Ass Kickers in Exile

Obama Administration-Day 100

2009-04-29T13:16:00.002-04:00

One of the truisms of presidential politics is that if you want to project how someone will govern once they are elected to the presidency, you watch closely how they run their campaigns.

President Obama ran a disciplined, historic campaign for the ages in becoming the first African-American president, and today marks the 100th day of the Obama Administration.

"I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job," he said two weeks after his inauguration.

Kinda obvious isn't it? He's zipping along with a robust 64% approval rating and an even higher one in various countries around the world. For the first time in five years more Americans think our country is moving on the right track than the wrong one.

He's busting stereotypes, has a wife as the FLOTUS who is doing the same as a fashion forward icon.

The president is also rapidly implementing the things he promised to do during his campaign while being opposed by the GOP at every turn.

*Restore our international good name? Check
*Eliminate the stem cell research ban? Check
*Americans and the world deliriously happy we have a president who knows how to spell and pronounce correctly 'nuclear'? Check

"The challenges are big, but one thing that I'm absolutely convinced about is that you want to be president when you've got big problems. If things are going too smoothly, then this is just another nice home office."

He's had some challenges in this first 100 days and has tackled an ambitious domestic and international agenda with gusto. He's had some stumbles, but he's also positioning himself to be the transformational president that we desperately needed at the critical juncture in our nation's history.

Crossposted from TransGriot

Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC

2007-10-10T18:01:00.000-04:00

Why does the transgender community hate HRC? It’s a question I get frequently asked in GLBT settings. Considering the recent GLBT family feud erupting over ENDA, it's an appropriate one to ask as well.

Before I get started trying to shed light on it, I need to point out in the name of journalistic integrity that I was the Lobby Chair for the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) from 1999-2002.

The roots of the animosity start after Stonewall. In an effort to appear more 'mainstream' to the straight community, Jim Fouratt and friends bounced Sylvia Rivera and other transpeople out of New York’s GLF (Gay Liberation Front). Jim Fouratt’s anti-transgender comments culminating in a 2000 one at a Stonewall observance in which he called transpeople 'misguided gay men who'd undergone surgical mutilations' also added insult to the injury.

In a pattern that persists to the present day, The GLF had protections for transpeople removed from a proposed 1971 New York GLBT rights anti-discrimination bill under the pretext that it wouldn’t pass with such 'extreme' language.

Ironically the bill failed anyway and the New York City GLB-only rights bill wouldn't pass until 1986. Transgender inclusion was fought at that tome by Tom Stoddard, who would later head Lambda Legal. Transgender people didn't get added in the New York City bill until after Sylvia Rivera's death in 2002.

In 1979 Janice Raymond poured more gasoline on the fire with her virulently anti-transgender book The Transsexual Empire. Raymond also took it a step further in 1981 and penned a quasi-scientific looking report that was responsible for not only ending federal and state aid for indigent transpeople, but led to the insurance company prohibitions on gender reassignment related claims. Germaine Greer’s anti-transgender writing combined with Raymond’s led to involuntary outing and harassment of transwomen in lesbian community settings. It also sowed the seeds for the anti-transgender attitudes in the lesbian community that persisted through the late 90’s.

So what does this have to do with HRC since it didn’t get founded until 1980?

The problem is that the senior gay leadership is still influenced by the Fouratt-Raymond-Greer negative attitudes towards transpeople. That sentiment is concentrated disproportionately in California and the Northeast Corridor. The early gay and lesbian leadership also sprang up from those areas as well.

The transgender community around the late 80’s renewed its organizing efforts to fight for its rights. The early leadership was also concentrated in the Northeast Corridor and California as well and regarded the gay community as natural allies.

One thing they didn’t take into account was how deeply entrenched the anti-transgender attitudes and doctrines were amongst gay and lesbian leaders. Barney Frank (D-MA) is a prominent example of it. They still persisted in holding the view that transgender people were ‘crazy queens’ who would cost them their rights. Gay leaders were still trying to use the 70’s assimilationist strategy to counter the Religious Right campaign against gay civil rights fueled by fear of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In the 90’s the transgender leadership became more national in scope and more diverse by the end of the decade. In addition to the founding core leadership from California and the Northeast corridor, transleaders emerged in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. The emergence of leaders from what was derisively called ‘flyover country’ by the peeps from Cali and the Northeast Corridor changed the dynamics of the transgender rights movement.

The addition of leaders from these states brought people into the movement who not only believed in the principles of Kingian inclusion and non-violence, they practiced those values. The rise of the Internet gave them efficient communications links to exchange information and tactics, coordinate strategy and inexpensively talk to each other.

They were also people of faith who had ringside seats to the Religious Right takeovers of the Republican parties in these regions. The Texans watched their state be used as a laboratory for the tactics that would be used in the South and later the rest of the country.

As people of faith who were mostly Southerners, the new transleaders correctly perceived that the Religious Right was the same coalition of 60’s racist anti-progressive forces masquerading in ‘family values’ drag and urged coordinated efforts to defeat them.

Unfortunately, while the Religious Right was using the 80’s and 90’s to organize for culture war and develop their Machiavellian playbook to power, transpeople were fighting a pitched battle with the gay and lesbian community just to be included. This civil war against the GLB transphobes sucked time, energy and money from the transgender community that could have been better spent combating the Religious Right.

The predominately white and bicoastal-based gay and lesbian leadership didn't see the Religious Right as a threat because they not only didn't have fundies in their backyards, they let their anti-transgender biases color their perceptions. They dismissed the threat because it was transpeople who were sounding the warning bells about it. At the same thime they were cavalierly dismissing their concerns about GLBT unity and the Religious Right threat, they arrogantly demanded that transpeople work to pass gay-only rights bills.

According to legal scholar Kat Rose, such laws have the effect of creating a regime in which the same gays and lesbians who fought to prevent trans-inclusion have the de facto right under the resultant non-inclusive law to discriminate against trans people. It also allowed them to keep their leadership ranks and employee populations in these organizations transgender-free without fear of facing discrimination lawsuits.

When transgender leaders would balk at those demands or point out the hypocrisy of leaving us behind, they would state they would ‘come back for us’.

So far the only states in which the gay and lesbian community has ‘come back’ for transgender people are Rhode Island (2001), California (2003), New Jersey (2006) and Vermont (2007). In New York they are still having a difficult time passing GENDA after transgender people were cut out of SONDA by gay rights advocating the same 'we'll come back for you' incremental rights spin.

The first gay only rights bill, passed in Wisconsin in 1982 has been that way for 25 years now. There's no indication by the GLB leadership in that state if they'll move to rectify the omission of their transgender brothers and sisters or if they'll assign it a priority as high as the one they place on marriage equality.

We also heard the excuses during the 90’s to justify the gay and lesbian strategy that ranged from ‘the country needs more education on transgender issues’, we need 'incremental progress' to the mean-spirited ‘it’s not your turn to get rights yet’. Ironically there are now more transgender inclusive laws on the books than gay-only ones, and those numbers are increasing.

And where does HRC fit into this equation?

One of the people most responsible for excluding transpeople from an attempt to pass a gay rights law in Minnesota in 1975 was a gentleman by the name of Steve Endean, who in 1980 would leave Minnesota to help found the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the proto organization that later became HRC. Some Minnnesotans assert that it's not a conicidence that the same year HRCF was born in DC, Minnnesota's gay rights proposals became T-inclusive and eventually lead to the first T-inclusive law in 1993.

In 1995 Elizabeth Birch took over as Executive Director of HRC at atime when there was an epidemic of gays and lesbians cutting transpeople out of civil rights legislation.

In many cases gay people who sat on various HRC boards either nationally or regionally led the efforts. In 1999 Dianne Hardy-Garcia, who was the executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby (now Equality Texas) at the time and an HRC board member, led the succesesful effort to cut transpeople out of the James Byrd Hate Crime Bill (to mine and TGAIN"s vehement opposition). That bill was eventually killed in the GOP-controlled Texas Senate but passed in 2001 as a GLB only bill and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry.

Elizabeth Birch for a while eclipsed Janice Raymond as Transgender Public Enemy Number One when she was quoted at a Chicago GLBT event as stating that transinclusion in ENDA (the Employment and Non Discrimination Act) a top legislative priority of transgender leaders would happen ‘over her dead body’.

That sowed the seeds to the growing perception amongst transpeople that HRC was ‘The Enemy’. It got worse when transgender lobbyists were told by sitting senators, congressmembers and various staffers that HRC Capitol Hill lobbyists Nancy Buermeyer and Winnie Stachelberg showed up on the Hill accompanied by GenderPac’s Riki Wilchins before transgender lobby events in 1997, 1998, and 1999. They asked those members and staffers to tell the transpeople coming to Washington that inclusion in ENDA wasn’t possible, but hate crimes was. That revelation so enraged the transgender community that a group of activists that included yours truly founded NTAC in 1999.

After doing an investigative report during the summer of 1999 that determined the extent of HRC co-option of GenderPac leaders, NTAC decided to pursue a multi-pronged strategy to deal with it. They decided to explore partnerships with other GLBT organizations, made it clear that transinclusion in federal ENDA and Hate Crimes was non-negotiable and during my time there I helped author a legislative strategy designed to go around the congressional barriers set up to block transgender inclusion in ENDA

In 2000 NTAC also began the ‘Embarrass HRC’ campaign to call attention to the hypocritical nature of the relationship between HRC and the transgender community. Activists across the country began protesting HRC dinners and calling them out at GLBT community events about their resistance to adding transpeople to ENDA. The campaign got the attention of people to the point where they started asking HRC leadership tough questions and their contributions started taking hits.

Despite this success, the transgender community didn’t embrace NTAC. It was a multicultural organization whose early leadership was predominately Southern. NTAC was relentlessly savaged by people for fostering what they called ‘horizontal hostility’. A group of white northeastern activists that wanted to push accomodation with HRC formed the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2003 and named Mara Keisling as its executive director.

But NCTE to some transpeople had uncomfortably close HRC links that caused people to question not only NCTE's effectiveness in lobbying for transpeople but its independence. Transgender historian and legal scholar Kat Rose bluntly said that "I simply do not trust NCTE or Mara Keisling".

The interesting thing was the timing. NCTE came into existence after HRC loudly proclaimed that they didn't want to talk to NTAC. There were unconfirmed rumors that some of NCTE's startup money was provided by HRC supporters.

Not long after NCTE’s startup, the shift of the gay and lesbian rights priority from successfully passing inclusive rights laws on a state by state basis to marriage equality started. Transgender leaders such as NTAC’s Vanessa Edwards Foster warned that this was a mistake to push the issue a year before the 2004 elections, but once again transgender concerns were brushed aside.

When the Religious Right backlash resulted in gay marriage constitutional bans overwhelmingly passed in 18 states during that election year, the transgender community was proven correct once again.

This irritated the transgender community on multiple levels. The marriage-as-a-priority gays refused to acknowledge that not only did their actions cause the backlash to gay marriage and possibly generated enough conservative voters at the polls to help propel George W. Bush to a second term, despite the evidence of dozens of state DOMAs and anti-marriage constitutional amendments, they are in severe denial about it.

Transpeople are also miffed at the lack of HRC concern as to how this backlash specifically affects our lives. Transpeople were never consulted and had no input whatsoever regarding the push for gay marriage, but the Religious Right anti-gay marriage laws get interpreted by the courts in such a way that they had the negative affect in some cases of wiping out existing pro-trans marriage and even identity rights.

We're also pissed that the same people who demanded (and still demand) that we accept 'incremental progress' when it comes to trans rights hypocritically have no intention of accepting 'incremental progress' when it comes to legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

In conclusion, the drama between the transgender community and HRC (which sadly flared up last week after Rep. Frank introduced a non-inclusive ENDA) is a forty-year-old stew flavored with historical hatred, arrogance, political miscalculations, communication failures, misunderstandings, mistrust, and Machiavellian duplicity.

HRC also has a pathetic history of refusing to deal with trans people as equals not only in terms of civil rights legislation but even in hiring talented transgender people for their organization. This historical negativity keeps transpeople from working with HRC in any capacity. (Don't even get me started about the African-American community beefs with HRC, that's another post.)

The sad part is that this animosity is preventing HRC and the transgender community from effectively working together to defeat their common enemy despite the desires of people on both sides to do precisely that.

The flare up this time may have not only burned the bridge that people like recently resigned HRC board member Donna Rose and others were trying to build towards a working partnership with HRC, but made any talk of doing that in the transgender community moot for years to come.

You must remember this. . .

2007-10-10T16:42:00.000-04:00

Whatever is the MATTER with these people?

Look, wine tastings are a swell idea, and FREE wine tastings even more wonderful. But Good God Almighty, there were more than 20 wines up for sipping at the Cellar Rat monthly staff picks tasting. Twenty wines! It is quite simply too much of a good thing.

I say this not only because this sort of generosity must surely lead the undisciplined straight down the thoroughfare to a drunken driving charge – but because my eager, frantic tastebuds just CANNOT keep up. There’s a REASON I only hit two, maybe three, wineries in the course of an entire day in California: After four or five sips, my palate is fried.

Not that that stopped me at this late September outing. I’m an admitted lightweight, so I have learned to dump wines after one or two measured sips. But still. . . I can’t recall half the wines I tried.

Here is what I remember, with the aid of my increasingly indecipherable notes: I tried something called Josef Ehmoser Gruner Veltliner, an Austrian white wine that I found quite tasty. I think I’ve seen it on the menu at my favorite restaurant, Pot Pie. I tried a Territorial Pinot Noir, and I actually LIKED it! I had a Maddalena Cabernet that was good, a Carr Chardonnay that didn’t do much for me; and the Foris Gewurztraminer, okay as far as it went.

I sipped at a few Hayman & Hill selections, but can’t recall anything standing out. I remember enjoying the Block 13 Cabernet, and I meant to purchase it, but I didn’t. I couldn’t remember to buy it; I kept moving happily from tasting station to tasting station, in no particular order, oh what’s THIS? I must try THIS, and what is THAT?

Girlfriend resonated to the compelling tone of the Lake Breeze Cabernet-Shiraz, an Aussie effort with a unique, distinct eucalyptus nose. I thought it commendable as well, but was leaning toward the Block 13 Cabernet, with half a mind to snatch up the Lodali Barolo. And yet, at the last moment, I opted for the Saracco Moscato D’Asti as my chosen take-home bottle.

A Moscato D’Asti. A sweet, white, Italian sparkler. Who ever could have seen THAT coming? Whether my palate had been knocked senseless by the sheer number of flavors experienced, or whether it was as special and interesting as I discerned through a brain as fermented as my tongue, we’ll see. I’m trying it Saturday.

I must be more judicious in my approach at the next mega-tasting.

dubya has redefined the word "irresponsible"

2007-09-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

Bush: Kids' health care will get vetoed

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" on Saturday for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program.

"Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure that draws significant bipartisan support, repeating in his weekly radio address an accusation he made earlier in the week. "Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point."

In the Democrat's response, also broadcast Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell turned the tables on the president, saying that if Bush doesn't sign the bill, 15 states will have no funding left for the program by the end of the month.

Georgia Politics Unfiltered: Guest Blogger: David Lewis Bradley on Jack Kingston

2006-12-06T19:35:00.000-05:00

Georgia Politics Unfiltered: Guest Blogger: David Lewis Bradley on Jack Kingston

Pilgrimage of Hope

2006-11-14T15:16:00.000-05:00

I went to Dallas for my cousin's wedding last weekend and on the way back stopped in Hope, AK. Since Bill Clinton is one of the Democrats I admire I decided to check it out before continuing on my journey up I-30 to Little Rock and the Clinton library.

First stop was the Visitor's Center in downtown Hope. It's the old railroad station which has been renovated since Bill stopped there during his 1992 campaign.
There's campaign memorabilia and a short 10 minute film you get to watch before setting off on the self guided tour through Hope. There's the birth home on S. Hervey Ave, the boyhood home on Walker and 6th streets, his old elementary school and the cemetary where his father William Jefferson Blythe is buried.

If you stop at any of the Clinton places where they spent time in Arkansas, you get a red passport to stamp. it has pages for Hope, Hot Springs, Little Rock and Fayetteville (when Bill and Hillary taught at the University of Arkansas)

I actually passed by the Hot Springs exit (where Bill spent his teen years and went to high school) but had already killed an hour in Hope and wanted to get to the library before it closed at 5 PM.

It's an amazing place. It's on the banks of the Arkansas River, has three levels and has the effect of a unfinished futuristic bridge to reflect the 'Bridge to the 21st Century' theme of the Clinton Presidency. There are mock ups of the Oval Office and cabinet rooms set up as they were during the Clinton presidency and lots of interactive exhibits. There was even a stort term exhibit on cowboys that included a crayon drawing from some kid named Billy Clinton of a scene from 'High Noon'

I also got to see Brother Bill during my visit. Salon Magazine was hosting an event there in which he was the featured speaker. The word spread quickly in the Library that he was here and me and the other library patrons hung around outside of it hoping that he'd come though after he finished speaking. The Secret Service had other ideas though. The Gift Shop is a short shuttle ride up the street.

It was also full of progressive Dems abolutely giddy aboout the results of last weeks election. Many of us talked about the good old days of the Clinton years and resolved on the spot to commit ourselves when we returned home to electing a Democratic president in 2008 that will restore that type of leadership.

Lord knows that it has sorely been lacking in the last six years.

PC or RC?? Is there a difference?

2006-09-26T00:59:00.000-04:00

I've just finished watching the second episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and all I have to say is "BRAVO"!

Just like the West Wing, Aaron Sorkin has not disappointed. Clever, fast paced dialog with an awesome cast and throwing the truth back at us like no other show has the balls to do. Again BRAVO! And NBC has balls for so greenlighting a show that is making fun of their 4th place showing in the ratings.

