Tracking the Growth of American Authoritarianism

“Can There Really Be Fascist People In A Democracy?”
Libertarians are stealthily taking over America.

Since the 1971 Powell Memo, America has moved closer and closer to Fascism.

 

Bad Deeds for 9-5-2008

 

Lieberman and Thompson Make Misleading Claims About Obama on Day Two of the Republican Convention – Joe Lieberman and his former Senate colleague Fred Thompson both made misleading claims about Obama in their prime time GOP convention speeches on Tuesday. We’ve heard two of them before – many times.

  • Lieberman said Obama hadn’t “reached across party lines” to accomplish “anything significant,” though Obama has teamed with Republican Senators. Tom Coburn and Richard Lugar to pass laws enhancing government transparency and curtailing the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons.
  • Thompson repeated misleading claims about Obama’s tax program, saying it would bring “one of the largest tax increases in American history.” But as increases go, Obama’s package is hardly a history-maker. It would raise taxes for families with incomes above $250,000. Most people would see a cut.
  • Lieberman also accused Obama of “voting to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield.” But Obama’s only vote against a war-funding bill came after Bush vetoed a version of the bill Obama had supported – and McCain urged the veto.
  • Lieberman stated several times that he is a Democrat, however, he is an Independent.

 

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Her Republican Supporters Dish Out More Falsehoods on Day Three of the Republican Convention – Some examples:

PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded. Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: “She’s been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America’s energy supply … She’s responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. I’m entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain’s phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she’s no more “responsible” for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: “She’s the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under “federal status,” which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska’s national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.”

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor’s election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

MITT ROMNEY: “We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. And while Democrats have a majority in the Senate, they don’t control it, since they don’t have the 60 votes needed to override the Republican stall tactics.

Fact Check the GOP.

 

McCain Had Criticized Earmarks From Palin – Three times in recent years, McCain’s catalogs of “objectionable” spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time — Sarah Palin. records show that Palin — first as mayor of Wasilla and recently as governor of Alaska — was far from shy about pursuing tens of millions in earmarks for her town, her region and her state. This year, Palin, who has been governor for nearly 22 months, defended earmarking as a vital part of the legislative system. “The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship,” she wrote in a newspaper column.

 

Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin Belittle and Sneer at Community Organizers – The mockery began when Giuliani said of Obama, “He’s never had to lead people in crisis. … Barack Obama has never led anything. Nothing. Nada. … He worked as a community organizer. … What?” The he laughed openly. Palin then continued the theme by saying, “I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.” One blogger commented, “I’m not sure which was more frightening: Rudy Giuliani deriding Obama’s years as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, or the audience exploding with glee when he said it. The truly awful thing was, it took people a half second to believe what he had said, as though they knew it was over decency’s line. It was, and they loved it anyway.

The Republicans do not give a flip about community organizers. And that means they don’t care about you. Want to talk about small-town values? Then don’t criticize the people who fight for people who have community issues.

Here’s Stephen Colbert’s take on this:

 

Contrary to Republican Inferences, Palin Has Never Issued an Order to the Alaska National Guard – When presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain introduced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate last Friday, the Arizona senator emphasized her role as the commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard.

Later, when questions were raised about Palin’s lack of experience in national and international affairs, the McCain campaign pointed again to her military command experience as governor. Some reporters have tried to follow up.

“Can you tell me one decision that she made as commander in chief of the Alaska National Guard?” CNN journalist Campbell Brown asked Monday while interviewing McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. “Just one?”

Bounds couldn’t, because Palin has never personally ordered the state guard to do anything.

 

Sean Hannity’s Memory Lapse: “I don’t remember Chelsea Clinton being attacked” – On Hannity & Colmes, Hannity said, in reference to Internet rumors about Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter, “[T]hey tried to make the attack that she has a young daughter, pregnant and engaged. Is that fair that they would attack that? I mean, I don’t remember Chelsea Clinton being attacked. I don’t remember Al Gore’s children being attacked. I thought there was a general rule that children of candidates ought to be left alone.” In fact, Chelsea Clinton was not “left alone” — not by Sen. John McCain, and not by Rush Limbaugh.

McCain reportedly told a “joke” about Chelsea Clinton in 1998, saying: “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”

On his TV show, early in the Clinton administration, Limbaugh put up a picture of Socks, the White House cat, and asked, ‘Did you know there’s a White House dog?’ Then he put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, who was 13 years old at the time.

 

Palin Accuses ‘Obama/Biden Democrats’ of Attacking Her Family, But Her Campaign Can’t Name One – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sent out a fundraising solicitation today that charged that “the Obama/Biden Democrats have been vicious in their attacks directed toward me, my family and John McCain.” ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper asked spokespeople of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee just which “Obama/Biden Democrats” they’re referring to.

The response he got was that Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski erroneously attacked Palin as a supporter of Pat Buchanan. That’s it. That’s the evidence. An attack on Palin herself.

In other words, they can’t name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family. But she made the charge anyway, to help raise money.

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

Posted in Authoritarianism, Bad Deeds   |   Leave a comment   |  

Sarah Palin, The New Leader of the Social Conservatives – Just What Do They Represent?

I’ve written about the teamwork of the neocons and social conservatives (also known as values voters) throughout this blog. I’ve attempted to explain what they want for this nation. This includes a single-party Republican state, violating human rights at every level necessary, forcing Christianity as the national religion, putting the life of a fetus above all other life including the mother’s, widening the income gap further, corporate lobbyists with unlimited access to the president, corporate socialism, the end of labor unions, putting women back in their place, redefining science based on religious beliefs that cannot be empirically proven, remaking the rest of us in their own image and plenty of Nobel lies to get there. In other words, they want to replace “liberty and justice for all” with “liberty and justice for just us.”

What matters most to them is the “country” – not it’s citizens. Just listen to all the talking heads. How many times did you hear “country”, “USA USA USA USA …” or “American first” mentioned during or since the 2008 Republican convention? How many “Country First” placards did you see?

But let’s try and understand Sarah Palin by reviewing what her social conservatism means.

What follows are four perspectives on social conservatives: Their own view of what they call “America’s Largest Voting Block; Quotes from John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience; A Pew Research demographics survey; and the 2008 Republican Platform.

