Howard Dean John Danforth is an angry Democrat

Gee, John Danforth is one angry Democrat. Oh, that's right. He's a former GOP Senator and not a Democrat at all. But, oh my, he criticizes the Republican party as being the party of conservative Christians. But, isn't that what Howard Dean said? I'm so confused. Why isn't the MSM all angry at John Danforth too?

From Danforth's excellent NYT op ed earlier this year:

By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians....

The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement....

But in recent times, we Republicans have allowed this shared agenda to become secondary to the agenda of Christian conservatives.

(Major hat tip to Anne for finding this.) Read the rest of this post...

Give some love to Crooks and Liars

Good site, they help us a lot, I donated, will you? :-) Read the rest of this post...

Capitol Advantage: They help hate groups do anti-gay advocacy, and work for uber-liberal advocacy groups. What's wrong with this picture?

As regular readers of this blog know, the religious right hate groups are growing more and more brazen every day in their all out battle to cut the legs out from under the gay community and the Democratic party.

They are now attacking each and every company that simply offers benefits for its gay employees. From Microsoft to Ford to Harris Bank and Kraft in Chicago, the anti-gay religious right hate groups have decided to attack us from all sides, and they won't stop until we're dead, perhaps quite literally.

Well, it's time we cut the legs out from under them.

No political consulting firm should be making money off of the left while helping far-right hate groups attack gays and other minorities. Last week we told you about Convio, a firm providing online advocacy services to anti-gay religious right hate groups trying to pass the federal anti-gay constitutional amendment, while they provided services to Howard Dean's presidential campaign, among other Democrats. Folks, understandably, flipped out, especially since Convio has a (quite laudable) pledge on its Web site not to work for clients who promote prejudice and hate.



I think it's time we asked other service providers, starting with political service providers (consultants, online advocacy tool providers, etc.) to make the same pledge.

At the very least in the political realm NO ONE should be providing advocacy services to leftie advocacy groups and rightie advocacy groups at the same time. I personally wouldn't trust anyone who was powering, say, the Children's Defense Fund's campaigns to help America's poor kids and the American Family Association's campaigns to destroy glbt Americans. But alas, it happens. And we're going to tell you with whom.

So, if the AFA wants to go after Ford, then we'll go after the folks who are making it possible for the religious right to attack us and demean us, take away our children and throw us in jail. They can work with us, or they can work with hate groups. It's their choice. The religious right dropped a nuclear bomb on us with the effort to amend the US Constitution. They now have the nuclear war they wanted.

WHY DOES CAPITOL ADVANTAGE HELP LOU SHELDON?

First up: Capitol Advantage. They're a very nice firm, I worked with them years ago for a mutual (liberal) client, and they work with lots of liberal groups. I just found out this week that they also empower the Rev. Lou Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition to attack gays. That might have been okay - and I say "might" - years ago (and I'm not convinced of that, even), but now that the religious right hate groups have evolved into, well, hate groups, it's no longer acceptable.



This is the age of the Federal Marriage Amendment - the Gay Bashing Amendment - to the US Constitution. It's the age in which the religious right wants to relegate us forever to second-hand citizen status. It's no longer okay for our allies to use the services of people who hold Lou Sheldon's hand while he launches his bigoted, hateful attacks on GLBT Americans and our allies.

Did you know that Lou Sheldon's Web site has a special section devoted to "Homosexual Child Molesters"? Nice. Are these really the kind of organizations that Capitol Advantage should be helping, then they turn around and want clients all across the spectrum of the left?

WHY DO THEY HELP FOCUS ON THE FAMILY?

What other anti-gay religious right hate groups does Capitol Advantage help destroy our lives? None of than Focus on the Family, one of the other top 5 anti-gay religious right hate groups. Focus on the Family thinks it's "a myth" that "homosexuals are normal, healthy, everyday people." They think gays are diseased and less psychologically healthy than the rest of society. And lesbian relationships are "life threatening." Isn't that special?



WHY DO THEY HELP THE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION?

Need I even explain who these people are? Oh, but let me anyway. The AFA says gays have a "tragic lifestyle." That "homosexual activists" want to "take over the nation." And how about this fundraising letter from Don Wildmon, the head of the AFA:

"For the sake of our children and society, we must OPPOSE the spread of homosexual activity! Just as we must oppose murder, stealing, and adultery! Since homosexuals cannot reproduce, the only way for them to 'breed' is to RECRUIT! And who are their targets for recruitment? Children!" (Source: PFAW)

WHY DO LIBERAL ADVOCACY GROUPS USE THESE COMPANIES?
It's time for firms that provide these kind of services to take the non-discrimination pledge and then dump any hate clients they have. Otherwise, no self-respecting progressive organization or politician should work with them in the future. Read the rest of this post...

