New Orleans

It's just so fucking awful. There's not really anything to say.

Give to the relief efforts, if you can.

I'm going to drink a large glass of whiskey tonight, listen to When the Levee Breaks very loud, and drink to the waters receding. The Zeppelin version of the song, not the John Campbell version, though that one's good too.

Star-Crossed Times For the Crescent City

By Ken Ringle
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page C01

And yet, inseparable though they may be, New Orleans has always been more about the dance than about the death. Somewhere in the shade of its majestic live oaks and the shadows of its lacework balconies, among the saxophone riffs in its echoing alleys and the soft magenta glow of its crape myrtles at twilight, the flickering ghosts that haunt New Orleans whisper huskily of sweaty, sensual love and the promise of enduring memory. Even the street names whisper promises: Desire, Amour, Abundance; Pleasure, Treasure and Joy.

It is not comforting to realize that, in the wake of Katrina, bloated bodies are floating on those streets today. But to speak of New Orleans's resilience is simply to cite its history -- a demographic and cultural melting pot of German industry and French and Spanish elitism, of Irish gregariousness and Sicilian emotionalism, of African exuberance and American frontier cussedness that embraces death, too, as a part of life.

Lives, levees and live oaks are merely temporary in any case. Katrina's catastrophes will no more define New Orleans than the Nazi occupation defined Paris, though they may last almost as long.

Texas distinguishes itself again

New law could mean death penalty for doctors
Legislators say that wasn't their intent with the abortion measure

It's hard to know whether to be more ashamed of legislators' incompetence in drafting the law or their death-penalty fetish.

Take the Wal-Mart Back-to-School Pledge

Hopefully you don't shop at Wal-Mart anyway. Regardless, take a minute and take the AFL's pledge to tell Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott you will not buy back-to-school supplies from Wal-Mart this year.

As the AFL reminds us, "America’s biggest retailer—with $10.3 billion in profits last year—has a shameful record of child labor violations, sex discrimination, low wages and lousy benefits."

Get depressed.

This may be your last opportunity for labor activism before we officially slink off to the dustbin of history, so take action today!

Putting lipstick on a pig

So today it was reported that:

Stung by Public Distrust,
Drug Makers Seek to Heal Image

By LEILA ABBOUD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 26, 2005; Page B1

The pharmaceutical industry is undertaking a makeover of its public image.

They plan to do this with voluntary limits on consumer advertising and a program to help get drugs to poor people, which I'm sure they will spend more money advertising that they're helping poor people than actually helping poor people.

So they're for helping poor people huh? When the people of California asked them to do so, guess how they responded?

One sign of the public backlash is unfolding in California, where some consumer groups and unions are pushing a ballot initiative that would punish drug companies if they don't reduce their prices to low- and moderate-income people.

Nevertheless, the drug industry still appears to be putting its faith in lobbying. The industry, including its trade group and individual companies, has spent $72.9 million to oppose the initiative, which will come up for a vote on Nov. 8.

Maybe they could have used that $72 million for the poor patients program. Here's another idea: Stop defrauding taxpayers and patients. The same day the story runs about their new PR campaign, the AG of California accused them of price-gouging. Oooh. Bad timing.

Drugmakers inflated prices, Calif. suit claims

By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY

California accused 39 drugmakers of bilking the state's Medicaid program of up to $1 billion through inflated drug prices, in an amended False Claims Act lawsuit the attorney general filed Thursday.

The lawsuit, first brought against Abbott Laboratories and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 2003, is one of 17 state-led civil actions that accuse the pharmaceutical industry of widespread price manipulation.

And while you're at it, maybe they could stop killing people with drugs they knew were dangerous.

Vioxx is responsible for an estimated 55,000 deaths.

Bush's follies in the MidEast can't even compare to the pharmaceutical body count.

Here's to prophets

Free and Responsible Search has a great post on Cindy Sheehan.

Walter Brueggemann, Meet Cindy Sheehan

I believe that the proper idiom for the prophet in cutting through the royal numbness and denial is the language of grief, the rhetoric that engages the community in mourning for a funeral they do not want to admit. ... I have been increasingly impressed with the capacity of the prophet to use the language of lament and the symbolic creation of a death scene as a way of bringing to reality what the king must see and will not. -- Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside President Bush's vacation home is being interpreted in many divergent ways, but I'm coming to favor this one: A prophet is confronting a king. Walter Brueggemann's Carter-era model of the prophet/king relationship applies so well that it seems ... prophetic.

The key concept in Brueggemann's model is the royal consciousness, which is perhaps the best label I can think of for the attitude that pervades the Bush administration. The royal consciousness believes -- or at least says in public -- that everything is fine. The right people are in power and they are doing the right things. Everything is on track. Everybody should be happy. No mistakes have been made.

[...]

The task of the Prophet is not to put forward a 15-point plan for reform. The Prophet does not come to replace the King and start a new administration. The job of the Prophet is simply to stop the royal consciousness in its tracks, to make it recognize that something is wrong. People are suffering. People are dying. Life out in the kingdom is not just bike rides and motorcades and helicopter flights to million-dollar fund-raising dinners.

[...]

Cindy Sheehan doesn't bring an answer, she brings a question: Why did my son die?

She has not come to us as a saint, an angel, or some other holy and transcendent being. The prophets in their own era were nobodies. They were without honor. They were poor, dirty, uneducated. Undoubtedly their families were ashamed of them.

The prophets used cheap theatrics. It's easy to imagine the frustration of King Zedekiah when Jeremiah started wandering through Jerusalem with a yoke around his neck: That's not a plan! That's not a program! It's just a stunt!

Camping out in Crawford is a stunt too. That's what prophets do. They are not planners, technocrats, diplomats, or philosophers. They channel the grief of a numbed society. And they open the door to dreams of renewal.

Lakoff on "Tort Reform"

I couldn't agree more. Trial lawyers, are you listening?

George Lakoff Discusses "Tort Reform"

Restrictions on tort lawsuits and other kinds of lawsuits are issues near and dear to conservative hearts. The following interview with Rockridge Senior Fellow, George Lakoff, explores various aspects of “tort reform,” including the manner in which conservatives have framed the discussion, the problem with the progressive response so far, and ideas for more effective progressive framing of the debate.

Q: What are some of those frames?

Lakoff: To begin, the very phrase “tort reform” evokes a frame. In two words, it communicates that something is the matter with the tort system, which requires reform or correction. In this respect, the phrase is similar to another effective conservative phrase, “tax relief.” Once the public accepts these phrases, they have bought into the idea that they need to be relieved from the affliction of taxes and that they need to fix the tort system. The debate then turns to the question of how and how much. At that point, progressives can’t win the debate; the best we can do is limit the losses.

[...]

Q: Have consumer advocates, trial lawyers, and other progressives had much success responding to these conservative frames?

Lakoff: No. Despite spending great sums of money, they have had very little success, as we’ve seen with all the new tort reform legislation at both the state and federal levels. And more legislation is in the pipeline.

Q: To what do you attribute this lack of success?

Lakoff: The primary reason is that the progressive groups you mention have fought the fight on the “tort reformers’” turf, that is they have merely offered facts to rebut the conservatives’ frames, leaving the frames intact. They’ve tried to show that lawsuits aren’t frivolous, that lawyers aren’t greedy, that plaintiffs are genuinely aggrieved. It’s like Nixon saying, “I am not a crook,” which made everyone think of Nixon as a crook. As I said before, once you go down that road you’ve already lost the fight. It’s only a question of how badly.

Q: What’s the alternative?

Lakoff: First, we have to recognize that when the right wing says “tort reform,” what they really mean is destruction of the civil justice system. Just what is the civil justice system? Most people have a frame for the criminal justice system, but not the for the civil justice system. Since a corporation isn't literally a person, it can't be put in jail for performing harmful or murderous acts. When corporations engage in practices that harm or kill people, the only way through the legal system to punish them and give them an incentive to stop their harmful practices is to sue them and make them pay.

