Thursday, October 16, 2008

McCain Lies About Supreme Court Nominee Standards

John McCain lied frequently during last night's debate, but one lie in particular ought to have sent the alarm bells ringing among women, LGBT citizens and anyone else who believes in personal privacy. This lie dealt with who McCain would nominate to the U. S. Supreme Court if president. While he stated that he would have no litmus test for nominees, he has repeatedly promised to nominate individuals like Scalia and Thomas who do NOT believe that the Constitution grants the right to privacy to individual citizens. It is this right which was first enunciated in Griswold v. Connecticut which struck down a law that barred MARRIED COUPLES from using birth control that began the line of cases that includes Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas that have granted protections to women and struck down the laws that continued to make LGBT citizens potential felons in 13 states, one of which was Virginia.
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McCain can call such anti-privacy nominees whatever he wants - "strict constructionist" is a favored code term with Christianists - but the bottom line is that with two more such "strict constructionists" on the Court, contraception, abortion under any circumstances, and a permanent end to the sodomy laws all are put at risk. Read Scalia's opinions and dissents - it is all there. If you don't believe me, also read the websites of Christianist groups like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, etc., and you will see that this organizations want the line of privacy decisions reversed and "strict constructionists" is the code term/litmus test that would be used to select justices that would over turn such prior Supreme Court decisions.
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In short, McCain lied big time last night. He's become as much a pathological liar as Bible Spice Palin who, if her lips are moving, is likely lying.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Final Wednesday Male Beauty

GOP Continues Its Descent to a Party of Infamy

While initial focus group polls are showing that Barack Obama won the third presidential debate and McCain has denied that his Party is engaging in racist and thug like conduct, the stories of GOP outrages and politics of hate continue to come in. The first comes from Sacramento, California, where the Sacramento GOP web site calls for the torture of Barack Obama. This isn't a case of some lone nutcase. This is the official party website for a large county unit. Obviously, McCain's statements that he abhors such conduct are lies. Even his smirking and condescending behavior during tonight's debate showed his contempt for Obama. I and I suspect many others are coming to be ashamed that we were ever Republican given the current face of the Party. Here are some highlights from the Sacramento Bee:
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Sacramento County Republican leaders Tuesday took down offensive material on their official party Web site that sought to link Sen. Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden and encouraged people to "Waterboard Barack Obama" – material that offended even state GOP leaders. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has pushed the party to try to broaden its appeal, took issue with the site. "In the governor's view, it's completely and totally inappropriate," said Julie Soderlund, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman.
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Taking credit for the site (sacramentorepublicans.org) and its content was county party chairman Craig MacGlashan – husband of Sacramento County Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan. The Bee asked MacGlashan about the content after seeking his reaction to hate-filled graffiti that was spray-painted over an Obama display on a fence at Fair Oaks Boulevard and Garfield Avenue.
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But he defended his Web site. "I'm aware of the content," he said. "Some people find it offensive, others do not. I cannot comment on how people interpret things." MacGlashan said he would "consider people's complaints" before taking any action. By Tuesday night, much of the questionable material – which ranged from depicting Obama in a turban to attacking Michelle Obama – had been removed, replaced with political cartoons attacking Obama.
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The second example of behavior beyond the pale involves the circulation of "jokes" by a top Tampa, Florida, Republican. I am truly starting to believe that some in the GOP are secretly hoping their unconscionable behavior may prompt some nut job to try to actually harm or kill Obama. The behavior looks like something one would expect in a banana republic, not the USA. Here are highlights from the Tampa Tribune:
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Al Austin, a longtime, high-level Republican fundraiser from Tampa, today sent to his list of political contacts an e-mail containing a joke that refers to the assassination of Barack Obama.
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The joke concerns a group of schoolchildren discussing the definition of “tragedy” as opposed to “great loss” or “accident.” The punch line comes when one child says that if an airplane carrying Obama and his wife, Michelle, “was struck by a ‘friendly fire’ missile and blown to smithereens,” the event might be a tragedy “because it certainly wouldn’t be a great loss, and it probably wouldn’t be an accident either.”
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Austin, a prominent real estate developer long known as one of the state’s leading Republican campaign fundraisers, has served in recent years as finance chairman for both the national and state Republican parties.
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In my view, it is crucial that McCain/Palin go down to a diastrous defeat so that this type of politics can be repudiated once and for all. People like Craig MacGaslan, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Al Austin are disgusting and utterly unfit to hold political positions.

