Good God, Rudy Giuliani Sucks

It was only a few days ago that I pointed out Mitt Romney's flip-flops on the issue of immigration. Now, Rudy Giuliani is doing the same thing. I guess one good turn deserves another. Read the rest of this post...

Bush and his Iraq war are dragging down GOP Senators facing re-election in 2008

This explains so much. GOP Senators are facing political extinction because of their unyielding support for George Bush and his endless war in Iraq. New polling conducted by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq tells the story. The poll was conducted like a national poll in terms of number of respondents -- but it only focused on seven states. And, those would be seven states where a GOP Senator, who is facing re-election, has stuck with Bush's "stay the course" strategy in Iraq. One other thing of note -- this poll was conducted before Bush's war czar said that it makes sense to consider reinstating the draft. That's not going to help the pro-Iraq war Republicans.

Here's the press release from AAEI:

A trap is waiting for Republican incumbents and presidential contenders should they continue to back Bush on the Iraq war, according to a new poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. September might be their last chance to convince voters that they have truly rejected Bush’s strategy should he ask for more time based on General David Petraeus’ report on the 15th.

The poll, conducted in seven battleground states, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia, shows an electorate tired of US troops involvement in an unwinnable Iraqi civil war and ready to vote for troop withdrawal.

“If the politicians don’t bring the troops home, the voters will bring the politicians home. Ultimately, Bush’s PR machine is no match for the news coming out of Iraq every day. Americans do not want to see their troops caught in the crossfires of a many-sided religious civil war that cannot be won by US military intervention,” said Tara McGuinness, Deputy Campaign Manager for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

According to the poll, incumbent Senators lose to a generic Democratic challenger 44 to 45 in states that George Bush won in 2004 by 6 points.

“Iraq is the number one issue affecting how people plan to vote,” said Anna Greenberg, Senior Vice President at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Of the seven incumbent Republican senators up in 2008 from the states selected for the poll, she continued: “With a collective 37 percent reelect number, every one of these Republican senators could be at grave risk.”

“Bush may say he sees progress in Iraq, but Americans aren’t buying it. The question for September is, will Republicans follow Bush off the cliff?,” said Tom Matzzie, Washington Director for MoveOn.org.

Key findings of the poll include:

§ More than four in ten voters mention the war in Iraq as their first or second most important concern.

§ Traditional GOP voters are beginning to abandon Bush on the war and several traditionally Republican groups are also pulling back from solid Bush support on Iraq.

§ Voters are concerned about the cost of an endless and unwinnable religious civil war.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, the organization that commissioned the poll, has active field operations opposing the war in six of the states (all but North Carolina), and will be holding town hall meetings on August 28 to urge Senators in those states to “Take a Stand” against the war.

Those are some pretty scary numbers if you're a GOP Senator facing re-election. You know the GOP campaigns are seeing the same results. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday night open thread - another top 10

You all have been enjoying the open theme threads the last couple of days, so here's another.

Name your top 10 Hall of Fame professional political right-wing or fundamentalist gasbags.

You can have two lists of ten -- the religious ones and the political ones (Coulter, O'Reilly, etc.).

I'll just toss out a few fundies for starters: Daddy Dobson, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Lou Sheldon and Andrea Lafferty (Lou's daughter and partner in crime at the Traditional Values Coalition), American Family Association heads, Don and Tim Wildmon, "Bishop" Harry Jackson, Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality's Peter LaBarbera, the professional ex-gays at Exodus, Ken Hutcherson, Bob Knight, Gary Bauer, all the "concerned men" at Concerned Women for America, Ohio Talibangelist Rod Parsley of the Patriot Pastor movement, the Catholic League's Bill Donohue disgraced former Alabama chief justice Roy "Ten Commandments" Moore, Alan Keyes (who kicked his lesbian daughter out of the family home)...oh, I could go on all night.

Fred Phelps is disqualified because we need a baseline sanity level.

The saving grace is that these pious folks and tools of the GOP have had to try and explain an epic amount of "problems" in their world -- Ted Haggard, Mary Cheney procreating, any number of social conservative pols caught with their pants down - plus a Republican 2008 field full of adulterers and wrecked marriages. Too delicious.

And I cannot forget one of my favorites, the incredible embarrassment to the ex-gay movement, "therapist" Richard Cohen:



Have fun. Read the rest of this post...

Fundie Richard Land: Women who have abortions are mentally 'impaired'

There is an infamous video of clueless anti-choice demonstrators who are asked what punishment a woman should be subjected to if abortion is made illegal. Most make lame excuses -- it's a "crime" but the "perpetrator" should go unpunished. Actually, it's worse than that -- most of them say they never thought about the issue. Planned Parenthood and the National Institute for Reproductive Health have launched a campaign to ask pols the question "How much time should she serve?"