Support Dean?

Then prove it. Read the rest of this post...

Bush pardons druggie

And a dealer too. Just say "maybe":

President Bush granted pardons to seven people Wednesday.... Those granted pardons Wednesday were.... James Edward Reed, Kaufman, Texas, conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, sentenced January 1975 to 18 months in prison and two years special parole.

The whole porn star having dinner with Bush thing is making a lot more sense now. He's a wild man! Read the rest of this post...

Give 'em hell, Howard

Dean isn't backing down, nor should he. Read the rest of this post...

Totally creepy video

Thought provoking, unfortunately. Read the rest of this post...

Family Research Council urges Africans to starve rather than accept money from pro-gay churches

What Tony "$82,000 to David Duke" Perkins of the Family Research Council conveniently doesn't tell folks is that some of the money these African churches are refusing to accept are money for people with AIDS and more.

People are literally STARVING over there according to the Washington Times of all sources, and the religious right is LAUDING them for turning down help from churches who have elected a gay man as bishop. I'm sure the parents and children who die as a result of this will be proud of Tony Perkins and the FRC for worrying more about the anti-gay agenda than a person starving to death. And note what the churches over there say about how America's religious right has let them down.

Who would Jesus starve, Tony?


CAPTION: Murambi, Rwanda. Children belonging to the Hutu tribe standing outside a barbed wire enclosed Displaced Persons (DP) compound. Some are wearing plastic bags as protection against the regular cold rain. They frequently congregated to beg food from the United Nations (UN) forces. AWM P02211.014.

First, this from the Washington Times:

Anglican bishops in Africa who are refusing millions of dollars from liberal AmericanEpiscopal sources to protest homosexual clergy say the price of their protest has been higher than they thought.

"To be honest, there is not enough money for the needs we have in Rwanda after the [1994] genocide," said Rwandan Bishop John Rucyahana of the Diocese of Shyira, "but if money is being used to disgrace the Gospel, then we don't need it."

The Rev. Alison Barfoot, assistant to the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, said the Anglican province has no working phones in its Kampala headquarters because it lacks the funds. Conservative American churches haven't pitched in enough -- "definitely not to the extent of what we've given up," she said....

Bill Atwood, general secretary of Ekklesia Society, an international Anglican network, just returned from a tour of Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda and called the lack of money for Africans "scandalous."

"I just met with some archbishops a week ago," he said, "They were saying how painful it was, with people starving to death to make these choices."

Still, the Anglican Province of Uganda is refusing grants from any pro-Robinson diocese and the New York-based ERD. Although it accepted $30,000 from Trinity Episcopal in February for a women's credit union, it turned down assistance from the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan for school fees for 60 girls.

In March, Bishop Jackson Nzerebende of Uganda's South Rwenzori Diocese cut ties with the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, which had donated more than $65,000 for school fees, transportation, college tuition and an AIDS program. Then, last month, the Ugandan province rejected a $27,000 donation from the New Hampshire Diocese to improve local schools.

Central Pennsylvania Bishop Michael F. Creighton called Bishop Nzerebende's decision "a Good Friday nail in the compassion of Christ."

"Our consent to the election of a bishop in New Hampshire appears to be more important than the compassionate ministry we have shown with his own people," he said, "who are struggling with and dying of AIDS."

And now Tony "David Duke's enabler" Perkins praising these assholes:

Anglican bishops in Africa are refusing millions of dollars from American Episcopal Church donors who have endorsed active homosexual clergy following the 2003 election of openly homosexual New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson. Refusing these "pieces of silver" from liberal American sources has put an especially heavy burden on the Rwandan dioceses, still trying to recuperate from the after-effects of the 1994 genocide in that country. However, as Rwandan Bishop John Rucyahana of the Diocese of Shyira put it, "if money is being used to disgrace the Gospel, then we don't need it.".... I applaud the actions of the African Anglican churches. No amount of silver is worth sacrificing your duty to your congregation and to God...

So that duty to God and congregation has nothing to do with innocent men, women and children starving to death, you asshole? These people just had a genocide based on prejudice and bigotry. Good God, does no one learn any lessons of history? Read the rest of this post...

Bush Did NOT Increase Funding Yesterday To Fight Poverty In Africa

It makes it hard to debate the issues when the MSM doesn't even get its facts right. This Washington Post description from yesterday's press conference is quite typical:

In their first visit together at the White House since winning reelection in campaigns dominated by Iraq and U.S. foreign policy, Bush and Blair trumpeted a new U.S. plan to spend $674 million more on famine relief....

