NOW and NAACP make fools of themselves defending wackjob Rep. McKinney's ridiculous racial complaint

Good God. If you ever needed proof of how irrelevant the big-monied liberal advocacy groups have become, we got a lovely demonstration today when the NAACP and the National Organization for Women spoke at a press conference on behalf of the nutsy-cukoo Democrat from Georgia, Cynthia McKinney.

You may have already heard about this ridiculous brouhaha. McKinney waltzes into the Congress the other day, bypasses the security checkpoint (which members of Congress are permitted to do), but she doesn't identify herself as a member of Congress and isn't wearing her ID pin that ALL members of Congress are required to wear when at work (for the very reason that there are 535 of them, and it's not always clear who's a member). It's that pin that tells the cops at the metal detector that she's a member of Congress and not a walking human bomb.

Anyway, the cop, not recognizing her and she's not wearing her pin, yells after her "ma'am, ma'am" - McKinney just keeps on going. So he runs up to her and grabs her with his arm (not an unreasonable thing to do, considering). She turns around and slugs him in the chest. And now she's crying racism and sexism, he attacked her - oh, I'm sorry, the phrase she's using is that he "touched her inappropriately" - gee, let's make it sound like he raped her or something - anyway, yes, the brutal police man attacked her simply because she's black, a woman and he hates her politics, and now she's going to file charges against him, maybe.

Give me a frigging break. The cop ought to file charges against her.

Then, to add to the farce, also in attendance at the press conference today is actor Danny Glover and Harry Belafonte. (This is apparently to ensure that any credibility Belafonte had as a critic of the president is now totally shot.) Anyway, Glover and Belafonte then tell the crowd they have no idea what the facts of the case are. Nice.

I'm sorry, but what a pitiful excuse for a Democrat. Yes, let's cry racism and sexism and Democratism, I guess you'd call it, because a cop didn't recognize you and you decided to not even wear your member of Congress pin, or turn around when the cop called out to you while we're at war. Next time, it'll be better if the cop lets strangers without their pins just barge into the halls of Congress, bypass security, and oh blow the hell out of the entire building because they're afraid the person they stop might be - what? - a Democrat?

Like I said, the only thing more pathetic than McKinney is that NOW and the NAACP would lower themselves to attend this ridiculous farce of a press conference. Have they nothing better to do than pander to someone who belittles legitimate concerns about race and gender and political bias?

Pathetic liberal groups, and pathetic Democratic members of Congress. Their funders should cut them all off until they prove the worth of their continued existence.

More here and here. Read More......

Friday Orchid Blogging

I'm hoping AMERICAblog reader Barney won't mind me sharing the photo he sent in today of an orchid his wife bought a few weeks ago. It's a "typical" phalaenopsis, the kind you find in lots of local stores, but looking at this "typical" plant you can see why they sell so well. It's pretty cool.

It's spring time finally, and that means, hopefully, a new crop of orchid blooms. Different orchids bloom at different times of the year, I have I think two that are currently in the process of spiking (i.e., throwing up a flower spike that will eventually bloom). Stay tuned.

Thanks to Barney for sending in the photo, hope he doesn't mind I used it. :-)

Enjoy,

JOHN Read More......

Time poll delivers another new low: 37

Seems like it's been days since Bush's approval hit a new low. No fear...he's starting up the streak again in a Time magazine poll conducted Wednesday and Thursday of this week:

While the President's position on illegal immigration is clearly resonating with many voters, it hasn't helped his sagging approval ratings. They sank to 37% in the poll, a new low.

So much for that whole campaign of pep talks about Iraq to boost his approval ratings. Karl Rove's running out of tricks. Read More......

Former Nixon Aide: Bush's criminality worse than Nixon's

It's like a 1970s do-over. Iraq is becoming Vietnam, and Bush is a bigger criminal than Nixon:

John W. Dean, Richard Nixon's White House lawyer, told senators Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss.

Bush, Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee, should be censured and possibly impeached.

"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented," Dean said. "Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it."

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An email making the rounds

UPDATE: I just found out that this was written by Nance over at Democratic Underground, here's the link:

REMEMBER WHEN you displayed your flag on the front porch on the 4th of July, and you didn’t have to worry about whether it would be misinterpreted as support for a corrupt president and his administration?

REMEMBER WHEN ‘Support the Troops’ meant equipping our military with everything necessary for battle, instead of just being a catchy phrase that looked good on a bumper-sticker?

REMEMBER WHEN your tax dollars paid for things like improved education and social programs, instead of making Halliburton shareholders millionaires?

REMEMBER WHEN you watched movies about WWII, and it was the enemy who tortured captured American soldiers, instead of American soldiers torturing the people they’d allegedly ‘liberated’?

REMEMBER WHEN you heard something on the TV news or read something in a newspaper, and you didn’t have to go to the internet to find out just how much of it was fact, and how much of it was ‘spin’?