The protestors are clearly underinformed. But what about the anti-choice establishment? Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has an even more ridiculous answer -- only the doctor should be punished, because the woman who seeks out the abortion is too "impaired" to be responsible for her actions.

This drivel is almost painful to read:

[I]f abortion were made illegal and he were a state legislator, Land said, "I would probably charge voluntary manslaughter for the abortionist. If [a doctor] were convicted, he would lose his medical license for two years and spend a year in prison with the first offense, and with the second offense, he would lose his medical license for life. At which point it'd be very difficult to find a doctor who'd do them."

Such a legal stance is tantamount to "ignoring or infantilizing women, turning them into 'victims' of their own free will," [Anna] Quindlen wrote. "State statutes that propose punishing only a physician suggest the woman was merely some addled bystander who happened to find herself in the wrong stirrups at the wrong time."

Land doesn't deny that women who have abortions might be addled, but he, along with Yoest, Earll, and Gans, takes exception to them being described as bystanders -- or as enlightened women making free, educated choices.

"It's not demeaning to assume that any person who is a mother who could make the decision to do this must be suffering from some form of psychological impairment because of the crisis of the pregnancy or because of societal demeaning of human life," Land said.

Clearly women are just too damn irrational to be able to control their own body and destiny because of those damn hormones. Daddy The State has to be in charge of the womb.

Pastor Dan of Street Prophets says this:

Look, one either has moral agency or one doesn't. If there's agency, then an illegal act is a crime. If not, then not. But to write off an entire class of women as mentally ill - if only temporarily - because they make a decision you don't approve of? That doesn't fit any moral framework I'm aware of. Nor does the outmoded idea that estrogen makes you crazy or the risible theory that society brainwashes women into killing their children.

My question -- what happens to women that have multiple abortions -- are these repeated delusions? Should she be forced into state-approved mandatory therapy to "correct" her thinking so she doesn't head to the clinic again? No one is saying abortion should be encouraged; it should be safe and rare, but that's not the point of this argument. The right already has its sights on making contraception more difficult to obtain, and continues its push for abstinence-only education.  Jill at Feministe asks, where then, are the boundaries:

What about pregnant women engaging in behaviors that are risky for the fetus? Can she be prosecuted for child abuse or negligence if she, say, drinks coffee while she's pregnant? If she eats tuna? If she smokes? What about if she goes skiing? What if she didn't know she was pregnant, but should have known, and she does something risky-- like goes binge drinking every night and survives off of Cheetos? Willful blindness? Neglect? What if she miscarries, and perhaps you can attribute it to something she did -- negligent homicide?

And what about the male partner in this equation? What if he agrees with the woman in question that she should have an abortion -- is he then an accessory to the crime, or is he temporarily insane as well?

All of this is madness; what it does do is pull back the curtain of the real agenda of the anti-choice crowd -- controlling the sexuality of women by insinuating they are not capable of ethical, moral or practical decisions about their lives. Obviously, we need the bible-beaters to instruct us on such matters. Read the rest of this post...

The Iraq war, chickenhawks, and the possibility of a draft.

Last night I had the opportunity to make my case against the military draft on Hardball. I did my best to get my point across that if we keep going in the same direction in Iraq the draft will be inevitable. And the best way to avoid a draft is to end the war.

Of course no good deed goes unpunished. Shortly afterward I was criticized by a few of the remaining loyal Bushies who I speak with from time to time.

Amazingly, none of them have ever served in the military and most likely would be horrified by the draft. As always, it's quite easy for them to make such strong statements of their patriotism , but a tad more difficult for these folks to put their own bodies where their rhetoric is. Rhetoric being "we had to go in to fight Al-Qeada and we have to stay the course and complete our mission"

Just for the sake of being accurate it's worthy to listen some brief commentary from Vice President Cheney, who is pretty much all over the map and very confusing in my eyes. And of course we have our fearless leader George W. Bush .

Getting back on message - there is no doubt that a military draft would put a tremendous amount of fear into the hearts of the conservative war hawks in Congress, possibly influencing them to change their position on the war. I have no doubt that it would cause worry for presidential hopeful Mitt Romney whose sons are "serving our nation" by helping him get elected.

Wondering off again - I'm wondering if I'm jumping to conclusions? Then I remember hearing this. That leaves me to believe we are not leaving Iraq any time soon. But our military is broken. How can we sustain? General Lute has an idea worth considering.

While the idea is still just an idea it is still a strong reality. And it's enough to raise some red flags.

My greatest fear of the United States returning to a military draft is that most likely all of America's fortunate sons would all find a way out of serving once their number is called. Just as Bush, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rove, and Libby did during Vietnam. We would end up in a situation in which kids who can't avoid the draft and don't support the war would end up being the ones who are drafted.