Definition time: PC (Politically correct) the term all the conservatives throw out as the rants of LEFT COAST LIBERALS! Don't offend anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender or by all means Sexual Orientation!!

Definition time: RC (Religiously correct) the term all conservatives throw out as the rants of anyone bashing the Christian socially conservative agenda. Don't offend any of our Christian fundamentalists by doing anything that is not Christ-like (unless Hate is involved)!

As quoted by John Stossel on 20/20 (the ultimate hypocrit), "Gimme a Break!"

President Clinton escorts Ann Richards' casket

2006-09-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

POSTED: 2:15 p.m. EDT, September 16, 2006
From The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- President Clinton tearfully escorted a flag-draped casket Saturday carrying former Texas Gov. Ann Richards into the state Capitol, where she will spend the next two days lying in state before her funeral and burial.

Clinton delivered poignant and at times funny recollections of the woman he called "spontaneous, unedited, earthy, hilarious."

He told mourners about a lunch he once shared in New York with Richards and a group that included comedians Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.

"I thought to myself, I bet this is the only time in their entire lives that Billy Crystal and Robin Williams are the second and third funniest people at the table," he said, drawing chuckles from misty-eyed family members. (Watch Richards make people laugh -- 4:04)

Richards, the Democrat known for her big, frosty white hair and sharp wit, died Wednesday at the age of 73 from esophageal cancer. (Full story)

"In this case, goodbye is also a celebration, because of the big things that Ann Richards did," Clinton said.

A Texas Department of Public Safety honor guard rolled the casket into the Capitol rotunda, followed by Clinton and Richards' daughter, Cecile, as a girls' choir sang a hymn from a gallery above. Across the rotunda, Richards' painting hung next to one of President Bush, her successor as Texas governor, in its place among all their predecessors. Her portrait was draped in black.

Clinton called Richards "Texas on parade."

"For 30-plus years, that is certainly what she was to me and Hillary," he said. "First she was big. Big hair, big bright eyes, big blinding smile. She also had a big heart, big dreams. Big, big dreams."

During her one term as governor from 1991 to 1995 she championed what she called the "New Texas," appointing more women and minorities to state posts than any of her predecessors.

He described the world that Richards wanted for her grandchildren as one "where young girls grew up to be scientists, engineers, police officers and teachers ... where the dreams and the spirit were as big as the sky in her beloved home."

When Clinton finished speaking, Richards' daughter, Ellen, thanked him for "all the great times that you shared with our mom."

Clinton paused for a moment beside the casket, then greeted family members, hugging or shaking hands with each one in attendance. At one point, he bent down to comfort Richards' 8-year-old grandson Wyatt, who broke down in sobs.

Richards is survived by her four children -- Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen Richards -- their spouses and eight grandchildren.

Remembering Ann Richards

2006-09-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted September 15, 2006.

The recently deceased former Texas governor was a great reformer and staunch liberal in the reddest of states.

Austin, Texas -
She was so generous with her responses to other people. If you told Ann Richards something really funny, she wouldn't just smile or laugh, she would stop and break up completely. She taught us all so much -- she was a great campfire cook. Her wit was a constant delight. One night on the river on a canoe trip, while we all listened to the next rapid, which sounded like certain death, Ann drawled, "It sounds like every whore in El Paso just flushed her john."

She knew how to deal with teenage egos: Instead of pointing out to a kid who was pouring charcoal lighter on a live fire that he was idiot, Ann said, "Honey, if you keep doing that, the fire is going to climb right back up to that can in your hand and explode and give you horrible injuries, and it will just ruin my entire weekend."

She knew what it was like to have four young children and to be so tired you cried while folding the laundry. She knew and valued Wise Women like Virginia Whitten and Helen Hadley.

At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin' and greetin' at a furious pace. A group of us got the tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller, moi, Charles Miles, the head of Bullock's personnel department, and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good sumbitch in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, "Bob, my boy, how are you?"

Bullock said, "Judge, I'd like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer."

The judge peered up at me and said, "How yew, little lady?"

Bullock, "And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department." Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie's palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. "And who is this lovely lady?"

Ann beamed and replied, "I am Mrs. Miles."

One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic."

She devoted untold hours to helping other alcoholics, and anyone who ever heard her speak at an AA convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.

I have known two politicians who completely reformed the bureaucracies they were elected to head. Bob Bullock did it by kicking ass at the comptroller's until hell wouldn't have it. Fear was his m.o. Ann Richards did it by working hard to gain the trust of the employees and then listening to what they told her. No one knows what's wrong with a bureaucracy better than the bureaucrats who work in it.

The 1990 race for governor was one of the craziest I ever saw, with Ann representing "New Texas."

Republican nominee Claytie Williams was a perfect foil, down to his boots, making comments that could be construed as racist and sexist. Ann was the candidate of everybody else, especially for women. She represented all of us who have lived with and learned to handle good ol' boys, and she did it with laughter. The spirit of the crowd that set off from the Congress Avenue Bridge up to the Capitol the day of Ann's inauguration was so full of spirit and joy. I remember watching San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros that day with tears running down his cheeks because Chicanos were finally included.

Ann got handed a stinking mess: Damn near every state function was under court order. The prisons were so crowded, dangerous convicts were being let loose. She had a long, grinding four years and wound up fixing all of it. She always said you could get a lot done in politics if you didn't need to take credit.

But she disappointed many of her fans because she was so busy fixing what was broken, she never got to change much. The '94 election was a God, gays and guns deal. Annie had told the legislature that if they passed a right-to-carry law, she would veto it. They did, and she did. At the last minute, the NRA launched a big campaign to convince the governor that we Texas women would feel ever so much safer if we could just carry guns in our purses.

Said Annie, "Well, you know that I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag."

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.

Democrats topple tradition for 2008 election

2006-08-21T10:07:00.000-04:00

To boost diversity in presidential nominating votes, they put Nevada's and South Carolina's sooner.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Move over Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are now members of the Democratic Party's "early nominators" club.
By adding new states to its early roster of presidential nominating contests, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) aims to add racial and geographic diversity to the selection process.

Under the plan, adopted over the weekend in Chicago, Iowa will still hold the very first event - party caucuses - and New Hampshire will keep its traditional first primary in the nation. But Nevada will squeeze its caucuses into the eight-day gap between Iowa and New Hampshire, and South Carolina will hold primaries as soon as a week after New Hampshire. If all the state parties cooperate, these contests could end up taking place in a time frame as tight as 15 days in January 2008.

The new schedule reflects a long-held concern in national party circles that Iowa and New Hampshire are both more white than the nation as a whole, and that their disproportionate clout in determining Democratic presidential nominees was giving Blacks and Hispanics short shrift. Nevada, the fastest-growing state in the country, has more Hispanics than the national norm; South Carolina has a large African-American population.

"It's an opportunity for the candidates to speak in a broader way to Democrats across the country," said Alexis Herman, co-chair of the DNC's rules committee, according to the Associated Press.

But New Hampshire Democrats are unhappy over the loss of clout, and it's not clear that they will go along. Aware that this change could be coming, they have long discussed the possibility of holding their primaries in early January 2008, or even in late 2007. To discourage this from happening, the national Democrats adopted a plan that would penalize any candidate who campaigns in a state that defies the new system: Delegates won in such a "rogue" state would not count toward nomination at the summer convention.

If New Hampshire bucks the new system and moves its primary to an earlier date, some candidates may decide the loss of those delegates - a relatively small number, given the state's size - in exchange for the publicity of winning the contest is a worthwhile gamble. If New Hampshire goes its own way, other states may opt to do the same.

But in the end, all the discussion about scheduling undergirds a larger question: Will the plan produce a better nominee - one more capable of winning the presidency?

"It's hard to tell," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron in Ohio. "If you look back at the past manipulations of the primary season, by both parties, they have often not produced the desired results."

In 1988, he notes, Southern Democrats set up "Super Tuesday" - a single day of primaries across the South - to boost the region's clout in the nominating process, in the hope that then-Sen. Al Gore (D) of Tennessee would win. Michael Dukakis, then-governor of Massachusetts, ended up securing the nomination.

Professor Green also points out that it's too early to predict the dynamics of the race for the 2008 nominations. Based on potential candidates' actions now - who's working to build a national coalition, fundraising base, and staff, and who's already visiting New Hampshire and Iowa - it's easy to see who's thinking of running but it's not certain who ultimately will.

"If a strong liberal wins in Iowa, that could create a dynamic in which South Carolina and Nevada don't even matter," says Green.

By setting up a packed schedule of early contests, the Democratic Party appears to be forcing candidates to hopscotch around the country, which would make it difficult for them to engage in the kind of living-room politics that became the hallmark of Iowa and New Hampshire. It's possible, therefore, that some candidates will choose to forgo some of those first four states, and gamble on an attempt to win big in just one or two.

Blackwashing

2006-08-16T15:31:00.000-04:00

Scratch the surface of a black conservative group and you find a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy
by Joshua Holland, Contributor
7.21.04

"Black Conservative to Rebut NAACP Leader's Remarks in C-SPAN Interview," read the press release from Project 21, an organization of conservative African-Americans.

I had read in Reuters that Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, had called groups like Project 21 "make-believe black organizations," and a "collection of black hustlers" who have adopted a conservative agenda in return for "a few bucks a head."

So I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a leading voice in the black conservative movement had to say. But then a funny thing happened: the African-American spokesperson for Project 21 caught a flat on the way to the studio, and the group's director had to fill in. And he was white.

As the segment began there was an awkward Wizard of Oz moment as C-SPAN's Robb Harlston – himself black – turned to Project 21's Caucasian director, David Almasi, and said, "Um...Project 21... a program for conservative African Americans...you're not African American."

It was a remarkable moment. A flat tire had led to a nationally-televised peek into what lies behind a murky network of interconnected black conservative organizations that seek ostensibly to bring more African-Americans into the conservative movement. But they're not just reaching out to the community. They also speak out publicly for conservative positions that might evoke charges of racism if advocated by whites. And while that's not to say that there aren't some blacks who embrace conservative values, the groups that claim to represent them are heavily financed by business interests and often run by white Republicans.

Almasi replied defensively, "I wanted to make clear right at the beginning that I'm an employee, I'm an employee of Project 21, my bosses are the members of Project 21, the volunteers...I take my marching orders from them, not from anybody else."

Almasi told me by phone that he is Project 21's only paid staffer, and that he works part-time. He said that the approximately 400 volunteers – among whom there was a core of "a few dozen" – were simply conservative blacks "willing to do interviews, be quoted for press releases and be available to write for Project 21 publications," and that his role was simply to serve as "a syndicator, an editor and a scheduler."

But Project 21 is a subsidiary of the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which, according to the liberal watchdog Mediatransparency.org, was formed in the 1980s to support Reagan's military interventions in Central America. NCPPR's leadership – president, vice president, executive director – are all white. Amy Ridenour, former Deputy Director of the College Republican National Committee and the organization's president, also sits on the board of Black America's PAC, an organization that claims to be nonpartisan but whose IRS filings state that its mission is to elect Republicans.

NCPPR's directors are also all white. In fact, one of them – Jack Abramoff – is so white that he's actually a high-powered GOP lobbyist and Bush 'Pioneer' who, according to the Washington Post, is the target of multiple investigations into alleged funny-money payments from Indian gambling concerns (along with the $45 million in fees they collected from them, Abramoff and his partner Michael Scanlon convinced the tribes to donate large sums to conservative organizations run by Scanlon, which then funneled the money back to Abramoff, according to the Post).

In the 1990s, NCPPR got into the business of denying that climate change warnings were based on sound science. If the connection between black conservative outreach work and environmental skepticism doesn't seem clear, that's because it's not. But it's logical considering that ExxonMobil donated $30,000 to NCPPR for "educational activities" and $15,000 for general support in 2002, and last year they hiked their operating support to $25,000 and kicked in another $30,000 for NCPPR's 'EnviroTruth' website, according to company financial records.

Project 21 also received funding from R.J. Reynolds and "has lobbied in support of tobacco industry interests, opposing FDA regulation of the industry, excise taxes and other government policies to reduce tobacco use," according to the Center for Media and Democracy. Almasi denied that Project 21 received tobacco industry money, but said he was not sufficiently aware of the details of NCPPR's fundraising to say whether the parent organization had.

A mile wide, an inch deep

Project 21 is one small part of a broad coalition of black conservative groups that fight for issues of concern to the business community. These organizations draw their intellectual inspiration from Thomas Sowell's landmark 1975 book Race and Economics, one of the founding documents of the new black conservative movement. Just as born-again conservatives like David Horowitz and Zell Miller are showered with praise and money, black conservatives are embraced and elevated by the conservative movement as living repudiations of liberalism.

So Sowell and others – like Robert L. Woodson of the American Enterprise Institute, J.A. Parker of the Lincoln Institute, sometime presidential candidate Alan Keyes of Black America's PAC (BAMPAC), and Jackie Cissel of the Black Alliance for Educational Options – have little trouble finding cushy think-tank sinecures and generous support for their organizations. Many among this small group of prominent black conservatives are on several groups' advisory boards, adding to the appearance of a broad ideological movement. Cissel, for one, also serves as regional director for the African American Republican Leadership Council, a group whose mission "is to break the liberal democrat stranglehold over Black America," according to their web site. As Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten reported last year, 13 out of the 15 members of the AALRC's Advisory Panel are white. They include such well known minority champions as the Free Congress Foundation's Paul Weyrich, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, the Reverend Lou Sheldon, Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

What do people like Weyrich, Norquist, Bauer and Hannity have in common with the black conservatives? It's more than a common affection for low taxes and non-existent government regulation of business. Conservative activists understand that the GOP's history of tolerating bigots in their ranks and seeking out their votes, from Nixon's "Southern Strategy" to George H.W. Bush's use of Willie Horton to George W. Bush's courting of the confederate vote in the 2000 South Carolina primary, presents a problem for moderate voters of all races. Finding African-Americans to make the conservative case goes a long way toward wiping those memories from the public mind.

Big men on campus

But ideology starts outside of Washington, and one of the most important ideological battle grounds for the black conservative movement is on campus, where many of the faculty in the social sciences and humanities believe the silly notion that structural racism still exists in America, and aren't afraid to say so.

So in 1998, the Young America's Foundation formed the Alternative Black Speakers Program "in response to the overwhelmingly leftist bent of Black History Month on campuses," according to a press release. The program sends conservative black speakers to college campuses across the country, "giving students an alternative to the often radical and irresponsible message of black lecturers appearing on campuses as part of official university programs." One of YAF's top executives is Floyd Brown, the infamous dirty trickster responsible for creating the 1988 anti-Dukakis ads featuring Willie Horton's menacing mug shot.

Perhaps the most visible black conservative in the campus wars is Ward Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). Connerly was a protégé of former California Governor Pete Wilson, who appointed him to the University of California's Board of Regents. Connerly drafted Wilson's anti-affirmative action initiative Prop 209, and is now attempting to bring a similar ballot measure to Michigan.

When asked what he thought about Trent Lott's comments about segregation in 2002, Connerly told CNN: "Supporting segregation need not be racist. One can believe in segregation and believe in equality of the races."

According to the civil rights group By Any Means Necessary (disclosure: I am a member of BAMN), Connerly reportedly makes $400,000 dollars per year as the president of ACRI.

Follow the money

And that's what seems to unite these seemingly disparate groups -- money. Every black conservative group I've mentioned – without exception – receives a significant portion of their funding (in some cases all of their funding) from at least three of four ultra-conservative foundations (the Lincoln Institute gets its share funneled indirectly through the conservative Hoover Institution).

The four are the usual suspects of the Right's political ATM: Richard Scaife's family foundations, Adolph Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, The John M. Olin Foundation, and the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation. What's striking about these groups' underwriting of "minority organizations" is that some of them have at times displayed what many would consider a frankly racist agenda.

Scaife has gained notoriety as one of the great funders of the "New Conservative" movement. While he is best known for his anti-Clinton activities, including paying for the American Spectator's "Arkansas Project," he has plenty of unsavory grantees; the Charlotte Observer reported that he provided funding for Children Requiring A Caring Community, a scary fringe group that pays poor women to be surgically sterilized or to undergo long-term birth control.

According to People For The American Way (PFAW), William Coors gave a speech In 1984 in which he reportedly told a largely African American audience that "one of the best things they [slave traders] did for you is to drag your ancestors over here in chains." Later in the speech, he asserted that weakness in the Zimbabwe economy was due to black Africans' "lack of intellectual capacity."

The speech drew controversy and a boycott by African American and Hispanic groups. In response, Coors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to African American and Hispanic organizations. Apparently, black conservative groups run by white Republicans count.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation is a particularly interesting case. According to PFAW, Bradley, whose recipients list "reads like a Who's Who of the U.S. Right," is a major funding source for the Center for Individual Rights, which brought the Hopwood v. Texas case that ended affirmative action at the University of Texas law school. Bradley played a major role in financing Pete Wilson and Ward Connerly's Prop 209, and, through the Pacific Legal Foundation, Bradley "provided pro bono representation to ...Wilson in his challenge to five state statutes dealing with affirmative action ..." Clint Bolick, vice president of the Institute for Justice, another recipient of Bradley money, "played a pivotal role in attacks on Lani Guinier, President Clinton's nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Bolick's Wall Street Journal opinion piece headlined 'Clinton's Quota Queen' dredged up the worst racist and sexist stereotypes and helped throw the Guinier nomination on the defensive."

Even more striking is that Bradley grants supported Charles Murray and the late Harvard psychologist Richard Hernstein while they wrote The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. According to PFAW, "the book was widely seen as a piece of profoundly racist and classist pseudo-science, and was denounced by the American Psychological Association. It had relied heavily on studies financed by the Pioneer Fund, a neo-Nazi organization that promoted eugenicist research. Immediately after its publication, Bradley raised Murray's annual grant to $163,000."