 

America’s Largest Voting Block:
Let’s start with the questions to which social conservatives, like Sarah, want an answer. Listed below are the questions presented to 11 Republican presidential candidates last September (2007) at the Values Voter Presidential Debate. A yes answer, for all but four of these questions, is what the social issues/values voters want. I’ve rearranged their original list and grouped them by general topic.

On Religion (as a national policy):

  • Religious Freedom: Would you remove the gag rule from pastors like me and support a repeal of the portion of IRS Code Section 501(c)(3) that restricts churches and ministries from expressing our biblical convictions for or against a candidate?
  • Military Chaplains: If you are elected president, will you protect your military chaplains’ right to pray according to their faith?
  • Christian Symbols: Will you take steps to preserve our national war memorials and landmarks which contain Christian symbols from organizations like the ACLU who seek to purge all [Christian] religious symbols from the public square?
  • Radical Islam: As president, would you support continued issuing of student visas to nationals of countries that are state sponsors of terrorist groups? [Preferred answer is NO]
  • Persecution [of Christians]: Christians are being beaten, jailed, and expelled throughout the Muslim World. Will you take action to protest this gross injustice and persecution by denying visas or by imposing trade sanctions?
  • Christians in Iraq: Would you support them by endorsing the creation of an autonomous administrative area in their ancestral homeland of the Nineveh Plains, as permitted under Article 125 of the Iraqi constitution?
  • First Amendment: Would you support legislation that prevents federal courts from hearing lawsuits brought to stop state and federal officials from acknowledging the sovereignty of God in such ways as public prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and the public display of the Ten Commandments
  • Judicial Activism: A federal judge has ordered the Indiana legislature to never allow prayer in Jesus’ name. Will you, as President, consider impeachment a possible remedy for judicial activism?

On Health Care:

  • Health Care: Will you protect the availability of needed medical care by opposing current efforts to subject Americans to government-mandated health insurance and universal coverage?
  • Health Care: Would you support a health care plan that rewards behavior that promotes moral lifestyles, i.e. avoiding alcohol and tobacco consumption as well as obesity reduction, exercise and nutrition that promotes health?
  • United Nations/CEDAW: Will you promise to oppose all U.N. treaties, (including CEDAW) that could be used to promote abortion as a “human right?”
  • Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Can you look at them now (“snowflake babies”) and tell me that it would have been OK if someone would have used them in medical experiments and snuffed out their lives? [Preferred answer is NO]
  • Abstinence: In the interest of fairness and effectiveness, would you bring abstinence education funding onto equal ground with contraceptive based education?
  • Disabled Patients: Would you pursue or support legislation that would protect the cognitively disabled and vulnerable people from being dehydrated to death by having their food and water taken away?

On Abortion:

  • Mexico City Abortion Policy: Would you require that federal funding recipients “will neither actively provide or promote abortion” within the United States as well as abroad or overseas?
  • Judges: Will you nominate only judges and justices that are demonstrably faithful to the judicial role of following the text of the Constitution and who not only refuse to legislate from the bench, but are committed to reversing prior court decisions?

On Education:

  • Evolution: Will your office support and encourage a more open approach to education in the presentation of scientific facts that contradict the theory of evolution?
  • School Choice: Will you support school choice for other students like me with similar tax-credit programs?
  • Homosexual Education: Would you support legislation ensuring that schools forfeit federal funding if they expose our children to homosexual propaganda that puts them at risk?

On Race:

  • Multiculturalism: Do you agree that the excessive and overbearing use by liberals of “multiculturalism” weakens American culture and creates unnecessary divisions among the citizenry?
  • Amnesty: Will you oppose all plans for amnesty, path to citizenship, guest workers, and seasonal passes until the high unemployment for minority youth and students has dropped to 5 percent?

On Information Control:

  • Fairness Doctrine: If elected, would you veto any legislation that contains language of the so called “Fairness Doctrine”?
  • Pornography: Will you agree to prosecute the broad range of illegal adult pornography, rather than just the most extreme material, and prosecute all violators of federal obscenity law?
  • Cable Decency: Do you support and believe that broadcast indecency rules should be expanded to cable networks as well?

On Foreign Policy:

  • Support for Israel: If elected president, will you solidly stand behind Israel not to give up land for unfulfilled promises of peace, even in the face of opposition of Allied, European and Arab nations?
  • Trade with China: Would you make future trade with China contingent on them measurably improving their record on religious freedom and human rights, eliminating their unfair trade practices, slave labor and sub-standard policies that poison our food, toothpaste, and toys?
  • NAFTA Superhighway: Do you support the NAFTA Superhighway presently under construction from Mexico to Canada, portions of which shall be under foreign control? [Preferred answer is NO]
  • United Nations / LOST: The Law of the Sea Treaty was recently resurrected and will probably come to a vote in the Senate. Will you urge the Senate NOT to ratify this treaty?
  • Jobs and Highway Safety: Will you rescind President Bush’s order that allows hundreds of Mexican trucks to be driven on U.S. highways and roads?
  • Persecution/Slavery: Would you endorse the creation of a commission to monitor the eradication of slavery in Sudan, the last legal bastion of slavery in the world?
  • Border Enforcement: Is this the kind of border enforcement policy we could expect in your administration? [Preferred answer is NO]

Other:

  • Hate Crimes: If elected, could we count on you to veto any so-called “hate crimes” legislation? [As it relates to religious expression]
  • Social Security: Would you revive President Bush’s attempt to introduce personal retirement accounts as a way to reform Social Security, thus allowing all Americans, particularly low wage workers and the self-employed, an investment in their future…?
  • Homosexual Agenda / ENDA: Would you protect business owners from being forced to violate our moral conscience by vetoing the so-called “Employment Non–Discrimination Act” (or similar legislation)?

 

Conservatives Without Conscience:
In 1994, the same year Gingrich started remaking Congress in the single-party Republican image, Barry Goldwater said this to John Dean who used it in the preface to his book Conservatives Without Conscience.

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

In 2006, John Dean made the following statements about social conservatives in Conservatives Without Conscience:

Social conservatives, whose core members are Christian conservatives, comprise the largest and most cohesive faction of conservatism. They are, by and large, typical right-wing authoritarian followers. Both neoconservatives [social dominator authoritarians] and social conservatives include countless conservatives without conscience within their ranks.

Social conservatives are especially susceptible to irrational beliefs ….

