The Radical Moderate
Opposes: Censorship, Propaganda, Right Wing
Media and its SpinWits, Prohibition, Church-State Entanglement, Political Correctness
Supports: Concealed Carry, Death Penalty, Abortion Rights
Desires: Better Workplace Civil Rights Laws, A National Referendum on
Abortion Rights, Regulation of the Drug and Sex Industries (rather than prohibition)
The Republican dominated US Supreme Court rejected the latest Schiavo appeal.
For all the criticizm out there in radioland about liberals and activist judges, at some point reality must set in: These judges are not liberals, they are not activists, and they are not (for the most part) even Democrats.
When the judiciary speaks with one voice, as it has in the Schiavo case, the general public can be pretty confident of one thing: The judges are following the clear mandate of the law. In Florida, the law is controlled by Republilcans who run the legislature and the Governor's mansion, not by liberal Democrats.
If the law is clear enough that the judges speak with one voice, then the Save Schiavo activists need to turn their attention away from demonizing Democrats, and focus more on developing a reasonable plan for changing the law as it relates to persistent vegetative states and pulling the plug.
They can begin their persuasive efforts by asking W. Bush to rebuke himself for signing a Texas law in 1999 that permits hospitals to pull the plug (even on babies) whenever the patients can't pay and further treatment would be futile.
Yahoo! News - Lawyer: Schiavo Legal Battle May Be Over: "PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Nearly two weeks after Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected, her parents endured what their lawyer says may be their last legal setback when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene.
The ruling Wednesday night came as Schiavo, 41, began her 13th day without food and water. Earlier in the day, a federal appeals court also refused to intervene in the case."
FYI: A very conservative judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rebukes Congress and others over thei involvement in the Schiavo case, for trying to usurp the discretion of judges, and criticizes them for chanting a mantra about "activist judges".
KR Washington Bureau | 03/30/2005 | Conservative judge blasts Bush, Congress for role in Schiavo case: "Conservative judge blasts Bush, Congress for role in Schiavo case
By Stephen Henderson
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The latest rejection of the Terri Schiavo case by a federal court was accompanied by a stinging rebuke of Congress and President Bush from a seemingly unlikely source: Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., one of the most conservative jurists on the federal bench.
Birch authored opinions upholding Alabama's right to ban the sale of sex toys and Florida's ability to prohibit adoptions by gay couples. Both rulings drew the ire of liberal activists and the elation of traditional and social conservatives.
Yet, in Wednesday's 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to deny a rehearing to Schiavo's parents, Birch went out of his way to castigate Bush and congressional Republicans for acting 'in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for governance of a free people - our Constitution.'"
Title of Post (if underlined, it's also a Link):
Watching as the GOP develops a new propaganda vehicle for the spinwits to demagogue about - the ACVR
We are privileged, because of the internet and some interpid independent reports, to be watching the development of a new propaganda vehicle for the Republican Party, FoxNews, and the spinwits Hannity-Coulter-Limbaugh and their ilk.
The new propaganda vehicle started up a few days ago, and is a new organization called "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR).
The ACVR has published a report purporting to detail many instances of voter intimidation by the Democrats and their allies.
The ACVR organization is actually a mail drop at a UPS store. Cite:
Brad Blog - Mystery Solved! Location of 'American Center for Voting Rights' Found! Exclusive Photographs!.
And just look who is behind the ACVR ! ---------
"The ACVR is anything but 'non-partisan' and their so-far known ringleaders are actually Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, the National Counsel for Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and his partner-in-crime Jim Dyke, the RNC's Communications Director." Cite:
Brad Blog report - RNC Political Director Cites Report by RNC 'Voting Rights' Front Group to RNC Email List!.
Ok, so based on the above, reasonable people might be somewhat skeptical of the scholarly credentials and legitimacy of this so-called non-partisan voting rights group.HOWEVER --- the world of propaganda and politics is NOT reasonable. The ACVR will be construed by the right wing as THOROUGHLY legitimate and undeniably completely truthful in whatever it proclaims. That's who the spin and propaganda game works these days.
The mere existence of the ACVR gives the right wing spinwits and politicos enough COVER to start to CITE THE ACVR as their source for "proof" about widespread voter intimidation by Democrats. And so let's look at the next step in the development of the ACVR as a usable propaganda tool:
1) A news organizaion called CNS ran a piece which portrayed the ACVR as a legitimate non-partisan group. The Brad Blog takes CNS to task for perpetrating this propaganda (see excerpt below).
2) The Political Director of the Republican National Committee mentioned the ACVR in an email newsletter MArch 30, 2005: The Brad Blog discovered that in an email newsletter on 3-30-05,
The political director of the Republican National Committee picked up the ball and discussed the "work" of the ACVR.
3) Congress held some hearings and invited the ACVR, but not more mainstream and long-standing and legitimate voting rights groups. During the hearing, ACVR people DI NOT MENTION their ties to the Republican Party, so the ACVR appears to be legititamely non-partisan in the official public repord of the United States -- More cover for the propaganda scheme. CITE:
Brad Blog - 'Voting Rights' Group Leader Withholds Bush/Cheney/RNC Ties During Congressional Testimony!
Describes Himself as 'Advocate of Voter Rights' But Not as Bush/Cheney '04 General Counsel!.
And so we can see how the scheme to legitimize the ACVR has taken several steps forward. The stage is now set for the ACVR to EXPLODE on the media scene in the same way as the Swift Boat Veterns exploded. What happens
NEXT? Next, we will see FoxNews do stories citing the ACVR, and FoxNews will brag about how the ACVR report has been reported on by the CNS news service and has to be circulated by the Republican Party "because the liberal media refuse to report on it".
Then spinwits Hannity-Coulter-Limbaugh will demagague how the liberal media does not want anyone to know about the ACVR investigative report, because they want to cover up for Democratic misconduct.
As you can see from the citations above, the Brad Blog has been all over this story. Brad Freidman has written a fairly comprehensive letter to the editor of the CNS new organization protesting the presentation of the ACVR propaganda as news. I have excerpted the letter below:
(Oh, By the way: WHY did the Republicans feel the need to form this questionable organzation called the ACVR and then foist it on the world as if it were a legitimate non-partisan scholarly research group? ----- The answer is simple: There have been hundred or even thousands of reports of Republican tricks and misconduct involving voters throughout the country --- BS or not --- and the Republicans needed a way to strike back. But there are not a large number of credible reports of Democrats trying to purge Republicans from the voter roles, or ensuring that Republican precincts have too few voting booths, or throwing away boxes of ballots from Republican precincts, or Democrats sending around unsigned literature that scares Republicans away from the polls, or Democrats challenging the eligibility of Republican voters waiting in line at the polls, etc, etc, etc.)
Now on to the excerpt from the Brad Blog's protest letter to the CNS news organization:
Excerpt from the Brad Blog's letter to CNS denouncing the legitimization of a transparently political ploy
It's simply astounding that you would publish an article by Kathleen Rhodes ("Liberal Bloggers Pounce on Voting Fraud Watchdog Group") apologizing for the bogus and insulting "American Center for Voting Rights" (ACVR) by describing the ring-leaders of the group as "non-partisan", having "Past GOP connections" and being "formerly involved in Republican politics".
Both of the known ACVR participants are anything but non-partisan as they are current and active high-level RNC operatives.
Thor Hearne, who gave testimony for the group before congress, representing the only "voting rights" group called to testified at last week's U.S. House Administration Committee hearings on the 2004 Election in Ohio, is currently slated as the key-note speaker at the RNC-funded Republican National Lawyers Association reception next month in Florida. He is still an active member of that organization.
As well, hard-right partisan ACVR spokesperson Jim Dyke continues his work with the RNC and serves as a "GOP News Analyst" for Fox "News".
Hardly "former". Hardly "past". Hardly "non-partisan".
Your article also fails to mention that this group of snake-oil salesmen appeared on the Internet on Thursday, March 17th and gave testimony as experts on the issue of "Voting Rights" to Congress just three days later on Monday, March 21.
In the meantime, real "Voting Rights" organizations, who have been working on these issues for months and years were not even notified of these hearings. It's also more than notable that Hearne never bothered to mention his active affiliation with Bush/Cheney '04 Inc. and other Republican organizations during his congressional testimony. He referred to himself deceptively as simply "a longtime advocate of voter rights."
Furthermore, you advance the notion that this "non-partisan", tax-exempt 501(c)3 group, actually has filed the paper work to receive the privileges granted with that status, yet fail -- as they did -- to produce any documentation to demonstrate that in fact they have the access they claim on their website. A website, mind you, that gives no way to donate to the company, and was claimed to be registered by some unnamed company in Dallas, the name of which nobody at this front group seems to be able to remember despite having built the website just days ago. (The address, by the way, is a post office box in a Dallas, TX UPS store, yet none of the known operatives for this bunch actually lives or works in Dallas!)
This front group, set up solely to counter the hundreds and thousands of credible and verifiable claims of voter disenfranchisement, and miscounted and uncounted votes of the American people in the 2004 election is an insult to the Americans who have died both in this country and overseas fighting for the right to a free and fair vote. On the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson after American were killed and beaten fighting for the right to vote in Selma, Alabama, such a phony organization is all the more insulting and outrageous.
For you to support and feed in to their fiction displays the hard-right bias of "news" organizations such as yours claiming to offer "balance" to what you see as a "Liberal" media bias.
CAUTION: Watch for a lot of crude language below.
The Rude Pundit is an interesting read. He rants and raves about an issue, but scores a lot of points in the process. He digests a lot of info, and then all hell breaks loose. Reading the Rude Pundit is kinda like listening to Lewis Black do his "Back in Black" rants on The Daily Show.
In this case, The Rude Pundit takes on Torture.
The reason this one caught my eye is that the ACLU has provided a summary of about 1200 pages of Army-released documents that relate to the treatment of prisoners in various places around the world.
The Rude Pundit hits home when he describes how others in the world might view us, considering we've created a culture of torture for the first time in our history.
I hope you find it entertaining, even if it's over the top. After all, the Rude Pundit is proud to be "Lowering the level of discourse".
My own thoughts about torture: I hate to say it but I would not hate torture in the right circumstances. For example, if we KNEW that a terrible thing was about to happen and we KNEW that the prisoner KNEW essential material info about it that might help us prevent the terrible thing. In that sceanario, we could morally justify an emergency use of torture.
But all the signs are indicating that we LACK such moral justification for torture.
We lacked sufficient justification for the Iraq war, when gauged by the standards of civilized society. Civilized nations do not start a war unless the threat is imminent, and the entire world now knows that Iraq did not pose and imminent threat.
How about torturing the Afghan fighters to learn about the Muslin terror network?
The signs and symptoms are that we have NOT learned anything particularly useful in the three years we've been torturing people.
You can bet your last dollar that if we had obtained the breakthrough that we SHOULD be able to get through torture, then we would be treated to a huge celebration by the Bush adminsitration to showcase our great successes (such as the prevention of a major attack, or the capture of Bin Laden).
Torture is immoral with a narrow emergency exception that is inapplicable to the current debate.
Torture makes the United States no better in the eyes of the world than some evil dictator-run totalitarian state.
Let's reclaim the moral high ground.
The Rude Pundit: "The ACLU's summary of the recent 1200 pages of documents from the Army is a wonderful catalog of hate and destruction, the kind of shit that if you read it about any other nation, you'd wonder why the people don't rise up in rebellion. Or if the people did rise up, you couldn't blame 'em. We got sworn statements of soldiers saying they were told to take prisoners out back and 'beat the fuck out of them,' we got a healthy man dying in custody, we got soldiers being allowed to get 'payback' against suspected insurgents. And no distinction, often, between people picked up who have done something to attack the American or Iraqi military and people who just were standing next to that person. Because, you know, that might require, let's just fuckin' say, 'Due fucking process,' which is anathema to the purposes of this approach: inflicting fear on populations.
Here's how they used to treat prisoners under a U.S. buddy, the Shah of Iran - see if any of this sounds familiar, from the 1999 book Tortured Confessions by Ervand Abrahamian: 'sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo--an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked.' No, not all, no acid in the nostrils that we know about, but, fuck, an awful lot of these techniques and others are part and parcel of the 'interrogation' of prisoners, part of the 'softening up' process."
The following piece is a more legitimate source for commentary than my own prior blog posts about how the Schiavo case is being misused by the politicians.
Moreover, the piece talks about how the spinwit demagogues have whipped the zealots into a bloody frenzy, so that the zealots are willing to kill the Christian Republican Judge who decided the Schiavo case using Florida law.
By the way, the Judge's decision ahs been upheld by all other judges to hear the case on appeal. So, do the zealots truly believe that all these judges are wacko liberals who want to kill people, or who do not respect life?
Let's let the Schiavo case serve as a motivator for a national model law regarding how to deal with those in persistent vegetative states (I realize the great and moving debate about whether Schiavo qualifies as vegetative - I oppose starvation, remember).
Each state would then enact the model law. We do this for commercial codes and criminal laws, and for other areas of law as well.
News-Leader.com | Opinions | Our View | Demagogues attack the judiciary
It is an odd twist of logic: To save a brain-damaged women's life, a zealot would take a judge's life.
But these fanatics are not the only ones targeting judges. Conservative politicians and commentators have made a calculated decision to use the Schiavo case in their efforts to subvert an independent judiciary. For short-term political gain, they seek to undercut one of the foundations of American liberty.
This is ridiculous, because the courts are the only ones who have stuck to their job description in this case.
The courts have not sought to extend their authority beyond its legal bounds, as Florida Gov. Jeb Bush did. The courts did not plan a congressional hearing in Schiavo's hospice room. The courts did not call members back from vacation for a midnight vote to extend their authority into family matters, as Congress did.
Greer — a conservative Christian and Republican — and all the state and federal judges who have reviewed his decisions did what they are supposed to do: They made decisions based on facts and the law.
Your patriotic blood should boil at this story of apparent official corruption by the Bush administration and the Republican Party and the Secret Service.
The story starts with three persons who held tickets for a publically funded Bush public forum. At such forums, when public funds are used, it is a
violation of the US Constitution for peaceful persons to be excluded based on their political beliefs. Moreover, it's just plain fascist or communist or totalitarian to exclude peaceful citizens from publically funded events based on their political party affiliation.
Bush uses public funds to arrange the forums, but then lets the Republican Party decide who gets to come. The Republican Party cannot OVERTLY demand that only Republicans can get tickets. HOWEVER, the Republicans have a workaround ----
They look for signs and symptoms that ticket holders might actually be Democrats or other non-Bush supporters. Then Party Officials instruct the Secret Service to deny such persons admission. That's illegal, and is a violation of our civil rights as Americans, as well as probably a violation of umpteen ethics laws.
That's the story, and it's utterly UnAmerican if true. I suspect it's illegal. I'd rather see Congress hold hearings on Bush's ethics than on steroids, but they don't ask me.
