Freedom Under Attack: The Liberals Are Coming!

Share |

Whenever Republicans have their backs against the wall as they do right now after 8 years of George W. Bush. Also in 1999 and after 12 years of Ronald Regan and the elder George H.W. Bush, a false alarm of liberty and freedom being under attack is made in lieu of simply owning up to the past and offering real solutions going forward.

Instead, they tried to sell America on contuinuing along the path that lead us to near disaster. I say "near disaster" because that's exactly what it is. And it would have been an absolute disaster had John McCain and Sarah Palin won the 2008 election. Instead, for the first time in a long time, the rational among the electorate, regardless of political party understood the sad state of affairs that the Bush Administration had left in it's wake.

The Republicans immediately sounded the standard false alarm that Democrats in control equals the loss of freedom. Like Paul Revere's midnight ride from Boston to Lexington warning that the British were coming, the Republicans take to airwaves and try to paint their dishonest rhetoric as some sort of patriotic duty and then use the very freedom that they claim to love, to prostitute the word and it's meaning for the sake of regaining control of the country that their party nearly distroyed.

Were are seeing it unfold right before our very eyes. Somehow the concept of being our brothers keeper and reforming our healthcare system to provide affordable health care for all Americans who wish to have it, means the end of freedom in America. These town hall political parrots cry about wanting their country back, and not wanting it to turn into Russia.

They want it restored back to the way that our founding fathers had it. One can only assumes that that means a virtually all-white nation of wealthy slave owners in one class and everyone else in a second class, thus the term second class citizens.

What these ignorent townhallers fail to understand is that they are the second class citizens. They're the ones doing to dirty work for the wealthy in that first class. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't caught word of any Fortune 500 CEO's making an appearance at these townhall protest to get his or her two cents in about wanting their country back. I haven't seen Sean Hannity, Glenn Back, or Rush Limbaugh making an appearance to protest and shout that they want thier country back. And why should they when they can have their current day version of a slave doing that dirtywork for them.

The bottom line is this: With our total and complete dominance in Washington today, the Democrats are going to restructure our free nation. Not into a socialist state, but rather a free nation that provides the same level of freedom for all American's and not just the wealthty and influantual. And if providing a public option is what is necessary to ensure that all Americans have access to "affordable" health care, then that's what we will do.

What people fail to see is that unlike President Bush who force fed us diregulated financial markets, and two wars built upon lies, President Obama has been, in my opinion, overly accomodating to opposing views.

However, I suppose that that had much to do with him being elected in the first place. If the country continues to heal at the rate that it is healing under Obama's leadership, then the 2012 Republican candidate will simply be going throught the motions of an election cycle for no other reason that to be the one to hand Obama a second landslide victory. Those are the facts weather you like it or not.

- Chico Brisbane

.

Religious Right Fear Mongering Over Hate Crime Protection For Gays

Share |

The religious right are ramping up their rhetoric over the expansion of federal hate-crimes law. While Democrats in Congress are moving towards including protection for gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual Americans, some conservative religious groups are making bogus claims intended to scare other faith communities.

Christian groups have been against expanding the federal hate crimes law since the mid-1990s, and with both houses of Congress in Democratic majorities, they are mounting a last-ditch effort to derail the expansion to include homosexuals by claiming that even referring to homosexuality as a sin, would become a hate crime.

These "Religious" people have yet to condem a few of their own like John Ensign and Mark Sanford, but they waist little time stepping up warning over how the bill threatens their religious liberty. Most important of all is their false claim that it will deny clergy of the freedom to condem homosexuality. They do this knowing that the First Amendment protects free speech.

"What you say from the pulpit could literally become illegal," the Family Research Council wrote in a recent letter to pastors. The conservative Alliance Defense Fund has received more calls and E-mails on what the hate crimes bill means for pastors than on any other issue in recent months.

"This is the first time you would have written into law a government disapproval of a religious belief held by the majority of Americans -- that homosexuality is sinful," says Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. "It's more of a slippery slope argument than about the law itself."

That's at least more intellectually honest than telling faith communities, "The government will penalize you if you're a pastor who criticizes gays from your pulpit." I find the slippery slope argument to be wildly unpersuasive -- a slippery slope towards what, exactly? -- but I'm glad to see at least some acknowledgement that the talking points warning of dire consequences are baseless.

The multiple factions of the Republican party that once tolerated each other so well, are now scrambling for their individuality. The religious radicals, the Reaganites, and the Neo-Cons seem content to tear apart the ruins of the Republican Party left behind by George W. Bush, and so-be-it. Maybe it's just God's way of thinning the heard.

