In today's FT Niall Ferguson takes a victory lap, savoring his defeat of Paul Krugman in the April 30 New York Review symposium on the economy. - see the June 11 NYR.

At the symposium

Ferguson:  "the federal debt will rise over the next.....ten years to 100% of the GDP" or maybe 150%. This projected relationship in 2019 will cause a spike in interest rates interfering with the recovery.

Krugmann:  ' There's a global savings glut" ..."There is no excess demand ...to drive up interest rates"

'We've been as high as 100% (debt to GDP) .It's an issue but not a show stopper'

Ferguson: "I'm depressed"  '..."We're going to regulate...Where were you in the 1970s  ...I don't remember that going too smoothly"

Today in the FT

Ferguson: 'Interest rates have gone up in the last 3 weeks.That shows I was right and Krugman was wrong'

                                      ----------------------------------------------------------

Flavius: Hmn: 2017's projected debt to GDP which didn't spook the debt market 3 weeks ago is now wreaking havoc. So Krugman was wrong  that that dire  projection won't affect interest rates right now. Is it maybe possible that the equity rally is causing that? When stocks go up, interest rates go up for reasons perhaps not  obvious to the Laurence A Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Stay tuned. Watch the FT for Krugman's reply. Should be fun.

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White House reporters received an unusual email on Saturday, with a subject line stating, "Important Please Read: From White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs."

In the email body, Gibbs wrote:

"A number of you have asked about or reported on a recent article in the Telegraph that inaccurately described photos which are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit. Both the Department of Defense and the White House have said the article was wrong, and now the individual who was purported to be the source of the article has said it's inaccurate. Given that this false report has been repeated around the world, and given the impact these negative reports have on our troops, I felt it was important for you to see this correction."

Gibbs included the full text of a story by Salon.com's Mark Benjamin, which features retired Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba denying reports that he has seen the photos of prisoner abuse that the Obama administration is trying to keep secret.

 

Mr Gibbs, this doesn't explain away the other statement that the Maj. Gen made in that same interview:

Maj. Gen Taguba saw the horrors first hand during his Abu Ghraib investigation and he believes the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes.

It also doesn't explain away the fact that General Petraeus himself said we Americans violated the Geneva Conventions:

"When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those."

You know who was the real victim this week? That poor, white, passed-over male jurist who:

I once had a job which required me, from time to time, to speak on the record to newspaper reporters and their supposed equivalents in the broadcast media. The people who were responsible for my office's relations with the same people inevitably cringed when this happened because, as they explained it, my insistence on describing legal matters with literal correctness did not make for the right sound byte and would not be understood by an easily bored public. I thought then, and even more so today, that talking in the shorthand I was asked to use did more harm than good because it made the law seem subordinate to the personal opinions of government officials and judges.

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It seems timely to remind us of this report from a year ago:

In 2002, as evidence of prisoner mistreatment at Guantánamo Bay began to mount, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents at the base created a "war crimes file" to document accusations against American military personnel, but were eventually ordered to close down the file, a Justice Department report [large pdf file] revealed Tuesday. -- NYT May 2008

The report also covers Iraq and Afghanistan:  See tables of Interrogation Techniques Observed, Tables 8.1, 9.1, and 10.1 (the pdf document is searchable). 
from the report:

One SSA who served two rotations as OSC at GTMO told us that he initially told the agents to write up detainee abuse allegations to a "war crimes" file so the FBI could retrieve the information if it was needed for further investigation.

 

Some agents were told to record such allegations for inclusion in a "war crimes" file; others were told to include the allegations in their regular FD-302 interview summaries; and others told us they were instructed not to record such allegations at all.

    

In general, these reports did not appear to have had a significant impact on military practices at GTMO.

On a related note, Torturing Democracy (link to part 1 of video) provides either a bland indictment or summary judgment of Bush Admin detainee policies, depending on how you watch it.

I have had it with the on going cant regarding Sonia Sotomayor. Not surprisingly, what has moved to the forefront of the so-called "discussion" are two related fabricated issues: "identity politics" and "blind justice." My brain has circled round and round these claims because they are so offensive on so many levels.

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Legal news-junkies will immediately recognize that the title of this diary is a list of some notable decisions by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, instead of an obscure legal partnership in... Omaha, maybe.

"Discussion" of Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court in the mainstream media will probably buzz around Ricci, with some carry-over into Raniola, but if Sotomayor's opponents had any real regard for the truth of the situation (and they don't), they would forget about trying to convict the nominee of extra-judicial "empathy" in connection with her high-profile rulings in the area of work-place and employment discrimination, and concentrate instead on the only instance where Sotomayor may have actually jumped the tracks of judicial restraint, and written an opinion based on sympathy for a plaintiff and revulsion for one of the most miserable statutes (SLUSA) ever enacted in the ongoing transformation of federal law into a shield for the ultra-rich against the rest of us, and that would be Judge Sotomayor's opinion in Dabit v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 395 F.3d 25 (2d Cir. 2005), and its sequels.

The Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) throws class-action suits against deceptive stockbrokers out of state courts, in the same way that the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA) had previously thrown them out of federal court.

What a beautiful statute!

Now annoying little investors can't clog any kind of courts with class-action suits against our benevolent Wall Street masters, no matter how deceitful they may be!

But SLUSA only specifically denied class-action suits based on purchasing trash stocks, and Sotomayor opined that suits based on retaining trash-stock could proceed in the state courts.

This decision was crushed 8-0 in the Supreme Court, with a majority opinion composed by Justice John Paul Stevens, an icon of the liberal judiciary.

Anyone who bothers to read Judge Sotomayor's meticulous opinion in Raniola, "addressing every one of the trial judge's rulings and rationales methodically, with exhaustive citations to prior judicial decisions from around the country"...

For anyone who reads that paradigm of unreversible case-law it's almost impossible to recognize the same hand in the tenuous reasoning which allowed Dabit's case to proceed against Merrill Lynch, and try as I may I can't imagine how Judge Sotomayor could have written such a thing except out of sympathy for all the little people who have been bankrupted by Wall Street gangsters and their stooges in Congress.

Pam Karlan would have been my first choice to replace David Souter, and I virtually never agree with anything Barack Obama says or does...

But I applaud the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, and on the day when she is finally confirmed, I will literally stand up and cheer!

I haven't been able to find much hard data on whether retraining programs actually work.  For example, nothing that would answer questions like - Of the workers who lose a job and get government subsidized training, what fraction are making more at their new job than they did at their old job after 3 years?  Does the fraction vary depending on the amount of the subsidy?

A study was referenced in U.S. Study Says Job Retraining Is Not Effective, but that was in 1993, and it would be out of date.

Possibly retraining programs are more of a subsidy to the training industry than an effective means to assist workers coping with job losses due to outsourcing or technological change.

Are there any recent and reliable studies on the effectiveness of worker retraining programs?

October 23, 1989 - In Boston, MA, Charles Stuart blames "a black gunman with a raspy voice" for carjacking, robbing and shooting Stuart and his pregnant wife Carol. After his wife and baby son died -- she on the night of the incident and the infant 17 days later -- Stuart continued his lie that there was an unknown black assailant. Stuart concocted a description of the alleged assailant and on December 28, he picked Willie Bennett out of a lineup. Bennett had nothing to do with the crime. Stuart's brother Matthew confessed to being part of Stuart's insurance fraud scheme a few days after Bennett's arrest and implicated Stuart in the murders. Charles Stuart jumped to his death off the Tobin Bridge on January 4, 1990.

October 25, 1994 - Susan Smith tells the police in Union, SC that an unknown black man carjacked her and sped away with her two young sons, Michael and Alexander, still strapped in their car seats. After appearing tearfully begging for her children to be returned to her on every morning news show, notably saying, "your mama loves you..." and keeping the story going for nine days, she finally confessed that there was no black man, no carjacking at gunpoint, that she had actually rolled her car into a local lake. The apparent motive was to facilitate a relationship with wealthy local businessman who didn't want her children from a previous marriage.

April 23, 1994 -- Six Yonkers, NY police officers got into a fight over which of the officers would have to do the paperwork necessary to report a burning car. The fight spilled over from teh scene of the burning car to the precinct house. One of the officers was beaten so badly he had to go to the hospital for treatment of his injuries. To cover their tracks, the officers claimed that a tall black man in a blue jacket had assaulted the white officer. There was no black man in a blue jacket.

May 29, 2005 -- While on an unofficial school graduation trip to Aruba with 124 other seniors from her high school in Birmingham, Alabama in Natalee Holloway disappeared after a night of partying. She was last seen with Joran van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. As the investigation unfolded, van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers blamed, "a dark man in a dark shirt" similar to the uniforms worn by hotel security guards. The police arrested two dark-skinned Arubans former security guards apparently on the basis of an identification by van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers. The men were released and all charges dropped. Holloway has never been found. Van der Sloot remains the primary person of interest in the case.

April 26, 2005 - Jennifer Carol Wilbanks ran away from her fiance, looming nuptials and her home and family in Duluth, GA. A nationwide search for the 'runaway bride" ensued with tearful family and finace pleading for the safe return of Jennifer, who turned up days later in Albuquerque, NM claiming she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic man and his white woman accomplice. No such persons existed. One supposes had she been in a community with a larger black population she wouldn't have strayed from the script.

October 22, 2008 -- Ashley Todd, a campaign volunteer for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, told Pittsburgh, PA police investigators that a 6 foot 4 inch black man assaulted her as she was withdrawing money from an ATM. Todd claimed that when the man saw her McCain bumpersticker he knocked her to the ground, punching her and then carving a "B" for Barack into her cheek. Two days later, Todd admitted she carved the "B" into her own face, and that there was no black assailant.

May 29, 2009 - Bonnie Sweeten dials 911 to report she and her 9 year old daughter were carjacked and stuffed into the trunk of a black Cadillac driven by two black men. Several days later, she turns up in Disneyland. She was never carjacked or kidnapped or held against her will. There were no mystery black men who tried to boost  her vehicle. She went to Disneyland. On someone else's dime. To the tune of between $300,000 and $700,000. Of money she had allegedly embezzled from a local Bucks County, PA charity.

These are just a few in the long list of fictitious black assailant stories where the accuser's lies are discovered early. We also know that there are hundreds of cases where the falsely accused black "assailant" ended up in prison, convicted on the basis so-called "eye witnesses" or by false testimony offered by the victim. Just this morning, catching a rerun of a Law & Order episode where the victim/perp blames his gunshot wound on the unknown black assailant to hide his actual involvement in the rest of the crime. (I know someone will bring up the infamous Tawana Brawley case. Fine. It's one example of the reverse "blame game.")

The question we must ask ourselves is: What does it say about our society that one group of people routinely finds it acceptable to blame persons of another race for their crimes? To get to the heart of question I'd like you to consider -- how we feel about one another -- we must set aside from this discussion the standard worn and tired arguments of which race commits more crime, and who is in prison and true inequities in our justice system, and return to something much more basic.

How do we really feel about each other? When, where, why and how did you learn that initial response -- when in trouble, when you want to get away with something -- blame the other race? How is this something that is so entrenched in being "an acceptable ruse" that it is not just the stuff of television scripts, but real life repeated again and again? Where did you learn that response? Is it racist behavior? Is that gut reaction counter-balanced by "white guilt?" What assumptions do you carry with you that you are unaware of? Have centuries and generations of racism become so second nature that you don't even realize you're doing it? How did we get here?

 

A few days ago, TheraP had a great post up about a bird's nest she had been watching. I guess it's that time of year, because I was about to post a similar story. For the past few years, a purple finch has built a nest in one of the hanging planters on our front porch. The first year we noticed her, we watched as the finch built her nest, laid her eggs, and then sat on them until they hatched a couple of weeks later. For a short time there was a lot of chirping from the baby birds as the mother returned again and again to feed them. And then suddenly they were gone, having grown large enough to fly away.

Last year we watched the same cycle unfold, and this year, as soon as the weather warmed up, we bought some new flowers for the hanging basket and hung it from its hook. Within days, the finch was back, or was it one of the offspring? We don't really know that much about birds. Every few days I would check on the nest construction, and eventually, the eggs appeared.

But this year was different. Along with the usual blue eggs (there were three of them), there was also a speckled egg. This seemed a little odd, as I didn't recall hearing of birds laying different colored eggs, but I did remember hearing about certain "parasitic" birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests. A little bit of the Google and I found the photo posted above.

It turns out that there is a species of bird known as the "cowbird":

It is time to write about cowbirds. No nice way exists to say this: they are parasites. They once multiplied at a prodigious rate in North America and may be endangering many other bird species. They are a menace. No one knows for sure how many reside in North America but the number exceeds 40,000,000 and may be as high as 80,000,000. Mostly they are Brown-headed Cowbirds although Bronze-headed Cowbirds live in the southwest United States.

Cowbirds don't believe in nest building. It is so much easier just to use someone else's nest. Cowbirds also don't believe in child rearing. It is so much easier to let someone else do it. But they do believe in fornication. The females are egg machines and the males love to fertilize all those eggs. Because they waste no time building nests or feeding their young, they have time on their hands and they use it for lust. In low density populations they appear to be monogamous but when population densities climb, the birds are promiscuous, polygynous, or polyandrous as the mood hits them. There is some evidence that monogamous populations flock together and that promiscuous populations flock together, leading one to the unforgivable comment, that birds of a feather flock together and we ask your forgiveness for making that unforgivable comment.