In the civil justice system, the trial is in the form of a lawsuit. The victims of harm are the plaintiffs and the defendants are typically corporations. The roles of police and prosecutors are played by the plaintiffs' lawyers. The victims come to lawyers (the only police). The lawyers search for evidence of harmful corporate behavior. The plaintiffs' lawyers act as prosecutors. The punishments are of two kinds: compensatory damages (compensating victims for harm); and punitive damages (punishing corporations that do harm).

Since a billion-dollar corporation cannot be imprisoned, only very large compensatory and punitive damages can provide sufficient disincentives from doing harm. Given the current climate of less and less regulation of business and increasingly lax or underfunded enforcement of what regulations remain, the civil justice system is rapidly becoming society’s only line of defense. Without it, the unscrupulous can and will run roughshod over the American people, maiming people, making them seriously ill, and sometimes killing them — all in the name of profit. Limiting profits is the only deterrence in many cases. Bear in mind that conservative voters believe in deterrence. It’s a basis for their support of the death penalty, for example. Conservatives also believe in the concept of being responsible and accountable. It relates to their strict father family model for society and government that I’ve written about.

How do you clear a room full of neo-conservatives?

Send in an Army recruiter.

Hehe.

Bye, bye Walter Reed

Commission Votes to Close Walter Reed Army Medical Center

A federal panel voted Thursday to close the District's historic Walter Reed Army Medical Center and to move 9,000 military and civilian defense jobs from Arlington and Alexandria to military bases outside the Beltway despite concerns about the traffic problems such a move could cause.

[...]

The Pentagon had proposed closing Walter Reed and expanding the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda into a new facility called the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, keeping the well-known name. The District would lose 5,630 jobs in the move.

DC residents, call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and get them to save Walter Reed and local jobs!

Screw the American Legion

Yeah, you heard that right. Check out this post on Whiskey Bar.

This is just damn funny

Bodyguards tackle Ali G

Los Angeles - Sacha Baron Cohen aka Ali G was dunked in the sea by Pamela Anderson's bodyguards - after rugby-tackling the actress at her dogs' wedding.

The Ali G star was dressed as his other creation, Kazakhstani TV journalist Borat, when he pulled the stunt.

Cohen, 33, in trunks, leather jacket and Village People-style cap, emerged from the surf on an inflatable turtle.

His rugby tackle sent Pam, 38, hurtling to the sand on the beach at Malibu, California.

Concerned security men grabbed the comedian and dragged him into the sea.

Pam was presiding over the nuptials of her Golden Retriever Star to Chihuahua Luca. - Ananova.com

Cap Lounge

In case anyone hasn't heard yet (via Stakeholder):

It looks like careless smoking caused the fire that destroyed a Capitol Hill tavern early Wednesday.

D.C. Fire and EMS spokeswoman Catherine Friedman tells WTOP the two-alarm fire caused significant damage to the Capitol Lounge.

The fire started in the bar and no one was injured, she says.

DLC to the Rescue of the Democratic Party. Not!

I am so sick of hearing that Democrats need to compromise on our principles, give up the fight to protect reproductive rights, stop fighting for civil rights for homosexuals, and get cozy with corporations in order to win elections.

Who recommends that we do these things? The DLC, for one; its claim to fame is its link to the two Clinton presidential victories.

Interesting, though, how the pro-DLC wing of the party fails to mention the slow and steady decline of the Democrats in the House and Senate during the DLC's ascendancy. Or that Clinton, the DLC darling, never even won 50% of the vote (his winning percentages were 43% and 49%).

Visit Sirotablog and read David Sirota's thoughts on the DLC's latest debacle:

The DLC has agreed to participate in a Heritage Foundation event entitled "Did the Progressives Destroy America?"

WTF? To even justify the idea that progressives (who have been behind every great movement in this country from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and workers' rights) are destroying America is to play into the hands of Buchanan, Hannity, Perle, and Rove. It is destructive, grotesque, shocking, and certainly not the act of a group that purports to promote the Democratic Party. We know who is destroying America and it sure as hell isn't the progressives.

Why in the world would any Democratic group ever want to participate in any Heritage Foundation event? There are no swing voters in the audience, as Sirota points out, so even that paper-thin argument doesn't hold water.

Hmmm . . . so does DLC stand for Destroy Liberal Causes? Or the Democratic Losers Council?

Will the real Captain Cuckoo Bananas Please Stand up?

OK, so this is not real news, but it sure is fun!

Tom Cruise Has Lived Before!

Cruise, 43, told how he has known and loved his latest fiancee, Dawson's Creek star Katie Holmes, "many times in many lives before".

He said: "When I was languishing in prison before being sent to exile, she used to send me notes hidden inthe collar of her pug dog. She's my eternal soulmate."

* * *

And at his news conference, a Scientology-themed event with selected reporters from his fan club's newsletter, he claimed that Brooke was the lover of the founder of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, in a previous life.

He said: "I could tell you stories about Brooke.

"She was the mistress of Sigmund Freud, you know. Is it any wonder she promotes his discredited theories? She's so confused.

I hear he gives money to Democrats, so maybe we shouldn't be so hard on him. You might be thinking that we can use his crazy somehow, but we never we able to exploit Ashcroft's crazy, so your plan better be good.

Pat Robertson now lying, blaming AP

The best part about this article is not that Pat Robertson got caught telling an outright lie, but that he's blaming the AP for misinterpretting him. Dems/Liberals/Progressives should take note. This is what the Right does - blame the media whenever there's something negative about them in the media. No matter how true anything the media writes may be, if the Right doesn't like it they just blame the media.

"I didn't say 'assassination,'" clarified Robertson during a broadcast of his "The 700 Club" Wednesday morning. "I said our special forces should go 'take him out,' and 'take him out' could be a number of things, including kidnapping."

He blamed The Associated Press for making him seem to advocate the assassination of a foreign leader.

"There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him," Robertson said. "I was misinterpreted by the AP, but that happens all the time."

However, during the original "700 Club" broadcast Monday night, Robertson clearly mentioned assassination.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we are trying to assassinate him, we should go ahead and do it," Robertson said Monday.

Just a fun article about Shiner

from Stuart Elliott's advertising newsletter on NYTimes.com, which I highly recommend if you're interested in that sort of thing.

A Whimsical Campaign for Regional Beer

There are 51 employees at the brewery, and they're real people who have real jobs," Mr. Finnigan says. "And when you look at most of them, almost all of them, these aren't in-and-out workers; there's not a lot of turnover and a lot of them have history, a grandfather or father or brother worked at the brewery."

"These people live and die for Shiner beer," he adds, "and we thought it was a great tribute" to them to feature them in the campaign.

One print ad shows an oversized portrait of John Hybner, who worked for Shiner for 39 years and was the company's brew master from 1972 until he retired on June 1. "Shiner's first hospital was above a bar," the ad reads. "Pretty much says it all."

A second print ad depicts a maintenance supervisor. The headline: "One post office. One traffic light. Seven bars. Clearly we have our priorities straight." In a third ad, a quality-control employee appears under this headline: "We hear in some towns beer gut is a derogatory term. Go figure." All the print ads are decorated with vintage snap shots of Shiner and the brewery.

"It is all about the beer for them," says Mark McGarrah, partner at McGarrah/Jessee, "and that's what we're tapping into."

I love Shiner.

Desecrating Graves to Promote the War

This is just sick:

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

[...]

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

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

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

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

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

The owner of the company that has been making gravestones for Arlington and other national cemeteries for nearly two decades is uncomfortable, too.

"It just seems a little brazen that that's put on stones," said Jeff Martell, owner of Granite Industries of Vermont. "It seems like it might be connected to politics."

