The WAWG Blog

Rep. Pete Sessions Accuses Obama of Deliberately Driving Up Unemployment and Dampening Stock Prices – U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions of Dallas, a member of the House Republican leadership, is accusing President Barack Obama of intentionally driving up unemployment and dampening stock prices in a bid to consolidate power. Sessions told The New York Times that the administration intends to “diminish employment and diminish stock prices” as part of a “divide and conquer” strategy. And he asserted that the Obama agenda is “intended to inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system, if not to kill it.”

Limbaugh Mocks the Recession While Clear Channel Employees Get Pummeled – At the President’s Club Dinner Sunday night, Clear Channel’s most famous employee, Rush Limbaugh, mocked the idea that Americans are suffering, noting, “I’ve never had financially a down year” despite the “supposed” recession. Limbaugh said, “I always believed that if we’re going to have a recession, just don’t participate.” That’s easy for him to say while he’s lounging in his 24,000-square-foot Florida estate or motoring in his $450,000 car to the airport to ride in his $54 million jet. But the company he works for corporation that now teeters on the brink and many of it’s employees fear for their jobs.

Does he feel a little guilty? In the twisted conservative mind, if you’re having a problem, it’s your fault.
[The conservative without conscience (CWC) worldview is defined by phrases like: “You’re on your own,” “You deserve what you get.” CWCs do not understand that there are systemic causes for any individual’s situation. CWCs believe everyone is in direct control of their own future. CWCs have no understanding of the “butterfly effect.”]

John Stossel Says We Should Eat Endangered Species if We Want to Save Them – Conservative reporter for ABC, John Stossel, says banning the sale of products from endangered animals doesn’t work. (Sorry, John, it worked great for elephants.) You see, the conservative solution for everything is let business make money off of it, or give it a tax break. Since animals don’t pay taxes, Stossel thinks endangered animals should be farmed and eaten. That might work for a few species like Bison, but not most.

Continued from yesterday…
RNC Chairman Bashes “Empathy”; Shows He Doesn’t Know What the Word Means – RNC Chairman Michael Steele, guest-hosting for radio talk show host Bill Bennett, got all gangsta and up in the grill of them libruls for actually wanting a Supreme Court Justice to be “empathetic”:

Good morning y’all, we’re back in the house. We’re talking a little bit of Constitution and a little bit Supreme Court. And a whole lot of saving America’s judicial system and saving our rights as citizens and not having empathetic judges decide cases, but rather judges who are actually understanding the rule of law and what the Constitution and those laws are all about. And how to apply the facts to the law and the law to the facts. And adjudicate my case. I don’t need some judge sitting up there feeling bad for my opponent because of their life circumstances or their condition. And short changing me and my opportunity to get fair treatment under the law. Crazy nonsense empathetic. I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind.

Does he even know what empathy means? Empathy is distinct from sympathy, pity, and emotional contagion. Empathy does not necessarily imply compassion, sympathy, or empathic concern. Empathy is the capability to share your feelings and understand another’s emotion and feelings. It is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes,” or in some way experience what the other person is feeling. It does not mean you have to agree with them.

Regards,

Jim

Property Protected by Guns; Seven-Year Old Killed by Shotgun Fire in Dark – A 7-year-old boy who loved playing outdoors and riding on the back of his daddy’s Harley died Saturday morning after a Liberty County, Texas couple opened fire on him and three other alleged trespassers. Donald Coffey Jr., his father and friends were on their way back from joy riding near a levee and swimming in the Trinity River around 9 p.m. Thursday when homeowners Gale and Sheila Muhs fired at them with a 12-gauge shotgun, police say. The boy, struck in the face, was among eight people, including four children, who had been on the river outing. Four people, including another child, were shot. The ordeal happened over two or three minutes in “pitch darkness.”

The men stopped to use the bathroom and got out of the Jeep near the Muhses’ home in the Westlake subdivision south of Dayton when a woman’s voice boomed through the darkness, Nelton said. In a message peppered with expletives, she said, the voice ordered the group to get their vehicles off the property. “And then I heard a shot and our windows were blown out,” Cindy Nelton said.

The Muhs home is fronted by a sign warning: “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be reshot!! Smile I will”

Cheney Says He’d Take Limbaugh Over Powell as a Republican – On CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday morning, Bob Schieffer had asked Cheney who he’d prefer as spokesman for the GOP: Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell. Powell has said that Republicans need to move to the center and that Limbaugh diminishes the party by injecting nastiness into public life. Limbaugh has responded that Powell is “just another liberal” and should become a Democrat.