Female cowbirds are devious little birds. In order to find a nest to lay her eggs, a female will sit quietly and watch for other birds building nests; or she will walk around on the ground searching for nests in use; or she may flap her wings excitedly, perhaps trying to flush birds from their nests. When she finds a nest she lays her egg in it as soon as the nest-owner is gone.

When the nest owner returns there is one more egg to brood, unless the cowbird has eaten one eggs already there. Often the cowbird egg hatches a day before the legal residents', giving the cowbird a head start on its nest mates. The baby cowbird is a little bigger and a little noisier and ends up with more food.

So now we were faced with a moral dilemma. Should we let nature take its course, at the risk of the three legitimate nestlings? Or remove the parasitic egg and give the other three a fighting chance? Maybe it seems like a strange dilemma, having a dozen eggs in a carton in the fridge, but it was a tough choice to grab a spoon and carefully remove the speckled egg from the three blue ones. It was put in the freezer so as to euthanize it in the most humane way possible (it just didn't seem right to toss this living thing in the trash).

It's been about a week now since our efforts in bird nest management. Just yesterday I checked the nest and two of the three eggs have hatched. They must have just broken free, because all that could be seen were two little pink blobs barely moving around, hardly showing any feathers at all. I haven't checked the nest yet today, as it disturbs the mother bird everytime the front door gets opened, but I hope these little nestlings are doing well, and that our interference has given them a fighting chance. We're looking forward to the chorus of chirping once the mother starts bringing food to the nest for their feeding time. 

So what do the saner pundits think of Judge Sonia Sotomayor

Glenn Beck

At last someone whom I have as much respect for as...well newt and rush and savage and sean put together...has come out with the statement of the year, a plea for all of us to put down our arms and attempt to have a dialogue as adults in what is now a most raucus playground:

 

Beck: "When did we get to the place in America to where we can't have disagreements without demonizing each other?"

Yeah, when did all this Simonizing begin anyway? I mean we are all Americans and some of us are adults and well some of this just goes over the top.

Rush Limbaugh

 

This is the problem as rush sees it as transcribed by Media Matters:

 

"She said that because she is a Latina, because she is a Hispanic woman, that she'd -- because of the richness of that experience, she'd be a better judge than a white guy. What if she had said because of her rich experiences as a Latina, as a Hispanic woman, that she'd be a better judge than a black guy? http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2009/05/29#0031

 

Boy this guy has a point. I mean all we need are a bunch of angry, racist bigoted Hispanics running our judicial system. And rush is able, at the same time to address the concerns of even more minorities than just your average black man.

 

"If we want to talk about richness of experience, there's a group of people that were here before we got here, gang: the Indians, the Native Americans, the chiefs, the redskins. I don't see any of them being put up on the courts. Talk about a richness of experience -- hell, these clowns beat Custer. They have cred. You don't see them being put up, do you?" 

 

Look at the 'touch' this man of sensitivity has toward our Native American Brothers--I kind of stick with brothers here since rush has an adversity to women sometimes, I mean mostly because women are the weaker sex and everything--and he does this with the type of aplomb that we have all enjoyed so much over the years. I mean these redskins are real clowns.  And if you wish to beat one of the greatest U.S. generals of all time, get some redskin clowns, that's what I always say.

 

I'll tell you, there's another concern they've got, and you've seen this being reported if you've been paying any attention: She's not an intellectual heavyweight. They are thus afraid that Scalia and Thomas and Roberts might get her mind right. They're worried about this."

See rush is able to use words like 'thus' in such intriguing ways. And I am glad that he understands that 'she' is no intellectual heavyweight. Now rush for instance is a real heavyweight. I mean ever since he got rid of that body trainer as a girl friend some years ago. He is ready to take up the mantle and fight these airlines on getting two seats for the real heavyweights that understand this country and its citizens.

 

Now we move onto the important analysis of another serious journalist, karl the rover as transcribed by Media Matters:

ROVE: Well, they clearly said that they were sensitive to the criticism that they've received from Hispanic groups for the failure of the Obama administration to make more Latino appointments. So they not only get to put -- appoint a woman, but a Latino woman, and this is obviously a political advantage to them. They've gone out of their way to emphasize that.

What's interesting to me, though, is the question of how effective she's going to be on the Supreme Court. We know that David Souter was a cipher. We know from her record on the 2nd Court of Appeals that she's not a particularly effective colleague. I first got wind of this when Sam Alito, who was her colleague on the court while we were reviewing his record, it -- you know, people who were familiar with the workings of the court said that she was combative, opinionated, argumentative, and as a result, was not able to sort of help create a consensus opinion on important issues. http://mediamatters.org/research/200905280037

This is so important.  I mean here we have a man who speaks regularly with members of the Supreme Court of the United States, probably because they wish to get rover's 'take' on things before coming to any conclusion regard a case that is pending. And do you see that rover gets to call a Supreme Court Justice 'Sam'. Wow. Everybody else has to refer to him as 'Your Honor', or 'Your Worship', or 'Your Eminence'. But old rover just says things like: 'Hey Sam, how ya all doin!'  I know liberals would castigate rover for this, but that is because liberals are not privy to the type of inside info rover is.

Now it was pointed out that our favorite Hispanic was on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and that old 'Sam' had been on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, but hey. I mean its like being in neighboring villages or living in adjacent gated communities. I would bet that old Sam could have heard her screaming from where he sat at the time.  Besides you acannot tell me that the two never met with each other at judicial functions. Of course, Judge Sotomayor probably had to refer to Sam as 'your eminence or some such.

Pat Buchanan

That bastion of racial equality, Pat Buchanan has noted the 'she' is a bigot and a racist and ought not be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. And who better to understand the true nature of bigotry and racism:

n 1992, he said:

"

If we had to take a million immigrants in, say Zulus, next year, or Englishmen, and put them in Virginia, what group would be easier to assimilate and would cause less problems for the people of Virginia?[80]

"

He says an open Mexican border invites the drug trade, which he does not consider a victimless crime.^[81] In Where the Right Went Wrong he claimed:

"

The Communist Chinese government has the secret loyalty of millions of 'overseas Chinese' from Singapore to San Francisco.

"

In a memo to President Nixon, Buchanan suggested that "integration of blacks and whites -- but even more so, poor and well-to-do -- is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable." (Washington Post, 1/5/92) http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2553

In another memo from Buchanan to Nixon: "There is a legitimate grievance in my view of white working-class people that every time, on every issue, that the black militants loud-mouth it, we come up with more money.... If we can give 50 Phantoms [jet fighters] to the Jews, and a multi-billion dollar welfare program for the blacks...why not help the Catholics save their collapsing school system." (Boston Globe, 1/4/92)

In a column sympathetic to ex-Klansman David Duke, Buchanan chided the Republican Party for overreacting to Duke and his Nazi "costume": "Take a hard look at Duke's portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks." (syndicated column, 2/25/89)

But nothing really comes close to this great comment concerning one of the twentieth century's great leaders:

In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was "an individual of great courage.... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (Guardian, 1/14/92)

But our buddy beck always wishes to come up with a softer approach to things:

BECK: I don't like the charges of, "Oh, you're a racist. They're a racist." Very few people are racist.

There are racists and they're bad people. And -- but it's -- most Americans are good, just decent people, and I hate the charges and cries of racism. But when I hear this -- I mean, gee. She sure sounds like a racist here.

BECK: Well, we've got a -- we've got a Supreme Court justice nominee that is going to be all compassionate and empathetic. I think she's a racist. I think she has decided things based on race. I think she says that a Hispanic woman with the experience of being a Hispanic woman can make decisions that a white man can't make.

I can't imagine -- I can't imagine saying that. That's like saying, "You know what? Hispanics can't make money decisions like them Jews." Can you imagine that? I mean, they just can't -- "Look, I don't mean any offense by that. It's just that Hispanics, they're generally on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and Jews, they have so much experience with money and running financial things. They can -- Jews can just make financial decisions that Hispanics can't."

Who would say that? Who would say that? In what setting besides a Klan rally -- that strangely had respect for Jews in this one case -- in what setting would that be said that everybody wouldn't go, "Wow, you're a racist"? http://mediamatters.org/research/200905270013

What more can I add. I mean beck is so straightforward and everything. And I mean, if you need to borrow some money, well, you gotta find a Jew.

But, then again, if you need some good whiskey, find an Irishman and tacos, I mean really fine tacos, well you just have to find an Hispanic.

I had this whole other post I'd been working on for a few days about how much I have come to dread judicial confirmations and how the increasing toxic dysfunctionality of the had become instituitonalized.  The well-heeled wingnuts have set up all these little P.R. campaigns disguised as think tanks with benignly deceptive names--"Center for Justice," "Judicial Confirmation Goodness Association," "Totally Not Some Rabid Oppo Weasels and One Loutish Flack Pretending to be a Serious Think Tank" whose sole purpose is to pump poison into our discourse, with the eager cooperation of the cable nets. 

For a while, everything was going as I, and they, had expected.  Pre-announcment message coordination conference calls ensured that everyone blasted out the same talking points.  The short list dossiers were dusted off and fine tuned while the front people yakked up the generic denunciations and then an agreed upon attack specific to the nominee was launched based on positively Orwellian misrepresentions of the nominees opinions, the role of the courts, and the characterization of straghtforward applications of precedent to facts as "judicial activism." And, of course, the mass mailing of fund raising letters threatening the imminent end of all that is good and decent unless the recipient digs in to their pocket right now--which are, of course, the whole point of the carefully choreographed danse macabre that Supreme Court confirmations have degenerated into--went out right on schedule. 

And then, right before our bemused eyes, the weirdest thing happened.  Almost every man in their ensesmble cast went off scipt and started ad libbing an entirely different performance than the one they had planned.   

Initially, they had all seemingly agreed that Obama's choice of Sotomayor was politically brilliant because it put the Republicans in a position where they had to tread very carefully on questions of ethnicity and gender. But by the end of the week, that was all they could talk about and they could only talk about it in the most loutish, inflammatory, fashion possible. 

It started with a weird remark here and there there, oddly little discordant deviations the agreed upon attack on "Obama's lawless empathy standard" which was supposed to oh-so-subtly and covertly whip up the incipient Bubba-fear that is the right's new financial mainstay. But it was like they couldn't help themselves.  Suddenly, it looked very much like that the white men who were supposed to be cynically stoking a silly fear among less well educated and socially advanced white males were themselves gripped by that fear.  It was as if the image of our African-American president appointing a woman of Puerto Rican discent to the nation's highest court had lanced some carbuncle of hysterical fear deep in their souls and the festering pus came exploding out of them and onto the T.V. screens. 

Former Vice President Cheney should be commended for assisting war crimes prosecutors. Despite many years saying he could not comment on the Energy Task Force, he's shifted gears and disclosed evidence of meetings related to alleged illegal activity.

Keep digging, Mr. Vice President.

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I was sitting here reading and read the post by flowerchild about american workers and thought I'd put my two cents in here .

 I have a totally different view of the american unions then she does. I was a member of a unions once  a long time ago. The union I worked for did nothing but help the company they didnt care about the employees at all. even though we were the ones paying them.

  So to me unions are not worth having  it would be much better for employees to get together and work for what they want or even start a new kind of union ran by employees who still have to do there job and get paid the same as the employees.

   I have had many jobs in my life time and have never been unemployed for more then a few weeks unless I wanted to be.  So you see I believe that if your unemployed you either think your to good to do a different kind of work to get by or your lazy and dont want to work.

 The company I work for now has a great way of doing things as far as raises go. We have a commity of our own workers who negotioate with the owner until they come to an agreement about it.  They have managed to keep us ahead of a lot of the bussinesses here pay wise.

 Heres some more thoughts about unions:

 1} Unions dont seem to care if they drive the companies out of business as long as they get what they want.

 2} Unions help nobody but the union stewards.and reps

 3} Unions are outdated and need to rethink there way of doing things.

 

Hope I didnt make anybody to mad with this post but its how I feel.   Hope everybody is having a nice day.

Maybe this has been obvious to everyone else for awhile, but it just dawned on me.

If so-called "enhanced interrogations" (i.e., waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, cold temperatures, and other forms of torture) were used to create evidence of links between Hussein and al Qaeda links and evidence of weapons of mass destruction in order to build a more convincing case for the invasion of Iraq (where more than 4,000 American troops have died),

Then, contrary to what Cheney, Bush, and other apologists have claimed, didn't the use of "enhanced interrogations" cost American lives, and not save them?

Gingrich thinks he's got a juicy issue here.  If he gets her knocked out despite the mainstream party saying don't fight it too hard, he's their new leader and probably on his way to being nominated.

One can roll one's eyes and name-call all that one likes, but her statement is absolutely indefensible. 

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."   I.e.,

"A...Latina woman...would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male."  Spoken by a Federal Appellate judge. [SEE UPDATE BELOW, MAYBE SHE DIDN'T MEAN IT THIS WAY.]

Gingrich says flip it and tell me it's not withdrawal material:  A white guy will usually make better decisions than a Latina.

Out of context?  Baaaah!  Context only confirms her intent and damages her more; it's the conclusion at the end of an argument she's made; it's no stray remark and it has nothing to do with Latin cuisine.  It's worse than Reverend Wright; the Reverend didn't say it, she did.