The boards of these foundations aren't exactly "multicultural," if you know what I mean. But they have a message to get out: they're coming after affirmative action, the minimum wage, social welfare programs, pre- and after-school programs and, indeed, multiculturalism itself. And when that's the message, it's good to have it delivered by an African-American.

So there you have it, the leading lights of the black conservative movement. If you believe that the most pressing problems facing the African-American community today are the minimum wage, too many regulations on energy companies and too many people trying to get kids to quit smoking, then maybe you should join the black conservative movement yourself. You don't have to be black, or even know anyone who is. And heck, if you are black and you leave the house early enough, they may even put you on TV to "rebut" the NAACP.

Joshua Holland is a student at the University of Southern California and Editor-in-Chief of the Trojan Horse, USC's "fiercely Progressive voice of reason."

Bush to Make First NAACP Appearance Today

2006-07-20T10:46:00.000-04:00

By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- For five years in a row, President Bush has declined invitations to address the annual NAACP convention. This year, with the Senate poised to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Bush said yes.

The White House says Bush wants to address the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on Thursday to show his commitment to civil rights.

"The president has had five years to prepare for this speech," Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, past chairman of the Congressional Black Democratic Caucus, said Wednesday. "I hope that this time, he makes it worth the wait."

Democrats have called on Bush to use his appearance to renew the Voting Rights Act. "He could sign it right here on this stage," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., told the NAACP on Wednesday, eliciting cheers from the audience.

The House voted overwhelmingly last week to extend provisions of the landmark civil rights act that President Johnson signed after violence erupted in the South over voting rights for blacks. The Senate is expected to pass it on Thursday, although probably not before Bush's midmorning appearance at the NAACP.

Every president for the past several decades has spoken to the Baltimore-based group. Until now, Bush, who received 11 percent of the black vote in 2004, had been the exception. His appearance comes in a critical midterm election year, when Republicans fear losing control of Congress.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said that while there are political differences, the NAACP's new leader, Bruce Gordon, has good relations with Bush. Gordon has met with Bush three times in the year he's headed the civil rights group. That compares to one meeting Bush had with Gordon's predecessor, Kweisi Mfume, a former Democratic congressman.

"It is clear that in this nation, racism and discrimination are legally unacceptable, but there are also residues of the past that we have to address," Snow said in previewing the speech. "We have to find ways to make sure that the road to opportunity is clear for one and all."

Snow denied claims that this was Bush's way of atoning for the government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and some black elected officials alleged that indifference to black suffering and racial injustice was to blame for the sluggish reaction to the disaster. In September 2005, Bush's top advisers met with black leaders to discuss their concerns.

"I think the president wants to make his voice heard," Snow said about Bush's speech. "He has an important role to play not only in making the case for civil rights but, maybe more importantly, the case for unity."

Cummings, D-Md., said as the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches, Bush needs to explain what he plans to do to help the thousands of families in the Gulf Coast region who remain homeless and jobless.

He said the president also needs to address other issues of concern to blacks, including access to health care and the minimum wage, which has remained at $5.15 for nearly a decade.

"If the tax cuts are working, why then - at 9 percent - is the unemployment rate in the African American community nearly double the national rate?" Cummings asked.

Dictionary of Republicanisms

2006-07-17T13:50:00.000-04:00

We all know that think tanks like the Cato Institute have labored hard to hijack the English language, putting a new spin on familiar words and concepts. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of "The Nation" magazine, challenges Republicans to say what they mean and mean what they say. "Dictionary of Republicanisms" is a compilation of definitions provided by the author and the participants of an internet campaign for some of the terms used by Republicans and the current Bush administration.

We won't win back the hearts and minds of the nation until we dispel some of this twisted wordsmithing. To wit:

abstinence-only sex education n. Ignorance-only sex education

alternative energy sources n. New locations to drill for gas and oil

bankruptcy n. A punishable crime when committed by poor people but not corporations

Cheney, Dick n. The greater of two evils

China n. See Wal-Mart

class warfare n. Any attempt to raise the minimum wage

climate change n. The blessed day when the blue states are swallowed by the oceans

compassionate conservatism n. Poignant concern for the very wealthy

creationism n. Pseudoscience that claims George W. Bush's resemblance to a chimpanzee is totally coincidental

DeLay, Tom n. 1. Past tense of De Lie

democracy n. A product so extensively exported that the domestic supply is depleted

dittohead n. An Oxy(contin)moron

energy independence n. The caribou witness relocation program

extraordinary rendition n. Outsourcing torture

faith n. The stubborn belief that God approves of Republican moral values despite the preponderance of textual evidence to the contrary

Fox News fict. Faux news
.
free markets n. Halliburton no-bid contracts at taxpayer expense

girly men n. Males who do not grope women inappropriately

God n. Senior presidential adviser

growth n. 1. The justification for tax cuts for the rich. 2. What happens to the national debt when Republicans cut taxes on the rich

habeas corpus n. Archaic. (Lat.) Legal term no longer in use (See Patriot Act)

healthy forest n. No tree left behind

homelandism n. A neologism for love of the Homeland Security State, as in "My Homeland, 'tis of thee, sweet security state of liberty..."

honesty n. Lies told in simple declarative sentences--e.g., "Freedom is on the march" [Katrina vanden Heuvel, New York, NY].

House of Representatives n. Exclusive club; entry fee $1 million to $5 million (See Senate) [Adam Hochschild, San Francisco, Calif.].

laziness n. When the poor are not working

leisure time n. When the wealthy are not working

liberal(s) n. Followers of the Antichrist

Miller, Zell n. The man who shot and killed Alexander Hamilton after a particularly tough interview on Hardball

neoconservatives n. Nerds with Napoleonic complexes

9/11 n. Tragedy used to justify any administrative policy, especially if unrelated (See Deficit, Iraq War)
.
No Child Left Behind riff. 1. v. There are always jobs in the military [Ann Klopp, Princeton, NJ]. 2. n. The rapture [

ownership society n. A civilization where 1 percent of the population controls 90 percent of the wealth

Patriot Act n. 1. The pre-emptive strike on American freedoms to prevent the terrorists from destroying them first. 2. The elimination of one of the reasons why they hate us

pro-life adj. Valuing human life up until birth

Senate n. Exclusive club; entry fee $10 million to $30 million
.
simplify v. To cut the taxes of Republican donors

staying the course interj. Slang. Saying and doing the same stupid thing over and over, regardless of the result [

stuff happens interj. Slang. Donald Rumsfeld as master historian

voter fraud n. A significant minority turnout

Wal-Mart n. The nation-state, future tense

water n. Arsenic storage device

woman n. 1. Person who can be trusted to bear a child but can't be trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have the child. 2. Person who must have all decisions regarding her reproductive functions made by men with whom she wouldn't want to have sex in the first place

Auntie Em, It's a Twister!!!

2006-06-24T01:01:00.000-04:00

Spin, spin, and more spin!

I'll spin you 'round like a record, round, round? (There's a song in there somewhere!)

Now the president's team is just making shit up. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, Dorothy!"

You've all heard the story by now I am sure. About the Merchant Marine graduate who was so happy that Dubya was there to address the graduates that he couldn't help himself and gave the president a big ole bear hug on the stage.

Well, that's what the news media is "telling" us what happened.

But last night something interesting happened. Our local Atlanta NBC affiliate let something slip through the MSM Corporate news filter and guess what?

I WAS PAYING ATTENTION!!

They played the video of the hug! The graduate walked up to the The Chimperor and extended his hand first, and then the President opened HIS arms and prompted the hug "heard round the world" instead of the other way around. But what the Anchors were saying happened was not what really happened. And they call themselves Journalists?

Was this story distributed as only a feel good story for local channels or did it hit the cable channels? Anything this positive surely would have ended up on FAUX News. I am now on a mission to find a copy of the video so this can spread through the blogosphere. I need help spreading this story!

Editor's Note: Please help me in exposing this obvious lack of journalistic integrity by sending my local station an ELetter to the NewsEditor and see if it really makes a difference. Thanks, let's see how powerful the blog community can be to expose this farce! Post this link to your comments on all blogs you visit. Gay blogs, progressive blogs, grassroots blogs, etc. (This is my first activist blog project and I would love your help!) Remember how the right wing bloggers got Dan Rather canned? All it takes is for this to bubble up up from the ground and explode into the mainstream. Thanks for all who help in the endeavor!!

Here is my letter:

I have always been a loyal viewer of 11Alive news because I thought I could trust that what I was viewing was ethical and had journalistic integrity. NO MORE!

Last night, Ted Hall and Brenda Wood were gushing about the "feel good" story of the Merchant Marine graduate who felt compelled to give the President a big bear hug on graduation day. Were they "NOT WATCHING" the accompanying video? It was obvious from my vantage point on my couch that the graduate first extended HIS hand to the President and the President opened HIS arms for the hug like it must have been orchestrated in advance! What a crock!!

I think I will be getting my local news now from another station or the internet or the blogs and/or the alternative media that doesn't cow down to the corporate owners and their pandering to the Republican Party because it is in their best interest.

And by the way, that new ad campaign, "News you can trust, and the balance you deserve!" Another crock of CRAP!

Signed,
A former Loyal Viewer

(Another, and much longer Rant over. Can you tell I was pissed?)

Democrats rebuild on the prairie

2006-06-15T19:50:00.000-04:00

By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
FREMONT, Neb. — It was standing room only the other night at the Blue Bottle Coffeehouse. The Dodge County Democrats were meeting for their convention — and there were about 60 of them, up from barely a dozen in 2004.
That was enough for outgoing chairman Jim Dake to declare the county's Democratic Party officially revitalized. "The proof is all around you," he said. "We've filled the room."

Early organizing, early advertising and a full slate of candidates for Congress are among the signs of hope for Democrats in this conservative farm state with a streak of prairie populism. Their real test will come on Election Day, though, and Republicans here say they shouldn't get their hopes too high.

Jessica Moenning, executive director of the state GOP, says Nebraska Republicans are a potential "bright spot" in what could be a gloomy national picture. "I'm not suggesting that the Democrats haven't tried to ramp up and rebuild their party," she says. "But it's just an uphill climb" for them here.

When Howard Dean ran for chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he promised state parties he would spread money and professionals around the country in a long-term quest for viability in "red" Republican states. He's followed through with a 50-state plan to revive moribund state and local organizations.

Dean says Democrats have dug themselves "a deep hole" by focusing on one election at a time, usually in the "blue" states where Democrats are strong. "That's a cycle that has to be broken. We want a long-term business plan," he says.

Congressional leaders such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the party's House campaign committee, have been critical of Dean's spending priorities. They say money and staff should be concentrated this year in states with close races because Democrats are in such a strong position to make gains.

"This election is a historic opportunity," Emanuel says. "The question is, are we going to have the resources to seize it?"

The Democratic Party is not entirely bereft in Nebraska. The mayors of Omaha and Lincoln are Democrats. There's even a U.S. senator, Ben Nelson, whose re-election campaign this year is a rallying point for the state party.

But Republicans outnumber Democrats 35-12 in the state's nominally non-partisan one-chamber Legislature. All three of the state's U.S. House members are Republicans. Lyndon Johnson was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state.

President Clinton waited until he had served seven years and 11 months of his eight-year tenure before paying a visit. President Bush did twice as well here in 2004 as his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry (66% to 33%).

The state was a low priority for the DNC. Of the $731 million the party raised for the 2004 elections, Nebraska got $12,000. "The national Democrats were sucking money and volunteers" out of Nebraska, state party chairman Steve Achelpol says. Adds executive director Barry Rubin, "They called us an 'export state.' "

Times have changed. The DNC is now spending $120,000 a year to pay the salaries of three organizers and a spokesman here. Nationwide, the party has hired and trained about 190 people in 50 states in its $10-million-a-year program. The goal is to create voter lists and activist networks that don't vanish when campaigns are over or powerful Democrats retire.

Dean's critics don't dispute the need to build a strong party infrastructure. But they worry about competing with the GOP.

The DNC under Dean has raised $80 million since the last election and has about $9 million on hand, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The Republican National Committee has $45 million on hand. "You've got to find a way to blunt that," Emanuel says.

DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton says the bulk of party spending has been to expand donor and voter lists and upgrade technology — steps that will help Democrats this year and in the future.

Success stories cited by the DNC include West Virginia, where the party created a precinct program to bolster organizing and turnout and has recruited leaders for almost half the state's nearly 2,000 precincts; and South Dakota, where the state party fielded candidates for 94 of the 105 legislative seats — 26 more than in 2002.

In Nebraska, the picture is mixed. Republicans are running unopposed in three top statewide races: auditor, treasurer and attorney general. But Democrats are fielding more candidates than usual in congressional and legislative races.

Two years ago, 11 Democrats were on the November ballot for the state Legislature; this fall there will be 15. Four years ago, Democrats had a candidate in one of three races for Congress.

This year they have candidates for all three seats: cattle rancher Scott Kleeb, attorney Jim Esch and former lieutenant governor Maxine Moul. All three are "a cut or two above" the usual in quality, says state politics expert Robert Sittig, a retired University of Nebraska professor.

Some observers say the Democrats are more visible and quicker off the mark than in past years. For more than a month the party has been running three statewide TV ads touting Nelson's record. Sara Crook, a political scientist at Peru State College, south of Omaha, said it's "extremely unusual" to see ads so early.

Here in Fremont, the Democrats opened a campaign office to help candidates up and down the ticket. "Usually at this stage we're just trying to get a couple of people to parades," activist and attorney Richard Register says. He also says the party usually has to "twist arms" to find delegates to the state convention. At this meeting, volunteers had to be turned away.

"The wind is coming back into the sails of the Democratic Party," says David Hahn, the party's nominee against Republican Gov. Dave Heineman.

Never mind that Hahn's odds are long, or that this county seat is named for the very first Republican presidential candidate ever — explorer and Army general John C. Fremont. The newly elected county chairwoman, Fremont attorney Chris Boydston, is a convert from "a diehard Republican family." She was increasingly angered by the GOP literature in her mailbox, she says, and finally told herself: "I'm a Democrat, I should embrace it."

One Observation on the "National Language" Distraction

2006-05-24T09:20:00.000-04:00

The "national language" hoo-hah has gotten a lot of air-time on KA. I could be wrong, but I think that distraction is covering something far more insidious.

Congress wants to remove, what? 31 laws that currently make the hiring and employment of illegals, illegal. That's buried in one edition of the bills before Congress -- oh but we noticed.

Back up and chew on that first sentence in the last paragraph a second. if the hardly-mentioned provisions pass, poof: An in-place worker class with no rights and no guarantees for citizenship under any condition, no vote, no representation. And neatly blamed on the Democrats somehow.

They know they'll never repeal the XIII Amendment directly, but they can skirt it with clever corporate chicanery. In the end, it amounts to the same thing.

Slavery.

A resident worker of a country who has no rights, no vote and no legal protection is a slave; nothing more and nothing less. He cannot "up and leave", get another job, get an education or enjoy any of the fruits of citizenship. In effect, he is trapped in what could at best be described as indenture or at worst slavery. It's a legal Perfect Storm.

Banning homosexuality by act of Congress, stealing elections, marginalizing everyone they can marginalize without trodding directly on the Bill of Rights and Katrina weren't working fast enough for 'em. They're resorting to media shell-games, stirring useless debate to divert attention away from the truly insidiousness of what they're up to. Then again, that is exactly how the out-of-control Republican Congress has operated since coming to power.

Theft atop corruption atop chicanery, all glossed over by obfuscation.

The stock market is quivering under the weight of bullshit paper and looking to European exchanges for a shot of real money. Corporate American elite are looking for a new moneytit because most of us out here literally don't have any more to give. They've charged us for living and breathing for so long that our great-grands will still be paying it off. In order to continue with record profits and CEO gimmees, somebody else has to pay to finanace the corporate elite.

Guess who, with their bazillion-dollar tax breaks that We The People are in debt to finance, ain't givin' it up.

Companies like WallyWorld (aka The Company Store) would coincidentally be out of further legal danger. (How long do you think it will be before scrip makes a comeback... just sayin'.) Think of how much hot water they've been in for undocumented workers and how very generous they've been to their Republican bought and paid-for Congress. Wal-Mart are just the tip of the iceberg -- of course there are far more corporations dependant on cheap labor: Big Agra (ADM and Cargill, who are also the biggest recipients of billions in tax "relief" for "not growing" things); construction, demolition and cleanup; the list is nearly bottomless.

Legalizing already-resident undocumented but long-term workers by removing penalties for employing them effectively creates the first class with no rights simply by making it by removing any penalty for corporations to have them. In no way can it be confused with amnesty -- it is simply another Republican money-grab that once again removes all penalties from corporations who commit the acts of hiring illegals and places the blame and burden on the innocent.

The sheeple bigot-fools on the right don't realize that the current population of undocumented aliens they're supposed to be scared of this week won't be even one inch farther away than they already are. Nobody's going to be deported anywhere and everybody knows it.

Pendejos.

Much less that if the amendments repealing those 31 laws becomes legislation, more people who don't speak English will be getting a lot closer and soon.

As I have said for the last several years, if they can remove rights from any one, they can remove rights from everyone. There will be no safe quarter, no flag to hide behind, no court for redress and Jesus won't fly down to help

Après Dumya, la deluge.

Oops... ahm spakin t'th'murrican paypul... English only!

Real-Time NOAA

2006-05-10T07:19:00.000-04:00

Real-Time NOAA Data Site Launched

Source: ©BoatU.S. Magazine May 2006

One stop “shopping” is now making it easier for boaters and fishermen to get real-time weather and water condition reports over the Internet from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A new version of NowCOAST.noaa.gov allows users to view real-time surface observations “on-the-map” along with the latest GOES satellite cloud imagery and National Weather Service radar images.

NowCOAST is a Web mapping portal providing mariners with real-time observations and NOAA forecasts using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology so users can overlay other NOAA forecast products to get a detailed picture of conditions.