Choosing between the two men is apparently easy for Cheney, despite the fact he worked alongside Powell for four years during the first Bush administration. “If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican I’d go with Rush Limbaugh,” Cheney said. It seems that Colin Powell just isn’t nasty enough to be a real Republican in Cheney’s eyes.

Conservative Group Aims to “Swift Boat” Health-Care Reform – Rick Scott, founder of a group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, is a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive. Scott was ousted as head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company amid a fraud investigation in the 1990s.

Scott has become the leader of the opposition to health-care reform plans that Congress is expected to take up later this year. Scott is using $5 million of his own money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to any government-run program.

The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the “Swift boat” attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, and is inspired by the “Harry and Louise” ads that helped torpedo health-care reform during the Clinton administration.

Fair and Balanced Fox News Provides Date for Sarah Palin’s Husband – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin couldn’t make the White House Correspondents dinner Saturday, so she sent hubby, Todd, who had a whale of a time. Todd happily lapped up the attention from his tablemates and rarely left the side of his date for the evening, Fox News anchor Greta van Susteren. The two became so close that we caught them hanging out together well past midnight at Capitol File magazine’s annual after-dinner bash.

Meghan McCain a Real Pain at D.C. Dinner – At White House Correspondents dinner Saturday, Meghan McCain wanted to admit three people although she had only two tickets. The security guard sent her to talk to someone to sort out the situation, but Meghan got bratty and nastily told him, ‘We’ll just stand here then,’ like an insolent child,” our source said, adding that after dealing with the guard, “She muttered to her friends, ‘Does he even know who the f— I am?’ ” An insider said, “Those tickets were harder to get than gold dust and Meghan blatantly only had two and thought she didn’t have to follow the same rules as everyone else.” The vocal McCain “was complaining about everything from the air-conditioning to the wait,” said the insider.

CBS Sports Golf Analyst Talks About Killing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty was among five Dallas residents who wrote for “D Magazine” on former President George W. Bush moving to Dallas. “From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though,” Feherty wrote toward the end of his column. “Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”

Attorney General of Texas is Threatening Women Who Have Been Raped That Their Credit Will be Ruined – Greg Abbott, the attorney general of Texas is sending letters to women who have been raped threatening their credit will be ruined unless they pay for the part of the criminal investigation known as the rape kit.

(A rape kit is a set of items that specially trained medial staff use to gather and preserve evidence of a sexual assault. A woman can decline the process, which can take up to four hours, but going to an emergency room and undergoing this additional intrusion helps document the attack and gives law enforcement evidence it needs to investigate the crime and prosecute the rapist.) The cost, according to CNN/ KPRC, runs $1,200 to $1,800.

Has the state’s attorney general lost his mind? Do these penny-pinching bureaucrats have no decency, no shame at all? [What has happened to their ability to empathize?]

RNC Chairman Bashes “Empathy”; Shows He Doesn’t Know What the Word Means – RNC Chairman Michael Steele, guest-hosting for radio talk show host Bill Bennett, got all gangsta and up in the grill of them libruls for actually wanting a Supreme Court Justice to be “empathetic”:

Good morning y’all, we’re back in the house. We’re talking a little bit of Constitution and a little bit Supreme Court. And a whole lot of saving America’s judicial system and saving our rights as citizens and not having empathetic judges decide cases, but rather judges who are actually understanding the rule of law and what the Constitution and those laws are all about. And how to apply the facts to the law and the law to the facts. And adjudicate my case. I don’t need some judge sitting up there feeling bad for my opponent because of their life circumstances or their condition. And short changing me and my opportunity to get fair treatment under the law. Crazy nonsense empathetic. I’ll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind.

Does he even know what empathy means? Empathy is
Empathy and our political worldviews

Terrorist Traffic Via Syria Returns – A Syrian pipeline used by Al-Qaeda in Iraq to smuggle Islamic fighters into Iraq has been reactivated after a short lull. “We do think that the knowledge of these networks exists at least within the Syrian intelligence community,” the paper quoted an unnamed senior US military official as saying. “What level, if it’s low or high up, we just don’t have a good gauge on. There was a period … where we were probably seeing less than half a dozen foreign fighters being pushed through the network.” More recently, he said, the estimate has risen to 20 a month, and various intelligence sources have noted an increased “demand call” in Iraq for foreign fighters.