It can either be side-stepped as over-enthusiasm, flight of exuberance, slip of the tongue, or maybe she just meant to say something else.  Those are all tricky; it was published many months after she gave the speech I believe.  Did she have an opportunity to review the text before it was published?  If so, she's in more trouble.

Repubs are scrubbing the landscape, you can be sure, for a time she may have repeated this to anyone or said something similar.  Either way, many will at best feel queasy about her always.  Newt is betting that the excitement over her will subside while that quote doesn't go anywhere.

Maybe people will tend to not much notice or just be caught up in the excitement, the historic nature -- not focus.  Newt intends to prevent that by any means necessary.  He's a full-time presidential candidate and this is all that he works on, every day and night.  Apart from kissing the Puerto Rican vote goodbye, will it blow up in his face? 

UPDATE:  WAIT!  I realize there is a softer way to read what she said, that didn't occur to me.  I think the critics read it like this, which is how I understood it:

"If you take a Latina, and Latinas are mostly wise, she'll normally make a better decision than some white guy."

She may have meant this, though, as I think of it:  "If you take a Latina who happens to be wise and informed by a variety of experiences, she'll probably make a better decision than a white guy who isn't so informed and maybe isn't so wise."  So maybe this is the explanation and it just wasn't obvious to many of us in her phrasing.  Then she's off the hook, as I see it.

I'm musing this morn.  Bear with me if you will, if you can abide the rambling thoughts of a woman in flux.

I miss the old days, the days a few of you may remember.  More aptly put?  I miss the nights spent sharing thoughts, feelings, memories and whatever else grew in between.  My bare feet walking along with yours through the stillness.  Our hearts and minds merging ... while you laughed with me.  While you wandered with me through the world in which we live.  The yesterdays, the tomorrows.  The today that buried us until we got together and let it go.  For just a moment, a simply fragile moment.  Moments full of everything and nothing all at once - and what moments they were.  In those moments, I learned to breathe.

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Many have written about torture so much more intelligently  and factually than I could ever hope too that I will not even try. What I would like to do is talk plainly about another dimension of torture that can exist in each of our lives, in our homes and schools. To do that I will have to expose some embarrassing things about my own self, so be it.

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When last we met, Gentle Reader, it was to work through a series of legal precedents and statute law; the goal of the exercise being to determine if we could or could not define waterboarding as torture.

We have the kind assistance of Professor Jeffrey Addicott, who has provided us with his written testimony from his recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee and a personal interview, where he walked me through some of his thinking on the matter.

Today we're going to take a look at the precedent that he has used to reach the conclusion that waterboarding is not torture.

It's also possible that the analysis may result in the discovery of a bit of common ground...but as I noted in Part One, it's common ground that neither one of us might have seen coming.

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   And . . .

He also stated:

"So that option will be available."

nytimes.com/2009/05/30/health/policy/30health.html


Also ... At Bloomberg News Kennedy is quoted as saying:

"An important foundation of our legislation is the following principle: If you like the coverage you have now, you keep it," Kennedy wrote. "But if you don't have health insurance or don't like the insurance you have, our bill will give you new, more affordable options."

bloomberg.com/apps/news



~OGD~

Is the 'Chameleon Particle' dark energy...?  Bonus news at the bottom.

 

There is a theory about dark energy that is gaining some traction.  Its called the Chameleon Particle theory and it states that maybe dark energy is actually a particle that is hard to find because of its strange properties.  When it combines with a photon (light) the combined particle changes its mass depending on its surroundings and makes it hard to find.  Hence the monicker. 

This is how wiki describes it:

The "chameleon" is a postulated scalar particle with a non-linear self-interaction which gives the particle an effective mass that depends on its environment: the presence of other fields. It would have a small mass in much of intergalactic space, but a large mass in terrestrial experiments, making it difficult to detect. The chameleon is a possible candidate for dark energy and dark matter, and may contribute to cosmic inflation.

Now the theory has some promise:

By comparing light emitted across a range of frequencies from the luminous centres of 77 active galaxies, Douglas Shaw at Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues have found what they call "good evidence" that some photons have gone missing in transit.

If the light is missing, they theorize, then maybe it changed into something else.   

By itself, the findings dont show more than an unanswered question but if the theory is true the particle should be detectable.  Because they would be able to change their mass, they should get heavier as they try to pass through a special chamber and thus get trapped.  Then we could finally "see" them.

Chameleons can be confined in hollow containers because their mass increases rapidly as they penetrate the container wall, causing them to reflect. One strategy to search experimentally for chameleons is to direct photons into a cavity, confining the chameleons produced, and then to switch off the light source. Chameleons would be indicated by the presence of an afterglow as they decay back into photons

So now the first round of lab results are in.  How'd it go?  Not so good.

While they didn't find a signal in this round of work, the results did put constraints on some of the properties of the evasive particle, including its mass and its coupling to photons.

But the latest observations are reviving hope

...the group's analysis appears to get a boost from an independent study into an unusually high flux of high-energy photons spotted by the MAGIC telescope on La Palma and the VERITAS telescope in Arizona. The results have perplexed astronomers because very high-energy photons should be kept from reaching Earth by interactions with the cosmic microwave background radiation.

Now, they want to run the tests again in light of the latest observations. 

The GammeV group is now preparing to test for chameleons in that "interesting range", says Weltman.

Can anybody spare a dime?

Stay Tuned...

BONUS NEWS: the hubble just got a major upgrade in the search for new and exciting things:

The mission's major upgrades to Hubble and what they provide:

Wide Field Camera 3 - Hubble's new panchromatic camera will allow astronomers to better observe galaxy evolution, dark matter and dark energy.
Cosmic Origins Spectrograph - The most sensitive spectrograph ever flown on Hubble, the new instrument will peer further into the universe than ever before in the near and far ultraviolet ranges.
Advanced Camera for Surveys - Now repaired, it's one of Hubble's primary cameras, which stopped working in 2007. It's responsible for some of the most famous images from Hubble.
Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph - Inoperable since 2004, the repaired instrument reveals information about planets, comets, stars and galaxies.
Science Instrument Command and Data Handling System - Replacement of the unit that failed in September 2008, returns full function for sending information and receiving commands.
Fine Guidance Sensor 2 - Replaced, it is one of three sensors that help point and lock the telescope on targets.
Rate Sensor Units - The six new gyroscopes in these units work with the Fine Guidance Sensors to help precisely point the telescope.
Battery Module Units - Replaced, they power Hubble when the solar arrays are out of the sun's reach.

Red Cross

While channel surfing tonight, caught a few minutes of "The MacLaughlin Group."   Pat Buchanan was on and said something very close to "China doesn't want North Korea to collapse because they don't want South Korea to come up and then they'll have capitalism right on their border."

Yes, it's capitalism the Chinese are afraid of these days.  And what will happen after Mao dies.

The chat room just crashed.  Bwak and Dickday and Mum and Rowan and Ramona were all in there and suddenly....

*POOF*

It died.

For those of you who don't know the chat room, it's the place where we all hang out and talk about our lives and politics and what's happening at TPM and.....it's our second home.

I'd give you the link, but I've already provided it many a time.

And right now, the link don't work anyway, heh heh.

But for those of you who don't know how it works, I'll try to help you out.

You hit the link, and you get a screen that has a little rectangle with a built-in Mibbit nickname already there.  Now, you don't want to use that little built-in nickname, cuz it's generic.  What you want to do is type your own TPM USER NAME there instead.  And THEN hit the "chat" button.

Once you get in the room, it is scary cuz it looks like you're alone in there.  And if you come in with a mibbet generic nickname and don't talk for at least a minute, we try to help you out by telling you how to type.  But if you don't know how to go to the bottom of the screen to the long empty bar at the bottom of the page, and place your cursor there, and start typing and then hit enter, as we always instruct newbies to do, well....

Right now the chat room is down....disabled.....out of business....but usually, when it's not down, we're all friends there.  And we welcome new friends.

And....nuff said, I think.

When the link works again, I'll come back with it.  When you can join us there, please do.

About thirty years ago during that recession, and the manufacturing sector took a massive hit, especially in the auto industry, we were told that 'service industries' would take hold and that's where the new jobs would be found.

Service industry.  Being the child of an Industrial Rodent, I didn't know what the hell that was.  I got educated.  So, people were gonna pay other people to do things for them they could do for themselves, like clean their houses and walk their dogs and plan birthday parties.  WTF???

"Well, that's just peachy," I said,  "But, who's gonna make our stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"Our stuff!  The stuff we need for living!"

"Like what?"

"Like toothpicks!  Who is gonna make our toothpicks and cardboard boxes and pencils?  Who is gonna make our silverware?  Who is gonna make our stuff if everybody is off changing other peoples sheets and doing their laundry?  So are all the laid off autoworkers supposed to become maids and butlers?  And just where the fark are all these rich people coming from that can afford to pay displaced union factory workers $25 an hour to pick up dog poop?  Huh?"

Well, by the time I got done ranting no body was listening anymore, so I shut up.

So, here I am 30 years later and I'm reading Dr. Reich say the exact same thing.  That it's time for to retrain the workers to fill new jobs.

Reich:

I call this "symbolic analytic" work because most of it has to do with analyzing, manipulating and communicating through numbers, shapes, words, ideas.  Symbolic-analytic work can't be directly touched or held in your hands, as goods that come out of factories can be. In fact, many of these tasks are officially classified as services rather than manufacturing.

Great.  It's 1979 all over again.  We all get to do poof work.

All those service jobs, the IT jobs, customer service jobs, that we were supposed to trade for the manufacturing jobs three decades ago, where are those jobs now?

Overseas, that's where.  Twenty people in India know my sad, sad story I had to tell when I was late once with a credit card payment, but nobody in the office here in the US was home to take my call.

So we get to go through all this crap again.

And once again, the union workers are gonna lay on their backs and settle for a tummy rub when they should be in the streets with pitchforks. Who's a goo-boy. who's a goo-boy?

"We don't want to lose our jobs," they whine.  Well, who the hell does?  Do you actually believe the crap you spout about 'doing our part to save  the economy, save the industry, save the jobs'?  Do you actually believe your concessions will 'save' anything?

HA!

Your industries are going bankrupt.  Government bailouts WILL NOT SAVE ONE AMERICAN FACTORY WORKER JOB.  Government bailouts only help the monied.

Dr. Reich's blog 'The Future of Manufacturing, GM, and American Workers' is Part I.  I'll be waiting for Part II.  But, I think I already know how the story turns out.
 
Oh, yeah.  Two months ago I bought a box of toothpicks.  They were made in China.

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com said Thursday:

Since the Republicans, to say the least, do not seem particularly inclined to curry favor with Hispanic voters by playing nice on Sonia Sotomayor, it's worth engaging in the following thought experiment: Can the Republicans win back the White House in 2012 or 2016 while losing further ground among Latinos? And if so, what is their most plausible path to victory?

Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice argued she was "picked because she's a woman and Hispanic, not because she was the best qualified."

I can say this because I'm a liberal and a Michigander: My heart breaks for the laboring class in this country. I feel sorrow even for the workers who can't see that the unions are their only lifeline and inexplicably fight against them with a passion reserved only for one's worst enemies.

The working class, the significant majority in numbers, has somehow, ever since Ronald Reagan declared war on them, become the least of us--the minority. Privatization and outsourcing have rendered them nothing more than powerless drudges.

The working class is the laughingstock, the disposable, the darling of the politicians when they need their votes, and the most wretched of pariahs when the monied class sees their mountain top begin to erode.

The children of the working class hold no status and deserve no consideration. There are millions of people who would rather spend their money fighting against abortion laws than feed and care for poor children.

• More than 9 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding America, over 2 million of which are ages 5 and under, representing nearly 13 percent of all children under age 18 in the United States and over 72 percent of all children in poverty.
• According to the USDA, an estimated 12.4 million children lived in food insecure (low food security and very low food security) households in 2007.
• 8 states plus DC have more than 20 percent of children living in food insecure households, the states of Texas (23.58%) and Mississippi (22.84%) have the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food.
• The top four states with the highest rate of food insecure children are Texas, Mississippi, Arizona, and New Mexico.

There is a concerted effort in this country to abolish public education, which means that the working majority would receive little or no schooling. Instead of working to fix the massive education problems that face us, there is a faction (which includes sitting politicians) that would, instead, like to see all education privatized and turned into a money-maker.

The working class is subject to scams that in any other culture would be considered criminal. PayDay loans and cash advance loans are legal in all but a few states. Credit card interest rates can run as high as 35% legally. Usury laws went by the wayside, along with even the most basic consumer protections. All that those concerned, including governmental agencies, can do now is put out bulletins warning against scammers.

The goal is the impoverishment of the working class, and I believe we're reaching that level faster than any Imperial Fat Cat could have imagined in his wildest wet dream.

What stuns me and keeps me awake at night is that there are millions of laborers here in America who see no disparity, no unfairness, no real need to change the status quo. Wages and protections go down at a dizzying pace while costs to live rise by the minute.

Robert Reich wrote in his blog today that manufacturing jobs are gone forever, so we might as well

. . .stop pining after the days when millions of Americans stood along assembly lines and continuously bolted, fit, soldered or clamped what went by. Those days are over. And stop blaming poor nations whose workers get very low wages. Of course their wages are low; these nations are poor. They can become more prosperous only by exporting to rich nations. When America blocks their exports by erecting tariffs and subsidizing our domestic industries, we prevent them from doing better. Helping poorer nations become more prosperous is not only in the interest of humanity but also wise because it lessens global instability.