Developed by NOAA’s National Ocean Service’s Coast Survey Development Laboratory, nowCOAST includes geo-referenced hyperlinks to river and water quality observing networks, coastal Web cams, as well as NOAA marine and weather forecasts.

Another handy Web side to aid Gulf Coast mariners is the
NOAA Coast Pilot Disaster Impact site at nauticalcharts.noaa.gov.nsd/cpgulf/cpgulf.htm. Since major Gulf of Mexico waterways were severely impacted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita this Web site was added to get important information on 21 major ports to commercial shippers, the fishing community and recreational boaters quickly. Port managers are still finding obstructions in the water and new areas of shoaling that can damage or ground passing vessels. The Web site will remain active until all impacted ports have fully recovered.

Batten down the hatches!
Time to get ready for Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie and William

Related links here for:
Coast Guard, State News Alert, BoatU.S. News Room

Cross posted from NBF

LORAN Termination?

2006-05-08T18:53:00.000-04:00

LORAN Termination Proposed by Coast Guard

Action Alert!

Published: BoatU.S.* Magazine Volume XI, May 2006

March 10, 2006 - With no warning to users, the U.S. Coast Guard has proposed termination of the Loran system by requesting zero budget for Loran in its FY 07 budget request sent to Congress. This surprising development came with no stakeholders’ input and after the Coast Guard spent $160 million modernizing the Loran system, an improvement in signal strength, maintenance and coverage that is nearly complete.

BoatU.S. and other users, such as commercial fisherman and aircraft pilots urge the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee to support continuation of Loran for the long term and direct the Coast Guard to finish the modernization program. BoatU.S. has long supported continuing Loran as a low-cost, land-based backup to GPS.

While GPS has dominated the electronics market since the 1990s, new combined GPS/Loran receiver technology is now available, eLoran, and new international developments offer the potential for export opportunities for U.S. manufacturers. In addition, the GPS signal has been shown to have susceptibility to jamming, a problem Loran does not have.

BoatU.S. encourages boat owners who use Loran to e-mail or fax a letter to key Congressional appropriators and their own elected representatives to support FY 07 funding for the Coast Guard to continue fully operating the Loran navigation system as a backup to GPS and that the agency finish the modernization in the interest of national security and safe navigation. Links to contact info for all House and Senate Members:

Senate

House

Key committee members:

(Address all letters, Dear Representative or Dear Senator
and preferably fax to their offices.)

The Honorable Harold Rogers (Fax: 202-225-0940)
U. S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C 20515

The Honorable Martin Sabo (Fax: 202-225-4886)
U. S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Jerry Lewis (Fax: 202-225-6498)
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable David Obey (Fax: 202-225-3240)
U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Thad Cochran (Fax: 202-224-9450)
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Judd Gregg (Fax: 202-224-4952)
U. S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable Robert C. Byrd (Fax: 202-228-0002)
U. S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

Ted Stevens (Fax: 202-224-2354)
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510

Daniel Inouye (Fax: 202-224-6747)
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. 2051
______________

*Boat Owners Association of The United States

Barbi - BoatU.S. Member Since 1987

2006-05-06T14:31:00.000-04:00

'World Wide Suicide'
by Pearl Jam

I felt the earth on Monday. It moved
beneath my feet.
In the form of a morning paper,
Laid out for me to see.

Saw his face in a corner picture,
I recognized the name.
Could not stop staring at the, Face
I'd never see again.

It's a shame to awake in a world of pain
What does it mean when a war has taken over
It's the same everyday in a hell manmade
What can be saved, and who
will be left to hold her?

The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.
The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.

Medals on a wooden mantle,
Next to a handsome face.
That the president took for granted,
Writing checks that others pay.

And in all the madness,
thought becomes numb and naive.
So much to talk about, nothing for to say.

It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devils on their shoulder
Laying claim to the take that our soldiers save
Does not equate, and the truth's already out there

The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.
The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.

Looking in the eyes of the fallen
You got to know there's another, another,
another, another, another way

It's a shame to awake in a world of pain
What does it mean when a war has taken over
It's the same everyday and the wave won't break
Tell you to pray, while the devils on their shoulder

The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.
The whole world, World over.
It's a world wide suicide.

Happy Cuatro De Mayo!

2006-05-05T08:02:00.000-04:00

May 4 is my birthday. I'm always celebrating Cuatro De Mayo. ;)

Birthdays and the week leading up to it have always been an opportunity for me to take an introspective look at my life and the direction it's going. I'm also happy that I've lived to celebrate another one.

I've led a pretty interesting life and its gotten more so since my transition. It's a much happier one since I finally made body and mind match up in 1993.

I do have my moments when I lament about not experiencing my entire life as a female and wish I'd been born one when I emerged into the world at 10:45 PM several decades ago. It's taken me some time over the years to grow, accept and embrace my transwomanhood as the blessing it is.

I have the unique insights of living on both sides of the gender fence. It sets me apart from a natal woman who has no inkling what men go through on a day to day basis or the type of gender indoctrination they have to endure. Then again, women get a different indoctrination program that's just as restrictive.

I realize when I talk to the transmen on TSTB just how close I came to getting my fondest wish and how razor thin the physical differences are between men and women. A little less testosterone in vitro and my life would've been on a totally different path.

But how much more different than the current one?

I would definitely have been a much happier child growing up. I would've allowed myself to dream more often. I would've had the fun of attending my prom in a fab dress and not a powder blue tux. I would've gone into college with a much clearer sense of purpose. I would've had a better idea what career I wanted and exerted a more determined effort to make it happen instead of worrying about my unresolved gender issue. I'd have a better relationship with my family and I wouldn't have been afraid to fall in love.

I spent a lot of time pushing people away from me because I didn't want to hurt them when the gender issue that was raging like a ticking time bomb would eventually blow up. I feared it would cause pain not only for me but whatever natal female chose to love my 'twin brother'. In terms of the family, subconsciously I may have kept a distance from them because I knew that once I revealed that I was trans, there was a possibility I'd lose them forever and maybe I was trying to insulate myself from that pain.

The bottom line is that there's no way for me to accurately assess how different my life would be so I'll quit griping about it. I'm going to rededicate my focus toward becoming the Phenomenal Transwoman I'm evolving into and know that I am.

In order to do that I had to begin to love myself first before I could even hope to love someone else. The initial step in accomplishing that was dealing with the gender issue once and for all.

And that's the best birthday present I could ever give myself.

Feliz Compleanos, Monica.

A new post from our old buddy Mack

2006-05-04T14:06:00.000-04:00

Local Radio Host advocates shooting immigrants crossing the border in search of work.

David Brooks - again - why am I agreeing with him these days?

2006-04-30T11:06:00.000-04:00

Sorry to take up so much space, but it's NYT and those without enrollment can't view without paying. And, I think it's a good article. I hadn't thought of this, but in retrospect, he's very much correct. Would you vote for someone who didn't sit at your table in high school? Interestingly, I lived a block away from the school and went home every day... what does that say about me? ;)

Lunch Period Poli Sci

College is still probably a good idea, but everything you need to know about America you can learn in high school. For example, if you want to understand American class structure you'd be misled if you read Marx, but you'd understand it perfectly if you look around a high school cafeteria.

The jocks sit here; the nerds sit there; the techies, drama types, skaters, kickers and gangstas sit there, there and there. What you see is not class in the 19th-century sense, but a wide array of lifestyle cliques, some richer, some poorer, but each regarding the others as vaguely pathetic and convinced of its moral superiority.

Similarly, when it comes to politics, high school explains most everything you need to know. In 1976, Tom Wolfe wrote an essay for Commentary in which he noted that our political affiliations are shaped subrationally. He went on to observe that especially when we are young and forming our identities, we make sense of our lives by running little morality plays in our heads in which the main characters are Myself, the hero, and My Adolescent Opposite, the enemy.

"Forever after," Wolfe writes, "the most momentous national and international events are stuffed into the same turf. The most colossal antagonists and movements become merely stand-ins for My Adolescent Self and My Adolescent Opposite.

"If My Opposite, my natural enemy in adolescence, was the sort of person who seemed overly aggressive, brutish and in love with power, I identify him with the 'conservative' position. If My Opposite, my natural enemy in adolescence, seemed overly sensitive, soft, cerebral and incapable of action, I identify him with the 'liberal' position."

And so it goes. In every high school there are students who are culturally and intellectually superior but socially aggrieved. These high school culturati have wit and sophisticated musical tastes but find that all prestige goes to jocks, cheerleaders and preps who possess the emotional depth of a cocker spaniel. The nerds continue to believe that the self-reflective life is the only life worth living (despite all evidence to the contrary) while the cool, good-looking, vapid people look down upon them with easy disdain on those rare occasions they are compelled to acknowledge their existence.

These sarcastic cultural types may grow up to be rich movie producers, but they will remember their adolescent opposites and become liberals. They may grow up to be rich lawyers but will decorate their homes with interesting fabrics from the oppressed Peruvian peasantry to differentiate themselves from their jock opposites.

In adulthood, the former high school nerds will savor the sort of scandals that befall their formerly athletic and currently corporate adolescent enemies — the Duke lacrosse scandal, the Enron scandal, the various problems that have plagued the frat boy Bush. In the lifelong struggle for moral superiority, problems that bedevil your adolescent opposites send pleasure-inducing dopamine surging through your brain.

Similarly, in every high school there are jocks, cheerleaders and regular kids who vaguely sense that their natural enemies are the brooding poets who go off to become English majors. These prom kings and queens may leave their adolescent godhood and go off to work as underpaid sales reps despite their coldly gracious spouses and effortlessly slender kids, but they will still remember their adolescent opposites and become conservatives. They will experience surges of orgiastic triumphalism when Sean Hannity eviscerates the scuffed-shoed intellectuals who have as much personal courage as a French chipmunk in retreat.

Because these personal traits are so pervasive and constant, Republican administrations tend to be staffed by people who are well-balanced but dull, while Democratic administrations tend to be staffed by people who are interesting but neurotic. Because these rivalries are so permanent, nobody has ever voted for a presidential candidate they wouldn't have had lunch with in high school.

The only real shift between school and adult politics is that the jocks realize they need conservative intellectuals, who are geeks who have decided their fellow intellectuals should never be allowed to run anything and have learned to speak slowly so the jocks will understand them. Meanwhile, the geeks have learned they need to find popular kids like F.D.R. to head their tickets because the American people will never send a former geek to the White House. (Bill Clinton was unique in that he was a member of every clique at once.)

The central message, though, is that we never escape our high school selves. Vote for Pedro.

TN Legislators Taking Job with James Dobson

2006-04-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

A classic quote from TN Senator David Fowler on his reasoning for taking a job with the Tennessee group Family Action Council (affiliated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family), which is gearing up to pull out all efforts to get the anti-gay marriage amendment passed here in November:

"It will allow me to engage fully in those issues that really brought me to the legislature in the first place without the distractions of all the other things we must do, discuss and debate up here," Fowler said.

Sooooo, building roads, caring for the homeless, dealing with our failing TennCare situation, focusing on the horrendous ethics issues facing TN are not important...making sure gays can't marry IS. Okay, whatever.

Today's Not Really Funny--

2006-04-27T13:54:00.000-04:00

In favor of humanity

2006-04-27T09:06:00.000-04:00

David Brooks' column today in the NYT is sure to incite a reaction. It is lengthy, so I have merely posted the url. Basically, he's saying Democrats in the last 1/3 of the 20th century caused themselves harm by segmenting their constituents into distinct "out-groups", as he calls them (blacks, glbt, hispanics, etc). Instead, Democrats would do better to embrace the common struggles of humanity, and unite the groups into "liberal American nationalism".

Let me tell a little story. My senior year in college, I took a class called "multi-ethnic relations". There were about 12 of us in the class, and we were very diverse ethnically and racially. On the first day of class, the professor asked us to define plurality vs the melting pot theory. I hate it when no one responds, so I raised my hand and defined them. Then, she asked me which was the better idea. gulp -an opinion, the first day of class, in front of people I don't know? The audacity!

Anyway, she asked so I answered. I stated that I thought it was important for people to be able to identify themselves in a way that made sense to them, but by grouping people thusly, it was in fact reinforcing differences and ignoring commonalities among all people, and that this could lead to fragmenting society, and could be carried too far.

As an example, I said, "now I know I have a big nose. What if I decided that all people with big noses deserved special treatment and a special identity? You see how this can be taken too far." I looked around at the class and got nothing but daggers in peoples' eyes. I was confused. It was just my opinion, after all.

For the next few weeks I was treated differently by some of the groups on campus. Finally, I was approached in the bookstore by one of my sorority sisters (yes, I was in a sorority, but it was different at my school than your typical sorority stereotype), who happened to be black. She came up to me and asked me why I told a class full of her friends that black people have big noses. WTF?!!! I then explained what happened. She harumphed and walked away and I don't think she believed me.

For the rest of the year, I was labelled a racist on campus. ME! I went to friggin Zimbabwe for half a year and stayed with an African family! It was pretty disheartening, really. And the class I was taking? Well, I found it interesting that folks only showed up to class when the discussion was about their particular minority experience. I learned a lot, in class, and in life. And I've kept my mouth shut about my opinion, until now.

I completely and totally agree that subdividing into special needs/interests is psychologically extremely important and unifying within that group. I also completely and totally agree that focusing on how people are different is damaging our society, as well as the Democratic party. We need a central theme and message, and we need to bring people together. Bushco are dividers - let's truly be uniters. Liberal American nationalism - has a nice ring to it... I can be part of that group ;)

Divine Strake = Devastating Dust

2006-04-25T23:45:00.000-04:00

On June 2 the Bush regime is planning on dropping a 700 ton bomb called Divine Strake on the Shoshone Native American tribal lands not far from Las Vegas. This bomb will be a test bomb to make plans for the dropping of a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Additionally, it will cause a killer cloud that will waft across this country so as we breathe we will breathe in the dust from the former nuclear test site. Please take time to read and contact your congressman.

This is a site that describes the test sight-- the Shoshone land is called -- 'THE MOST BOMBED NATION IN THE WORLD'

2006-04-24T18:10:00.000-04:00

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend to one of Indiana's Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called "crisis pregnancy center" run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl's confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their "other office" (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The "crisis pregnancy center" had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The "crisis pregnancy center" staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl's home and calling her father's workplace. Our clinic director reports that the girl was "scared to death to leave her house." They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these "crisis pregnancy centers" across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What's more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They're being funded by our tax dollars.

A bill has just been introduced in Congress to stop the fraudulent practices of fake clinics, but it desperately needs more support. Tell your representative to take a stand: anti-choice extremists must not get away with this any longer!

GO HERE

A Life-Long Republican Bids GOP Farewell

2006-04-20T01:37:00.000-04:00

by AG Casebeer
Published in the Louisville Courier-Journal April 18, 2006
---------------------------------------

I was raised in a family that consistently voted Republican. Into the voting booth I went, every November without fail, to pull the levers for my mother and father. And, more often than not, I pulled the lever with the little pachyderm on it, but also levers with Democratic names of distinction. Levers that had names on them like John Sherman Cooper, Marlow Cook, Barry Goldwater, Louie Nunn, Richard Nixon, Romano Mazzoli, Gerald Ford and Harvey Sloane were pulled, at the direction of my parents.

They taught me to vote for the best person for the job, the person who, in their estimation, was most likely to reflect their ethics of honest government, low taxes, responsible spending, provision of necessary government services, a strong defense, maintenance of a social safety net, fresh ideas for dealing with current needs, and civil rights for all. With the exception of Nixon, nearly everyone they voted for fit these standards.

When I was old enough to vote on my own, their ethics stuck with me. I worked briefly for George H.W. Bush's campaign in 1980, then voted twice for Reagan. I gladly voted for Mitch McConnell each time he ran for Senate, but also voted for Jerry Abramson and continue to support him to this day.

However, I became uncomfortable with the GOP's move to the right, and began to question its candidates' judgment. Reagan's huge deficits bothered me greatly, as did George H.W. Bush's continuation of them. In 1992, I chose to vote for Perot, ended up very happy with Bill Clinton's performance in office, as well as Brereton Jones' and Paul Patton's gubernatorial terms (with minor exception made for Patton's extramarital problems).

I have lobbied Congress a number of times in the 1990s and 2000s, as an unpaid citizen lobbyist, on the subject of civil rights. To say that I am most displeased with the quality of government we, the people, are receiving from the GOP, is the understatement of the century. The GOP is basically owned lock, stock and barrel by the Donald Wildmons, James Dobsons, Chuck Colsons and Pat Robertsons of the world, people with whom most Americans do not share a worldview, and people who want to impose their morality on the entire nation.

Anne Northup was supported by George W. Bush long before he ever ran for president, while he was still running up huge deficits in Texas as governor, deficits that have crippled that state's ability to deal with the problems of their schools, roads and infrastructure, not to mention the influx of hurricane refugees from Louisiana. Bush has continued that record as president, running huge deficits, starting a costly war on a false pretense and actively depriving people of civil rights to please his fundamentalist Christian friends. I am proud to state that I never voted for him.

Which brings us to the issue of Ernie Fletcher, and his rewriting of Paul Patton's executive order, removing protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in state employee hiring. It is another in a long line of attempts by fundamentalist Christians to use GOP-led government to impose their morality on citizens who do not agree with it. The failure of Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the last decade, the failure of Congress to pass a significant hate-crimes bill, the creation of hysteria surrounding gay marriage that resulted in the GOP victories of 2002 and 2004, and the repeated attempts here in Kentucky to void local Fairness laws with acts of the state legislature, are testament to that. Fletcher's removal of protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Kentuckians in state hiring, along with the support of many in the state legislature for the odious bills that would have erased the Fairness laws, mean that the GOP is bigoted, mean-spirited and tied to an ideology that should have died with the old century.

