Fristibuster On The Move

Just a little more on the Fristian leadership and their "leadership" approach...

from EJ Dionne's column

~snip~
Moreover, the DeLay scandals go to the heart of how Republicans have achieved power since 1994: the creation of an interlocking directorate of politicians, lobbyists, fundraisers and interest groups. For Democrats, the DeLay scandal is not simply a political gift but also an opportunity for public education on the nature of the Republicans' congressional machine.

DeLay's fate will depend on how long his party stays loyal to him and whether there are new revelations. But even on the issues of Social Security and judges, there can be no easy compromise, because both sides understand the stakes in these battles in exactly the same way.

DeLay himself drew the line sharply the day after the 2004 elections. "The Republican Party is a permanent majority for the future of this country," DeLay declared. "We're going to be able to lead this country in the direction we've been dreaming of for years."

Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform and a leading figure in both the DeLay and Bush political operations, chose more colorful post-election language to describe the future. "Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans," he told Richard Leiby of The Post. "Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant. But when they've been 'fixed,' then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful."

If you wonder in the coming weeks why Democrats are so reluctant to give ground, remember Norquist's jocular reference to neutering the opposition party. Democrats are neither contented nor cheerful over the prospect of being "fixed." Should that surprise anyone?

-----
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/09/AR2005050901013.html

The entire article is well worth your time.

Note the appalling language used by Grover Norquist (and he isn't even a wacko blogger).

By Lou Dobbs

Lonely in the Middle

Compassionate conservatism has been the catchphrase of George W. Bush since the presidential campaign of 2000, but those two words must now ring hollow to the more than 100 million Americans who make up our middle class. There is nothing conservative about our rising record budget and trade deficits. There is nothing compassionate about the president's idea of Social Security reform, the rollback of coverage for ever more costly healthcare for working Americans, or the most recent assault on the middle class: the new bankruptcy reform bill that Bush signed into law last week.

It's ironic that Congress approved the bankruptcy bill to impose fiscal discipline on the middle class when the federal government last year ran up a $412 billion budget deficit and a $617 billion trade deficit. President Bush's temerity in signing this legislation was the ultimate hypocrisy in a town already very well credentialed. Add to that hypocrisy the House of Representatives' vote to permanently repeal the estate tax for the wealthy, as Congress further rent the middle class's social safety net.

Compassionate conservatism? The new bankruptcy law was virtually written by the credit card companies and banks, making it far more difficult for American families to erase their debt. The credit card firms are not exactly struggling. Their profits, in fact, have risen steadily over the past decade.

Personal bankruptcy filings fell nearly 4 percent to 1.56 million in 2004, down from a record high a year earlier. But these aren't just lazy debtors taking advantage of a broken system; these are working men and women who have faced hardships and financial failure, and tried to avoid bankruptcy court. A recent Harvard study shows that nearly half of all personal bankruptcies in this country are caused by costly illnesses and medical bills. And surprisingly, more than three quarters of the debtors who sought court protection from creditors had some health insurance coverage at the onset of the illness that triggered bankruptcy.

"Do we run the country for the people, or do we run it for nameless, faceless banks or international corporations?" asks Harvard Law School Prof. Elizabeth Warren. "That was the issue way back as far back as the Depression. The ultimate decision was we run it for the people. ... And now we have made a complete turnabout: We not only don't invest in the middle class, we drain away from the middle class. We tax them harder; we leave them with bigger risks like never before in history. And we take away the last shred of a safety net--bankruptcy. It's war on the middle class."

Bipartisan attack. It's now a war being prosecuted by both political parties. Neither party in Congress is looking out for the interests of the middle class. Not surprisingly, every Republican in both the Senate and the House of Representatives voted in favor of the bankruptcy bill. Seventy-three Democrats in the House as well as 18 in the Senate joined their pro-business colleagues on the other side of the aisle by voting against the needs of the people. To permanently repeal the estate tax, 42 House Democrats voted in favor of supporting another break for the wealthy. Every Republican in the House except one approved that legislation.

"The middle-class working-family interests are not being guarded on Capitol Hill," says Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who voted against the bankruptcy reform bill. "They are, unfortunately, victims of what has become a tidal wave of pro-business legislation, which has been unfair to a lot of families that are struggling to get along."

Durbin acknowledges that too many in his party are now under the sway of the all-powerful political influence of corporate America. "It's sad that there are many Democrats that felt, initially, this was an easy business vote when the bill came up 10 years ago," Durbin said. "Unfortunately, over the years, the bill got progressively worse and much more unfair for consumers, and many of those same Democrats still stuck with the Republicans."