Republican Party Has An Open Line Directly To God

Share |

It seems that God has had a heavy hand in the recent dealings of the Republican Party. It is after all, God who wants South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to remain as governor. This of course puts Mr. Sanford in the awkward position of not being able to resign even if he wanted to. I mean, he couldn’t exactly disobey the will of God, could he?

At the same time, Jenny Sanford is being a good Stepford Wife, which is the unspoken role of every republican wife. “Just shut the fuck up and follow the protocol bitch!” Hopefully after her husbands recent revelations about his mistress being his sole mate, Mrs. Sanford will be able to muster up what little dignity and self respect that she has left and kick this womanizing bastard to the curb.

If she stays with this man in a family unit, she can not only expect it to happen again later down the road, she can also expect her own sons to put their wives through the same humiliation that their father put her through. Not just once, but time and time again.

MRS SANFORD: You know what you need to do, so just do it! – Do it as easily as you husband proclaimed his love for another on live television.

On another twisted note, it seems that God has been speaking to another right wing whack job by the name of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — aka “Joe the Plumber” — said that he was considering a run for public office. “I’d be up for it,” he said. Excited fans even set up a “Draft Joe the Plumber” site. But in a new interview with WorldNetDaily, Wurzelbacher said that he now isn’t planning to run because God doesn’t want him to:

Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, “I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, ‘No.”
He continued, “I believe he’s gotten me on this grassroots movement. If I can encourage leaders to step up, that’s what I would like to do. That’s a heavy role. That’s something I don’t know if I am prepared to do yet.”

But Wurzelbacher said he would keep that door open if God ever calls him to be that leader.
Right now, Wurzelbacher is preparing to participate in the upcoming tea parties.

Pew Analysis: Obama A Successful President So Far

Share |

That sound of high pitched whining you hear from Republicans abut the new Pew analysis showing more positive than negative stories about Obama so far is pretty funny, but I have to say it's pretty easy to dismiss. Trends on positive and negative stories about Presidents and Presidential Candidates tend to pretty closely correspond to how well they are actually doing.

Here's what I mean historically:

--FDR got very positive coverage because he was a successful President in very tough times. He got virtually everything he wanted through Congress; the economy started to improve; his party won big in the off-year elections in 1934; he won a massive landslide re-election in 1946 and in two more elections after that, he was a successful war President. No surprise he got lots of good press.

Mike Lux :: Pew Analysis Mostly Shows Obama Has Been A Successful President So Far

--Truman, even though he was of the same party and followed many of the same policies, generally got worse coverage because he didn't succeed as much. Few of his domestic initiatives were enacted; he got bogged down in the Korean War; Republicans capitalized on his unpopularity to win congressional elections in 1946; his party lost in the 1952 landslide to Eisenhower.

--Eisenhower got mixed coverage because his record was, well, mixed. He got some big things done, got stalemated on others and generally didn't have a big agenda.
You get the idea. Presidents generally get about the media coverage they deserve. Carter and the first President Bush got pretty bad press coverage because they really weren't very good Presidents, and Reagan - who passed many of his biggest legislative initiatives and was generally quite popular - got better coverage.
A lot has been made of Pew's mentioning that Obama did a lot better in his first couple of months than Clinton or GW Bush, but look at each of their first two months:

--Clinton mishandled the gays in the military fight and he got beat in the stimulus debate in his fist two months.

--GW Bush came off a hotly disputed election and got very little accomplished in the first two months. His tax cut bill got passed, and his popularity didn't go high until after 9-11.

--Obama, in his first two months got the biggest stimulus bill in American history passed, along with the popular Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the SCHIP reauthorization, plus he reversed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research.

I'm reminded of Kevin Costner in Bull Durham: baseball is a pretty simple game, you hit the ball, you pitch the ball, you catch the ball. Politics is the same: if you succeed, the media tends to write good stories about you. If not, they don't.

And frankly, campaigns tend to be much the same. Candidates that run ahead in the polls, raise more money, get bigger crowds, and do better in debates in the polls, tend to - amazingly enough! - garner more positive stories. That may or may not be a good thing, but it's a fact.

Why Do Republicans Only Apply The Law To Democrats?

Share |

Why Do Republicans Only Apply The Rule Of Law To Democrats?

TORTURED LOGIC

From: TNR – By: Jonathan Chait

Remember the Rule of Law? In the late 1990s, it was all the rage in conservative circles. Having maneuvered Bill Clinton into a position where he could either lie under oath or suffer massive personal and political embarrassment, conservatives reasoned that Clinton must be held accountable for perjury or the basic underpinnings of democracy would be shattered. The Republican sensibility was best reflected by the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which not only crusaded for impeachment but demanded, in 2001, that Bill Clinton be indicted even after leaving office. The Journal rejected the logic of promoting healing and insisted that a post-presidency indictment would uphold "the principle that even Presidents and ex-Presidents are not above the law."