The only problem? It's completely wrong. Bush did NOT increase funding by $674 million. All he did was release money that had already been allocated by Congress. This is bad on many levels. Most casual viewers will believe what the media reported, that the US dug deep and offered up an extra $674 million to help the hungry. The truth is that the US is the most miserly of the major industrialized powers -- we give FAR less in foreign aid than every other country in the G8.

And yesterday Blair came hat in hand and said this is vitally important both to the world and to me politically and Bush sent him packing without giving Blair a single red cent. So the media misses Bush's lack of loyalty to an ally, misses Blair's shame, misses America's unChristian refusal to help our fellow neighbors and mislead the public into thinking our government was doing the right thing.

What can you do? Write to your local paper if they got it wrong and ask when they're going to run a correction and explain why they got such a basic fact wrong. The NYT and other outlets quoted administration officials the day of the press conference explaining the $674 million and that it wasn't new funding, so why did everyone get it so wrong? Read the rest of this post...

We [heart] Joe Biden

The Netroots aren't giving Joe a lot of love for his totally inappropriate and gratuitous public criticism of Howard Dean:

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Special Klan edition. Read the rest of this post...

The Family Research Council and the Ku Klux Klan

You always remember your first Klan...



The Family Research Council's executive director, Tony Perkins, reportedly paid former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke over $80,000 for his who's-who-of-racist-America mailing list in 1996. This should be the death of the Family Research Council, one of the religoius right's lead organizations, and the end of Tony Perkins career.

Who on the left is smart enough to plunk down some money to organize the campaign destroying the FRC and their executive director because of his dealings with the Ku Klux Klan?

This was 1996, people. That is well beyond, years beyond, the date that the entire nation knew Duke to be a rabid KKK-loving racist. But our pinnacle of family values, Tony Perkins, enriched black-hater David Duke to the tune of $82,000.

With the religious right trying to reach out to black folk, and more generally trying to lecture the rest of us on morality, I want to know why Tony Perkins hasn't been forced to resign, or, why the Family Research Council hasn't been ostracized from the entire religious right community.

Bob Knight and the rest of the Concerned Women for America, and the American Family Association and Lou Sheldon and all the rest of you supposed Christians, are you concerned about your good buddy Tony Perkins?

From the Nation (I'd reported on this Nation piece before, but this is big. This is the end of the Family Research Council and the religious right's efforts to woo the black community, if only some smart well-funded liberal had the sense to do something with this.):

"Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America's premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke."

What would I do in response? How about make sure the entire audience knows about Perkins' support for Duke and affinity for racists at EVERY event he attends. How about informing the black media and black churches about this tie between racists and the religious right. How about asking supposed religious right "black" leaders why they don't speak out against the FRC and its executive director's affinity for white supremacists. How about demanding that the other religious right groups speak out against Tony Perkins and his enabling of black-hating racists.

This is a campaign begging to happen. Read the rest of this post...

Army misses monthly recruiting goal again

This happened even after they lowered the number but don't worry about it. The Army says that they will still hit the annual numbers. This is in the same category as Dick Cheney saying the insurgency in Iraq is in its final moments. Read the rest of this post...

My latest article for RADAR is live

Hot off the presses:

...And so the American public remains unhappy, ignorant, and quiet, a condition that is not likely to change despite the recently unearthed British government document that shows that Bush planned the war in Iraq 10 months before we invaded, contrary to his public assurances at the time. It also shows that U.S. officials knew that they didn’t have the goods on Saddam, so they planned to just, ya know, make shit up. As a result, more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers, and countless Iraqi civilians, are dead in a war that appears to have no end.

Nope, no story there.

Read the rest of this post...

Comrade Amerika

Via Kos and others. An actual poster from the Maryland transport folks.

Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Read the rest of this post...

Downing Street Memo: US Media Starts To Ask About Smoking Gun

The Bush/Blair conference finally saw the president asked about the Downing Street Memo.

It was the most attention paid by the media in the USA so far to the "Downing Street memo," first reported on May 1 by The Sunday Times of London. The memo is said by some of the president's sharpest critics, such as Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, to be strong evidence that Bush decided to go to war and then looked for evidence to support his decision, wrote USA Today.

The defense both offered up was strange to say the least. In short, both Bush and Blair said the memo by top British officials saying Bush had long planned to go to war and was going to find the evidence to back that up no matter what was wrong. Why? Because it was written before they went to the UN one last time.