Abraham Lincoln declared that a government "of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth," but the 21st century has so far seen it certainly diminishing. Unless one political party (and let's hope both) finds the courage to resist corporate interests and put working men and women first, our middle class will be among the loneliest people in a faded nation.

dwahzon:

I too read and was impressed with E.J.'s editorial and analysis discussing the RNC's plan to try and make the DNC a 'permanent minority'; to be fixed as he says.

We saw those same tactics down here during the ReDistricting Fight and let me tell you from what we learned here in Texas, Republicans have no plans of budging one inch. They want complete , 100% control of all branches of government and have no plans to accept anything less. Since the line has been drawn in the sand by Frist/DeLay, I see absolutely no reason why our side should compromise regarding the nuclear option. In a strange sense I feel many are waiting and holding their collective breath to see if Dems flinch or cave in with a last minute deal.Cowardice is not what voters are looking for, neither is being neutered acceptable and E.J. is right on the mark, as usual.

Posted by: Fe at May 10, 2005 01:52 PM

I love Lou Dobbs, I dont care what political party he is in, he is definatly not a kool-aide drinker in anyway shape or form. Thanks for sharing this Fe.

Grover Norquist is headed for a rude awakening once this economy begins its inevitable deficit and petroleum driven nose-dive. He may find that his head, rather the size of the Federal Government, is the thing that needs shrinking.

Here is the press release for the event here in DC:

http://www.princeton.edu/~petehill/filibuster-dc.pdf

Exactly... every MSM article on the filibuster should open with the following paragraph:

From salon.com
Nuclear rumblings

Here's a proposition for the mainstream media. Somewhere in every story about the nuclear option, drop in a sentence like this: "Senate Republicans, who prohibited more than 60 of Bill Clinton's judicial nominees from ever reaching the Senate floor, are seeking to change the rules of the Senate because Democrats are blocking seven of George W. Bush's nominees."

Maybe it's wishful thinking -- OK, it is wishful thinking -- but the thing is, Republicans in the Senate are making it harder and harder to ignore the fact that Republicans in the Senate protest just a little too much about the treatment of Bush's judicial picks. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel 'fessed up Sunday, when he acknowledged that the Republicans' blockage -- through blue slips and other methods -- of more than 60 Clinton nominees means that Republicans' "hands aren't clean" on the issue of judges. Then, in a floor speech Monday, Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter followed suit, saying that, over time, each party "has ratcheted up the ante in delaying and denying confirmation to the other party' presidential nominees."

And when the Republicans' weren't acknowledged their past sins over the last few days, the Democrats have been doing it for them; they're circulating a memo describing every Republican senator's voting record on filibusters. You can look up Bill Frist there: He voted against cloture -- in other words, in favor of filibustering -- Richard Paez, a Clinton appointee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Frist won't come clean about the vote. He says it was just about "scheduling," which is true to the extent that Republicans wanted to schedule the Paez vote, oh, never. And he says that judicial nominees with "clear majority support" have never been denied up-or-down votes on the Senate floor, which is true if you just don't include the dozens of Clinton judges the Republicans prevented from getting out of the Senate Judiciary Committee -- and if you don’t count failed efforts like Frist's own unsuccessful attempt to block the Paez nomination by filibuster.

By killing the Republicans' credibility on their own record, the Democrats hope to force Frist to back away from the nuclear option or to peel off enough Republicans that defeat or compromise become the only options. So far, the Democrats seem to have the upper hand, at least in the public relations game. They've got Republicans like Hagel and Specter admitting their sins, and they've got Frist looking intransigent: When Harry Reid told Frist Monday that the Democrats were ready to move ahead with a floor vote on yet another appellate court nominee, Frist refused, saying he wanted votes on everyone or no one.