… Social conservatives are deeply offended by atheists who want the words “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, yet … they recite … that pledge and its words: “liberty and justice for all.” For all but atheists [and moderates, liberals, peace mongers, scientists, climatologists, artists, gays, actors, except Fred Thompson, non-Republicans, non-whites, non-Christians, non-conformers, non-feelers or thinkers, hybrid owners, agnostics, union members, dissenters, suspected terrorists and anyone not like them] ….

Also in John Dean’s book, social conservatives respond ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ to the following statements:

Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.

The only way our country can get through the crisis ahead is to get back to our traditional values, put some tough leaders in power, and silence the troublemakers who are spreading bad ideas.

“Old-fashioned ways” and “old-fashioned values” are the best guide for the way to live.

God’s laws about abortion, pornography, and marriage must be strictly followed before it is too late, and those who break them must be strongly punished.

Once our government leaders give us the “go-ahead,” it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within.

Dean also stated that social conservatives very strongly disagree with these statements:

Gays and lesbians are just as unhealthy and moral as anybody else.

Atheists and others who have rebelled against the established religions are no doubt every bit as good and virtuous as those who attend church regularly.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with nudist camps.

There is nothing wrong with premarital sexual intercourse.

 

Pew Research Survey:
Now let’s look at the demographics of the social issue voters.

According to the October 15, 2007, survey by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, , “many 2008 Republican presidential candidates are vying for the support of an influential segment of the primary electorate – social-issue voters. These voters are Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters, many of whom are conservative Christians, who say social issues such as abortion and gay marriage will be very important in their presidential voting decisions.”

The survey goes on to report that 43 percent of the Republican voters say they will decide how to vote based on social issues.

43% will vote based on social issues

The survey also shows that these social-issue voters differ in many ways from the rest of the Republican coalition. If you think about it and were paying attention to the Republican convention, how would you classify their delegates?

  • More religious
  • More conservative
  • Less educated
  • Mostly from the ‘working class’ and don’t benefit from Republican tax law changes – more irrationality
  • Attend religious services at least once a week
  • Consider themselves to be white evangelical protestants
  • More are women
  • More consider themselves “strong Republicans”
Portrait of Republican social-issues voters

These social-issues voters also differ significantly from other Republicans on their issues and candidates:

  • Stridently antiabortion
  • A plurality oppose stem cell research
  • Almost unanimously against gay marriage
  • Most blindly obedient to GWB
  • Favor Giuliani over Romney and McCain
Their issues and preferred presidential candidates

 

2008 Republican Platform:
In case you are in doubt over who was in control of the Republican convention, here are some quotes from their platform.

At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion.

Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it.

The public display of the Ten Commandments does not violate the U.S. Constitution and accurately reflects the Judeo-Christian heritage of our country. We support the right of students to engage in student-initiated, student-led prayer in public schools, athletic events, and graduation ceremonies, when done in conformity with constitutional standards.

Republicans support tax credits for health care and medical expenses.

Empower Individuals to Make the Best Health Care Choices. [“You’re on your own.”]

No health care professional — doctor, nurse, or pharmacist — or organization should ever be required to perform, provide for, or refer for a healthcare service against their conscience for any reason.

It is through education that we ensure the transmission of a culture, a set of values we hold in common.

The innocent have far fewer rights than the accused. We call on Congress to correct this imbalance by sending to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of crime victims.

We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation
to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Republican leadership has made religious liberty a central element of U.S. foreign policy. Asserting religious freedom should be a priority in all America’s international dealings.

We call for a constitutionally sound presidential line-item veto.

We object to the [Supreme] Court’s unwarranted interference in the administration of the death penalty ….

We support the right of states to require an official government-issued photo identification for voting and call upon the Department of Justice to deploy its resources to prevent ballot tampering in the November elections.

We believe government should tax only to raise money for its essential functions. [Who decides what “essential” means – an imperial president?]

We support freedom of speech and freedom of the press and oppose attempts to violate or weaken those rights, such as reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine.

The “America’s largest voting block,” the social conservatives, is still in charge of the Republican Party machine, the neocons social dominators are running their campaign and Sarah Palin will only help accelerate what Bush and Cheney have started.

This is worse than ‘more of the same’ or ‘four more years.’ If Sarah and John were elected, we will not only have neocons in The White House, we will also have the godhead of right-wing authoritarian followers taking over Cheney’s man-sized safe.

 

Change - The Far Right Way
Posted in Authoritarianism, Church/State Unification, Media-Info Control   |   Tagged   |   Leave a comment   |  

Bad Deeds for 9-3-2008

Sarah Palin Confuses Our Troops With the Blues Brothers: ” Our national leaders are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God” – Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord. “Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”

The pastor of Palin’s church has preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq were part of a “world war” over the Christian faith, one in which Jesus Christ had called upon believers to be willing to sacrifice their lives; and said that Jesus “operated from that position of war mode.”

 

Sarah Palin Tried to Ban Books From the Library When She Was Mayor; Threatened Librarian – [Former mayor] John Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

Palin injected big-time politics into a small-town local race. “It was always a nonpartisan job,” Stein says. “But with her, the state GOP came in and started affecting the race.” While Palin often describes that race as having been a fight against the old boys’ club, Stein says she made sure the campaign hinged on issues like gun owners’ rights and her opposition to abortion (Stein is pro-choice). “It got to the extent that — I don’t remember who it was now — but some national antiabortion outfit sent little pink cards to voters in Wasilla endorsing her,” he says.

Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the time. “[Stein] figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race,” she recalls, “but it turned into something much different than that.” Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn’t think they had any place in local politics.

“I just thought, That’s ridiculous, she should concentrate on roads, not abortion,” says Naegele.

 

John McCain’s Campaign Manager Says, “This election is not about issues.” – Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain’s presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Washington Post editors this morning. “This election is not about issues,” said Davis. In reaction to Rick Davis’ comments about the election not being about issues, Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe released the following statement: “We appreciate Senator McCain’s campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change.”

 

Sarah Palin Cut $1.1 Million From Funding for Teen Moms in Need – Alaska Governor and McCain vice presidential pick Sarah Palin, whose 17-year-old daughter Bristol is pregnant outside wedlock, earlier this year used a line-item veto to cut $1.1 million (more than 20 percent) for Covenant House Alaska.

Covenant House Alaska, the affected organization which serves to assist homeless and runaway youth, runs Passage House, a transitional living program with 24-hour support staff that provides housing, along with up to eighteen months of assistance in building parenting, money management and job skills, with aims to help teen parents prepare for the “real world.”