India High Court: Use Science, Not Rligion to Justify Gay Sex Ban’

Would that more courts in the USA would demand that proponents of anti-gay laws have to support their arguments with more than just religious beliefs and texts. That's what the Delhi High Court said on Wednesday to government officials who were trying to rely on religious texts to justify the penal code ban on gay sex. The Court told the government proponents to come up with scientific reports to justify the proposed continuance of the anti-gay ban. If the proponents of Proposition 8 had to deliver such evidence in support of their anti-gay efforts, the Proposition would be dead. Here are some highlights from the Times of India:
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Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar [chastised the government] for relying on religious texts to justify the prohibition on consensual sex between adults of same sex. "We won't be first country to decriminalise in case we do. Show us AIDS has spread where homosexuality has been decriminalised. Place some authentic study like one backed by UN," HC said.
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The court's remarks came when the additional solicitor general P P Malhotra cited an article condemning gay sex which was religious in nature and in which racial profiling had been done to arrive at conclusions. "We should not accept religious literature instead of scientific report. In a secular country how can a government rely on a report which says that certain races contribute more to homosexuality?," the bench remarked, adding, "These are not scientific reports. This is a propaganda. Your arguments should be based on scientific reports. Show us scientific reports which justify criminalisation of such acts."
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The National Aids Control Organisation, in its affidavit filed on behalf of Union health ministry, had said that gay sex among consenting adults should be decriminalised. The court observed that if the government goes by the religious text referred by it then all such people (homosexuals) in the country would be put behind the bars.
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Referring to Naco report, the court said that right to health is a fundamental right which cannot be denied to any one and the government has to justify criminalisation of gay sex which may pose health hazards to such people. "There is no doubt that they are high risk group, so you have to prove that allowing gay sex among consenting adults would increase the risk of HIV to an extent to criminalise it," the court said.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Dedicated to "Emily"

Mormons and Proposition 8 - Update

UPDATED: Emily's blog is now touting Don Sedgwick, a jewelry store chain owner who graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Business Management and holds an elected school board position on the Saddleback Valley Unified School District as an "education expert." Sadly, it is typical of the far right religious elements to label as an "expert" anyone who will parrot what they want to hear regardless of their lack of legitimate credentials. Based on my many years as a education activist, I can assue you that most elected school board members in practice know little about education - especially when they hold no actual education credentials. Once again, the Christianists and Mormons talk about truth and integrity but do not practice it in reality.
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In response to yesterday's post about the disproportionate amounts of money being funneled by Mormons to support Proposition 8 which would forever make LGBT couples second class citizens in California, I received a comment from one "Emily." "Emily" is a blogger who operates a blog that is advocating for passage of Proposition 8. Not surprisingly, "Emily" - who appears to be LDS - was none too happy about the first grade class that took a field trip to observe a same sex marriage as part of its study of current events. While "Emily" did allow me to track back to her/his blog, there is no e-mail link, you cannot confirm her/his real identity, and all comments are moderated (hence my comments that differed in view have not been published). To "return the favor," I have not published Emily's comment.
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Emily and her/his blog - as well as the comments that are allowed - evidence the typical religious extremist's view that THEY and their denomination "know" the will of God. Moreover, a number of the posts/comments clearly depict gays as diseased and less than normal human beings. The irony of course is that having lived through high school in New York State not too far from Hill Cumorah near Palmyra, New York, where Joseph Smith allegedly found the golden plates comprising the Book of Mormon, to this day most people in that area view Joseph Smith as an extreme nutcase and fraud. Despite this fact, Emily displays the hubris of believing that she/he and the LDS know God's will and are "private citizens doing what they can for what they think is good."
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History is full of those who murdered, tortured, and marginalized others based on the religious beliefs of the sanctimonious believers who thought THEY were right. The Inquisition is one such example, the religious wars in Europe in centuries past are another, as are the ongoing murders of adherents of rival religions in the Middle East. Obviously, "Emily" and those like her/him still haven't learned this lesson from history. Once again, I believe at times that religion causes far more evil than good. The incessant efforts of Christianists and in this case Mormons to marginalize gays is obviously an evil. Citing religious belief for justification of harming others does not make it right.