First of all, this is just a craven desecration of soldiers graves for purely political reasons. If you want to say "Iraq War" that's one thing, but using the bullshit slogans created for TV is just sickening.

Secondly, is this really a smart way to promote a war? They don't want us to see the flag-draped coffins but gravestones with lame slogans are a good idea?

Does this count as a Bushism?

So at his press conference (Bush Comments on Protest Efforts) the President says ofCindy Sheehan, "She doesn't represent the views of a lot of families I have met with."

Well, of course not, you fucking dolt, but she does represent the views of a lot of families you haven't met with! That's why you haven't met with them!

I wish the GWB would listen to this guy:

Mother deserves meeting, and apology, from Bush
DeWayne Wickham

Mr. President, you should gently caress Sheehan's hands and assure her that her son didn't die in Iraq because you wanted to settle an old score. Tell her the reference you made to Saddam as "the guy who tried to kill my dad" during a 2002 speech, in which you laid out the case for war with Iraq, was a meaningless coincidence.

And tell Sheehan that when you said "bring them on" the following year, as resistance to the American occupation of Iraq began to stiffen, that you didn't mean to taunt insurgents from the safety of the White House while U.S. forces in that country were left to deal with their deadly response.

Just be honest and say you lost it for a moment. I think Sheehan will understand, given the emotional roller coaster she has been on since getting word that her son was killed five days after arriving in Iraq.

If at some point Sheehan gives you a sympathetic look, use this opening to say how sorry you are that more than 90% of the nearly 1,900 U.S. servicemen and women who have been killed in Iraq died after you triumphantly proclaimed an end to "major combat operations" in that nation.

He Must Have Been Smoking Something

From the Hotline, original AP article here:

33

VERMONT: Dubie On The Web (Though Careful When Googling "Dubie")

LG Brian Dubie (R) "insists that he has made no decision about what political office he might seek." But his Web site invites contributions to "Brian Dubie -- Senatorial Exploratory." Dubie: "The web site is a fact and it speaks for itself. The election will soon be upon us. ... I did revise the Web site to put certain options on the table. But that (a SEN bid) is an option on the table. I haven't made that announcement. I'm not making that announcement. But it's on the table."

The site allows contributions up to $2.1K, although the limit for statewide, non-federal office in VT is $400. Dubie: "I haven't raised a nickel (toward a SEN run.) I haven't asked for a nickel." He "said the site was not working to take donations." The AP tested the site and was unable to make a $5 donation.

He "hinted that he is close" to a decision. Dubie: "But now it seems with the fair season coming around, and a change in the weather, it's about time for me to make a decision and make an announcement" (Gram, AP, 8/22).

That's like five mistakes all rolled into one. Fail.

A wormhole to the French Quarter

I agree with DCist. These guys will make you stop and listen.

A Little Night Music

We crossed Dupont Circle after our staff meeting last night, marveling at how in D.C., even parks full of people relaxing are still somehow frantic. As we crossed the circle, we saw our hands-down favorite bunch of street performers. We don’t know their official name, but they are a squadron of joyous, soulful trombones with percussive accompaniment. They’re out there in the heat and the cold, performing a colossal public service by lifting the spirits of hundreds of people every night they perform.

We would love to interview them on the spot, but their mouths are always full of trombone. We have no idea who they are, why they do what they do, where they come from or how they got here ... but perhaps there is a wormhole in the fabric of space-time connecting Dupont Circle with an alley in New Orleans’ French Quarter.

From DCist contributor Jeff Simmermon

Oh my God, these people scare me.

It's a religious round-up this morning. Sadly, though these read like satire, they are not.

First, the religious wackos in the US finally decided to get into the fatwa business. Actually, considering Eric Rudolph, I guess they already were, but here's another one:

Televangelist Calls for Assassination of Chavez
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

Nice how he combined Cold War and the "Global War on Terror" into one. Venezuela is everything you fear all together!

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Apparently Robertson didn't get the CIA memo that it's not cool to talk publicly about killing the democratically-elected leaders of other countries. And, speaking of the CIA, I think it's odd that the AP cites the Agency as a source for export statistics (see below). Wouldn't you think you'd get that info from the US Trade Office or an economist?

Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.

Sometimes I think the only reason God allows Pat Robertson to continue to exist on this planet is to provide fodder for Barry Lynn's direct mail fundraising letters.




























Next is:

Grooming Politicians for Christ
Evangelical programs on Capitol Hill seek to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God.

WASHINGTON — In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bowed his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prayed that they might find wisdom in the Bible — and govern by its word.

"Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," said Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill."

"Amen," the students murmured. Then they picked up their pens expectantly.

Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

[...]

Such programs share a commitment to developing leaders who read the Bible as a blueprint.

As Kennedy put it: "If we leave it to man to decide what's good and evil, there will be chaos."

[...]

Growing up in rural West Virginia, Echard believed passionately in her church's teachings against abortion, but thought little about such issues as economic policy or foreign trade.

The institute gave her a framework for evaluating those topics.

Now the director of the Eagle Forum, a conservative lobbying group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, Echard says Jesus would approve of a call for lower taxes: "God calls on us to be stewards of our [own] money."

She dips into the Bible to explain her opposition to most global treaties, reasoning that Americans have a holy obligation to protect their God-given freedom by avoiding foreign entanglements.

George Roller, left, of the Center for Christian Statesmanship, and Jeremy Bouma, of the Statesmanship Institute, help offer seminars for members of Congress and staff, teaching them to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy.
(Andrew Councill / For The Times)

So the Bible instructs them to speak out on tax policy, stem cells, and CAFTA, but how about an issue I know Jesus would have cared about (seeing as how things went down, you know?).

Where's the Christian outrage over Lena Baker? Or the countless others like her who sit on death rows in Texas, Florida, Virginia, etc? Will they eventually get their pardons, like she did, decades too late?

Maid pardoned 60 years after execution

ALBANY, Georgia (AP) -- The only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life.

As the Washington Post editorialized:

It is tempting to believe that these tragedies don't happen anymore, that the death penalty now is more protective of innocent life. Indeed, trial standards are undoubtedly higher; southern states are no longer organized governmental conspiracies against the rights of African Americans; and capital appeals today ensure layers of review totally absent then.

Yet injustice is a resilient pestilence that -- like drug-resistant bacteria -- has myriad ways of defeating the best human attempts to eliminate it. And Americans who believe the death penalty is foolproof are simply kidding themselves. DNA testing has caused many people to be freed from death row, illustrating the fallibility of even modern trials. And recently prosecutors in St. Louis reopened the case of a man executed by the state of Missouri back in 1995 -- no longer being convinced that the state had killed the right person. As long as the death penalty persists, cases like Ms. Baker's -- where recompense is impossible -- are inevitable.

I got your silver ring thing right here...

This is what our tax dollars are paying for under the Bush administration:

The action comes three months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against HHS, accusing the administration of using tax dollars to promote Christianity. In documents filed in federal court in Boston, the ACLU alleged that the activities, brochures and Web site of Silver Ring Thing were "permeated with religion" and use "taxpayer dollars to promote religious content, instruction and indoctrination."

Teenage graduates of the program sign a covenant "before God Almighty" to remain virgins and earn a silver ring inscribed with a Bible passage reminding them to "keep clear of sexual sin." Many of its events are held at churches.

In filings with the Internal Revenue Service, the organization describes its mission as "evangelistic ministry" with an emphasis on "evangelistic crusade planning."

Representatives of the Pennsylvania-based nonprofit describe Silver Ring Thing as a "faith-based" group but dispute charges it has commingled its public funds with religious activities.

Trays of mint juleps

That's the way to go.

Writer lights up crowd in grand finale

By Jeff Kass, Rocky Mountain News
August 22, 2005

WOODY CREEK - Ho Ho.