So, with this, I bid farewell, permanently, to the GOP at all levels. Yes, they once fielded candidates for office who were honorable, who did good jobs. But no longer will they gain my vote. I cannot vote for bigots, for candidates who look to decrease, not increase and broaden, civil rights. I cannot vote for candidates who start wars with lies. The current federal tax code and levels of deficit spending are the very definition of irresponsible government.

We have a state legislature that is more concerned with erasing local laws it doesn't like, than in assembling fair and well-considered state budgets, which should be the first job of each state legislative session, not the last. And, finally, with his cutting of state employees' rights, on Diversity Day of all days, Ernie Fletcher has revealed himself to all to be a tool of the fundamentalists, a sellout to manna, and unfit, in my opinion, to govern.

What's in a name

2006-04-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

Silly, really, but entertaining:

Your Outrageous Name is:

Ann Chovie

Outrageous Name Generator

Hey YOU GUYSSSSS!!! Deb's Hot Spot! Let's Go!

2006-04-17T19:58:00.000-04:00

Anyone interested? If so, let us know and when? If not, why? Broke, busy? Jest wonderin'

I live in Hot Springs, NC. Would be glad to pick anyone up at the airport in Asheville. We are renting a small place, but there are cabin rentals and a few hotel rooms in and around town. I have an extra full bed and 2 twins at the place I rent, but only one bath...glad to share but privacy would be lacking. The town is tiny, not even a traffic light. The Appalachian Trail goes right through the town, as does the French Broad River (one of the oldest rivers on earth). The spa is sort of a 60's type experience with hot tubs filled with natural warm mineral spring water. They rent for $25. an hour and are freshly cleaned and filled for each customer. Hope I've enticed some of y'all to come for a visit. deb

http://www.nchotsprings.com/hstaspa.htm

http://www.hotspringsnc.org/

http://www.jerrygreerphotography.com/north_carolina_mountains.htm

Life During Wartime

2006-04-17T12:45:00.000-04:00

[Sung by Billie Joe Armstrong]
[Originally by Pinhead Gunpowder]

Ya we say making changes starts in the little things you do
Revolution begins at home but for most of us it ends there too, and
Doing something we're making changes like changing the brand of crap we buy,
We say it makes a difference but that's just another lie.
It used to be us and them and you and me.
And now we can't reach our potential without a common enemy,
A real war to fight against, instead of our petty disagreements,
How can I rationalize my life during wartime lie.
A call to action and a reaction,
Taking our lives in our own hands,
Instead of sitting around and talking about the same old shity bands.
A war is going on right now,
And I'm not doing anything about it,
Without a crowd I'm not so loud,
I can't do anything by myself,
But that's just another lie.

2006-04-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Barbi - that was just what I needed! lol

Monica's 2006 Trinity Acceptance Speech

2006-04-10T11:26:00.000-04:00

This is the text of the speech I delivered to the IFGE Conference in Philadelphia, PA on April 7, 2006
--------------------------------------------

Giving honor to God, the leadership of IFGE, friends and family. I am humbled to be standing before you today as a representative of Transsistahs-Transbrothas, the Lone Star State, the Bluegrass State, and my hometown of Houston to officially become the third African-American transperson to be awarded a Trinity.

This day is one that I thought that I’d never see because of my outspokenness about a myriad of issues in the transgender community. But like my mentors, Phyllis Frye and Sarah DePalma and one of my leadership role models the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, I have not hesitated to call people and organizations out when I felt that they could and should do better to uphold the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. The Transgender Rights Movement is the next evolution in the ongoing struggle for human rights and we need to take that seriously.

It’s been an interesting road that I’ve traveled to get to this point in my life and ironically I have IFGE to thank for giving me the impetus for jump starting my activist career.
At the beginning of my transition in 1994 I started a subscription to Tapestry. (hold up the magazines) Inside these two issues were the Out, Proud and Trans series that pissed me off to the point that I made it my mission to attend my first GenderPAC Lobby days in 1998, a subsequent one in 1999 and become a leader in the transgender community.

What was it about these two issues that made me angry? Well, the problem for transgender people of color has always been visibility. Ever since Christine Jorgensen stepped off that flight from Denmark onto the tarmac at JFK airport in 1953 the lion’s share of the coverage of GLBT people has been of people that looked like you and her.

Out of the 50 people that these two issues honored for being ‘Out and Proud’, the two they found to represent me were RuPaul and Dennis Rodman. Neither are transgender people like the other two African-American Trinity winners who preceded me at this podium, Dawn Wilson and Dr. Marisa Richmond. RuPaul and Dennis Rodman both stated publicly that they didn’t want to be. So why hold them up as representatives of my community? The other problem is that it unintentionally reinforced a stereotype that the only thing that my people can do, can become or be recognized for is being an entertainer or an athlete.

Why is this important? For a transkid of Euro-American descent they get to see role models that are lawyers, doctors, airline pilots, police officers, et cetera that cancel out the negative Jerry Springer images. A transkid that shares my ethnic heritage doesn’t have that balance and that concerns us. A reasonably intelligent college bound African-American transkid is left to wonder after seeing that contrast, “Where are the people who look like me?” “If I transition is this what my life is going to be like?’ “Do professional African-American transpeople exist?”

In my era my first exposure to transgender people that looked like me besides the 1977 ‘Jefferson’s’ episode was either through attending drag shows or seeing transgender sex workers plying their trade. The ones that did pass were hiding in deep stealth mode. I didn’t meet another out professional African-American transperson like myself until 1999.

Lack of media coverage hurts. I can only name two African-American transpeople that I read articles about when I was growing up and both were surprisingly published in one of the journalistic Bibles of Black America, Jet Magazine.

Justina Williams had one written about her transition and her struggles with General Motors in 1979. It’s also interesting to note that in this article the author used the proper pronouns to describe Justina 20 years before the AP changed their stylebooks. Almost a decade later, in 1987 an article appeared about Sharon Davis which chronicled her transition and the book she was writing about it entitled ‘A Finer Specimen of Womanhood’.

When you’re a minority, positive role models, a connection to your history, and faith are vitally important building blocks to the maintenance of one’s pride and self-esteem. That fuels personal achievement that uplifts the entire group. IFGE has played a major role in documenting that history and honoring the people doing their part to build a transgender community and for that I applaud and support their efforts to do so. From this day forward I will be doing my part by not only writing occasional articles for Tapestry but encourage other people of color to do so.

One of the problems that we’ve had in the African-American trans community is that for various reasons we haven’t had a similar ongoing effort to organize it on a national scale until now. The late Stokely Carmichael aka Kwame Toure once stated, “In order to become a part of the greater society, you must first close ranks.”

Basically that is what the African-American transgender community is doing. We’re not doing it to shut you out of the process but turning inward to build the same kind of infrastructure and support systems that you have enjoyed for two decades. We seek to not only build a community that our kids can be proud of but at the same time build and lift ourselves up in order to become a stronger partner for the entire transcommunity. We spent a few days during TSTBC 2005 hammering out a document that we call the African-American Transgender Action Plan or AA-TAP for short. It is a ten-point program rooted in the lessons that our ancestors brought here with them from Africa that will serve as the guiding organizing principles for building our community

TSTBC is a major building block in that effort. Just as the IFGE conference over the last 20 years has served to educate, inform and train our past, present and future leaders and allies the Transsistahs and Transbrothas Conference will do the same. It will also provide a way for you to reach our people that may not be comfortable coming to an IFGE conference or to SCC but will show up in Louisville to hang out with their peeps.
By the way, the second annual TSTBC is happening October 18-22 once again in Louisville.

So why aren’t African-American transpeople comfortable attending events like this?
It always mystified me when I attended SCC for example why there were almost no peeps like me that were attending this event except the hotel staff and the conference was hosted in the Black gay mecca of Atlanta, GA.

Well, let me tell you a few reasons why. One of them is the cultural difference. African-Americans have always been a spiritual people with a church centered culture. I am a Christian as are many people who are African-American and transgender. I have seen every faith tradition represented and respected at GLBT events except Christianity. Granted, some people who profess to be Christians have invited this negative response but there’s a major difference between little ‘c’ Christians and big ‘C’ ones. Big ‘C’ Christians believe in love, tolerance, understanding others and their differences and embracing them. Little ‘c' Christians are the intolerant ones who are using the faith as a white sheet to camouflage their bigotry and hatred. Christianity isn’t the private property of right-wing zealots. It’s past time for those of us in the GLBT community who are Christian to proclaim it, stand up to those thugs and take our faith back from the Pharisees who are using it as a baton to beat us down with.

Unfortunately because of the hurt and pain that’s been inflicted on GLBT people by these Bible-thumping posers, some GLBT people have begun denigrating ALL Christians in response to what has been done unto them. Bashing Christians doesn’t play well in my community. In fact one of the things that we were adamant about during the planning for TSTBC 2005 was starting a tradition of having a church service to close it. We also wanted to create an environment where not only Christianity is respected but we strive to respect TSTBC attendees whose faith traditions differ from our own.

Another thing that doesn’t play well in my community is America’s original sin, racism. As I have written, taught and said to anyone who would listen, the transgender community is a microcosm of society at large. The same problems that exist in the parent society also exist in our subset of it.

I have been called the n-word in Euro-American dominated online groups. I have been called an uppity nigger behind my back. I incredulously saw someone post last year on another list that the only reason that TSTBC was being held was because it would make it easier for us to solicit tricks. We have had activists walk into Congressional Black Caucus offices during lobby days and tell legislators that share my ethnic background that African-American transpeople don’t exist.

Yes Virginia, racism does exist in the trans community and we need to put a stop to it post haste before it creates a permanent split between the African-American transgender community and you. That is dangerously close to happening right now.

It also pisses us off when you don’t listen to us or dismiss what we have to say. I have been a minority since I was born at 10:45 PM on May 4, 1962. People of color are equipped with coping skills and mechanisms that we learned growing up that allow us to deal with the daily slights, slings and arrows that come with minority status. We have an uncanny ability to read people or organizations that say one thing and do the opposite since we’ve been historically lied to over the years. So if we tell you not to trust them, listen to us. You’ll save yourself a lot of grief in the future.

And please don’t ever in life use the words ‘you’re just playing the race card’. It infuriates me and other people of color when that term is used to marginalize our very real experiences with bigotry and the racism we deal with in this country by disrespectfully comparing it to a card game.

Since I’ve laid out some things that depress African-American participation in the overall transgender community, It‘s only fair that I offer a few suggestions that will hopefully increase it.

The dots have to be connected in terms of the historical roles that African-American transpeople have played in shaping the transgender community. An African-American transwoman was present at the Stonewall Riots. We helped found GenderPac, NTAC, BGB and the Tennessee Vals in addition to other regional organizations that have uplifted transgender people. Unfortunately we’ve gotten very little recognition for it or have been edited out of the historical records. That needs to stop. If the historical record reflects the fact that we helped found it, then people of color will be more inclined to take ownership of the various groups and participate in them.

We have to have some media face time too. The African-American transgender community has some long term plans to help correct that imbalance. While we’re working on that, the bottom line is that media peeps will call the white transgender community first because you already have the infrastructure in place. When you get that call, make sure that you also let them know that there are people of color that need to be included in this conversation. Basically that’s how Dawn and I got the notification for the Courier-Journal article that we’re featured in. Reporter Angie Fenton called Fairness looking for help in finding transgender people who’d be willing to talk on the record and they referred her to us. When transkids of color see peeps in the media that look like them who are living their lives and telling their stories, it’s a win-win for all of us.

Second. Make events affordable and accessible. African-Americans only get 70 cents to every dollar a white person earns. When you have a conference in a hotel in which a room costs $200 dollars a day and you then have to pay conference registration fees on top of that, it creates participation barriers. The fiscal participation barrier leads to a perception that people of color aren’t wanted d and that’s how you end up with an event that ends up 99% white transpeople.

I realize that middle and upper class transgender people support IFGE, other transgender conventions and our organizations. However, this fiscal access problem that shuts out TPOCs also is keeping other T people of color out including the Asian and Latino/a communities. Watching the economics of conventions and keeping hotel prices affordable will grow the community amongst all transgender people, make the convention programming resources accessible to more T people of all income levels and make this community more inclusive in general. It’s a simple formula. Make the events more affordable and eventually all colors of the transgender rainbow will appear.

The accessibility issue is also important. Too many times support group meetings are held in suburban locations with little or no access to public transportation. If your city has a GLBT Community center that is located close to public transportation consider using that as a meeting site. If you’re planning a convention ensure that your host hotel is close to public transportation and that schedules and route maps are widely available to the convention attendees.

Third. If you want us at your events, you’re gonna have to advertise in our media too. There are African-American newspapers in many cities that would love to not only get the advertising dollars but want stories about transgender issues. For example, CLIK magazine is an Atlanta-based GLBT publication that caters to the national African-American community.

I’ll close with the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King from a November 1956 speech he gave in Montgomery, AL entitled ‘Facing the Challenge of a New Age.’

‘Another thing we must do in speeding up the coming of the new age is to develop intelligent, courageous, and dedicated leadership. This is one of the pressing needs of the hour. In this period of transition and growing social change there is a dire need for leaders who are calm and yet positive. Leaders who avoid the extremes of ‘hot-headedness and ‘Uncle Tomism’. The urgency of the hour calls for leaders of wise judgment and sound integrity-leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice; Leaders not in love with publicity but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause.

Dr. King continues by paraphrasing an author with the last name of Holland by saying:

God give us leaders!
A time like this demands strong minds, great hearts
True faith and ready hands
Leaders whom the lust of office does not kill
Leaders whom the spoils of life cannot buy
Leaders who possess opinions and a will
Leaders who have honor, leaders who will not lie
Leaders who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall leaders, sun crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and private thinking.

I hope and pray that over the last 8 years that I’ve evolved into that type of leader and will continue to do so in the coming years.

Dear Dewey

2006-04-08T14:54:00.000-04:00

We are sorry you had to bid farewell to your two boys, Cassanova and Cruzer. We know that it is a very difficult day for you and want you to know we are thinking of you. Cassie and Cruzer are very lucky to have had you as their dad. It will surely take no time to find a lucky family to adopt these gorgeous guys. It's wonderful that they will have each other in their new home.

2006-04-07T09:00:00.000-04:00

Becoming American

Andrea, our "German in Georgia" (who posts under the name GiG) has lived and worked in the U.S. for some time now. Over the years, she's come to think of herself more as an American than a German.

On Friday, April 7th, she made it offical and swore to support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

She may have passed the INS Civics Exam, but we're not convinced that she really knows what it means to be an American, so Maureen has put together a little pamphlet to both celebrate and instruct. (Follow the pamphlet link above and look for the "next" hyper link in the upper right hand corner to turn the pages of the pamphlet.)

Congratulations, GiG - er I mean - what are we gonna call you now?

Night Bird's Fountain

2006-04-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

Night Bird's Fountain

My very best wishes! You have been a supporter and a valued contributor, and now you can vote!

Paul in Virginia

:)

Congratulations Callie on your Good News!!!! Drinks are on us!

2006-04-04T16:56:00.000-04:00

Play Ball!

2006-04-03T12:43:00.000-04:00

I'm in love with twenty-five guys. The twenty-five guys who wear the uniform of the Houston Astros, that is. ;) In addition to being a huge football fan I love watching baseball. I played Little League ball as a kid and still attend games on a regular basis.

The 2006 Major League baseball season starts tonight and the 'Stros open their National League title defense and 45th season at Minute Maid Park versus the Florida Marlins.

The Astros started play as the Houston Colt .45's three weeks before I born and changed the nickname to Astros in 1965 to coincide with the opening of the Astrodome. It took them 44 years to get to the World Series and I have been watching every frustrating high and low with this franchise as we both grew up in Houston together.

It's been a bumpy ride. Watching them blow a 10.5 game NL West lead in 1979 and getting overtaken by the Reds. Winning that one game playoff to capture the National League West over the Dodgers in 1980 only to fall to the Phillies in the 1980 NLCS in extra innings.

The 1986 NLCS against their expansion cousins the New York Mets and falling short in a dramatic Game 6 that went extra innings. Winning three stratght National League Central titles from 1997-99 only to fall short of the World Series each time.
Being six outs away from the World Series in 2004 against St. Louis with homeboy Roger Clemens on the mound only to lose in Game 7 of the NLCS.

Then there's last year. Being 15-30 at one point in the season but putting it together to eventually win the National League title and FINALLY making it to the World Series, only to be swept by the White Sox in a series so close it was decided by a mere six runs.

Oh well. New year, new season.

Go 'Stros!

How are you feeling today?

2006-04-03T12:21:00.001-04:00

Calm, focused, in control? Or overworked, tired, irritable and scatterbrained? If so, take heart. April is Stress Awareness Month.

Ann Coulter Given 30 Days to Explain Vote Fraud Felony Allegation!

2006-03-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

From Brad Blog

Palm Beach, FL Election Supervisor May Refer Charges to State Attorney if GOP Pundit/Propagandist Fails to Prove She Didn't Lie About Residency...
UPDATED: Property Records Show an 'Ann H Coulter' Owns a $1.8 Million House on Seabreeze Ave. in Palm Beach

You'll recall that in February the Palm Beach Post reported that "conservative" extremist Ann Coulter may have committed a vote fraud felony by signing someone else's address to her registration form in Florida and then voting in the wrong precinct -- a crime which, if convicted, could earn her three years behind bars.

(It's been pointed out to us that such bars would have to be very close together to keep her from simply slithering through them to escape...Though even at that, we're not sure there is steel strong enough to keep her from being able to chew her way to freedom. But we digress.)

A few days after the story originally broke, Coulter claimed publicly she didn't even live in Palm Beach where she reportedly committed the crime. The Post reporter who broke the story, Jose Lambiet, quickly replied that he had hard evidence that she does, in fact, live in Palm Beach (next door to town councilman Bill Brooks on Seabreeze Ave.) and he characterized Coulter's denial as "absolutely a bold-faced lie."

