Late night open thread

Gnite (after I watch Enterprise - still catching up on my TiVO) Read More......

Black Texas legislator rips homophobes: Anti-black prejudice is the same thing as anti-gay prejudice

UPDATE: You can thank the legislator here.

You go girl! Damn good speech, via the wonderful Molly Ivins.

And anti-gay prejudice IS the same thing an anti-black prejudice which is the same thing as anti-Jewish prejudice and on and on and on. Bigotry is bigotry is bigotry, and anybody who can't handle that truth can go Cheney themselves. It's high time we stopped pussy-footing around, being afraid to offend people by equating the two (or three). I am not afraid of some bigot who thinks their suffering is greater, or more important, or more worthy than someone else's.

And now, the wonderful Ms. Ivins and the wonderful state legislator (note that this is only an excerpt below, read the entire story):

Rarely are the words of one state legislator worth national attention, but when Senfronia Thompson, a black representative from Houston, stalks to the back mike with a certain "get-out-of-my-way" look in her eye, it's, Katie, bar the door. Here is Thompson speaking against the Legislature's recent folly of putting a superfluous anti-gay marriage measure into the state constitution:

"Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination... When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about 'protecting the institution of marriage' as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color, you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree... Fifty years ago, white folks thought interracial marriages were 'a threat to the institution of marriage.'....

"I have served in this body a lot of years, and I have seen a lot of promises broken... So... now that blacks and women have equal rights, you turn your hatred to homosexuals, and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag -- brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what?....

"Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids -- sweet little vulnerable kids -- out of the homes of loving parents and put them back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's disgusting.

"I have listened to the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap... I want you to know that this amendment [is] blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry."

Read More......

E&P; weighs in on Ohio GOP Coin-gate

E&P; has spoken. This is a real scandal brewing in Ohio involving major players in the Ohio Republican Party. E&P; has a great interview with Jim Drew and Mike Wilkinson, the reporters from the Toledo Blade who broke and continue to cover "coin-gate." My favorite lines:

"I've been in the business for 11 years here and 18 years total," said reporter Mike Wilkinson. "I've never worked on a story like this that's had this much impact and has been this much fun."

and

"There's no end in sight," Wilkinson said.

No end in sight....that's what I hear from Ohio, too. Even more scandalous developments tomorrow. You thought rare coins were risky...as Atrios would say "heh-indeedy"....

The Ohio GOP reeks, just reeks of corruption. Read More......

Hmmmmmm

Just read it. Read More......

Amnesty rips the US and calls Gitmo the "gulag of our time"

What a proud moment in our history when Amnesty singles out the US together with Sudan and Zimbabwe for human rights abuses. Read More......

Go, Dan, Go!

You may remember Dan Savage as the editor of the Seattle alternative weekly, The Stranger - the paper that broke the Microsoft going anti-gay story. Dan is also a regular sex advice columnist, published on The Onion and in lots of alternative weeklies around the country. His latest column is a must-read, and not very work-safe, if you worry about such things. Read More......

Day 4: Anti-Islam slur remains on DOD Web site

Day 4, and counting.

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Open thread

Been a while Read More......

FBI: More allegations of Koran abuse at Gitmo

Washington Post has the story:

Numerous detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba told FBI interrogators that guards had mistreated copies of the Koran, including one who said in 2002 that guards "flushed a Koran in the toilet," according to new FBI documents released today.

The summaries of FBI interviews, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing lawsuit, also include allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor and withheld as punishment and that guards mocked Muslim prisoners during prayers.

Over to you, Scott McClellan. Read More......

Lead gay GOP group calls on anti-gay Bush appointee, Scott Bloch, to resign

Ok, this is getting very interesting now. And kudos to Log Cabin for doing this. I worried they might feel the need to be a pro-Bush rubber-stamp after the election - clearly they're sticking to their pro-gay guns. Good job. Read More......

Bush's anti-gay special counsel, last year endorsed gay job protections now opposes them - did he lie then or now?

This is getting interesting.

Bush's head of the Office of Special Counsel told Congress yesterday that he could not (and apparently would not) enforce the presidential executive order, which Bush endorsed, banning anti-gay discrimination in federal employment.

But last year, after Bloch tried to overrule President Bush on the same issue, and a big scandal erupted, Bloch reiterated his support for the policy.

Per the Associated Press, April 9, 2004:

The agency charged with protecting federal employees from bias in the workplace revised its policy Thursday to include sexual orientation.

Bowing to pressure from the White House, the Office of the Special Counsel reinstated the longstanding antidiscrimination policy, which it had put on hold in February pending a "legal analysis."

"It is the policy of this administration that discrimination in the federal workforce on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited," said Scott Bloch, the head of the agency.

And at the same time, last year, the White House expressly told Bloch to stop the shenanigans and enforce the president's policy. As HRC noted in their press release today:

In April 2004, the White House released the following statement: "Longstanding federal policy prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation. ... President Bush expects federal agencies to enforce this policy and to ensure that all federal employees are protected from unfair discrimination at work."