“We work with parenting teens to help them become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families,” reads the Passage House webpage. “Our goal is to assist young mothers in developing skills such as healthy parenting, money management, priority setting, housing acquisition and social skills development.”

“The explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support,” Gov. Palin told Eagle Forum Alaska in a 2006 questionnaire in an expression of support for “abstinence-only” sex education.

 

Alberto Gonzales Mishandled Classified Data on Terrorists – Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales mishandled highly classified notes about a secret counterterror program, but not on purpose, according to a memo by his legal team. The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, acknowledges that Gonzales improperly stored notes about the program and might have taken them home at one point. Removing secret documents from specially secured rooms violates government policy.

 

Peaceful Protesters Arrested at Republican National Convention; Some Arrested at Their Homes Before the Convention Began – Pre-convention home raids conducted in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area over the weekend included the headquarters of anarchist organization RNC Welcoming Committee and a “hippie house” inhabited by members of Food Not Bombs. Dozens were detained and six arrested.

Reports of mass arrests continue. On Tuesday, at least three people were arrested during a march of nearly a thousand organized by the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. This follows numerous Monday occurrences, which include the arrest of an Associated Press photographer and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman , along with 139 felony charges issued among nearly 300 demonstrators, whose arrests were made with such chemical aids as pepper spray and tear gas.

 

McCain Put Off Big Decision, Rushed to Judgment – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday.

In the first and most telling executive decision of his potential presidency, John McCain makes a rash, reckless decision that, God forbid he falls ill while in office, will be disastrous for this country. Is that the kind of judgment we need in the White House for another four years?

McCain had three months free to do whatever- to fund raise, to campaign, to make the case for himself, to shore up the base, to work on the platform, and, presumably, to begin vetting his running partner.

What, then, did the McCain team do with the extra three months they had to choose their candidate? Beats me, but it sure as hell was not a careful examination of Sarah Palin. What’s even worse is that despite all the evidence proving the McCain did a [very]-poor job of vetting Palin, McCain still insists that the background check was thorough and he’s pleased with the results.

 

McCain’s Mother Laments at Republican Convention: ‘They won’t let me talk’ – The Republican message-men have forced their candidate to stick to the script, so are they keeping his mother away from any open microphones, according to Sirius Radio’s Michelangelo Signorile.

“They won’t let me be interviewed,” McCain lamented to the radio host who approached her Tuesday during the Republican convention in St. Paul. “They won’t let me talk.”

RAW STORY obtained audio of Signorile’s aborted interview attempt, which demonstrated the extent to which message control is the name of the game at the GOP’s gathering in Minnesota.

The host wasn’t even inquiring about anything controversial: “What is it like for you this week?” he asked as McCain’s handlers shuffled her away. In a blog post about the incident, Signorile described McCain’s facial expression as “pained” and said she looked at him “helplessly, pleadingly,” as she was led away for a photo-op alongside would-be First Lady Cindy McCain.

Earlier this year, she let slip her true feelings about the Republican party base her son is now reaching out to in his quest for the White House.

“Holding their nose, they’re going to have to take him,” McCain said in January before the son she still refers to as “Johnny” emerged as the GOP nominee.

“I’m really popping off,” the elder McCain continued, “but he worked like a dog to get Bush reelected. He’s backed Bush in everything except Rumsfeld. … And I’ve never seen any public recognition of the work that he’s done for the Republican Party.”

 

McCain Campaign Using Stall Tactics to Delay Release of Palin Investigation Report – The Alaska state senator running an investigation of Gov. Palin says the McCain campaign is using stall tactics to prevent him from releasing his final report by Oct. 31, four days before the November election. “It’s likely to be damaging to the Governor’s administration,” said Senator Hollis French, the project manager for a bi-partisan State Senate Legislative Counsel Committee investigation of claims that Palin abused her office to get the Alaska public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, fired.

 

Joe Liberman Says We Should Just Assume the Best and Nothing Bad Will Happen – When asked by Andrea Mitchell whether or not Sarah Palin is qualified to be President should something happen to John McCain, Lieberman offers perhaps the least convincing “endorsement” imaginable.

Mitchell: “Do you feel Sarah Palin is qualified to be commander-in-chief if, God forbid, something should happen to John McCain?”

Lieberman: “Well, you know….let’s assume the best. John’s in great shape, he’s gonna be the president and let’s assume that nothing bad will happen. Why should we? But if it does…yes, she’ll be ready.”

 

Sarah Palin Says She Hasn’t Focused Much on the War in Iraq – The following is from an interview in Alaska Business Monthly published March 1, 2008:

Alaska Business Monthly: We’ve lost a lot of Alaska’s military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?

Palin: I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.

 

Giant Canadian Ice Shelf Breaks Away – A massive 19-square-mile (55-square-km) ice shelf in Canada’s northern Arctic has broken away and is floating in the Arctic Ocean, the latest sign of rapid climate change in the remote region, a team of scientists said on Tuesday. They said the Markham Ice Shelf — one of just five remaining ice shelves in the Arctic — split away from Ellesmere Island in early August. They also said two large chunks totaling 47 square miles had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in size by 60 percent. “These substantial calving events underscore the rapidity of changes taking place in the Arctic,” said Derek Mueller, an Arctic ice shelf specialist at Trent University in Ontario.

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

Posted in Bad Deeds, Church/State Unification, Human Rights Abuse, Rampant Cronyism/Corruption   |   Leave a comment   |  

Help Start the Next Progressive Era – Support Senator Obama by October 24, 2008

This is a critical time for America’s future and we must all do what we can. I hope you can help me help Senator Obama become our next president.

We must end control of our governments by “Conservatives Without Conscience.”

According to Chris Pummer of Market Watch, Wikipedia and others, politics in America generally runs on a 36 year cycle between conservative and progressive polices as set by the presidents. However, the current conservative cycle, which started in 1968, is now in it’s 40th year. This unfortunate extension was, in part, due to the attacks on September 11, 2001, and in equal part, to the neoconservatives who took advantage of the attack. They used it to scare us and our representatives into accepting policies and actions we would not have accepted under more normal circumstances.

This nation cannot tolerate another extension of the conscienceless conservative cycle under John McCain and his neocon and corporate lobbyist supporters. The cycle, and John McCain, must be stopped and the next progressive cycle, of any kind, must be started.

To help with the change, I have volunteered as a member of the Obama Grassroots Finance Committee – a committee unlike any before. As a committee member, I have been challenged to raise $1,000.00 for Senator Obama’s campaign by October 24, 2008.