Yesterday the Palm Beach Post offered still more "skinny" on the latest in the Ann Coulter Voter Fraud Felony Scandal. Her denials about being a Palm Beach resident is about to be tested -- first by the Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Arthur Anderson, and then perhaps by the Florida State Attorney to whom the entire matter may be referred.

Coulter's now got 30 days to 'splain herself, according to Lambiet in the Post. Please read on...

This time, claiming she doesn't even live here — as GOP pundit Ann Coulter has been doing on this spring's college speaking tour when she's questioned about her February election meltdown on Palm Beach — isn't going to cut it.

Palm Beach County's elections supervisor has given the right wing's unofficial mouthpiece 30 days to explain why she voted in the wrong precinct.

In a registered letter scheduled to be sent to her this week, Coulter is asked to "clarify certain information as to her legal residence," elections boss Arthur Anderson said.

"We want to give her a chance," Anderson said. "She needs to tell us where she really lives."

Or else? He could refer the case to State Attorney Barry Krischer for criminal charges, Anderson said.

The letter, however, may be headed to the wrong house.

The bestselling author, whose The New Ann Coulter comes out in June, owns a homestead on Seabreeze Avenue, near Worth Ave. Yet, the missive is being sent to the Indian Road home of Realtor Suzanne Frisbie. Coulter claimed in official elections documents to be living there, which Frisbie denied last month.

"We have to send the registered letter to her address in our records," explained Charmaine Kelly, elections chief deputy. "If it comes back unsigned, we'll deal with that."

In his official incident report released last week, poll worker Jim Whited wrote that Coulter tried to vote in the Feb. 7 town council election at Bethesda-by-the-Sea, the right place for a Seabreeze resident. Coulter left in a hurry when, Whited said, he asked her to correct the record. Later she cast her ballot at the St. Edward's precinct, where real Indian Road residents go.

Coulter, a constitutional lawyer who relentlessly made fun of Palm Beach County voters after the botched 2000 presidential election, couldn't be reached for comment.
It's also been mentioned to us that Coulter could well be registered (illegally) to vote in New York and/or Connecticut as well as Florida. Anyone looking into that? We don't have time for the moment, but we're always happy to hear from erstwhile citizen investigators and/or tipsters who may have additional information on that.

With all of the despicably cynical GOP operatives out there trying to trick Americans into believing this country has an epidemic of Voter Fraud (it doesn't...but Election Fraud is an entirely different matter) it would certainly be impressive to see one of those snake-oil men (yes, I'm talking to you, ACVR) aggressively pursue the truth about their heroine hate-monger Coulter and her alleged Voting Fraud.

We fear, however, she may be neither dark enough nor "Democrat" enough for such creeps to spend their well-funded time on.

UPDATE: A DU commenter points us towards the Palm Beach Property Appraisers Public Access system which shows an "Ann H Coulter" who purchased a $1.8 million dollar property on Seabreeze Ave. in Palm Beach in March of 2005. Complete public info here.

UPDATE 3/31/06: Coulter's alleged Voter Fraud earns her Buzzflash's Hypocrite of the Week Award! Congratulations Ann!

Afghanistan: Cut From Different Cloth - Burqas and Beliefs

2006-03-31T18:03:00.000-05:00

The other day on PBS they had a program on called Afghanistan: Cut From Different Cloth - Burqas and Beliefs (2005)

We are always being told how the US liberated the Afghan women from the burka, and how much for the positive things have changed. This film was done in 2005 -- long after the invasion and subsequent invasion of Iraq. The major character is a young woman who is 28-- same age as an Afghan girl who is educated ( only 5% of Afghan women are educated ), has worked with Doctors without Borders, etc. It goes into how things really have not changed -- except who is in charge.

The 2 parts that caught my attention were these:

Women are not allowed to have ANY contact with men or boys. They can meet at family functions but the women are relegated to the back rooms. If a girl is caught seeing a boy -- it becomes a family disgrace. The family normally will kill the daughter -- not the boy -- only the daughter because she has embarrassed the family. The sister of the young Afghan lady was asked if she felt her family would do an honor killing if she was to be found with a boy. She laughed and said YES. The American girl said -- no really -- seriously -- do you think your family would kill you. The sister got very serious and said yes -- the young American was totally shocked at the answer.

The second attention getter was in talking with an Afghan activist. She talked about how 30+ years ago women worked in every job a man did. They were treated with respect and had rights. She said that the government -- Taliban -- has removed those memories by systematic killing, and regression in the laws to where women have lost all the rights they had years earlier and there is NO memory of what women did do or have. So due to the closed society that women are forced to live in they have no idea that in the past Afghan women were relatively free.

That last one really caught my attention -- because as a woman who fought hard to break a lot of anti- women barriers over the years I have watched the government under those in charge slowly remove the rights of women -- ever so slowly but in itself they are being removed. I hope that every one of you will tell the young women in your lives they must continue to be vigilant and never ever forget what we of the 50's, 60's and 70's fought for.

Never say Never -- It has happened elsewhere.

~Sandy

Sandy wrote to the filmmakers and got this reply:

> Sandy,
> thank you for taking a moment to contact us about our
> documentary film.
> my husband, cliff, and my step-daughter serena did
> this as a labor of love for all the wonderful women we
> have met in afghanistan.
> we want to keep world attention going to the fact that
> women are NOT equal and NOT able to enjoy their
> constitutionaol rights.
>
> thanks for watching and i hope you can help spread the
> word about the real situation for women that our own
> government is downplaying.
>
> olga shalygin orloff
>

Black America's Infatuation With Butch Men Up in Heels

2006-03-31T14:16:00.000-05:00

By Jasmyne Cannick
February 24, 2006

While images of Black men dressed as woman have become a popular part of Black American culture in entertainment, does the success of the Black actor who plays a role in drag depend on that actor's heterosexism in real life?

True story.

I was in a theatre in a predominately Black part of town and there was a poster for Madea's Family Reunion up in the lobby of the theatre. Several Black women who looked to be in their 40s and 50s had gathered around the poster and were remarking how they were going to see the film when it came out. Just then a Black transgendered female walked through the lobby and one of the women remarked to her girlfriends, "Look girl, a he-she," and they all started giggling like teenagers.

On more than one occasion Black America has rushed to the box office to see Black men dressed in drag and with the national release of Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, Black audiences will again embrace the idea of a man playing a female role on screen.

On more than one occasion Black America has rushed to the box office to see Black men dressed in drag and with the national release of Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion, Black audiences will again embrace the idea of a man playing a female role on screen.

When Tyler Perry debuted his character Madea Simmons, a 68 year-old witty gun toting grandmother from the hood, his biggest audience was Black Christian evangelicals. In fact, it was Black Christians that launched him to where he is today, packing in and filling up theatre after theatre as he toured around the nation with his plays. With a spiritual message included in all of his productions, Perry allowed Black Christians to feel good after seeing him prance around the stage dressed as woman.

But before Madea, there was Andre Charles, better known as RuPaul. In the early 90's, RuPaul gained fame and success with his single "Supermodel (You Better Work)" a tribute to the divas of the fashion. The single placed in the top 30 on the Billboard Pop Charts and the music video was nominated for Best Dance Video at the 1994 MTV video music awards. Through the years, RuPaul has appeared in various movies and music specials. He was honored as in 1999 with the Vito Russo Entertainer of the Year Award at The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) media awards for challenging the limits and breaking boundaries in becoming an openly gay individual who has achieved excellence in the field of entertainment and furthering his visibility and understanding of the community through his work. Still, RuPaul's fame and acceptance has come from mostly white audiences, even though he is a Black entertainer.

So why is it that Black audiences can embrace a man playing a female role on the silver screen, but still have problems with real life Madea's in their own communities and families?

Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe people whose gender identity, expression or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth, including but not limited to transsexuals and cross dressers.

In the Black community, very little attention is focused on the transgender community. Common practice is to group transgenders with gay men, even though they are their own community within an already marginalized group.

Even in the gay rights movement, transgender issues have been pushed to the bottom of the list for fear that Americans, who are barely able to deal with the idea of marriage between gay and lesbian couples, could even begin to understand the issues plaguing the transgender community.

Madea is a man dressed as a female, plain and simple. No matter how many feel good religious messages Tyler Perry feeds his audiences, Black Christians are embracing cross dressing as a form of entertainment, which is not problematic, except for the fact that Black Christians are known for their homophobic views towards anything remotely gay.

But what if Tyler Perry were gay? Would Madea continue to be as popular among Black churchgoers? Probably not. At least with his assumed heterosexuality, Christians can rest at ease that they are not supporting anything gay because after all, it is just a role. RuPaul, while a great performer, was openly gay and therefore never found the wide spread acceptance and fame that Madea has. Famed actor Wesley Snipes gave us Noxeema Jackson in the 1995 film To Wong Foo Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar. While heterosexual himself, Snipes' character was flamboyantly gay. Martin Lawrence first introduced us to Big Momma in 2000 and was so successful that's he's back with a sequel. He too is heterosexual. And who could forget "Men on Film" on In Living Color, featuring Damon Wayans and David Allen Grier who played the very gay film critics Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather. Again, both Wayans and Grier are heterosexual and went on to do great things after the end of the series.

Blacks have no problem with cross dressing and transgenderism as a form of entertainment. It's only after the lights go off and the camera stops rolling that it becomes an issue if the dress and heels are still on.

Soup's On!

2006-03-31T13:20:00.000-05:00

[courtesy of Kristen]

Baghdad Burning-River Bend March 28

2006-03-31T11:33:00.000-05:00

But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”

Go read River Bend.

Semper Fi

The March to Redeem the Soul of America

2006-03-31T01:52:00.000-05:00

Hi Peace Action Texas folks and friends,

The March to Redeem the Soul of America is an event you won't want to miss! It goes from April 1st- 16th, and you can join in whichever days work for you. I'm happy to say that Peace Action Texas is among the organizers, which include Consumers for Peace, Dallas NAACP, the Dallas Peace Center, Crawford Peace House, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The list of endorsers and participants is growing. Cindy Sheehan will be joining in along the way, going into Crawford for the
Easter weekend. A schedule follows.

Please bring gear to be fairly self-sufficient - good walking shoes, a hat, water, snacks, a backpack and sleeping bag, etc.

Donations will gratefully be accepted online at www.marchtoredeem.org.
Hopefully, people will bring water, etc. to the group as they walk as well. Here's our press release, which is also attached. Please join in as you're able. Come join us!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Mar. 30, 2006
Contacts - March info: Valley Reed (214) 288-8935
valley.reed@earthlink.net
ExxonMobil info: Nick Mottern (914) 806 -6179 nickmottern@earthlink.net

APRIL TEXAS PEACE MARCH, ENDORSED BY CINDY SHEEHAN, HOWARD ZINN. GROUPS WILL CALL ON EXXONMOBIL TO "RETURN" $7 BILLION IN WAR PROFITS

A two-week march to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, starting April 1, that will call for an end to the Iraq War and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq - endorsed by peace worker Cindy Sheehan and historian Howard Zinn - will also call on ExxonMobil Corporation to spend $7 billion of its record $36 billion 2005 profit to alleviate war suffering and to compensate thousands more who have documented harm from its operations.

Ms. Sheehan and Mr. Zinn are among a list of endorsers of the march that includes: independent journalist Dahr Jamail; Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly; Michael Letwin, co-convener of New York City Labor Against the War; author Norman Solomon; Sundiata Xian Tellem, co-chair of the Green Party of the U.S. Black Caucus; David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org; Tim Carpenter, National Director of
Progressive Democrats of America; and Global Exchange. The march is being organized by the Dallas Peace Center, Peace Action Texas, Crawford Peace House, ConsumersforPeace.org and is endorsed also by the Southern Christian Leadership Council and the Dallas NAACP. (A complete list of endorsers appears below.)

The call for ExxonMobil to spend $7 billion on meeting war-related and business-related human needs is based on the increasingly widely-held view that the conditions created by the Iraq War have contributed significantly to the dramatic profits of ExxonMobil and other major oil companies since the occupation began in 2003. For example, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and colleague, Linda Blimes, writing on the cost of the Iraq War, note that the war has had a major
inflationary impact on oil prices, which in turn, has meant that "Profits of oil companies have increased enormously."

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, responding to an inquiry from ConsumersforPeace.org, estimates that as much as 20 percent of ExxonMobil's record $36 billion 2005 profit, or about $7 billion, is "a ball park number" for what can be considered war profits for the oil giant. This is an estimate of the amount of profit that is essentially unearned and is traceable to oil prices that have been inflated because (1) the Iraq War has severely depressed Iraq oil production, and (2) there are fears that the Iraq War may spread, possibly affecting oil production in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

ConsumersforPeace.org is promoting the ExxonMobil War Boycott, which seeks immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces and mercenaries from Iraq, reparations for Iraq, impeachment of George W. Bush and prosecution of U.S. officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq.

"ExxonMobil has made at least $7 billion extra in 2005 because of the invasion and occupation of Iraq," said Nick Mottern, director of ConsumersforPeace.org. "This is unearned money, taken from consumers, and it needs to be returned to society," he continued. "We propose that ExxonMobil write checks to private organizations for relief in Iraq, for war-related injuries of U.S. veterans and to compensate people in the U.S. and elsewhere who have been harmed by ExxonMobil operations."
The beneficiaries would include residents of Beaumont and Baytown, Texas, living near ExxonMobil refineries who have experienced severe health problems, according to Mottern.

ConsumersforPeace.org is developing a list of potential recipients for the $7 billion.

"War profiteering is unacceptable in any war," said Mottern, "and it is particularly despicable when it is done by the nation's largest oil company during an illegal war that has so much suffering and has so much to do with oil."

On April 4, in Waxahachie, Texas, the march will commemorate the 38th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is also the date in 2004 when Ms. Sheehan's son was killed in Iraq; his body was returned to her on Palm Sunday.

SCHEDULE FOR THE MARCH

April 1 - 10 a.m. Press conference at ExxonMobil headquarters in Irving, Texas, 5959 Las Colinas Blvd, Irving, Texas - then march to the Trinity River.

A partial list of those appearing at the press conference:

State Rep. Lon Burnam – Ft. Worth
Rev. Peter Johnson - Dallas civil rights leader
Rev. Roy Malveaux, Beaumont, Texas
Valley Reed, chief organizer, March to Redeem Campaign
Maureen Haver, Jumpstart Ford Campaign
Nick Mottern, Director, ConsumersforPeace.org

April 2 - 2:30 p.m. Press conference in front of Dallas County Courthouse and Jail, then take DART to Dallas VA Hospital.
4:30 p.m. Rally at Dallas VA Hospital.
April 3 - 10 a.m. March south to Red Oak.
April 4 - 10 a.m. March south to Waxahachie.
7 p.m. Vigil in Waxahachie commemorating the assassination of Dr. King.
April 5 - 10 a.m. March south to Italy, Texas
April 6 - 10 a.m. March south to Carl's Corner.
8 p.m. Performances by musicians and dancers.
April 7 - 10 a.m. March south to Hillsboro, then southwest to Aquilla
Lake.
April 8 - 10 a.m. March to Aquilla.
April 9 - 10 a.m. March to Gholson.
April 10 -10 a.m. March to Lacy Lake View.
April 11 -10 a.m. March to Waco.
April 12 -10 a.m. March to Waco Lake.
April 13 -10 a.m. March to Crawford for the celebration of the 3rd
Anniversary of the founding of the Crawford Peace House.

ENDORSERS

Annie and Buddy Spell, Louisiana peace activists (Annie is president of
the Greater Covington, LA branch of the NAACP.)
Anthony Arnove, author - "Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal"; co-editor with Howard Zinn - "Voices of a People's History of the U.S."
Arden Buck, Mountain Forum for Peace, Nederland, CO
Beth K. Lamont, Humanist Chaplain, NGO Rep. to the United Nations for the American Humanist Society.
Charles Jenks, Chair, Advisory Board, Traprock Peace Center, Deerfield, MA
Cindy Sheehan, Co-founder, Gold Star Families for Peace
Crawford Peace House
Dahr Jamail, independent journalist who spent 8+ months reporting from occupied Iraq
Dallas County Young Democrats
Dallas NAACP
Dallas Peace Center
Democrats.com
David Swanson, Co-founder, AfterDowningStreet.org
Dennis Kyne, Gulf War veteran, activist and author of "Support the Truth"
Dirk Adriaensens, Coordinator, SOS Iraq and member of the Executive Committee of the Brussells Tribunal, Belgium
Don Debar, correspondent, WBAI, New York, NY
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, National Coordinating Committee - Campus Antiwar Network
Eric Ruder, reporter, Socialist Worker newspaper
Gabriele Zamparini, journalist/filmmaker living in London; co-editor of www.catsdream.com
Global Exchange
Howard Zinn, historian, playwright and activist; author of "A People's History of the United States" and co-editor of "Voices of a People's History of the U.S."
Jacob Flowers, Director, MidSouth Peace and Justice Center
Judy Linehan, Military Families Speak Out
Jumpstart Ford Campaign, a joint effort of Global Exchange, the Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society
Kathy Kelly, Nobel Peace Prize nominee; Co-founder Voices for Creative Non-Violence
Karen Burke, Campus Antiwar Movement to End the Occupation, Austin, TX
Karen Hadden, Austin, TX
Lindsey German, Convener, Stop the War Coalition (UK)
Michael Letwin, Co-convener, New York City Labor Against the War
Mike Corwin, International Socialist Organization, Austin, TX
Nick Mottern, Director, ConsumersforPeace.org
Nada Khader, Executive Director, WESPAC Foundation, White Plains, NY
Norman Solomon, author: "War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death"
Paola Pisi, professor of religious studies (Italy) and editor of http://www.uruknet.info
Peace Action Texas
Phil Gasper, Chair, Department of Philosophy & Religion, Nortre Dame de Namur University; Professors for Peace
Sharon Smith, author of "Women and Socialism: Essays on Women's Liberation"
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Sonya Sofia, Rainbow organization
Stan Goff, Master sergeant, retired, U.S. Army
Sundiata Xian Tellem, Co-chair, Green Party of the United States Black Caucus; former chair, Green Party of Dallas County
Sunny Miller, Executive Director, Traprock Peace Center, Deerfield, MA
Texans for Peace
Thomas F. Barton, Publisher, GI Special
Tim Baer, Director, Bloomington Peace Action Coalition
Tim Carpenter, National Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Valley Reed, Chief organizer, March to Redeem Campaign
Ward Reilly, SE National Contact, Vietnam Veterans Against the War; Veterans for Peace, Baton Rouge, LA

Affiliations are for identification purposes only.