And if that wasn't clear enough direction from the White House, there's this from AP dated April 2, 2004:

The White House on Thursday affirmed President Bush's support for protecting gay federal workers from discrimination because of their sexual orientation -? a month after the official he appointed to enforce that policy put it on hold.

"The president believes that no federal employee should be subject to unlawful discrimination," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. "That's long-standing federal policy that prevents discrimination based on sexual orientation."

Pretty clear guidance by the White House, and pretty clear guidance from Bloch himself. Then why is Scott Bloch now totally contradicting himself and the president of the United States? Did Bloch lie to the president last year when he said he would enforce the policy? Did he lie to the Associated Press and Congress last year when he said was going to enforce the policy? Did he lie to the US Senate yesterday when he now contradicted himself and told them he had no power to enforce the president's own order, an order that last year he said he clearly had the power to enforce? Or is Bloch simply incompetent, constantly changing his legal opinion fom one day to the next to suit whatever whim overtakes him?

Mr. Bush, why is a rogue activist being permitted to overrule the president of the United States? Read More......

"Freedom Fry" congressman regrets supporting Bush, war

Wow. Good for him.

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification"....

Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

Read More......

Dear Scott Bloch,

As a fellow lawyer, I'm having a real hard time understanding how you didn't outright call for open insubordination against a direct order from the president of the United States when you testified yesterday before Congress. I'm also having a hard time arguing that you didn't just lie in your testimony to Congress.

You told the Senate yesterday, Scott, that:

If a federal manager fires, reassigns or takes some other action against an employee simply because that employee is gay, there is nothing in federal law that would permit the Office of Special Counsel to protect the worker, Bloch testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia.

Here's the problem, Scott. You may not have the authority under the executive order to prosecute people IN COURT for violating the president's non-discrimination executive order, but that has nothing to do with whether you CAN ENFORCE the order yourself. I.e., the executive order may not permit the gay employee to sue in court, but it most certainly permits you and the entire administration to follow your president's order to not discriminate, and it most certainly gives you the power to punish any employee who does discriminate against gays and to rehire or otherwise help a gay employee who is discriminated against in the federal workplace based on their sexual orientation.

See, the thing is, Scott, you offered the Senate up a red herring yesterday. You talked about how there was no federal law permitting gay people to sue in court, but that has nothing to do with whether federal employees, yourself included, are required to follow and execute the executive orders of your president. You don't need to go to court, Scott, to rehire a gay employee that has been wrongfully fired. You don't need to go to court, Scott, to discipline a federal employee who wrongfully discriminates in violation of the president's order.

It sounds, Scott, and I do hope I'm wrong on this, as though you're willfully disobeying a direct order from the president of the United States, and trying to find lots of cute legal reasons to disobey your president - legal reasons that have nothing to do with the case at hand. I'm just wondering why you'd do that, Scott, because it sounds like what you're doing is illegal and, one would think, grounds for you being immediately fired.

So, in order to clear this up, Scott, let me give our readers a bit more background on this executive order, then let's pose a few more questions to you to find out if you really are suggesting that you will outright disobey the president's direct order:

Clinton signed Executive Order 13087 on May 28, 1998. During House consideration of FY99 Commerce, Justice, State Appropriations (H.R. 4276, 15th Congress), Joel Hefley offered a limitation of funds amendment (I'm sure you remember -- "no funds shall be expended to....yada yada) to prevent the enforcement of the E.O. The vote on the amendment was 176 Ayes to 252 Nays. (Debate at page H7256 in the Congressional Record for the 105th Congress -- some strong statements against the amendment from very, very conservative Republicans).

So here are the questions, Scott.

1. Does the President have the management discretion to NOT fire gay people simply because they're gay?

2. Does the President have the authority to put personnel policies in place to ensure that federal managers follow his decision on that? (Given that an attempt to deny him that discretion was soundly defeated by a strong bi-partisan vote of the House, it would appear that he does.)

3. President Bush has stated that federal employees shouldn't be fired from their jobs just for being gay, and he's given you the responsibility to enforce that management decision. How do you expect the President to react to your insubordination?

Could you please answer those questions, Scott. Because it sounds an awful lot like you're just grabbing at straws in an effort to justify anti-gay bigotry, and while so doing, you're willfully and quite flagrantly disobeying an executive order and urging other federal employees to do the same.

And honestly, Scott, I don't want my tax dollars going to some unelected activist rogue federal employee who think he knows more, and has more power, than the elected president of the United States. Read More......

Rumsfeld OK'd shooting down the Cessna over DC

The Washington Post today told us that the Secretary of Defense okayed shooting down the Cessna that was flying over DC a couple weeks ago. Apparently, the pilots were seconds away from shooting down the plane -- which was flying over D.C. neighborhoods -- which means the missiles and the plane would have fallen over D.C. neighborhoods -- and the mayor of DC didn't even know this was happening.