That was one of Hunter S. Thompson's favorite expressions and what he might have said Saturday night as his ashes - mixed with fireworks and shot over a 153-foot fist sculpture - sprinkled an awestruck crowd of close friends and family holding champagne glasses and seeped into the rustic property he called his "psychic anchor."

[...]

Fist symbols were projected into the sky like Batman logos, and a decorative peyote button embedded in the fist-shaped monument pulsed blue, orange, red and green.

Boulders surrounded the tower, and Thompson's "red shark" - a red Chevy convertible - was parked nearby. The passenger and driver seats were occupied by blow-up sex dolls. Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man, as the gonzo journalist had requested, played after his ashes were launched.

[...]

Trays of mint juleps - a nod to Thompson's Kentucky roots - greeted visitors who walked up a stairway and into the bar area. A portrait-sized photo of Thompson holding a dagger was surrounded by images of the most influential writers in his life, such as Joseph Conrad and Mark Twain.

The cremated remains of writer Hunter S. Thompson explode amid fireworks over his 42-acre Woody Creek property.

The director of Breakfast with Hunter, a documentary about HST, was on hand to film it. Wonder if they'll be a follow-up documentary...



Pop!

The Insurance Industry--Multiplying Billable Hours for Defense Lawyers!

Yup, the lawsuit that alleges that the Texas Association of Business violated Texas campaign finance law has been expanded to include Cigna, Ace American, Connecticut General, and other insurance companies. For an industry known for lawyer-bashing, its activites sure are generating a lot more work for the defense bar. Good for them.

From the Austin-American Statesman:

"A lawsuit against the Texas Association of Business has been expanded to include several corporate donors, most of them insurance companies, that financed the association's 2002 direct-mail campaign that's part of a grand jury investigation.

Austin lawyer Buck Wood, representing three former Democratic candidates who were opposed by the association, now has named eight corporations as defendants: AT&T Corp., Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co., Ace American Insurance Co., Aetna Inc., Connecticut General Life Insurance Co., United Healthcare of Texas, Cigna Healthcare of Texas Inc. and America's Health Insurance Plans.

More corporations might be added as defendants, Wood said.

The Texas Association of Business, the state's largest business organization, spent about $1.7 million of corporate money on ads mailed to voters in two dozen crucial state legislative campaigns. The effort was paid for by donations, from $100 to $300,000, from 30 or so firms.

The ads touted Republicans and criticized Democrats. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is investigating whether the ads violated the state ban against corporate money being spent on campaign activities.

Lawyers for the association have argued that the ads did not advocate the election or defeat of anyone because they avoided using words such as "elect," "support," "oppose" or "defeat." They said the ads educated voters about the issues."

Um, yeah, they "educated" voters how to vote for Republicans and against Democrats. Um, I think that kind of "education" is called propaganda.

And that's not how it is supposed to work in a democracy , is it?

Whatever.

Can we bring Begala back?

He helped us win the last successful Dem campaign. He can actually talk like a normal human being; you actually get the impression he is a normal human being and interacts with such. Not like Shrum, who lives in a cave somewhere. Plus, Begala's a Longhorn.

Anyway, this was linked from Kos the other day. I have nothing to add, other than damn right.

Anti-War Imagery and the Iconography of Hate

By Paul Begala

I don't think they taught Larry Chad to desecrate crosses at the Columbus Avenue Baptist Church. And I doubt his Army buddies from Vietnam are proud to see him running over American flags and disrespecting a memorial for the war dead.
So what could drive a true-blue - or should I say Bush red? - American patriot to commit such a heinous act

Such is the hatred of the far right at the dawn of the 21st Century. And my how the optical worm has turned. Today it is the left invoking faith, flag and family, while the right destroys crosses. Today it is the left that honors the war dead, raises up a Gold Star Mother and publicly prays for our troops, while the right viciously attacks a woman who gave her country everything. Today it is the left that patiently and peacefully respects the Office of the Presidency, while the right diminishes the office by claiming it's more important for the President to go bike-riding with a sports hero than comfort the mother of a war hero.

For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate's deceitful draft-dodging.

On Thursday, Dick Cheney, who said he had "other priorities" in the Vietnam era, and so helped himself to five draft deferments, will address the 73rd Convention of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. I do not think he will express remorse for the callousness with which he explained his cowardice. Nor do I expect him to apologize for the shocking, mocking Republicans who, at their New York Convention a year ago, sported Band-Aids with tiny purple hearts to mock the blood shed by John Kerry and so many other heroes in that misbegotten war.

No, Mr. Cheney, surrounded by body guards who would gladly give their life for him, will no doubt wrap himself in the flag. A flag Larry Chad Northern wrapped around his axle on Prairie Chapel Road.

Two Thumbs Up for “A Patriot Act”

No, not the USA PATRIOT Act, the law enforcement establishment’s wet dream of a bill that un-Constitutionally infringes on our civil tights and liberties. You know, the bill the Bush Administration and its allies rushed through Congress in the aftermath of 9/11.

No, I’m referring to “A Patriot Act,” the New York Theatre Workshop production featuring Mark Crispin Miller, available on DVD.

I recently purchased and viewed this DVD, which sets out a bold case for the proposition that Shrub, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the Professor, and Maryann (ok, not the last two) are the vanguard of a new theocractic, fascistic movement that desires to conquer this country and the world.

Miller points out that Bush and friends are not really hypocrites because they are not content to just wear one face in public and another at home. They are much worse than hypocrites. They actually project their vile thoughts and habits onto others. When they call others cowardly, immoral, or even evil, it is because that is what they know they themselves are.

You may be thinking that this is all old-hat, stuff you already know on some level or another. You may be right, but Miller puts it all together in a uniquely entertaining and absolutely frightening way. This film is scarier than the Exorcist, the Shining, and Psycho combined (mostly because it's real). Miller’s done his homework on the facts, and it’s hard to argue with his logic. Perhaps this is the film we should have taken our token Republican friends to see last summer instead of Fahrenheit 9/11.

Well, it’s never too late to see the Bushco Neocons for the self-hating jihadists they are. Watch this video. I’ll even let you borrow my copy.

Loud indignation against vice often stands for virtue in the eyes of bigots. Jean Petit-Senn

Diebold Voting Machines Pivotal in San Diego Mayoral Race

I know, I know, this is all tinfoil hatter stuff, but check it anyway:

On July 25, San Diego held a special election for a new mayor. Currently mayor-less, America's Finest City, now known as "Enron by the Sea," was the scene of a contested election last November after the courts blocked the victory of write-in candidate Donna Frye because hundreds of her supporters wrote in her name, but forgot to black in the corresponding bubble.

This was an exercise in anti-democracy if you ask me.

To get enough people in San Diego, a city with the dirtiest politics west of Chicago (and which won't even vote to increase property taxes by like a buck fifty after the worst wildfires in California history racked the county) to agree to vote for a write-in candidate is a miracle.

To have a judge rule against counting those historic votes was depressing.

To have a second chance threatened by Diebold machines is criminal.

Of the July 25 results, Raw Story reports:

[A] nonpartisan citizens' group that conducted a parallel election has requested a recount of 11 precincts. This time, the issue isn't unmarked bubbles, but the accuracy of Diebold Accu-Vote optical scan voting machines and the Diebold GEMS central tabulator used to count votes.

The Citizens Audit Parallel Election (CAPE) asked voters exiting polls to vote again and sign a log book attesting to the accuracy of their second vote. Sealed parallel election ballots were counted at KGTV's studio with a TV camera crew filming the counting process.

Nearly 50 percent of all voters participated in the parallel election, which included five polling places representing 11 precincts. The sample included more conservative than liberal precincts, with participation as high among Republicans as among Democrats. The tandem election results showed what most feel to be startling results.

"There is a shift of four percent of the vote, consistently," Joe Prizzi, (engineer and physicist,) reported at a press conference held by CAPE in front of City Hall. Frye received 50.2 percent of the votes cast in the parallel election - enough for an outright victory if those results reflect the outcome citywide. CAPE also found that the official count added approximately 2 percent to each of Frye's two Republican opponents, Jerry Sanders and Steve Francis.