On the subject of the draft I'll just take a page out of Colin Powell's biography : My American Journey

"'I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war. The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live - were an anti-democratic disgrace. I can never forgive a leadership that said in effect: These young men - poorer, less educated, less privileged - are expendable (someone described them as economic cannon fodder), but the rest are too good to risk. I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country.' About his first tenure in the White House: Organisation doesn't really accomplish anything. Plans don't accomplish anything, either. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavours succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people can you accomplish great deeds. About democracy: democracy did not always function well in the light of day. Democracy is give and take. People have to trade, change, deal, retreat, bend, compromise, as they move from the ideal to the possible. To the uninitiated, the process can be messy, disappointing, even shocking. Compromise can make the participants look manipulative, unprincipled, two faced."

In closing, I am outraged that the same people who did everything in their power to avoid service in Vietnam (while they supported it at the same time) now have found themselves in a position of power only to create a brand new Vietnam of their own.

The only difference is that in Vietnam they had an exit strategy (I got that from a bumper sticker).

John Bruhns
Iraq war veteran
Take A Stand

John Bruhns grew up in Philadelphia. He joined the Reserves while earning his BA at DeSales University. After graduating from college and as his time in the reserves was coming to an end, 9/11 occurred and he reenlisted in the Army for active duty as an Infantryman. He invaded Iraq on day one the invasion and served there for one year. He was stationed in West Baghdad with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. John Bruhns was awarded the combat infantry badge and was honorably discharged in 2005. John Bruhns now serves as the Legislative Representative for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. Read the rest of this post...

Hillary And Karl, Sitting In A Tree - T-R-I-A-N-G-U-L-A-T-I-N-G

The Washington Posts Peter Baker reports that the 2008 campaign emulating Karl Rove's strategy is - Hillary Clinton's campaign.

As he packs his desk just 15 steps from the Oval Office, Karl Rove says he will not join any 2008 presidential campaign. That's just as well because none of the Republican candidates presumably could afford the association even if they wanted his strategic smarts. Besides, none of them is running the campaign quite the way he would. The candidate who seems to be adopting his style and methods the most so far? Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At least that's what Nicolle Wallace thinks. The former Bush White House communications director, who worked closely with Rove, said that Clinton "has almost operationalized the whole idea of turning your weakness into strength, message discipline that is almost pathological -- she does not get off message for any reason -- and never skipping an opportunity to exploit her opponent's weaknesses."

Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, seems to agree with that assessment, having effectively vowed to run her operation much as Rove did his two successful national campaigns. "She expresses admiration for the way George W. Bush's campaign team controlled its message, and, given her druthers, would run this race no differently," Michelle Cottle writes this month in New York magazine. " 'We are a very disciplined group, and I am very proud of it,' she says with a defiant edge."

Well, far be it from me to give the Clinton campaign advice, but they might want to ixnay the Karl OvRe, if you know what I mean. Let's face it, saying your emulating Karl Rove's strategy in the Democratic primary is like saying you're getting parenting tips from Brittney and K-Fed. It's a bad idea, it seems amateurish and off-message. In short, it's something that Rove would never do. Read the rest of this post...

Family Research Council: Europe, start procreating -- now

You folks across the pond are simply too concerned about the planet and aren't spending enough time in the sack engaging in procreative sex. So says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

Thanks to the BBC's new emphasis on this crisis, Europe may finally wake up to the reality that its culture is on the verge of extinction. With global birth rates plummeting, the concern over saving the earth may soon be replaced by concern over whom we're saving it for. As the traditional family declines, fewer children are being born to replace and support the world's graying society.

As our friend Allan Carlson has observed, "Of the 10 nations with the lowest birth rates worldwide, nine are in Europe." Countries like Slovakia are producing only 50,000 children a year, compared to 100,000 in 1974. In nations like Russia, Belarus, and the Czech Republic, the birth rate is hovering at a mere 1.2 children per woman. The World Congress of Families (WCF) has warned of this "demographic winter" for years but only recently have the media begun to notice the chill. FRC has worked with the WCF to raise awareness of this trend. Now that we have the attention of the international community, FRC will continue to call on world leaders to implement pro-marriage and pro-family policies.

Actually, what Tony appears to be saying is that there aren't enough melanin-challenged people knocking boots. The brown folks are multiplying like bunnies. That's what John Gibson advised Americans on Faux News:

"By far, the greatest number [of children under five] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation'."

Read the rest of this post...

Rejoice in Gonzo's new Grim Reaper powers

You can thank the reauthorized Patriot Act for this bit of news:

Gonzales set to get new power to oversee death penalty.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could see his influence over death penalty decisions increase under new regulations expected to be approved soon by the Justice Department, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Implementing a "little-noticed provision in last year's reauthorization of the Patriot Act," the Justice Department rules give Gonzales authority that had previously been held by federal judges to decide whether states are providing adequate council for defendants in death penalty cases, according to the Times.