Please contribute and help start the overdue grassroots-lead progressive cycle. There’s a lot of fixing to do and we’re four years behind schedule.

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Bad Deeds for 8-30-2008: Special “The Media Helps Spread Lies” Edition

 

On Fox & Friends, Millionaire Donald Trump Falsely Claimed That Obama Plans to Have “Everybody … Pay Double and Triple the Taxes” – During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump claimed, “The worst thing that can happen [in this economy] is everybody has to pay double and triple the taxes, and that’s what [Sen. Barack] Obama is looking to do.” Fox & Friends co-hosts did not challenge Trump’s claim, even though it is false. Obama has proposed cutting taxes for low- and middle-income families and raising taxes only on households earning more than $250,000 per year in income.

 

On Fox, Huckabee Misrepresented Obama Plans for Health Care, Taxes – On the August 28 Fox News, Mike Huckabee falsely claimed that, under Sen. Barack Obama’s health-care plan, “the government will be in control,” and that “we’re going to be rationing it.” In fact, Obama has not proposed government-run health care. Indeed, Obama’s website specifically states that, under his proposal, individuals “will not have to change plans.” Huckabee then claimed that Obama will raise taxes, which has also been proven false.

 

Associated Press Misrepresents McCain’s Positions on Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, Abortion – On August 27, the Associated Press, in an article headlined “GOP takes hard line on abortion for its platform,” reported that “[Sen. John] McCain opposes gay marriage but also is against a constitutional amendment against it. He has expressed limited support for the rights accorded couples in same-sex civil unions.” The article also stated, “Apart from opposing a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, [McCain] is against most abortion rights and says he would favor overturning the Supreme Court decision affirming those rights.” In fact, McCain has expressed support for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions and for a federal constitutional amendment banning abortion in most cases.

 

G. Gordon Liddy and Wesley Pruden Repeat Debunked Claim That Obama’s Birth Certificate is Non-Existent or Fake – G. Gordon Liddy asserted on his nationally syndicated radio show: “[W]e still don’t have a birth certificate for [Sen. Barack] Obama. There are claims that he was actually born in Kenya.” The Washington Times’ Wesley Pruden similarly wrote that a “summer-long controversy continues about when and where the senator was actually born” and falsely asserted that “[t]he Obama campaign has been reluctant to produce a birth certificate.” In fact, the Obama campaign, in addition to posting a copy of the birth certificate on the campaign website, reportedly provided the original to FactCheck.org, whose staff said in an August 21 article that they “have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate,” and concluded that the document does, in fact, exist, and that it “meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship.”

 

Fox News’ Carlson Repeated Falsehood That McCain Rarely Talks About His POW Experience – On Fox & Friends, Gretchen Carlson said that the “first time” Sen. John McCain “really did start sharing some personal moments” about his prisoner of war experience in Vietnam was during his August 16 appearance at a forum at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, adding that “most people would say that John McCain hasn’t talked enough about his POW experience.” In fact, McCain has discussed his POW experience, including “personal moments,” during the current campaign as well as on numerous previous occasions.

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

Posted in Bad Deeds, Media-Info Control   |   Leave a comment   |  

Bad Deeds for 8-29-2008

McCain Decides to Continue the Bush Legacy of Destructive Environmental Policies – Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. The following is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

Senator McCain’s choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

This is Senator McCain’s first significant choice in building his executive team and it’s a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain’s commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil.

 

The McCains’ Budget for Household Staff is $273,000 Per Year – The McCains’ household-staff budget is nearly six times the US median household income. Yet McCain’s defenders in the elite media, the comfortably-well-off ones pass on bogus Republican “elitism” smears used against self-made Barack Obama.

 

McCain Advisor’s Solution to Health Care Crisis is to Redefine “Uninsured” – The McCain campaign likes to tell us we’re a “nation of whiners” complaining about a “mental recession,” so it should come as no surprise that their solution to the health care crisis is to simply have the Census Bureau redefine the term uninsured. Seriously. Let John Goodman, McCain’s point-man on health care issues, explain:

I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.

Voila! No more health care problems! All those “whiners” out there who are losing their homes due to unmanageable health care bills can sleep sound tonight. The health care crisis is solved! As Michigan Messenger says:

If you’re uninsured, out of money – and not having a life-threatening emergency – you not only don’t exist in John McCain’s world, you’re completely out of luck.

 

White House Could Become Beer Distributorship Headquarters – Cindy McCain holds the title of company chairwoman and controls about 68% of the privately held company stock of Hensley & Co., one of the nation’s major beer wholesalers, with her children and the senator’s son. In an interview in May, she said she knew “everything that is going on” and communicated with her executive team every day. She added that she did not need to be at headquarters to be in charge. So far, she has given no hint of what changes, if any, she envisions. “That’s very premature,” she said. If her husband is elected president and she retains her role at Hensley, she will set a precedent for outside corporate activity by a first lady. Political analysts said they were astounded that the presumptive Republican nominee had not already addressed the issue.

“You can’t run a beer company out of the White House,” said Samuel L. Popkin, a political science professor at UC San Diego. “You can’t run any company from the White House. McCain is leaving a live hand grenade on the table, a major embarrassment.”

The company has opposed such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving in fighting proposed federal rules requiring alcohol content information on every package of beer, wine and liquor. Its executives, including John McCain’s son Andrew, have written at least 10 letters in recent years to the Treasury Department, have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a beer industry political action committee, and hold a seat on the board of the politically powerful National Beer Wholesalers Assn.

Cindy’s company has also run afoul of health advocacy groups that have tried to rein in appeals to young drinkers. For example, the company distributes caffeinated alcoholic drinks that public health groups say put young and underage consumers at risk by disguising the effects of intoxication.

Regards,

Jim

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Bad Deeds for 8-28-2008

Fox News Cuts Democratic Keynote After Two Minutes; Switches to Anti-Obama Coverage – In its August 26 coverage of the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s nearly 20-minute keynote address. Then they went on to discuss an anti-Obama ad and an interview with former Republican candidate Rudy Giuliani.

 

Ohio GOP Illegally Funneled $495,000 From Federal Account, Top Campaign Finance Official Writes – The Ohio Republican Party funneled $495,000 into an account used to support the candidacy of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell that should have only been used to support candidates for national office, according to a letter from Ohio’s current Secretary of State and a GOP spokesman.