Want to blame something? Blame new knowledge. Knowledge created the electronic gadgets and software that can now do almost any routine task. This goes well beyond the factory floor. America also used to have lots of elevator operators, telephone operators, bank tellers and service-station attendants. Remember? Most have been replaced by technology. Supermarket check-out clerks are being replaced by automatic scanners. The Internet has taken over the routine tasks of travel agents, real estate brokers, stock brokers and even accountants. With digitization and high-speed data networks a lot of back office work can now be done more cheaply abroad.

I don't know. Maybe that's what so depressing--that notion from even the most learned, the most logical, that we might as well just give up. Privatizing and outsourcing works. Our days of actually producing goods are over. Where it used to be patriotic to produce goods, we now find that the best way to keep our country strong is to send the workers packing.

So now what do we do? Here's Reich again:

The biggest challenge we face over the long term -- beyond the current depression -- isn't how to bring manufacturing back. It's how to improve the earnings of America's expanding army of low-wage workers who are doing personal service jobs in hotels, hospitals, big-box retail stores, restaurant chains, and all the other businesses that need bodies but not high skills.

Unbelievable. Even Reich. They got to Reich. Who's next? God??

Ramona

(Crossposted at Ramona's Voices)

well my last blog wasnt very nice and things there really havent gotten any better. Now the overtime is going down. Instead of getting 15 hrs overtime we're only getting 5

. I'm also still fighting with my boss ( he is such a jerk) and watching how a lot of the people I work with do nothing all day and the rest have to work twice as hard but the boss doesnt care.

 But I can rant and rave about it but Im still doing better than a lot of people now days. I still have a job. I can still pay all my bills and have a little left over. But it sure is getting harder every week.

And the best part is I GO ON VACATION IN 1 WEEK. Hopefully I will be able to catch up on my blogging and find out how a lot of my TPM friends are doing. I really do miss a lot of you.

 The weather is beautiful here its almost 90 and sunny so its easy to be in a good mood just have to wash the work week away and enjoy the weekend.

 Hope everybody is having a nice day

Let's see... There is North Korea, Israel/Palestine, Iran, Af-Pak... and don't forget Iraq, and this flu thing... that hasn't gone away either... Oh, yes, and the economy... "green shoots", some say, others say we are in for a long haul.

Any of these problems, would be a plateful for any US administration that I can remember, all together they give me the feeling of a chaos that I have often read about in history books, but have never personally experienced before.

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Gen. Petraeus joined FOX News and Martha MacCallum today and gave a blockbuster interview - Which probably SHOCKED FOX NEWS:

MacCallum: Where do you think those people should go?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, it's not for a soldier to say. What I do support is what has been termed the responsible closure of Gitmo. Gitmo has caused us problems, there's no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activity since 9/11 and again Gitmo is a lingering reminder for the use of some in that regard.

MacCallum: What about the concern that a Khalid Sheikh Muhammad or anybody of that ilk might be tried here in a US court and the possibility that some of the treatments that were used on them that they could go free.

Gen. Petraeus: Well, first of all, I don't think we should be afraid of our values we're fighting for, what we stand for. And so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith, I think, in the legal system. One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.

MacCallum: So you're confident that they will never go free.

Gen. Petraeus: I hope that's the case.

MacCallum: (Ticking time bomb scenario)

Gen. Petraeus: ....T here might be an exception and that would require extraordinary but very rapid approval to deal with, but for the vast majority of the cases, our experience downrange if you will, is that the techniques that are in the Army Field Manual that lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them -- those techniques work, that's our experience in this business.

MacCallum: So is sending this signal that we're not going to use these kind of techniques anymore, what kind of impact does this have on people who do us harm in the field that you operate in?

Gen. Petraeus: Well, actually what I would ask is, does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again have beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion? When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva Conventions, we rightly have been criticized, so as we move forward I think it's important to again live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena and to practice those.

Ok people -- What Else Do We Need to Convict The Bush Administration of War Crimes?

Look we all know what really happened. The evidence is photographed in black and blue for all the world to see. Informed readers saw it all along. Now it's time to investigate and prosecute those found guilty.

I say it's time for the dems to go all-in and call out the rethugs for the torturers they are.

Let us please begin the In-Terror-Gate hearings!

This is a heads up for those of you who may have a mortgage with Washington Mutual. Those mortgages are in the process of transition to Chase. I accidentally found this issue, and there was no warning from either Wamu or Chase. I discovered by checking my mortgage online that the payment date of my mortgage had been changed from the 6th of the month to the 1st of the month.

Since my mortgage is paid automatically from my account, this is a big deal. Since I get paid between the 1st and the 4th of the month depending on weekends and holidays, it is entirely possible that the automatic payment of my mortgage could overdraw my account. If this date change also effects people who mail in their payments, then if you are not paying attention, you could potentially be late on your payment.

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More Evidence of Torture/Abuse in Prisons

The Pentagon is denying the facts: Photographs of Abu Ghraib torture are even more sexually explicit than first reported, including rape and sodomy, writes The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, who has obtained specific and detailed corroboration of the photos.

The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.

These descriptions come on the heels of a British report yesterday about the photographs that contained some of these revelations--and whose credibility was questioned by the Pentagon....

What is it going to take for Americans to wake up?  For me it's the THOUGHT that my child, niece or nephew serving in the military could EVER be treated in such a manner by ANY enemy.

Chief among Barack Obama's attractions to American voters last year - albeit one not acknowledged in polite company - was his promise to engage diplomatic contact with Iran. Sick of the endless bog of war in the Middle East that remains President Bush's "gift" that keeps on giving, Americans wanted desperately to avoid spreading battlefronts to Iraq's big, restive neighbor to the east.

Obama stuck to his proposal that it was better to talk than shoot, even though he faced considerable slings and arrows both from the John McCain campaign and our all-knowing media shamans, for whom all options toward Iran should forever remain on the green table of military strategem.

Despite, however, relentless propaganda that has Iran seeking nuclear arms with which to roast the world, a New York Times poll last month that asked, "Do you think the United States should or should not establish diplomatic relations with Iran while Iran has a nuclear program?", was answered affirmatively by 53 percent of respondents; the hardline "should not" faction, meanwhile, retreated to 37 percent.

OK. That's where we are. So... why yet aren't there direct talks between us and the existentially threatening Persian them?

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Josh flagged the Young Cons rap. I'm reviewing  it.

It is an aesthetically indefensible ocular ecchymose illustrating arrhythmic ataxia.

The black grail runneth over.

The health care campaign launched last week by local pastors from across the country along with Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, PICO, Sojourners, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Gamaliel brought together grassroots and national religious groups to call on Members of Congress to make quality health care truly affordable for every American family. The nonpartisan effort, which includes radio ads and events in congregations, has drawn attention to the moral urgency of our nation's health care crisis and the faith community's commitment to reform that makes care affordable for all families.

Unfortunately, in their Washington Update yesterday, the Family Research Council mischaracterized and distorted this effort to baselessly claim that it is advancing "an anti-faith, anti-family anti-freedom agenda." (Scroll down to bottom of FRC's page.)

FRC asserts that the effort is a "ploy" "in concert with the Obama administration to garner support for government-controlled health care." In fact, the radio ads as well as the leaders and organizations involved in the campaign lifted up values and broad principles for health care reform, all focused on making quality health care choices affordable for all families. Moreover, the ads have run in states and districts represented by both Democrats and Republicans. Leaders in both parties need to hear the faith community's concerns and work toward reform that addresses them.

FRC also claims that the effort is part of a "new strategy to use the veneer of religion to cover a socialist agenda that will federalize another 17% of our nation's economy." Not only does the campaign urge leaders of both parties to pass reform that simply puts quality health care within reach for all families, but the clergy participating in the campaign hail from progressive, moderate and conservative congregations alike. Their commitment to health care reform is rooted in firsthand experience with the unmet needs of families in their own congregations and communities, as well their faith commitment to caring for the well being of all people.

We have confidence that these faith leaders and the families they serve will be heard by the decision-makers who hold the power to reform our system, and that misleading claims and speculation will fall on deaf ears. But charges that quality, affordable health care for all Americans is "an anti-faith, anti-family anti-freedom agenda" require correction. As FRC ironically stated in their attack, "we must be careful to separate the rhetoric from reality."

History. Some say: what is the good of it after all? Well, for one thing it gives me something to write about. I mean attempting to track down every goddamnable lie (blesses himself) that cheney ever told. I mean its kind of like history. But it gets to be so boring.

Somebody actually wrote a book about the bush family.  About how hw was a spy in the tradition of Stalin and Putin and stuff. So what?  Whatever the previous bushes were up to, w could never comprehend it anyway.

Today's lesson deals with the Palagian Heresy. I know, you are asking what was the Palagian Heresy, I know I did:

Pelagianism is a theological theory named after Pelagius (ad. 354 - ad. 420/440). It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special Divine aid. Thus, Adam's sin was "to set a bad example" for his progeny, but his actions did not have the other consequences imputed to Original Sin. Pelagianism views the role of Jesus as "setting a good example" for the rest of humanity (thus counteracting Adam's bad example) as well as providing an atonement for our sins. In short, humanity has full control, and thus full responsibility, for obeying the Gospel in addition to full responsibility for every sin (the latter insisted upon by both proponents and opponents of Pelagianism). According to Pelagian doctrine, because men are sinners by choice, they are therefore criminals who need the atonement of Jesus Christ. Sinners are not victims, they are criminals who need pardon.

But nothing exists in a vacuum, except those horrible strings and stuff that gets caught in my Hoover but that is another subject.  So who was this man whom everyone today is so crazy about?

Little or nothing is known about the life of Pelagius. Although he is frequently referred to as a British monk, it is by no means certain what his origins were. Augustine says that he lived in Rome "for a very long time" and referred to him as "Brito" to distinguish him from a different man called Pelagius of Tarentum. Bede refers to him as "Pelagius Bretto".^[6] St. Jerome suggests he was of Scottish descent but in such terms as to leave it uncertain as to whether Pelagius was from Scotland or Ireland.

Now this explains a lot. I mean the guy was Scottish for one thing. Well this Pelagianism was justaposed to another theory that is not really a heresy unless, of course, you are Pelagius:

Jerome emerged as one of the chief critics of Pelagianism, because, according to him, sin was a part of human nature and we couldn't help but to sin.

Well, let us take a look at these conflicting theories of human nature from a more modern standpoint. In the Daily Beast today, I learned that:

Even though the APA asked the psychiatrists working on the manual's revision to sign a nondisclosure agreement, leaked proposed additions to the new version have already stirred debate. "Psychiatrists manufacture mental diagnoses the way the Vatican manufactures saints," says Dr. Thomas Szasz, an outspoken critic of modern psychiatry and author of Psychiatry: The Science of Lies. This view may be extreme, but some of the new "mental illnesses" under consideration for the new edition nonetheless sound a little...crazy. Here are eight you may already be suffering from, whether you knew it or not.

 

 1.        Binge-Eating Disorder
 2.        Night-Eating Syndrome
 3.        Internet Addiction
 4.        Sex Addiction
5.         Compulsive Shopping
 6.        Embitterment Disorder
 7.        Pathological Hoarding
 8.        Pathological Bias

 Constantino Diaz-Duran is a writer living in Manhattan. He has written for the New York Post, the Washington Blade, El Diario NY and the Orange County Register. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-05-28/8-new-ways-you-might-be-insane/

I think it might be best to do a little confessing here, discussing my own proclivities toward sin and see how this might be analyzed from a Pelagian/Jerome perspective.

Binge-Eating Disorder:

I was bored yesterday, so I found some apples in the refrigerator from last month. I peeled them and cut them up, put the good stuff in a pan with a bunch of sugar and slowly cooked them. Then I made a pie crust and filled it with the apple sauce stuff. I added my secret ingredient -cherry pie filling--and I put it all in the oven. After an hour or so, my plan was to have ONE piece of pie with some ice cream and it was good.

Night-Eating Disorder:

Ok, so that was in the afternoon and it was my birthday and everything so I thought, what the hell, the sun is setting. I should have one more piece of pie. I mean it was my birthday.

Internet Addiction:

Ok, so I like the internet. I mean I can take it or leave it. But there are all these neat stories and essays and pictures of solar systems, and people to 'talk' to and things to put down in writing without having to destroy any trees. And it is not like I am hurting anyone. I mean a few repubs end up with headaches and stuff. But Geeeez.

And I can take it or leave it. Sure, I decide to take it twelve hours a day, seven days a week, but it has only been 6 or 7 months or so and I have a lot to get off my chest.

The problem is that after and hour or so, I get a funny taste in my mouth, especially after reading rove or rush or something. And then it hits me.

I could have a piece of pie and catch up on internet reading to help make myself into a better citizen and besides I have no beer or even cheap whiskey till Saturday or Monday anyway....

Sex Addiction:

Ok, I really like naked women. I mean from all perspectives. Frontal view. Rear view (geeez don't get me goin) Sometimes I think about this subject much to much and the priests used to tell me how evil this all was and...

But you know how to get rid of such evil thoughts?  Well it was getting late, I mean really late. What possibly could take my mind off of such things?

Pie. Pie is good. It gets the ole taste buds goin and, I mean it was my birthday...

Compulsive Shopping:

Not really a problem with me. I mean one of the good things about not having any  money is that it really cuts down on compulsive shopping.

