Republican Congressmen who have gay sex and commit adultery co-sponsor the Marriage Protection Amendment

That's right, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested June 11, 2007 on charges of soliciting gay sex in a Minneapolis airport terminal, is co-sponsoring the amendment along with Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) who was implicated in an sex scandal involving his repeated use of prostitutes in DC and LA.

This is GOP hypocrisy at it's finest. These wingnuts who put their dicks where they don't belong sponsor a constitutional amendment to protect marriage - when they didn't obviously value their own. Classic Republican behavior.


H/T: Jesus General (graphic)

Not befitting of a great nation

Some might say it's excusable to torture an innocent detainee to death, or to detain war combatants for no reason, these are just isolated instances. After all, nothing is worse than the videoed beheadings we've seen or the way that the enemy extremists have tortured. But as a nation as great as these United States, do we need to stoop to that level for no apparent reason? The Supreme Court has ruled we shouldn't. Now the courts will expose the Bush policy for what it is... illegal war crimes.

NYT:

In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims.

The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snark”: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.”

“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,” said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The unanimous panel overturned as invalid a Pentagon determination that the detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority in western China, was properly held as an enemy combatant.

The 3 judge panel included one of the court’s most conservative members, the chief judge, David B. Sentelle, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, and Judge Thomas B. Griffith, a 2005 appointee of President Bush.

The Christian fetus fetish

The abortion issue takes on considerable weight when you have people basing their political preferences and votes on this single issue. Can you imagine a few more judges like Scalia? Can you imagine womens' abortion rights restricted to just a dozen or so 'blue states'? Can't they look past their Christian fetus fetish long enough to care about what overturning Roe v. Wade would do to American society? America would become the largest nation in the world where abortion was not universally safe and legal. These Christian fetus fetishists ignore and refuse to promote sex ed and contraceptives that would reduce abortion. Instead they promote 'abstinence ed' which has not only been proven a failure, but has been shown to promote anal and oral sex. The fetus fetishists refuse to acknowledge studies that show that instances of abortion declined the most where abortion was safe and legal. They also ignore studies that show outlawing abortion does not prevent it or lessen it's instance. Abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it. But, because of their Christian fetus fetish, they consider it unimportant that studies showed that the result of outlawing abortion endangers women's lives. The study indicated that about 20 million abortions that would be considered unsafe are performed each year and that 70,000 women die as a result of complications from those abortions, most in countries where abortion is illegal. Pro-life my ass. Pro-life is anti-women. Pro-life is an irrational contradiction, born most often out of religious conviction.

By all polls ever taken, America supports abortion rights and Roe v. Wade. Have you noticed? The vast majority of anti abortion rights commenters here are Christian conservative parents. You'll find a much broader demographic on the pro choice side. These are the American Taliban, those that want to force their religious views on society. They are not just happy upholding their own moral compass, they want to force it on all others.

No, a fetus is not a person. Human life, yes, but not a human being, not a person. Big difference. It is a developing person. The science that determines human life from a legal perspective is that of brain waves, the standard by which we can remove a person that is 'brain dead' from life support.

Like 'global warming deniers' ... much anti-abortion psuedo science has spouted fallacies like "At only 40 days after fertilization electrical waves as measured by the EEG can be recorded from the baby's brain" as proof of life. Yes, it is proof of life but it is not a human being because it's brain is not fully formed.

For a thorough discussion on this subject see this link.

From the article:

An EEG involves measuring varying electrical potentials across a dipole, or separated positive and negative charges. Any living cell has an electrical potential across its membrane, and any living structure is a dipole, which explains why people have been able to put electrodes on plants, hook them up to EEG machines, and get "evidence" that plants have feelings. But this has nothing to do with "brain waves," which are a nontechnical term for a particular kind of varying potentials produced by certain brain structures that don't even exist in an embryo and associated with consciousness and dreaming as well as the regulation of bodily functions.

To get scalp or surface potentials from the cortex requires three things: neurons, dendrites, and axons, with synapses between them. Since these requirements are not present in the human cortex before 20-24 weeks of gestation, it is not possible to record "brain waves" prior to 20-24 weeks. Period. End of story.

98% of all abortions are performed before the 20th week, before the fetal brain is fully functional. If you want to restrict abortions in the last trimester, I have no problem with that, but abortion should an option in cases of severe fetal abnormalities or a risk to the life of the mother.

Theological Scholar: Women are beaten by their husbands because they rebel against their husband's God-given authority

If you ever had any doubt about how Christians view women, let a Christian scholar clarify it for you.

If you're a Christian, you know that the Bible states:

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ...For the husband is the head of the wife ... so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. -- Ephesians 5:22-24

So, what does this mean? A Christian Scholar clarifies (podcast mp3) it for us: Dr. Bruce Ware, Professor from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said Eve's curse in the Garden of Eden meant "her desire will be to have her way" instead of her obeying her husband. What happens if a woman is not satisfied with her role?