Regards,

Jim

Here are samples of how conservatives without conscience (CWC) are responding to the word “empathy.”

• Be A Good Republican: Attack Empathy, Defend Torture
• Jeff Sessions Claims He Doesn’t Know What Empathy Is
• Steele: ‘Crazy nonsense empathetic!’
• GOP freaks out as America almost destroyed by ‘the empathy within’

Why is empathy of such concern to CWCs?

One characteristic of CWCs is that they are typically sexist. Speculation, by many, is that President Obama will nominate a woman to the Supreme Court. Chris Weigant proposes that references to empathy suggest President Obama is indeed going to nominate a woman. This would be of great concern to CWCs – white authoritarian men from our government and Fox Noise.

However, some Republicans are vilifying empathy because they know it is a key difference between CWCs and progressives and that progressives can use it against their authoritarian ways. Progressives nurture the natural empathy we are all born with. CWCs suppress it through the strict father family model describe by George Lakoff.

George Lakoff has written about the progressive and conservative worldviews and how empathy is key to differentiating these worldviews. He also writes about the research which shows empathy’s origins, how it changes in us, and what it means to the progressive movement. Understanding the CWC attack on empathy can be enlightened by some quotes from Lakoff’s book The Political Mind:

Behind every progressive policy lies a single morale value: empathy, together with the responsibility and strength to act on that empathy.

Empathy leads to recognizing that unfair and discriminatory treatment is a form of harm requiring government protection.

Empathy is the basis for the concept of fair and responsible market …

Empathy also forms the moral basis of class action suits …

Empathy is also the moral basis of laws protecting citizens from abuse by government.

Privatization without empathy eliminates the progressive moral capacities of government – protection and empowerment – …

Nurturance is empathy, responsibility for oneself and others, and the strength to carry out those responsibilities.

In addition, mirror neuron and associated research tells us that we are born with a capacity for empathy.

Empathy is at the center of the progressive moral worldview.

Empathy is normal, and it takes a special education (such as basic training in the Army), a special heartlessness, or a brain injury to disengage it.

There is a moral here for progressives. The more they can activate empathy in the public, the more support will be available to them and the worse conservatives [CWCs] will do. Correspondingly, the more conservatives [CWCs] can generate fear in the public, the more support they will generate, and the more that will inhibit support for progressives.

Empathy, she [Lynn Hunt] argues, was the historical basis of our democracy.

American Democracy was founded on the politics of empathy and responsibility, …

The biology of empathy allows us to comprehend our connection to each other, to other living things, and to the physical world that supports life.

Empathy and real reason, as we shall see, reveal its [Economic man] fallacies.

Ecology is not just a science about the natural world outside of people. It is the moral concern based in empathy; …

For progressives, their views follow directly from empathy with the public at large. For conservatives [without conscience], their views follow directly from strict father morality applied to the market.

A nurturant parent has to really be empathetic and responsible to be respected, trusted, and accepted as an authority. (As I typed this, I thought of President Obama.)

As we have seen, the discovery of mirror neuron circuitry and associated pathways shows that empathy and cooperation are natural. … This suggests that empathy is the natural state …

Taking empathy as natural utterly changes explanations — and it changes our understanding of what social live should be and can be.

Democrats put themselves in a precarious – and I think ultimately hopeless – position when they are really motivated by empathy, but wind up reasoning and arguing interests … They fail in two ways: they fail to activate empathy – their own moral foundation – in the brains of voters, while they succeed in activating self-interest, which conservatives [without conscience] specialize in.

We [sh]ould understand that our brains evolved for empathy, for cooperation, for connection to each other and to the earth.

We [sh]ould embrace the fact that empathy is at the heart of American Democracy.

We [sh]ould see how empathy is also at the heart of ecological consciousness.

Empathy, as the foundation of the progressive worldview, is a major threat to CWCs and their conservative worldview.

Here are some phrases worth keeping in mind, and which can minimize the effects of conservative strict-father worldview talking points. You should also try these Thinking Points.

Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report – Former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts. “In recent days, attorneys for the subjects of the ethics probe have encouraged senior Bush administration appointees to write and phone Justice Department officials, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

US Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens, Human Rights Researcher and Rights Group Say – United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and follow-up investigations. In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees — and as many as 12 — having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.