Karen Hadden
Peace Action Texas Co-Chair
[thx K9mutt]

Happy Birthday Colleen, Warrior Princess!

2006-03-30T16:31:00.000-05:00

Miss you but know you are making Kosciusko County safe for Democracy so it's a sacrifice we must not begrudge making. You are loved Xena, no, worshipped! Enjoy your cake, which we will cut with a sword.

Friends of Xena, please leave birthday wishes below and have a piece of cake.
Colleen is a fan of Joss Stone, so listen in her honor: Some kind of wonderful and Right to be Wrong

Happy Birthday to Jenny!!

2006-03-30T15:22:00.000-05:00

There is a birthday party over at Night Bird’s Fountain with delicious cake and other goodies to celebrate this wonderful gal.

Surely a star danced in Heaven on the day she was born.

Lost Hurricane Dennis Pic Rediscovered

2006-03-30T06:38:00.000-05:00

Anyone looking to buy an almost new home in Pensacola? Oh, this is a "before" picture!!

What my daughter brought home from school

2006-03-29T22:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, to set the stage - my daughter is five - she's in Kindergarten - she's the most eager to please, over-achieving academic sponge I've ever known. Furthermore, we live in Chelsea, a small rural community/suburb near Ann Arbor, Michigan, where moms still often stay home with their children, and after school band is extremely popular among the teens. My daughter? She's now off for spring break and as such, she had a lot of stuff in her folder in her back pack today.

She was very excited about her stuff and she started pulling it out as soon as we got back from the bus stop after school. I happened to notice a small vial on the carpet and picked it up. Anne asked what it was. I said that it must have come from her backpack and she said that it wasn't hers.

It looked kind of like a perfume sample with cotton for a stopper instead of a little twisty lid. I asked, "did one of your friends give you this?" She said, "No, Mom, I don't know what that is." As I examined this vial and sniffed it, I noticed another one lying on the floor near the first. I picked it up. It had a bit of red near the cotton tip, which in a few seconds I realized was lipstick. I tried to pry the cotton tip off, and noticed that the vial narrowed into a pointed tube and suddenly gasped.

Suddenly I realized why the vial looked familiar. I had studied it in caseworker training. It was a drug vial, but I didn't know which drug - forgot that part. But my God! Drugs in my daughter's backpack. It didn't register, really. Where the hell did these come from? School? The backpacks are all hung on a hook in the hall in the school. The bus? She rode to and from school in the bus that day, which has kids all the way up through high school riding on it.

I called Kirk for advice. He suggested that I call the school, which I did. They instantly connected me to the principal. He paused after I told him my story. He then said, "well, I need to look up what I've got to do next about this." I said that I was coming in for Anne's school conference later and I could bring the vials with me. He agreed that was the best idea.

By the time I brought him the vials, he had contacted the bus garage and the superintendent and everyone agreed that the first step was to identify the liquid in the vial. I had done some research on the internet in the meantime and said that it seemed most likely that the liquid was liquid "X" or GHB, a date rape drug. OH MY GOD! Anyway, he was calm and so, I decided to be, too. I asked him to please keep me informed of what was going on with this, and he agreed to do so. Now I wait.

But I educate! I told her teacher about the incident. I discussed it with my kids, about letting me know if they find something they can't recognize in their lockers or backpacks, or if someone they don't know starts talking to them, asking questions, etc. I told my closest friend in Chelsea, who had her conference tonight with her daughter's teacher. She told the teacher about the incident. Word is out.

My daughter brought home something very bad from school today. It is freaky. It is rural mid-America. God help us all.

ALTERNATIVE POWER:

2006-03-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

Michigan sets sights on ethanol to become an energy hotbed

The ethanol trend is good news for Michigan, because it is expected to create hundreds of jobs and spur millions of dollars of economic growth in areas that choose to produce and distribute the fuel. A typical ethanol plant making 40 million gallons a year employs about 50 people.

"The energy crisis that has created the thirst for ethanol is that the government told the oil industry to clean up its emissions years ago," said Carroll Knight, owner of more than 100 gas stations in Michigan, Indiana and Iowa. "Ethanol production helps the balance of trade and helps farmers."

With growing uncertainty in the petroleum market and a national mandate to explore new areas of energy, the construction of at least four production plants could be a sign that Michigan plans to be a significant player in the creation of an ethanol corridor in the Midwest.

Article, and more: Detroit Free Press
_____

Cross posted from: NBF

2006-03-28T18:24:00.000-05:00

As I am sure you all remember, Mack, a former blogger at KA and Night Bird's Fountain, decided to take some time off from blogging. He was searching for focus and a way to make use of his time to make a difference in something he truly believed in.

Well, by the looks of this article in the Chattanooga Times, he has quickly found his focus.

Rick Casares with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition said efforts to seal the borders overlook the fact that the United States needs nearly 500,000 lowskilled workers to keep its economy going.

"If we don’t include a more comprehensive reform, we are just going to increase the suffering of a group of people made up of largely hardworking families," he said.

Immigration reform advocates rallied Monday at the U.S. Capitol after weekend rallies drew protesters in cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix and Milwaukee."It is important we don’t exploit this work force for a period of time and then say, ‘Thanks, now get out,’" Mr. Casares said. "Smart reforms will provide a way for them to become citizens."

I raise my glass in a huge congratulatory toast to Mack. I couldn't be more proud of him. And, it certainly looks like he took the right path.

Troll-less Tuesday Thread

2006-03-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

Let's hope they didn't follow us!

Life after Gwen

2006-03-27T02:00:00.000-05:00

Sylvia Guerrero
Thursday, January 26, 2006
From the San Francisco Chronicle

I am not sure how I expected to feel at this point. When my daughter Gwen, a transgender teenager, was brutally murdered on Oct. 4, 2002, I was sure that I would never feel whole again. Looking back, I didn't yet know exactly what "transgender" meant or how to fully embrace my child's identity. But I knew one thing: I wanted justice for my child.

I thought that maybe I'd feel better on the day when the four suspects in her murder were brought to justice. More than three years and three months since Gwen's murder that day is finally here. On Friday, these men are being sentenced to prison terms for their actions, two of them convicted of second-degree murder and two taking plea bargains for voluntary manslaughter. I guess I hoped that once we got to the sentencing date, the pain would end and I could get back to my life. But it hasn't and I can't.

No amount of justice can return the part of me that these men took when they killed Gwen. The closure that people keep talking about hasn't come. It would be so much easier to write that it had. After all, that is what most people want to read: The system worked; my family is whole; the story is over. It would be comforting and allow us to get on with our lives. Of the many things I'm feeling, closure isn't one of them.

I'm angry. Angry that Gwen's brothers and her nieces and nephews won't get to grow up knowing her the way her aunts, uncles, older sister and I did. Angry that instead of celebrating her birthday, we get together each year to commemorate her death. Angry that, in both trials, the defendants tried to blame Gwen for her own murder. Angry that other young lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender kids continue to face the discrimination she did in our public schools and our workforce.

I'm also grateful. Grateful that my family and our friends rose to the challenge and sat through two gruesome and explicit criminal trials to make sure that everyone knew that Gwen was loved for who she was. I'm grateful for the support we've all received from perfect strangers who have told us in-person and through e-mail that we are in their thoughts and prayers. I'm grateful for the remorse that two of the defendants and some of their family members have expressed to me and my family.

And I'm sad. Sad that I'll never get to see Gwen grow into the beautiful woman she would have become. Sad that four men chose to end my daughter's life, and throw away their own simply because they thought they were acting like "real men." And sad that other transgender women have been killed since Gwen's murder and that we don't have a realistic end in sight to that violence.

Within this mix of emotions, though, the one that I hold onto most dearly is hope. Since that tragic night, my own family has grown by two beautiful grandchildren. More and more parents are supporting their transgender children. California has become the country's most protective state for transgender people. And just this month, a new law has been proposed in Sacramento, the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, authored by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, and sponsored by Equality California, an LGBT civil-rights lobbying group, to protect people from being blamed for their own murder.

Maybe the reason I don't have closure around Gwen's death is that there is still work to do. If I've learned anything since Gwen's murder, it is that hope alone is not enough. Each of us who hopes to live in a state where our families are protected needs to work toward making California that place. For instance, boys and girls in schools throughout the Bay Area need to hear, firsthand, how important it is to be themselves and to respect each other's differences.

None of us can change the way the world was on Oct. 4, 2002. But each of us now has an important role to play in creating a state where we can celebrate more birthdays and commemorate fewer murders.

Sylvia Guerrero is the mother of Gwen Araujo and an activist for LGBT civil rights. She speaks at schools around the Bay Area through the Gwen Araujo Transgender Education Fund administered by the Horizons Foundation.

Katrina may have changed political landscape

2006-03-27T01:24:00.000-05:00

Sept. 17, 2005, 7:13PM
Demographic shifts caused by huge relocation of evacuees could tip Louisiana's balance

By JOHANNA NEUMAN and RICHARD B. SCHMITT
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON - Government officials and legal experts have begun wrestling with an intriguing question posed by the evacuation of New Orleans: What happens to the politics of a region when a significant part of the electorate suddenly disappears?

The migration of hundreds of thousands of people from this urban center, many of them low-income and black, could have a dramatic effect on the political makeup of a state delicately balanced between the two major parties. If most of the evacuees choose not to return, Katrina's political legacy could be that it made Louisiana a more Republican state.

How Katrina may have rewritten the political map of New Orleans and of Louisiana is just one of many questions the Gulf states are pondering in the aftermath of a natural disaster of such scope that it may have permanently altered the region's demographics and economy.

Working for voting rights
Civil rights groups are focused on keeping track of Louisiana's displaced black voters and on ensuring that they can continue to vote in the districts they left behind until they make a decision to permanently resettle elsewhere.

Ernest Johnson, head of the Louisiana NAACP, has called for Congress to pass emergency legislation to extend special protections of the Voting Rights Act that expire in 2007. The law is meant to ensure access to the polls for black voters.

Johnson says Katrina has potentially disenfranchised 1.5 million voters, many of them black.

"A lot of voters have been displaced, and they could be out of their voting jurisdiction, with toxins in the water, for a year or more," Johnson said. The expiring provision of the law requires jurisdictions in 15 states to clear changes in election laws with the Justice Department to ensure the changes do not disadvantage minority groups.

"We were going to fight for the extension anyway. Now, we want to move up the debate, to talk about this in 2005 instead of 2007, so we do not have to worry," Johnson said.

The provision, he said, would protect voters as precincts are moved and absentee ballots are mailed.

It is still impossible to know how many evacuees will choose to make new homes outside the Gulf Coast and how many will return to rebuild.

In a briefing to a Senate oversight committee, a senior Federal Emergency Management Agency official said the agency thought it would need to find at least temporary housing for 450,000 families.

More than half of the New Orleans evacuees initially landed in solidly Republican Texas.

Their presence is expected to trigger no immediate political change in the GOP stronghold. But if enough choose to stay, they could accelerate the growing minority influence in the state, where whites recently lost their majority status, said Charlie Cook, an independent political analyst and, as a Shreveport native, a lifelong student of Louisiana politics.

"Other than the Okies leaving the Dust Bowl, I can't think of any other time in American history where this many people have just up and moved," he said. "We're all starting to wonder what the long-term political consequences will be in terms of demographics and voting trends."

Unlike the migration of Oklahomans during the Great Depression, which lasted for years, this shift of population — whose consequences could be lasting — occurred during a few days.

One immediate casualty may be Louisiana's unusual political culture.

In the jargon of political consultants, Louisiana is a "pink state." After voting twice for President Clinton, the state voted twice for President George W. Bush. It recently elected its first Republican U.S. senator since Reconstruction — David Vitter.

But unlike its solid red-state Republican neighbors, in Louisiana social and cultural issues have been less important, Cook said. The state's particular blend of cultures — which includes the mix of French Canadians, Spaniards and Creoles who settled its southern region — distinguishes it from Mississippi and Alabama. Its sizable Catholic population has resisted the evangelical agenda that resonates with much of the South.

Louisianans tend to concentrate on economic issues, Cook said.

New Orleans was the hub of that political culture, which was heavily black and Democratic. What no one knows is what the city will be if and when it is rebuilt.

"Those who landed in Rhode Island or Utah, I doubt will stay," and may well head back to their hometown, Cook said. "But those in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Dallas or Houston are more likely to stay because it is not such an alien culture. And of those who come back, what will the mix be? More African-Americans? More whites? You could argue either way."

Johnson said he was hoping that evacuees, once relocated, would contact their local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapters so that the Louisiana branch could re-establish contact.

"The thing I'm worried about is getting New Orleans people back to New Orleans," he said.

Legal and political experts said that if enough evacuees chose not to return, the state Legislature, which has the authority to redraw congressional districts, could take that step — a move that could realign power in Louisiana. Any redistricting, however, would be subject to Justice Department approval and undoubtedly would face a court fight.

For now, not many in Washington are eager to talk about questions that sound the slightest bit partisan. Most are fearful that it would look unseemly to talk politics while their constituents are without food, electricity, clothing, housing and even the comfort of their families.

Although the focus of the relief effort is for now necessarily on preserving life, Richard Hasen, an elections-law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that "at some point, we have to think about the democratic processes and making sure the people who live there are adequately represented."

March in April

2006-03-26T12:47:00.000-05:00

March For Peace, Justice And Democracy
Saturday, April 29, 2006
New York City

Love The Sinner But Hate the Sin: NOT!

2006-03-25T03:07:00.000-05:00

Ninety-nine percent of the time I am vehemently criticizing anything Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) says. But I have to agree with this statement that he made on November 8, 1996 to a conservative columnist.

“I’m a firm believer in feeding people their own words back to them, when it’s appropriate.”

It’s time to serve dinner to my fundamentalist friends. On the menu is one of their signature phrases with a generous portion of hypocrisy on the side.

Over the years we’ve heard ad nauseum from them the oft-quoted statement ‘Love the sinner but hate the sin’. They have wielded it like a baton to beat down GLBT people with. Only one problem: Nowhere in the Bible do those words appear together in scripture in either the Old or New Testaments.

I’ll repeat this once again: ‘Love the sinner but hate the sin’ does not appear as a single verse ANYWHERE in the Bible.

Now it is true that God tells us in John 15:12 to love one another as he has loved us. It's also true that God says He hates sin. But unfortunately Fundamentalists have taken these two separate scriptures and melded them into a shield that in their convoluted way of thinking gives them carte blanche to attack gays, abortion doctors, women and anyone else who wants equal rights with impunity.

When you call them out for their Jurassic attitudes against gays, for example, it becomes their all purpose defense for the hatred, bigotry and discrimination they liberally heap upon them. They’ll reply that their actions are okay in "God's eyes." They are just following a literal interpretation of the Bible by denying gay people their constitutional rights to equal and fair treatment under the law and are only showing their displeasure with the sin. Fundamentalists aren't "hating" the sinner when they claim that gays are sick and need healing, should wear warning labels or undergo a godly fumigation. They’re just simply fulfilling their ‘Christian’ mission by showing they need to be "healed."

Yeah right. And Reverend Stanley Kirk Burrell is gonna make a comeback touring as a gangsta rapper.

Fundamentalists have conveniently forgotten that anyone who professes to be a Christian is supposed to forgive the sin, not ‘hate’ it. It is mandatory that you must forgive the sins of any other sinner – including the GLBT peeps you hate. If they can’t or won’t do it and start uttering that ‘love the sinner but hate the sin’ pseudo argument, they will find themselves being condemned by the very God that they claim they love and serve.

Albert Einstein stated that “You cannot simultaneously say that you love someone and use your power against them." Explain to me how you can say with a straight face (pardon the pun) from the pulpit that you ‘love’ someone but demonize them, pass constitutional amendments to deny them the ability to get married, fight tooth and nail to strip away their civil rights protections, openly discriminate against them and work to pressure companies to revoke their domestic partner benefits? That’s not ‘Christian’, that’s just plain evil.

You know something? When The Rapture does happen some of you folks are gonna be in for a big surprise in terms of who gets Left Behind.

Got room for dessert? Let me get that Devil’s food cake for you. Bon appetit.

Diana's Yorkie Poos!

2006-03-24T00:48:00.000-05:00

signs your kid is a republican

2006-03-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

Stock answer to everything: "Kindergarten -- Love it or leave it!"

Brings to school elaborate lunch packed by nanny which includes sandwich, fruit roll-up, potato chips, candy, soft drink, sugar packets, and a $10 bill to purchase whatever he wants from the school vending machine. Insists it is "unfair" when poor kids get free beef-a-roni from government.

American flag Underoos.

Claims that a classmate "recently sought significant quantities of whoopee cushions, tacks, silly string, and Chinese handcuffs from Spencer Gifts." Uses this claim as a pretext to beat up that classmate. Unable to find whoopee cushions, tacks, silly string, or Chinese handcuffs after the fact.

Says "Highlights" and "Weekly Reader" are part of the liberal media.