According to the Christian Scholar, as he explained to the congregation of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, men have two choices:

"when women want to have their way instead of submitting to their husbands, and do what they would like to do, and really seek to work to have their husbands fulfill their will instead of serving them, the husbands ...respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged, or more commonly, to become passive, acquiescing, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men..."

Dr. Bruce Ware cited First Timothy in stating that women need to know and except their place as child bearers instead of "bucking against it" - and should not want "to be in a man's position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men."

"It means that a woman will demonstrate that she is in fact a Christian, that she has submitted to God's ways by affirming and embracing her God-designed identity as--for the most part, generally this is true--as wife and mother, rather than chafing against it, rather than bucking against it, rather than wanting to be a man, wanting to be in a man's position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men"

Dr. Ware notes disdain for the feminist and egalitarian movement that "challenges accepted Biblical views." Dr. Ware stated 10 reasons "for affirming male headship in the created order." They include that man "was created first" and that woman was created "out of" Adam in order to be his "helper." Even though the woman sinned first, Ware said, God came to Adam and held him primarily responsible for failure to exercise his God-given authority. Ware also said male/female relationships are modeled in the Trinity, where in the Godhead the Son "eternally submits" to the Father.

The authoritarian nature of his views of authority and submission were neatly summed up by his concluding statement:

"Women are called in various relationships... to submit to rightful male leadership, and this is for their good... It is as God-like to submit to rightful authority with joy and gladness..."

H/T: Ethics Daily

It's official: US Army official historical document details gross incompetence of Bush Administration Iraq policy

The history of the Iraq War is now being documented. Over 35 documentaries have already been filmed. One of the best: Frontline - Bush's War is extremely well written and sourced.

But now, its time for the military official historians to write the official history of the Iraq War.

Before the Iraq invasion, Bush surrounded himself with "yes men" like Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Tommy Franks. He got rid of those like Gen. Shinseki who warned that we needed many more troops than Rumsfeld proposed to secure Iraq in the aftermath. He ignored Col. Kevin Benson, a planner at the land war command, who developed a plan that called for using about 300,000 soldiers to secure postwar Iraq, about twice as many as were deployed. Colin Powell tried to dissuade Bush from the invasion. He told Bush, "you break it, you own it." In essence - if you invade Iraq, the US will be responsible for the welfare of the country and it's citizens. So what happened? Tommy Franks turned out to be a failure. According to the report, he assumed the fighting was over and put the military effort in the hands of a short-staffed headquarters over the objections of the Army’s vice chief of staff. “The move was sudden and caught most of the senior commanders in Iraq unaware,” states the history, which adds that the staff for the new headquarters was not initially “configured for the types of responsibilities it received.” Franks blamed the Defense Dept and the Pentagon leadership.

Bush failed miserably and now it is officially documented. Here we are today, an unstable Iraq where there is war with no end in sight, the US is still unilaterally paying the cost, Americans dying everyday, millions of Iraqis dead, maimed and/or displaced. The report has vindicated Gen. Shinseki whom the Bush administration marginalized and all the other Generals that came forward with complaints of incompetent leadership of the Bush Administration.

CNN Story

NYT Story

PDF Report

The McFlip-Flopper

John McCain is the king of inconsistency, changing his position and sucking up to whoever he thinks will get him a vote.

*McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he’s against it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/18/mccains-offsho...

* McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15781.htm...

* McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15863.htm...

* McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/10/mccain-flips-o...

* McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15825.htm...

* He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion,he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15864.htm...

* McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.
http://www.americablog.com/2008/06/now-mccain-is-flip-f...

* McCain believes the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

* McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/28/mccains-abo... /

* McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15617.htm...

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15557.htm...

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15564.htm...

* He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15573.htm...

* McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/20/mccains-97-lob...

* He wanted political support from radical televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15633.htm...

* McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15699.htm...

*McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a“‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded.Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14761.htm...

* McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/mccain-...

* McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14818.htm...

*In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15033.htm...

* McCain has changed his economic worldview on multiple occasions.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15337.htm...

* McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15370.htm...

* McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15358.htm...

* McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off than they were before Bush took office.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/19/mccain-economy-bloo... /

* McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/06/mccain-earmark /

* McCain believes his endorsement from radical televangelist John Hagee was both a good and bad idea.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/21/hagee-flip-flop /

*McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting“irresponsibly.”His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15176.htm...

* McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/politics/16mccain....

* In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/10/emtimeem-has-m...

* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/31/mccain-... /

* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/31/mccain-... /

* On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own legislation.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14447.htm...

*In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving“feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9658.html

* McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral...