* * *

A team of statisticians from California State University- Northridge - have analyzed the data from CAPE, concluding that the probability of luck or chance as the cause of the observed four percent deviation is less than one in 1,300 - or .000678.

All hope is not lost, but Donna will face an uphill battle against a unified Republican opposition during the run-off.

Coincidence? Sure, and so were Florida, and Ohio, and that little tiny mistake about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

San Diego may be on the front lines of voting reform, which is a great place to be for a city that has been a Republican stronghold and rabidly anti-union for its entire existence. As Bob Dylan, said, "times, they are a changin'."

Anyone concerned about black box voting should follow this story!

Wal-Mart + Booze = ?

So apparently Wal-Mart has started selling booze in some locations. From the Center for American Progress:

Wal-Mart's corporate strategy relies heavily on portraying itself as a family-friendly place to shop. No CDs with offensive lyrics. No magazines with objectionable cover photos. No trampy, single-mother Barbie dolls. All that flies out the window, however, when faced with the promise of more money. The mega-store now, contrary to its family-friendly image, is stocking its shelves with booze. The company's favorite trick to boost profits: "planting a liquor store just over the border of a state or county with restrictive booze laws." It's also finding ways to skirt local laws about selling alcohol. In Florida, for example, "it has gotten around a law restricting the sale of liquor in grocery stores by walling off the liquor department and building a separate entrance in some of its new stores." For more on Wal-Mart's family-friendly policies, see this article on Wal-Mart selling guns to minors and convicted felons.

I'm not one to ever oppose anything that might make that sweet nectar booze cheaper, but the hypocrisy here is just too much. I'll be buying my scotch at the local liquor store, thank you.

Random Thought: Maybe if Wal-Mart starts driving local liquor stores out of business we'll start to see a real revolt against their BS. Drunks of the world unite!

Follow-up Random Thought: I'd love to work field trying to organize drunks.

U.S. Attorney's Office Seeks CA Rep. Duke Cunningham's Home

Now we're talking! You know it is serious when the U.S. Attorney's Office takes time out of schedule to go after you.

As the San Diego Union-Tribune reports:

The U.S. Attorney's Office has filed a secret lawsuit against Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham that contends he should forfeit his Rancho Santa Fe home to the government because it was purchased with illegally obtained money.

Notice of the lawsuit and the government's interest in the property was filed with the San Diego County Recorder's Office.

* * *

The home – a five-bedroom, eight-bath Spanish colonial estate on Via Del Charro – was listed for sale yesterday for $3.5 million. However, the U.S. attorney's declaration that it has a claim on the property makes a sale difficult if not impossible for the time being, local real estate agents said.

Why would the USAO want the Duke's house? Because he violated 18 U.S.C. 201 (the anti-bribery statute), perhaps? If they can get Cunningham, they can get DeLay. It is only a matter of time.

Can anyone say competitive race in CA-50?

For more info on Rep. Cunningham, see this previous post.

Pobrecito Henry

The Hill: Cuellar's colleagues want him out

Several of Rep. Henry Cuellar’s (D-Texas) Democratic colleagues are not supporting the moderate freshman’s reelection bid, instead opting to back one of his challengers, former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D), a popular former lawmaker who lost to Cuellar last fall by 58 votes.

Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel (N.Y.), Luis Gutierrez (Ill.) and Ted Strickland (Ohio) contributed to Rodriguez’s campaign in the first half of this year, according to Federal Election Commission filings, and at least eight more members attended a fundraiser for Rodriguez held in Washington last month.

Rodriguez and another Hispanic candidate, Richard Raymond, are Cuellar’s two likely challengers in the April 11 primary. Members rarely contribute against each other, preferring instead to follow the diplomatic policy of supporting incumbents.

I say good, let's follow the Schoeting route and take pseudo-Dems out in the primary. Cuellar is personally an asshole and professionally a corporate whore. On issues like CAFTA, bankruptcy, fair tax policy, Social Security, patients rights, etc, he votes with the Rs.

He's a Rick Perry-supporting, school voucher-backing, opportunist who showed his true colors in the 2004 race, when he took advantage of the R re-redistricting plan to run a vicious campaign against someone who helped him raise tons of money in his poorly-run campaign against Bonilla in 2002.

Maybe we had to settle for Republican-lite in a Charlie Stenholm district, but we shouldn't have to take it in a district that's Laredo and some of the poorest parts of San Antonio.

That all said, I'd be supporting Richard Raymond in the primary. I agree with the Frost assessment:

"Richard can compete with Cuellar head-on in his natural political base, never having to concede any voting bloc or geographic area. … In a race with such significant long-term ramifications, we should set our emotions aside and support the candidate with the best chance to win," Frost said. He went on to criticize Cuellar, comparing him to Texas Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm and noting his "long record of betraying his party."

Ciro had a great voting record in the House. We need more people like him in Congress, but he ran a shitty campaign in '04, and lost a seat we didn't need to lose. He refused to acknowledge the changing shape of the district and didn't campaign in Laredo until it was too late -- foolishly counting on the courts to restore his old district. He fired staff who pressed him to campaign more aggressively early on (no one needed to tell Doggett to hoof it down to S. Texas when the plan went through). It was uninspired, and doesn't bode well for this go-around.

Raymond's a good Dem generally, and an experienced, focused campaigner. I hope he kicks Henry's ass. Maybe Henry can run for Nuevo Laredo police commissioner then.

That said -- one disappointment about Raymond is his vote to prohibit gays from adopting. He's on the wrong side of history on that one, and I hope looks back on it as Byrd does his KKK days.

Arrest Made in Cross Hit and Run Incident at Camp Casey

From Raw Story:

"AUGUST 16--Meet Larry Northern. The Texas man, 59, was arrested last night and charged with criminal mischief for allegedly driving his pickup truck over wooden crosses erected near the roadside campsite of Cindy Sheehan, the California woman who has brought her antiwar protest to President George W. Bush's Crawford doorstep. A row of the memorial crosses, which carry the names of U.S. soldiers killed during the Iraq war, were destroyed when Northern, a Waco resident, allegedly drove his truck (which was dragging a pipe and chains) over them."

I guess he asked himself "What would Jesus do?," and Jesus responded, "I would run down a bunch of crosses symbolizing soldier's lives lost in Iraq as a reult of Bush's lies."

What is it with "Larry"s anyway? It was a Larry who shot over the crowd at Camp Casey the other night. Loser.

New Yorker Gets Kinky

You know you're for real when the that yankee rag the New Yorker writes about ya, right?

Kinky has no stump speech; he just talks. “Seventy-one per cent of eligible voters in Texas did not vote in the last gubernatorial election,” he told a crowd of six or seven hundred at a public fund-raising event later that night in a Houston design store. “And what that means to me is that Texans aren't happy with the choices they're being given.” The crowd ate it up, buying Kinky posters and T-shirts (“KINKY2006: WHY THE HELL NOT?”) like fans at a rock concert desperate for proof that they had seen their idol. There were a few hundred more of them than anyone had expected—Republicans and Democrats, blond society ladies with industrialstrength hair styles and balding hippies with ponytails, heavily tattooed bikers with necks like fire hydrants, lawyers in three-thousand-dollar suits, and hipster twenty-somethings with T-shirts that said things like “Jesusland: pop. 59,459,765” (a slightly inaccurate reference to the number of votes cast for George W. Bush in 2004). The size and the seriousness of the crowd, as well as its deeply strange composition, seemed to take Kinky aback a little, and he shot Jewford a bemused grin.

More on the civil justice system

If the civil justice system wasn't so important to keep corporations from knowingly killing people, it wouldn't be attacked so much. For those of you who lost it in this poorly formatted blog, Political Junkette had an insightful, incisive post about the medical malpractice bill passed by the U.S. House.

