform, but it has been sitting in the House Administration Committee since it was introduced in February. We need to give H.R. 550 more attention.
This post is part of a continuing blogswarm launched by DBK of Blanton and Ashton’s, where you can find more information.
I encourage you, if you have you own blog, please participate in this important blogswarm, even if it’s just linking back to this post. And please sign the petition in support of H.R. 550 here.
Shaker Litbrit sent me the link to this website, Baby Bush Toys, that offers “an exciting range of products for the resoundingly average child.” Absolutely hilarious. Litbrit’s favorite is the Terror Alert Xylophone:
A German church group has generated a kafuffle with the release of a calendar that features naked people depicting notable Biblical scenes:
The calendar, on sale for £8 in the Katzwanger church in Nuremburg, contains photos such as a naked Eve holding an apple between her breasts for Adam.
Another month shows a topless Delilah cutting the hair of a sleeping Sampson.
Other pictures portray the baptism of Jesus, Lot's daughters, the dance of Salome and the sacrifice of Isaac - many involving nudity.
Stefan Wiest, 32, spokesman for the Katzwang Evangelical Youth group, said: "We wanted to bring old religious paintings to today's people by translating them in a contemporary context.
"We did not intend to cause any provocation and have received more positive responses that [sic] negative."
Winfried Roehmel, a spokesman for the region's Catholic archdiocese, said: "It is not acceptable to pose naked in a church. The right way to approach the Holy Scriptures is not by pulling your pants down."Heh. But unsurprisingly, the majority of the criticism has come from the US. Shocking, eh? The puritans just don’t have enough to bitch about at home; they’ve got to scold the Germans, too.
Is that a chicken joke?
If you're not a reader of the excellent blog Orcinus, you've been missing out on some incredible writing. You've also missed an incredible series of posts in which David expertly dismantles the new Michelle Malkin pack of lies book, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild. In it, he exposes how Malkin's book is simply dishonest. (I know, you're shocked.) If you have the time, I highly suggest you head over and read it. Here's part one.
Last Friday, David commented:
Has anyone else noticed that it's been a full 10 days since I wrapped up my critique of Michelle Malkin's Unhinged -- and still nary a peep from her?(More at link)
Indeed, the entirety of Malkin's response to my critique of her work over the years has been to pretend that I simply don't exist.
Isn't this someone who likes to brag before her audiences that she unflinchingly takes on her critics?
Michelle knows full well who I am and I know she reads this blog -- not regularly, but she is aware of what I've been posting. She also purchased a copy of "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism," no doubt to scour it for signs of "unhingedness."
She's counting on most of the reading public having the same reaction as you: "She's a stratospheric blogger, and he's a relative nobody: Why should she bother?" Well, the point of this post was that Malkin managed to devote a whole lot of heated words to a handful of even more obscure nobodies, but can't seem to find the time to respond to someone with at least a little more standing in the blogosphere who offers a more substantive critique.
-snip-
But I think I enjoy at least some standing as influential: Orcinus, you'll observe, is on the blogroll at most of the biggest left-wing names, including DKos, Eschaton, and Alterman. I've won a coupla Koufaxes. And so on. It shows up in "influence indexes" like the one at Blogstreet.
So for Malkin to simply ignore a sustained and serious critique from this blog kind of cuts against this whole "self-correcting nature of the blogosphere" business, don't you think?
I'm not waiting for someone else to point it out in a vulgar fashion, because I really don't believe in that tactic. It's expiative and sure does feel good, but I just think it obscures your argument. I'm kind of a Spinozist on this: I think passions are the stuff of life, but reason is what I believe in.
What would be nice, of course, were if other bloggers were to start pointing out her avoidance of my critique too. (Nudge nudge hint hint.) I'm just not hamhanded enough to go asking.
Was Brent Wilkes, founder of defense contractor ADCS Inc. and apparent director of The Wilkes Foundation (whose website is curiously bereft of content, but which allegedly exists to aid sick children and military families, even though Wilkes’ lobbying activities and association with disgraced Congressman Duke Cunningham may suggest otherwise), running a mobile brothel for the GOP? It certainly looks that way (emphasis mine):
Deep in the San Diego Union-Tribune's coverage of lobbyist Brent Wilkes, who is "Co-Conspirator No. 1" in the criminal case that brought down Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Hotline uncovers this nugget: Wilkes is said to have run a "hospitality suite with several bedrooms" in Washington, first at the Watergate and then at a hotel on Capitol Hill.The Watergate? Priceless. It would just be too beautiful if a sex scandal that rocked the worse-than-Watergate administration took place in the hotel that was the former Worst President Ever’s undoing.
Shaker Merciless suggests we should all take up this challenge:
The Heretik takes on Brand W:
W W W We will not waver (see waiver for important details). The wicked will not win.(Results may vary. Your victory results may not be the same as ours.) It’s World War Three, the Global War on Everything Terror TM, brought to you by the people who brought you W, the boy on the bubble who stood on the rubble, the man to stand behind as they stand up and we stand down. We should all fall down with shock and awe at the brilliance of such Patriot Acts. W, W, W. Watch what you say, watch what you do. The Heretik is falling down laughing. Or something.Go read the rest. Good stuff.