If Democrats, with the help of some moderate Republicans, can paint the GOP as both inflexible and hypocritical on judges, a compromise like the one Trent Lott and Ben Nelson have been working may finally come together. Roll Call said Monday that the two senators were close to a deal that would avert Frist's plan to kill the minority's right to filibuster judicial nominees. But this morning, The Hill quoted Lott to the effect that senators aren't close to a deal. Roll Call says the deal would involve a handful of Democrats' agreeing to support floor votes on four of the seven blocked judges -- and not to filibuster future Bush nominees except in "extreme circumstances" -- in exchange for a guarantee that a handful of Republicans would deny Frist the votes he needs for the nuclear option. But now, The Hill says, the "extreme circumstances" language has shifted; under the deal now being discussed, the participating Democrats would have to agree not to support filibusters unless a particular nominee was "extremely controversial." We're not sure we understand the difference between "extreme circumstances" and "extremely controversial," but it's a distinction that must matter to somebody. Something else that matters, and is apparently unresolved: Just what the Democrats would have to promise in terms of the blocked nominees. Lott told The Hill that the four-out-of-seven plan isn't good enough: "How do you pick the three?" he asked. And Frist seems unlikely to accept anything less than a floor vote on every Bush nominee, at least until someone shows him that he can't get it or that the religious right will forgive him for not trying.

And that last part -- room to negotiate from the far right -- doesn't seem to be there quite yet. James Dobson and others on the religious right say that the question of judicial nominees is the single most important issue in decades. In a radio appearance Monday, Dobson said: "Nothing good happened in November, only the potential for something good." And no less of an authority on the federal judiciary than Rush Limbaugh has now declared that whether Republicans force a vote on the nuclear option -- not whether they get more judges confirmed, but whether they force the vote -- should be a litmus test for the party faithful. "We want the Senate Republicans to defend the prerogatives of this president as in every past president and we want a vote," Limbaugh said on his show Monday. "We want a vote on changing the filibuster so we know where each of these senators stands on such an important issue."

But Rush, we know where they stand already. Republican senators, by and large, support the idea of blocking judges when the a president from the other party is doing the nominating. They oppose it when the president is one of their own. You could look it up.

-- Tim Grieve

[08:39 EDT, May 10, 2005]
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/10/nuclear/index.html

Garrison has such a nice way with words.

You'll enjoy this article.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050523&s=keillor

Confessions of a Listener
by GARRISON KEILLOR

[from the May 23, 2005 issue]

Interesting website on John Bolton:

http://stopbolton.com/why_stop_bolton.html

How to Stop a Genocide by Senator Jon Corzine

I just saw first-hand how terrorists are made. Mix together a genocide, a civil war, oil, a failed state, and non-intervention by the global community until it is too late. And voila.
~snip~
Last week, I went to Iraq and Chad. I visited troops in Iraq from my home state. These soldiers are professionals in the most magnificant sense of the word, prepared to give their lives to protect our country.

But why did I also go to Chad? Well, because while Iraq is a war-zone, Chad is right next to another war-zone, the Western regions of Darfur in the Sudan, where genocide is tearing a country apart and creating the conditions for a new failed state and breeding ground for terrorists.

Here are a couple of interesting facts about the Sudan. First, there’s oil there. Second, Osama bin Laden used to spend time there before venturing to Afghanistan. Third, a fundamentalist strain of militant Islam is quite strong within the political culture. To top it all off the country is buffeted by civil war, and a brutal genocide. Over 2 million people have been displaced by the government trying to kill or starve them by preventing humanitarian aid from coming through.

There are real, pragmatic reasons for intervening to ameliorate this situation, but first I want to make the moral case. That case is simple. Stopping the slaughter of an entire people is the greatest moral challenge of our time. Evil on this scale is unimaginable to most, which is why historically we do not act on genocide until it is too late. But this time we can act, and stop this new holocaust. And we should. In the wake of demanding democracy in the Middle East, our nation's value system requires it.

But even if you put aside the moral case for ending genocide for a moment, consider our own interests in the matter. The failed state that is being created in the wake of this horrific crime will be a hotbed for global instability. I was there, and I saw what’s happening. As I stood in the refugee camps of Eastern Chad, into which hundreds of thousands of desperate people are pouring over the border, I realized how dangerous to America the situation has become. Not only is Darfur a lawless part of an unstable state, but the conflict there is destabilizing Chad.

The refugees, even when they are receiving food and shelter, have nothing to do. Resentment is building. And Eastern Chad, which has insufficient resources for its own population, cannot accomodate the refugees for long. We must stop this genocide, and we also must bring about a long-term political solution to this crisis. With two million people in refugee camps in Chad and camps for displaced persons in Darfur, we are creating the conditions for the collapse of law and order in an entire region and, potentially, for terrorism.

So what can we do? What’s remarkable about this crisis is that it’s not that difficult a task to resolve the situation. The people perpetrating the genocide don't have a massive conventional army. They may stop if they think there will be consequences to their actions. The warlords are betting on our inaction, and so far, their bet is paying off.