*McCain said he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as“a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.”In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/18/mccain-greatest-cri... /

* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade http://mediamatters.org/items/200610310003 to saying the exact opposite.http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/mccain-abortion /

* McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/mcc...

* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6988.html

* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/6731.html

* On a related note, he said 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and insisted he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/us/politics/03mccain....

*In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=1880630&page=1

* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.
http://www.nysun.com/national/campaign-finance-effort-r... /

* McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070115/pl_usnw/dnc__mcca...

* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8313.html

* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15637887 /

* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200610310003

* McCain decided in2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/19/mccain-kissinger /

* McCain used to think that Grover Norquist was a crook and a corrupt shill for dictators. Then McCain got serious about running for president and began to reconcile with Norquist.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/19/mccain-kissinger /

* McCain took a firm line in opposition to torture, and then caved to White House demands.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/20...

* McCain gave up on his signature policy issue, campaign-finance reform, and won’t back the same provision he sponsored just a couple of years ago.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/8066.html

* And now he’s both for and against overturning Roe v. Wade.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/mccain-abortion /

H/T: Doc Mercer

The disaster of the Bush presidency

It is absolutely stunning the ability of the authoritarian right to tout the "great presidency" of GW Bush in face of facts. It could only be one of two things: 1) authoritarian worship, or 2) a simple lack of knowledge and information.

It's no secret that those who get their information exclusively from 'conservative news sources' are misinformed. This of course has been proven to be deliberate misinformation as been shown time and time again, most recently through the Pentagon military analyst scandal. The Bushies eat it up... hook, line and sinker - they swallow.

Question: On whose watch did 9/11 happen? What did Bush do when Tenet and Clarke and the entire intelligence establishment was telling him an attack was imminent? Answer: he went on vacation - for a month. And he's now the big hero... the big protector? How can people thank Bush for "a safer America" because there haven't been any 'further attacks' - especially after the influx of at least 12 million illegals on his watch? If the radical Muslims we're supposedly "fightin' over there so we don't have to fight 'em here" are such a threat, what is keeping them out? What... you think only Mexicans are capable of running across the border? But if we thought logically about this, neo-cons would not be able to use fear to support the war. Stay afraid! (40 some odd presidents can claim they kept America safe because of no attacks on the homeland. It's absolutely ludicrous!)

A Government report flatly states that an al Qaeda attack is now likely because the Bush Administration has not met US security goals to destroy the terrorist threat, and we hear a few days ago a Pentagon report that states the Taliban are flourishing in Afghanistan 7 years after 9/11, and that coalition deaths reached an all-time high last month. Yet, believe it or not, there are actually people who are so delusional and in denial that they thank GW Bush for "winning two wars"!!

Is it amazing some people are so delusional that they actually believe that Bush has somehow "restored dignity to the White House." How so? By committing war crimes and torturing people to death? By ignoring subpoenas , abusing power, repeatedly violating federal law and the Constitution? The GOP Culture of Corruption is a term that has made its way into posterity ... like the Republican practice of smear - 'swiftboating'. So how did Bush restore integrity to the White House, by employing numerous convicted felons in his administration, lobbying and campaigning? David Safavian, Scooter Libby, and Ken Lay .... and Jack Abramoff, who met Bush a dozen times, was photographed with him 6 times ... yet Bush says "I don't know him" ?? The White House lied about their contact with Abramoff. Further, the White House tried to conceal meetings with Abramoff and other criminals by trying to hide White House visitor logs. Then, in violation of the Presidential Records Act - the White House loses millions of emails - specifically during the period of the run up to the Iraq War and the Plame outing.

...and this is just the tip of the iceberg, just a small fraction sampling of the corruption.

Is that YOUR idea of integrity ? It's not mine.

And then there's the economy ... a mortgage crisis and reeling from high food and energy prices, the dollar is weaker internationally than ever, earnings down, and...

• Job Growth Among the Slowest of Any Administration in over 70 Years
• Private Sector Job Growth Among the Worst of Any Administration in over 70 Years
  
• Job Growth Slowing Since Fall 2005 Peak
• Unemployment Rate up by 1.3 Percentage Points

• 2.5 Million More Unemployed
  
• Long-Term Unemployment More Than Double Since President Bush Took Offic
• Employee Compensation Has Lagged Far Behind Productivity

• The Bush Economy Real Earnings Growth Weak and Unequal Relative to 1990s Expansion
  

• Large Projected Surpluses Turned Into Large Deficits
  

• $4.2 Trillion More Debt in FY 2008
  

• Bush Tax Cuts Will Be More Than 100 Times Larger for Millionaires than for Middle Income Households

• One of Only Three Administrations with a Decline in Household Income

• Real Median Household Income Down $982

• Real Household Income Has Declined for All Except the Richest since 2000

• One of Only Four Administrations with an Average Annual Rise in the Poverty Rate

• 4.9 Million More Americans in Poverty

• 8.6 Million More Americans Without Health Insurance