Dem. caucus gives Specter no seniority on Committees

New Democrat Arlen Specter got his committee assignments, but didn't get seniority:

The Senate dealt a blow tonight to Sen. Arlen Specter's hold on seniority in several key committees, a week after the Pennsylvanian's party switch placed Democrats on the precipice of a 60-seat majority.

In a unanimous voice vote, the Senate approved a resolution that added Specter to the Democratic side of the dais on the five committees on which he serves, an expected move that gives Democrats larger margins on key panels such as Judiciary and Appropriations.

But Democrats placed Specter in one of the two most junior slots on each of the five committees for the remainder of this Congress, which goes through December 2010. Democrats have suggested that they will consider revisiting Specter's seniority claim at the committee level only after the midterm elections next year.

Since he switched, it seems like Specter has been going out of his way to say he's really not a Democrat. Looks like his new colleagues are figuring that out. And, as a Democrat, Arlen shouldn't be saying he hoped Norm Coleman wins (even if he later claimed he "misspoke.")

Basically, the Senate Democrats put Specter on probation. If Arlen wants seniority, he has to earn it. (But, keep in mind, it's not a given Specter will even be in the Senate after the next election.) Read the rest of this post...

Lying for the Lord

It's a Mormon thing. It's called Lying for the Lord. And it's a tenet of the Mormon faith that, Mormons think, gives them to the right to tell you a bald-faced lie, so long as it's a lie that somehow furthers the Mormon cause.

What else to call the Mormon's laughable statement today that their posthumous baptism last year of President Obama's mother was a "rare" mistake that might have been done by "pranksters."

Yes, we're to believe that the Mormons, just by coincidence, forcibly converted a presidential candidate's deceased mother, 13 years after her death, and only months before the presidential election. And we're also to believe no warning bells went off at Mormon Central when they saw that the woman's husband, whose name is clearly listed on her "baptismal record," is "Barack Hussein Obama." (Obama's father has the same name.) Yes, all one big unfortunate "rare" mistake. Kind of like a clerical error. Except instead of giving you the wrong change, they just stole your mother's soul.

The Mormons would have you believe that this kind of thing - forcibly converting the dead of other faiths to Mormonism, without their families' permission - is something that only happens once in a blue moon. Tell that to the families of Holocaust victims who have been trying to get the Mormons to stop baptizing their dead for over a decade. The Mormons even promised to stop forcibly converting Jewish Holocaust victims, back in 1995, only for it to be revealed a few months ago that - surprise! - they didn't really stop.

It's ghoulish to be sure, but it's neither rare nor a mistake. It's what the Mormons do. And when they get caught, they lie about it, just as they're lying to our President today, and just as they've been lying to the Jews for over a decade.

Why does this matter? Because the Mormons are "the" bankers of the religious right. Last fall, the Mormons dropped $20 million into California and singlehandedly turned a losing battle into the successful repeal of marriage rights for gay couples in that state. The Mormons have bankrolled hate initiatives in Alaska and Hawaii and across the northwest and midwest for the past decade. They are not some fringe "religion" to be shrugged off. The new anti-gay marriage coalition, National Organization for Marriage, keeps finding, seemingly out of nowhere, $1.5m for this ad campaign, then another $1.5m for that ad campaign. Where are they finding this sudden infusion of cash? Inquiring minds want to know.

The fact that the Mormons chose to forcibly convert the deceased mother of the President of the United States, only months before he was elected to office, is relevant to our discussion of the Mormon influence in American politics today. There is a larger pattern of bigotry that should concern us all. Has anyone noticed how all of their victims are minorities? The mother of a black president. The forced conversion of Jewish Holocaust victims. The history of racial animus towards African-Americans (and blacks more generally). And now the financing of religious right anti-gay hate.

Every one a minority. I'm sure it's just another rare mistake.

If the Mormons want to promote hate back in their own state, that's their affair. When they export it to the world, steal our dead, and try to weasel their way into the Obama administration by pushing for a place at the table overseeing the Faith Based Initiative, among other ventures, it's all of our business. Read the rest of this post...

Miss California could lose crown over nudie photos

It matters because she's the newest, biggest spokeswoman for the religious right and their bigotry. Her public humiliation and her exposure as a sexual hypocrite weakens her ability to hurt people in the future. And that matters.

From AP:

The directors of the Miss California USA pageant are looking into whether title holder Carrie Prejean violated her contract by working with a national group opposed to gay marriage and by posing semi-nude when she was a teenage model....

The detailed document prohibits the titular Miss California from making personal appearances, giving interviews or making commercials without permission from pageant officials. In the last 10 days, Prejean has made televised appearances at her San Diego church and on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage.