Limbaugh Says Republicans Don’t Need to Listen to the People; Eric Cantor Disagrees with Himself So That He Can Agree With Limbaugh – Rep. Eric Cantor led a much-publicized GOP listening tour this past weekend — or so we all thought. “What we’re trying to do here today is kick off a series of town hall forums so that we can get back to listening to the people,” Cantor told CNN on Sunday morning as he kicked off the rebranding effort. “Listening to people can make a difference,” declared Mitt Romney while sitting on stage with Cantor during the first event. “That’s what we’re talking about here, we’re listening to people.”

But then Rush Limbaugh spoke up. “We do not need a listening tour,” the conservative radio king made clear on Monday. “We need a teaching tour. That is what the Republican Party, or, slash, the conservative movement needs to focus on. Listening tour ain’t it.”

And so it was on Wednesday morning, when Eric Cantor appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, that he cleared the matter up. “You know, Joe, really, this is not a listening tour.”

Records Show Appointees Gave Gov. Perry $5 Million – Texas Gov. Rick Perry has accepted nearly $5 million in political campaign donations from people he appointed to state boards and commissions, including some in plum jobs that set policy for state universities, parks and roads, records show. Nearly half the appointee donations came from people serving as higher education regents, including more than $840,000 from those at the University of Texas System, according to a Houston Chronicle review of campaign-finance records.

In some cases, Perry’s appointees gave money in the weeks before or after being selected. A commissioner on the Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board, for example, gave $33,000 two weeks after his appointment. Rick Francis, an El Paso banker who has donated more than $180,000 to Perry, including a $25,000 donation six days before his appointment to the Texas Tech University Board of Regents, said he was proud to support the governor financially.

Democrat Leading Charge Against Global Warming Bill – Democrat Rick Boucher (D-VA) supports reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 — but he’s leading the charge to water down the first-ever legislation to control greenhouse gases. A key moderate Democrat from coal country, Boucher solidified his resistance to Democrats’ massive carbon trade global warming bill after being ousted from his seat on an energy committee, according to a report Tuesday.

Merck Published Fake Medical Journal – In its efforts to sell fatally flawed drugs, Merck produced and published a fake journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine. Articles called “Reviews” were generally brief, poorly documented, poorly or not referenced, and often didn’t give authors’ names, other than to specify “B&J”, presumably meaning “Bone and Joint” as a reference to the fake journal. Most, if not all, of the studies were reprints or summaries of existing studies that had previously been printed in Elsevier journals.

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 Gave Tax Breaks to Corporations, But Didn’t Create Jobs – The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 allowed companies that had earned profits overseas to inexpensively bring that money back into the States. The customary tax rate on such profits was 35 percent. But this elegantly named process — repatriation of profits — gave companies a one-time chance four years ago to haul the money home, paying only 5.25 percent. The act was a tax holiday sought by a coalition of companies, primarily big pharmaceutical and high-technology corporations, all because they sought to pay little or no taxes on profits generated overseas — and they concocted a successful scheme to pull it off. But did the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 actually lead to a net gain in jobs? Nope. Did it provide “a new source of investment for American companies”? Not even close.

Regards,

Jim

Pete Olsen Using Taxpayer Money to Spread Lies
I just received a glossy mailer from Congressman Pete Olsen marked ‘PUBLIC DOCUMENT” and “OFFICIAL BUSINESS.”
Inside, it lists the following “Special Interest Spending” items (among others):

• $8 billion for High Speed Rail, including a rail line from Las Vegas to Disneyland sought by the Senate Majority Leader
• $4.5 billion to convert federal buildings into “high performance green buildings”
• $2 billion for ACORN and other “community organizers” through the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund

The first and third items have been proven to be false by numerous sources. These items have been known to untrue for quite some time, but that didn’t stop Olsen from repeating them now on his taxpayer-funded mailer. See: After Lying About High-Speed Rail Line From Disneyland, Jindal Leaves For Disney World (Seriously) and The Hill repeated false GOP claim that ACORN is a beneficiar[y] of the stimulus package.

And as for the second item, what is special interest about reducing our reliance on foreign oil, saving government money by reducing energy costs, and reducing pollution in the air that all Americans breathe?

I suggest we all take our mailers to Olsen’s local office and demand that he refund the money we spent to fund his spreading of GOP lies. I don’t pay taxes to support lying.