ONCE YOU REALIZE W George Bush is a brand, the marketing of the less than smart seems more the stuff of genius. Iraq? The mess of what was Mesopotamia for the White House is like the problem General Motors has with those two McKrap TM brands Buick and Pontiac.
Speaking of being hot under the collar, ’Bean at Julien’s List and Pam are discussing Hillary Clinton’s latest rightward maneuver: Co-sponsoring a bit of flag-burning legislation with Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah. ’Bean says:
This morning, over bleary-eyed coffee, I realized who the infamous Senator Bennett is. Fortunately, so does Yahoo's Search Engine - so you can read about the disgusting, racist homophobe yourself.Pam adds:
When we compromise and bite the bullet for the centrist Dems that curry favor with the Right Wing, progressives get a condescending pat on the head and a lecture to be quiet. As we have seen in the case of gay rights, we didn't get a return on the investment -- in fact, we've been fighting the AmTaliban to keep rights from slipping away ever since, state by state, town by town -- with no leadership at the national level willing to give vocal, unwavering support.And the same can be said for any group with a progressive base. Advocates for reprodutive rights, minority rights, labor rights—we’re all on the back foot, defending against regression rather than fighting for progression. It wasn’t just a cute turn of phrase when Howard Dean referred to the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.” (However, I think that wing is now closed for business.)
Another story out of Kansas (has anyone figured out what, exactly, really is wrong with that state yet?) is getting me all kinds of hot under the collar. A religious studies professor at Kansas University, who has no love for fundamentalists, recently wrote online about a plan to teach intelligent design as mythology in an upcoming course, and said it would be a “nice slap” in the “big fat face” of fundies. Tactless, but not incorrect. Immediately, said fat face got all up in his grill, Mirecki apologized, and KU canceled the course. (Normally, I might consider that an overreach, but he hardly left KU with much choice after he decided to frame it the way he did.) It should have been the end of the story.
Kansas University religious studies professor Paul Mirecki reported he was beaten by two men about 6:40 a.m. today on a roadside in rural Douglas County. In a series of interviews late this afternoon, Mirecki said the men who beat him were making references to the controversy that has propelled him into the headlines in recent weeks.Mirecki was being tail-gated and pulled over so the pick-up truck closely following him could pass. Instead, the driver pulled in behind him, and two men got out. When Mirecki made the mistake of getting out of his car, they proceded to beat him up.
“I didn’t know them, but I’m sure they knew me,” he said.
The sheriff’s department is looking for the suspects, described as two white males between ages 30 and 40, one wearing a red visor and wool gloves, and both wearing jeans. They were last seen in a large pickup truck.If you’ve seen these two, who should be easy to find in any crowd in the Midwest by their descriptions, please call Crime Stoppers at 843-TIPS.
A Texas judge dismissed one charge against Representative Tom Delay on Monday but let stand two more serious charges, complicating Mr. DeLay's hopes of regaining his post as House majority leader when Congress resumes in January.You know, I think it’s a safe bet that he can wave bye-bye to that one at this point. Even the GOP can’t be crazy enough to let the Bug Man return in such a public position after all this.
The judge, Pat Priest of San Antonio, handed Mr. DeLay and two co-defendants a partial victory in dismissing charges of conspiracy to violate the election code by making an illegal corporate contribution.Ouch.
Judge Priest left standing charges of money laundering and conspiracy to launder money against all three.
The decision moves Mr. DeLay and his co-defendants, the Republican fund-raisers John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, a big step closer to facing trial - perhaps as soon as January - on felony charges that carry long prison terms and fines...
One Republican lawmaker, who has supported Mr. DeLay in the past but is concerned about the political fallout from this case and others involving Republicans, said there was some sense of relief with the decision, since it postponed Mr. DeLay's return to the top.
I’m just wondering, since they’re throwing a holiday party. Majority Report got a copy of the invite. (Hat tip AMERICAblog.)
The conservative of your choice will be strapped into a chair in a small, windowless room for twenty-four hours, during which time you will be able to unleash a stream of profanity-laden venting about how angry their divisive, vitriolic, sexist, homophobic, racist, illiberal, and otherwise odious politicking makes you and why it's bad for America. No violence allowed, but you can yell until your head feels ready to pop right off. Oh, and by the way, they can't talk back.
Who do you choose?
Bush? Cheney? Dobson? Falwell? Coulter? O'Reilly? Someone you know?
It's really hard for me to choose, but I think I might go straight for the top and drag Karl Rove into the screamatorium. And make no mistake—he'd be left a quivering pile of useless mush by the time I was done. The piss puddle on the floor beneath him would be left with more sense.
Bear in mind, this is a Fox News poll, but still:
[S]ome Americans think there are still weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A 42 percent plurality thinks Iraq had weapons before the war and moved or destroyed them, while 28 percent think there were no WMD at all. Almost one in five (19 percent) think there are still WMD in Iraq.No.