The contract also contains a clause asking participants to say whether they have conducted themselves "in accordance with the highest ethical and moral standards." As an example, it asks if they have ever been photographed nude or partially nude.

Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Confirmed, Mormon Web site shows Obama's mother as baptized after death

A Provo, Utah newspaper has confirmed our earlier story - a Mormon geneological Web site does in fact list President Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as having been baptized into the Mormon faith after her death (and presumably without her, or her son's, consent). The Mormon church has yet to respond to numerous reporters' inquiries whether they did in fact baptize the President's dead mother last year in the middle of the presidential campaign. If true, and it's looking increasingly likely, this could cause the Mormons quite a bit of trouble politically and in the public relations sphere.

Still unanswered is whether the Mormons also baptized Obama's father.

More from the Provo Herald Extra:

At the same time that Barack Obama sealed the Democratic nomination for president last year, someone in the Provo LDS Church temple was performing a baptism and temple rites for his dead mother.

The move is a serious breech of protocol for church members, who in the past have been criticized for performing such proxy baptisms for victims of the Holocaust.
"Church members are specifically instructed not to submit the names of persons not related to them," reads a statement on the LDS Chuch Web site. "Before performing temple baptisms for a deceased family member born within the last 95 years, members are instructed to get permission from the person's closest living relative."

Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have yet to confirm the incident, but records on their FamilySearch.org genealogical site clearly show that Stanley Ann Dunham received proxy rites in the Provo temple on June 4 and June 8 of 2008. The birth and death dates of the person for whom the rites were performed match those of Obama's mother.

Read the rest of this post...

Religious right spokeswoman, Miss California, reportedly posed nude

I've seen the topless photos, but had no way to confirm they were really Miss California, aka the religious right's newest spokesmodel for chastity and heterosexual marriage. An NBC affiliate says they're real, and a new statement from Miss California seems to admit that they're hers.

Why does it matter? Because holier-than-thou religious fundamentalist Bible-thumpers don't get to flash their breasts for profit and shrug it off as just another youthful indiscretion. You don't get to lecture me about my morality when your morality is the equivalent of a Playboy centerfold. Read the rest of this post...

Majority of Americans say gay marriage is not a threat to heterosexual marriage

The religious right has two main talking points when it comes to gay marriage.

1. Gay marriage threatens heterosexual marriage.
2. The majority of the country is on their side.

Not any more. Not only do recent polls show that more Americans support than oppose gay marriage, but a whopping 58% say that gay marriage does not threaten heterosexual marriage. For the first time ever in the discussion of this issue, the religious right is representing the minority view. That's rather huge. Read the rest of this post...

Bernanke sees recession ending in 2009

But with a slow recovery. He sounds a bit too optimistic on the timing of the bottom but a bit of optimism couldn't hurt. Reuters:

The U.S. economy will begin to turn up later this year provided the financial sector continues to mend, although unemployment will remain high for a while, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.

In testimony to a congressional committee, Bernanke sounded more confident that a recovery was at hand than he had in recent weeks.

He said the U.S. housing market may be bottoming after a three-year slide, and pointed to tentative signs of a rebound in consumer spending, which is the driving force behind the economy.

Maybe during this recovery people can think more about the consumers, since they're supposed to be so important. The Republicans never cared about anyone outside of the board rooms but maybe, just maybe, this time will be different with the Democrats in control. Read the rest of this post...

Maine House passed same-sex marriage bill

Just got a call from my sister, Sharon, who is in the Maine State Capitol. A few minutes ago, the Maine House of Representatives passed the same-sex marriage bill by a margin of 89 - 58. The State Senate passed the bill last week.

The big question now is whether Governor John Baldacci will sign the legislation. It's hard to imagine he won't. Baldacci has a solid record on LGBT issues. He knows how important this.

We can deal with the possible referendum question after the governor signs marriage equality into law. Read the rest of this post...

NBC asks: Has the media overblown conservative criticism of Obama’s upcoming address at Notre Dame?

Simple answer. YES:

We meant to ask this question earlier, but have we in the media blown the conservative criticism over Obama’s upcoming address at Notre Dame out of proportion? Consider this Pew poll from last week: By nearly a 2-to-1 margin (50%-28%), American Catholics agree with Notre Dame inviting Obama to speak there. Also, by 47%-33%, white Catholics agree with Notre Dame inviting the president. The only subgroup who disagrees: white Catholics who attend church weekly. By a 45%-37% margin, those folks disagree with the school’s invitation. So, according to this poll, the criticism is coming from a minority -- albeit a very vocal one.

A very vocal minority once again garners the attention of the traditional media. The Pew poll confirms, once again, that most Catholics really don't care what their bishops think. Seriously. Also, very few, if any, Catholics care what that raging racist, gay-obsessed Bill Donohue thinks. Read the rest of this post...