Virginia GOP Politicians and Gay Sex

Sometimes I think some of Virginia's Republican elected officials are bipolar (not to mention not too bright). Publicly, they are vehemently anti-gay and have near perfect zero scores with HRC while privately they follow a different path. In most cases, unconfirmed rumors circulate about their secret lives and remain just that, unconfirmed. Every once in a while however, their secret life gets exposed and the hypocrisy meter goes off the charts. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon was former Congressman Ed Schrock who represented Virginia Beach. In Congress, he had one of the most consistent anti-gay voting records, but in private he was using Mega Phone to set up gay trysts - until Mike Rogers at BlogActive.com ended the charade and Schrock withdrew from his re-election campaign in 2004.
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Another Republican about whom unconfirmed rumors have circulated is former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore who ran unsuccessfully against current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. To date nothing apparently has been confirmed or Kilgore ceased to be of interest after he lost the race for Governor. Personally, having met Kilgore in person back before he launched his race for AG, let's just say my gaydar indicated that Kilgore must have an extensive collection of Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand albums.
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Now, Mike Rogers has his sights on ultra anti-gay Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode about who there have also been rumors of playing for more than one team. BlogActive is reporting on how Goode appears to have given support to the producer of Eden's Curve, a movie that is filled with lots of gay sex and lots of drug use, and which featured his gay Press Secretary, Linwood Duncan. In addition, the conservative Republican Congressman moved an earmark for $150,000 to the very theater in less than gay-friendly Danville, Virginia, run by the movie's producer. Obviously, something looks a bit suspicious. Here are some highlights from BlogActive (be sure to watch the video below on BlogActive):
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"How does Virgil Goode (R-VA) square his condemnation of gay and lesbian Americans while helping to make Eden's Curve?" asks Mike Stark as part of this story of anti-gay hypocrisy and that good old Washington power tool, money.
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[H]ow does an anti-gay Republican US Congressman come to support a movie that is filled with lots of gay sex and lots of drug use? Well, the best place to start is with Linwood Duncan, Goode's Press Secretary. Linwood is gay (an open secret in DC) and has aspirations to be a movie star.
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You're thinking "what's the big deal?" Who cares if Roll Call wrote about a movie starring a right-wing Congressional staffer that was "especially popular at gay and lesbian film festivals across the country because the lead character gets mixed up in relationships with his male roommate..."?I'll tell you who cares. The anti-earmark conservatives care and the anti-gay troglodytes care... A LOT!
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You read it here first: After his press secretary got his first film acting break in a movie filled with gay sex and drug use, the conservative Republican Congressman moved an earmark for $150,000 to the very theater run by the movie's producer. And get this, the press secretary is on the board!
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Mike Stark of Accountability Moments has joined forces with BlogActive to deliver this video with clips from Eden's Curve and questions for Virgil Goode. Watch it and learn the connections between Goode and the film makers and actors, see the earmark that moved $150,000 to the theater run by the movie's producer.