Go read it, and then come back.
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OK, you're back. (I know some of you never left, can't follow instructions can you?)

Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with Junkette's assessment. Here's two other points of outrage to consider.

1. The rhetoric about the bill is stopping FRIVOLOUS suits. Ok, stop frivolous suits. How does limiting recovery for wrongful death, paralysis, disfigurement, impotence, etc at $250,000 have anything to do with frivolous suits?

Perversely, it only affects the most meritorious suits! What it does do is limit the liability of insurers. I wish we could question R members of Congress from the back mic, like in the Texas lege. I'd love to ask one of 'em if they thought $250,000 max would be fair compensation for the negligent death of one of their kids. Consider that Bush's salary is $400,000 a year. Many of the Chamber lobbyists working for the bill make $250,000 a year easy. That's the value of human life to the party of evangelical Christians?

2. If the bill was really about helping doctors with high insurance premiums, why didn't it have any provision to require a rate rollback from the insurance companies, and why did it give liability protection to the drug industry, which most recently killed 55,000 Americans?

Could it be -- as shocking as the cliched gambling in a Moroccan casino -- that this Congress is as full as corporate whores as the Texas Legislature?

Why do we lose these fights? Because we lost the PR war over the civil justice system long ago. It's defined in popular culture and popular opinion not by its benefits to victims and society at large, but by its flaws and excesses. Sometimes those flaws and excesses -- frivolous suits for instance -- aren't even real, as this LAT piece shows.

Legal Urban Legends Hold Sway
Tall tales of outrageous jury awards have helped bolster business-led campaigns to overhaul the civil justice system.

Merv Grazinski set his Winnebago on cruise control, slid away from the wheel and went back to fix a cup of coffee.

You can guess what happened next: The rudderless, driverless Winnebago crashed.

Grazinski blamed the manufacturer for not warning against such a maneuver in the owner's manual. He sued and won $1.75 million.

His jackpot would seem to erase any doubt that the legal system has lost its mind. Indeed, the Grazinski case has been cited often as evidence of the need to limit lawsuits and jury awards.

There's just one problem: The story is a complete fabrication.

[...]

Besides the Grazinski saga, there's the mythical case of Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pa., who got into an argument with her boyfriend in a restaurant, threw a drink at him and then broke her tailbone when she slipped on the wet spot on the floor. Naturally, Carson sued — and won $113,500.

Then there's Kara Walton, a Delaware woman so eager to avoid a $3.50 cover charge that she tried sneaking into a nightclub through a bathroom window but fell and lost a couple of teeth. Walton sued and won $12,000 plus payment of dental bills.

A database search shows the Grazinski, Carson and Walton tales have been cited as true by a wide range of media outlets, including CNN; U.S. News & World Report; the American Spectator; the Oakland Tribune; the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram; the Deseret News of Salt Lake City; the Akron Beacon-Journal; the Greensboro, N.C., News & Record; and the Augusta, Ga., Chronicle.

Yeah, besides the made up cases, people do sometimes file stupid stuff, but it gets dismissed. That's the way the system works. Keep the courthouse doors open for everyone, but throw the nuts out before it gets to a trial.

And, for the final outrage of this rant -- just wait until the medical malpractice bill reaches the Senate -- wonder how this guy will vote?

The War on Terror = The War on Drugs

Remember those commercials after 9/11 implying that the $50 you give your local dealer eventually ends up in the hands of Osama Bin Laden? (Are there really no domestic producers of illicit drugs or were these ads just encouraging kids to "but American"?)

As it turns out, the War on Terror and the War on Drugs are more connected than it may have appeared at first glance. Or, at least that is the case as it relates to the granting and execution of "Sneak-and-Peek" warrants (the ones that allow law enforcement agents to rifle through your stuff without letting you know that they have done so).

In the recently uncovered plot to dig a drug smuggling tunnel from Canada, federal officials used a Sneak-and-Peek warrant to help crack the case.

Sneak-and-Peek warrants were authorized in the USA PATRIOT Act for the War on Terror, not the War on Drugs. Have the two wars merged and Bushco just forgot to tell us?

I never thought I'd say this, but here are some wise words on the subject from David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union (yes this is the group that wants to renominate Robert Bork for the Supreme Court):

"What we've learned from history is that if we grant powers that can be abused, they will eventually be abused or misused or used in other ways," Keene said.

He's probably never been so right. The USA PATRIOT Act grants too much power to any Administration. No one should be inspecting your reading habits without a warrant or putting you under surveillance without letting you know. These abuses can be turned against an innocent victim as easily as they can a so-called "terrorist." Remember Brandon Mayfield?

I would guess that most readers are all for putting criminals behind bars. But it is not OK to trample on our Fourth Amendment rights to do it. If we do not speak up now, then when? Which right is next?

For more information on the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act, click here.

Nice ad

Ouch.

Today's ad says: DON'T LOOK FOR THESE NAMES AMONG THE DEAD AND WOUNDED, and lists on Dog Tags the names of Jenna Bush, David Wolfowitz, Elizabeth Cheney, Valerie Rumsfeld, along with their religious affiliation.

Roger Ailes to Take Over All Fox TV Stations

Shocking news, I know. Perhaps I should have warned you to sit down.

Who could have predicted that a "former Republican party operative" (did they really say former about a guy who distributes party talking points to all his "news" shows?) would get a promotion at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp?

On the "glass is half full" side of things, perhaps he can do less damage as he will be a bit farther from the day-to-day operations of Faux News.

Buzbee for Lt. Guv

The FWST has the scoop:

A little-known outsider with a sizable personal fortune and a central-casting resume says he's giving serious consideration to mounting a challenge against Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst next year.

Tony Buzbee, a 37-year-old lawyer and former chairman of the Galveston County Democratic Party, said the state's GOP leaders are spending too much time fighting among themselves and too little time solving problems like school finance. So he was receptive when some Democratic elders approached him a few weeks ago encouraging him to run for statewide office.

"I'm looking seriously at it, but I haven't said yes or no," said Buzbee, a former Marine Corps captain who led troops in combat during the Persian Gulf War. "I really don't like the way our state is being run right now, and I believe that those of us who have made something in our lives need to be willing to give something back."

The son of a butcher and a school cafeteria worker, Buzbee has made millions of dollars representing injured workers suing big companies and was named one of the top five commercial litigation attorneys in the state in 2003 and a "rising star" in 2004 by Texas Monthly.

Thoughts anyone?

Crawford Blog

Nice blog from someone actually on the ground with Cindy Sheehan.

How can we not crash one of these?

Uncle Sam Wants You In The Worst Way
The Army is boosting its marketing and trying new tacks to close a recruiting gap

TOWN HALL MEETINGS

The army acknowledges its traditional approach -- paeans to patriotism and machismo, and selling military service as a career booster -- is no longer enough.

[...]

In one key initiative, the Army is gearing up this fall for a series of 15 televised town hall meetings in which carefully selected soldiers will tell positive stories about military accomplishments in Iraq and Afghanistan and answer questions. Nickerson says that the town hall audiences won't be prescreened -- a risky strategy since anyone could sound off about the war.

On the drive there, we'll drink Lone Star and blast Masters of War and No Time Flat to get fired up for the event.

No Time Flat is a new protest song, by Kevin Devine:

It seems to me we get the same shit from them both.
Reform don't work; I think it's time we tried revolt,
but I don't got the guts to jump up and go first,
so I just shout until my throat hurts,
and I curse and I curse
at what we fucked up in Iraq.
You say support the troops; I do.
I want them all brought back,
and every building that you bombed raised from the ground.
And pull your contractors the fuck out.
If you really go and reinstate the draft,
you'll straight away just split the country straight in half,
so try arresting everyone who sends their draft cards back.
I'll be returning mine in no time flat.