I hope all moderate minded persons reading this are as offended as I am.
I invite anyone interested to defend the actions of Bush and the Republicans and the Secret Service, assuming the story to be true. I supect that even such defenders will know, in their heart of hearts, that this is just plain UnAmerican, whether they are willing to admit it or not.
Daily Kos :: Suppressing free speech: "Very rarely does the everyday public get a glimpse of what happens behind the scenes in a normally-secret Bush Administration.
But Monday, March 28, the Secret Service called three everyday people into their offices to discuss why we were kicked out of a presidential event in Denver last week where Bush promoted his plan to privatize Social Security. What they revealed to us and our lawyer was fascinating.
There we were - three people who had personally picked up tickets from Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez's office and went to a presidential event. But as we entered, we were told that we had been 'ID'ed' and were warned that any disruption would get us arrested.
After being seated in the audience we were forcibly removed before the President arrived, even though we had not been disruptive. We were shocked when told that this presidential event was a 'private event' and were commanded to leave.
More astonishingly, when the Secret Service was contacted the next day they agreed to meet with us this Monday, March 28 to discuss the circumstances surrounding our removal. We had two big questions going into this meeting:
1. How is the Bush Administration 'ID'ing' citizens before presidential events?
2. Why was an official taxpayer-funded event called a 'private event' - leading to citizens being kicked out?
Most shocking of all, we got answers to both questions.
The Secret Service revealed that we were 'ID'ed' when local Republican staffers saw a bumper sticker on the car we drove which said 'No More Blood For Oil.' Evidently, the free speech expressed on one bumper sticker is cause enough to eject three citizens from a presidential event. (Similarly, someone was ejected from Bush's Social Security privatization event in Arizona the same day simply for wearing a Democratic t-shirt.)
The Secret Service also revealed that ticket distribution and staffing of the Social Security event was run by the local Republican Party. They wanted us to be clear that it was a Republican staffer - not the Secret Service - who kicked us out of the presidential event. But this revealed something else that should be startling to all Americans.
After allowing taxpayers to finance his privatization events (let's call them what they really are after all,) and after using the White House communications apparatus to set them up, Bush is privatizing the ticket distribution and security staffing at his events to the Republican Party. The losers are not just taxpayers, but anyone who values the First Amendment. Under the banner of a 'private event' the Republican Party is excluding citizens from seeing their president because of the lone sin of expressing the wrong idea on a bumper sticker or t-shirt. The question for Americans is - will we allow our freedom to be privatized?
Karen Bauer, Leslie Weise. Alexander Young
Denver residents"
I wish Falwell a speedy recovery.
For a generation, Falwell has gotten under my skin with his viewpoints and apparent influence. And I talk about him sometimes on this blog.
But I don't wish sickness and desease on anyone just because I disagree with them.
Get well soon.
CNN.com - Rev. Jerry�Falwell in critical condition - Mar 29, 2005: "LYNCHBURG, Virginia (AP) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell was hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday, battling his second case of viral pneumonia in just five weeks, hospital and church officials said.
Falwell, 71, was admitted to Lynchburg General Hospital shortly before midnight Monday suffering from 'respiratory arrest,' the hospital said in a statement, meaning his breathing had slowed or stopped.
'His cardiac status is stable and there is no evidence of a heart attack,' said hospital spokesman Tom Urtz, reading from a statement. 'He is alert and responding to questions."
Title of Post (if underlined, it's also a Link):
Rush Limbaugh trying to calm a violent caller, and thoughts from the RM about that.
I was listening to Rush Limbaugh in my car for a little while yesterday,
Monday March 28, 2005, and I heard an interesting exchange with a caller.
It was fun to watch Rush squirm, trying to courteously deal with the natural
and probable violent tendencies provoked by his own words.
The caller was an older guy who had become focused on the Schiavo case. He
was regurgitating the over-the-top junk he's been hearing from his favorite
right wing spinwits, and possibly from his favorite TV preachers, and was
calling for, in essence, violence.
The caller likened the Schiavo case to something out of Nazi Germany, and said
that the people should rise up and oppose evil judges who thwart the will of
the people, or something like that. Of course, it's all the fault of the
liberals.
And he does not understand why the great upstanding conservative, Jeb Bush
(Governor of Florida) won't rescue Sciavo.
Rush had his hands full.
Rush knows very well that the "activist liberal judge" in Florida who made
the tough decision in the Sciavo case is just one of many judges who have
looked at the case. There have been appeals after appeals, and under Florida
law everything is legal that has occurred in the case.
Rush was trying to explain to the caller that violence and law breaking by
the Save Schiavo forces is not appropriate.
Each time Rush would try to say violence was inappropriate, the caller would
remind him of examples from history where law breaking and violence were
appropriate, including the American Revolution where our patriots broke
England's laws in revolting.
I wonder what Rush Really thinks about the intellect of the hard core rank
and file religious conservatives with whom he dances. Rush fills their heads
with demonizing name-calling against evil liberals and evil liberal judges.
He says liberals don't care about life, or similar crap. In other words, he
tells the Faithful that liberals are in effect evil people who are working
their level best to destroy our nation and our religion and our babies and
our helpless citizens.
(Oh, By the Way: Rush is keeping W. Bush's secret about that Texas law Bush
signed, the one that lets hospitals kill people who can't pay for care in
some circumstances --- Isn't Rush a nice guy, to help Bush avoid
embarassment?)
But Rush does NOT want to publically endorse violence, even though violence
would be understandable if what he were saying were true, about the evil
liberals and the evil judges and their culture of death. By his choice of
language, he has encouraged but not endorsed Violence to save Schiavo and to
prevent abortions.
But when the caller wanted Rush to actually tell him that violence was OK,
Rush balked. In fact, Rush sounded very off balance. Rush seemed to want to
say some harsh things to the caller, but stumbled around trying to be polite
and discourage violence.
If you think Rush Actually would endorse violence, you'd be wrong. Violence
would mean that right wing radio has become officially dangerous to civil
order, and its popularity among more moderate folks would plunge.
When the violence starts, then the public will recognize that the spinwits'
insane demonizing of liberals and Democrats is NOT all in good fun, and is
Dangerous to our civil society.
We are not a jihadist culture yet, but we may be getting there.
Anyway, it was fun to watch Rush squirm, trying to courteously deal with the
natural and probable violent tendencies provoked by his own words.
Here's a dose, from the LEFT, of the exact same type of over the top radical name calling that we hear ALL THE TIME from the right wing and the likes of Spinwits Hannity-Coulter-Limbaugh-etc.
Try not to be offended by the BuzzFlash editorial below. Instead, as you feel the rage welling up inside you at the unfair name calling, and the idiotic spinning and distorting, and the seeming hatemongering, then realize that
you are walking in the shoes of the victims of Hannity-Coulter-Limbaugh-etc.
Sure would be nice if we stopped demonizing people because they disagreed with us, and instead elevated the debate to a civilized level and acknowledged that our opponents are rational people too (usually).
Terri Schiavo Was Just An Innocent Bystander To A Political, Elmer Gantry Circus Of GOP Political Opportunists And Religious Hucksters: "Terri Schiavo Was Just An Innocent Bystander To A Political, Elmer Gantry Circus Of GOP Political Opportunists And Religious Hucksters
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Terri Schiavo deserves our sympathy and our Godspeed.
She was just an innocent bystander to a political, Elmer Gantry circus of GOP political opportunists and religious hucksters.
The origins of the travesty and moral crime of exploitation was a family feud of sorts. It was about a wrenching decision made thousands of times a year by Americans about loved ones who are in vegetative states or terminal conditions.
But with the help of the infamous Randall Terry and the GOP hypocrisy machine, a case long ago settled by the courts, was hijacked to advance Republican fortunes and fill the pocket books of celebrity fundamentalist preachers.
Terri Schiavo, like anyone in her situation, deserves our sympathy and our empathy. She didn't ask for a three ring circus, but the Bush brothers and Tom 'the Exterminator DeLay' could care less about her dignity or her life. She's only of use to them if her parents' campaign can help them further consolidate power -- or, in the case of DeLay, cling onto it amidst a rash of ethical and legal problems.
We are always a bit baffled when the mainstream media and centrist Democrats 'concede' that the Republicans have some sort of monopoly on the 'values issue.' The only value that the GOP leadership seems to consistently embrace is hypocrisy. Virtually, everything else is brazen showboating by hardened sinners and liars, immoral opportunists and slick river boat gamblers playing the role of saintly pious men."
Interesting article below. The author points out certain problems he sees in both sides of the Schiavo case. On the one hand, those who would continue feeding Schiavo tend not to want to have the government pay for medical care. Those who support pulling the plug are refusing to acknowledge that a triage must occur, that some must die to save scarce financial resources.
Try to overlook the author's overreaching generalizations, and focus more on the underlying issues he raises.
In my view, we must find a way for the government to fund care for those in Schiavo's condition, or else develop a reasonable legal method for peaceful and prompt death, rather than slow death by starvation and thirst.
State, 1; Schiavo, 0 by Gary North: "RIGHT TO LIFE = OBLIGATION TO PAY
There are no free lunches. This is the scarce resource issue.
To say that Terri Schiavo has a right to life is to say that someone else has a legal obligation to pay to keep her alive.
The obligation to pay is an inescapable concept. It is never a matter of 'obligation to pay vs. no obligation to pay.' It is always a question of 'who has the obligation to pay and which jurisdiction of civil government has the obligation to say who has the obligation to pay.'
The horror of the Schiavo case is not that the state has pulled out the feeding tubes. The state was paying for those tubes. He who pays the piper calls the tune. To deny this is to adopt tooth-fairy economics and ultimately tyranny. The state must be under law to spend money in predictable ways. If it is not under law, then the politicians will take our money and spend it on anything they choose.
The horror of the Schiavo case is that the state will not allow anyone else to pay in order to stick the feeding tube back in. Police are arresting people who attempt to give her water.
Nobody on either side wants to put the issue in these stark terms. The pro-Schiavo forces want tooth-fairy economics, and the anti-Schiavo forces want to reduce the red ink, which is not good public positioning for advocates of the healer state.
Who pays?"
I write often about Bush's propaganda efforts, and highlighting those who also criticize Bush, like the one below:
AlterNet: Bush's Dangerous Propaganda Game
This deliberate manipulation of our news is more than outrageous – it's a frontal assault on our democracy and is totally disrespectful of the American people.
You're used to hearing television reporters give their signature tag lines: "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." "This is Jennifer Morrow reporting." "I'm Pat O'Leary reporting."
But these days, you can't know if your news presenter is a reporter ... or a ringer. Karen Ryan, for example, is a veteran of the government's propaganda machine, having posed as a "reporter" for fake news segments produced and distributed by seven federal agencies in the past two years. Ryan is really a PR consultant, who candidly calls herself a "paid shill for the Bush administration."
Title of Post (if underlined, it's also a Link):
The Blogger website is having problems
A friendly note to let readers know that the Blogger website is apparently suffering periodic outages that are causing it to reject my blog posts.
When I try to post lately, I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for Blogger to acknowledge the post, and then I find the post has been lost in cyberspace.
It's frustrating and has discouraged me from blogging so often the past few days.
The Blogger status pages acknowledge that they are upgrading servers and stuff.
BUT BLOGGER IS OWNED BY THE MULTIBILLION $ GOOGLE COMPANY ---- Get we expect you to get off your arses and FIX this thing please. I LUV Google BTW. Someone at Google might need to look into the issue with Blogger lately, and devote some more resources to getting the service back to its historic reliability.
I apologize for any inconvenience to readers lately.
70 Million year old fossilized dinosaur SOFT TISSUE is found!
That's exciting, because all other fossilized material from dinosaurs has been bone.
The soft tissue fossil may reveal blood vessel details, and possibly containsome fragments of proteins. Scientists will fit this new data into the existing database and see what they might be able to deduce about the life of dinosaurs.
Evolutionists will have new fodder for improving their theories.
Many Creationists will have a new challenge in store for them in trying to debunk the new findings.
The key difference between "religious science" and a "secular science" is this: Secular Scientists reach conclusions based on the actual empirical evidence, but Religious Scientists start with a conclusion (ex: the Bible is inerrent on the 6,000 year age of the earth) and look for "evidence" to support the conclusion.
Some Secular Scientific concepts are SO VERY WELL CONFIRMED that they are accepted as truth, almost like a religious concept. EXCEPT THAT Secular Scientists will ABANDON or MODIFY such "truths" the INSTANT contrary credible evidence is found and verified. For example, the special and general theories of relativity, and evolution through natural selection.
Of course, Religous Scientists will NOT reject or modify their religious truths, no matter how much credible evidence exists contrary to such truths.
Secular Science and Religious Science are two very different things. Don't be confused.
CREATIONISM:
How will the creationists deal with the fossilized soft tissue and the new findings to be discovered therein? That depends on what version of creationism you follow I think.
Those who are not serious scientists, including a significant percentage of the hyper-religious lay public, believe that the world is something like 6,000 years old. Outside of the Biblical account of creation, no credible evidence esists to support this 6,000 year religious belief.
But there is another faction of creationism, a middle of the road type of creationism. This Moderate Creationsim acknowledges that secular science has accumulated real credible evidence that the earth (and the cosmos) is not just 6,000 years old, but many billions of years old.
The Moderate Creationists are not blinded to science. They want to harmonize science with their religious views. And it is not too hard to perform the harmonization, on the surface at least: "God must have "created" all the species, at different times even, because we do not think there exists enough evidence of intermediate steps for us to believe that a species can "evolve" into another species."
(It is my feeling that creationists try so hard to debunk "Evolution" and "natural selection" because of the inevitable conclusion that humans must have evolved from other species, which runs contrary to the Biblical account of Adam and Eve. ----- and that'll shake the fundamentalists' confidence in their faith)
Here's a form of creationism that harmonizes beautifully with science: God created the cosmos and the Earth, and His method of populating the earth was evolution through natural selection.
This last form of creationism is completely at harmony with science. Even the most jaded theoretical physicist will probably acknowledge the the "moment of creation" of the universe is like an unknown singularity, in that we will likely never truly know how it happened. And in the absence of contary scientific proof, the "moment of creation" could have been at the Hand of God for all we know.
CNN.com - Soft tissue found in T-rex fossil - Mar 24, 2005: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
If scientists can isolate proteins from the material, they may be able to learn new details of how dinosaurs lived, said lead researcher Mary Higby Schweitzer of North Carolina State University.
'We're doing a lot of stuff in the lab right now that looks promising,' she said in a telephone interview.
It was recovered dinosaur DNA -- the blueprint for life -- that was featured in the fictional recreation of the ancient animals in the book and film 'Jurassic Park.' Although that was science fiction, Schweitzer said she was not sure if scientists would be able to isolate dinosaur DNA fragments from the fossilized materials."