The letter says Ohio’s Republican party collected nearly half a million dollars from a federal GOP account in October 2006. They also took in $20,000 from a state GOP account the same month and another $25,000 in November 2007. According a state GOP spokesman, the money supported just one candidate — former Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Blackwell achieved notoriety after allegations he abused his office as the state’s top elections official. While serving as Secretary of State, which handles statewide elections, he also doubled as state chairman for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Blackwell has been named in more than ten voter disenfranchisement lawsuits. He was also named in a 2006 lawsuit after his office publicly disclosed the Social Security numbers of Ohio residents.

 

Republicans Love Their Indicted Senator – Senator Ted Stevens received 63 percent of the primary vote against six challengers, even as he faces a trial in September on charges that he concealed $250,000 in home renovations and gifts provided by an oil services company, VECO. If the trial goes forward on schedule, Mr. Stevens, who has been in the Senate for 40 years and is revered in Alaska for bringing home billions of dollars in federal spending, will be defending himself in court while he also tries to hold off a strong general election challenge from a popular and well-financed Democrat, Mayor Mark Begich of Anchorage.

The results of the Republican primary’s other top race, between Representative Don Young and his challenger, Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, may not be known until next week or even later. Like Mr. Stevens, Mr. Young is under federal investigation for his ties to VECO, but he also faces scrutiny on other matters. He has spent more than $1 million of his campaign money on legal fees.

 

US Threatens UK to Try to Make Them Not Tell About Torture – In a remarkable development at the High Court in London, an email from a senior US State Dept. official has been revealed, apparently threatening to curb co-operation with Britain on international intelligence sharing if details on a detainees interrogation are revealed. Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, held at Gitmo, have taken legal action in the UK to force the release of details which, they say, will prove Mohamed was illegally abducted and tortured into a confession. Mohamed claims that his torture included having his penis cut with a razor blade by Moroccan proxies for the US.

 

What Bush Taught McCain – The woman, a venture capitalist from the Denver area, looked a bit like Cindy McCain, and so it was disconcerting when she announced, in a focus group of undecided voters conducted by the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, that she had decided she just couldn’t vote for John McCain this year. “I supported him enthusiastically in 2000, but he’s hired the same people who ran him into the ground last time to run his campaign,” she said. McCain’s tone was more negative now. “It breaks my heart.”

Most people don’t care about the consultants a candidate hires — very few handlers achieve the celebrity status of a Karl Rove or a James Carville. Most voters who supported McCain in 2000 but not this year have more obvious gripes: they don’t like the way he’s shaved his policy positions to approach Republican dogma. They may remember that he opposed the Bush tax cuts before he favored them. They may remember that he was more moderate on social issues like abortion in 2000, decrying the extremists on both sides and saying that “people of good intentions” could come to some understanding. They may be surprised by his free-range bellicosity, rattling sabers from Iran to Georgia. All of which is summed up in a single image: McCain hugging — no, nuzzling up to — George W. Bush. And yet, as the venture capitalist pointed out, the most disheartening aspect of McCain’s 2008 campaign is not his embrace of Bush’s policies but of the Bush style of campaigning

Regards,

Jim
Will you listen to your hopes or your fears?

Posted in Bad Deeds, Human Rights Abuse, Media-Info Control, Rampant Cronyism/Corruption   |   Leave a comment   |  

Bad Deeds for 8-22-2008

The McCains Lied Repeatedly About Their Baby Adoption Story, Then Changed It Just Before the 2008 Campaign Began – As was pointed out Wednesday by the Christian Science Monitor, the McCain campaign was called out for lying about the purported urging of Cindy McCain by Mother Teresa herself to adopt two children at her orphanage back in 1991. It turns out, McCain never met or even spoke with Mother Teresa on that trip. Once confronted by the Monitor about the deception, the campaign quickly erased such claims from the website, as it did with Cindy’s family recipes, which were proved to be lifted from the Food Network. But after doing some research, this deception was no careless accident, but rather another shameless and deliberate attempt by the campaign to reinvent and embellish the McCain family history in time for his 2008 presidential bid. Read the details of the repeated false stories put into various media outlets by the McCains.

 

McCain’s “Rove-Style” Politics Forces President Eisenhower’s Granddaughter to Quit the Republican Party – From Susan Eisenhower:

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency … And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win?

Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after.

 

Rush Limbaugh Says, “You Can’t Criticize the Little Black Man-Child” – From the August 20 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show: “McCain’s just out there saying he’s putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country’s. It’s — you know, it’s just — it’s just we can’t hit the girl. I don’t care how far feminism’s saying, you can’t hit the girl, and you can’t — you can’t criticize the little black man-child. You just can’t do it, ’cause it’s just not right. It’s not fair. He’s such a victim.” (Do you really know anyone saying that Obama should not be criticized? If it’s truthful and relevant, bring it on! – JLV)

And on the August 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh said about Obama’s nomination, “I think it really goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy.”

And on his radio show, Sean Hannity said that Sen. Barack Obama “can’t point to a single instance in which President Bush or McCain or Karl Rove or Sean Hannity or talk radio or any other major Republican has made an issue of Obama’s race.” Of course, Limbaugh is not the only one proving Hannity wrong about that. There’s Glenn Beck, Monica Crowley, John Gibson, Melanie Morgan, and Sean Hannity.

 

McCain’s Campaign Says You Can’t Criticize the Ex-POW – When John McCain revealed that he didn’t know how many houses he and his wife currently own (they have at least eight properties), the Obama campaign pounced. They accused him of being elitist and disconnected and launched an ad within hours. The McCain campaign–realizing this was trouble–retorted the only way they knew how: With a truly stupefying response from McCain spokesman Brian Rogers:

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.

Yes, you read that right. McCain justified not knowing how many houses he has by saying he was a POW in Vietnam, four decades ago. Sorry, but we’re sick of hearing about this as a justification for everything John McCain does or doesn’t do. And remember, thousands of other veterans are homeless–that is, they have ZERO homes.

 

McCain Rode In A Nine-Car Motorcade To Get A Cappuccino – “By midafternoon, both campaigns were in full battle cry and sought to portray the other candidate as living an ostentatious lifestyle. Both campaigns called reporters, rushed out scathing TV attack ads, unveiled new websites and unleashed surrogates. McCain, who huddled with advisors at his desert compound in Sedona, Ariz., said nothing in public. A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters.”