Wells Fargo is next on the conservative fuckwits’ shitlist, since they had the temerity to give a grant to GLAAD:
The conservative Christian group Focus on the Family says it is withdrawing its funds from Wells Fargo because of the bank's support of gay organizations.Let’s have a look at that “principled” decision. Wells Fargo provides a $50,000 grant to support the leadership counsel of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Defamation, particularly of gays and lesbians, is Focus on the Family’s bread and butter. Seems to me their decision to target Wells Fargo wasn't so much principled as financial. They don’t want to keep their dosh with a bank who supports a group that might undermine their relentless attacks on the gay community, which is one of their most profitable fund-raising activities.
"Focus on the Family has elected to end its banking relationship with Wells Fargo, motivated primarily by the bank's ongoing efforts to advance the radical homosexual agenda," says a statement on the Focus Web site dated Thursday and attributed to Focus President and CEO Jim Daly.
"Our decision is not personal, but principled, and we trust our constituents and others will respect it," it says.
”Let's just call this what it is another attempt by an anti-gay group to try and intimidate companies into not supporting or doing business with gays and lesbians," [Glennda Testone, spokeswoman for GLAAD] said of the action by Focus.In fact, let’s call it what it really is—just another cynical business move by the anti-gay industry.
I know we’ve got a lot of huge Dave Chappelle fans around here, including me, and every time we talk about comedians we love or things that make us laugh, Chappelle invariably comes up and someone wonders what the heck is going on with him. So here’s the most recent news, bitches:
[Comedy Central] revealed Sunday that it will air previously-recorded sketches from the funnyman as part of what is being billed as season three.It’s like he’s pulling a J.D. Salinger on our asses. I guess we’ll always have Catcher in the Rye and Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.
The sketches will be shown first on Comedy Central's online broadband network, Motherload, and later broadcast on the cable network, a spokesperson said. The broadcast will take place sometime in 2006.
Chappelle has been on an open-ended hiatus for about ten months, with taping of the third season of his "Chappelle's Show" suspended indefinitely. Sources close to the skein were recently quoted that they did not believe the funnyman would ever return to the program.
Chappelle signed a two-year deal with Comedy Central shortly before he decided to suspend taping. No reason for the hiatus has ever been given by the comedian, though some have speculated that exhaustion played a part.
At a Los Angeles taping of its year-end special "Last Laugh '05," Comedy Central showed a preview of what it will air as part of season three, which included send-ups of MTV skein "Cribs" and the Morgan Spurlock docu "Super Size Me."
While a spokesperson confirmed that all the bits were taped before Chappelle went on hiatus, they declined to say whether the decision to air them meant the network was acknowledging that Chappelle would not return.
Sure, I realize that you also voted for Bush because you can't stand homosexuals, but the big reason... I'd say, the main reason you were able to ignore what was right in front of your face was good old-fashioned fear. You fell for the terror alerts, you believed there was a turbaned person hiding around the corner, ready to blow you up at any second. You fell for the constant reapeating of "9-11, 9-11, 9-11," and you really, really thought that this lifetime failure of a man could keep you safe.
Well, you know what? He blew it again.
WASHINGTON - The former Sept. 11 commission is giving Congress and the White House poor marks on protecting the U.S. against an inevitable terror attack because of their failure to enact several strong security measures.
The 10-member panel, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, prepared to release a report Monday assessing how well their recommendations have been followed. They say the government deserves "more F's than A's" in responding to their 41 suggested changes.
"People are not paying attention," chairman Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said Sunday. "God help us if we have another attack."
Some members of the commission, whose recommendations now are promoted through a privately funded group known as the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, contended the government has been remiss by failing to act more quickly.
Kean and Hamilton urged Congress to pass spending bills that would allow police and fire to communicate across radio spectrums and to reallocate money so that Washington and New York, which have more people and symbolic landmarks, could receive more for terrorism defense.
Both bills have stalled in Congress, in part over the level of spending and turf fights over which states should get the most dollars.
The commission also concluded that the Sept. 11 attack would not be the nation's last, noting that al-Qaida had tried for at least 10 years to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
The 2005 Weblog Awards (run by Wizbang) has garnered our favorite bloggrrl’s blog, Pam’s House Blend, a nomination for Best LGBT Blog. Pam also scored another nomination with Pandagon in the Best Group Blog category. Congratulations, Pam!
Ezra Klein, who allows me to invade his space on the weekends, is nominated for Best Liberal Blog, among many of our other favorite blogs.
The Countess and Yellow Dog Blog have also been nominated for Best New Blog.
You’ll also find some other liberals for whom to vote in the categories for Best Blog, Best Humor Blog, and Best Media/Journalist Blog. (If I missed any, let me know.)
Make sure to vote for your favorites!
More bad news for the beleaguered pres:
Political Wire received an early copy of a new Time magazine poll that finds President Bush's approval rating at 41% with 53% disapproving. This is down a point from the last poll two months ago.That ought to impress Mr. Stay-the-Course.