Did the Mormons baptize Obama's mother, after her death, without his knowledge or consent?

UPDATE: The story is confirmed.



A reader sent me a tip about this last week. But it's a sensitive topic, sure to cause the President some anguish, so I waited until I could find more information. I now have more information. And what I have is troubling.

A reader contacted me last week, saying that last year, in the heat of the presidential campaign, the Mormons had posthumously baptized Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Baptizing the dead of other faith's, secretly and without the consent of their families, is a common Mormon practice. For the past fifteen years the Mormons have caused quite a stir by forcibly baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims - in other words, converting them to Mormonism - despite strong objections from the Jewish community.

Thus, it's hardly a stretch to imagine the Mormons' doing this to Obama's mother. Still, I had no proof. Then yesterday, I received a document. It's allegedly a screen capture of the registration-only section of the Mormon-run Web site, FamilySearch.org. In that screen capture, excerpted above, is clearly the name and correct date of birth and death of Barack Obama's mother (Stanley Ann Dunham, born 29 Nov 1942 in Kansas, died 07 Nov 1995) and the date of her alleged post-death baptism by the Mormons. You can see the entire document here (click image to see larger version):



Is the document real? I went to the FamilySearch.org Web site and typed in "Stanley Ann Dunham." And while the baptismal records are behind a registration-only firewall, I got 22 hits for Stanley Ann Dunham who died in 1995.



I clicked around the various hits, and it was clear the records were for President Obama's mother. In at least one result, for example, it lists her husband as Barack Hussein Obama. And in this record they list both of Obama's mother's husbands:



Still, it was possible that these hits were just coming from non-Mormon databases, such as the Social Security death index. That's when I saw one return that was particularly interesting - it was from the "IGI/North America" database. That's the Mormons' own geneological database.

Here is what the Mormons' own database has publicly available on President Obama's mother.



Note that while there is nothing entered in the field "Christening," in the full document I received, the actual Mormon baptismal date is listed in another section, entitled LDS Ordinances - one that is not listed on the public form.

They also have Obama's father in their public database (I'm told he has not been baptized, but someone with access to the private database would need to confirm this).



So we know that the Mormons do in fact have President Obama's mother in their public database. We know that the Mormons have a policy of baptizing into the Mormon faith, without consent, every single person who dies on the planet. And we have a non-public document that mirrors the public documents to a T, and which says that the Mormons baptized President Obama's mother on June 4, 2008 - in the middle of the presidential race.

Reach your own conclusions. Read the rest of this post...

Jeff Sessions is a disgrace to his race

Who do the Republicans choose to replace Arlen Specter as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in charge of approving judicial nominations? Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a man from the deep south with a troubling racial past. The "new" Republican party, it's a lot like the old Republican party.

Read the rest of this post...

Finally. Palin is in. She joined the "new" GOP even though Rush said those guys "fear," "despise," and "hate" Palin

This GOP soap opera is complicated. Okay, so some of the guy who want to be president formed a new club because the old GOP was really weak. But, they didn't really want Sarah Palin in their club. She's too much of a celeb. But, then Rush said those guys were really afraid of Palin (and hate her). But, Rush said she's really the only true conservative. So, now she's in the club and everyone is singing Kumbaya...or something like that. It's great drama. Anyway, she's in:

A few hours after Rush Limbaugh told listeners GOP leaders launching a Republican re-branding effort hated and feared Sarah Palin, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor announced that the Alaska governor had finally accepted an invitation to join the group.

I don't think the guys really wanted Sarah in their new club. But, Rush said they had to let her join -- and the Republicans always do what Rush says:

At the group's kickoff event — a town hall-style gathering at an Arlington, Virginia restaurant — Cantor, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney urged the party to re-frame their message. Bush, in particular, expressed admiration for President Obama's political skill, and told the crowd not to get mired in "nostalgia" for past GOP dominance.

He mentioned no names, but Limbaugh interpreted that remark as a knock on Palin and President Ronald Reagan.

"Something else you have to understand is these people hate Palin too," the conservative radio host said Monday. "They despise Sarah Palin, they fear Sarah Palin, they don't like her either. She's, according to them she's embarrassing. McCain said, 'I was there with Ronald Reagan'…. No Reagan voter ever believed McCain was a Reaganite.

"And I think… a lot of this is aimed at Sarah Palin. When you strip all the talk — It's 'the Reagan era is over, stop all this nostalgia and stuff.' Clearly, in last year's campaign, the most prominent, articulate voice for standard run-of the mill good old fashioned American conservatism was Sarah Palin. Now, everybody on this [NCNA] Speak to America tour has presidential perspirations [sic]. Mitt Romney there, he wants to be president again. Jeb may someday. Eric Cantor, some of the others, McCain — I don't think he does, but you never know. So this is an early campaign event, 2012 presidential campaign, primary campaign, with everybody there but Sarah Palin."

