Religious right hate group says majority vote of citizens overrules the US Constitution

How messed up is that. Why do these people even want to live in this country since they clearly hate our system of government?

From the Family Research Council:

"This is a blatant display of judicial arrogance where a non-elected federal judge has shown a total disregard for what 70% of Nebraska voters stated, marriage is between one man and one woman," said Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council.

"This unfortunate act of judicial activism makes it very clear that marriage is at risk in the federal courts and Congress must pass, and the people of this country must ratify, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Uh, actually Anthony, you kind of screwed up on this one. Not only is our system of government NOT built on the premise that a majority vote overrules the Constitution, but using your logic, even WITH a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage all we need is a majority vote of the citizenry to ignore it - since, after all, you and the FRC clearly believe that the majority vote of citizens overrules the Constitution and judges have no right to intervene in order to say that the majority vote is unconstitutional. Read the rest of this post...

Insight from Senator Kennedy

Just got back from an event for Senator Ted Kennedy. What an amazing man. He is a living legend.

It was fascinating to spend time with him on the day the U.S. Senate began the debate over what the Republicans named the "nuclear option."

Senator Kennedy maintained the Administration wanted this confrontation...the White House decided to push it when they re-nominated all the same people who had been previously filibustered.

So, keep in mind, this is a battle with the White House. They want those judges....and will pay the price to get them. Senator Kennedy thought if the vote was held today, we'd win. But the White House has time to deal...and they have a lot to offer.

And, it is all about power. The GOP wants to control the judiciary the way they control the House, Senate and White House.

The other cool thing is that Senator Kennedy is a big fan of the blogs. Told everyone on the blogs to work hard on this one.

So, it was a fun night. He's a great guy. And, his wife, Vicki, is really amazing, smart and fun. Read the rest of this post...

Frist talks of "assassinating" judges - the man should resign

Frist is a pig. The GOP is out of control. He should step down and the voters should slap that party hard. Their over-the-top comments and reactions and whines and complaints and outright lies have gone on long enough. Shut up and leave the country if you're so unhappy living in America the way the Framers set things up. Just spare us the blatant lies and the downright dangerous language.

Frist's words are particularly ironic when its GOP senators who have condoned the murder of judges and when it's their radical right hate group allies who have used language that could easily inspire violence against judges, or so says Sandra Day O'Connor and Judge Lefkow (the judge whose mother and husband were recently murdered in Chicago). The GOP has become the party of un-American, anti-American, far-right nutjobs who have no respect for the truth, the Constitution, the separation of powers, or the rule of law. They are beholdened to absolute power and their bigoted pseudo-religious patrons.

From Raw Story:

On the same day that a federal judge whose family was assassinated testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about courthouse safety, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) described Democratic efforts opposing some of President Bush?s judicial nominees as ?leadership-led use of Cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees.?

Federal Judge Joan Lefkow was a target for assassination, and her husband and mother were murdered in February of this year. Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) hammered Frist's comments and asked they be struck from the Senate record.

Durbin remarked, "When words are expressed during the court of the debate that those of us who oppose these nominees are setting out to 'kill, to defeat or to assassinate these nominees, those words should be taken from this record. Those words go too far."

Read the rest of this post...

No, New York Times, Newsweek did NOT retract account of Koran abuse

Isn't the New York Times (and perhaps the rest of the media) failing to accurately report what happened? Newsweek has not stated that abuse of the Koran did not occur by US military forces. What its very carefully worded retraction said was that it was retracting the claim that "an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay." That's very different from the headline the NYT is using: "Newsweek Retracts Account of Koran Abuse By US Military." One says they couldn't back up the claim that an internal investigation had made the abuse official. The other one says no abuse occurred I can see the White House trying to smudge the difference. But shouldn't the rest of the media be aware of what Newsweek actually did and report it more accurately? Read the rest of this post...

Oh(io), What a tangled web we weave....

Again, with my Ohio obsession...but, the OH GOP rare-coin scandal rages on.

This morning, the Toledo Blade reported that State Senator Marc Dann (D-Youngstown) filed a lawsuit trying to get a full accounting of the $50 million dollars of public funds invested in to the rare-coin fund of major GOP fundraiser/Bush pioneer, Tom Noe. Yes, he had to file a lawsuit because no one was giving the answers:

A state senator yesterday sued the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, asking the Supreme Court to order the state to disclose details of its rare-coin inventory.

Sen. Marc Dann, a Democrat from the Youngstown area, asked the state's highest court to also require the bureau to disclose the names of individuals and entities that sold coins to the funds controlled by Tom Noe, a Toledo-area coin dealer and prominent Republican.

"As James Madison once said, 'A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both,'" Mr. Dann (D., Liberty) said.