Major drags on the President’s standing include: Iraq and high energy prices (each 45%),the federal budget deficit (39% say “very negative” impact), his handling of the economy (35%), and the failure of his social security initiative (32%).
Stunning: Of those who disapprove, 76% say they're unlikely to change their minds about the president's performance in the future.
More stunning: If last year's election were held again, Sen. John Kerry would win, but the margin would only be one point, 48% to 47%.Wow, how wrong did Dems go with John Kerry? Something needs to give with these primaries. Kerry was supposed to be the “most electable” guy, remember? Still, about 5% of people who disapprove of Bush’s performance would vote for him rather than Kerry. Yikes.
Last night, Mr. Shakes and I watched A Few Good Men, a movie which, when viewed through the prism of what’s currently going on at Gitmo, makes you pause to consider just how much sympathy you want to have for soldiers “just following orders,” and I swear Tom Cruise has ruined all of his movies for me by acting like a complete numbnuts. All I could do was picture him wrestling with Oprah and jumping on her couch like a monkey on crack.
Amanda’s got a great post on pharmacists who refuse to fill women’s prescriptions, which includes a link to this entry (passed on by AnneJumps) on a woman who was refused the filling of her Valtrex prescription because, according to the pharmacist who tore up her prescription, “God is punishing you for your sin.”
Uh, okay.
I’m certainly no expert on theology, but I’m fairly certain that Joe Pharmacist hasn’t been imbued with the authority to speak for the Almighty.
If I’m wrong, however, I’m curious to know if God only issues herpes as a punishment for sins of the flesh, or if he sometimes, say, strikes someone with cancer as punishment for embezzlement. And if he does, how do the pharmacists know whose prescriptions to rip up and whose to fill? Discerning divine retribution seems like it would make a pharmacist’s job immensely more difficult. No wonder I have to wait so long for prescriptions.
Senator Huggy McClingman, sometimes also known as John McCain, appeared on Meet the Press in a new capacity today—as an expert on emotionalism. And who are we to argue with someone who clearly isn’t afraid to show his emotions, even toward a man whose 2000 campaign branded his wife a junky and started a whisper campaign that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was his illegitimate black child? I mean, that’s someone whose experience tells us love conquers all. Or, failing love, an unfettered desire for power.
Anyhoo, McCain’s expertise on said topic was in full flourish this morning, as he opined on the motives of his colleague, Rep. Murtha.
MCCAIN: I think he has become too emotional and understandably so. He goes to funerals. He goes, as many of us do, out to Walter Reed, and he sees the price of war. And I think that that has had some effect on him…I see McCain’s point. It’s probably better to avoid funerals of fallen soldiers altogether so as not to compromise one’s bull-headed determinism to “stay the course” with a little thing like emotion. Or reality.
This is just cold:
A leading German TV station has fired one of the country's most popular comedians by text message.U R Fired.
Comedian Hans Werner Olm said he thought it was a joke when he received a text message telling him he had been sacked.
But he realised it was no laughing matter when he turned up for work and discovered his long-running show had been cancelled.
Olm said: "I received a text telling me the next series of my show had been cancelled. I thought it was a stupid joke until I realised they were really sacking me."
Sometimes there’s a news story that sets off a chorus of voices from those who have been touched by a sense of sympathy. Sometimes, they are motivated by outrage. Sometimes, a shared sense of humor. And every so often, there is a story that finds itself raising a cacophony out of common experience, and the sound of those voices, the roar caused by the sheer number of those who have something to say on an unspeakable topic, can stop you in your tracks.
Amanda Marcotte, rape survivor: I wouldn't have prosecuted except I couldn't bear the guilt if he did it to someone else. I still almost didn't, except at the insistence of my boyfriend at the time that it was wrong to just roll over and pretend it didn't happen. It took me a week to work up the courage. I wouldn't have done it if I'd thought I'd get in trouble with the law for seeking justice.
Lauren Bruce, rape survivor: I, after I was raped, was not believed either. After all, I turned around from the incident, cleaned up the blood, and went back about my family vacation like nothing had happened because I thought I had done something wrong and didn’t want my parents to know. I was barely thirteen. Nevermind the promiscuity and drug addiction that followed, by god, I wasn’t traumatized and therefore was not raped.
I have a particular therapist to thank for convincing my support system not to trust me, the unqualified piece of shit. Shame, shame on this judge.
Shakespeare’s Sister, rape survivor: There is no such thing as a “typical” response to rape. Immediately following a rape, some women go into shock. Some are lucid. Some are angry. Some are ashamed. Some are practical. Some are irrational. Some want to report it. Some don’t. Most have a combination of emotions, but there is no standard response. Responses to rape are as varied as its victims. In the long term, some rape victims act out. Some crawl inside themselves. Some have healthy sex lives. Some never will again.