I got to thinking about this and then I discovered I was out of ice cream, so I went back to the store..

It was a long walk round-trip, and I got back, and I had the ice cream in my hand and everything...

Embitterment Disorder

I used to be embittered. I mean, I lost everything, I lost my profession, I lost my houses and fine furniture and my cars and my fine suits....

But it takes a lot of energy to keep these types of things. Oh the settlement check has not come in yet and the credit card company is sending me letters and the IRS wants more money and my car insurance is due and....Goddamn them all anyway the dirty bastards and...(blesses himself)

But you know what. When I start reminiscing about the past and start feeling bad about it, well, it is time for a nice piece of pie. Nothing like pie to take away all those terrible thoughts and feelings...

Pathological Hoarding

Ever notice that when you have a huge basement and a double garage with only one car in it that after a decade or so everything fills up so you have to rent some storage facility...

But I was able to go back to the basics.  Got rid of all that clutter.

On the other hand, you should always be prepared. So I began my stretch in this cell by stocking up on cherry pie filling. I mean I used to always have two or three cans laying around. When they are on sale, I mean a buck and a half...well you cannot beat that.

I am down to about ten cans now, but next month I will do better. You just cannot have to many cans of cherry pie filling. And always, I mean always have at least 20 pounds of sugar and 25 pounds of flour available JUST IN CASE.

Pathological Bias

I used to just hate repubs. I mean really, really hate them. I would be having a little snack and then cheney would get on tv and I would hurl the damn snack at the tv. Sometimes break the plate and scatter food all over the place..even end up harming the tv.

But those days are gone.

Now when rove or hannity or some such is being shown on the telly and I feel like I am just about to go nuts, I get a nice bowl of pie and ice cream.

And believe you me, No one in their right mind would throw pie and ice cream. Unless there was a burglar or something like that.

Now Pelagias was telling us that we can somehow surmount our addictions and passions and biases and reach for the stars so to speak. I mean we could have heaven right here on earth.

And how better to celebrate such a wonderful concept than with a fine piece of pie covered with just a tad of vanilla ice cream.

 

So who saw The Goode Family on Wednesday night?

I was excited about this show as soon as I heard about it earlier this month, being a big fan of King of the Hill. King of the Hill pokes fun at a suburban Texan middle-class family (as a representative of the unsophisticated Christian conservative mainstream), but, with roughly equal time, it treats the Hills as protagonists in the midst of countless American cultural extremes.  While the show mocks Hank's narrow cultural comfort zone (e.g. he's constantly freaked out by anything his son Bobby does that seems effeminate or homosexual), it skewers pretty much everyone and everything else in American culture, too (from carbon offsets to church-sponsored "Hell Houses" and right-wing bunker builders.  The show makes the Hills fallible--very fallible--but ultimately gets around to showing us that everyone else is, too, and in a way, that makes it easier for us to all get along.

Enter The Goode Family, which sends up a family of environmentalist, vegan, non-flag-pin-wearing, hybrid-driving, bumper-sticker-toting, African-child-adopting, er, liberals.  The wife, Helen Goode, wears a meat-is-murder T-shirt and tries way too hard to discuss sex with her daughter.  Gerald Goode, her husband, a pencil-necked community college administrator, appears to be the reincarnation of the hippie high-school teacher from Beavis and Butt-Head.

What's funny about the show isn't so much that the people are extremely environment-conscious (much like King of the Hill doesn't merely laugh at the Hills). The humor is driven by the difficulty of living with a liberal's conscience.  The daughter wants to go to an "abstinence dance" as a way to avoid the pressures of adolescent sexuality, and Gerald and Helen are divided on whether to support her.  (The ensuing dance scene, by the way, is a hilarious sendup of contemporary Christian megachurch "hipness.")  And Helen's preening liberal friends constantly outdo her in green living and motherhood.

As much as I loved the idea of the The Goode Family--and still do, actually--it wasn't terribly funny, and I have the feeling that much of this has to do with the fact that only one episode has aired.  Once the characters develop and the writers begin to flesh out more of the basic idea of the show, it'll probably start to take off.

That said, I liked Nowhere Man on UPN back in the nineties, and that sure didn't keep it on TV.

So my point is this: I like Mike Judge's shows, loved his cultural critique in King of the Hill, and expect to love it in upcoming episodes of The Goode Family, too.  What about you all?  Is it too close to home?

Crossposted at The Whole Delivery

OMG New York, WE'RE UNDER ATTACK FROM....................."TEH Gays, run for your lives!" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.


The perfect response to the "National Organization for Marriage" nutcases: Mr. Colbert

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A little light bulb went on for me last night.  And a bunch of dots got connected.  I'm calling it the Grand Unifying Theory of the cheney's family's recent panicky efforts to influence the media.  The light bulb was triggered as I read down this emptywheel thread, related to Liz Cheney's latest meme:  Calling Dick a Torturer is libelous. 

You may have noticed that about a month ago, cheney started a media blitz.  Out of the blue seemingly, a man with a "So What?" attitude has gone to great lengths to combat the "what" of torture and the "so" of war criminal.  Not only that, two weeks ago a strange ad appeared in the NY Times, an ad traced by some of us to cheney's wife, an ad chastizing the media for using the word, Torture - while using that word over and over.  An ad full of lies, the same lies being told over and over by cheney in his media blitz. 

Following that ad, cheney's daughter started appearing on TV.  Telling the same lies.  Over and over.   

We all thought it was only about the torture.   Because more and more has been coming out about that.  Torture memos.  Torture photos that might include rape and murder.  The report of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that showed how torture migrated from military prison to military prison - like some new and contagious flu virus.  Evidence that the torture itself preceded the memos purporting to "legalize" it.  Evidence that psychologists designed and sold torture services.  That lawyers who wrote memos to "legalize" it have been cited in an internal DoJ investigation for professional misconduct.  And other forthcoming reports.

So when the cheney crime family began its lonely media blitz to refute TORTURE, when his daughter accused any, who say the word TORTURE and TORTURER in the same breath as cheney, of libeling Daddy Dearest, it seemed this was simply political theater, designed only to head off investigations and prosecutions. 

Till last night I put all that together - with an interesting tidbit of news that had come out the very same day as the Times ad attacking media use of TORTURE!

Ok, now I have your attention.  You're waiting for this news you missed.

Americans frustrated by the lack of accountability of the Bush-Cheney White House may get some satisfaction from the knowledge that the administration ran the main businesses it was tied to the same way it ran the country -- and there is some rich accountability taking hold in that realm.

Riding high for the last decade on its unabashed crony connections, pulling down mega-sized, no-bid government contracts and creating fast fortunes for its execs -- including for Dick Cheney -- Haliburton and its subsidiary KBR have come to rack up some of the largest criminal fines in history.

And, almost better than any Congressional impeachment ...   we get Haliburton and KBR shareholders suing the companies and their current and former directors, including Cheney, for criminal mismanagement, gross incompetence and corruption.  Shareholder of course, being the people whose interests companies are supposed to serve, in this case are a perfect non-partisan non-ideological stand-in for the American people.

[N.B.  Press release, NY Times:  same day as Times Torture ad!]

You can read about it here, here and  here.  And you can savor the Law of Karma, which has come to haunt the cheney family - politics and money combined into one unifying word - financial and political TORTURE!  

Today is one of the happiest days of the year.  It is the last day of school.  Joy and excitment fill the air around me, and that is just in the faculty lounge.  Here are few thoughts on education reform in honor of this final day of classes.

Teacher accountability has become a front burner issue in education reform cirlces as more and more reformers in postitions of power (Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee) begin to take on the major unions on the issue of teacher tenure.  Since I work in Texas tenure is not an issue.  We do not enjoy collective bargaining, nor are were contracted by the state.  Teacher accountability is a key issue for improvement in education whether the work force is unionized or not.  The key to teacher accountability is to collect information about teacher performance from a variety of sources.  Schools should absolutely track the improvement of individual students from grade level to grade level based on test scores.  This is the easiest way to gather statistical, objective information about teacher performance - looking at the achievement of students.  However, because the act of teaching is also a performance of many tasks and skills that tests simply cannot measure, futher information should be gathered and evaluated.  In Texas most teachers are formally observed in the act of teaching a class by a trained administrater.  This has two benefits.  First it puts administraters in classrooms, and second it allows for a criterion based assesment of a teacher's classroom performance.  Colleges and universities regularly ask students to evaluate the performance of faculty members.  Public schools can and should collect this type of data as well.  Even very young children can fill out an evaluation form and report their feeling about the performance of their teacher.  Parents can also be asked to evaluate teacher performance.  Teachers could also be required to look at these various pieces of data and then defend their performance in front of a panel of peers and administraters - something like defending a doctoral dissertation maybe.  I understand that implementation of this type of program is both costly and time consuming, but if teacher accountability is necessary to improve public education, and it is, then the evaluation of teachers must measure their performance in a variety of ways, and teachers themselves should be required to look at, discuss, and defend their performances.

Furthermore, schools must re-exam the way technology is used and implemented in classrooms.  This generation, for better or for worse, has a completely different relationship with technology than previous generations.  Where most teachers see technology as a tool, students see technology as lifestyle.  Kids use information technology effortlessly.  If they need to know something, they google it.  If they want to share the information with others, they text it.  Then they go to school, where they are forbidden to use cell phones, where access to computers is serverly limited, and where they are protected from the bad stuff on the internet by firewalls that also end up blocking valuable content related resources.  No wonder they are bored.  They know that information can be located and delivered almost instantly, yet they sit in classrooms that still operate the way they did a fifty years ago.  Until we catch up with where they are technologically, until we figure out how to use all technology to get information to kids and help them use and understand it, we will continue to loose their attention and respect.

Finally, the time has surely come to open everything going on in education to scrutiny.  Abundant evidence suggests that the traditional school calendar - based on the needs of an 19th century agrarian culture, is obsolete.  Let's allow brave schools, parents and students to experiment with other calendar options, and make it easier bureaucratically for them to do so.  We know that attention spans shorten in the face of new technologies.  Let's examine length of classes and the overall arrangement of the school day.  Research indicates that while homework rarely does any harm to learning it also seems to do little good, yet it is continually assigned for reasons and in ways that research shows are ineffective.  This list could go on and on.

It is time for the education mainstream to begin to challenge its own preconceived notions about how schools should be administered and how teachers should be evaluated.  To do less is to change the bandaid on a gaping wound when we have a chance to stitch it closed.

Right off the bat, Judge Sotomayor  is a very shrewd pick. but not only that, she is going to confirmed and she is going to be a very good Supreme Court Justice.

Having said that, she seems to be offering conservatives what is perhaps their first real opportunity since the election to get a hearing from from the American people, to leave a message with independents and with some of the white working class base that deserted them in November... if only they can avoid being loud, vicious and nasty. This is a tall order for a party which seems to be bent on its self-destruction, and totally in the hands of the Libaughs and Gingriches but maybe if they listen to the few of their number who still have some functioning gray matter left, they might just pull it off.

I found it interesting that perhaps the two conservative opinion mongers with the most bandwidth, Peggy Noonan and Charles Krauthammer coincide in their analysis of the opportunity that Judge Sotomayor offers the Republicans.

Peggy Noonan lays it out, all sweetness and light:

Don't grill and grandstand, summon and inform. Show the respect that expresses equality and the equality that is an expression of respect. Ask and listen, get the logic, explain where you think it wrong. Fill the airwaves with thoughtful exchanges.

In case you don't catch her drift, Charles Krauthammer, as is his wont, goes for the carotid artery right from the first line of his column:

Sonia Sotomayor has a classic American story. So does Frank Ricci.

Ricci is a New Haven firefighter stationed seven blocks from where Sotomayor went to law school (Yale). Raised in blue-collar Wallingford, Conn., Ricci struggled as a C and D student in public schools ill-prepared to address his serious learning disabilities. Nonetheless he persevered, becoming a junior firefighter and Connecticut's youngest certified EMT.

After studying fire science at a community college, he became a New Haven "truckie," the guy who puts up ladders and breaks holes in burning buildings. When his department announced exams for promotions, he spent $1,000 on books, quit his second job so he could study eight to 13 hours a day and, because of his dyslexia, hired someone to read him the material.

He placed sixth on the lieutenant's exam, which qualified him for promotion. Except that the exams were thrown out by the city, and all promotions denied, because no blacks had scored high enough to be promoted.

Ricci (with 19 others) sued.

That's where these two American stories intersect. Sotomayor was a member of the three-member circuit court panel that upheld the dismissal of his case, thus denying Ricci his promotion.

If the Republicans can only not forget to take their meds, they have the chance of turning the the Sonia Sotomayor hearings into the Frank Ricci hearings.

As Krauthammer tells it, it is one of the most unfair things I have ever heard in my life, you would have to have a heart of stone to be unmoved or angered by it, if all there is to it, is what Krauthammer tells.

So the Democrats had better be prepared to defend the Ricci decision, without trying to personally trash Frank Ricci. Fireman Ricci is not, repeat not, to be confused with Joe "the plumber".

Noonan describes Sotmayor thus:

Politically she's like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die.

The same is perfectly true of Frank Ricci, "break him and you die".

This game will have to be played with care.  

They were the ones who did nothing while there were war crimes.

Is the activity against the judges and prosecutors a wake-up call for what average American citizens are required to endure?