DIVERSION: Hey, my Craigslist ad for a receptionist just got beamed into space!
Now, my name has taken on a form of immortality as it drifts through space at the speed of light, forever.
I think that's cool, and I didn't have to pay for it.
CNN.com - Craigslist gets beamed into space - Mar 23, 2005
Science & Space
Craigslist gets beamed into space
By Ker Than
Special to SPACE.comexternal link
Wednesday, March 23, 2005 Posted: 4:25 PM EST (2125 GMT)
Craigslist became the first commercial transmission of a Web site into space on March 11, 2005, according to Deep Space Communications Network.
(SPACE.com) -- Aliens will be glad to know that if ever they need to find an apartment here on Earth, someone has got them covered.
On March 11, a company called Deep Space Communications Network beamed the first commercial transmission of a Web site into space.
The message? Over one hundred thousand separate postings from craigslist.com, the popular community Web site that includes classified listings for jobs, housing and other goods. The transmission included a date and time stamp, as well as an audio track identifying the message as originating from Earth.
Joseph Sobran is a conservative columnist in line with the Christian Right and its social agenda.
In the column excerpted below, Sobran defends the idea of Theocracy in America.
All this talk about Theocracy is coming out of the woodwork under George W. Bush.
In the blog post just prior to this one today, I talked about how a Republican Congressman, Shays, thinks the recent Save Schiavo law is a Theocracy" action.
Liberals have been talking about theocracy coming for a long time.
The difference now is that Republicans have stopped ignoring the theocracy talk, and are talking about it openly, and, as Sobran does, actually are defending theocracy.
Maybe our thinking is being "conditioned". That's a Karl Rove political strategy, one that George Bush accidentally talked about in answering a question recently, where he started his answer by saying something like "Let me condition your thinking on that point .....".
If we are being conditioned, what are we being conditioned for?
Sobran Column --- The Fear of "Theocracy"
This is why it always sounds quaint to me when liberals warn us obsessively against one particular form of government: theocracy. They see the threat of theocracy in every Christmas creche, in legal restrictions on abortion, in public school prayer, in the rise of the Religious Right, in the Pledge of Allegiance, in any official reference to the Almighty (“In God we trust”).
But just what are we being warned against? What is theocracy, anyway? Its vigilant enemies never bother to define it. If the danger signs they cite are any indication, Western man has lived under theocracy for most of his history — and in some respects, he still does.
How bad is it? Judging by, say, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, not too bad. His pious pilgrims seem quite content in a religious society. And judging by, say, the tavern scenes in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, even people who were none too pious didn’t feel oppressed by life under an official state religion.
Our President's handlers historically (now I can say that) do NOT PERMIT known dissenters to attend the President's "public" forums. This is a long-standing policy, well reported by the media on the back pages of newspapers, and scream about loudly on the liberal blogs.
It's unAmerican for the President to behave in this way.
But, MORE IMPORTANTLY: The policy of shutting down all dissent shields the President from reality. George W. Bush has proudly proclaimed on several occasions that he does NOT read newspapers. Being that he is a non-reader, I doubt he surfs the internet and gets a healthy does of broad opinion.
That means that he gets his "news" from TV. TV News is worthless, and FoxNews is not much more than a propaganda tool for the Republican Party.
In his daily briefings, the President will not get a broad does of healthy opinion. He will get what he wants to hear, from lapdogs. He might get a small taste of what his most powerful opponents are saying, but he will dismiss such dissent as political posturing.
Mr. President, it appears that you are not likely to be well informed.
Bush sees only throngs of screaming fans at his forums. He hears breifings that spin things his way. He makes no attempt (that we know of) to be a well rounded informed citizen. And he is leader of the free world, making decisions that affect the world.
Those on the right hated Bill Clinton. But no one ever said Bill Clinton was uninformed or dimwitted. Clinton knew what he was talking about, even if you disagreed with him. He could rebut his critics with the best of them, because he knew things and studied.
George Bush will go down in history as a good natured sheltered leader, not known for his intellect and curiosity, who stubbornly followed policies he believed in and ignored everyone's opinion but himself and his political allies. The end of the historical reconrd remains to be written, but it might be: And the result was successful, or The result was terrible ----- we don't know the final outcome yet, on the major policies of the Bush administration. We don't yet know the unintended consequences of Bush's policies, which could be good or bad.
Those of us who oppose Bush are scared of his admitted lack of intellectual curiosity and his dedication to stifling any dissent and shielding himself from opposing points of view. We do not respect his mind or his decision making process, and so we question every action he takes. He must prove himself to us - we do NOT give him the benefit of the doubt. He has done nothing to attempt to earn our trust. He leads by demanding blind faith and loyalty.
I hope my view of Bush is wrong, because he is my President and I want to trust him and admire him. But he continues to show that he is not a man to be respected for his mind and judgment, except that he is President and we should always respect the Office. The real mental power is in his staff of course.
BUSH'S BACKUP GROUP IS ACTUALLY A LEFTIST GROUP
Bush's staff appears to be made up of the group known as "neocons". Neocons are not traditional conservatives. In fact,
a prominent conservative author, Thomas Woods, Jr., calls the neocon philosophy "a variety of leftism" . The linked article is by Woods, and is responding to a critique of his book
The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History . And so, Bush has surrounded himself with leftists (neocons are leftists according to Woods).
However, Bush also listens to the social conservative base and throws them bones from time to time, primarily in the form of judgships, while waiting to give them the BIG PRIZE ----- Supreme Court Appointments.
I want to see Bush have a real dialogue about issues with those who disagree with him, where he speaks intelligently and not in talking points, and shows us that he thinks about issues and has a grasp on reality.
Rocky Mountain News: Local: "Little room for dissent at president's forum
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
March 22, 2005
A few people who didn't support President Bush's Social Security reform plan snuck into his town hall meeting on Monday.
But they didn't last long.
'We went in and sat down, and a half-hour later we were escorted out,' said Alex Young, 25, who is involved in an anti-Bush group known as the Denver Progressives. The group has a Web site and has protested Bush appearances in the past.
'They definitely seemed to know who we were,' Young said. 'They have this pretense of having a conversation about Social Security, but they're very selective about who they let in. They didn't say you have to be a registered Republican to get a ticket.'
The 1,000 people at the event were outspoken in their enthusiasm for the president. It was impossible to pick out anyone not participating in a standing ovation for the president's policies in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Below is the memo in which the GOP political strategists "sold" the Save Schiavo bill to Republican members of Congress.
It's all politics as usual, mobilize the base, that kind of stuff.
Even though the Save Schiavo bill is anti-Republican, anti-conservative, and unconstitutional, it still serves one good purpose: The bill highlights that we probably need a national consensus on how to deal with the personal and familial tragedies imposed by dealing with persons in a persistent vegetative state (but there is intense debate about whether Schiavo is in such a medical state).
I personally am mortified at the thought that we as a society can starve such patients to death, but we can't put them to sleep peacefully. If we can kill them, mercy killing let's say,
why must we starve them to death?
The talking points memo is not too far over the top when it says that the bill will help treat Terry Schiavo at least as well as we treat convicted murderers.
Politicians can have valild debate about the "role of the Federal government", and people of goodwill can disagree about whether it is proper, under our system of government, for the Federal government to be getting involved in decisions traditionally made under state law by state officials.
TIM CALLS FOR A MODEL LAWBut we can probably all agree on one thing: The Congress and the President have the bully pulpit. If the national leaders chose to push things, they could create a "model law" regarding Schiavo-like situations and ask each state to pass the model law (this is commonly done in the law, for many areas of law --- Uniform Commerical Code, etc). In this way, the Congress is exerting its moral leadership, without taking official actions that might tread upon our federal system of government.
WHO PAYS? GEORGE BUSH SAID IN 1999 THAT IT'S OK TO KILL THOSE WHO CAN'T PAY FOR THEIR LIFETIME OF CARE
By the way: Who is going to PAY for Schiavo's care if the Republicans do not want her to die? Will the Republicans vote to reduce the tax cut for the rich in order to provide a fund to allow the Feds to house and care for Schiavo-like patients nationwide?
LINKS FOR MORE INFO AND CONFIRMATION
George Bush signed a law in Texas in 1999 alllowing hospitals to kill patients against the wishes of the family, when care would be futile and the family could not pay ---- unbelievable.And a hospital recently killed a baby under Bush's 1999 law against the wishes of its parents.
FYI I blogged about Bush's hypocrisy on the Schiavo issue and killing patients the other day.
ABC News: GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo:
"S. 529, The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act
Teri (sic) Schiavo is subject to an order that her feeding tubes will be disconnected on March 18, 2005 at 1p.m.
The Senate needs to act this week, before the Budget Act is pending business, or Terri's family will not have a remedy in federal court.
This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
The bill is very limited and defines custody as 'those parties authorized or directed by a court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment.'
There is an exemption for a proceeding 'which no party disputes, and the court finds, that the incapacitated person while having capacity, had executed a written advance directive valid under applicably law that clearly authorized the withholding or or (sic) withdrawl (sic) of food and fluids or medical treatment in the applicable circumstances.'
Incapacitated persons are defined as those 'presently incapable of making relevant decisions concerning the provision, withholding or withdrawl (sic) of food fluids or medical treatment under applicable state law.'
This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy.
The religious conservatives are fighting with the traditional conservatives over the Schiavo case, and it's getting nasty.
Republican Rep. Christopher Shays calls the "Save Schiavo" movement in the Congress
THEOCRACY.
In the NY Times article below, the reporter frames the debate as being between two strong factions: "Social Conservatives" on the one hand, and then on the other hand "Process Conservatives" and libertarians, advocates of states' rights and supporters of individual rights.
The "Theocracy" word rolls easily off the tongues of those of us who are more libertarian, or are simply uncomfortable with the Republican Party's overt intertwining of church and state. When we wish to make an insult, we like to say "American Taliban" and "Ayatolloh Falwell", that kind of thing, in reference to the Republicans and church vs. state issues.
It's a refreshing and hopeful sign, I think, that a prominent Republican Congressman (Shays) has now referred to his own party as taking a "theocracy" action.
It's inevitable that we will have theocratic actions, when our Congressional leaders are 100% rated by the major activist Christian political groups, like the Christian Coalition. Power corrupts, as the old saying goes. And the Christian Coalition is in power at the Federal level, completely. So we will see them interject their agenda whenever possible.
[As an aside, I'd like to point out that I disagree with starving people to death - there has to be a better way to deal with Schiavo type situations - perhaps federally funded lifetime care as part of Social Security, as an option for the family to consider]
For much more about the movement toward theocracy in the US Congress, see
Theocracy Watch. Did you know that your Republican political leaders who run the Congress are nearly perfect in the eyes of the Christian Coalition? The Christian Coalition approves of those leaders because they are "Social Conservatives". The more mainstream Republicans and "Process Conservatives" in Congress have little power.
For more debate about Rep. Shays' remarks,
On DailyKOS - Schiavo Debate Splinters the GOP.
The New York Times > Washington > Conservatives: G.O.P. Right Is Splintered on Schiavo Intervention: "'My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing,' said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. 'This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility.'
'This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,' Mr. Shays said. 'There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.'
While the intensity of the dissent appears to be rising - Mr. Warner made a point Tuesday of calling attention to his little-noticed opposition in a nearly empty Senate chamber over the weekend - support for the measure among Republican and conservative leaders still appears strong. In interviews, some conservatives either dismissed the argument that the vote was a federal intrusion on states' rights or argued that their opposition to euthanasia as part of their support of the right-to-life movement trumped any aversion they might have to a dominant federal government."
[emphasis in the above added by your friendly blogger]
Ok, Congress passed an emergency law to enable Federal Courts to review the order to withdraw life support.
The first trial court judge to hear the case rejected it. Soo, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will step in. Either way, the loser will appeal to the US Supreme Court on an emergency basis.
Now the fun starts: This is what the Republicans REALLY wanted --- Get the case propelled up to the US Supreme Court, where the public will take real notice and the Republicans can woo their base.
Bush needs to woo his base. He has pissed of tradtional conservatives with his wrwomgering and deficits. And the American public is very much against the privatization of social security.
So Bush needs a winner ---- Schiavo is it, for now. He does not have anything else.
For more on Bush hypocrisy on the Schiavo issue, to seemingly confrim that he is just using Schiavo for a political booast right now, see my post from yesterday 3-21-05.
In a series of posts yesterday, I showed that Bush signed a law in Texas in 1999 allowing hospitals to PULL THE PLUG on people like Schiavo EVEN IF THE FAMILY OBJECTED, unless the family could PAY for continuing care.
That's an outrageous law. Ok to Kill persons like Schiavo against her family's wishes IF SHE CAN'T PAY!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Bush has no moral authority on the Schiavo issue, but he will posture as if he does, and his base will forgive him for his cruel and immoral 1999 Texas law.
CNN.com - Judge denies request to reinsert Schiavo feeding tube - Mar 22, 2005
Tuesday, March 22, 2005 Posted: 7:35 AM EST (1235 GMT)
TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- A federal judge on Tuesday denied an emergency request to reinsert a feeding tube for Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who is the center of a national legal battle over her life.
Attorneys for Schiavo's parents will file an appeal at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia.
Schiavo has been without food or water since Friday, when her feeding tube was removed by order of a state judge who ruled that her husband has the right to decide her fate.
The ruling in Tampa by U.S. District Judge James Whittemore came after Congress and President Bush enacted legislation aimed at allowing federal courts to review Schiavo's case.
The sex industry should be legal and regulated, not prohibited.
Bush is holding HIV assistance money hostage to some kind of loyalty oath to share his religious values on the sex industry. The LA Times preaches to the choir against Bush's moralizing to the world.
But I don't blame the Bush administration for pandering to its base, I just think Bush is misguided in his evangelizing to the world. The Iraq war has cost us any real moral authority we might have had, for a generation anytway.
Maybe Bush truly belives that loyalty oaths are good things. After all, he pretty much had everyone sign one before they could visit him on the campaign trail.
Oaths are aspirations. But when placed in treaties, then any ALLEGED violation of the oath makes it EASY to withhold the HIV money as a hammer to coerce cooperation. They will be used like weasel words in contracts.
We seem to think of ourselves as the evangelizers of the world, through the government. I guess it's a good thing for the USA that no Muslim nation happens to be the world's richest nation, or else WE'd be having to deal with a different sort of loyalty oath forced upon us.
I like the conclusion of this LA Times piece.
A Misguided Anti-Vice Pledge:
Social conservatives in Congress, backed by the Catholic Church and the Christian right, are on a new foray to dictate sexual mores to the rest of the world, at the expense of public health. This time it's an oath being foisted on U.S. groups working to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They will soon be asked to comply with a 2-year-old law dictating that they have "a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking" before they will be considered for federal grants to provide health services overseas.