"The move to shorten the appeals process and effectively speed up executions comes at a time of growing national concern about the fairness of the death penalty, underscored by the use of DNA testing to establish the innocence of more than a dozen death row inmates in recent years," reports Richard B. Schmitt in the Times Tuesday.

Read the rest of this post...

LA Times: White House is writing General Petraeus' September progress report on "the surge" in Iraq

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. These people have no shame. The "big" report coming this September, the one Bush has been telling us we should wait for before making any decisions about what to do next in Iraq. Well, the White House is writing the frigging report.

From today's Los Angeles Times:

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

So rather than have the general do his own evaluation of his own progress - which is suspect enough, I mean, what is he going to say, "fire me"? - Bush is now writing Petraeus' report to Bush.

And special brownie points to the LA Times for burying this huge revelation at the end of the story where no one would see it. Read the rest of this post...

Giuliani recants previous support for gay civil unions - flip flop flip flop

It's simply amazing that Giuliani is now trying to convince Republican primary voters that he isn't pro-gay, and isn't a flaming liberal. Just like Romney, and even McCain, Giuliani feels the imperative to reinvent himself in order to win the Republican primary now that the party is controlled by far-right Baptist bigots. And the funny thing is, the far-right Baptist bigots are so uneducated, so simple-minded, that they buy this stuff. So what if Newt Gingrich is on his third marriage, he's for family values! So what if Mitt Romney called himself more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy, he's for family values! So what if Rudy Giuliani's hobby is dressing up in female drag, he's for family values!

They really are suckers. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Heard that some polling (which we may just get our hands on today) has been done that might explain why GOP Senators facing re-election are so cranky or freaking out like Susan Collins. Hey, they've made the decision to enable Bush on Iraq -- and to stick with his stay the course strategy. That's a suicidal political strategy, but it's not like they haven't been warned.

In November of 2005, John Murtha said the American people were way ahead of the politicians when it came to Iraq. We saw that in the 2006 elections. But, the Republicans haven't learned. No wonder two of the biggest enablers, Rove and Hastert, are getting out. Every single Republican running in 2008 will have "I support George Bush's Iraq war" draped around their neck -- and that's something they can't escape.

So, what else? Read the rest of this post...

A few more shots from Paris

My friend Marcus' art studio (below is a photo of Marcus in the studio). Marcus is an American artist from Arkansas who has been living and working as an artist in Paris for 11 years now. Every Sunday he does an open house and anyone can stop by his studio and talk to him, have a cup of coffee or tea, and check out any and all of his works (and buy some). More on the weekly open house here:

le salon de dimanche (sunday salon)
venez prendre le thé à l'atelier (come have a tea at the artist's studio)
tous les dimanches de 14h à 18h (every sunday from 2pm to 6pm)

152, rue Saint Maur 75011 Paris
code : A4590, 1e escalier à gauche, 1e étage à droite (take the stairs on the left, first floor on the right (in France, the FIRST floor is the American SECOND floor)
tél : 01 49 29 08 94.

Si vous souhaitez recevoir des annonces d'expo, envoyez un mail à cet effet à (contact): atelier@marcusmcallister.com

He lives in the 11th, on Rue St. Maur. It's a gentrifying, trendy neighborhood with lots of bars and restaurants, though Marcus' end of the hood is pretty much a working-class Arab and Asian neighborhood, which is kind of fascinating as you'll think you're in a non-French foreign country.

You can see more of Marcus' works here, on his Web site. And, for you New Yorkers, he's going to be participating in a show there from September 6 to 29. I think only a few of his pieces will be in the show, but he'll be there as well, at least the first few days (and I suspect at the opening, which is Sept 6). More on that here:

"En Plein View: French Artists in New York"
Exposition collective
du 6 au 29 septembre 2007
Vernissage le 6 septembre

Contemporary Art Network
580 8th Avenue, 5th floor
New York, NY 10018 USA
t: (001)212 354-2999



Read the rest of this post...

Rev. Tinkywinky's insurance pays off Liberty U.'s debts

He did it for the fundie students of tomorrow.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell left a $34 million parting gift to Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church when he passed away May 15.

"That means the university is completely debt-free now and beginning to work on endowment," LU Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. announced from the TRBC sanctuary Friday afternoon.

...His father looked at the policies as a way to ensure the future of the college, and the most recent policy was bought in September 2006, Falwell said. The insurance money will help put the rapidly-growing university on solid footing. LU expects more than 10,000 students on campus this year.

"It allows us to remain committed to what Liberty is all about," Falwell said.

Read the rest of this post...