Read more »

(If anyone can tell me how to turn on the spellcheck here PLEASE let me know...I miss it and I really need it)

As I slowly start to get back up to speed after the death of my former computer I had a thought that we should target Labor Day to eventually be Labor & Universal Health Care Day.

I think It fits pretty well because of the work a lot of labor is doing to make "SPUHC" (Single Payor Universal Health Care) a reality.

Therefore it is time to lean on Montana Max and  President Obama to man up (men up?) and seriously consider Single Payor. Because until profit is taken away from the parasites called Health Insurance Companies things WILL NEVER CHANGE.

Some things I suggest we do is:

          1. Refuse to allow the interchangeable use of Health Care and Health Coverage They are not the same thing.

          2. Constantly remind our representatives that a Health Insurance Company's FIRST RESPONSIBILITY is to it's shareholders, NOT THE PATIENT. The law need to be changed to make the first responsibility of the health insurance industry is TO THE PATIENT/POLICY HOLDER AND NOT THE SHAREHOLDERS

          3. Constantly remind our representatives that on average the Health Insurance Industry takes 25% of health care dollars away from actual health care and sends it to shareholders of the company and CEOs. And that figure doesn't count the huge administrative costs that the health insurance industry seems to need.

          4. Constantly remind our representatives that administrative costs of Medicare are 90% less than the administrative cost of the Health Insurance Industry.

          5. Constantly remind our representatives what the benefit to business would be if they didn't have to cover health care costs for employees. And tell them about all the people you know that would start a new business if they didn't have to worry about dying because they couldn't afford health insurance as a one person start up business.

          6. Tell everyone you know just how much money our representatives get from the Health Insurance Industry and their lying lobbying group AHIP

          7. And Finally, Constantly remind our representatives what LYING, SOUL EATING BASTARDS,  AHIP and the Health Insurance Industry is.

 

 PLEASE ADD ANY THOUGHTS YOU HAVE ON HOW TO REALLY PUT THE HEAT ON THOSE THAT JUST DON'T SEEM TO GET THAT THE TERM HEALTH INSURANCE IS ACTUALLY AN OXYMORON.

 

 

PS: "ss" let me know a good time to call.

Highly recommended in yesterday's New York Times, here's one of the most sensible articles I've ever read: The Case for Working with your Hands, by Matthew B. Crawford.

Narrow-mindedness is the lazy person's way of cutting corners.  It enables people to avoid getting to know someone new, or another culture, or to stretch their minds and hearts to experience empathy.  Those things require thoughtful consideration.  The GOP has shown they really lack that capacity and their racist tendencies are a reflection of that.  Karl Rove is our latest hero of mediocrity and thoughtlessness for the GOP.  Maybe DickDay has an award for Karl, a crown perhaps, or maybe just a simple asshat.  People are struggling to comprehend his latest pronouncement that Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor would NOT be the first Hispanic to be named to the Supreme Court.  But it's really very simple, if you are thoughtless and stubbornly retain a narrow mind.

Mr. Rove referenced one Benjamin N. Cardozo, who sat on the Supreme Court during the glory years of laissez-faire capitalism, 1932 - 1938, about the time of the Great Depression.  Rove announced Justice Cardozo preceded Ms. Sotomayor, the presumed successor of Justice Souter, who recently announced he would retire from the bench.  What Rove failed to acknowledge was that the ethnic heritage of Justice Cardozo was Portugese, with a good helping of Sephardi Jew as well..  Frankly, I find it disturbing to label someone Portugese who was born in New York City, but it helps people stereotype others and assists in avoiding those awkward introductions.  For Rove, however, those Iberians all look alike.  Sure, they have their own culture, language, nation, and etc., but really, they all look alike.  They're not white, you see, so parsing them into any other categories is truly meaningless.  To Karl, and his racist friends, there are only whites and then there is everyone else.  (And you thought he only saw things in black and white, didn't ya?  Also.)

Is anyone surprised KKKarl could be so insensitive to the Portugese, lumping them in with the Hispanics despite their clear separation from Spain?   Are the Hispanics upset to have the Portugese getting this free ride with La Raza?  Is anyone going to call for Karl to make a clarification of his assinine comments?  Will Karl actually step up and admit he made a omistake?  Nah, didn't think so.  What would Cheney say?  "So!  Go f%ck yourself!"

People may be upset I'm calling KKKarl a racist, but it fits with the earlier assumptions about people in the Middle East.  After all these guys from Saudi Arabia and other environs flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, and those other guys that had that fourth plane en route somewhere else were defeated by the passengers, those non-white guys from the Middle East, how did we respond to these predominantly Saudi terrorists?   We attacked Afghanistan ... and then Iraq.  Hey, they all look alike.  They're not white so why are you parsing this into anything more distinctive.  There are white, distinctive, and non-whites, not distinctive.  Is America getting how these people think?  I hope so.

What I would really like to see and hear is Karl Rove apologize for making a mistake, for assuming Cardozo was Hispanic because his name kind of sounds Hispanic to the indiscriminate ear.  I would like him to acknowledge the Portugese as their own people, which they rightly deserve.    I wish people would demand that he do so.  But I would also like him to refer to the Democratic Party as The Democratic Party, not Democrat Party, but that ain't going to happen.  So, turdblossom, I see why you earned your name.  Racists treat you as though you are some sort of flower, with a pleasant aroma emanating from our mouth, but really, all your doing is laying a turd on America and its people.  Why DO we tolerate this level of incompetence in the media?  Why do we give this has-been from the shriveling minority party a national platform any more?  He's so last Administration and there is no sign of life in their party.  If racism is all they have left, if Karl is all they have left ... they got nuthin'!

Kevin Fenton blogs on a memo detailing additional strange behavior of Commission 'minders' on a trip to Canada; again, the minders are acting as particpants, answering questions for witnesses, taking verbatim notes. Memo also notes that a minder had an opportunity to "poison the well" with a witness, as she had dinner with the witness the night before. 

There has been much discussion over Atul Gawande's expose' on the health care costs in McAllen, Texas. Allow me to add some back-story.

Back in 2001 the factory I worked in for over a decade relocated to Reynosa, Mexico. A group of us were sent down to train our replacements. We stayed just across the border at, guess where, McAllen, TX. I was there for just over a month

I'm sorry, but I feel like I'm witnessing the ebodiment of class war in the rhetoric surrounding Sotomayor right now.

Anyone else feeling it?

It is good to see that there is some external pressure being applied: 

GENEVA -- An independent U.N. human rights investigator said Thursday that the United States is failing to properly investigate alleged war crimes committed by its soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although some cases are investigated and lead to prosecutions, others aren't or result in lenient sentences, said Philip Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings.

"There have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings _ including possible war crimes _ in the United States' international operations," Alston said in a report dated May 26 and published on a U.N. Web site.

A spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva, Dick Wilbur, said Alston's conclusions and recommendations would be reviewed closely.

Read the entire article here.

If you want to read the entire 47 page report in PDF form it can be found here.

Dick:
Pop.

Rummy:
War.

Karl:
Squish.

Gonzo:
Uh-Uh.

Paul:
World Bank.

Bush:
Wolfowitz!

Dick:
Pop.

Rummy:
War.

Karl:
Squish.

Gonzo:
Uh-Uh.

Paul:
World Bank.

Bush:
Wolfowitz!


All:
He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame.
If you'd have been there
If you'd have seen it

Paul:
I betcha you would have done the same!

Dick:
You know how people
have these little habits that
get you down. Like Harry.
Harry liked to hunt birds.
No, not hunt. Pop!!
Well, I joined him this one day and
I am really irritated, and
looking for a little sympathy
and there's Harry layin' on
the lawn, drinkin' a beer and
poppin'. No, not poppin'.
POPPING!. So, I said to him,
I said, "Harry, you pop that
hawk one more time..."
And he did!

Dick:
So I took the shotgun from my aide
and fired two warning shots...
...into his head.

All:
He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame.
If you'd have been there
If you'd have heard it
I betcha you would
Have done the same!

Rummy:
I met George W. Bush from
his dad many years ago
And he told me was serious
and we hit it off right away.
So, we started working together.
He'd talk about war, I'd talk about war,
I'd fix him a drink, and we'd laugh
like heaven in two and a half drinks...
And then I found out,
"Troop surge" he told me?
Troop surge, my ass.
Not only was he serious.
...oh, no, he had real plans.
One of those insiders,
you know. So that night
he came to visit.
I mixed him his
drink as usual.

Rummy:
You know, some guys just can't hold their Hellfire!

Dick, Rummy, Karl, Gonzo, Paul, Bush:
Hah! He had it coming
He had it coming
He took a country
At it's prime
And then he used it
And he abused it
It was a murder
And it was crime!

Karl:
Now, I'm standing in the White House
carvin' up the employees for dinner,
minding my own business,
and in storms one Valerie Plame
in a mad, mad rage.
"You been screwin' me in the papers,"
she says.
She was crazy,
and she kept on screamin'
"You been screwin' me in the papers!"

Karl:
And then she ran into my dick! She ran into my dick TEN TIMES!

All:
If you'd have been there
If you'd have seen it
I betcha you would have done the same!

Gonzo:
Mi madre and mi padre, o wherefore art thou
Mi corazons?
Yo tengo screwed up mucho big time, en cannot save
My Texan ass no more. Por favor?? Yo can only say, I do not remember
All those meetings, and what I said and what I read
And I can no longer speaka de Ingles, por favor....

Reporter:
Yeah, but did you do it?

Gonzo:
UH UH, not guilty!

Paul:
My girlfriend, Shaha, and I did this double act
and my buddy, Dubya, used to understand
us.
Now for the last number in our act,
we did these 20 financial tricks in a
row, one, two, three, four, five...
Promotions, raised salaries, back flips, flip flops,
one right after the other. Well, this one night
we are in the World Bank, the three of us,
sittin' up in an office, boozin' and havin' a few
laughs and we ran out of dough
so I went out to get some.
I come back, open the door
And there's Shaha and
Dubya talking World Domination
-without me...

Paul:
Well, I was in such a state of shock, I completely blacked out.
I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when I was
reading my own Board notes, I even knew she'd gotten a raise.

All:
They had it coming
They had it coming
They had it coming all along.
I didn't do it
But if I'd done it
How could you tell me that I was wrong?

Bush:
I love Gonzalez, Wolfowitz
More than I can possibly say.
They are real fantastic guys...
Sensitive...they're pardners.
But they've been troubled.
They're always trying
to find themselves.
They go out every night
looking for themselves
and along the way
they find Ruth,
the truth,
Rosemary and Thyme.

Bush:
I guess you can say we'll break up because of artistic differences.
They see themselves as alive
and I see them dead.

Bush:
The dirty bum, bum, bum, bum, bum
The dirty bum, bum, bum, bum, bum


All:
They had it comin'
They had it comin'
They had it comin'
All along
'Cause if they used us
And they abused us
How could you tell us
That we were wrong?

All:
He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had
Himself
To blame.
If you'd have been there
If you'd have seen it
I betcha
You would
Have done
The same!

Dick:
You pop that gun one more time!

Rummy:
Troop surge my ass.

Karl:
Ten times!

Gonzo:
UH-UH

Paul:
The World Bank - the big promotion.

Dick:
Artistic differences.

All:
I betcha you would have done the same!

I recently learned that some folks at TPM may not be familiar with "Cows With Guns," a song written by Dana Lyons.  You can visit Cow Central Command and look around and even get the lyrics and tablature. However, I recommend watching this first.

Enjoy Cows with Guns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI

BENTON HARBOR, Michigan (CNN) - Former President George W. Bush gave a speech to an audience in Michigan on Thursday saying that after the September 11 attacks, "I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you."...

"Nothing I am saying is meant to criticize my successor," Bush said. "There are plenty of people who have weighed in. Trust me, having seen it firsthand. I didn't like it when a former president criticized me, so therefore I am not going to criticize my successor. I wish him all the best."

So with Mr. Bush saying he won't CRITICIZE Obama, isn't he actually implying that there is criticism to be given?

"The first thing you do is ask, what's legal?" he said. "What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, 'I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.' I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."

You forgot something didn't you Mr Bush?  Didn't you forget the words, "What can we MAKE legal?"

Bush repeated his disclaimer about not passing judgment Obama later in the speech when asked about North Korea's test of a nuclear weapon. Before answering, the 43rd president said that he is "in no way trying to shape my successor's decisions or criticize them."...

On the topic of how to respond to North Korea, Bush said diplomacy is impossible without leverage.

"A lot of times people want to give out the carrots," he said. "My attitude is, you give out the carrots when the behavior changes."

So with Mr Bush saying he isn't trying to 'shape' Obama's decisions or criticize them but..."you give out the carrots when the behavior changes...".  Isn't that giving advice?

And if it's advice, should Obama listen to the former President?  The same man that ended up GIVING CARROTS to North Korea in 2007 after trying for 7 years to get them to GIVE IN by having 6 nation talks?  He gave the carrots one year before election day.

First it was former Vice President Cheney, then Condi Rice and now the 'man' himself, George W. Bush.  They must really be worried that the TORTURE stories are pinching a 'nerve' with the American people, otherwise why bother talking about what was LEGAL?

These millionaires are living it up after ruining America's self respect -- they need to be brought up for War Crimes and immediately!

A new story in the New York Times reveals that Sonia Sotomayor almost always votes in elections (including the 2008 Presidential elections). She only skipped two elections -- State-wide elections, that is. And guess what the headline is? 