Wednesday Male Beauty

Sarah and Todd Palin's REAL Ties to Anti-Americans

The ever disingenuous Bible Spice Palin continues to tell lies about Barack Obama's alleged ties to terrorists yet conveniently forgets her husband's seven year love fest with Alaska Independence Party ("AIP") and/or her own past statements that she supports the party's principles - like breaking away from the USA? The women is despicable and proves herself more of a lying snake with each passing day. Now Salon has a lengthy article that looks at the Palin's ties to the AIP and one can only wonder why the MSM is not all over the issue. But then I forget, most in the MSM no longer have heard of the concept of investigative reporting. A reading of the Salon article makes it clear that it is Sarah Palin, not Barack Obama, who is out of touch with true mainstream American values. This woman is a nutcase and dangerous. Here are some highlights from the Salon story:
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Though [former Alaskan Independence Party chairman Mark] Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.
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Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve," to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. "Every time I showed up her door was open," said Chryson. "And that policy continued when she became governor."
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The AIP was born of the vision of "Old Joe" Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. . . . . During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. "There's gold under there!" he exclaimed. Vogler made another failed run for the governor's mansion in 1986. But the AIP's fortunes shifted suddenly four years later when Vogler convinced Richard Nixon's former interior secretary, Wally Hickel, to run for governor under his party's banner. Hickel coasted to victory.
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Hickel's subsequent failure as governor to press for a vote on Alaskan independence rankled Old Joe. With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe's long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.
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"The AIP is very family-oriented," Chryson explained. "We're for the traditional family -- daddy, mommy, kids -- because we all know that it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And we don't care if Heather has two mommies. That's not a traditional family."
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"The Alaskan Independence Party has got links to almost every independence-minded movement in the world," Chryson exclaimed. "And Alaska is not the only place that's about separation. There's at least 30 different states that are talking about some type of separation from the United States." This has meant rubbing shoulders and forging alliances with outright white supremacists and far-right theocrats, particularly those who dominate the proceedings at such gatherings as the North American Secessionist conventions, which AIP delegates have attended in recent years.
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Another far-right organization with whom the AIP has long been aligned is Howard Phillips' militia-minded Constitution Party. The AIP has been listed as the Constitution Party's state affiliate since the late 1990s, and it has endorsed the Constitution Party's presidential candidates (Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin) in the past two elections. The Constitution Party boasts an openly theocratic platform that reads, "It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations." . . . . In Wasilla, the AIP became powerful by proxy -- because of Chryson and Stoll's alliance with Sarah Palin.
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In 1994, Sarah Palin attended the AIP's statewide convention. In 1995, her husband, Todd, changed his voter registration to AIP. Except for an interruption of a few months, he would remain registered was an AIP member until 2002, when he changed his registration to undeclared. In 1996, Palin decided to run against John Stein as the Republican candidate for mayor of Wasilla. While Palin pushed back against Stein's policies, particularly those related to funding public works, Chryson said he and Steve Stoll prepared the groundwork for her mayoral campaign.
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While Palin played up her total opposition to the sales tax and gun control -- the two hobgoblins of the AIP -- mailers spread throughout the town portraying her as "the Christian candidate," a subtle suggestion that Stein, who is Lutheran, might be Jewish.
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By Chryson's account, he and Palin also worked hand-in-glove to slash property taxes and block a state proposal that would have taken money for public programs from the Permanent Fund Dividend, or the oil and gas fund that doles out annual payments to citizens of Alaska. Palin endorsed Chryson's unsuccessful initiative to move the state Legislature from Juneau to Wasilla.
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Chryson says the door remains open now that Palin is governor. (Palin's office did not respond to Salon's request for an interview.) While Palin has been more circumspect in her dealings with groups like the AIP as she has risen through the political ranks, she has stayed in touch. When Palin ran for governor in 2006, marketing herself as a fresh-faced reformer determined to crush the GOP's ossified power structure, she made certain to appear at the AIP's state convention. To burnish her maverick image, she also tapped one-time AIP member and born-again Republican Walter Hickel as her campaign co-chair.
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But whether the Palins participated directly in shaping the AIP's program is less relevant than the extent to which they will implement that program. Chryson and his allies have demonstrated just as much interest in grooming major party candidates as they have in putting forward their own people. At a national convention of secessionist groups in 2007, AIP vice chairman Dexter Clark announced that his party would seek to "infiltrate" the Democratic and Republican parties with candidates sympathetic to its hard-right, secessionist agenda. "You should use that tactic. You should infiltrate," Clark told his audience of neo-Confederates, theocrats and libertarians. "Whichever party you think in that area you can get something done, get into that party. Even though that party has its problems, right now that is the only avenue."
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Now, Palin is a household name and her every move is scrutinized by the Washington press corps. She can no longer afford to kibitz with secessionists, however instrumental they may have been to her meteoric ascendancy. This does not trouble her old AIP allies. Indeed, Chryson is hopeful that Palin's inauguration will also represent the start of a new infiltration. "I've had my issues but she's still staying true to her core values," Chryson concluded. "Sarah's friends don't all agree with her, but do they respect her? Do they respect her ideology and her values? Definitely."

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Buckley Leaves National Review

I just recently did a post on the announcement by Christopher Buckley (pictured a left), the son of National Review founder, William F. Buckley, Jr., that he intended to vote for a Democrat for the first time in his life by voting for Barack Obama. Not only is Christopher Buckley the son of the founder of National Review, a conservative new magazine bastion, but he was himself a contributing columnist to the magazine. But not any more. Buckley announced today that he has resigned from National Review. Here are highlights from CNN's coverage of his announcement:
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(CNN) — Christopher Buckley, the son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, said Tuesday he's resigned from the conservative National Review days after endorsing Barack Obama's White House bid, among the most powerful symbols yet of the conservative discontent expressed this election cycle.
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In an
online column, Buckley said he had decided to offer his resignation from the magazine his father founded after hundreds of readers and some National Review colleagues expressed outrage he was backing the Illinois senator. "While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for," Buckley wrote.
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"Eight years of 'conservative' government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case," he also wrote.
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Buckley expressed disappointment the magazine, and conservatives in general, were not more open to dissenting opinions that his own father once championed. My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman," he said, adding later, "My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much."
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Buckley is only the latest among several prominent conservative to express dissatisfaction with McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, David Frum, Peggy Noonan, and George Will, all high-profile conservative thinkers, have each openly criticized the ticket over the last month.