Small-Town Texas Police Confiscate Cash and Belongings From Racial Minorities – Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery. The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car. But Daniels couldn’t go to the police to report the incident. The men who stopped him were the police.

Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges — but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.

Now Daniels and other motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff’s lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000.

Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away. Like Daniels, the couple says they were carrying a large amount of cash — about $6,000 — to buy a car. When they were stopped in Tenaha in 2007, Boatright said, Russell came to the Tenaha police station to berate her and threaten to separate the family.

Maryland resident Amanee Busbee said she also was threatened with losing custody of her child after being stopped in Tenaha with her fiancé and his business partner. They were headed to Houston with $50,000 to complete the purchase of a restaurant, she said. “The police officer would say things to me like, ‘Your son is going to child protective services because you are not saying what we need to hear,’ ” Busbee said.

Guillory, who practices in nearby Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates authorities in Tenaha seized $3 million between 2006 and 2008, and in about 150 cases — virtually all of which involved African-American or Latino motorists — the seizures were improper. “They are disproportionately going after racial minorities,” he said. “My take on the matter is that the police in Tenaha, Texas, were picking on and preying on people that were least likely to fight back.”

Former Unit of Cheney’s Firm Makes Up ‘Vast Majority’ of Criminal Audit Cases in Wake of Iraq War – In shocking testimony made by the Pentagon’s top auditor on Monday, the Defense Department revealed that a former unit of the company where Vice President Cheney was CEO is under investigation for allegedly billing for unallowable costs, accepting bribes, falsifying time cards and overbilling.

April Stephenson, head of the Pentagon’s contract audit agency, said she didn’t know of any contractor probed that had ever been cited for so many abuses. Of the 32 cases under criminal investigation, KBR constituted the “vast majority.”

Regards,

Jim

CEO Perks Rise As Pay Falls – U.S. companies remain generous with the perks they give to CEOs, including some that are unfathomable to the average American worker: chauffeured cars, bodyguards, club memberships and free travel in company jets. The median value of these and similar perks rose nearly 7 percent in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis of regulatory filings from 309 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500. The increase came even as overall CEO compensation fell 7 percent to $7.6 million. Perks rose despite a public backlash against such benefits, which many investors and lawmakers deem excessive.

Newt Gingrich Says Obama Wants to “get up in the morning and punish Americans” – A pretty good barometer of Republicans’ utter desperation these days is just how far-flung from reality their attempts to characterize President Obama are getting to be. Newt Gingrich, who’s clearly preparing for a 2012 White House run, was interviewed yesterday on Fox by Greta Van Susteren said, “I think that’s very dangerous, to have a president who thinks he should get up in the morning and punish Americans. You know, appease foreigners, bow to the Saudi king, embrace the Venezuelan dictator, and punish Americans? I think that’s a very dangerous attitude.”

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) Opposes Public Health Plan. His Pockets are Lined with Gold from the Healthcare Industry – Nelson’s problem, he told CQ, is that the public plan would be too attractive and would hurt the private insurance plans. “At the end of the day, the public plan wins the game,” Nelson said. Including a public option in a health plan, he said, was a “deal breaker.”

Are you kidding me? Screw the American citizens and what’s best for them…let’s be worried about the poor for-profit healthcare companies? So much for that vaunted filibuster-proof majority. Nelson plans on gathering together some like-minded sell-outs Democrats to oppose any public health plan. Go to Open Secrets to find out who has donated money to Nelson last few years for his re-election and whaddya know? Blue Cross/Blue Shield is in the top 5 with $31K. In fact, Nelson received more than $230,000 from the healthcare industry in the last four years. Actually, HCAN lists more than $600,000 from the insurance industry to Nelson.

If you’re of a mind to let Sen. Nelson know that his job is to represent the people of the United States, not the insurance companies, you can send him an email. The phone numbers for his various offices arealso available. Remember, you get further being polite.

The Swift-Boating of Health Care – Recently, former hospital CEO Rick Scott bought ads for his group “Conservatives for Patients’ Rights” on CNN and FOX News networks. Scott’s ad contains blatantly false statements, and misleading excerpts of interviews with health care professionals. Join in calling on cable news networks to adhere to their own ‘truth-in-advertising’ policies and pull these ads.

