Jon Stewart lampoons Karen Hughes' comparison of pro-choicers to Al-Qaeda

Jon Stewart tonight played the entire tape of former Bush aide, and current campaign representative, Karen Hughes comparing pro-choicers to Al-Qaeda terrorists this past Sunday on Wolf Blitzer's TV show on CNN. Blitzer forgot to ask Hughes if that means Colin Powell, Laura Bush and Barbara Bush, Senior are all terrorists too?

Listen to an audio clip of the Stewart segment here (I had to break it in two parts):
- Clip 1
- Clip 2 Read the rest of this post...

You go girl!

Two points for DNC chair Terry McAuliffe:

"'The American people have better things to do with their time than listen to more misleading attacks from a man who has been misleading them from the day he took office,' [McAuliffe] said, calling Cheney the 'attack dog-in-chief.'" - Reuters

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Virginia is for (straight, white) lovers

You'd think that Virginia, having only 30 years ago fought all the way to the Supreme Court to defend its ban on inter-racial marriage, would have learned a lesson or two about bigotry since then. You'd be wrong. The state just enacted a law that bans gay people from entering any private contractual arrangement that provides any benefit even vaguely smelling of marriage. What does that mean? Gay couples' wills are now invalid - no more inheritance. Any legal documents they sign about taking custody of each other's children should one parent die, gone. And if one partner lies dying in a Virginia hospital bed, too bad - the other partner can sit home and watch TV. Virginia will not recognize any agreements the parties have to arrange for each other's affairs during a health crisis, e.g., make last-minute life-and-death medical decisions (including whether to pull the plug). My read of the legislation (the actual text is below) is that it could even prohibit employers from giving health and domestic partner benefits to their own gay employees.

It amazes me why anyone chooses to live or work in a state that has such an august record of bigotry and intolerance. This is the state that only five years ago took Sharon Bottoms' child away from her, and gave custody instead to Sharon's mother, simply because Sharon was a lesbian. Yes, the state of Virginia said she was an unfit mother simply because she's gay, and THEY TOOK HER KID AWAY. This is what George Bush's constitutional amendment debate has led to. States jumping over each other to see which can be more bigoted towards its gay citizens, all in the name of preserving marriage just like our president wants.

The text of Va.’s ban on recognition of civil unions:

“A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. Any such civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement entered into by persons of the same sex in another state or jurisdiction shall be void in all respects in Virginia and any contractual rights created thereby shall be void and unenforceable.”" - Washington Blade

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Karen Hughes compares pro-choicers to Al-Qaeda

I watched Karen Hughes say this live on CNN yesterday and it absolutely blew my mind.

"I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life," she said. "President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life." (emphasis added) - NYT (Thanks to Daily Kos for copying this quote before the NYT mysteriously deleted it from their story.)

What's particularly ironic is that "we're facing an enemy" that actually shares Bush's views on abortion:

"All abortions were banned under the fundamentalist Islamic rule of the Taliban militia from 1996-2001." - Agence France-Presse quoted in the Tehran Times

Even funnier, it's the Bush administration's intervention into Afghanistan that has now made some abortions legal in that country - oops:

"Abortion up to the third month of pregnancy is legal again for Afghan women if their health is in danger, but after that they risk six months jail if they turn to backstreet abortionists." (same article as above)

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Honey, I shrunk the march

The biggest pro-choice march in US history took place yesterday in DC, with police estimating the numbers at well over 750,000, and what does the NY Post have on its front page today? The Yankees, Bill Joel, and Michael Jackson. Where is the story about the biggest political march in American history? Page 17, and it's only a six paragraph AP wire story. Read the rest of this post...

Tommy Franks Lied

May 21, 2002

REPORTER: If you get the green light to go into Iraq how many footsoldiers would you like to have and how long would it take you to marshall all these forces in preparation for an invasion?

GEN. TOMMY FRANKS: That's a great question and one for which I don't have an answer because my boss has not yet asked me to put together a plan to do that.

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April 25, 2004

BOB WOODAWARD AFTER WATCHING A VIDEO OF FRANKS' COMMENTS: Not so. I mean not only is it not so, but two months before that Tommy Franks on February 7 had personally briefed the president and said here is a war plan you can execute.

(Source: Meet the Press, April 25, 2004)

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