(Maybe he did other things while he was out, like getting his $500 imported shoes shined. I wonder if he threw some coins to the little people on the way? – JLV)

 

McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years – When you can’t remember how many mansions you have, you can’t be expected to remember to pay the taxes on all of them.

 

McCain’s Chief Foreign Policy Adviser is a ‘Dual Loyalist’ and ‘Neocon Warmonger’ According to Pat Buchanan – According to conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, Sen. John McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann is a ‘dual loyalist’ ‘neocon warmonger’. Scheunemann’s former employer, Orion Strategies, is a lobbying firm with strong ties to Mikheil Saakashvili’s administration in Georgia. “He is a dual loyalist, a foreign agent whose assignment is to get America committed to spilling the blood of her sons for client regimes who have made this moral mercenary a rich man,” he wrote. Scheunemann’s former lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, received at lest $800,000 from the government of Georgia between 2004 and May 15, 2008

In his recent history, Scheunemann was a key member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which lobbied President Clinton for war with Iraq for years before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was also a signatory on a letter to President George W. Bush, just days after the terrorist attacks, demanding an invasion of Iraq and threatening political consequences if the president did not comply. Could Scheunemann be McCain’s Secretary of State if McCain is elected?

 

13-Year Military Pilot on Terror Watch List; Could End His Career – For Erich Scherfen, being on a government terror watch list isn’t just a matter of inconvenience. It could end his career. Scherfen served in the U.S. military for 13 years, as an Army infantryman in the first Gulf War and then as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. After receiving an honorable discharge, he was hired as a pilot by Colgan Air Inc., a regional airline operating in the Northeast and Texas.

In April, Colgan informed Scherfen that he was on a government list and would be suspended from his job. He was told he faced termination on September 1 unless he was able to clear his name. But Scherfen, of Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, has been unable to do so and said fears it could mean he has no future as a pilot. “My entire career depends on me getting off this list,” he told CNN. “I probably won’t be able to get a job anywhere else in the world having this mark that I’m on this list.”

 

Documents Reveal the PR Push for Iraq War Preceded Intelligence Findings – New documents from within the Bush administration and US intelligence community during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq reveal that the White House began assembling a case for war before it had compiled the intel that ostensibly formed the basis of that case.

A new report on the documents from George Washington University’s National Security Archive also presents compelling evidence that the Bush administration pressured the CIA and other intelligence agencies to tailor their reports to back-up Bush’s desire to invade. The report suggests the bulk of this effort was run out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, backing up numerous other post-war examinations of the path to invasion that saw Cheney as the mastermind of the plan to oust Saddam Hussein.

 

FBI Wants Power to Investigate Citizens “Without Any Basis for Suspicion” – A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday. The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,”

 

New Greenland Ice Crack Forms – In northern Greenland, a part of the Arctic that had seemed immune from global warming, new satellite images show a growing giant crack and an 11-square-mile chunk of ice hemorrhaging off a major glacier, scientists said Thursday. And that’s led the university professor who spotted the wounds in the massive Petermann glacier to predict disintegration of a major portion of the Northern Hemisphere’s largest floating glacier within the year. If it does worsen and other northern Greenland glaciers melt faster, then it could speed up sea level rise, already increasing because of melt in southern Greenland.

Regards,

Jim

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Bad Deeds for 8-21-2008

McCain to Mom of Veteran: I Don’t Disagree With Reenacting the Military Draft – An audience member at a McCain town hall meeting in Las Cruces, New Mexico on Wednesday said, “If we don’t reenact the draft, I don’t think we’ll have anyone to chase bin Laden to the gates of Hell.”

McCain responded, “Ma’am, let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said.”

 

Who’s Elitist? McCain Says He Doesn’t Know How Many Homes He Owns
Sen. John McCain told Politico in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told reporters Jon Martin and Mike Allen. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.” McCain’s staff said the answer is at least four. Guess again. Newsweek estimates that McCain has a total of seven homes. (Does McCain know how many pairs of $500 shoes he has? – JLV)

 


Who’s the Real Elitist with 10 Luxury Homes?

 

White House Missing as Many as 225 Days of E-mail – The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003 and there is little if any likelihood a recovery effort will be completed by the time the Bush administration leaves office. “With an eye on the clock, the White House continues to drag its feet and do everything possible to postpone public access to the records of this presidency,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private watchdog group. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has said the White House’s failure to properly archive e-mails violated the Presidential Records Act. The top lawyer for the National Archives has expressed disappointment the White House did not have a formal records management system in place.

 

McCain Says There’s No Need to Differentiate Himself From Bush – I don’t have any need to show that I’m different than President Bush,” McCain told Politico’s Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin Wednesday.

 

McCain Attacks Obama’s ‘Ambition’ After Acknowledging His Own – Senator John McCain recently accused Senator Barack Obama of calling for an end to the war in Iraq because he is motivated by “the ambition to be president.” It has now come out that McCain himself has written of his 2000 presidential campaign, “I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president.” That ambition, McCain added, even led him to “lie” and conceal his true opinion of the Confederate flag.

 

U.S. Military Held a Television Cameraman for Three Weeks Without Charges – The U.S. military freed a Reuters television cameraman on Thursday after holding him for three weeks in Iraq without charges. Ali al-Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, was detained in Baghdad on July 30 while he was in the Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a U.S. military press card. U.S. forces have detained Mashhadani twice before, at one point holding him for five months, but no charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province.

 

Man Dies After Waiting 22 Hours at Hospital
A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding. An investigator’s report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he choked on medication and was left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

 

Alaskan Governor Fired Public Safety Commissioner Who Balked Against Firing of Trooper Involved in Child-Custody Battle With Governor’s Sister – In July, Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin fired Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Monegan has said he felt pressured by the governor’s office to fire Palin’s ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, a trooper who had been locked in a child-custody battle with Palin’s sister. Palin last Wednesday revealed a phone call made by her boards and commissions director, Frank Bailey, to a trooper lieutenant. In the call, Bailey lists various complaints about Wooten and says the governor and her husband couldn’t understand why he still had a job.

 

Soil Bacterium Used in Making Geneticaly Modified Crops Found to Transfer T-DNA into Chromosomes of Human Cells – Agrobacterium, a soil bacterium extensively manipulated and used in making geneticaly modified crops, not only infects human and other animal cells, it also transfers genes into them. Until Stony Brook University in New York (SUNY) professor Vitaly Citovsky and his team made the discovery, the genetic engineering community had assumed that Agrobacterium did not infect animal cells, and certainly would not transfer genes into them. Agrobacterium was found to transfer T-DNA into the chromosomes of human cells. Preliminary findings now suggest a link between Morgellons Disease and Agrobacterium. Morgellons Disease first became known in 2001. A growing list of people are registered with Morgellons Disease, totalling 12,106 worldwide recorded by Morgellons Research Foundation, as of 12 April 2008.