Huh? So the memo saying Bush planned to invade Iraq long in advance of going through the motions of asking the UN to intervene and offering up tainted, flimsy evidence as if it were incontrovertible was wrong because it was written before the farcical UN visit? Well, when else can you write down plans to do something in advance? After the fact? Presumably, if the memo had been written after the UN visit, Bush would say it was wrong because it didn't acknowledge all the (insincere) steps he'd already taken.

USA Today has a good breakdown of the memo and why various news organizations have taken so long to cover it. The good news? The story was kept alive by the blogs and your emails. And can anyone from the UK weigh in on this argument that "fixed around" (as in the evidence was fixed around Bush's desire to invade Iraq) does not have the same illicit connotations across the pond as it does here? Maybe someone could email this query to William Safire, the language maven at the NYT at safireonlanguage@nytimes.com

Robin Niblett of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, says it would be easy for Americans to misunderstand the reference to intelligence being "fixed around" Iraq policy. " 'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy," he says to USA Today.

Read the rest of this post...

Funniest thing I've read in years

UPDATE: I want to know legally what WE can do to shut this company down. This is false advertising on its face. What are the federal regs, FCC rules, should we pressure the companies involved to sue these guys? (They're clearly leaving them alone because they're religious right.)

This is from a real ABC News piece about religious right hate groups telemarketing homophobia to push their new "Christian" phone service (you can listen to the actual recordings he made on his Web site here):

The newest battle in the culture wars is being waged on the telephone lines. In a departure from the standard telemarketing calls aimed at selling long distance service, United American Technology has taken telemarketing to a whole new level.

The Oklahoma-based long distance carrier, which describes itself as a Christian conservative company, is seeking like-minded customers by bad-mouthing bigger rivals for their "sinful" behavior.

"Our base, which would be a conservative base, really does not like the same-sex marriage that has been pushed down our throat," UAT consultant Carl Thompson told ABC News....

But some say UAT takes its politics too far. New York City comedian Eugene Mirman was so astonished by a UAT call he received, he recorded it. Mirman believes he was contacted — as something of a joke — because he donated $51 to the 1996 presidential campaign of Republican Alan Keyes.

"I got a phone call," Mirman said. "It was a recording and it said: 'Hi, I'm the mother of three, and I don't support gay marriage. If you don't support gay marriage press one.' I have something hooked up to my phone to record phone calls, and so I scrambled and found it … Every time they would call, I would record it because it was crazy."

In one of the "crazy" exchanges he recorded, the telemarketer starts her sales pitch by asking about Mirman's stance on same-sex marriage:

UAT TELEMARKETER: OK. Eugene, did you press 1 to oppose same sex marriages?

MIRMAN: Oh, I pressed it, yes.

UAT: OK, that's great to hear. Now are you against same-sex marriages?

MIRMAN:: Well I want to destroy it, yes.

UAT: OK, that's great to hear. And Eugene -

MIRMAN: With the fist of God, we will smash them!

UAT: Exactly. Uh, Mr. Mirman, our organization is dedicated to people such as yourself who want to stop same-sex marriages and to quit doing business with companies that promote and profit from the homosexual lifestyle.

MIRMAN: Some companies profit from homosexuality?

UAT: That's correct.

MIRMAN: By selling sex favors?

UAT: No. Such as AT&T;, what they do …

MIRMAN: AT&T; sells sex favors?

UAT: No, no. What it is is they own the Hot Network, which is a hardcore pornography channel … They also give millions of dollars to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance group....

MIRMAN: So what about the others? What does Verizon do?

UAT: OK, Verizon. What they do is they train their employees to accept a gay and lesbian lifestyle.

MIRMAN: They try to turn their employees gay?!

UAT: No, no. They train their employees to accept it.

UAT: UAT, Mr. Mirman, is the only carrier that is taking an active stand against same-sex marriages and hardcore child pornography.

MIRMAN: I think all child pornography is hardcore … It's all wrong. AT&T; sponsors child pornography?

UAT: No, no. That's MCI.

MIRMAN: MCI sponsors hardcore child pornography?

UAT: Yes, they have a pedophile Web site for men who love boys. Uh, it's a Montreal-based Web site.

MIRMAN: Oh my God! Our Canadian pervert neighbors!

UAT: Mmm hmm.

MIRMAN: So MCI basically has a child pornography ring.

UAT: That's correct....

MIRMAN: Basically God hates AT&T;, MCI, and Verizon.

UAT: (pause) Yes. And, Mr. Mirman, do you make a lot of long distance calls or just a few every month?