Trish Wilson, rape survivor: I can relate to not acting traumatized. I was raped. I went into auto-pilot, called the police, and was coherent if a bit detached when reporting the incident at the hospital. I knew enough not to take a shower afterwards because I knew the police and hospital personnel had to gather evidence. I didn't cry, tremble, or break down, which I suppose is what it means to "act traumatized". I made the big mistake of dropping the charges, under pressure by people who sided with my attacker. I don't want to go into much more detail than that since this is very personal, and I don't like to get very personal on my blog. I'm fortunate in that the police and the hospital personnel believed me, even though I didn't "act traumatized". What scared me in retrospect is that my rape rested on whether or not I was believed by other people based on the way I acted after the rape. I didn't know there was a way that rape victims were "supposed" to act. I just went on auto-pilot, and did what I thought I was supposed to do. I know that I could easily have been seen as wanting to create a false report because I knew enough not to take a shower immediately after the rape.
The Fat Lady Sings, rape survivor: You see I am a rape survivor – as is Shakespeare’s Sister, Klondike Kate, Amanda at Pandagon, Lauren at Feministe and about 100 million other women in this country. I was raped more than once – and, like the victim, I wasn’t believed. I was a child, and the religion my family practiced always considered the female to be the whore in any sexual circumstances – no matter the age.
So my rapists went free – and they did rape again; and again, and again – as will the men who brutalized that young girl.
Klondike Kate, rape survivor: Over 30 years ago throughout circumstances that stretched over a five-year period of time I was raped four times. … When I tried to call once, after being held on the frozen ground at knifepoint (I still had mud, leaves, and a trickle of blood running down my neck,) I was told not to bother: since I was hitchhiking -- I was "just asking for it." … Have we really come a long way since then? It would appear not. I feel such a deep sadness for all the women of the world who go through this act of soul-killing violence, perpetrated every single second of the day.
Pia Savage, rape survivor: I felt better after I bought new clothes, and while I didn’t equate being raped with sex because it had been so violent was turned off sex for awhile, and only dated boys who were closeted Gay for several months. I was young and resilient but I did carry that shame for many years. No, not the shame of the rape; the shame of not being able to tell a policeman.
Rape is talked about in laws and statistics. Numbers are debated. Hands are wrung. Heads are shaken. While the abstract discussion of rape in the public sphere goes on, groups of rape survivors have met in rooms that smell of coffee and cigarettes to share their stories, and individual victims have cried into their pillows and held themselves together with nothing but a lack of options and walked out into the world to get on with it.
These individual stories are murmurs of a larger story waiting to be told.
More from The Heretik. Also: Kevin at The American Street, Dave at Seeing the Forest, The Heretik, Amanda at Pandagon, Lauren at Feministe, Once Upon a Time, Liberty Street, Radioactive Quill, Ded Space, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, Alas a Blog, Trish Wilson, I Blame the Patriarchy, Brilliant at Breakfast, Pam’s House Blend, The Green Knight, Media Girl, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Night Bird’s Fountain, King of Zembla, The Left Coaster, Loaded Mouth, BlondeSense, NewsHog, Evil Mommy, Agitprop, Deborah Lipp, Laughing Wild, Washington Monthly, Zoe Kentucky at Demagogue, Majikthise, Recidivist Journals.
I’ve spent the entire day burning up from the inside out about the Oregon case in which a rape victim was found guilty of filing false charges after prosecutors decided not to purse a case against her attackers. I feel like the sun itself has settled in my gut and any moment I’ll just explode into a puff of smoke and ash.
The only thing that’s keeping me whole is knowing I’m not alone in my outrage. Or in my experience. Check out this excerpt from The Heretik:
FROM AMANDA MARCOTTE rape survivor: I wouldn't have prosecuted except I couldn't bear the guilt if he did it to someone else. I still almost didn't, except at the insistence of my boyfriend at the time that it was wrong to just roll over and pretend it didn't happen. It took me a week to work up the courage. I wouldn't have done it if I'd thought I'd get in trouble with the law for seeking justice.Klondike Kate, rape survivor, adds in The Heretik’s comments:
FROM LAUREN BRUCE rape survivor: Shakespeare’s Sister (HT) discusses false rape reporting and the notion that there is a “right” way to act after rape. There isn’t much for me to say because she and Kevin have said it all, but I, after I was raped, was not believed either. After all, I turned around from the incident, cleaned up the blood, and went back about my family vacation like nothing had happened because I thought I had done something wrong and didn’t want my parents to know. I was barely thirteen. Nevermind the promiscuity and drug addiction that followed, by god, I wasn’t traumatized and therefore was not raped.
I have a particular therapist to thank for convincing my support system not to trust me, the unqualified piece of shit. Shame, shame on this judge.
FROM SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER rape survivor: There is no such thing as a “typical” response to rape. Immediately following a rape, some women go into shock. Some are lucid. Some are angry. Some are ashamed. Some are practical. Some are irrational. Some want to report it. Some don’t. Most have a combination of emotions, but there is no standard response. Responses to rape are as varied as its victims. In the long term, some rape victims act out. Some crawl inside themselves. Some have healthy sex lives. Some never will again.