[SNIP --- jump to conclusion]
"If conservatives want to go after prostitution in the Third World, they can fund religious groups to proselytize against it. Interfering in the fight against HIV is a misguided policy that could cost lives."
Third and last post I think today on the Schiavo issue and Bush's anti-Schiavo Texas law.
Confirmation that Bush signed a Texas law allowing hospitals to kill people --- against the wishes of their families --- if the patients can't pay their bills, if they are brain dead or maybe if further treatment is futile.
What implications does this have for the credibility of the Republican Party on the Schiavo issue now? See my previous two posts for more.
HoustonChronicle.com - Life support may be cut based on pay, prognosis: "Hospitals can end life support
Decision hinges on patient's ability to pay, prognosis
By LEIGH HOPPER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Bill Olive / Chronicle
(L-r)Mario Caballero, Spiro Nikolouzos Jr. and Jannette Nikolouzos. St. Luke's notified Jannette Nikolouzos in a March 1 letter that it would withdraw life-sustaining care of her husband of 34 years, Spiro Nikolouzos, in 10 days.
A patient's inability to pay for medical care combined with a prognosis that renders further care futile are two reasons a hospital might suggest cutting off life support, the chief medical officer at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital said Monday.
Dr. David Pate's comments came as the family of Spiro Nikolouzos fights to keep St. Luke's from turning off the ventilator and artificial feedings keeping the 68-year-old grandfather alive.
St. Luke's notified Jannette Nikolouzos in a March 1 letter that it would withdraw life-sustaining care of her husband of 34 years in 10 days, which would be Friday. Mario Caba-llero, the attorney representing the family, said he is seeking a two-week extension, at minimum, to give the man more time to improve and to give his family more time to find an alternative facility."
This is the second post in a series started this morning.
See the posts below, about Schiavo, where I talk about the rumor that George Bush had signed a law in Texas allowing hospitals to kill brain dead patients
IF THEIR FAMILY COULD NOT PAY TO KEEP THEM ALIVE.
And the excerpt I quoted from a DailyKOS diary mentioned that a
BABY had already been killed against his parent's wishes under this law.
I DOUBTED the accuracy of the DailyKOS diary.
No more doubts, it seems. The excerpt below seems to confirm the dead baby story.
Case is the first in which a judge allowed a hospital to discontinue care
By LEIGH HOPPER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips.
• • • • •
"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive."
Wanda Hudson ,
mother of Sun Hudson
• • • • •
Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.
"I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive," Wanda Hudson told reporters afterward. "This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months. ... They made a terrible mistake."
Sun's death marks the first time a U.S. judge has allowed a hospital to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts. A similar case involving a 68-year-old man in a vegetative state at another Houston hospital is before a court now.
This entry is about the Schiavo story and politics. Those who read my earlier post about Schiavo know that I am inclined to support efforts to prevent her from being starved to death.
When I read the below-excerpted DailyKOS diary, I was kinda shocked to say the least, that the mainstream meadia would NOT have covered the apparent hypocrisy of the Republicans and George W. Bush in particular.
That's why I am a bit skeptical that the diary is accurately reporting things. So I await further info and withhold the harshest judgment till later.
ISSUE: Did George W. Bush sign a Texas Law that permits hospital to pull the plug
Against the Wishes of the Family when a patient is brain dead and
cannot pay for care?
If Bush did such a thing, I would be surprised. If he did such a thing, then he HAD to have the support of the very conservative Texas Republican Party.
IF (a BIG if) Bush and the Republicans SUPPORTED such a position, I would expect the media to be ALL OVER HIM about the Schiavo Bill, where Congress wants to intrude into Florida's state rights.
I would expect the left-wing spinwits to blow the Texas law out of proportion in order to embarass Bush and the Republicans.
I would expect the right-wing spinwits to underplay (or even ignore) the Texas law rather than discuss its real terms and impact, to protect Bush and the Republicans from embarassment.
I would SO much rather read blogs, for and against, and decide for myself, rather than listen to the spinwits from either side.
There is even more: Apparently Randall Terry, the anti-abortion crusader and founder of Operation Rescue,
has linked up with the parents of Schiavo to lobby for the involvement of other powerful people (press release). This reminds me of when Al Sharpton comes to town whenever there is a racial issue. The Republican political thinkers apparently see the Schiavo situation as a public relations goldmine to keep its base energized. People like Randall Terry might NOT be thinking of the good politics and instead are only following their gut. But the Power Brokers are ALWAYS thinking of the politics. BTW:
Click here for Randall Terry's flyer talking about Schiavo's mental and physical state. I don't know if he is accurate or not, but it's interesting to read.
One more thing:
The Schiavo bill signed by George Bush last night is anti-conservative in that the bill expands the role of the Federal Government by creating a new way in which the Feds can interefere with a State's resolution of an issue. In addition, the Federal Government has taken a giant step into our personal lives (where the State has historically been the most active player when compared to the Feds).
[UPDATE]
1) Bush DID sign such a law - Life support may be cut off based on pay and prognosis
2) Bush's law DID result in a baby being killed against the wishes of the parents
WOW!
This can't be true --- I MUST be misinterpreting. Would someone please set me straight on this (but courteously please!).
Daily Kos :: Does the Media Know that Bush's Texas Law Is Allowing Deaths?: "By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.
Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.
Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far."
[snip]
This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.
This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.
One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives.
A lawmaker opposed to a stem cell research bill likened the destruction of embryos to the Holocaust in Europe 60 years ago.
This comparison created a firestorm, and the lawmaker apologized.
My thoughts: I completely understand such sentiments, likening stem cells research and abortion to the Holocaust. Those who have the religious belief that life begins at conception cannot really feel otherwise, it would seem.
I wonder why the lawmaker apologized that his remarks offended?
I wish we could resolve the abortion and "personhood begins at conception" debates, and find a middle ground. If I were one of those who held the religious belief that a fertilized egg was as much a human as a full formed fetus is a human, then I would probably feel similar passion in opposing stem cell research and early term abortion.
These kind of conflicts ---- where the lines can be easily crystalized into black and white, good vs. evil, all or nothing ----- These conflicts have the power to motivate the populace to commit civil war. Thankfully, our national leaders have not called for violence in pushing their side of the debate.
The persons with the most power to influence a peaceful resolution are our religious leaders. But our religious leaders have taken such an absolutist prohibitionist stand, it seems, that they cannot give an inch.
The analogy made by religious conservatives to slavery is well placed. They argue powerfully that slavery was an absolute moral evil, and that the crusade against abortion is like the crusade against slavery. I have always respected this analogy for its moral power and consistency.
I wonder if, 150 years ago, the national opinion was as divided on slavery as it is on abortion today.
I was speaking to a pretty passionate abortion opponent recently, who (despite beliefs) supported abortion for rape and incest.
I'd like to see a reputable survey done of the attitudes of Americans toward abortion, so we could find out what restrictions are supported by a large majority. Then maybe a constituional amendment could be enacted to try to cool down the debate.
I have a feeling that the absolutist-prohibitionist (no exceptions) position is held by a small minority of the population. I would expect that the great majority of people in the USA are in favor of SOME legalized abortions, on a sliding scale of sorts: A great number in favor of some exceptions to an absolute prohibition (rape, incest, health of mother), a lesser number in favor of the Roe v. Wade compromise, and a tiny minority in favor of abortion on demand for the full term.
Bill Clinton had the best statement on abortion, for those who support some form of abortion rights: Safe, legal and rare. I support the Roe vs. Wade compromise on abortion rights, which I think is the majority opinion in the USA.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Republican leader apologizes for Holocaust remarks during stem cell debate: "Friday, March 18, 2005 � Last updated 4:49 p.m. PT
Republican leader apologizes for Holocaust remarks during stem cell debate
By REBECCA COOK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- State House Minority Leader Bruce Chandler apologized Friday for remarks other Republicans made earlier in the week comparing embryonic stem cell research to the Holocaust.
'The references made to the Holocaust were regarded by some, understandably, as insensitive and inappropriate,' Chandler, R-Granger, said on the House floor.
However, one of the representatives who made such a comparison said he did not mean to disparage the mass murder of Jews in Hitler's Germany, and saw no reason to apologize personally.
Chandler said he'd spoken with Jewish community leaders about the stem cell debate. 'I offer my apologies to them and to people who have committed their lives to using science to improve humanity.'
Rep. Shay Schual-Berke, D-Normandy Park, who sponsored the bill endorsing embryonic stem cell research and who is Jewish, said she believed Chandler's apology was heartfelt, sincere and appropriate.
Click Here
'We need to take this as an opportunity now to continue to educate and inform,' Schual-Berke said.
'I don't know anyone who thinks the horrible events of the Holocaust were anything but an affront to humanity,' she added. Comparing the murder of 6 million Jews to stem cell research, she said, 'is just unthinkable.'
Schual-Berke's bill passed by a vote of 59-36 in the House after an emotional, sometimes tearful debate late Tuesday night. A couple of Republican representatives - not Chandler - referred very obliquely to the Holocaust, but Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City, drew the most direct comparison.
'Life sciences, biotech research - it sounds warm, sounds progressive. The potential is there, we hope, we're betting on it,' Anderson said Tuesday on the House floor. 'But the cold look of history really does require sobriety. Sixty years ago in Nazi Germany, it was state policy in order to perfect humanity it would be required to destroy humanity. And the medical experiments at Auschwitz were carried out for that explicit purpose. We all say no, that's not us, that would never happen, that's not why we're doing this.'
Schual-Berke leapt to her feet and objected, and House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, quickly called for a break to let both sides cool off. They returned about 15 minutes later and passed the bill after more debate.
The embryonic stem cells in question come from human embryos created through in-vitro fertilization. The embryos are destroyed when stem cells are extracted. Researchers believe this research may someday lead to cures for diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and diabetes."
Bugs me that due to certain considerations, we cannot have a right to die with dignity at the time of our choosing.
But we can pull the plug, or stop artificial life support. If the life support is air, then the patient simply suffocates. If the life support is food, the patient starves. Either way it's ugly.
Wouldn't it be better if we treated such people with the same humanity as we treat convicted death row inmates, and gave them a painless injection?
Just asking.
Yahoo! News - Brain-Damaged Woman's Feeding Tube Removed: "Brain-Damaged Woman's Feeding Tube Removed
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Doctors removed Terri Schiavo's feeding tube Friday despite an extraordinary, last-minute push by Republicans on Capitol Hill to use the subpoena powers of Congress to save the severely brain-damaged woman.
It is expected that it will take one to two weeks for Schiavo, 41, to die, provided no one intercedes and gets the tube reinserted. Michael Schiavo's attorney, George Felos, said his client was at his wife's side shortly after the tube was removed.
The tube has twice been disconnected in the past, but was re-inserted within days in both cases. Similar appeals are under way in the current case.
The latest removal came amid a flurry of maneuvering by Schiavo's parents, state lawmakers and Congress to keep her alive. Committees in the Republican-controlled Congress issued subpoenas for Schiavo, her husband, and her caregivers demanding that they appear at hearings in the coming weeks."
BTW: NyTimes online is free, just register. It's harmless.
It must be especially tough to be an American interrogator. Your Secy of Defense and President have authorized torture, but as soon as your torture gets disclosed, you get prosecuted by underlings within the system.
We are still learning the true extent of the network of torture engaged in my US troops and spys.
Now we are learning about 26 apparent homicides of prisoners by interrogators. Just think about that. This is NOT WWII, where we had hundreds of thousands of enemy prisoners. We don't have that many prisoners, but we ARE torturing them. And many are dying,
I don't know if this is ultimately for the good or bad. But I know that I don't like it the USA has a policy of torture.
We look so very bad in the eyes of the world. The world already sees us as a bunch of fundamentalist religious nuts, not that much different in mindset from the Islamists. And we obviously are willing to be extremely brutal in Iraq, cementing the analogy to the Islamists.
I have a feeling that more and more revelations are waiting to be trickled out about our conduct in Iraq and our commission of torture in Iraq and other places.
What a shift in the way my country is viewed worldwide, in my lifetime!
The New York Times > Washington > U.S. Military Says 26 Inmate Deaths May Be Homicide: "U.S. Military Says 26 Inmate Deaths May Be Homicide
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: March 16, 2005
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, went before a Senate panel last week to discuss his review of detention operations and interrogation techniques.
WASHINGTON, March 15 - At least 26 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, according to military officials.
The number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any accounting the military has previously reported. A Pentagon report sent to Congress last week cited only six prisoner deaths caused by abuse, but that partial tally was limited to what the author, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III of the Navy, called 'closed, substantiated abuse cases' as of last September.
The new figure of 26 was provided by the Army and Navy this week after repeated inquiries. In 18 cases reviewed by the Army and Navy, investigators have now closed their inquiries and have recommended them for prosecution or referred them to other agencies for action, Army and Navy officials said. Eight cases are still under investigation but are listed by the Army as confirmed or suspected criminal homicides, the officials said.
Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, officials said, showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift.
We'll chat about steroids, and move into substance use generally.
The article below discussed how slugger Mark McGwire essentailly takes the fifth before the Congress regarding his alleged steroid use.
Question: Is steroid use in baseball a freedom issue?
Answer: No. Personal freedom to use performance enhancing substances is not relevant when you are talking about athletics, where the athletic authorities are trying to establish rules for fair athletic competition.
Change the facts: What about personal freedom to use substances off duty from our jobs?
Answer: Our society makes it legal for employers to regulate our off duty substance use, particularly the illegal mood altering drugs. (through urine tests, etc)
In MY state, Missouri, we have a law that prohibits employers from interfering with the off duty use of tobacco, though.
By The Way: Your friend Tim, the libertarian-leaning Radical Moderate, is NOT a user of illegal drugs, and in fact does not even use alcohol (having been sober for about 12 years now).
So my libertarianism on substance use does not stem from a desire to use substances myself. I hope that gives me a little more credibility on this issue.
CNN.com - McGwire mum on steroids in hearing - Mar 17, 2005
McGwire mum on steroids in hearing
Sosa, Palmeiro deny use in front of House panel
Thursday, March 17, 2005 Posted: 11:07 PM EST (0407 GMT)
Jose Canseco wrote a book alleging widespread drug use in baseball.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire refused to answer questions about steroid use during his playing career at a congressional hearing Thursday, repeatedly telling a House committee he was "not here to talk about the past."
McGwire, who broke Roger Maris' single-season record for home runs in 1998, was among a panel of current and former all-stars who appeared before the House Government Reform Committee to discuss the use of steroids in the majors.
A former CNN excutive has written a very critical book about the declining integrity and value of the media today, and about the propaganda machine.
Order the book here, and support the Buzzflash.com website:
News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News by Bonnie Anderson.