Officially on falling on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the Dragon Boat Festival is also known as Double Fifth Day. While many stories regarding its origin abound, the most popular and widely accepted version regards Qu Yuan, a minister during the Warring States Period (475 - 221 BC)
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Legend of the Dragon Boat Festival's Origin

At the end of the Zhou Dynasty, the area we now know as China had fallen into a state of fragmentation and conflict. While the Zhou dynasty had ruled for several centuries, several other states, originally feudal domains, tried to carve out their own kingdoms. The state of Qin would eventually emerge the victor and unify all of China under one rule for the first time in history.

Qu Yuan served as minister to the Zhou Emperor. A wise and articulate man, he was loved by the common people. He did much to fight against the rampant corruption that plagued the court-- thereby earning the envy and fear of other officials. Therefore, when he urged the emperor to avoid conflict with the Qin Kingdom, the officials pressured the Emperor to have him removed from service. In exile, he traveled, taught and wrote for several years. Hearing that the Zhou had been defeated by the Qin, he fell into despair and threw himself into the Milou River. His last poem reads:

Many a heavy sigh I have in my despair, Grieving that I was born in such an unlucky time. I yoked a team of jade dragons to a phoenix chariot, And waited for the wind to come, to sour up on my journey As he was so loved by the people, fishermen rushed out in long boats, beating drums to scare the fish away, and throwing zong zi into the water to feed braver fish so that they would not eat Qu Yuan's body.

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The Modern Dragon Boat Festival

Starting from that time to this day, people commemorate Qu Yuan through Dragon Boat Races, eating zong zi, and several other activities, on the anniversary of his death: the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

Dragon Boat races are the most exciting part of the festival, drawing crowds of spectators. Dragon Boats are generally brightly painted and decorated canoes. Ranging anywhere from 40 to 100 feet in length, their heads are shaped like open-mouthed dragons, while the sterns end with a scaly tail. Depending on the length, up to 80 rowers can power the boat. A drummer and flag-catcher stand at the front of the boat. Before a dragon boat enters competition, it must be "brought to life" by painting the eyes in a sacred ceremony. Races can have any number of boats competing, with the winner being the first team to grab a flag at the end of the course. Annual races take place all over China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and other overseas Chinese communities.

Zong Zi

The traditional food for the Dragon Boat Festival, Zong zi is a glutinous rice ball, with a filling, wrapped in corn leaves. The fillings can be egg, beans, dates, fruits, sweet potato, walnuts, mushrooms, meat, or a combination of them. They are generally steamed.

Talisman and Charms

Another aspect of the Double Fifth Day is the timing: at the beginning of summer, when diseases are likely to strike, people also wear talisman to fend off evil spirits. They may hang the picture of Zhong Kui, guardian against evil spirits, on the door of their homes, as well. Adults may drink Xiong Huang Wine, and children carry fragrant silk pouches, all of which can prevent evil. It is said that if you can balance a raw egg on its end at exactly noon on Double Fifth Day, the rest of the year will be lucky.

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savepurs--chinese businessman

Qing Ming is a time to remember the dead and the dearly departed. More important, it is a period to honour and to pay respect to one's deceased ancestors and family members. Because it reinforces the ethic of filial piety, Qing Ming is a major Chinese festival.
Literally meaning "clear" (Qing) and "bright" (Ming), this Chinese festival falls in early spring, on the 106th day after the winter solstice. It is a "spring" festival, and it is an occasion for the whole family to leave the home and to sweep the graves of their forebears. Chinese being practical people this sweeping of the graves is given an extended period, that is, 10 days before and after Qing Ming day. Among some dialect groups a whole month is allocated.

 

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savepurs~chinese businessman

In an unprecedented move possibly influenced by his latest movie, Governor aka "The Terminator", Schwarzenegger has decided to dispense with what he called "trivial stabs at dealing with the budget crisis in California."

After considering slashing programs that aid the most needy in the state, such as the physically and mentally disabled, the poor, and children, as well as selling off state property including Cal Expo and San Quentin in addition to slashing the pay of state workers which are supposed to serve California citizens, Schwarzenegger has declared Californian citizens as "expendables" and asked citizens in the state just to kill themselves.

"I mean, c'mon. Here we are talking about da poor leetle children and stuff and cutting salaries of state workers and selling off stuff and I mean, c'mon. Lets just get to the point which is that if there were fewer Caleeforneians, it would make it alot easier to balance the budget and stuff."

Schwarzenegger is apparently negotiating a deal with the private prison industry to not only release thousands of prisoners, but to insure the most dangerous prisoners are released just in case citizens are not up to the job of expending themselves on their own.

"I mean, c'mon," Schwarzenegger said in the same interview, "we are not just releasing thousands of prisoners into da society of Caleeforneia. We are offering these prisoners an opportunity to contribute in a positive way to the state." Apparently a hotline will be set up

1-800-KilURSlf4Ca (Kill Yourself for California Campaign) to assist people in planning their exit.

 "I mean, c'mon. Let's just get to the point. There are too many people in Caleeforneia and they are not happy. I know de are not happy so, you know...I mean, c'mon. Dis is a win win situation."

Apparently the legislature is slated to consider enacting a "dignity with death" law soon similar to that in Washington to further encourage citizen action in the direction of "expendability."

A legislator who asked to remain anonymous was quoted as saying," I mean, he does have a point. I mean, for example, I am a legislator and could not possibly kill myself because my role is fairly, well, important and gosh, I mean, I am already taking $20,000 a year less in per diem costs than is offered." (Legislators are eligible for $40,000 in per diem costs for serving on the legislature) but some little convenience store clerk or something...do I need to elaborate here?"

The Kill Yourself for California Campaign is expected to run through 2012.

 

So I don't take this decision lightly. I've made it only after deep reflection and careful deliberation. While there are many qualities that I admire in judges across the spectrum of judicial philosophy, and that I seek in my own nominee, there are few that stand out that I just want to mention.

First and foremost is a rigorous intellect -- a mastery of the law, an ability to hone in on the key issues and provide clear answers to complex legal questions. Second is a recognition of the limits of the judicial role, an understanding that a judge's job is to interpret, not make, law; to approach decisions without any particular ideology or agenda, but rather a commitment to impartial justice; a respect for precedent and a determination to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand.

These two qualities are essential, I believe, for anyone who would sit on our nation's highest court. And yet, these qualities alone are insufficient. We need something more. For as Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, "The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience." Experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardship and misfortune; experience insisting, persisting, and ultimately overcoming those barriers. It is experience that can give a person a common touch and a sense of compassion; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live. And that is why it is a necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court.  New York Times, May 26, 2009 (empahasis added)

Greetings Friends.   I come to you with a true story of God's victory over evil.   Keep in mind the victory was a hard fought one - and were it not for one Christian sacrificing his own future - all may have been lost. 

I don't much get into TV programs save except for the 700 club and the occasional Hangin' with Mr. Cooper rerun.  I choose to avoid even the highly acclaimed Fox News because of it's obvious liberal bias.  I avoid ALL music (both Christian and secular) because of it's proclivity toward the sin of dancing.  1Thessalonians 5:22 is quite clear on that issue.  Unfortunately, circumstances in our value depleted society have called for me to tune back in.  Tune back in to the pinnacle of ungodly programming - Reality TV.  More specifically, American Idol, just as it was on the cusp of destroying our Nation. 

I loathe even discussing this form of  entertainment.  I know folks, these are sick, sick times we are living in!  But sadly, live in them we must until Jesus comes to take us 'chosen ones' home. I wake up every morning hoping to be raptured into Heaven during my morning drive, my Hummer smashing into some unsuspecting godless atheist looking confused and finally realizing the error of his ways before he's shipped straight to Hell courtesy of my front fender!  What was happening on that show this year was not something He could, I could, nor any true Christian or proud American worth his salt could live with.  

In the following paragraphs I will outline the terrifying 'reality' that almost came to pass because of this show.  I will also shed light on the heroic efforts by some great Christian Warriors that saved us from these atrocities.

As I am sure that most of you have not watched this American "False" Idol I will briefly explain how it works.  It is a singing competition that hundreds of thousands of late teen to twenty-somethings try out for to win a million dollar recording contract.  First they go in front of judges and once the field gets narrowed down to 12 the public gets to vote on who they like.  Unfortunately, the judges made a terrible error and allowed an unsavory sort to make it into this elite group.  His name was Adam Lambert.  It was beyond terrible, unforgivable would be more accurate.  Had he won, we could have expected the most terrible disasters in history to strike us immediately.  I was almost fooled by this wolf in sheep's (more like beautifully tailored silk and satin) clothing.

A gentleman in my bible study group had told me about this fellow, said he had the voice of an angel and that there was also a couple of other fine young Christians in the top 12; Chris Allen and Danny Gokey.  I fell to the sin of curiosity and watched the show the following week.

My First Impression -

Adam Lambert  - Dressed in a suit with his hair perfectly coifed sang Tracks of My Tears (obviously not a Christian song but certainly not a window into his true sickness that would show later) and I must admit he brought me to tears.  He did sound like an angel.  A beautiful angel.  Being the sinner that I am, I am embarrassed to admit that this boy had my loins a flutter in a way I have not felt since my wedding night.  Please forgive me Jesus.

I spent the next week looking up everything I could find on this young man, every youtube video, every article, anything I could get my hands on!  I needed to find out just who was this person?  A person that Jesus had so obviously favored and gave him this voice!  Sure, I found rumors of deviancy's. Terrible disgusting deviancy's.  Fortunately, I knew realized they were just that though, rumors.  There was no way this Adam fellow could not fool me and The Big J!  He was good Christian boy, and I knew it!  His voice was the proof.  If he was the deviant of those pictures, and video's, and interviews, and yearbook photos, Jesus would have cursed him with leprosy or gout and made him sound like Taylor Hicks or something.

Danny Gokey-    A youth Pastor with a raspy voice and a dead wife.  Good Christian!  Nuff Said.

Chris Allen-    A youth Pastor with a pleasant little voice and a living wife.  Good Christian!  

The Horrors!

It got down to these three guys and at church on Sunday my Pastor dropped the bombshell and brought to our attention the pending Apocalypse.  Adam Lambert was in fact a HOMOSEXUAL!  HE WAS IN THE TOP THREE!  A HOMOSEXUAL!  HOW COULD WE HAVE LET THIS HAPPEN?!  I could not imagine what it could mean to our Country, our WAY OF LIFE, if this gay won!  If he actually beat out good righteous Christian's!  I just threw up again thinking about it!  If he won - the following would be true.

American Idol = Gay Idol = Gay GOD - America would now worship a GAY GOD!!!  

#1 - Kids would think it was 'cool' to be gay!  All the school age boys would start sodomizing each other in the lunch rooms, on the school bus, you name it!

#2- Kids would think it was OK to be 'different'!  Different is NOT OK WITH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!  This I know FOR SURE!

#3- Gays would be permitted to marry!  Why not?!  A gay American 'False' Idol, showing kindness and courtesy to everyone would automatically lead to gay marriages.  It only makes sense!

#4- Bestiality!  See my previous post on vegetarians!

#5- Christians would have been oppressed yet again!  We have been fighting persecution for centuries!  We can't teach creationism in school, we can't stone adulterous in public, and now we're asked to show deference to what God clearly labels an "abomination" - along with shrimp.

Gods Grace Saves The Day - As Always, The Lords Will is Carried Out

Praise God that my church was not the only one to take notice and take action.  We band together and got the word out.  Danny gracefully realized that he needed to sacrifice his spot in the competition for the greater good.

Danny knew his Christian vote would automatically go to Chris.

False Idol advertisers and affiliates got the word out that it was imperative to our economy that Chris is had to defeat Adam.  Can  you imagine having to listen to a gay person sing "Wish Upon a Star" for Disney?  Wish upon the alter of Satan is more like it.  No, Disney, Ford, At&T etc. made sure to give Christ's team a leg up by showing Chris supporters how to power text.  

This was a classic case of David and Goliath.  Classic except for the fact that this Goliath likes to take it in his brown starfish.

We defeated him.  We won.  We may have had to take some drastic measures,  but in desperate times - well you know.  We told them that we voted for Chris because Adam had too much experience even though Chris had the same amount.  We told them we voted for Chris because Adam was too 'showy'.  We told them exactly what they needed to hear just so we didn't have to tell them the truth.  The truth that we voted for Chris simply so the hell-bound Homo wouldn't win, and send us straight into Satan's grasp.

Yes, Adam gave me goose bumps every time he sang.  No, Chris never did.  So What!?  Chris is a man of the Lord and isn't that all that matters here?

Yes, it is!  Praise God!

God Bless, 

Kala ✞

Even before Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Obama to the seat to be vacated by Justice Souter on the Supreme Court, I had read that her opinion in a reverse-discrimination case brought by largely white firefighters in New Haven might cause her problems.  So I read the opinions in the case, and what I found surprised me in a couple of ways.

One thing that surprised me was that Judge Sotomayor did not write any of the opinions in the case. She was simply one of three judges of the Second Circuit who decided to affirm the decision of the District Court (the trial court) without writing a new opinion. (More on this below.)

The other surprise was that the trial court opinion was largely unsurprising and unremarkable, and appeared to follow the statutes, regulations, Supreme Court precedents, and Second Circuit precedents quite carefully. In fact, the opinion of the trial judge, and the affirmation by the Second Circuit, should be viewed as an example of judicial restraint, and not any kind of "judicial activism." Is that how the Obama administration intends to present the case to the Senate?