US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to “hunt people for Jesus… so we get them into the kingdom” – New video evidence has surfaced showing that US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What’s more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge US base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the US military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.

teCongresswoman Michele Bachmann Uses Fake George Washington Prayer to Bash Obamaxt – On April 21, the very same day that she enlightened us all with her scientific analysis of CO2, Bachmann also took to the House floor to rant about Obama’s statement in Turkey that the United States is not a Christian nation. Bachmann then proceeded to spew out a fake Washington prayer found on numerous Christian nationalist websites, compounding the lie by attributing this prayer to Washington’s inaugural address:

‘Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large. And finally, that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

Where did this prayer come from? Well, it’s a rewriting of the last paragraph of the circular letter sent by Washington to the governors of the states in 1783, when he resigned from the Army at the end of the Revolutionary War. This paragraph was altered by a church, inserting a few “Thys,” “Thous,” and “Thees,” and adding the “Almighty God” opening at the beginning, and the “through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” closing to the end, thus creating Washington’s “prayer for the nation.” This fabricated prayer was put on plaques in several churches associated for one reason or another with Washington, then spread to the Christian nationalist American history books, and eventually to the internet, which is apparently where Michele Bachmann gets her historical “facts.

Conservative Radio Host Makes Racist Remarks –Jay Severin is a former Republican Party political consultant, who worked for the presidential campaigns of George H. W. Bush (1980) and Pat Buchanan (1996) before becoming a radio talk show host and political analyst. Here are just some of his prize quotes from the show:

So now, in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico – women with mustaches and VD – now we have swine flu.

He described Mexicans as “the world’s lowest of primitives.”

When we are the magnet for primitives around the world – and it’s not the primitives’ fault by the way, I’m not blaming them for being primitives – I’m merely observing they’re primitive.”

“It’s millions of leeches from a primitive country come here to leech off you and, with it, they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America.”

“We should be, if anything, surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types already, considering the number of criminaliens already here.

He also said that emergency rooms had “become essentially condos for Mexicans.”

And on a 2004 broadcast, he compared Muslims to a fifth column in this country and said in response to a caller who thought people should reach out to Muslims: “You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them.”

You want to know how much he makes for spewing this kind of hate and being the fourteenth best radio show in his timeslot? One million dollars, plus bonuses!

Here’s how you can contact the station in Boston who hired Severin (even though he lied about winning a Pulitzer Prize and having a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Boston University; and he had already said the comments on killing Muslims in 2004). Write them an e-mail or call them here. Remember, they have suspended him for now, which means they are trying to decide whether they should fire him or keep him. What do you think they should do? Let them know.

Regards,

Jim

Candidate for Georgia Governorship Says He’d Kill His Own Son to Secede from U. S. – A Georgia candidate for governor says he has found God and he’s ready to sacrifice his own son in an effort to get his state to secede from the union. In an interview, he indicated he’d kill his own son to dissolve the United States (in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade).

Neal Horsley made national headlines when he posted the names, phone numbers and addresses of abortion doctors online. His “Nuremberg Files” website also crossed off the names of doctors as they were killed.

He said, “I contend this is really about people’s ability to believe in God. When it comes to that place, when you’re talking about God’s plan to protect himself, then the lives of people become, really, almost irrelevant… in the degree that they result in Him being glorified. That’s the nature of the truth.”
One more thing. … He also has admitted having sex with a mule.

Churchgoers More Likely to Back Torture, Survey Finds – The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

Pat Robertson Urges His Callers to Crash Homeland Security Hotline – Pat Robertson, on The 700 Club yesterday, got in on the collective right-wing teeth-gnashing over that Department of Homeland Security bulletin on the threat posed by right-wing extremists in America. You know, the controversy that’s been demonstrated to be a lot of hot air — not to mention a terribly revealing one about how mainstream right-wingers see themselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to do something about it. If that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what would. And I want you to call a number. This is the Department of Homeland Security. [Reads phone number]

DSCC & DCCC Ban Fundraising From PACs and Lobbyists for Only One Day – The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee have chosen to accept President Obama’s ban on fundraising from PACs and lobbyists, but only for June 18 — the day he headlines a fundraiser for them.

This isn’t just hypocritical — it defies common sense that you’d think the public would believe this was a principled stand against special-interest influence.

For 364 days a year, the rules would allow members of Congress to leave a hearing about regulating Wall Street and then walk straight to the DSCC and DCCC offices to “dial for dollars” from Wall Street lobbyists who want more bailout money and less accountability to taxpayers. Most Americans would find that conflict of interest repulsive.