Buzzflash has many more similar offering of activist books and videos, trying to shake things up to stop the propaganda and deceit and erosion of civil liberties.
Regular readers know that I focus a lot of attention on the media and journalism and propaganda and the spinwits.
But I ain't nobody, just a guy with attitude.
This lady below, Bonnie Anderson, is
SOMEBODY. Listen to her.
Bonnie M. Anderson Newsflash
[snip]
BuzzFlash: Well, we seem to have come full circle because the White House has been outed for using, on at least two occasions, if not more, these promotional video releases presented as news.
Bonnie M. Anderson: Yes.
BuzzFlash: The videos imply that a journalist is covering the story, when it’s really an actor. This prepackaged footage is called "B-roll," but it’s really B-roll being used as a news story.
Bonnie M. Anderson: To me, this was a huge development and it’s what's wrong with journalism in this country. You have an Administration lying to the public and participating in pulling the wool over the eyes of the public to advance their own agenda. Call me old school. Call me old fashioned or a dinosaur, but I think government should be about protecting the Bill of Rights. Government should be truthful to the American public, and not about trying to manipulate the public and, in this case, also manipulating the media. We also had commentators who were pretending to give their honest opinion on issues, when they were being paid by the Administration to promote an agenda. This, to me, is very, very frightening. Red flags should be going up all over this country. Unfortunately, I’m not so sure that there will be that sort of national debate or alarm over this. It is horrific.
Blake is acquitted of murder. The evidence against Blake seemed quite strong, and everyone I knew thought he did it. So what happened?
You are seeing the effect of having a jury hear ALL the evidence. You just never know the whole story, from the media. But the jury hears it ALL, and the jury gets to see the faces of the people telling their stories, and chooses whom to believe or disbelieve.
This was a CRIMINAL MATTER, where the Constitution requires that a jury be permitted to determine the fate of the case.
CIVIL RIGHTS ANALOGY: Those of us who practice civil rights-related law DO NOT routinely get to have a jury hear hear our cases and determine whom to believe. Judges DISMISS our cases, on a million legal technicalities, and no jury gets to hear the whole story.
We lawyers KNOW that if juries would get to hear the WHOLE STORY, as in criminal law, the juries would do justice.
And so, when I see the criminal justice system working well (where a jury who hears the whole story does something different from the media's piecemeal reporting), I always fell a little LET DOWN that the CIVIL LAW system is SO UNJUST.
Entertainment: People Article | Reuters.com: "Actor Blake Aquitted of Murder After Seamy Trial
Wed Mar 16, 2005 08:56 PM ET
By Jill Serjeant and Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A jury found actor Robert Blake not guilty on Wednesday of shooting dead his estranged wife after trying to solicit others to kill her, capping a celebrity trial that exposed Hollywood's seamy underbelly.
The white-haired Blake, 71, the former star of the 1970s TV detective series 'Baretta,' trembled with emotion, buried his head in his hands and appeared to sob as the verdict was read, ending a three-month trial.
Afterward, jurors said they were not convinced by the circumstantial case brought by prosecutors against Blake in the May 2001 murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, who was portrayed during the trial as a star-struck grifter who ran a mail-order sex business.
In addition to finding Blake not guilty of first-degree murder, the Los Angeles County Superior Court jury acquitted him of asking a retired stuntman to kill his wife.
The jury deadlocked 11-to-1 in favor of acquitting him on a second count of solicitation of murder involving yet another former stuntman who was a friend of Blake. The judge dismissed that charge."
So 20 federal agencies have produced fake news shows to sell the Bush agenda, and distributed them to tv stations for broadcast?
I don't think I like this form of propaganda.
I wonder what the other side of the story is?
TomPaine.com - Stop Fake News!
Stop Fake News!
March 16, 2005
This week, The New York Times reported that 20 federal agencies have made and distributed pre-packaged television news segments to promote President Bush's policies and initiatives. These were sent to local stations without disclosure that the segments weren't actual news coverage. The General Accounting Office told the Bush administration to stop producing and distributing the segments, which it called "covert propaganda." The White House refused. It's time to take the matter into our own hands. Join Free Press and sign a petition calling on Congress, the FCC and local stations to make tougher laws about government propoganda—and to come clean to viewers when it's used. Then, help organize "citizen agreements" with your local broadcasters that they won't air fake news broadcasts . Because if it's not The Daily Show, we're not interested. ACT NOW
I guess it's getting kinda hard to be a pharmacist these days, because when you try to follow your religion and refuse to dispense birth control pills to immoral customers, the State comes and disciplines you.
What's the world coming to? (Its senses?)
Printable Version: "Playing Mr. God at the pharmacy counter
We all have a right to follow our own religious or moral beliefs in our daily lives. That's part of being a good person.
But there's nothing religious, moral or even particularly good about claiming to be gods ourselves and trying to impose our own personal beliefs on everybody else. That's the height of human arrogance.
That's why it's a complete misnomer to say that a pharmacist who refuses to provide health care is following his conscience.
Conscientious pharmacists do not jeopardize the health needs of patients. They do not refuse to do their job of dispensing legitimately prescribed drugs.
If there are pharmacists whose personal religious beliefs forbid providing medication to heal sickness and preserve health, they've made a very bad career choice.
It's not only bad for them. It's bad for those unfortunate patients who find themselves at the mercy of these self-appointed gods.
That's why an administrative law judge for the State Department of Regulation and Licensing properly recommended discipline for a pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills to a coed at the University of Wisconsin - Stout.
After grilling the student about whether she intended to use the pills for contraception - duh! - the pharmacist not only refused to fill a doctor's prescription, but also refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy where it could be filled by a conscientious pharmacist.
The administrative law judge recommended that the pharmacist, Neil Noesen, be reprimanded for violating the code of ethics for pharmacists and spend six hours in ethics education."
(Please register for the free WashingtonPost online edition)
Commentator Richard Cohen sharply blasts CSPAN for its absurd attempt at "balance" or "fairness". CSPAN is covering an event highlighting a new Holocaust book. CSPAN wants to "balance" the coverage with coverage of a notorious Holocaust-Denier.
You know, there are just some things (in science and history) that are so firmly TRUE and there is no meaningul "other side of the story".
The Holocaust is clearly one of those things. The "other side" is pure nonsense. Sorry.
I wonder what the motive is for some people to try to debunk whether the Holocaust occurred? How does it make those people feel better to try to deny the undeniable? And Why in the Hell is CSPAN trying to lend any credibility to such destructive bullshit?
If a CSPAN producer feels he should present a Holocaust denier to "balance" coverage of the Holocaust, then the producer MUST BE FIRED for his idiocy, ignorance, or evil motive (whichever appllies).
However, maybe Richard Cohen's story has got the facts wrong. It's hard to belive that CSPAN could employ such an idiot in such an important position.
C-SPAN's Balance of the Absurd (washingtonpost.com): "C-SPAN's Balance of the Absurd
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A23
You will not be seeing Deborah Lipstadt on C-SPAN. The Holocaust
scholar at Emory University has a new book out ('History on Trial'), and an upcoming lecture of hers at Harvard was scheduled to be televised on the public affairs cable outlet. The book is about a libel case brought against her in Britain by David Irving, a Holocaust denier, trivializer and prevaricator who is, by solemn ruling of the very court that heard his lawsuit, 'anti-Semitic and racist.' No matter. C-SPAN wanted Irving to 'balance' Lipstadt.
The word balance is not in quotes for emphasis. It was invoked repeatedly by C-SPAN producers who seemed convinced that they had chosen the most noble of all journalistic causes: fairness. 'We want to balance it [Lipstadt's lecture] by covering him,' said Amy Roach, a producer for C-SPAN's Book TV. Her boss, Connie Doebele, put it another way. 'You know how important fairness and balance is at C-SPAN,' she told me. 'We work very, very hard at this. We ask ourselves, 'Is there an opposing view of this?' '"
TomPaine.com has a pice about "framing" which is interesting but maybe a little over the top.
TomPaine.com argues that Bush and the Republican leadership are outside the mainstream because they are on the "extreme right wing" of th Republican Party.
NO THEY AREN'T.
Bush did not go into office looking to start wars of aggression that would smear the USA's good name around the globe.
Bush did not come into office on a platform of racial segregation.
Bush did not campaign to destroy the social safety net.
Bush does not believe in any of those things.
Bush is not an extreme right winger. Bush is a mainstream Republican on most things, I think. (I am NOT a Bush supporter, BTW)
Bush wants to tweak our society in a way the the Republican Party and its supporters in corporate America want. But Bush and his leadership group do not want to overhaul the nature of the USA's social and political system. They are not as radical as some might think.
The war in Iraq is another matter, though. The Iraq war IS a radical thing, at least as radical as Kennedy's and Johnson's war in Vietnam.
If I had been president of the most powerful nation on earth on 9/11, what would I have done with all that power?
Hey, don't read too much into this kinda-pro-Bush post! I'm just a moderate after all, with a strong libertarian streak, and I appreciate fairness in debate. It's not really fair to call Bush the extreme right wing, because I think the extreme right wing is really VERY FAR OUT THERE.
TomPaine.com - Framing The GOP
We all know that the current leaders of the Republican party—be it President Bush, Tom Delay or Bill Frist – represent the extreme right wing of their party. But most of America doesn’t see them that way, because nobody has successfully framed them as such. It's time we start calling them what they are—irresponsible, reckless, extreme and radical. These are four adjectives that most accurately describe their agenda. More important still, these adjectives imply un-American values and speak to a flaw in their collective character.
This group of leaders is endangering our country's safety, our children’s future, our health and other things we hold close to our hearts. Most Americans are moderate in their views; extremism on either side of the political spectrum makes them uncomfortable. Reckless behavior makes them very uncomfortable. Americans would rather that their leaders be conservative in the true sense of the word. The majority of Americans don’t want Social Security dismantled. They don’t want us to fight an endless war in Iraq with more of their sons and daughters maimed or killed. They don’t want their air polluted and their water poisoned, and they don’t want their public school system destroyed.
This news item is a couple days old, sorry I didn't catch it earlier.
It's nice to see that a significant body of Congressmen are recognizing that the internet is GREAT for freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoint.
I've said several times that I feel MORE FREEDOM OF SPEECH because of the internet, despite the crackdown on civil liberties under the guise of the war on terror.
And a coalition of blogs and Congressmen are trying to put a stop to the government's attempt to squelch our freedom of speech by making web logs (blogs) regulatable as if they were political organizations.
The power to regulate is the power to prohibit (old saying). Oppose regulation of web logs.
CNN.com - Lawmakers: Hands off Web logs - Mar 11, 2005: "Lawmakers: Hands off Web logs
Friday, March 11, 2005 Posted: 4:10 PM EST (2110 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Internet bloggers should enjoy traditional press freedoms and not face regulation as political groups, lawmakers and online journalists said Friday.
In separate letters, Democratic lawmakers and Internet commentators urged the Federal Election Commission to make sure that political Web sites that serve as focal points for political discussion, like Wonkette.com and Freerepublic.com, don't have to comply with campaign-finance rules.
'Curtailing blogs and other online publications will dampen the impact of new voices in the political process and will do a disservice to the millions of voters who rely on the Web for original, insightful political commentary,' said the Online Coalition, a group of bloggers and online activists.
Fourteen members of the House of Representatives said blogs foster a welcome diversity of viewpoints.
"This 'democratization' of the media is a welcome development in this era of media consolidation and a corresponding lack of diversity of views in traditional media outlets," said the group, which consists of thirteen Democrats and one Republican.
See this thread on DailyKOS for a discussion of what appears to be Republican spin machine website and how the website has somehow seduced the New York Times into using it as a source of news, despite the site's reputation.
Makes you wonder something: Did the New York Times decide, based on reasonable criteria, that the website now qualifies as a source of legitimate news and commentary?
Or did the Times just mess up and fail to check on its source?
Or did the Times' reporter use the website in the story just to give a boost to the respectability of the site, because the reporter has an agenda to push?
But I'd personally like to hear more about the website and the organization behind it, to get the other side of the story. A lot of websites improve with time. A lot of commentators with agendas become more and more credible over time. Just because you have an agenda, that does not mean everything you say is worthless.
One of the maxims I carry around is that EVERYONE has an agenda, whether spoken about or not.
Daily Kos :: Don't they have Google at NYT?: "Don't they have Google at NYT?
by Maccabee
[Subscribe]
Sun Mar 13th, 2005 at 12:50:10 PST
First CBS falls prey to the obviously slanted reporting from a fake news organization, and then the NYT does the exact same thing.
Two years ago, CBS '60 Minutes' linked a chicken farm in Georgia to terrorists. Turns out the source of the organization: SITE or Search for International Terrorist Entities, is a bogus front funded by pro-Bush War on Terror backers.
But irony of irony, To-day, after a huge story on pre packaged fake news they did it again. in the same issue!!!
Diaries :: Maccabee's diary ::
In a discussion of this fake group's study of press releases from Al Quaeda, Rita Katz comments.
'I think they feel they are losing the battle,' said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, an American nonprofit group that monitors Islamist Web sites and news operations. 'They realize there will be a new government soon, and they seem very nervous about the future.'
A little Googling revealed that SITE, is an 'news' organization with all the credibility of Talon News. SITE consists of Rita Katz and Josh Devon. They are only cited on NationalReview Online, or Fox News, and one of the partners has been hand picked by Bush to man lots of posts on Homeland Security and other Bush organizations. Look at the site and you'll see a PR job website that dresses as a real organization. All this scrollinbg news stories are progress in the WOT. There is no critical thinking or punditry. Just a big ra-ra site."
This DailyKOS thread will educate people about how political activists "frame" debates, and will discuss how public debate can be controlled or focused or derailled by how the issues are "framed".
It's informative, but a bit esoteric and wonky.
Good to read, though, for a better understanding of what FoxNews and the Spinwits are up to when they all seem to be saying the same things.
Aside: The author criticizes the right wing for attempting to undermine the "global warming" debate by changing the term to the more innocent sounding "climate change". This reminds me of how the environmentalism movement successfully changed the term "jungle" into "rain forest".
Daily Kos :: Framing vs. Fencing: A post-Lakoff analysis: "Framing vs. Fencing: A post-Lakoff analysis
by Hudson
[Subscribe]
Thu Mar 10th, 2005 at 20:39:11 PST
SUBTITLE:
Some limitations of Lakoff's 'framing,' and the evolving Republican strategy to fence voters off from Democratic ideas, leaders and values -- before the debate even begins
INTRODUCTION: BEYOND THE FRAME
In the past year, like so many other Democrats and progressives, I latched onto George Lakoff's advice about 'framing' with the ferociously desperate optimism of a drowning man spotting a passing tree trunk.
I pre-ordered Don't Think of an Elephant, I googled a half-dozen Lakoff interviews, and I urged every liberal-minded friend to do the same.