REMEMBER WHEN a politician was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and he resigned in disgrace, instead of excusing his own behaviour by claiming that his political opponents were equally as guilty of wrongdoing?

REMEMBER WHEN ‘Made in the USA’ labels on products were the norm, and not a total oddity?

REMEMBER WHEN you hitchhiked through Europe as a teenager, and you DIDN’T have to replace the American flag on your knapsack with a Canadian flag in order to be a welcomed guest in a foreign country?

REMEMBER WHEN organized crime figures had to make phone calls from the corner phone booth, because they were the only people who had to worry about wire-taps?

REMEMBER WHEN telling a fellow politician on the floor of the House to ‘go f*ck himself’ was considered behaviour unbecoming an elected official, instead of being accepted as the way a Vice President behaves himself?

REMEMBER WHEN you could pretty well count on the fact that if the president said it, it was based on sound intelligence and was probably true?

REMEMBER WHEN you could rely on your elected representatives to put your interests ahead of the corporations that filled their campaign coffers, or the lobbyists who gave them great basketball tickets?

REMEMBER WHEN you didn’t even KNOW what religion the people you voted for were, because it didn’t really matter? Remember when you didn’t know what party your neighbour belonged to, because that didn’t really matter either?

REMEMBER WHEN the pension you’d worked for your whole life wasn’t in danger of being wiped out by corrupt CEOs, assisted by respected accounting firms that made that corruption almost impossible to detect?

REMEMBER WHEN you could brag that as an American, you were guaranteed things like free speech and due process of law, without checking the nightly news to see whether those rights were still in effect?

REMEMBER WHEN the president upheld the law of the land, instead of coming up with ‘legal loopholes’ to support the idea that he’s above the law?

REMEMBER WHEN you could say, “I’m a proud American,” without qualifying it with a list of all of the things your government is doing that you’re not exactly proud of?

REMEMBER WHEN you actually thought that the people in charge of running your country were smarter than you were?

REMEMBER WHEN your parents worked all their lives to ensure you a better life, instead of worrying about how bad the life they’d be leaving their children might be?

REMEMBER WHEN the importance of clean drinking water and breathable air were unquestionable mandates, and not some crazy hippie agenda to be weighed against corporate profits?

REMEMBER WHEN questioning your government’s policies was seen as ‘participating in the process’, and not ‘giving aid and comfort to the enemy’?

REMEMBER WHEN the ‘enemy’ was a country or military force that posed a threat to American democracy, and not a nation of innocent civilians who whose destruction was dismissible as ‘collateral damage’?

REMEMBER WHEN your country went to war based on facts beforehand, instead of constantly-changing suppositions after-the-fact?

REMEMBER WHEN ‘patriotism’ was judged by your words and actions, and not by whether you were a member of the party currently in power?

REMEMBER WHEN the ‘American Dream’ was attainable through diligence and hard work, and not the luck of the ‘outsourcing’ draw?

REMEMBER WHEN the election of a president was considered the result of democracy in action, and not the result of Diebold executives doing the job they were expected to do?

REMEMBER WHEN you sang ‘God Bless America’ as a kid, and never thought you’d grow up to wonder if, in view of your country’s actions, asking God’s blessing was asking a bit too much?

I REMEMBER WHEN … and I wonder if these ideas will become ancient history by the time those of us old enough to recall them are dead and gone. Read More......

"No connection" between Pepco CEO pay raise and higher energy costs

Oh look, it's the Easter Bunny! How much more of this nonsense are people going to tolerate?

Chief executive Dennis R. Wraase's salary and bonus last year was $1.43 million, compared with $1.17 million in 2004. Also, Wraase's base salary of $825,000 is up more than 47 percent since 2003 and will go up to $950,000 this year, according to company documents filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pepco standard service rates for District customers will go up 12 percent this summer, and for the company's 500,000 Maryland customers, the average increase will be $468 a year, or 38.5 percent.

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Open Thread

Okay...it's the weekend...so chat already... Read More......

HHS Secretary Leavitt's own parents can't figure out Bush's Medicare drug plan

Apparently they screwed up their OWN Medicare drug coverage, the entire thing was so confusing. Priceless

Not even the senior parents of Washington's top health official are immune from headaches caused by the new Medicare drug plan.

Dixie and Anne Leavitt - parents of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt - recently were forced to change Medicare plans after learning that the one they chose imperiled their retiree medical coverage.

The elder Leavitts joined the program last fall with some fanfare and help from their son. Anne Leavitt, 73, was quoted in The Salt Lake Tribune touting the online enrollment as "smooth," and a guaranteed money-saver.

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Condi admits thousands of "tactical errors" in Iraq

Hey, what's a few thousand tactical errors -- they only mean tens of thousands dead, hundreds of billions wasted and an intractable quagmire:

"I know we've made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure," Rice told an audience gathered by the British foreign policy think tank Chatham House.

No big deal. Read More......