I sponsored a bipartisan bill in the Senate that passed called the ‘Darfur Accountability Act’ to impose consequences and threaten these warlords. This bill would provide the tools to stop the genocide, including sanctions against those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, an arms embargo against the government of Sudan, and a no-fly zone over Darfur. It also calls for the appointment of a Special Envoy, whose job it would be to work with all the parties to bring an end to the crisis. Without this level of engagement, I am deeply afraid that the situation will fester and more terrorists will emerge who may threaten our country. Last week, the Republicans in the House, with the support of the Bush Administration, neutered this bill by stripping out the most important provisions.

This fight does not end here. I’m going to keep blogging on this topic, and in future posts I’ll let you know how you personally can help the situation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/letas-stop-maki_1.html

Thanks to a united Democratic party leadership the American public has already seen through Bu$h's "let's reform-social-security-to destroy-it" scam.
Next up is vote Bolton to the UN and ramming through the right wing's extremists judges.
Moderate Republicans in Congress who may balk got their arms twisted: party before principle.
Some have higher ambitions themselves, so they are easiest of all to "persuade", either you vote party line or forget any future ambitions.
Its now all or nothing. If Bu$h were to lose on Bolton or lose on the judges, he would immediately be in the "Lame Duck" category, and his power grip would begin to loosen.
What he really wants to accomplish is "tax reform", that's coming this summer. As in, less taxes for the investment class, all taxes on the working class. But his chances of getting that depend on not being seen as a "Lame duck".

Right now he & Cheney are still the big bullies. But Lame-duck time is coming, it is inevitable. Bu$h wants his way 100%, because like any bully, as soon as the soft underbelly is exposed, the big bully is not so powerful anymore and never will be again.
Its time for the Dems to stay united, and hasten bullyBu$h into Lame Duck status.

From John Cusack:

Goodbye Hunter. All the good ones seem to be moving on these days...

Here is just one of the good doctor’s final ruminations on our American experience. He sent it to me on a t-shirt a few months ago:

"'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property -- or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/goodbye-hunter-_1.html

Did anyone else hear Ken Starr say on CNN this Sunday that he was against tampering with Senate traditions and ending the filibuster. Starr of all people saying its a bad idea.

Breaking news story: [well, of course its important for them to get the judges they want]

Appeals Court Sides With Cheney in Lawsuit

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't have to disclose the advice his energy task force got from the industry, an appeals court ruled Tuesday in what probably was a final blow to a politically charged lawsuit over public access to White House decision making.

The task force met in 2001 and produced pro-industry recommendations for sweeping energy legislation now before Congress. The Bush administration fought hard to keep the panel's workings secret, arguing that public disclosure would make it difficult for any White House to solicit candid advice on important policy issues.

Once seen as a potentially huge political liability for the Bush administration, the task force lawsuit ended up being more Washington political theater, with cameo appearances by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and former Enron Corp. Chairman Ken Lay.

entire article here~
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cheney_energy

Damn out-of-control judiciary!

Latest response to all the Kerry bashing from Kos:

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=871

Unfortunately The Note linked to two of Kos's anti-Kerry posts along with another post elsehwere, giving such attacks quite a bit of coverage.

Those filibustering students make me so happy! That list of things they've read is great!

...If anyone reads toughenough.org, they had a very good post on Bolton:
http://toughenough.org/2005/05/daily-bolton_10.html

Ron:

This is why its so easy to divide and conquer the left. We set the table up for our oponents, provide them quality service, and even tip the bellboy who takes their luggage as they come in. with to use our hotel as headquarters.

Ron, I am 100% with you. Thanks for the links to the rebuttals. Just my opinion, but dkos may have something to worry about. The new Huffington site looks like it will be giving him real competition, several here have linked to posts from it already, including myself. I happen to think that an ever expanding blogosphere is good, the more sites we can learn from, the better:)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

THIS WAX ON FOR FIVE MINUTES ON MY YAHOO HOME PAGE> GLAD I FOUND IT AGAIN:

Halliburton gets $72 mln bonus for work in Iraq By Sue Pleming
40 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had awarded $72 million in bonuses to Halliburton Co. for logistics work in Iraq but had not decided whether to give the Texas company bonuses for disputed dining services to troops.

Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said in a statement it had given Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown & Root ratings from "excellent" to "very good" for six task orders for work supporting U.S. troops in Iraq.