THE ISSUES ARE LARGE the victims made smaller when we fail to listen, when we fail to look. You know a rape victim, but you might not know it. Look for the woman who had lively eyes who now seems dead inside.
THE HERETIK REMAINS disgusted.
Over 30 years ago throughout circumstances that stretched over a five-year period of time I was raped four times. … When I tried to call once, after being held on the frozen ground at knifepoint (I still had mud, leaves, and a trickle of blood running down my neck,) I was told not to bother: since I was hitchhiking -- I was "just asking for it." … Have we really come a long way since then? It would appear not. I feel such a deep sadness for all the women of the world who go through this act of soul-killing violence, perpetrated every single second of the day.And Kevin Hayden, who knows the victim, adds in my comments:
Other things the detective found odd: she did not shower for two days after. The detective said most overshower because they feel dirty afterward. So why did this woman not bathe?It isn’t. It’s just heartbreaking.
Because she was afraid to be naked. Why's that so hard to believe?
Some days I just hate everything:
The antigay American Family Association claimed a cultural victory on Thursday and called off its threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to Advocate.com that the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications but insisted it was strictly a business decision.Whatever, Ford. Eat shit, you scaredy-cat losers.
The Dearborn, Mich., automaker came under fire from the AFA in May for its longtime efforts to increase LGBT workplace diversity and support gay rights causes. Ford has long been a regular advertiser within gay media, including The Advocate, and has donated significant sums to LGBT causes and nonprofit groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.
Threatened with a boycott by the Mississippi-based AFA, Ford and some of its dealers agreed to negotiate, and the AFA announced in June that it would hold off on its planned action. On Thursday, AFA announced the boycott would be canceled altogether.
[…]
According to a list of demands on AFA’s Web site, the organization insisted that Ford and all of its brands stop donating cash, vehicles, and endorsements to gay social activities. This includes donations to pride celebrations and groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. AFA says those groups have received contributions from Ford in the past.
Whether such sponsorship deals—in which Ford brands are given visibility by nonprofit groups and at LGBT events in return for donations—will continue, Moran could not say.
A 17-year-old girl went to police at the urging of her friends after she was allegedly gang-raped by three men, including her boyfriend. The men testified that the act was consensual. After reviewing all the information and statements, prosecutors decided they didn’t think they could prove a rape allegation, and so declined to prosecute the case.
Instead, they prosecuted the victim for filing a false police report. Yesterday, she was found guilty.
The victim has never recanted her story. Instead, the decision was based on the judge’s opinion that the three men were more credible, in part because a police detective and the victim’s friends testified she did not “act traumatized” in the days after the incident.
In cases like this, people tend to draw their own conclusions, based on what’s reported, filling in the blanks in a way that satisfies one’s judgment. What are you thinking right now? That maybe it really was a false rape charge? That maybe the victim was just vindictive? That there had to be some reason that the judge found her guilty?
Let me give you some more information—something that is only a possibility because The American Street’s Kevin Hayden has known the victim nearly her whole life. He attended the trial. He noticed that the prosecutor repeatedly referred to the attackers as “boys,” even though they were grown men and the victim was 17. He noticed that the judge acknowledged he had found inconsistencies in all of their stories, but, inexplicably, decided that the same reasonable doubt that kept prosecutors from pursuing charges against the attackers wasn’t enough to keep him from finding the victim guilty.
He also noted what was, and was not, allowed to be introduced as evidence. Allowed: The 17-year-old victim’s sexual history. Not allowed: That one of the victim’s “friends,” her mother, has problems with alcohol and prescription drugs, provided her daughter with the alcohol she’d had that evening (which the mother had stolen from the store at which she cashiers), and was:
…awaiting her boyfriend’s return to her home within two months of the rape. That boyfriend was in prison for molesting his own daughter. That’s hardly a credible witness with any sympathy for victims of sexual assault…Again: The judge decided that the victim was not credible because her friend and her mother said she did not “act traumatized” in the days after the incident. He then filed a charge against the victim which turned the two people he had deemed credible witnesses into criminal conspirators. That seems rather confusing, that two criminal conspirators could also be credible witnesses, and experts on post-rape trauma no less. Although, it is rather convenient for a judge and prosecutors who might want to make a point.
Additionally, the two ‘friends’ were the ones who convinced the 17 year old that she should report it to the police. So if the young woman is guilty [of filing a false rape charge], the instigating accessories to her ‘crime’ are considered credible experts about how a rape victim should act.
Even though the woman never said she lied or recanted her story, city prosecutors say they took the unusual step of filing charges against her because of the seriousness of her accusations.It shouldn’t, should it? Something tells me it just might, particularly when a judge admits he found inconsistencies in the stories of both the woman and her attackers, but decided nonetheless that the attackers were “legitimate” victims and the woman was not. As it is, only 10% of victims of sex crimes in Oregon file reports with police.
[…]
Ted Naemura, the assistant city attorney who prosecuted the case, said the woman's false accusations were serious enough to lead to charges. The young men faced prison sentences of at least 7 years and a lifetime labeled as sex offenders. In addition, police spent considerable resources investigating the accusations.