Indeed, framing has become an unremitting refrain of every progressive op-ed piece, Haloscan post and DFA Meetup. Just mention framing, and heads bob appreciatively up and down across the (chat) room. 'We must frame our arguments better!' is fast becoming a latter-day gloss on the naive proclamation of Boxer in Animal Farm ('I will work harder!') -- a pledge he makes right up to the minute the pigs ship him off to the glue factory.
Diaries :: Hudson's diary ::
Despite the following criticisms, Lakoff's exhortation remains a welcome and commonsense one. To re-take control of the national discourse, Democrats of course must redefine the terms of debate in ways which predispose the audience to be more accepting of progressive arguments--all the while exhibiting the same or greater 'message discipline' as our Republican nemeses.
As the 2004 campaign wore on, however, two things became apparent: (1) that John Kerry and other prominent Democrats were not showing much skill, charm or even discipline in these new framing efforts--which the Republicans had been practicing for a least a decade; (2) even more devastatingly, that just as Democrats began to try to master framing, the Republicans were one step ahead with a more powerful, and far more underhanded strategy.
For lack of a better term, I've started to call that more recent Republican strategy "fencing.""
The author below tries hard to get his right wing father to understand the good things government does, because his dad has chosen to hide his head in the sand and feel that all government is bad, or something like that.
I tried having similar conversations with my own Republican father for many years. Finally, my father became a Democrat (and met John Kerry by the way).
My own father became a Democrat when he started spending his retirement watching the legislature in action in Jefferson City Missouri, and keeping up on the dirty details of political debates. Enough about that for now.
The article below does a pretty fair job of raising issues that could be used to help the closed minded anti-government crowd see the illogic of their position.
Daily Kos :: Letter to My GOP Dad: Gov't Been Very, Very Good to You (pt. 1): "Letter to My GOP Dad: Gov't Been Very, Very Good to You (pt. 1)
by Steven D
[Subscribe]
Fri Mar 11th, 2005 at 09:00:09 PST
A few weeks ago, before my GOP-for-life father and I stopped speaking to each other, one of the last things he told me was that as far as he was concerned taxes could be cut a great deal more than they already have been because government is simply too big. In his opinion, the larger government got (here he meant government at all levels: state, local and federal) the less he got in return for his taxes.
The standard GOP line right? More taxes = bigger, more ineffective government.
That got me thinking about how government impacts all of us, and specifically how it benefited my father during the course of his lifetime, which began in 1930, the first year of the Great Depression. Here's the first part of the letter I wrote to him about this (more parts to follow over the weekend):"
Dear Dad,
You remember what you said about big government being a cancer? About how it wastes your tax dollars, dollars that would be better off in your own two hands being spent for what you wanted rather than in the hands of some bureaucrat? That, in your mind, government hadn't been particularly helpful in your life? That your own hard work had been the reason for your success, not government handouts?
Well, you might recall that we didn't agree on that point. Since that time I've done a lot of thinking about what government at all levels does and has done for folks, and specifically what it has done to benefit you and your family over the course of your lifetime. I'd like to share them with you, if I may.
So, gotta be a little bit careful before going after the juggernaut of FoxNews, eh? When Boston Legal tried to criticize FoxNews by name, ABC made them change the script.
See the article for the spin the parties place on the wimpout decision.
The producer says he found a better way (in essence) without naming names.
ABC says it's a longstanding policy of not naming real events. Hmm, wishi I had access to the vaults at ABC to see what TV shows have ever named names of entities before.
ABC News: ABC Edits Fox News Out of 'Boston Legal': "LOS ANGELES Mar 10, 2005 — When the ABC drama 'Boston Legal' takes on the issue of alleged media bias in Sunday's episode, it doesn't name names specifically Fox News Channel.
In the original script, a high school principal blocks Fox News from being aired on campus television sets because he considers the channel biased and inflammatory, according to the network.
But ABC asked executive producer and writer David E. Kelley to remove references to Fox; instead, there is criticism of TV news in general and one network, which is unidentified, in particular.
'We did make some changes to the script per ABC's request, but managed to tell the same story in what we believe is an even more subversive and provocative way,' Kelley spokeswoman Stacey Luchs said Thursday."
I can't really exceprt the Top Ten list from the below article, but it's interesting to see the 10 reasons why media is in somewhat of a role NOT to serve the public good any more. And the authors did not even mention the end of the "Fairness Doctrine".
Howver, the authors omitted the fact that the internet has caused an explosion of new and independent media.
Persons who use the internet can easily be better informed and entertained than ever before.
So in a sense, the decline of the usefulness of the old-style media might not be such an evil thing as the authors portray it, except for the technologically illiterate who cannot or will not discover the vast resources on the internet.
CampusProgress.org | 10 Things Big Media Doesn't Want You to Know: "10 Things Big Media Doesn't Want You to Know
Learn about the barriers that have been constructed around the public airwaves.
By the Staff of Free Press"
A "conservative" interesting and subtle rebuttal of libertarianism, in order to justify the Republican moral crusade. (Wow, how's THAT for a spin!).
Actually, this is a thoughtful article that attacks the extreme forms of libertarianism. The article shows that we need a balance between personal liberties and the collective good, and a balance between capitalism and reasonable protection for us all (including environemental and financial protections).
I fear that the article goes a little too far in saying that pornography creates a society that is too vulgar, thereby impinging on the freedom of the masses. The author is simply showing his TRUE side, a moralist Republican side. I've heard Limbaugh and Hannity say that they want the "freedom" to live in a society free of vulgarity (it's a right wing talking point, seemingly). No one forces us to subscribe to dirty mags, or dirty websites, or buy sex toys, or do any number of other adult things that are only available by positively seeking them out as adults.
So as good as the article is, please understand that the author's real point is probably to intellectually justify the moralistic Republican regulation of society, while at the same time keeping the Republican Libertarians within the Big Tent of the party (by showing the Libertarians that their philosophy is flawed).
Everyone has their biases. Sometimes we hide them very well, like the author of the linked article.
Marxism of the Right: "March 14, 2005 Issue
Copyright © 2005 The American Conservative
Marxism of the Right
by Robert Locke
Free spirits, the ambitious, ex-socialists, drug users, and sexual eccentrics often find an attractive political philosophy in libertarianism, the idea that individual freedom should be the sole rule of ethics and government. Libertarianism offers its believers a clear conscience to do things society presently restrains, like make more money, have more sex, or take more drugs. It promises a consistent formula for ethics, a rigorous framework for policy analysis, a foundation in American history, and the application of capitalist efficiencies to the whole of society. But while it contains substantial grains of truth, as a whole it is a seductive mistake.
There are many varieties of libertarianism, from natural-law libertarianism (the least crazy) to anarcho-capitalism (the most), and some varieties avoid some of the criticisms below. But many are still subject to most of them, and some of the more successful varieties—I recently heard a respected pundit insist that classical liberalism is libertarianism—enter a gray area where it is not really clear that they are libertarians at all. But because 95 percent of the libertarianism one encounters at cocktail parties, on editorial pages, and on Capitol Hill is a kind of commonplace “street” libertarianism, I decline to allow libertarians the sophistical trick of using a vulgar libertarianism to agitate for what they want by defending a refined version of their doctrine when challenged philosophically. We’ve seen Marxists pull that before."
I sure wish we in the USA would resolve our political battle over abortion rights, so we don't have to monkey around with international treaties and try to deny the UN funding for reproductive health services, and any number of other ways in which our Republican administrations have to show the world that we are anti-abortion rights whenever Republicans are in power.
That's why I call for a national referendum on abortion rights. All political parties can take cover in that, and they can openly support moderate abortion rights positions, because the American public finally voted on the rights it wants. Such a referendum would not change the law --- It would simply tell politicians the will of the people.
Republicans would not want such a referendum, because they know the public would vote for a moderate abortion rights position.
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Mary-Ann Stephenson: Bush against women's right: "It will take all our energy to stand still
Bush's America is waging a global battle against women's rights
Mary-Ann Stephenson
Tuesday March 8, 2005
The Guardian
For all George Bush's courting of Europe, when it comes to women's reproductive rights he is closer to Iran and Syria than the EU. In 1995, representatives from 189 countries met in Beijing and agreed a major programme on women's equality and human rights - the Beijing platform for action. This statement was ambitious, and the UN commission on the status of women is currently meeting in New York to review its progress over the past decade.
The meeting was to publish a statement reaffirming international support for the platform for action. But the US has refused to support it unless it is amended to say that the platform does not create any new human rights or the right to abortion.
But it doesn't actually give the right to abortion. States are called on to 'consider reviewing laws containing punitive measures against women who have undergone illegal abortions', but the platform is clear that 'any measures or changes related to abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national or local level according to the national legislative process'.
But that's not how the US is presenting it. Countries are being warned that failure to support the US amendment could allow the platform to be used to push through a 'right to abortion' and take away the right of countries to determine their own laws. Activists are furious. Annette Lawson, of the European Women's Lobby, said the US is 'simply trying to mislead the rest of the world'.
This is not the first attack "
A blogger at DailyKOS writes periodically about his transformation away from being a Dittohead. He writes with wit and candor.
In the following excerpt, he describes how the committed Dittoheads process information, particularly information that (if true) might run contrary to their ideology. It's an entertaining read.
On the far left, I'm sure things are similar. But the far left has no huge media machine to spew its propaganda, and so the far left doesn't really count. The majority of the mainstream media may be somewhat left of center in terms of the reporters' outlook, but it is not far left.
Read the thread on KOS, and see if you agree. And let's all watch out for similar tendencies in ourselves when we find inconvenient facts standing in the way of our ideology, cause we're all guilty to some degree.
Daily Kos :: Confessions of a Former Dittohead: The Right-Wing Reasoning Chip: "
Confessions of a Former Dittohead: The Right-Wing Reasoning Chip
by advisorjim
[Subscribe]
Mon Mar 7th, 2005 at 15:04:53 PST
One of the most frustrating aspects of dealing with dittoheads is the way they casually dismiss facts that are counter to their worldview. Case in point: There are no WMDs in Iraq. There haven't been any there since 1998. They didn't go to Syria or Iran or North Korea. They did not exist. The administration has admitted this publicly. Yet an overwhelming majority of dittoheads still believe Iraq had WMDs. How is this possible?
Diaries :: advisorjim's diary ::
Some will say it's because this administration does such a good job of lying. Others will blame Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. But trust me, it's bigger than that. Focusing our rage on Fox News or right-wing talk radio is about as effective as the Pro-Life crowd wanting to stop abortion by banning the procedure. We're treating the symptom, not the disease.
The right-wing mindset is a pretty deep rabbit hole. It's been carefully programmed over the last decade to respond predictably to various stimuli. From an organizational perspective they've been practicing parade marches while we've been milling about. During election season it's our angry mob versus their disciplined troops. Historically the mob hasn't faired so well under those circumstances.
Like the analogy of the closed fist, the `disciplined troops' of the right didn't happen overnight. It took a long time to get otherwise intelligent people to turn their backs on reason and embrace ideology at all costs. Don't make the mistake of assuming that all Republicans are stupid. They're not. They're just serially misinformed and have a mental `truth-detecting missile shield' fully deployed with 100% accuracy.
It's a process not entirely unlike brainwashing. The `drinking the kool-aid' analogy is chillingly more accurate than I'd like to admit. I'm going to try to take you inside the Republican mind so you can see what it looks like. It's what the inside of my own mind looked like just 18 months ago. I saved it to the internet a few months ago so I could show it off when I needed to. It's also my `backup' brain should I experience primary brain failure. I'll warn you, it's not pretty. It's dark, it drips this hate-filled, oil-like substance, and inexplicably it smells like day-old Papa Johns pizza.
[...]
[Your imagination is going to have to supply the appropriate `Going Inside Someone's Head' imagery]
[...]
The first thing you might notice is that this particular brain isn't the size of a walnut. That's a mistake we make a lot. We assume that the Republican detachment from reality is due to some form of functional mental retardation. But as you can see it's a perfectly average sized brain. It should be able to function normally. If you look closely you'll see some wiring that's not `factory original.' That's the elective surgery performed by the right-wing media. I'll get to that in a moment.
[...]
That wiring you saw was all part of the `right-wing reasoning chip,' which surrounds the `worldview' portion of the Republican brain. Its primary purpose is to apply a pass/fail test to any incoming information. This is important because, as any neurosurgeon will tell you, the `worldview' portion is upstream from the `critical thinking' portion of the brain. If information can't get past `worldview' then it has to take a long and perilous journey through the `soul search' mountains to get to `critical thinking.' Rarely does information survive such a journey. The secondary function of the chip is to project a negative image of itself on those who disagree with it. For example, "I think the sky is blue, therefore liberals think the sky is red."
Wow. See this DailyKOS thread for a discussion of some very harsh criticism of the media, from a longtime media insider. Maybe the blogs are not too far off the mark when we chastize real journalists for refusing to confront and oppose the propaganda and misinformation that is rampant in the media today.
Daily Kos :: Pulitzer winner Laurie Garrett blasts media, quits today: "This is terrible for democracy. I have been in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. I have found America a place of great and confused fearfulness, in which cynically placed bits of misinformation (e.g. Cheney's, 'If John Kerry had been President during the Cold War we would have had thermonuclear war.') fall on ears that absorb all, without filtration or fact-checking. Leading journalists have tried to defend their mission, pointing to the paucity of accurate, edited coverage found in blogs, internet sites, Fox-TV and talk radio. They argue that good old-fashioned newspaper editing is the key to providing America with credible information, forming the basis for wise voting and enlightened governance. But their claims have been undermined by Jayson Blair's blatant fabrications, Judy Miller's bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage, the media's inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill, CBS' failure to smell a con job regarding Bush's Texas Air Guard career and, sadly, so on."
The editor of
BuzzFlash.com explains why the New York Times news pages are, in his opinion, little more than shills for the Bush White House. It's an interesting read, even if a little over the top.
BuzzFlash Vs. The New York Times: "BuzzFlash Vs. The New York Times
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
In a David vs. Goliath battle, we think BuzzFlash is holding its own. For one thing, the New York Times is starting to get a little defensive at our criticisms of their roll over and play dead coverage of the White House.
Maybe it was when we honored (or dishonored) NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller as our BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the week that they got a little edgy.
Or maybe it was when we called for an investigative reporter, along the lines of a special counsel for journalism, to investigate the New York Times News Section for journalistic malfeasance in covering the White House.
Or maybe it was the numerous other times that we have pointed out how the New York Times whines about being a liberal media whipping boy for the right wing, while ensuring that the White House is never REALLY offended."
Blogging ethics is being explored by Nightline.
The ethics of blogging. Humm.