The Army said its Award Fee Board in Iraq had met in March and had agreed to pay KBR bonuses for work it did in support of U.S. forces there.

The Army said in a statement later that while it had given the company an additional $72 million, it had denied KBR $10.1 million in bonuses and not paid the maximum allowed on any of the task orders.

"We have protected the taxpayer FIRST," said the Army in a statement released later, pointing out this paragraph had been "inadvertently left off" the original news release.

The Army said dining facility costs questioned by auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency had not yet been considered by the military's Award Fee Board. No details were available as to when this dining fee bonus would be resolved.

Much of Halliburton's work for the U.S. military, ranging from building bases to delivering mail, is on a cost-plus basis, which means the company can earn up to 2 percent extra depending on its performance.

Bonuses are awarded based on, among other factors, how efficient and responsible the company is to requests from the Army and is an indicator of how the Army views KBR's performance in the field.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), a vocal critic of Halliburton's performance in Iraq, said Halliburton did not deserve a bonus.

"It is outrageous that the Bush Administration would give Halliburton a bonus after we have seen its overcharges, sloppy accounting and kick-back schemes in Iraq," Lautenberg said. "Giving Halliburton a bonus is like giving your worst employee a raise."

KBR's logistics deal with the U.S. military has been in the spotlight from the outset in Iraq, with allegations by auditors that they overcharged for some work, including dining services.

In addition, investigators are looking into whether the Texas-based firm charged too much to supply fuel to Iraqi civilians, a claim the firm says is not justified.

Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney until he joined the 2000 race for the White House, has earned more than $7 billion under its 2001 logistics contract with the U.S. military.

sorry for all the typos--I don't have my reading glasses on.

Lunacy of monumental proportions:

HUFFINGTON POST EXCLUSIVE: EMBARGOED BOOK CLAIMS SAUDI OIL INFRASTRUCTURE RIGGED FOR CATASTROPHIC SELF-DESTRUCTION

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/2005/05/embargoed-book-claims-sau_1.html

Dispatch: The Turning of Middle America

In the heartland, Americans are turning away from George Bush and his war in Iraq; unfortunately, Howard Dean and the Democrats aren't.
By Stewart Nusbaumer

Interstate 70, Indiana -- He blasted out of my car radio as I zipped along Interstate 70 past boundless Midwest farmland.

“I’m no bleeding heart, understand? I’m a Republican. But I got to tell you I’m not feeling good about voting for Bush?”

“Why is that?” the radio host asked.

“You know, I really don’t care if they kill each other over there in Iraq. It's not my concern. What I’m concerned about is every time I pull up to the gas pump I have to pay $2.50 a gallon. I’m concerned about our border -- illegals are pouring across! I don’t care what they do to each other in Iraq.”

It was the voice of a straight-talking Joe Six-Pack from the Heartland of America. It was an angry white male who is now angry at President Bush. It was a Republican regretting that he voted for Republican George Bush. This sounded good.

“And I’m concerned about the economy, it’s not looking good. I don't care what they say, it ain't looking good.” Then he says, slower this time, “I’m not feeling at all good about voting for George Bush.”

While Republican Joe from Indiana has gone from supporting to opposing the war in Iraq, along with millions of other Americans, Howard Dean, the former antiwar Democratic presidential contender and now Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has changed from opposing the war to supporting the occupation of Iraq. Several weeks ago in Minneapolis, speaking at the American Civil Liberties Union convention, Dean, said: “Now that we’re there [in Iraq], we’re there and we can't get out.”

Not all Democrats agree with Howard Dean's view that we must stay in Iraq. Tom Hayden certainly doesn't.

I do not believe the Iraq War is worth another drop of blood, another dollar of taxpayer subsidy, another stain on our honor. Our occupation is the chief cause of the nationalist resistance in that country. We should end the war and foreign economic occupation. Period.

To those Democrats in search of a muscular, manly foreign policy, let me say that real men (and real patriots) do not sacrifice young lives for their own mistakes, throw good money after bad, or protect the political reputations of high officials at the expense of their nation's moral reputation.

Although Joe Six-Pack probably has a negative view of the former 1960s activist, if he knows who he is, he agrees with Hayden that the war is not worth “another drop of blood” and we should not “throw good money after bad.” This conservative Republican from rural Indiana agrees with Jane Fonda’s ex-husband and the former leader of a radical 60s organization, Students for Democratic Society (SDS), yet disagrees with the chairman of the mainstream Democratic National Committee. If that doesn’t make Democrats nervous, they’re brain dead.