So, it appears the newest threat we face in DC isn't terrorists. It's stupid pilots who give Rummy's guys a chance to test out their missiles over DC. If the missiles miss, where do they end up? And, if the plane is hit, where does the debris go? How far is the debris field?

I wonder if the knuckleheads at the Pentagon have thought this through. Probably not. Residents of DC don't matter:

"The authority to authorize a shoot down of a civilian aircraft is delegated to a very, very small number of senior civilian and military officials," Swiergosz said. "It is well rehearsed. There is nothing ad hoc about it. . . . At the end of the day, we are going to safeguard the capital, and they are not going to get to their target."

Um, no, "they" (whoever they are) won't get "their target" because it will most likely be some nitwit lost pilot who doesn't have a target...but they will potentially wipe out a DC neighborhood. Hmmm. I feel safe now.

Also, I saw the idiot pilot yesterday on the Today Show. What a moron. He wants his pilot's license back. No. He's too stupid. He scared the crap out of a lot of people and could have caused a lot more death and destruction. Read More......

Bush counsel says he won't enforce Bush's executive order not to discriminate against gays in the fed govt

Fuck you.

Fuck you, George Bush. Fuck you, Scott Bloch. Fuck you, the very single 38 year old and never been married Ken Mehlman. Fuck you, Mary Cheney and your entire milquetoast sell out family.

From today's Washington Post:

Special counsel Scott J. Bloch told a Senate panel yesterday that he lacks the legal authority to enforce the Bush administration's ban on discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation.

If a federal manager fires, reassigns or takes some other action against an employee simply because that employee is gay, there is nothing in federal law that would permit the Office of Special Counsel to protect the worker, Bloch testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs subcommittee on oversight of government management, the federal workforce and the District of Columbia.

Well, since Bush claims he supports the non-discrimination policy, and since there's nothing in federal law that permits the White House to enforce Bush's own policy, then why not pass a quick amendment in Congress that gives Bush the authority to protect gay federal workers if he so chooses? Read More......

Google hires right-wing Bush appointee as senior VP

The trend continues. Just like Microsoft, they're all veering to the right. But in this case, it's Google, one of the most liberal companies on the planet. Appoint a senior Bush clone to a senior position in the company and tell me he's not going to veer the company to the right. The trend continues. Read More......

Open Thread

What's the news? Read More......

Ohio GOP Coin-gate hits the Governor's Office

Well, well, well...is the coin-gate scandal finally starting to implicate major GOP major political figures in Ohio? Looks that way from today's Plain Dealer:

The investigation into the influence wielded by politically powerful Toledo coin dealer Tom Noe landed at state government's peak Tuesday - right in Gov. Bob Taft's office.

Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles asked for telephone records, e-mails and personnel records of four of Taft's former and current top aides dating to 1999.

Noe, a major Republican fund-raiser, or chestrated and managed a $55.4 million investment in rare coins for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation since 1998. He has been the target of recent investigations by six government agencies, including the FBI, over campaign contributions and 121 missing coins.

This is getting good. So why is it important for those of us outside of Ohio? Hmmm. Well, there was that election in 2004. The Ohio GOP has been in power for a very long time. They control the whole state's power infra-structure. And, they are out of control.

Coin-gate has become the symbol of the GOP's abuse of power. Tom Noe, the center of the scandal, is integrally related to all of the Ohio GOP power elite....and George W. Bush.

So, the investigation has hit the Governor's office:

"During the course of our investigation, information has come to light that certain members of the Governor's staff may have received lodging accommodations and other items by Mr. Noe," Charles wrote in a letter sent Monday.

Taft's former chief of staff Brian Hicks recently told the (Toledo) Blade that he stayed twice at a $1 million Florida home owned by Noe while he worked for Taft. Similar homes rent for thousands of dollars a week, but Hicks said he paid $300 to $500 for five nights.

Taft has said he knew Hicks had vacationed at Noe's home, but had assumed Hicks followed state law.

Noe also reportedly wined and dined the political elite regularly at Morton's, a tony steakhouse off Capital Square.

You know this really is a case of where there's smoke, there's fire. And, every day, in Ohio, there's another fire. Read More......

Winning the war on terror, one poet at a time

Thankfully we are such a strong friends with the Saudi government who have recently jailed a popular author and two scholars who have had the audacity to ask for political, economic and social reform. Other democracy advocates signed a letter saying that they're sorry and won't do it again but the three who refused to back down will now settle down in prison for a charming 9 year holiday courtesy of the Saudi government.

Where's Laura Bush when pro-democracy people are being sent to prison? All she needs is a chador and she can head over there and pitch in for democracy and freedom. Read More......

What's 2,000 year old history worth anyway?

Despite being placed on a list of important historical sites in 2001 by the Chinese government, local government officials in Inner Mongolia, China gave the go-ahead for bulldozers to raze tombs dating back at least 2,000 years so they could cash in on the local housing boom. All of that history turned into rubble. Ahhh, the perks of being a government official. Read More......