This all has a very junior high school feel to it. Read the rest of this post...

At least half of stress tested banks need more capital

But they're all quite healthy. Really. That's what they keep telling everyone, at least. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Reuters:

U.S. regulators have deemed that about ten of the 19 U.S. banks being stress tested will need to raise more capital, according to a source familiar with official talks.

The largest U.S. banks have been negotiating with regulators about how much of an additional capital buffer the banks will need to sustain losses that might occur if economic conditions deteriorate further. The government is scheduled to release the official results on Thursday.

Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, that whole "new" GOP re-branding thing has become a drama about Sarah Palin. It seems every article mentions whether Palin is in or out...or whether one of the guys (meaning Mitt Romney) has taken a cheap shot at her. The GOP is all about Palin whether the guys like it or not.

2012 here she comes... Read the rest of this post...

9/11-style commission for financial crisis?

Warts and all, I'll take it. Yes, it won't be perfect and I'm sure there will be moments that are infuriating much like during the 9/11 commission but it's still better than letting Congress doddle and do nothing. There is so much blame to go around on this meltdown and neither party are immune from playing their own role. Exposing even a small bit of this will be valuable. We're all going to have major frustrations but at least we won't be subjected to the President sitting on the lap of the VP during testimony. Surely it can't get that pathetic...can it? The Huffington Post:

The House of Representatives came to agreement on Monday afternoon on the establishment of a 9/11-styled commission that would be independent of Congress and granted the power of subpoena to investigate the origins of the financial crisis.

Aides on the Hill said that the House will likely vote on the measure Wednesday, adding that the chances of passage were high. The office of the bill's cosponsor, Congressman Darrell Issa, said the legislation would be similar to that recently passed by the Senate.

Read the rest of this post...

EU pushes out recovery until second half of 2010

This is exactly what concerns everyone. Each time numbers are chosen and dates are set, everything slips. In the US there are some of the traditional Wall Street cheerleaders who are flogging recovery stories for housing as well as talk of a bottom. There's big talk of big change in a positive direction but in all likelihood we are not going to see a big bounce. The more likely scenario is a slow recovery. Before hyping the next bubble, how about we wait until we see a few good months strung together before getting ahead of the game? The Independent:

The European Commission has revised economic forecasts sharply downwards and pushed recovery predictions out to the second half of 2010 in the face of the "deepest and most widespread recession in the post-war era".

Brussels is now expecting Europe's GDP to contract by 4 per cent this year, twice the 1.8 per cent predicted just three months ago. The slump will also last longer, with a further decline of 0.1 per cent in 2010, compared with earlier forecasts of 0.5 per cent growth.

Of the major EU countries, Germany will fare the worst, with a 5.5 per cent decline in 2009. But the Commission's assessment will also make grim reading for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The UK economy is expected to lose between 4 and 4.5 per cent in 2009, a far bleaker prediction than the 3.5 per cent forecast in Mr Darling's Budget. Italy is also expected to contract by up to 4.5 per cent, France and Spain by 3 per cent.

Read the rest of this post...

Was it really Gauguin?

The story of Van Gogh slicing off his own ear may not be accurate after all. The Guardian:

But two German art historians, who have spent 10 years reviewing the police investigations, witness accounts and the artists' letters, argue that Gauguin, a fencing ace, most likely sliced off the ear with his sword during a fight, and the two artists agreed to hush up the truth.

In Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, published in Germany, Hamburg-based academics Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans argue that the official version of events, based largely on Gauguin's accounts, contain inconsistencies and that both artists hinted that the truth was more complex.

Read the rest of this post...

Sarkozy continues to disappoint

After the G-20 summit in London, President Nicholas Sarkozy had plenty of criticism for every world leader including Obama. It was strange and very public considering how Sarkozy initially reached out to a very unpopular Bush to win back the friendship of the US, primarily for business reasons. Now he's angered world leaders and he's not very popular at home either. The Telegraph:

Asked in a survey for the Metro daily newspaper whether they were satisfied with Mr Sarkozy, 65 per cent of respondents said they were disappointed, 24 per cent were satisfied and 11 per cent said they had no opinion.

The same survey found that 63 per cent viewed Mr Sarkozy's overall record in office as negative while just 28 per cent regarded his record as positive.

Read the rest of this post...

Palin may be snubbing GOP effort to repackage itself

Of course, it's not entirely clear that she was invited at first, so she may have good reason to snub back. The number of stories in which Republicans are sniping at each other seems to not be abating. Read the rest of this post...