Opposition to the Iraq War is crossing the ideological divide. In the bars of America (which I know something about), non-liberals are getting fed up with this war. Although seldom stated explicitly, there is a growing feeling that Iraq is becoming another winless, bloody Vietnam, a disaster and humiliation in the slow making. In Republican strongholds in the Midwest, conservatives are reluctantly turning against not only the war but also the man who gave us this war, George Bush. Unfortunately, mainstream Democrats appear to be on the wrong side of this change.

Although Howard Dean (along with Dennis Kucinich) carried the antiwar flag during the Democratic presidential primaries, possibly costing Dean the nomination, he has now abandoned that position at the exact time Americans appear to be catching up to his antiwar stand. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans believe it was a mistake to get involved in Iraq, and the numbers are steadily increasing. The realization that Iraq was a mistake is now reaching even solid Bush supporters.

What this Republican from a Red state who voted for George Bush said -- he wants our troops out of Iraq and our government to refocus on improving the economy, securing our national borders, and reducing the soaring price of gasoline -- certainly sounds reasonable, and represents an opportunity for Democrats. Yet, if mainstream Democrats continue to believe that we must stay the Bush course in Iraq, then we will spend more billions of dollars -- we’ve already spent $300 billion -- and the United States will lack the resources to improve the economy and strengthen our security. In short, Democrats will lose the opportunity to grab the Joe Six-Pack's of America.

Will Democrats, then, step forward and present a plan to withdraw our troops from Iraq? Or will they simply mimic their Party’s chairman to stay the Bush course? Will Democrats craft a domestic agenda that focuses on the economy and national security, unlike Bush, whose agenda focuses on tax cuts and business benefits? Or will they continue to remain quiet? Will Democrats address the growing frustrations and disappointments of Bush supporters? Or are they too timid? We're waiting to hear, and so is one angry Republican in Indiana.

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1074

HA HA!

It takes all of this for Americans in the "Heartland" to realize...

Damn...and I thought I was DENSE...

Guess not.

Too bad the Bush Adminstration has never had transparency in their unique and failing form of government...

If they did, the good ol' USA would not be in such a state of disarray and chaos.

Wake up sleepy heads...

It is time to see the LIGHT!

Political North Carolina pastor resigns
Pastor was accused of ousting members who voted against Bush
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. - A Baptist preacher accused of running out nine congregants who refused to support President Bush resigned Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7769149/

Political North Carolina pastor resigns
Pastor was accused of ousting members who voted against Bush
WAYNESVILLE, N.C. - A Baptist preacher accused of running out nine congregants who refused to support President Bush resigned Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7769149/

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:26 PM

WOO HOO!!!!!

Political North Carolina pastor resigns

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:26 PM

Amen.

Truth,
I neglected to post this part of the article:

IRS investigation urged
Chandler’s resignation came a day after a national group that lobbies for church-state separation urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax-exempt status of the East Waynesville Baptist Church.

IRS rules bar clear-cut politicking by tax-exempt groups. Last October, days before Bush won a second term, the IRS said it was investigating about 60 charities and other tax-exempt groups — about a third of them churches — for potentially breaking rules that bar them from participating in political activity.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7769149/

IRS investigation urged
Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:42 PM

Double amen, with sugar on top.

Shaken, not stirred.

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:26 PM

EOG's are this week so I missed the local news this AM. I think its likely that he was forced to. The south likes for the world to think it lives up to its Southern Hosp. rep. This put not only that church but the Baptist religion on the national stage and made it all look bad, not to mention the legalities of what he did. The really sad thing is for the most part the south does live up to its Rep, but down here a persons Church has a tremendous amount of control over the peoples lives. You gotta remember in some states people attend church on Sunday and maybe some group meetings through out the week, there are Baptist Churches down here that meet every other day.

"Being born again doesn't mean you get it right the second time." [Larry Gelbart]

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:42 PM

Posted by: MoNkEy at May 10, 2005 09:45 PM

HOT diggity dawg, and HALLELUJAH, BROTHA!!!!!

(Heh heh.....) PURRAIZE DA LAWD!!!

Cyrano
It would be good if Norquist figured out how to shrink his head - then it would fit better where it needs to go.