 

McCain Sidesteps Question About Why His Account of His Affair During His First Marriage Doesn’t Match Official Documents – CNN’s John King has been looking into the circumstances of McCain’s divorce from his first wife, Carol.. Not only was McCain 17 years older than Cindy, but he was still married to Carol, and their daughter was only 12 years old. King explains. “He’d been having affairs for several years.” King stated, “his own divorce filing shows they dated for nine months while he was still living with Carol, and records show he applied for a marriage license in Arizona before his divorce was final.”

However, Cindy McCain told King that it didn’t bother her to be dating a married man because “my husband had been separated. … You know, six and a half years, it was a long separation.” John McCain also wrote in his memoir that he had separated from Carol before he started dating Cindy.

When King asked McCain about the fact that “the chronology that is presented publicly doesn’t necessarily match the chronology of the documents,” McCain’s only answer was, “It’s 30 years ago. I have a happy marriage.”

 

John McCain’s Introspective Comments in His AutoBiography Were Not Written by John McCain – In his 2002 book, “Worth the Fighting For,” John McCain offered this confession — an acknowledgment of a restless mind: “Although I seem to tolerate introspection better the older I am, there are still too many claims on my attention to permit more than the briefest excursions down the path of self-awareness. When I am no longer busy with politics, and with my own ambitions, I hope to have more time to examine what I have done and failed to do with my career, and why.”

A telling observation, or so it seems, and refreshingly candid for a public figure. But the words are not John McCain’s. They were written by his longtime aide Mark Salter, McCain’s literary alter ego. “Worth the Fighting For,” like McCain’s other four books, is by “John McCain With Mark Salter,” as they all say on their covers. This comment on McCain’s disinclination to commit introspection was “my surmise,” Salter said in a recent interview in his windowless office at McCain headquarters in Crystal City. He explained his technique:

“It’s his voice, but I’m going inside his head to speak some psychological truth about him. I’m drawing a conclusion based on my observation of him. I always show him: ‘This is what I’ve written. This is what I think about you. Is this fair?’ ”

Regards,

Jim

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Bad Deeds for 8-20-2008

Texas Board of Education Under Control of a Rogue Faction With a Specific Agenda – Recent actions have landed Texas State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy and an eight-member faction under legislative scrutiny.

At first glance, their misdeeds seem innocuous. But, it turns out, they might be costly and illegal.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills are the standards of school content, defining what students need to learn as they progress from grade to grade and what they are tested on at the end of the year.

On July 16, the House Public Education Committee requested that McLeroy answer questions about the TEKS adoption process. Some observers say he hanged himself. But in the words of a Monty Python character, he’s “not dead yet.”

In fact, he’s thumbing his nose at legislators. His testimony was circular and evasive and, according to knowledgeable educators, at times deceptive. Video of the committee meeting can be seen on the committee Web site at tinyurl.com/Public-Education.

McLeroy’s testimony and answers to questions from state Reps. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington; Dora Olivo, D-Richmond; and Donna Howard, D-Austin; revealed McLeroy’s rejection of sound educational practices.

When Howard attributed the SBOE’s adoption of damaging TEKS to “ideology” and “politicizing our children’s education,” observers overwhelmingly demonstrated their agreement with an eruption of applause.

Legislators heard testimony from SBOE members and more than two dozen of Texas’s top educators. Among them were Linda Ferreira-Buckley, chair of UT’s Rhetoric and Writing Department; Alana Morris, teacher and president of the Coalition of Reading and English Teachers; and Cindy Tyroff, curriculum developer for San Antonio’s Northside school district.

Educators who testified about the quality of the adopted TEKS described them in the worst of terms. Flawed. Full of gaps. Costly to local school districts. Damaging to children.

Legislators also learned from testimony that the new ELAR (English Language Arts) TEKS don’t completely align to college readiness standards. The last Legislature passed a law mandating that TEKS align with those standards. The State Board of Education broke the law.

Legislators also learned that the board’s rogue faction rejected a math textbook without reason. They broke the law.

Conclusion: The law applies only at these politicians’ pleasure.

What happened with the ELAR TEKS, and what happened at the next SBOE meeting, is of concern to all Texans because we will pay heavily for this faction’s ideology.

Good TEKS are aligned, meaning that students master content at each level that prepares them for the next grade level, but the adopted TEKS are not aligned. A result will be gaps in students’ learning because a child going through the system is almost guaranteed not to learn material at one level necessary for success on the next level. Most children will not recover the needed material, and many will be damaged as a result.

Texans will also pay with their pocketbooks. Local school districts will spend lots of unbudgeted money interpreting the messy TEKS so that they can match it to what they are teaching in the classrooms.

McLeroy’s testimony was an unintentional admission of guilt and a humiliating display of ignorance of the ELAR standards he voted on.

But he recovered. The next day, defying the advice of Public Education Committee member Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, and with arrogance that contrasts sharply with the humility legislators saw the day before, McLeroy led his SBOE faction to adopt Bible-course standards so vague that they leave the door gaping for classroom proselytizing.

SMU Religion Studies Chair Mark Chancey termed them “a constitutional train wreck” that will cost taxpayers in legal defense fees.

Continuing a radical rampage, McLeroy’s group outlined a process for the Science TEKS adoption that flies in the face of legislators’ intent. Their new process disempowers teachers and experts and enhances the group’s ability to adopt their ideology. If they succeed, taxpayers may foot that bill in court, as well.

And because most members of this faction had campaigns financed by James Leininger from San Antonio, we can anticipate another costly issue. Leininger is known for financing candidates who support his causes, which include school vouchers. Vouchers are one way to get taxpayers to pay for education in religious schools, exactly what America’s Founding Fathers didn’t want.

So what can be done? … One good remedy is in board District 7, where Laura Ewing is running against incumbent David Bradley. Bradley is infamous among educators for his statement, “Thinking is gobbledygook.” He votes with the ideologues. Ewing would balance the board with integrity.

Meantime, Gov. Rick Perry should revisit his appointment of McLeroy as board chair. …

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