I try to properly attribute to sources, I do not knowingly blog untruths (although I might be wrong on facts or boneheaded in opinion), statements of opinion are obvious and not confusable with fact statements.
So do I qualify as an ethical blogger, in the context of the type of blog I have?
Daily Kos :: I'll be on ABC's Nightline tonight! (Discussion on blogging ethics): "Given there has been so much recent news about blogging, from concerns about FEC regulation of blogging to the recent court ruling in favor of Apple which denies bloggers the protection that journalists get regarding revealing their sources, I expect that tonight's Nightline segment will raise questions again about the extent to which bloggers are, and are not, journalists. The fact that blogger Garrett Graff from FishbowlDC finally got day credentials to cover this morning's press gaggle at the White House only makes these questions more timely. Garrett raises some of these questions in his most recent post.
For those of you who followed the story on HB1677, I'd love for you to post your thoughts on what would (and would not) constitute an ethical approach to bloggers voicing criticism of a bill:
* Should we make every attempt to contact a legislator before writing about a bill?
* Must we identify ourselves as bloggers when we contact elected representatives?
* What ethical considerations should we keep in mind as we write about legislation?
I hope you'll choose to watch tonight's Nightline episode. I'm incredibly nervous about how I will come off on camera. I hope I can do us proud.
Above, I raise some of the questions which came up during my interview, and I wonder how many of you would have answered them. The Nightline folks will likely review this thread, so if you've got any thoughts on ethical considerations regarding blogging, please join the discussion below!"
World Heritage is much poorer today. Click the link to read the bio of this major player of early-mid 20th century history, with implications for forevermore.
Hans Bethe -- worked on A-bomb, feared space weaponry: "Hans Bethe -- worked on A-bomb, feared space weaponry
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Hans Bethe won a Nobel Prize in 1967 for explaining how t...
* Printable Version
* Email This Article
Hans Bethe, the last of the giants of 20th century physics who explained the energy source that powers the stars and helped develop the atom bomb, but devoted decades of his life to nuclear arms control and campaigns against space-based weaponry, died Sunday night at his home in Ithaca, N.Y.
He was 98, a Nobel laureate and one of the most admired figures in modern science.
In the last years of his life, he continued working on the deepest problems of theoretical astrophysics while advising the government and weapons- makers on how to control the proliferation of nuclear arms.
Nearly 70 years ago, Professor Bethe published a seminal paper announcing that the fusion of hydrogen and helium atoms in stars like the sun was the source of their energy and light. The discovery won him the Nobel Prize nearly 30 years later, and while it also helped inspire Edward Teller to conceive of the hydrogen bomb, it also led to the long and bitter enmity between the two scientists who were once close friends.
Born in Strasbourg in 1906 when that city was part of Germany and not yet France, Hans Albrecht Bethe had a mother who was Jewish although his father, a professor of physiology, was not. After earning his doctorate in physics at the University of Munich and starting his research career, he was forced by Hitler's race laws to flee Germany in 1933 -- first to England and then to the United States and Cornell University."
Let's talk about guns a little bit, and connect it to the Big Brother society.
The article excerpted below reports on a government study that shows that certain people on watch lists are trying to buy guns (or succeeding).
At present, the law does not forbid those on watch lists from buying guns. Gun ownership is a civil right, and our laws do not allow the government to take away our civil rights except in limited circumstances, such as being a convicted felon, etc.
The FBI (and I guess many other govt agencies now) maintain super-secret watchlists of supposed problem people. The article below says that some of those people are buying guns.
But we don't know who is ON the watchlists. So we don't know whether we should actually be concerned about this "problem".
Is it a real problem? We don't have enough info. We ONLY know that the govt has compiled a list of people, a secret list, of thousands of people who it wants to "watch". And the govt has told a congressman that some of those being watched have applied to buy guns.
Big Brother? BB identifies a secret enemies list, and then tells us that the secret people are a threat because they are trying to buys guns.
PROBLEM: Those people on the watch lists are apparently FOLLOWING THE LAW: They are trying to LEGALLY buy guns by filling out applications to purchase, using their REAL NAMES.
Everyone knows that guns can be purchased illegally on the black market.
So why is it so bad for watchlisters to buy guns legally? By filling out applications, the FBI has a record of where the watchlister is, and what kind of firepower they have, and can better FIND the watchlister at any time.
In other words, since the watchlister COULD get guns illegally, maybe it's a GOOD thing that the watchlisters are choosing to get guns LEGALLY and give us all of their current contact info, so WE CAN BETTER WATCH THEM!
But I think the government is going to use this watchlist-gun-purchaser story to try to increase the amount of monitoring of law abiding citizens.
More Big Brother is on the horizon.
The New York Times > National > Terror Suspects Buying Firearms, U.S. Report Finds:
WASHINGTON, March 7 - Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.
People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials and gun control groups have voiced increasing concern about the prospect of a terrorist walking into a gun shop, legally buying an assault rifle or other type of weapon and using it in an attack.
The G.A.O. study offers the first full-scale examination of the possible dangers posed by gaps in the law, Congressional officials said, and it concludes that the Federal Bureau of Investigation 'could better manage' its gun-buying records in matching them against lists of suspected terrorists.
F.B.I. officials maintain that they are hamstrung by laws and policies restricting the use of gun-buying records because of concerns over the privacy rights of gun owners.
At least 44 times from February 2004 to June, people whom the F.B.I. regards as known or suspected members of terrorist groups sought permission to buy or carry a gun, the investigation found.
In all but nine cases, the F.B.I. or state authorities who handled the requests allowed the applications to proceed because a check of the would-be buyer found no automatic disqualification like being a felon, an illegal immigrant or someone deemed 'mentally defective,' the report found.
Bush's comment is interesting, and this KOS thread is interesting.
Let's talk for a minute about the role of the press. Conservatives have essentially declared war on the established traditional press, claiming for a generation that the press is "too liberal."
Now comes the conservative press, as a counter to the perceived biases of the so-called-liberal-media (SCLM), a conservative press perhaps best characterized by FoxNews, and worst characterized by the right wing spinwits like Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter.
Their thesis is that the SCLM does not speak for or to the People's interests or needs.
Their antidote for the SCLM is is propagandize and try to spin everything toward the Republican Party positions.
If you read the left-leaning news sites and blogs, however, you will find a level of criticism of the SCLM that mirrors the level of criticism of the SCLM that is levied by the right wing.
Daily Kos :: Bush to Press: "You're Assuming That You Represent the Public. I Don't Accept That.": "Bush to Press: 'You're Assuming That You Represent the Public. I Don't Accept That.'
by lawnorder
[Subscribe]
Mon Mar 7th, 2005 at 01:34:46 PST
Straight Cut & Paste. Sorry, but I just can't add anything to it. It's perfect as it is...
This article is the top one in readers to date at PressThink, and I believe VERY RELEVANT to GannonGate
PressThink: Bush to Press: 'You're Assuming That You Represent the Public. I Don't Accept That.'
Which is a powerful statement... Bush's people have developed it into a thesis, which they explained to Auletta, who told it to co-host Brooke Gladstone:
That's his attitude. And when you ask the Bush people to explain that attitude, what they say is: We don't accept that you have a check and balance function. We think that you are in the game of 'Gotcha.' Oh, you're interested in headlines, and you're interested in conflict. You're not interested in having a serious discussion... and exploring things.
... [The headlines obssession means that] The press has forfeited, if it ever had, its quasi-official role in the checks and balances of government. Here the Bush Thesis is bold. It says: there is no such role-- official or otherwise."
New study confirms the trend to get political news and commentary from the web.
I've said a few times recently that the Internet makes me feel like we have more freedom of speech than ever before.
Pew Finds Surge for Web as Source of Political News, As Newspapers Sink: "NEW YORK A Pew Center study released today found that using the Internet to get news of politics during the 2004 presidential contest grew sixfold from 1996, while the influence of newspapers sank.
In 1996, only 3% of those surveyed called the Web one of their two leading sources of campaign news. In 2004, the figure was 18%. Reliance on TV rose slightly from 72% to 78% but prime use of newspapers plunged from 60% to 39%.
Four in ten of the heavy Web said they found it an important tool in helping them make a voting choice. "
I think this stuff is fascinating. The Republicans are paying back their Industry Supporters with a bankruptcy reform bill that would make it harder for people to discharge their debts. The Rpublicans took power by convincing a majority of American voters that they were the Party of Godliness, and would legislate based on Biblical teachings (implicitly, anyway).
Now comes a group of Christian lawyers, citing the Bible's provisions about debt forgiveness as the basis for opposing the Republilcan bankruptcy reform bill.
The Republicans defend their industry-friendly reform measure by saying, in essence, "We do not legislate based on the Bible, because we are not a theocracy."
How fascinating.
DesMoinesRegister.com: "A national group of Christian lawyers is appealing to church leaders to join them in lobbying against the bankruptcy reform bill introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia.
The lawyers say the legislation runs contrary to the forgiveness of debt and charity required by the Bible.
'As Christian attorneys, we strongly believe that it was never God's intention to create a society where indebtedness was a crime or a badge of dishonor,' Christian members of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys wrote in a letter sent Feb. 26 to hundreds of church leaders across the nation.
The bill, which is receiving Senate debate, would make it harder for most people to receive full debt cancellation under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy laws. More people would have to repay at least part of their debt, based on income.
The lawyers note that in the Old Testament, God did not outlaw borrowing and lending, but provided that loans would become discharged every seven years.
In response, Grassley said Congress could not be bound by biblical mandates because 'the Constitution does not provide for a theocracy.'"
Workplace fairness is important to me as an employment lawyer, so I watch developments.
Raising the minimum wage is important, but in order to get an increased minimum wage, compromise must occur. Read this CNN article carefully to get a summary how complicated the debate tends to be. Lots of competing proposals are involved.
Part of the debate centers on the Overtime laws, modifying them to allow for Flextime.
I like the idea of Flextime, which is on the table. Currently, the overtime laws do not give employers and employees a lot of leeway to make use of Flextime. Flextime would occur when an employee works fewer hours this week, perhaps for personal or business reasons, and then makes up the hours next week. Say, he works 32 hours this week to take a day off. Then, next week, works 48 hours in order not to suffer lost pay for the two-week pay period. Currently, he can't work 48 hours (even by choice) without being paid overtime, so employers can't let him use Flextime.
Both employees and employers can benefit from Flextime. Employers can shift the workload during a down period, by having a short week and a long week, without incurring overtime (to a max of say, 10 extra hours). Workers' pay for the period does not suffer.
My position on Flextime may place me at odds with a lot of people, but I think Flextime is a fair concept in theory, and can be beneficial to everyone.
The overtime laws are in some ways far too rigid.
CNN.com - Senate to vote on minimum wage proposals - Mar 5, 2005: "Santorum's proposal contains an idea that Republicans have advocated, without success, for years: 'flex-time,' which gives employees the option of shifting their work hours over a two-week period. Supporters say this would allow workers to adjust their schedules to meet family needs."
Remember the story a month or two ago about the "journalists" that the Republican Party or the Bush Administration PAID to write about pro-Republican policies? One of the KEY FACTS of the story was that the journalists DID NOT DISCLOSE that their "opinions" were funded by the Republicans.
Now comes a real journalist, Frank Rich, and tries to show that he is balanced by trying to find some left-leaning journalists who might have collected money from politicians.
PROBLEM: The examples he used DISCLOSED THE CONNECTION. So the analogy is BAD. God, what are we going to do with these people?
Daily Kos :: Even Frank Rich Falls for "Dean Paid Bloggers" Nonstory: "Even Frank Rich Falls for 'Dean Paid Bloggers' Nonstory
by DHinMI
Sat Mar 5th, 2005 at 17:04:18 PST
Update [2005-3-5 20:4:18 by Armando]: From the diaries by Armando.
(Cross-posted at The Next Hurrah)
One of my weekly pleasures is to read Frank Rich's Sunday jeremiads, in which he regularly rails against the hypocrisies of our culture and the craven laziness of our press. So, it's with great disappointment that I just read this:
Today you can't tell the phonies without a scorecard. Besides the six 'journalists' we know to have been paid by the administration or its backers, bloggers were on the campaign payrolls of both a Republican office-seeker (South Dakota's Senator John Thune) and a Democrat (Howard Dean) during last year's campaign.
Frank Rich should know better. In an article where he's decrying the laziness of the press in not following up on the Gannon/Guckert imbroglio, he makes the incredibly ironic mistake of falling for the canard that the relationships between Markos (who posted on Daily Kos that he was consulting for the Dean campaign on technical matters) and Jerome Armstrong (who completely shut down his own blog and didn't write on it while working directly for the Dean campaign) is somehow to be equated with the deviousness and dishonesty of the tools in South Dakota who regularly slandered Tom Daschle under the guise of being independent voices of opinion without divulging their direct financial arrangements with the Republican party.
When even your most well-meaning friends like Frank Rich can screw up like that--and it slips past the fact-checkers at the New York Times--you can see the insidiousness and persistence of false stories being repeated in the media, and how getting rid of untruths like this one is like ridding a rundown tenement of cockroaches."
Commentators on both the Left and the Right are using the "F" word (fascism) to describe the bottom of the slop we are on since 9/11. See the following KOS thread and the links it contains.
Part of the "F" word concept is the erosion of civil liberties and the increase in government surveillance and scrutiny, which are hallmarks of F regimes. But there is lots more, including the intolerance of dissent, and creating the aura that the Leader is annointed somehow (by Destiny or God).
For a running commentary on the "F" concept, a diarist at KOS maintains a
"This Week in Fascism" thread here.
Daily Kos :: Conservatives Scream Warning of Fascist America!: "Conservatives Scream Warning of Fascist America!
by mitch2k2
[Subscribe]
Fri Mar 4th, 2005 at 22:00:50 PST
We used to cringe at the hyperbole of the word. Fascist. Now we see the road we're on, and where it leads taken to its logical progression. A growing number of conservative thinkers are now also speaking the word clearly and frequently with none of the hesitation we might use. With, I should add, a palpable sense of alarm.
Justin Raimondo's well-sourced essay on the heels of several startling articles; Hunger for Dicatatorship by Scott McConnell, The Brownshirting of America by Paul Craig Roberts, and Lew Rockwell's musings on The Reality of Red-State Fascism, all lead me to one conclusion: They see it coming. Consider the following from Raimondo's piece today:
From the moment the twin towers were hit, the fascist seed began to germinate, to take root and grow. As the first shots of what the neocons call 'World War IV' rang out, piercing the post-Cold War calm like a shriek straight out of Hell, the political and cultural climate underwent a huge shift: the country became, for the first time in the modern era, a hothouse conducive to the growth of a genuinely totalitarian tendency in American politics.