Pees in pants whenever he is in the vicinity of Middle Eastern-looking classmate.

Favorite Book: "The O'Reilly Factor -- for Kids!"

Tells other boys that "Girls play with dolls; boys play with trucks."

Secretly plays with dolls.

Spells potato with an e.

Blames low grade in finger painting on "racial preferences."

Favorite Animal: Elephant

Shoots close friend in the face with Super Soaker. Graciously accepts apology from close friend, who is "deeply sorry for all the bad stuff that has happened this week."

Obsessed with wee-wee of a certain classmate from Arkansas.

Favorite After-School Special: "The poor boy who got kissed by another boy on the school bus and had no choice but to beat up the boy who kissed him."

Takes lunch money from classmates, gives it to friend named Hal E. Burton.

Declines to participate in fire drill because he is busy reading "My Pet Goat."

"Operation Iraqi Freedom" lunch box.

Unsurprisingly Digby

2006-03-20T19:40:00.000-05:00

People want to know what Democratic base really stands for? The same thing that the majority of the country stands for. We believe in the rule of law, civil liberties, civil rights and supporting the troops --- all of those things are embodied in the Alito filibuster motion, the Feingold NSA wiretapping resolution and the Murtha plan. None of them were done out of an expectation that they would win passage in the congress or force the president to change course. These actions, regardless of motive, have laid down the stakes in the next election, which is why Brit Hume had an aneurysm about the proposition that the NSA wiretapping issue might actually play to the benefit of Democrats.

[...] Nobody is going to be impeached over silly blow-jobs but there are some very serious matters that the Republican congress has refused to deal with. If that stirs up the GOP base, then fine. It stirs up the Democratic base too.

Happy St. Patrick's Day - here's some music for ya

2006-03-17T22:18:00.000-05:00

Streams of Whiskey - Bloody Irish Boys

Irish Heartbeat - Van Morrison with the Chieftains

Funky Ceili - Black 47

Danny Boy - Judy Garland

Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2

Danny Boy - Sinead O Connor

Wild Irish Rose - U2

Tura Lura Lura - Three Irish Tenors

Dirty Old Town - The Pogues

Whe Irish Eyes Are Smiling - Bing Crosby

Whiskey in the Jar - Phil Lesh

What a wonderful world with Tony D. in it!

2006-03-15T00:53:00.000-05:00

I see trees of green, red roses too

I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day,

the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky

are also on the faces of people walking by

I see friends shakin' hands, sayin'
"How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow

They'll learn much more than I'll ever know

And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Oh yeah

Happy Birthday Dors!
With love from your ass kickin' friends

Listen to the music

Q and A

2006-03-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

30 Now Sponsor HR 635

2006-03-13T18:03:00.001-05:00

30 US Reps for Bush Impeachment Inquiry

By Matthew Cardinale, Editor
Atlanta Progressive News
(March 10, 2006)

30 US House Representatives have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would create a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending President Bush’s impeachment, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.

“There has been massive support for House Resolution 635 from a very vigorous network of grassroots activists and people committed to holding the Bush Administration accountable for its widespread abuses of power,” US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said in a statement prepared for Atlanta Progressive News. [...]

The current 30 total co-sponsors are Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Rep. John Olver (D-MA), Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). [...]

Afghan Bombing Kills Four U.S. Troops

2006-03-12T12:41:00.000-05:00

KABUL, Afghanistan - A roadside bomb exploded next to a passing U.S. armored vehicle Sunday in eastern
Afghanistan, killing four American soldiers, the U.S. military said.

Semper Fi

Daffodil Days

2006-03-11T10:26:00.000-05:00

One of the first flowers of spring, the daffodil is a symbol of hope. To the American Cancer Society, the flower represents the hope of a world free from cancer.

"A house with daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the sun be shining outside." A. A. Milne

For Cyn!

Pulp Politicians

2006-03-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

Interesting Idea

2006-03-09T16:35:00.000-05:00

Baghdad Burning-River Bend

2006-03-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 06, 2006

And the Oscar Goes to...

[...]Nominees for Best Actor:[...]

George W. Bush in “OIF: The War on Terror” The third sequel to the original “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Weapons of Mass Destruction” and “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Liberating Iraqis”. Bush’s nomination comes for his convincing portrayal as the worlds first mentally challenged president.

[...]

Nominee for Best Leading Actress:

Condi Rice in “Viva Iran!” as the vicious Secretary of State in the charade to stop Iran’s nuclear power program (in spite of Iranian control in Iraq).

Semper Fi

Two U.S. Marines Die in Action in Iraq, Military Says

2006-03-09T11:40:00.000-05:00

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S. Marines died in action in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, the American military said in an e-mailed statement.

My blog Gung Ho!, blogger has blocked it, saying it's a spam blog. That's why I haven't posted on it for the past couple of days. Hopefully they will unblock it soon.

Semper Fi

Rest in Peace Dana

2006-03-07T19:17:00.000-05:00

Think Progress - Defining ‘Unnecessary’: Bush Cuts Funding For Disabled Children

2006-03-07T08:05:00.000-05:00

Go Read!

Semper Fi

Cindy Sheehan Arrested

2006-03-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

On Monday, she had joined a delegation of women from Iraq at the rally at the United Nations, urging the United Nations to help prevent civil war in Iraq.

About 20 protesters went to the U.S. mission to the United Nations to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures seeking an end to the war. Nobody from the mission received them so Sheehan and three other American women sat down in front of the building, refused to leave, and were arrested.

Reuters

I don't like Mondays

2006-03-06T14:12:00.000-05:00

A Driveway Full on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

2006-03-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

A Driveway Full on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I Want a Sunday Kind of Blog

2006-03-05T10:43:00.000-05:00

Army To Probe Tillman Death

2006-03-04T19:02:00.000-05:00

Guardian Unlimited, UK - Saturday March 4, 2006 11:16 PM:

The Army said Saturday it will launch a criminal investigation into the April 2004 death of Pat Tillman, the former professional football player who was shot to death by fellow soldiers in Afghanistan in what previous Army reviews had concluded was an accidental shooting.

[...]

A report by the Army later found that troops with Tillman knew at the time that friendly fire had killed the football star. Officers destroyed critical evidence and concealed the truth from Tillman's brother, also an Army Ranger, who was nearby, the report found.

* * *

Also see:

"Pat Tillman, Our Hero"
from The Nation, October 24, 2005 issue:

[...]But when Tillman fell in Afghanistan the wheels once again started to turn. Now the narrative was perfect: "War hero and football star dies fighting terror." The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to hit the press, so the President found it especially useful to praise Tillman as "an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror." His funeral was nationally televised. Bush even went back to the bloody well during the presidential campaign, addressing his team's fans on the Arizona Cardinals' stadium Jumbotron.

We now know, of course, that this was all a brutal charade. Such callous manipulation is fueling the Tillman family's anger. As Mary Tillman said this past May, "They could have told us up front that they were suspicious that [his death] was a fratricide, but they didn't. They wanted to use him for their purposes.... They needed something that looked good, and it was appalling that they would use him like that." A growing number of military families, similarly angered, are criticizing the war in Iraq through organizations like Military Families Speak Out.[...]

Military Families Speak Out

Senator Barbara Boxer

2006-03-04T08:22:00.000-05:00

Urge Secretary Rumsfeld to develop a plan for getting our troops out of the middle of an Iraqi civil war -- and to share that plan with Congress. Sign my petition today!

Semper Fi

Evening Open Thread

2006-03-03T18:43:00.000-05:00

In case anyone needs to decompress.

A step in the left direction - The Dukester sentenced, even Fox shows Bush polls below 40%, and the AP wins the release of Gitmo detainee names. Let's count the positives, shall we? (so freaking sick of obsessing on the negatives)

U.S. Refuses to Give Visa to Sick Orphan

2006-03-03T09:32:00.000-05:00

JOPLIN, Mo. - Melvin Karges and his wife Cheryl know about helping southeast Asian orphans. Their daughter Claira, now 2 1/2 years old, was adopted from Cambodia with a hole in her heart that was successfully treated here in the United States.

[...]

The U.S. government has refused to issue a medical visa or a humanitarian waiver for 6-year-old Tuan Van Cao. The couples are confused and frustrated, saying they have lined up private funding to cover treatment for a botched operation on the boy's diseased left hip that left him with a potentially fatal bone infection.

Semper Fi

At least 19 killed in attack on Iraq town

2006-03-03T07:37:00.000-05:00

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen raided a small town near Baghdad and shot dead at least 19 people in what police said on Friday was a sectarian attack by Sunnis on Shi'ites, latest in a string of killings since a Shi'ite shrine was bombed last week.

Among the dead were Shi'ite migrant laborers shot down at a brick factory in a dusk raid on Thursday by a suspected al Qaeda-linked group. One local politician said at least 25 died, among them three children.

Semper Fi

Free Fall

2006-03-02T20:12:00.001-05:00

It's a free fall
when your back's against the wall
When you hit rock bottom
and the bottom drops out

From CNN/USA Today/Gallup

38% approve of the job Bush is doing.
47% approve how he is handling terrorism, “down 7 points since early February and a record low.”
64% disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, a record high.
52% do not find Bush “honest and trustworthy,” tying November’s worst-ever mark.

Thursday Morning Open Thread

2006-03-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

I got the coffee this morning :-)

The Lone Star Iconoclast

2006-03-02T09:08:00.000-05:00

In August, 2005, the Lone Star Iconoclast, a local newspaper in Crawford, Texas, began reporting on Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside George Bush's compound. The reaction from the right wing was swift and furious. Somehow, this still, small voice amidst the furor continued to report in spite of the threats and retributions.

Truth telling often comes at great cost. This time, though, those who carried us the truth about Cindy and her mission have remained steadfast. Normally, I would hesitate to post any advertising, regardless of however oblique. But it was the Iconoclast who were first and last at the front line.

The have published a book, detailing the experience at Crawford from the start of Cindy's vigil up until now. The pressure on them to "just hush up" is tremendous, but they are steadfast in their mission to bring us the truth of what's happening on the ground -- and what happens to people who speak out against the Bush mis-administration.

The full post is here.

Former U.N. Official Deplores Iraq Abuses

2006-03-02T08:54:00.000-05:00

AP - SYDNEY, Australia - Human rights abuses in Iraq are as bad now as they were under Saddam Hussein, as lawlessness and sectarian violence sweep the country, the former U.N. human rights chief in Iraq said Thursday.

John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

Semper Fi

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

2006-03-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

A funny to get the Hump Day started! Nothing like picking on Bush to make the day go right. Plus, Michelle and I got good news last night. She officially got into her PhD program (it's been a real pain in the ass because they put her on conditional and made her jump through tons of hoops), but yesterday she found out the good news! Bad side...we're stuck in TN for a few more years. Crapola!

Anyway, laugh good, laugh hardy, love harder. ;)

Bush Comedy

2006-02-28T22:30:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

FYI

2006-02-28T22:11:00.000-05:00

I've changed the template in an effort to combat some of the problems. I hope it helps.

So, this is one of those "activist judges" we've been hearing about...

2006-02-28T19:45:00.000-05:00

Tenn. judge lets anti-gay vote proceed

A Tennessee judge has ruled that an anti-gay amendment vote may proceed, even though legislators failed to meet a deadline laid out in the state Constitution.

Under Tennessee rules, a constitutional amendment must pass two legislative sessions before facing a public vote. After an amendment passes the first session, lawmakers must publish a legal notice six months prior to the next election. The rule is meant to ensure that the public can take the amendment into account before electing the next legislature.

In 2004, the state's General Assembly advanced a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. But instead of posting notice in May, it waited until June 20, missing the deadline by roughly six weeks. While it may appear to be a technicality, it is in fact a clear-cut violation of state law and should have been enough to invalidate the amendment and send the lawmakers back to square one.

Baghdad Burning - River Bend

2006-02-28T19:20:00.000-05:00

Volatile Days...

Go read!

Semper Fi

Teach the Children Well

2006-02-28T09:25:00.000-05:00

I saw this on the Tennessee Guerilla Women's site and had to share. I appreciate everyone's religious beliefs and appreciate anyone who can manage to balance their liberal views with their religious ideology. Personally, I consider myself a Christian, but after some pretty nasty experiences in the church, I can't bring myself to reconcile the two. The things happening in the church today and reading things like this scare me even more for the future of Christianity and for the good people I know, like those of you here who have found the balance.

Radical Right Training Kids to Fight in Culture War

Fighting to end the separation of church and state, fighting gay rights and abortion rights are just a few of the things rightwingers in East Tennessee are training children for in a group called Generation Joshua.

While Generation Joshua bills itself as "designed for Christian youth between the ages of 11 and 19 who want to become a force in the civic and political arenas," the group seems to primariliy target Christian homeschoolers.

Generation Joshua's website says the goal is to "ignite a vision in young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundations." With 31 chapters in the nation, the East Tennessee chapter is the largest.

After looking at some of the photos on the rightwing website, it becomes obvious that these kids are also being used as free labor for Republican candidates.
...
Bill Waldrep can't vote yet, and he can't run for political office, but at 14 he's leading one of the most influential groups of young people in the country. They're called Generation Joshua. School aged kids who meet once a month to learn about civics and politics.
...
President Bill Waldrep says his group is against abortion and same sex marriage. As a faith based organization, Generation Joshua promotes conservative viewpoints. 16 year old Kaity Proctor is taking a stand against separation of church and state.

"We took the church out of the state, but you've still got that thing of our founding fathers were Christians and they put God in the government and the way things have gone now, it's just gone almost," Kaity says.

Almost 3/4

2006-02-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

Think Progress - 72% of U.S. Troops Want Out of Iraq Within One Year

Semper Fi

What the Hell Happened to Me? Pt. 3

2006-02-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

Some people who read here may or may not know, I am a very spiritual Christian man, or try my hardest to be. It's a struggle at times to portray the perfect "Christian" image of being a "tee totaler." I believe that God is very practical and does understand "sin" and the problem it presents to the world. I believe God understands the heart and mind moreso then actions portrayed by His people.

In the Book of Matthew, Jesus was asked "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." I write this to touch on the second commandment, Love your neighbor as yourself. I started to think about that a lot. The more I thought about it, I asked myself, "What can I do to love my neighbor as I would love myself?" For starters, I decided to look at God's word more. Jesus said, "Do not judge, or you to will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?"

That's a valuable lesson to me. In politics lately we've got a lot of "religous" people condeming what they see as wrong such as abortion and homosexuality. Granted it may be wrong, but what position are these people to say? That is between the "sinner" and God, not worldly politicians and leaders. Because of the plank sitting in my eye, I cannot remove the sawdust in my brother's eye. It's not my job to judge, nor is it anybody else on earth's job.

For posterity's sake, I'm not going to delve completely into how I feel, but I will say, politcians need to stay out of legislating morality for the most part. No matter what legislation is on the books, the law will be broken. Sin has been around a lot longer then any of us have, if we could only learn that it's not our job to judge, but it is our Makers job the world would be a better place. It's hard to love your neighbor when you are condemning them.

Monica's Political Sing-A-Long

2006-02-27T13:56:00.000-05:00

Hey KA peeps!

This is the thread where I'll be posting my infamous song rewrites from time to time.
Lets get it started with this one.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E
(sung to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song)

Who's the bunch of religious nuts
That hate both you and me?
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E
Hey there, Hi there, Ho there
They're as right-wing as can be
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E

Conservatives (say it again) Conservatives (say it again)
Forever will salute and yell Sieg Heil
Heil, heil, heil
Run along you don't belong
In our theocracy
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E

Time for Tin Foil Hats!

2006-02-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

Brad Blog - VIDEO - NSA Uses Private Firms for Massive Unchecked Domestic Surveillance

Semper Fi

Monday Open Thread-Blog for the Babies

2006-02-27T10:53:00.000-05:00

Army threatens to storm Afghan jail after two-day standoff

2006-02-27T09:05:00.000-05:00

KABUL (AFP) - A standoff between security forces and hundreds of rioting inmates at Afghanistan's main jail dragged into a second day, with the army threatening to storm a seized cell block if negotiations failed.

Semper Fi

CHENEY GOES AHEAD WITH FOLSOM PRISON CONCERT

2006-02-26T18:54:00.000-05:00

Vice President Dick "Buckshot" Cheney kept his word to the inmates at California's maximum security Folsom State Prison. He played a one hour set with his band "Dickie and The Trigger Happy Birdie Killers". The set received a luke warm reception until Cheney launched into his new, as yet unreleased, single "Go Fuck Yourself". During the guitar solo the Vice President thrilled the assembled audience by producing a rifle and opening fire. "He seems angry. Very angry" one inmate said "I mean, I always thought that the American people didn't like to vote for angry people but...Man, that dude is angry!" I managed to obtain a tape of the performance and am proud to present it.... here:

http://cheneyplaysfolsom.cf.huffingtonpost.com/

Sorry, I can't get the link to work. Copy and paste - I assure you it's worth it

Zack Space takes on Ney

2006-02-26T13:33:00.000-05:00

And the AP pays no attention

Let's help make the media pay attention to this good Democratic candidate by contacting the following:

Al Franken

jerry@springerontheradio.com

rrhodes@airamericaradio.com

Majority Report

Rachel Maddow

Comments on Ed Schultz show content: wendyjoschultz@yahoo.com

Ed Schultz's producer: james@edschultzshow.com

Stephanie Miller

Your help would be greatly appreciated by Ohio! Remember, if you help Ohio, you also really help Dems nationally!

SUNDAY MORNING OPEN THREAD

2006-02-26T12:41:00.000-05:00

Did I do this correctly? Hello to everyone.

2006-02-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

Bomb Explosions Kill Two GIs, 3 Iraqis

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bomb exploded Sunday at a crowded bus station south of Baghdad, killing at least two people and injuring four, police said. Two U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi police officer were killed in other explosions.

Semper Fi