Posted by: April at May 10, 2005 09:49 PM

April, yes, what you said is true. The same can be said for many denominations, including the Catholic church, that have been infiltrated with political power mongers posing as Shepherds. Alot of pentecostal and charismatic churches meet more than once a week also, and do things as a group socially all through the week. Let's hope this is just the beginning. Thousands across the nation are guilty of the same exact thing this pastor did, as far as trying to control the sheep as far as their political leanings. I know many were "urged" through emails and snail mailings to "strongly suggest who they should vote for".
They were also asked to raise their hands if they planned on voting, and urged to be sure to go to the polls. It is a RAMPANT problem in thousands if not thousands upons thousands of churches in the U.S., and has been going on for a few years.
Control and manipulation by thinking for people and playing on their fears and prejudices by inducing strong guilt feelings and fear of either "not fitting in and being accepted", or
pastors threatening the sheep with ex-communication like the pastor who just resigned did. Some Catholics refused people receiving communion. I was not allowed to teach Sunday School for a time, and was totally ignored on a woman's ministry Sunday, until I "helped" them "see the light".

It needs to STOP.......Maybe we need to call the MSM and insist they report THOROUGHLY on the above matter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Being born again doesn't mean you get it right the second time." [Larry Gelbart]

Posted by on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 10:03 PM

Tell me about it.

osted by: on.to.victory4Dems at May 10, 2005 09:42 PM

Finally, some really good news.

Here is an interesting transcript from a online conversation featuring Reps. Conyers and Slaughter. It had a grab bag of questions and I am happy that we have those two on our side.

http://www.democraticaction.org/blog_chat/

from Seattle Times:

Bolton is Bush's Frankenstein monster

Too little attention has been paid to the most important aspect of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the nomination of
Undersecretary of State John Bolton to be the ambassador to the United Nations. The hearings are a red flag. The testimony pinpoints the basic flaws of the Republican-controlled administration and Congress that have brought ineffective governance.

First, the effort to promote Bolton -- in spite of his incompetence and his egregious misuse of information to push his unsubstantiated claims -- reveals the political dogmatism that has made the Bush administration policies so ineffective. Second, winning at any cost has morphed into the overriding Bushadministration objective as party polarization has turned Washington, D.C., politics into a no man's land where the nation's needs are the main casualty.

Nowhere are these two points made more clearly than in the case of Bolton, who turns out to be President Bush's Frankenstein's monster, a figurative stitching together of the administration's worst traits. Yet, his inept performance neither got him canned from his undersecretary of state job nor stood in the way of his nomination to the even more important position of U.N. ambassador.

Numerous witnesses told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton was ill tempered, vindictive and abusive. He went ballistic when his judgments were challenged by subordinates, repeatedly misused information and pushed highly inflated claims about weapons of mass destruction, and disregarded any views that did not fit with his rigid ideology.

New York Times reporter Douglas Jehl, based on comments from former intelligence officials, wrote that Bolton in 2002 and 2003 "sought to
deliver warnings about Syrian efforts to acquire unconventional weapons that the Central Intelligence Agency and other experts rejected as exaggerated." Jehl also quoted Bolton's widely rejected claim that Cuba, Libya and Syria were " 'rogue states intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction.' "

John Wolf, an assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation under
Bolton, told staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "I believe it would be fair to say that some of the officers within my bureau complained that they felt undue pressure to conform to the views of the undersecretary versus the views that they could support."

In Bolton's own testimony on another complaint about his abusing subordinates, he admitted that he wanted two analysts reassigned but said: "I didn't seek to have these people fired." That misses the key point. It is unnecessary to actually fire professional analysts to silence them. The top decision-makers need only to stick to their unrealistic claims so as to make clear that any challenges to their ideological predilections will incur their displeasure, thereby threatening the analysts' careers.

Although they did not engage in Bolton's ill-tempered, vindictive histrionics, like him, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice created an environment where any internal criticism was strongly discouraged. The results, however, were the same: The top decision-makers' inaccurate data and unrealistic assumptions yielded misguided policies and inept implementation.

Bolton is not a caricature of the Bush administration. Indeed, he is Cheney's protégé. Like others high in the Bush government, his unswerving, outspoken commitment to the president's agenda trumps any managerial deficiencies. The administration argued that Bolton, who during his career showed disdain for the United Nations, is the best person to remake the organization to fit the Bush administration image. For the Bush true believers, all that matters is to adhere strictly to the agenda. The competence factor is irrelevance.