We'll start the collection now for the legal defense fund.

The Arrogance & Egoism of the Republicans Continues Unabated

Jack Abramoff is a crook. We here at the Political Asylum celebrate his arrest.

His own willingness to break the law with impunity and to be so bold as to flaunt his "investment" in a gambling boat business sped his downfall.

Now comes the arrogance of U.S. Rep Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who recently announced that he will retire at the end of the 109th Congress. The reason? A $700,000 bribe he took (in the form of an overpayment) from a defense contractor. Shouldn't he retire now? Yes, but such a move would indicate something akin to remorse or shame, emotions that Republicans are apparently incapable of displaying in the current environment.

If you are not familiar with the Cunningham scandal, here's a summary from the San Francisco Chronicle:

"The former Navy "Top Gun" fighter pilot and Vietnam War veteran has been hounded the past month by questions concerning his relationship with longtime friend Mitchell J. Wade, the founder of defense firm MZM Inc.

Federal prosecutors have been investigating Cunningham's 2003 sale of his 3,826-square-foot house in the wealthy coastal community of Del Mar to Wade for $1.675 million.

Wade resold the house the following year at a $700,000 loss. That amounted to a 60 percent drop in value during a period when the average price of a San Diego County home increased 25 percent.

Around the same time, Washington, D.C.-based MZM was increasing its federal contracting business. Revenues tripled last year, according to the company's Web site. In fiscal 2004, MZM was No. 38 on the list of defense contractors performing intelligence-related and other work, with $65.5 million of contracts."

But Cunningham is going out in true Republican style. He recently sent a letter to his campaign contributors telling them that their campaign contributions will be used for his legal defense fund, unless they inform him that they object to his plan.

Here's the kicker: the letter concludes with a plea for more money!

And the American public goes merrily along, claiming their allegiance to the President and his Party? Let's hope not.

Here's to bringing down an entire pod of white whales and bringing back a Democratic majority.

(Props to the drewmeister for suggesting this post)

Let's Save 98,000 Lives by Giving Doctors Less Incentive to Be Careful

In the last week that the House of Representatives was in session, the Republican leadership brought to the floor (and passed, obviously), a variety of bills they claim will improve healthcare in America.

One of these bills will create Association Health Plans which will allow insurers to offer plans that are exempt from a variety of state regulations (including fraud protections and mandates to cover such extravagant costs as diabetes management supplies and pregnancy & well-baby care). Nice. Way to protect the public.

However, perhaps even more egregious was the so-called HEALTH Act. More commonly known as "med mal reform," this bill is touted as the answer to cheaper, more accessible health care (for all we know, it may lead to the cure for the common cold as well). What the bill really would do is limit the amount an injured party can recover for non-economic damages to $250,000, no matter what the injury suffered or how appalling the mistake.

Just who are this bill's supporters? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce for one. You know, that bastion of consumer protection that would never advocate for any policy just to protect bad corporate actors.

The American Medical Association supports this bill as well (anyone shocked to hear that?). Docs argue that it will improve and lower the cost of care because doctors won't have to waste time and money practicing so much defensive medicine.

Let's consider that argument: doctors, who kill 98,000 Americans a year due to their carelessness (not to mention untold numbers of those they permanently main) will IMPROVE the quality of care they provide once there is little economic incentive to be careful? If they kill 98,000 men, women,and children a year when they are being "defensive," how many will they kill when they don't have to be so careful?

Is this really the way to bring down medical malpractice insurance premiums (the exhorbitant rates of which are the reason doctors give for their support of this bill)? Whatever happened to good old industry regulation? Interesting that the docs are not advocating actually making fewer mistakes or policing bad doctors more effectively (two things you'd think might also help patients and lower med mal premiums).

$250,000 isn't even a rounding error to insurance companies. Once this is the maximum payment for non-economic damages (which include the pain and suffering that a patient suffers for being blinded, paralyzed, or de-limbed by a negligent doctor), the trial becomes solely about economic losses. How are those calculated? By lost future wages.

So medical malpractice trials will become exercises in racial profiling. I can see it now: insurance company lawyers will argue that a young Latina victim would have grown up to become a minimum wage housekeeper, nanny, or Wal-Mart clerk and that the injured black youth would have dropped out of high school and faced minimal income prospects.

Lawsuits are one of the few remaining avenues in Republican America to force corporations and other powerful actors to change their ways and to internalize the economic costs of the impacts of their behavior on others. No toxic waste site in this country has ever been cleaned up out of a sense of social responsibility.

This bill is just one of many USCOC bills designed to take away the citizens' right of redress, and sadly, hundreds of working class Americans, including those who are daily exposed to toxic chemicals and other unsafe conditions at their jobsites and in their neighborhoods, are writing to their elected representatives pleading with them to pass so-called "tort reform."

We Dems have got to do a better job of explaining the benefits of our justice system. Instead of being afraid of defending the much-maligned trial lawyer, we must explain the value of lawsuits to protecting society's most vulnerable members.

We can start by reminding folks about Erin Brokovich, the Buffalo Creek Disaster, and the Tuskegee Experiment.

More info can be found here. And here.

Vanity Fair Calls out the MSM on Conspiracy to Protect Rove

I am starting to love Editor & Publisher.

From today's edition:


In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair (not yet online), Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media -- principally Time magazine and The New York Times -- who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been “one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.” Not only that, “they helped cover it up.” You might say, he adds, they “became part of a conspiracy.”

* * *

So in the end, he concludes, “the greatest news organizations in the land had a story about a potential crime that reached as close as you can get to the president himself and they punted, they swallowed it, they self-dealt.” And why did they do it? Well, “a source is a source who, unrevealed, will continue to be a source.”

Finally, finally, finally the MSM is recognizing its own role in supporting, justifying, and propping up this debacle of an Administration. Is Vanity Fair going to be our Toto, pulling the curtain back so that Dorothy (and the rest of Red America) can finally see the Great Wizard of Rove pulling the levers marked "Fear," "Terror," and "Patriotism"?

You go, Vanity Fair. And, to the folks at Editor & Publisher (who also broke the news about Judith Miller's award for Conscience in the Media being revoked), major props. You keep reporting on media itself, and we'll keep directing readers your way.

Proof that OU is in league with the devil

Ok, maybe not the devil, but his minion, James Dobson. For some twisted reason, a CruzBustmante reader stopped by the Colorado Springs headquarters of Focus on the Family, and found, prominently displayed, an OU football signed by Bob Stoops reading "Dr. Dobson, A Great Sooner, Bob Stoops."















Yet another reason OU sucks. Oct. 8 at 1 pm, OU will lose to Texas, and all the prayers in the world won't help. Hook 'em. And Players will be there for those in Austin to celebrate with a greasy burger and a Lone Star. And it's Friday, and Happy Hour will be upon us soon. Happy Friday, all.

Player's Saved

The Statesman has the story (and a hideously evil headshot of Faulkner). Marvelle first blogged about this a few months back.

Here's hoping State Rep. René Oliveira gets free cheeseburgers, onion rings, and shakes for the rest of her life (if she didn't already).

Ridiculous, even for the Journal

This was the top letter to the editor in the WSJ today. Apparently, if trial lawyers would just stop suing, then companies would voluntarily make safer products. Sure.

Trace Toxins and the Public Health
August 11, 2005; Page A13

I read the first installment of your "Toxic Traces" series ("Levels of Risk: Common Industrial Chemicals in Tiny Doses Raise Health Issue," Page One, July 25) with great interest. It is somewhat alarming to read how quickly industry rushes to dismiss new health concerns regardless of innovation in diagnostic capabilities and analytical techniques, but it shouldn't surprise anyone.

As long as the legal system allows for random punitive punishments that can far exceed actual damages and may very well bankrupt a company, there should be no expectation that a company will be a cooperative partner in reassessing the safety of products that have been in use for decades. Any company that does so voluntarily only opens itself up for punishment, not praise. The preservation of legal rights for individual plaintiffs has come at the cost of the greater good.