Open thread

High of 77 in DC today, woo woo! Read More......

Another DeLay accomplice pleading guilty

"Staffer A" is singing:

Rudy, who served as deputy chief of staff while DeLay was House Majority leader, resigned in 2001 to become a lobbyist. He would be the first person to plead guilty to charges in the case since Jack Abramoff, once a leading GOP lobbyist, pleaded guilty to fraud charges in January.

Rudy was referred to in court papers released in connection with Abramoff's plea. The documents referred to Rudy as Staffer A, and said that Abramoff, on behalf of clients who wanted to stop Internet gambling and postal rate legislation, paid $50,000 in 10 equal monthly payments beginning in June 2000 to Rudy's wife while Rudy was a top aide to DeLay.

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Open Thread

It's been another fascinating week. Never a dull moment.

UPDATE: CSPAN is covering the censure hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee (thanks Black Jack.) Read More......

Under Bush, the Dept. of Homeland Security subsidizes the Fortune 500

Okay, this is outrageous. Americans might have naively thought the Department of Homeland Security was going to use their tax dollars on the basics that would aid first responders. That would be wrong.

The Bush DHS is using tax dollars to subsidize a Fortune 500 oil company. Not kidding. ONE MILLION DOLLARS for a FORTUNE 500 refinery. That's what we learn from Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's report from February, 2006 (page 21):

For example, a Fortune 500 refinery received a port security grant in round five totaling almost $1 million for fencing and surveillance upgrades at a refinery located in a major port. It did put up the same amount in matching funds. This company recently reported 3rd quarter net income in excess of $1.2 billion. We remained concerned about the absence of more specific guidance on security measures proposed by private companies that are capable of paying for them, and what measures they should pay for.

Now, which Fortune 500 company -- with 3rd quarter net income of $1.2 billion -- needed tax dollars to build a fence? The GOP loves corporate welfare -- but giving tax dollars to oil companies is a new low. Read More......

Boston Archdiocese fires photographer who caught Scalia's obscene gesture

The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church -- especially the Archdiocese of Boston -- knows no bounds. When they're not defending child abusers, they're bashing gays. Now, they're defending and protecting Antonin Scalia. By now, everyone know Scalia made an obscene gesture and swore right in one of their churches. But, they are firing the photographer who busted Scalia:

A freelance photographer has been fired by the Archdiocese of Boston’s newspaper for releasing a picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia making a controversial gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday.

Peter Smith, who had freelanced for The Pilot newspaper for a decade, lost the job yesterday after the Herald ran his photo on its front page. Smith said he has no regrets about releasing it.

“I did the right thing. I did the ethical thing,” said Smith, 51, an assistant photojournalism professor at Boston University.

Smith did the ethical thing. When was the last time anyone could say that about the Catholic church?:

While news outlets from across the country sought Smith’s photo yesterday, the archdiocese said there’s no proof that Scalia uttered an obsenity in the church. Smith said Scalia said, “To my critics, I say, ‘Vaffanculo,’ ” while making the gesture. That’s Italian for (expletive) you.

The Boston Archdiocese apparently has a VERY high standard for proof. That's why the ignored the child abuse scandal for decades.

Just imagine how riled up the new cardinal would be if a liberal pulled a stunt like that in one of the Catholic churches in Boston. That would cause outrage all the way to the prada-wearing pope. Read More......

Chirac to sign new jobs law - then negotiate changes

But of course, the rumor is that after signing it he will then enter into negotiations to soften the law. So goes life in French politics. As an American, our natural tendency is to try and simplify just about everything, sometimes more successfully than others. In France, there seems to me as an outsider that there is a strong tendency to prefer complicated solutions. So now we can look forward to the signing and negotiation of this law that will spur new jobs for the youth (not that I'm buying it in it's current form) and then it's a wait and see to find out how the students will react. Let's just say that I'm not convinced they will buy into it.

With a new round of national strikes planned for 4 April I won't be making any travel plans anytime soon. Never a dull moment these days in France. Read More......

64% of Americans believe US unable to force democracy overseas

Those sky high support numbers for Bush have never been so far away. The cornerstone of his foreign policy has amazingly poor support by Americans.

"People do regard it as a desirable goal," Public Agenda Chairman Daniel Yankelovich said. "But from a common sense point of view, both Democrats and Republicans have concluded that democracy is something that countries come to on their own."

The American public also gets it when it comes to the oil problems with Bush only repeating what the public overwhelmingly already knew. The president's brave declaration of oil dependence must have received a collective "duh, no kidding" when he thought he was making such a bold statement during his SOTU address.

But poll directors noted Americans are also alarmed increasingly by U.S. energy dependence. Ninety percent in the survey Â? conducted in January, before President Bush's declaration in his State of the Union address that the country is "addicted to oil" Â? said it was important to find alternatives to foreign energy supplies to strengthen national security.

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Open thread

I'm off to watching Dark Kingdom. Gnite. Read More......