Read the rest of this post...

Religious right: Nixon was innocent

Or I guess that's what they're saying. As good Christians they clearly aren't suggesting we let criminals off the hook. Or are they?....

...Debate continues as to whether the informant once known as "Deep Throat" is a hero or a villain for helping bring down the Nixon administration. Author and commentator Dr. Jerome Corsi is one of those who feels Mark Felt's clandestine leaks to the Washington Post during the Watergate investigation helped create the atmosphere that led to the tearing down of America's defense structure. Corsi says Felt's revelations led to a series of events, including "the Church committee, the dismantling of America's intelligence system, the weakening of the FBI, the detriment of our ability to catch criminals, including international criminals," and "a web that has made it impossible for the CIA to function and protect us and may even have led to 9/11." Felt is a villain, not a hero, Corsi asserts. Because of "the weakening that the Left wanted to do on the intelligence administration," he says, "for them Mark Felt is also a hero. And for us on the conservative Right, Mark Felt did a great disservice to the United States in pursuit of his personal goals by helping the cause of the Left to weaken our so badly needed intelligence and law enforcement services." For these reasons, Corsi concludes, in the final analysis Felt is "more of a villain than hero." And instead of lionizing Felt as a hero, the author contends, the national media should have vilified "Deep Throat" as Corsi feels they did with other whistleblowers such as Linda Tripp, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey.

Ah, so now Deep Throat is responsible for 9/11. If we had only let Nixon get away with it. Not to mention, Nixon sanctioning a break-in of the Democratic Headquarters is the same level crime as Bill Clinton getting a blow job (though, then again, these are the people who want the government to regulate masturbation, so maybe in their minds they really ARE the same level of crime). Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

What's up? Read the rest of this post...

Global Warming: More Bush Lies Distort The Truth

No wonder Bush likes to pretend there is still a debate on climate change. It's easy to do when Bush has been doctoring government reports on global warming to gut the scientific fact and increase doubt. According to the NYT,

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

I love that the guy in charge of developing environmental policy was a lackey of the oil industry. Meanwhile, scientific groups from around the world (including the US National Academy of Sciences) just released an unprecedented statement reiterating the obvious: climate change is real, the evidence is overwhelming and the if we don't act now the effects could be catastrophic.

Bush's record on combatting this danger? Not so good.

Between 1990 and 2002, the carbon dioxide emissions of the US increased by 13 per cent, which on their own were greater than the combined cut in emissions that will be achieved if all Kyoto countries hit their targets, said Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society.

Read the rest of this post...

Oh, oh, oh, Ohio....Scandals just keep growing

Headlines in the Toledo Blade: "Workers' comp bureau concealed $215M loss; Taft, Petro knew about fund's woes many months ago" and the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "State loses $215 million: Investment mess leads to calls for Taft's recall" give the tenor of today's coverage.

The GOP scandals are growing exponentially every day. Let's see how long Governor Taft can weather this....my guess is the GOP throws him overboard soon. Read the rest of this post...

Justice Department drops Big Tobacco penalty by $120 Billion

It's Christmas time in June! Or is it a surprise birthday party? Who knows but the Justice Department is no longer asking the tobacco industry for $130 Billion to combat the 50 year industry-wide conspiracy against smokers and without reason or explanation, they have lowered the penalty down to $10 Billion. This is the same case that Ashcroft and the GOP tried to dump a few years ago. Karl Rove had been a paid consultant to Philip Morris in the '90s and Bush and the GOP have raked in millions from the industry. Hooray for freedom and demoracray!

"It feels like a political decision to take into consideration the tobacco companies' financial interest rather than health interests of 45 million addicted smokers," said William V. Corr, director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "The government proved its case, but the levels of funding are a shadow of the cessation treatment program that the government's own expert witness recommended."

Read the rest of this post...

More funny money connections to Bush

Who could forget the GOP assualt on Clinton for linking donors to meetings with the President and White House visits? Well, what comes around goes around and brace yourself for this shocker: Jack Abramoff, the gift that keeps on giving, was linking donations to access to Bush. What makes this group so interesting is that they were those good old gambling folks who had been trying to avoid US labor laws and getting led around DC by the GOP. Gambling? Republicans? Why, I thought that good christian folk did not like to be involved in such filthy practices. I was always sure that the flood of gambling casinos down south were always run by heathens from the north and now I discover that the GOP is on the take from them.

And for the Democrats who have also worked with Abramoff, you can piss off as well and let the GOP and Abramoff back you up. Read the rest of this post...