Kevin Poehlmann
Oak Ridge, N.J.

Republicans Are Evil Online

While Democratic candidates have been making great strides in using the Web to make their campaigns more transparent, two Republicans just got caught using their Web sites to hide the truth from voters.

- Mark Kennedy, Repubican from MN, just got busted altering and selectively excerpting AP articles on his Web site. In one example he changed an AP headline:

When the Pioneer Press published Frommer's article, the headline read: "Kennedy's votes break with GOP. Democrats call change 'election-year makeover.' " The Kennedy Web site headline read: "Kennedy: A common-sense, get things done guy."

- Meanwhile Jeanine Pirro, who's running for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, has no mention of her husband on her campaign Web site. No photos, not in the bio, nothing. Perhaps that's because hubby Albert is "a lawyer-lobbyist who spent 11 months in federal prison on a tax fraud conviction."

More and more people expect campaign Web sites to be informational hubs for voters looking to find out about a particular candidate. As such, it's fair game for the media to point out when candidates aren't totally upfront about themselves on a Web site. No one would bust a campaign for doing the above if it was in a TV spot or a direct mail piece - but on the Web you can't pull the same shit.

How Not to Win Over the Blogosphere

What the hell was NARAL thinking?

If you were a Dem-leaning issue advocacy group and you didn't like what a union was doing would you ask your members to go to a union rally and tell union members they're wrong about something? Not unless you like it when your members get the shit kicked out of them.

What you would do is tell your members to do is to join the union, get involved in what they do, and make a difference that way.

If NARAL had sent out an email saying 'hey, these blogs are great, they're an important part of the progressive community, and we want to encourage you to get involved in what they're doing,' the blogs would have praised them. Instead, they attacked the blogs and alienating a bunch of activists that probably would have been pretty happy to support them.

My vote for dumbest email of the week. And I'm not even going to get into the logic (or lack thereof) behind supporting Lincoln Chafee...

Reason #7,836,297 Republicans Are Sick Bastards

Protecting rats and household property instead of children:

The battle over how to regulate rat poison started in August 1998 when the Clinton administration approved its use as long as manufacturers added a bittering agent and a dye that made it more obvious if a child ingested the poison. Three years later, Bush administration officials rescinded the requirements, on the grounds that they would make the poison less attractive to rats and could damage household property.

Rat poison accidents are on the rise, according to U.S. poison-control centers, and they disproportionately involve African American and Latino children.

Abortion = bad. Kids dying of rat poisoning = okay. Ah, the culture of life.

Why Drinking and Buying Influence Don't Go Together

Screw the Rs - the lobbyists over at Anheuser-Busch need to stop drinking on the job.

In online news, Houston's Mayor Bill White launched a new Web site this weekend.

The DSCC has a beta version of its new site up.

And there's a badass new site, also in beta, you should check out called LeftyBlogs.

US Soldier says he was trained to beat prisoners to death

so what did he do wrong???

"I just don't understand how, if we were given training to do this, you can say that we were wrong and should have known better," said the soldier, Pvt. Willie V. Brand, 26, of Cincinnati, a father of four who volunteered for tours in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Like Pvt. Brand, there are many things I do not understand:

"None of the nine soldiers prosecuted thus far are officers."

Why are the privates and other enlisted folks the only ones ever prosecuted for these prison brutalities?

"The lawyer for one of the former military intelligence soldiers, Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, pointed to her lack of preparation as she entered a guilty plea, saying she had no prior training in interrogations and learned that she would be questioning prisoners only after arriving in Afghanistan."

How much training do you need to recognize that another human being, who is completely under your power, is injured and in pain? Is this something that has to be taught? Even animals recognize when members of their group are injured, and lick each other's wounds to help.

My primary beef, though, is that most Americans seem not to know, and worse, seem not to care that this is happening. We claim to believe in the sanctity of human life, but the rhetoric doesn't hold as soon as we determine that that life is not American.

Where is the basic human emotion of compassion for one's fellow man? And where is our outrage at this inhumanity?

Beacon of freedom and shining example of democracy to the rest of the world my ass.

"If the ride is more fly," he says, "then you must buy."

Wishful thinking

Congressman Tom Davis says his fellow Rs can reach out to African Americans by supporting voting rights for DC. (Snicker.) He's right of course. Fat chance that'll happen. This from a recent editorial he wrote on the subject:

What if there was a way for Republicans to take the lead in advancing voting rights that would serve not only as a gesture of good faith to the African-American community, but would meaningfully franchise hundreds of thousands of people? In fact, there is -- by supporting my proposal to give the citizens of the District of Columbia a full voting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Legislation I have introduced this year, the D.C. Fairness in Representation Act, would correct the anomaly that exists today, in which the 550,000 (mostly African-American) residents of the nation's capital pay federal taxes, fight and die in the armed forces, yet have no direct representation in Congress. We are fighting for democracy in Baghdad and Kabul, but have seemingly forgotten the disenfranchised citizens of our own capital.

The Republican leadership won't even let DC residents choose what to name their own streets, what makes anyone think they'll give the city an actual vote? Jackass John Cornyn has even stopped answering my letters about this issue. After Florida and Ohio and the new voter ID law in Texas, the Texas re-redistricting what makes anyone think this group gives a shit about voting rights?

Even the brave Davis's proposal wouldn't give DC Senators. So, if you don't live in DC and are lucky enough in this shining city on a hill of a "democracy" we have, please go to DC Vote, and send a letter to your members of Congress asking them to let DC residents finally become full citizens. Hell, maybe they'll work a compromise and DC residents will each get 3/5 of a vote.

This is promising...

Unlike the Texas GOP, SCOTUS nominee John Roberts appears to actually care about gay rights:

Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

Morford hits another one

Who Loves Creepy Megachurches? / Stadium crowds, thousands of rabid devotees, all chugging Jesus like Kool-Aid. Should you be afraid?

Note the gleam, the sheen, the hair product, the creepy I-can't-believe-you're-all-falling-for-my-shtick grin splattered all over televangelist and best-selling author Joel Osteen and his not-quite-human wife, Victoria, as they celebrate the grand opening of the new home for the Lakewood Church, formerly the Compaq Center. I mean, come *on* people. Didn't anyone see "V" back in the '80s? Can't you tell the scary lizard race from the Fifth Dimension when you see them? Look more closely. Look at those eyes. Scaly!

...especially now, especially when the country's identity is imploding and moral codes are deliciously evolving and we are no longer the gleaming righteous superpower we always thought we were and instead are much more the fat self-righteous playground thug no one likes.

"Fat self-righteous playground thug no one likes" is my new favorite term.

Not even noon and I need a drink

How else to react to headlines like these?

Are our products our enemy?

Since what they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development.

Researchers: Higher levels of arsenic in U.S. rice

Researchers don't yet know why levels in the U.S. are as high as they are.

Shaping politics from the pulpits

CANTON, Ohio — Pastor Russell Johnson paces across the broad stage as he decries the "secular jihadists" who have "hijacked" America, accuses the public schools of neglecting to teach that Hitler was "an avid evolutionist" and links abortion to children who murder their parents.

"It's time for the church to get a spinal column" and push the "seculars and the jihadists ... into the dust bin of history," the guest preacher tells a congregation that fills the sanctuary at First Christian Church of Canton.

That is his mission. Johnson leads the Ohio Restoration Project, an emergent network of nearly 1,000 "Patriot Pastors" from conservative churches across the state. Each has pledged to register 300 "values voters," adding hundreds of thousands of like-minded citizens to the electorate who "would be salt and light for America."

Me and Hitler, avid evolutionists. Who knew we had so much in common? You also gotta love how this guy lumps in "seculars" and "jihadists". Ah, screw it, maybe we'll like the dust bin.