Call on the DSCC & DCCC to ban PAC and lobbyist contributions 365 days a year, just as President Obama did.

Fossil-Fuel Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate Change – For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

“The role of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood,” the coalition said in a scientific “backgrounder” provided to lawmakers and journalists through the early 1990s, adding that “scientists differ” on the issue.

But a document filed in a federal lawsuit demonstrates that even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied,” the experts wrote in an internal report compiled for the coalition in 1995.

Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.

“They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.”

(Summary: You were lied to.)

Whether or not an effective global warming bill lands on President Obama’s desk in 2009 may depend on the actions of 34 subcommittee members over the next week or two. The opposition may be morally bankrupt, but their political coffers are overflowing. Global warming deniers are spending hundreds of millions on lobbying and advertising aimed at confusing the public and scaring legislators. More than 2,000 top corporate lobbyists are on Capitol Hill doing whatever it takes to stop global warming action. What do we have? The truth. And you.

If you haven’t already, please send an email to your House Representative today.

Sheriff Detains Mother for Over an Hour for Minor Traffic Violation While Her Children Watch in Horror – In Maricopa County, Arizona, a mother with two small children in the car was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. Armed deputies in ski masks detained her for over an hour while her children watched in horror, not knowing what was happening to their mother or what would happen to them. The whole event was caught on tape. Even worse, the Sheriff in this small town has a long track record of racial profiling and civil rights violations in the name of immigration enforcement. With over 2,700 lawsuits against him, a history of virulently anti-Latino and anti-immigrant tactics, and 40,000 felony warrants outstanding in his jurisdiction, Sheriff Arpaio has fostered a climate in which real criminals roam free while his deputies cross the line by using tactics that violate civil rights in the name of immigration enforcement

No matter where you stand on the immigration issue, mothers and children should never be treated this way.

More videos from Human League 002

Regards,

Jim

Michele Bachmann Tries to Link Swine Flu To Democrats, Gets History Wrong – Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, following Rush Limbaugh’s cue, suggested on Tuesday that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis. She went even farther than the talk show host, implying that swine flu epidemics are a Democratic phenomenon that dates back to President Carter.

I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.

Bachmann’s facts are a little off. Republican President Gerald Ford, not Carter, led the country during the last outbreak of the virus.

Conservative Commentators Using Swine Flu to Promote Racism– Despite the fact that there is no evidence to support such claims, talk radio hosts Michael Savage and Neal Boortz, radio and Fox TV personality Glenn Beck, and columnist Michelle Malkin are spreading them faster than the contagion.

“Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it,” blares Michael Savage.

“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the US as a result of uncontrolled immigration,” writes Michelle Malkin.

“What happens if there’s a rash of deaths in Mexico… and if you’re a family in Mexico and people are dying and Americans are not, why wouldn’t you flood this border?” announces Glenn Beck.

What better way to sneak a virus into this country than to give it to Mexicans….then spread a rumor there are construction jobs here, and there they come,” blathers Boortz.

Savage — “make no mistake about it” — believes that radical Islamic countries planted the virus in Mexico knowing that humans make the “perfect mules for bringing the strain into America.”

OK, you ignoramuses: what you’re saying is idiotic and racist on so many levels, it has to be called out.

#1. Why would we believe that Islamic countries or terrorist groups would have virologists capable of creating a new bio-terrorist flu? Didn’t we fall for the Weapons of Mass Destruction line already, and start a war over it?

#2. If terror groups were capable of planting it among Mexicans — why wouldn’t they be just as capable as planting it among Americans? If they couldn’t get into the country, they’d just need to get a few of their own infected people to hang out in a foreign airport with flights going to the US.

#3. Since most of the Mexicans who are sick are in Mexico City, hundreds of miles from the US border, how exactly would they just pick up and “rush it?”

Furthermore, cases of swine flu have turned up in New York City students who recently returned from a trip to Cancun, Mexico — they brought it back with them.