Beaverton has no policy about prosecuting such cases, but reviews each one on its merits, Naemura said. The city prosecuted a similar case a year ago in which a judge ordered the woman to pay $1,100 in restitution for the city's investigation costs, said Officer Paul Wandell, a Beaverton Police Department spokesman.
The bottom line, Naemura said, is that people can't use the criminal justice system to further their own ends.
This case should not deter legitimate victims from reporting crimes, he said.
Kevin Neely, spokesman for the Oregon Attorney General's Office, said it was rare for alleged sex crime victims to be charged much less convicted of filing a false police report.Just how safe a bet? Heather J. Huhtanen, Sexual Assault Training Institute director for the Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force, reports that Portland police have found that 1.6% of sexual assault cases were falsely reported. By way of comparison, 2.6% of auto theft cases were falsely reported.
"Our concern is always with the underreporting of sexual assaults," he said, "not with false reporting. It's a safe bet that prosecutions for false reporting are rare."
Suggested by Tart...
What is your favorite movie line of all time?
I could spend days recounting my favorite movie lines, but the first one that popped into my head is from Harold and Maude: "Vice, virtue—it's best not to be too moral. You cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully."
What do you do when the GOP steals your song and uses it in their campaign without your permission?
If you’re John Hall, frontman of Orleans, whose “Still the One” was stolen by Bush last year, you tell him to cease and desist and then run for Congress.
Hall, who’s running as a Democrat in New York's 19th District, is a former Ulster County Legislator and school board president in addition to being a musician. From the press release announcing his candidacy:
John Hall has been active in environmental and community affairs in the Hudson Valley for more than three decades. He was elected to the Ulster County Legislature in 1989, and twice to the Saugerties Board of Education, where his fellow trustees elected him President. He now lives in Dover Plains with his wife Pamela Bingham Hall, a Vassar graduate and former Tennessee Assistant Attorney General. He has a twenty-six-year-old daughter who is in graduate school.Hall promises to be “a real voice for real people, advocating for honesty and competence throughout our government.” Go get 'em.
Hall, a founding member of the band Orleans, co-authored their hits including "Still the One" and "Dance With Me," along with songs recorded by a spectrum of American musical legends from Janis Joplin to Bonnie Raitt, from Bobby McFerrin to James Brown. He has written and directed music for Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, produced and played guitar on dozens of records. His ode to alternative energy, "Power," was released three weeks before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and became the anthem of the No Nukes Concerts which Hall helped organize. It was recorded live at the event by the Doobie Brothers and James Taylor, and subsequently performed by Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, and Holly Near.
Paging Charles Darwin. I believe we have an award-winner for you.
A man has pleaded guilty to trespassing in connection with a fatal horse-sex case.“Fatal horse-sex case.” There’s a phrase you don’t hear every day.
James Michael Tait, 54, of Enumclaw, was accused of entering a barn without the owner's permission. Tait admitted to officers that he entered a neighboring barn last July with friend Kenneth Pinyan to have sex with a horse, charging papers said. Tait was videotaping the episode when Pinyan suffered internal injuries that led to his death.
Tait pleaded guilty Tuesday and was given a one-year suspended sentence, a $300 fine, and ordered to perform eight hours of community service and have no contact with the neighbors.
The prosecutor's office said no animal cruelty charges were filed because there was no evidence of injury to the horses.
Newsweek has a great (but depressing, if not surprising) article called Who Gets the Organs? about the disparity between the ethnic make-up of organ transplant waiting lists and organ recipients.
According to figures from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), which administers the organ-allocation system, ethnic minorities make up 50 percent of the 96,581 people on the waiting list, but white patients receive 63 percent of organs. Even for kidney transplants, for which Medicare funding should provide a level playing field, minorities made up 60 percent of the waiting list, but less than 45 percent of transplants. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," says Dr. Ashwini Sehgal, assistant professor of biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University. A growing body of research shows that black and Hispanic patients face longer delays in getting referred, spend longer on the waiting list and have worse survival rates even after receiving an organ.One of the doctors interviewed, Dr. Devon John, who is a black transplant surgeon at the NYU Medical Center, notes that the disparity is “well recognized, but highly controversial.” Part of the problem, according to some researchers, is “an imbalance in supply and demand of suitable organs for minorities.”
Although race isn't an explicit factor, minority patients—especially African-Americans—are more genetically diverse, making it harder for them to find suitable tissue matches. Black and Hispanic people donate organs at the same rate as whites, but they are predisposed to organ-damaging diseases like diabetes, so that in spite of campaigns to promote organ donation in minority communities, there's no way for minority donation alone to keep up with the minority demand for organs. Doctors must struggle to find suitable matches for black and Hispanic patients among predominantly white donors.The article doesn’t explain exactly of what the campaigns to promote organ donation consist. If they mirror traditional organ donation campaigns, part of the issue may be related to one of the contributing problems during the aftermath of Katrina—greater numbers of poor minorities don't drive. At least in Indiana and Illinois, getting one's driver's license is the primary venue for organ donation campaigns and making a decision about whether to register as an organ donor. Outside of that experience, I’ve never seen any other information about organ donation, and I lived in the most racially diverse neighborhood in Chicago for a decade. Unless it's discussed with family, who then also happen to be in the right place at the right time in case of an accident, there are probably lots of people with usable organs that aren't used simply because they never thought about it or their wishes weren't known.