The request for a court order largely mirrors a lawsuit The Blade filed May 11 with the Supreme Court, which Republicans control by a 6-1 margin.

I think Marc Dann is on to something. In Ohio, the GOP-controlled state government is looking more and more like farcical and tragic.

But there's more...this afternoon we learn, again from the Toledo Blade, that five of the seven Ohio Supreme Court justices who should be hearing the Dann and Blade lawsuits have recused themselves. Man, the tentacles of this thing go everywhere.

Now, Ohio justices don't have to explain why they are recusing themselves...but any guesses?? All roads in the Ohio GOP do lead to Tom Noe:

Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette, have contributed more than $23,000 to the campaigns of the recused justices, Thomas J. Moyer, Evelyn Stratton, Maureen O’Connor, Terrence O’Donnell, and Judith Ann Lanzinger.

Ohio is the manifestation of the saying: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Stay tuned. This thing keeps growing and growing.... Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Have at it... Read the rest of this post...

Judge Lefkow Testifies: harsh rhetoric is truly dangerous

Talk about ironic. While the full Senate is debating the filibuster because of intense judge-bashing pressure from the radical right wing, the Senate Judiciary Committee had a hearing on the safety of judges. They heard testimony from Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow who knows all too well the dangers faced by the judiciary. AP has the story:

"Fostering disrespect for judges can only encourage those that are on the edge, or on the fringe, to exact revenge on a judge who displeases them," U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And, lest we forget all the judge-bashing of late, the AP provides this handy listing (the bold is my idea, not AP's):

After the death of Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman whose parents unsuccessfully sought to have her feeding tube reinserted despite her husband's wishes, some Republican members of Congress lashed out at judges involved in the case.

At the time, Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania said, "The actions on the part of the Florida court and the U.S. Supreme Court are unconscionable."

"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Referring to a different decision, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said he wondered whether frustration against perceived political decisions by judges "builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence, certainly without any justification."

[Pat] Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, appeared on ABC's "This Week" earlier this month and criticized the federal courts. "Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," he said.

Those guys should be ashamed, if they had any shame in them. Judge Lefkow is living the reality of what their words can inspire. Considering what she's been through, Judge Lefkow is one brave woman. And, I love what she said to Robertson's crazy comment:

"I have never encountered a judge in the federal judiciary who can remotely be described as posing a threat, as Mr. Robertson said, 'probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings,'" she said."

That is so common sensical it's frightening that it even had to be said. But, meanwhile, on the Senate floor, Bill Frist is leading the judge-bashing crusade fostered by Robertson and the rest of the right wing nutballs who want a theocracy so badly, they won't let anything stand in their way. Read the rest of this post...

Why is Bob Ney so mad at Newsweek?

In his post below, GOP Nazis, John has the quote from Congressman Bob Ney that Newsweek's behavior may have been "criminal." Hmmm....apparently, a lot of people were asking what got him so riled up? .

Could it be that Newsweek was investigating Bob Ney for unethical and possibly criminal activity?

CREW, which wrote an ethics complaint against Ney this week, has the Roll Call story:

Meanwhile, the back-and-forth continues between Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, who wrote the original Quran item two weeks ago. (The Bush administration, although the Pentagon had reviewed the entire story, did not challenge the story until Friday.)

Ney went to the House floor Monday and bashed Isikoff, calling the star reporter a “yellow journalist.”

Some Hill insiders, including Republicans, questioned why Ney launched such a vitriolic attack on Isikoff. Several sources said Isikoff in recent weeks was pursuing a story about Ney’s overseas junkets and the Congressman’s ties to former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is the subject of both federal and Congressional investigations into his business ties with Native American tribes.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, confirmed that members of that organization had spoken to Isikoff about Ney.

“It is ironic that Mr. Ney is publicly expressing outrage over Mr. Isikoff’s alleged ethical lapse at the same time that he himself is refusing to take responsibility for his own unethical conduct,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said.

I love that Melanie Sloan. She just calls them as she sees them. The progressive groups in DC need more leaders who play hard ball like Melanie does.

It is almost funny to see Ney become so sanctimonious about ethical behavior all of the sudden. And don't you love it when Congressman get all "vitrolic"? Read the rest of this post...

More independent witnesses say Koran was abused by US troops

Ok, this is getting interesting. Seems Scotty McClellan spoke a bit too soon about his outrage over anyone daring to suggest that our wonderful government would abuse the Koran.

James Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the prison who was investigated and cleared of charges of mishandling classified material, has asserted that guards' mishandling and mistreatment of detainees' Korans led the prisoners to launch a hunger strike in March 2002. Detainee lawyers, attributing their information to an interrogator, have said the strike ended only when military leaders issued an apology to the detainees over the camp loudspeaker. But they said mishandling of the Koran persisted.