Microsoft Internet Explorer Has Worst Score on Web Standards Test – Acid3 is a test page from the Web Standards Project that checks how well a web browser follows Internet web standards, especially relating to the Document Object Model and JavaScript. Scores for Current Release of Browsers (out of a possible score of 100):

Internet Explorer (IE 8.0) – 20
Firefox – 71
Apple Safari – 75
Google Chrome – 75
Opera – 85
Konqueror – 87

Scores for Beta Release of Browsers (out of a possible score of 100):

Internet Explorer – No Beta Available for Test
Firefox – 94
Apple Safari – 100
Google Chrome – 100
Opera – 100
Konqueror – 87

Regards,

Jim

Republicans Slam Spending on Wildlife Preservation – As President Barack Obama pushed his new $100 million campaign to cut government spending last week, the House of Representatives authorized $50 million to help protect cranes, snow leopards, wild African dogs and other endangered species. “With federal spending, bank failures and home foreclosures reaching historic levels,” asked Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, “is it really appropriate to spend our constituents’ hard-earned money to conserve an African wild dog, an Ethiopian wolf or a Borneo bay cat?”

Sure, said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. He called the effort “a very, very modest step to try to preserve these endangered species that, in fact, are threatened and are listed on international lists.”

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas said, “We are going to borrow more money from the Chinese to possibly give them money back. . . . There is no assurance that if we did that we wouldn’t end up with moo goo dog pan or moo goo cat pan.”

Fox News Incorrectly Reports That Apple Encourages Multiple Antivirus Utilities for Mac – It’s not just political news that Fox can’t get right. In a “Tech Q and A” published today, FOX News’ Guy R. Briggs says:

A note on the Apple support site posted Nov. 21, 2008 reads, ‘Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult.’

Apple’s support page, “Mac OS: Antivirus utilities,” was pulled on December 03, 2008. It was an old article that did not apply to Mac OS X. “We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. “The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.” Full article: Apple pulls ‘old and inaccurate’ antivirus support article; says ‘Macs are secure right out of box’ – December 03, 2008

President Obama and Fox News Misstate the Percentage of Guns in Mexico That Come From the U. S. – During a joint press conference with President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, Obama said of the raging violence by Mexican drug gangs:

A demand for these drugs in the United States is what is helping to keep these cartels in business. This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border.

Obama would have been correct to say that 90 percent of the guns submitted for tracing by Mexican authorities were then traced to the U.S. The percentage of all recovered guns that came from the U.S. is unknown.

According to a Fox News report, titled “The Myth of 90 Percent,” only “17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.” But the 17 percent figure is a myth, too. The Fox reporters come up with a figure of 5,114 guns traced to U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 2008. That figures to 17.6 percent of the 29,000 figure for guns seized in Mexico, as given by the country’s attorney general.

The 5,114 figure is simply wrong. What Newell said quite clearly is that the number of guns submitted to ATF in those two years was 11,055: “3,312 in FY 2007 [and] 7,743 in FY 2008.” Newell also testified, as other ATF officials have done, that 90 percent of the guns traced were determined to have come from the U.S. So based on Newell’s testimony, the Fox reporters should have used a figure of 9,950 guns from U.S. sources. That figures out to just over 34 percent of guns recovered, assuming that the 29,000 figure supplied by Mexico’s attorney general is correct.

Even that number is too low. At the request of factcheck.org, an ATF spokesman gave more detailed figures for how many guns had been submitted and traced during those two years. Of the guns seized in Mexico and given to ATF for tracing, the agency actually found 95 percent came from U.S. sources in fiscal 2007 and 93 percent in fiscal 2008. That comes to a total of 10,347 guns from U.S. sources for those two years, or 36 percent of what Mexican authorities say they recovered.

U. S. Transportation Security Administration Destroyed Custom Steinway Piano Because the Glue Smelled Funny – Krystian Zimerman is one of the world’s most well-regarded concert pianists. Soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Zimerman’s custom Steinway piano was intercepted at JFK airport and destroyed by the Transportation Security Administration because the glue “smelled funny.” Now, Zimerman said he will not return to the United States because of the nation’s military policies and President Barack Obama’s support for a missile shield site in Zimerman’s home country of Poland.

Conservatives Likely to Think That Stephen Colbert Really is a Conservative – On TV’s “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert plays the part of a conservative pundant who is famous for such lines as “You can count on George W. Bush to be consistent. You know he will think exactly the same thing on Wednesday as he did on Monday, no matter what happened on Tuesday.” A study by Ohio State University investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology. The study found liberals think that that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements, but that conservatives think that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely means what he says and that he actually dislikes liberalism. In other words, conservatives can’t recognize satire.

Regards,

Jim