That is nonsense. No matter how closely Bolton's views reflect those of the administration, his lack of the needed skills seems almost certain to doom him to fail to do the job right. Incompetence blights implementation. Why, then, did the administration not nominate a more competent person with a similar view of the United Nations? The reason is that this ideology-driven administration fails to recognize Bolton's serious flaws or the debilitating consequences for policymaking flowing from them because his grave deficiencies mirror their own.

Whatever the Senate finally does, the intensity of the confirmation battle makes frighteningly clear how much political polarization has made Republican senators fear the wrath of the hard-line ideologues that now own the party. These confirmation hearings are not "just politics." The serious battle over a person of such obvious unsuitability for the critical U.N. post signals the Republicans' incompetence to govern the nation.

Even more specifically, the Bolton hearings cry out that total commitment to an ideology -- be it that of the Bush administration or the religious fundamentalists -- is sufficient to protect the incompetents already in the administration and future nominees lacking the skills required to do the job right.

Walter Williams is a professor emeritus at the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs and the author of "Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy."

Last night I was in JC Penney's and there was a poster of a woman in dark stockings and a man had his hand on her leg. It was not that risque. A woman said to her husband, "I can't believe they have something that suggestive here in this family store." I said, "If there was never any thing suggestive, there probably wouldn't be any families in the first place."

A woman today said to my husband, "May I interest you in a New Testament?" and he said, "I don't believe I've finished the Old one yet."

Someone came through his workplace (driver license bureau) and put religious tracts everywhere - 1/2 page size - that said "Jesus is Coming." He left them there, but he wrote on every single one, "And boy is he pissed!"

Bert,

Thanks for the interesting, informative and insightful post.

Posted by: oncall at May 10, 2005 10:42 PM

Oncall, that is a good interview. Thank goodness for Rep. Conyers. Appears he may have been instrumental in escalating the issue about the pastor who resigned, judging from the transcript.
There was a case of a man who sued a church for
excommunicating him after he stood outside on the church steps and handed out tracks contrary to the teachings of that particular church. The suit was eventually thrown out of court because the judge did not find cause, sighting first amendment priviledges on behalf of the church. However, it still cost the church about $60,000.00 in legal fees for depositions and legal representation and court fees. Besides the financial cost, there was alot of stress for all involved on both sides.

This is not here say, I know it first hand. I was present at the depositions. (Just clarifying my source, since we had that discussion on the blog earlier today about accountability for posts.)

Posted by: April at May 10, 2005 09:49 PM

We spent a lot of years in east central Florida and we saw what you say every day.
The area had 25% unemployment when we got there - and it was down. Things were so bad people would sneak into your yard at night and pick the fruit off trees and sell it at roadside kiosks.
The biggest, most successful organization in town (Titusville) was a Baptist Church. They did nothing to help with daily living needs. There was no food bank, no community outreach to help the poor … nothing. They demanded your full attention and your money. Disgusting.

Posted by: Bert, Vets for Peace at May 10, 2005 11:39 PM

Funny story.

Welcome to the DCP!

400 Iraki civilians killed in 2 weeks...yes 2 weeks.
Americans staying, going? This cannot be solved until Irak long, long history from Babylon to the Ottoman occupation is taken into account.
The Irak we know was drawn upon a map by Lord Balfour's secretaty, Gertrude Bell, in 1921. It's a post colonization graphic creation that blotted away religions, tribal political mores and trans links, long lasting feuds... ethnic origins.
This is not A country, it's a mosaic of traditionally independent provinces, and if a solution might solve the problem both for the Iraki and for the occupation it rests in one word : par-ti-tion.
Pundits and ideologues are not ready to hint at it, but some voices start to raise due to the chaos in Irak nowadays.

Quote of the Day from Salon.com:

"One of the most important things about democracy is to honor minority rights, is to recognize the rights of minorities. In my own country, we have struggled with this issue throughout our history, and yet, we're constantly reminding ourselves of the need to respect minorities."

-- George W. Bush, speaking in Tbilisi, Georgia, but presumably not about the right of the minority to filibuster judicial nominees.

Andree
Guy from Council on Foreign Relations was saying what you're saying, on NPR yesterday. Either that or civil war. I don't think we control the outcome from the US, no matter what or who we send over.

and .. (from Vets for Peace)

Iraqi police vent anger at US after car bombings

Iraqi police hurled insults at US soldiers after two suicide car bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least seven people and left 19 wounded, including policemen.

"It's all because you're here," a policeman shouted in Arabic at a group of US soldiers after the latest in a bloody wave of attacks that have rocked Baghdad this month.