Erik Saar, a former Army translator at Guantanamo Bay who has written a book about mistreatment of detainees at the military prison, said in interviews and in his book that he never saw a Koran flushed in a toilet but that guards routinely ignored prisoners' sensitivities by tossing it on the ground while searching their cells.

Imagine if this were the Bible... Read the rest of this post...

Nuclear Option Open Thread

The debate has started over the nomination of previously filibustered Priscilla Owen. She's the one Attorney General Gonzales accused of "unconsionable judicial activism" per Daily Kos archives.

C-SPAN has it live. The Dems. appear fully engaged and ready for battle. Reid won't agree to any hearings while this debate is taking place.

Think Progess has a good account of one of the first volleys. Schumer kicked Frist's butt. Read the rest of this post...

Rep. Walter Jones has a gay obsession, too

What is up with the right wing's obsession with all things gay? Maybe Frank Rich was on to something in his Sunday column, Just How Gay is the Right?

Today's The Hill has a report on Representative Walter Jones (R-NC) obsession with gay books:

After reading news articles about a 7-year-old girl borrowing a children’s book from her school library about two men marrying, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) began to craft legislation that would give parents a significant role in reviewing literature before it can be accessed by young children.

Jones’s bill, introduced late last week, would establish review boards of five to 15 parents who would analyze and make recommendations on potential purchases by educational entities.

Rep. Jones thinks gays are bad. He has become a gay-watchdog:

Jones, who says he regularly carries a copy of King and King to emphasize his point, is scheduled to discuss his bill this week with the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 House conservatives.

Sounds like a gay book club. I am getting a yuk out of the whacko right wingers sitting around reading gay books. Are they shocked or titillated? Probably both. For their next gay book club, maybe they should try "The Best Little Boy in the World." Read the rest of this post...

Brit DESTROYS GOP Senator Coleman

Oh my God. You have GOT to watch this quick 3 minute video from Crooks and Liars. It's an excerpt from yesterday's hearing in the Senate where the GOP tried to hang an English member of Parliament, accusing him of profiteering from the food-for-oil exchange, claiming that their evidence came from senior Iraqi officials (gee, Chalabi maybe?). Well, the Brit came to town and ripped Coleman a new one as only a Brit can. Watch this and laugh. And you can watch Galloway's entire testimony and/or read the entire transcript here.

Oh, and Senator Coleman: Before you go attacking other people's character based on a single source under questionable circumstances, you might want to take a peek in your own closet. I've received lots of info from sources claiming all sorts of things - well, actually, one specific thing - about your character. Think really hard (no pun intended) if you really want that to be the standard for public personal attacks on politicians' character.

Now, let me share a few excerpts from Galloway's testimony:

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war....

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong....

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Just to get things going today....

NOTE FROM JOHN: The comments were messing up this morning, I think I got them fixed. Read the rest of this post...

Postcard from Paris to the NCFR

Dear NCFR,

Hi from Paris! The weather is great. Sun is shining, a bit cool, but spring is in the air. I'm about to run out and grab a baguette, but wanted to drop a quick note.

Missing you terribly, and sorry I haven't written, but I've been so busy on my trip that I just haven't had the time. But rest assured that I'm back Thursday night and promise to focus on everything you've been up to at that time.

And in case the nuance escaped you, once I'm back in the states on Friday, you anti-gay bigots are toast.

Love, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

GOP Nazis

Yes, let's throw reporters in jail who get a story wrong (assuming this even IS a mistake). Can we start with FOX News and the Washington Times?

Rep. Deborah Pryce (Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference, urged every congressional office to cancel its Newsweek subscription. "Retraction and regrets will not atone for the reckless behavior of an irresponsible reporter and an overzealous publication," she said in a statement.

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) used even stronger language, saying that Isikoff had "fabricated" the Koran incident and branding Newsweek's behavior "criminal."

No, going to war based on a lie is criminal. Read the rest of this post...

Coleman continues attack on Galloway though provides no evidence

Senator Coleman, after receiving a thorough tongue lashing by British MP Galloway, continued to publicly question whether Galloway was a "credible witness" even though Coleman provided no substance to his allegations. So are these allegations from senior Iraqi government officials coming from one of the former CIA contacts in the new government? Are they from the same people who provided those fantastic yellowcake documents? From the people who gave such detailed reports on WMDs in Iraq? Let's get real about our own reputation before we start pointing the finger at the likes of Galloway or even Newsweek. Our own leaders have repeatedly lied about just about everything related to this mess in Iraq and have trashed our good name across the world, thumbing our nose at world opinion for the past five years and now some want to attack others without evidence? These coordinated attacks by the GOP are complete rubbish. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Take it away... Read the rest of this post...