In theory, allocation of organs is race-neutral. Patients receive points for medical need, tissue type and time on the waiting list; doctors use a computer algorithm to decide who gets organs. But they admit the system doesn't always work as intended. Computer programs alone can't eliminate the potential for subconscious bias—or overt racism—among the physicians who use them. "The computer may be colorblind, but the people who put information into the computer are not," says Dr. Clive Callender, director of the Howard University Hospital transplant center. "This is directly the consequence of institutionalized racism."Pam sums it up nicely: “Matching criteria for organs and patients is clearly a complicating factor, but once that and the general disparity in access to appropriate care and known bias is factored in, you've got a deadly and unfortunate combination that is a blow to minority patients at every step of the process.” Poverty and racism (particularly when combined) have created a second-tier health system. Or, in truth, a third-tier health system, lowest rung on a ladder at the top of which sit the extraordinarily wealthy. Certainly, not all doctors are racists, but it's foolish and illogical to presume that those who have a calling in medicine are somehow more likely to be collectively exempt from the endemic prejudices found in the larger population.
Not only is he single-handedly saving Christmas, he’s also taking responsibility for lower gas prices:
O’REILLY: I have guys inside the five major oil companies - my father used to work for one of those oil companies by the way - who have told me that in those meetings they look for every way to jack up oil prices after Katrina, every way, when they didn’t have to. They got scared because of my reporting and reporting of some others. They said, “Uh ho.”Coincidentally, Bill—I have guys inside the padded room you call “The No-Spin Spaceship,” who have told me that you say “Wheeeee! Time for blast-off!” when you poop your pants.
CAVUTO: So wait a minute, you’re not, you’re taking credit for gas prices being down from where they are?
O’REILLY: I said my reporting and some reporting of others. They got scared.
I got an advance copy of Homecoming, an hour-long film which premiers tonight on Showtime as part of its new Masters of Horror series. Based on Dale Bailey’s short story Death and Suffrage, and directed by Joe Dante (the George Romero protégé who directed Gremlins), Homecoming is a clever send-up of the Bush administration and their minions, centered on a war sold on "horseshit and elbow grease." It’s also a zombie flick.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ll give you a few teasers—there’s a blond talk-show pundit who favors short black minis and S&M named Jane Cleaver, a political guru named Kurt Rand who likes to describe politics and war as a game, and a big fucking bunch of zombies in fatigues who beg to differ.
The scariest thing about Homecoming is what a short distance it is between the real people on whom it was based and the caricatures in the film.
From a recent Village Voice review of Homecoming, which you shouldn’t read in full if you’d like to avoid spoilers:
How fitting that the most pungent artistic response to a regime famed for its crass fear-mongering would be a cheap horror movie. Jaw-dropping in its sheer directness, Homecoming is a righteous blast of liberal-left fury (it was greeted with a five-minute ovation [at its November 13 premiere at the Turin Film Festival], the most vocal appreciation seeming to come from the American filmmakers and writers in attendance).Atrios says this is a free weekend on Showtime. I couldn’t find any info either way; in any case, if you don’t have Showtime, check in either tonight at 10:00EST or tomorrow at 10:30EST, and you might be able to catch it. You can see preview clips of the episode here.
At once galvanic and cathartic, Dante's film uncorks the rage that despondent progressives promptly suppressed after last year's election and that has only recently been allowed to color mainstream coverage of presidential untruths and debacles. For all its broad, bludgeoning satire, Homecoming is deadly accurate in skewering the callousness and hypocrisy of the Bush White House and the spin industry in its orbit.
[…]
Dante hopes Homecoming functions as a wake-up call—not so much for politicians but for filmmakers. "If this spurs other people into making more and better versions, it will have done its job. I want to see more discussion," he says. "Nobody is doing anything about what's going on now—compared to the '70s, when they were making movies about the issues of the day. This elephant in the room, this Iraq war story, is not being dramatized."
"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see what a fucking mess we're in," he continues. "It's been happening steadily for the past four years, and nobody said peep. The New York Times and all these people that abetted the lies and crap that went into making and selling this war—now that they see the guy is a little weak, they're kicking him with their toe to make sure he doesn't bite back. It's cowardly. This pitiful zombie movie, this fucking B movie, is the only thing anybody's done about this issue that's killed 2,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis? It's fucking sick." While gratified by the warm reception to Homecoming in Turin, Dante says he's eager for the right-wing punditocracy back home to see it: "I hope this movie bothers a lot of people that disagree with it—and that it makes them really pissed off, as pissed off as the rest of us are."