Over the last decade, though, the right's thinking on this question has evolved. Today, the administration malfeasance consists of illegal torture, a crime I'd argue is no less serious than lying under oath about fellatio. Yet Republicans now believe that the Rule of Law is not only consistent with letting administration crimes go unpunished but actually requires it. To prosecute the departed administration would make us (to use their new catchphrase) a "banana republic"--the premise being that banana republics are defined not by their use of torture but by their overly zealous enforcement of anti-torture laws.

The GOP line is once again reflected by the Journal editorial page, which now thunders against "a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements." The editorial notably fails to even address the question of whether the previous administration complied with the law, which is apparently no longer an important element of the Rule of Law.
The right's newfound outrage is a more hysterical manifestation of the mainstream sentiment that it would be an unseemly form of vengeance or "looking backward" to hold the previous administration legally accountable for torture. It's a bizarre sentiment. The prosecution of any crime is inherently backward-looking. We prosecute law-breakers to keep them or others from breaking the law.

Now, exceptions can be made, and the question of whom to prosecute is tricky. It seems unfair to prosecute CIA agents who tortured, as they had been specifically advised that techniques like waterboarding were legal. It's likewise tricky to prosecute the Bush administration lawyers who wrote torture-authorizing memos. Administration defenders assert that those lawyers were "acting in good faith." And, yes, they were making a good-faith effort to stop terrorism, but to suggest that they were making a good-faith effort to interpret the law insults their intelligence and ours. A recent Washington Post story leaves the impression that torture-memo author Jay Bybee, now a federal judge, realized the tendentiousness of his memos, which said waterboarding isn't torture (and therefore is legal) because it does not inflict "severe physical or mental pain or suffering."

The best defense against holding Bush officials accountable for torture is that September 11 freaked out the entire country and that we can't judge their actions by the standards of how they look "on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009," as Obama's intelligence director puts it. This argument would carry more weight if Republicans had changed their thinking on torture and could be expected to follow the law the next time they won the presidency. Alas, they show little sign of intellectual progress.

Even after the release of the torture memos, Republicans persist in denying that techniques like waterboarding or chaining a prisoner in a standing position for hours constitute torture. The most common defense of waterboarding is that we subjected our own soldiers to it. That's true--as a way of training them to withstand enemy torture. When you reverse engineer a torture-resistance program, you're almost by definition engaging in torture.

In reality, Bush's waterboarding methods did differ from the U.S. military's torture-resistance training, in that our soldiers knew how far we'd go and could stop the exercise if they couldn't bear it. Conservatives have inadvertently confirmed this point. Numerous Republicans object that the release of the torture memos will render waterboarding and other techniques useless--"terrorists are now aware of the absolute limit of what the U.S. government could do to extract information from them," complain former Bush officials Michael Hayden and Michael Mukasey.

It's true. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, or torture methods devised thereby. Our chief weapon is surprise. (Surprise and fear. ... Amongst our weaponry are such elements as surprise and fear, as Michael Palin might put it.) That's exactly why training soldiers to withstand waterboarding is different than actually waterboarding.

The worst part is that conservatives continue to view torture through the stylized prism of the Fox drama "24." They discuss the practice as if the subjects are always terrorists, the interrogators always know just what information to ask for, and the answer can prevent imminent destruction. All of these premises are shaky.

First, there's no such thing as a government policy of "torturing terrorists. " There's only a policy of torturing people the government thinks are terrorists. Many of the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, subjected to agonizing stress positions, turned out not to be terrorists--not because the soldiers who captured them were venal, but because they were human.

Second, torture is designed to force prisoners to provide an answer the interrogator already knows. The torturer relents when his subject provides the "correct" answer. Intelligence gathering, by contrast, is designed to garner answers the interrogator does not already know.
Finally, yes, we can imagine ticking-time-bomb situations where regular interrogation methods work too slowly and extreme measures might prove helpful. But this premise bears the same relationship to the question of legalizing torture as the morality of stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family does to the question of legalizing theft.
It's worth thinking about how likely the ticking-time-bomb scenario is to occur, and how our military and intelligence apparatus can be legally structured to account for it. But, first, Republicans are going to have to be disabused of their dramatic fantasies and reminded that a long war needs to be guided by the rule of law.

Jonathan Chait is a senior editor of The New Republic.