There's more. "
Here's a religious thread, criticizing the Religious Right for too much involvement in government, and making some interesting arguments. Among the interesting points: That the Religious Right seems to thinks its flock's faith is weak, or else why seek goverment involvement promoting its religion and protecting people from threatening concepts like evolution.
Also, in the excerpt below, the author shows how short the road is to theocracy.
Daily Kos :: Confessions of a Former Dittohead: The Weak Faith of the Religious Right: "How scary was it to hear Antonin Scalia say that the 10 Commandments in the courthouse acknowledges that the government ultimately derives its power from God? That's odd. I kind of thought that the government derived it's power from the consent of the governed. But I'm just getting that from the Constitution, so what do I know. Folks, it's a pretty quick hop, skip, and a jump from God being the source of the Government's power to God powering the Government. Then the next step is to say 'God choose the President.' And the final, and perhaps the most deadly step is for the President to think he was chosen by God. Shit...I hate when I do that! If there's one thing history is replete with, it's people who think they were chosen by God doing stupid stuff!
There are many practical reasons for wanting to keep church and state separated, many of which your average religious conservative has never considered. Take this simple one for example--whose religion do you teach? Is it the one where I have to be born again? Or is it the one where I have to go to confession? Do I need to avoid red meat, or handle snakes? Which Gospel is the true Gospel? John or Mormon? These are all great conversations to have Sunday morning, or even during the week at Bible study. But they suck when you're trying to involve the government. And these are just the differences in the Christian denominations. This does nothing to address the sad, powerless minority of religious `others' in this country. It is on their behalf that I say we have to keep the 10 Commandments out of the courtroom."
Here's an example of over the top, near hate speech, from a republican congressman. He says we should send liberals to Iraq to be human shields for the enemy. Wow, what a garbage unAmerican mentality!
Rush and Sean and Ann and the other spinwits make similar statements, suggesting that dissenters are treasonous or don't deserve to be in America.
That's pure moronic unAmerican trash talk. If there were not already SO MUCH right wing intolerance on the airwaves, it wouldn't be a big deal. But it IS abig deal, because most of the radio dial is filled with such crap, from the spinwits and from the preachers and other radio shows.
Folks, it's simply dangerous and unAmerican to equate dissenters with traitors, and to equate Democrats or liberals with evil (as in the title of HAnnity's book).
Here in the USA, we are strong because of our tradition of vigorous debate and free speech. We make better decisions (in the long term, not the short term) because we argue so much about the right vs wrong way to do something.
Daily Kos :: Rep. Gibbons (R-NV): Liberals Should Be Human Shields in Iraq: "Rep. Gibbons (R-NV): Liberals Should Be Human Shields in Iraq
by DavidNYC
Wed Mar 2nd, 2005 at 14:12:10 PST
Jim Gibbons, an extremist Republican Congressman from Nevada, offers the latest version of the GOP 'dissent is treason' talking points, coupled with the threat of violence against political opponents:
'I say we tell those liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals to go make their movies and their music and whine somewhere else,' Gibbons said to another burst of applause.
...
He said that they are the same people who wanted to go to Iraq and become human shields for the enemy.
'I say it's just too damn bad we didn't buy them a ticket,' Gibbons said.
Laughter rippled through the room, mingled with more applause. (Emphasis added.)
This kind of hate speech has no place in civil society. By engaging in such base commentary, Rep. Gibbons has declared himself unfit to hold office and must resign."
The Federal election Commission is going to be passing some critical judgments soon about whether and how to "regulate" political activity on the internet, including the major political blogs probably.
We'll be following the evolution of this story.
As I've said before, the power to regulate is tantamount ot the power to prohibit.
I've also said, though, that due to the internet, I personally feel that my freedom of speech has been increased. I'd hate to have to retract that statement, due to limitations on my speech imposed by the FEC.
It's hard to imagine that I might be affected by any FEC decisions, but it's always possible I guess.
Daily Kos :: FEC Attack on Internet-Based Political Advocacy?: "FEC Attack on Internet-Based Political Advocacy?
by Armando
Thu Mar 3rd, 2005 at 08:00:38 PST
atrios draws our attention to what could be a very worrisome development - an apparent attempt to regulate Internet political advocacy in such a way that would kill it. From an interview with FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith (who seems to be a good guy on this issue):
Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines. Smith should know. He's one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.
In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. 'The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines' the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
. . . CNET News.com spoke with Smith about the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold law, and its forthcoming extrusion onto the Internet.
Q: What rules will apply to the Internet that did not before?
A: The commission has generally been hands-off on the Internet. We've said, 'If you advertise on the Internet, that's an expenditure of money--much like if you were advertising on television or the newspaper.'Do we give bloggers the press exemption? The real question is: Would a link to a candidate's page be a problem? If someone sets up a home page and links to their favorite politician, is that a contribution? This is a big deal, if someone has already contributed the legal maximum, or if they're at the disclosure threshold and additional expenditures have to be disclosed under federal law. Certainly a lot of bloggers are very much out front. Do we give bloggers the press exemption? If we don't give bloggers the press exemption, we have the question of, do we extend this to online-only journals like CNET? How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician? How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? . . . How about a hyperlink? Is it worth a penny, or a dollar, to a campaign? I don't know. But I'll tell you this. . . . It's still going to be difficult to value the link, but the value of the link will go up very quickly."
I have mixed feelings about the banning of the death penalty for offenders who were 16 or 17 when they did their crimes.
I generally support the death penalty (but not strongly), which is the minority position among my more liberal colleagues in the plaintiff's bar.
And I feel that the jury should get to decide whether this particular 16 or 17 year old SHOULD BE punished as an adult, considering all allowable factors. A lot of youg offenders are adult in every meaningful way except age.
But I understand all of the anti-death penalty arguments, and I respect those arguments. If we banned the death penalty completely, I would not take to the streets to protest. I have mixed feelings about it, but I am not passionate about it either way.
Yahoo! News - High Court Ends Death Penalty for Youths: "High Court Ends Death Penalty for Youths
Tue Mar 1, 6:37 PM ET
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A closely divided Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile criminals on Tuesday, declaring there was a national consensus such executions were unconstitutionally cruel and ending a practice that had brought international condemnation.
The 5-4 decision, which overturns a 1989 high court ruling, throws out the death sentences of 72 murderers who committed their crimes as juveniles and bars states from seeking to execute others. Nineteen states had allowed death sentences for killers who committed their crimes when they were under 18."
Do you believe we have the
right to sexual privacy in the USA, at least as long as we don't hurt anyone else? I thought so. That's a libertarian position, a freedom loving position. Some will disagree with such freedoms, such as those who would like to see our government and laws mirror the doctrines of a particular religious persuasion.
Be dismayed, then, you freedom lovers, that a US Court of Appeals refuses to acknowledge that we have the right to sexual privacy, and that the US Supreme Court has refused to take the case on further appeal.
The excerpt below talks about the Alabama ban on sale of adult toys, and how the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the ban (saying our constitution does NOT provide a right to sexual privacy). The US Supreme Court has refused to review the decision.
The author gives a nice overview for the layman showing how the constitution is structured and how it's ridiculous for a court to say that the "right to sexual privacy" is not listed, for neither is the "right to marry" listed either.
Please remember that the President gets to appoint federal judges, who then make rulings affecting our daily lives. When we elect moral crusaders as presidents, we run the risk of getting moral crusaders as judges, deciding our freedoms or lack thereof.
Toying with your freedom - PittsburghLIVE.com: "In its July ruling, the circuit court was concerned that siding with the toy merchants could open the door to the legalization of behaviors such as prostitution. Since using the toys and engaging in physical acts are permissible -- as long as money is not exchanged -- the court appears more troubled by commerce than sex. It referred several issues in the case back to the U.S. District Court for review -- including whether states have the right to legislate morality. (If they do not, the laws of all states will be voided.)
The majority opinion stated the U.S. Constitution does not include a right to sexual privacy. True, but not the way the judges suggest.
The Constitution is a simple, short document divided into seven sections called 'articles.' It is the blueprint for the structure and operation of the federal government.
Rights are not mentioned. Nor should they be. The Founders understood that the state cannot grant rights. Only God can, and does for all. And to protect us from it, the Bill of Rights tells the government what it must not do.
The right of sexual privacy is not listed, but neither are your rights to marry, have children or do almost anything you want whenever you want. Unless otherwise addressed in those documents, you are free to live as you wish, but do not interfere with another's rights."
The excerpted article is an interesting and probably pretty accurate description of the last 25 years of political history regarding how the USA has dealt with the Middle East. He shows that we are likely to begin attacking Iran soon, in one way or another, and explains why.
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit (downplayed somewhat in the article but still there) is the connection McGovern makes between our aggression in the Middle East and our need for a reliable supply of oil. This harkens to the F-911 movie a little bit.
Whether you agree with McGovern or not, he names names and lays out off the apparent facts. The article is a good history lesson, or at least a jumping off place for further research on your own to better understand the history of our involvement in the Middle East over the last generation.
Don't just dismiss McGovern's insights as BS, because he describes how he reaches those insights, and it's logical. He may be wrong in some respects, but he has decent sounding reasons for feeling the way that he does.
Reasoned discourse is refreshing.
Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "It sounds crazy, but ...
By Ray McGovern
'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'
(Short pause)
'And having said that, all options are on the table.'
Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: laughter.
- The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin on President George W Bush's February 22 press conference
For a host of good reasons - the huge and draining commitment of US forces to Iraq and Iran's ability to stir the Iraqi pot to boiling, for starters - the notion that the Bush administration would mount a 'preemptive' air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953 - this time under the rubric of 'regime change'."
Quick Diversion: I switched to the
Firefox browser a couple of months ago, and I could NOT be MORE pleased. I've moved ALL of my computers at home and work to Firefox. It's a GREAT browser, with hundreds of addons (called extensions) to make it do cool and useful things. Get rid of Internet Explorer, people, and get Firefox now.
NewsFactor Network - Enterprise - How Serious Is the Firefox Threat to IE?: "Microsoft has ample reason to be concerned on the browser front. Firefox is gaining ground and eroding a market share once considered to be unassailable -- and the Mozilla Foundation's product is not the only competitor chipping away at IE's numbers."
I'm going to start following the story of the Choicepoint company. Choicepoint is a company that maintains data records on EVERYBODY, and has government contracts and private industry contracts to USE that information.
Choicepoint was in the news recently because a group of con men scammed Choicepoint into relesing about a hundred thousand records, including social security numbers.
In the excerpt below, a reporter connects Choicepoint to the Florida election for president in 2000, accusing choicepoint and the Republican Katherine Harris of disenfranchising thousands of voters unfairly.
See also this DailyKOS thread about Choicepoint and the Florida electionsCHOICEPOINT: The REAL Big Brother (watch for more to come)
Don't look at the flash!
Ground Zero as Profit Center
As the towers fell, ChoicePoint's stock rose; and from Ground Zero, contracts gushed forth from War on Terror fever. Why? Because this outfit is holding no less 16 billion records on every living and dying being in the USA. They're the Little Brother with the filing system when Big Brother calls.
ChoicePoint's quick route to no-bid spy contracts was not impeded by the fact that the company did something for George W. Bush that the voters would not: select him as our president.
Here’s how they did it. Before the 2000 election, ChoicePoint unit Database Technologies, held a $4 million no-bid contract under the control of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, to identify felons who had illegally registered to vote. The ChoicePoint outfit altogether fingered 94,000 Florida residents. As it turned out, less than 3,000 had a verifiable criminal record; almost everyone on the list had the right to vote.
The tens of thousands of “purged” citizens had something in common besides their innocence: The list was, in the majority, made up of African Americans and Hispanics, overwhelmingly Democratic voters whose only crime was V.W.B: Voting While Black. And that little ethnic cleansing operation, conducted by Governor Jeb Bush's gang with ChoicePoint's aid, determined the race in which Harris named Bush the winner by 537 votes.
The following diary from DailyKOS is a fairly cynical but not too-far-out depiction of the erosion of our civil liberties in recent years. Read the diary and the hundred or so comments that follow in on the DailyKOS site.
My take: We are in a time of panic since 9/11, and we have surrendered protections in order to feel safe. That's bad.
However, there is hope: At least at present,
I see no organized movement to suppress political speech.
With free political speech comes the ability to reverse the abuses of recent years.
The pendulum will swing back eventually, as long as we remain free to openly criticize the government and each other.
Putin thinks Bush fired Dan Rather, and more on the erosion of liberty in the USA
Putin to Bush: You Fired Dan Rather didn't you?
by Magorn
Mon Feb 28th, 2005 at 11:59:34 PST
Last week, Bush was supposed to be the Voice of the Free World, giving a stern lecture to V. Putin who is crushing all forms of independence in Russia and seems determined to return it to the bad old Soviet days.
When Putin looked at Bush however, he didn't see an example to follow, but a soul mate. There was an all too revealing private moment at the Bush-Putin Summit, that has been caught for posterity: Time magazine :
_________________
But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."
_________________
now why oh why would Valdimir think that? cough Karl Rove cough hmmmm can't imagine...
But it does beg a very interesting question. Is Putin a "confused foreigner who doesn't understand our ways" or he a lot closer to the truth than we are comfortable admitting? Last week I posted Dan Froomkin's brilliant piece dissecting Bush's "America is wonderful and free" speech, when asked the equivalency question again by a Russian reporter. And in reading those links as well as fellow Kossack Tomtech's Ongoing series "this week in Fascism" has really made me stop and wonder.
Are we still a free people? If the question were, to steal a phrase from the Gipper, "are you Less Free today than you were 4 years ago?". The answer wouldn't even take a second's thought. My law school career began 1 month before 9/11, and since that time I've watched the steady erosion of our rights and freedoms. In nearly every class I had in Con Law, Crim Pro, or 1st amendment, the professor was forced to say at some point "well this has been the settled law for almost 50 years, however in light of recent developments..." and then they would tick off gaping new holes that had been opened in some of the most basic Civil rights.
Habeas Corpus? Ask the Detainees at Gitmo about that one.
Right to a Fair and Speedy Trial? Well except for Jose Padilla
Right to the assistance of Counsel? I'm sure Lynee Stewart would love to have a conversation about that with you
Right to be free from government Takings without due process?: Well Benevolence International would dispute that point
Well how about the 1935 ruling that ended the use of Confessions obtained by torture? Surely a 70 yr old standard of decency was safe? Nope
Okay...hmmm lets go to the basics: The Rule of Law? Separate and Co-equal branches of government? Not if you ask choke Attorney General Gonzales
I wont even bother to get into the FCC trampling free speech, The Justice department Shredding the idea of personal Privacy, and Wingnuts on the hill who want a DNA sample on your driver's license. I think the point is made. Are we still in a free country? Balancing everything I still think we are, things are bad right now, but they have been worse (especially if you were black or female) in this country and we have persevered. Will we be in 5 more years if we don't do something? That's a harder question to answer