Read more »

I know you must be about as sick of this as I am...

And isn't this a distraction from health care? Not that there's anything anyone, even Obama, can do about it...

Politics and Media News Headlines 5/28/09

New York Post Goes Schizo on Sotomayor (by Hamilton Nolan at Gawker)
The New York Post cannot contain its excitement about our new Hispanic Supreme Court nominee! The millions of Hispanic people in NYC are encouraged to pick up a copy right away, and celebrate!... Then there's the part where the Post takes care of its natural inclination, which is to hate Sonia Sotomayor and all she stands for. Rich Lowry has Xeroxed the Republican talking points and pasted them directly in every issue of the Post, with Elmer's; then there's the paper's own editorial. They're not as sure as their own cover that this whole "Latina lady" thing is going to work out.

I am a killjoy (by Avedon Carol at The Sideshow)
I suppose I'm expected to ready myself for a fight to defend Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee against an onslaught of GOP hissy-fit in which she is falsely cast as some kind of a screaming (literally) liberal rather than a mostly-conservative (though not completely insane) jurist... [F]riends, the GOP hissy-fit is just convenient cover for the sell-out Dem leadership sliding yet another corporate conservative in with the Supremes without most people waking up to the fact that that's what they're doing... The Dems don't fight back against the fake right-wing outrage because it serves their purposes...

Oh, we've destroyed the conservative movement. The country is with us. No one likes the Republicans anymore. And yet even my favorite outraged lefty blogospheric voices are right where [Obama] wants them - defending a conservative president's choices as he destroys liberal America once and for all.

Obama's Anti-Roberts (by E.J. Dionne Jr.)
Republicans would be foolish to fight the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court because she is the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made.
All those years observing politics up close and personal, and you still don't get it, do you, E.J.? It's not about how conservative she is. Republicans will fight her BECAUSE SHE'S A DEMOCRAT. Wake up, please, E.J., we could use your voice in the battle to save this country from the right-wing fanatics.

'Not a dyed in the wool liberal' (Politico)
Some liberal legal groups are raising questions about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, citing her relatively moderate judicial record and her skimpy paper trail on crucial issues like abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty. "She is a mixed bag. I would not call her a left liberal," Marjorie Cohn, president of the progressive National Lawyers Guild, said in an interview on Air America.

Your Breakfast Read (by mablue2 at The Confluence)
I don't know what type of SC Justice Judge Sotomayor would be. However, I find it aggravating that Republican Presidents are allow to choose absolute Right Wing freaks like Rehnquist, Fat Tony Scalia, Sam Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, they can confer with the likes of Chuck Dobson, but a Dem President with a super majority cannot choose a "dyed in the wool liberal"? Liberal activist are told to "get on board or get out of the way."?
Not the exact equivalent of George Bush's "Who cares what you think?", but close.

On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy (by Charlie Savage, New York Times)
In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents. Now, some abortion rights advocates are quietly expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision.

PhillyDeals: Sotomayor's record is pro-insurer, not insured (by Joseph N. DiStefano, Philadelphia Inquirer, thanks to Susie at Suburban Guerilla
As a federal judge, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's decisions in insurance disputes "have overwhelmingly been in favor of insurers" and against policyholders, says Philadelphia insurance lawyer Randy Maniloff, partner atWhite & Williams L.L.P. "Judge Sotomayor has been very, very insurer-friendly during her time on the bench," Maniloff told me after reviewing a long list of her cases and appeal rulings. "Has she ever ruled in favor of a policyholder?" Maniloff asked. On Sotomayor's docket, between insurers and their customers, "it's insurers by a landslide," he said.

Yet,
Discrimination Case Could Pose Problems for Sotomayor (AP)
In 2008, Sotomayor was one of three judges on a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit who upheld a trial court's ruling rejecting the reverse discrimination claims by 19 white firefighters, one of whom was also Hispanic. The plaintiffs claimed that the city of New Haven violated their rights by throwing out the results of an officers' promotion exam in which minority candidates received disproportionately low scores.

Click here for more politics and media news headlines.

 

Carolyn Kay                      
MakeThemAccountable.com

Apparently "empathy" has lost its status as a Presidential buzz-word, like so many other discarded buzz-words on the trail of linguistic trash which Barack Obama is gradually tracing across the English language.

Goodbye to "hope, change, and empathy," and hello to torture, trillion-dollar give-aways, cover-ups, murder, "preventive detention," and the rest of what we would probably have to call "the real Obama," if such a thing existed.

It's probably silly to talk about shades of meaning in a universe of public discourse where newspapers long ago laid off the last old-school copy editor, but in this particular instance it may be worthwhile to step outside the context of all those warm and fuzzy slogans which elected a cold and cynical President, and ask...

What's the difference between sympathy and empathy?

Sympathy means the stimulation in a person of feelings that are similar in kind to those that affect another person; empathy means a mental or affective projection into the feelings or state of mind of another person.

If I sympathize with you, I feel what you feel, but empathy is more like mental role-playing. Classical actors understand a character, but method actors feel the pain.

Empathy is different from sympathy in that to be empathetic one understands how the person feels rather than actually experiencing those feelings, as in sympathy.

For a con-man like Obama, sympathy would be a crippling disability. Who wants to feel what the suckers feel? But every successful con-man is a master of empathy. How else can you figure out what the suckers will fall for?

This distinction has absolutely no cash-value in the United States today, except for a marginal difference in tone. "Empathy" is a slightly more intellectual representative of the empathy/sympathy hodge-podge, and probably more appropriate for a speech by the sort of high-class con-man who belongs in the Ivy League and Oval Office, instead of Las Vegas and San Quentin.






Jacob Freeze

So YahooNews! tells me. This is an interesting development. Interesting--not panic-inducing. And it is probably the biggest clue we could garner that North Korea has a certain amount of confidence in their nuclear weapons programs--or else that Kim Jong Il is about to collapse and die.

I hear a lot of hand-wringing about the dangers of Iran's nuclear program, from the Cheneys as well as the Hillarys and the Obamas. From European heads of state as well as polls. From spooks as well as pundits.

I'm as sick of these idiocies as I ever have been. And I simply cannot get more than one or NO persons to engage in an intelligent conversation about this. I'm not sure why, but I think that most people are just a little too afraid to 'go there'.

But the bottom line is this: We have nearly nothing to fear from anyone possessing a nuclear device, except maybe outright insane atheists. And we faced them down for fifty years. And won. Or so the worshippers of St. Reagan tell me.

Why am I sick of the latter-day handwringing? Because it seems to me to have only one purpose: To strike fear into the hearts of Americans. To insure that we will always be a nuclear power (not that I have anything against that, but I do have something against DIS-honest manipulation of the populace, i.e. propaganda). To insure that we will continue to spend about half of the U.S. government's income/revenue on the military.

And ever since I first saw the T-shirt with the message about bombers and bake sales, I've had to come down on the side of spending LESS on the world's largest military, for many good reasons.

A nuclear weapon is a defensive weapon. It is not an offensive weapon. If used offensively, it will result in a counter-attack that will wipe out the offender's largest and/or capital city.

Go there with me. Just for now. What will happen if North Korea nukes South Korea? What will happen if North Korea nukes Alaska (and what are the frickin' odds of THAT succeeding in the first place? Not good)? What will happen?

Pyongyang disappears in a mushroom cloud, that's what happens. Kim Jong Il might be sick enough to make sure his nation dies with him--but I doubt his generals with the big funny hats are going to go along with him on that.

To paraphrase our President: This is a cause for concern, but not panic, and not fear. Not in any sense of the word. It is classic Sun Tzu: Kill one to terrorize ten thousand. Or, THREATEN to kill one. Even threats are enough to make neocons (and a substantial number of Americans) shiver.

Not me.

The four wise men of the Republican Party: a traitor - Karl Rove for outing a CIA Agent; a serial adulterer and disgraced former Speaker of the House- Newt Gingrich; and a drug addicted radio "personality"- Rush Limbaugh are the GO TO Guys for the national, cable and print media when it comes issues of public interest.  Oh, and on issues of torture they pull out the  draft-dodging psychopath - Cheney.  Four viscerally repulsive assholes.

Could it get any better than this for Obama when these mean spirited, pot bellied jerks are your competition?  Four more years of this and Democrats will have their permanent majority.

Okay, media. All of you, calm down. The more you discuss the musings, rantings and posturings of the Washington bit players who are using the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to get a little ink or airtime, the more they will muse, rant and posture. All to no end, except to give a media a story they don't have to work very hard to get.

My friend Robby, God bless him, has endured my writing about him before, so I don't think he would mind if I do it again--this time, in response to a phone call he made to me today in which he really did say, as soon as I answered the phone: 

"Thank you for not blaming me for the rest of my party's insanity."

Some of you may remember that Robby is my friend who is a bona fide, card-carrying right-wing Republican.  A passionate gun collector and member of the NRA, he actually LIKES Ann Coulter and Ted Nugent ("I wish I was their illegitimate child"), Chuck Norris is one of his heroes, and he's one of the dwindling minority who believes George W. Bush was...well, if not actually a GOOD president...he, er, MEANT WELL.

You'd think we'd hate one another, but we've been friends for years, and no one else could have possibly been more supportive of me when my son was deployed--and I say that knowing that I gave him utter, outraged, infuriated HELL about Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld year after year, and he took it because he loves me and because he understood how terrified I was for my son.  Eventually, he even came to see my point where the war was concerned.

But during the recent presidential campaign, Robby called me one day to say that he had given up listening to talk radio, something he had done faithfully for more than 15 years.  The blatant racism he heard there was so offensive to him that he complained to me that, "My party ran away from me," and that, as far as people like Rush Limbaugh were concerned:  "I don't know who they think I am when they claim to speak for conservative Republicans, because I am not that person."

Of course he voted for McCain, but he told me that, even though he disagreed with Obama on most things and would have preferred seeing a Republican back in the White House, he considered Obama to be calm, rational, reasoned, intelligent, and careful about making decisions.

(Something, by the way, my conservative Republican brother has also said.)

It was Robby who came to me when the viral e-mail campaign started going around in earnest to conservatives, claiming that Obama was dead-set to take away all our guns.  Robby had checked those claims out himself, both in legitimate websites such as the NRA, and in right-wing political blogs, and said that, as far as he could tell, it was all sheer baloney.

"Obama has never said a single word, not during the campaign, and not since he's taken office, that would appear to validate these fear-mongering e-mails," he said.  "As far as I'm concerned, they have been started and kept going by gun-sellers and others who stand to profit from panic-buying."

He was disgusted at that because it meant he couldn't find ammunition just to go to target practice, and felt that the constant hysteria whipped up by those e-mails--juxtaposed to Obama's calm, sensible demeanor--was making his party look crazier and crazier, which, as a lifelong Republican, he resented.

It's been one thing after another.

Today, he called because he was just so embarrassed, this time, by the whole Judge Sotomayor frenzy.

I said, "My husband just told me he'd gotten three e-mails today all about how Judge Sotomayor is going to take away all our guns."

With a heavy sigh, he said, "And yet, just yesterday, President Obama signed into law a provision that will allow gun enthusiasts to carry loaded weapons in national parks."

"I know," I said, "and there are a lot of us on the left who are dismayed at that.  It was an ammendment stuck onto the budget by a conservative congressman, and he really wanted the budget passed, so he had to hold his nose and sign it."

"But that's the thing about it that I appreciate," he replied.  "He didn't go before the cameras and make this big show about how he was being forced to sign the law even though he hated it.  He just did it quietly.  He knew that, the political reality of any sitting president is that they have to make onerous political sacrifices sometimes in order to get something bigger and more important passed later on.  None of them like it, but they all have to do it eventually. 

"The difference with Obama," he added, "is that he doesn't grandstand about it."

I commented about the presence of so many Blue Dog Democrats who'd been elected from very conservative states, such as Montana and Utah, who have pressed the president on gun rights.  They have to be able to show their constituents that they have upheld their pro-life, pro-gun values.  It doesn't mean that he has to sell out to them, but it does mean that he has to give them little victories now and then so that he can count on them later for the big things, like health care and energy legislation.

We talked about how, if the Republican Party really wants to keep from disintigrating, it is going to have to reach out to a few "Blue Dogs" in its own party, meaning, moderates like Colin Powell and others with more nuanced views on national security and more liberal views on social issues such as gay rights.

In other words, they have to move toward the middle.  And in a situation such as the one facing Republicans right now--they'd better, if they want to survive.

Robby told me about a right-wing friend of his who still listens to talk-radio, and how frustrated he's grown with her blind acceptance of everything she hears there.  "They're still talking about the Muslim connection," he complained.  "Can you believe that?"

The thing is, Robby is a loyal Republican, and he is a conservative--make no mistake about that--but he feels that the party has tilted SO far to the right that now they seem to be embracing only the loudest, most extreme points of view as representative of the party as a whole, which he finds deeply embarrassing and deeply offensive.  He knows there's a fairly obvious undercurrent of racism to the whole thing, and even though he's a white male redneck (and proud of it)--that does not mean he is racist.

My sister, who is also a conservative Republican, understands that very well.  After the death of our daddy in his 40's, my mother moved my much-younger sisters to Texarkana, where they grew up.  (I'd grown up in Dallas and was already in college and out of the house.)

So my sister pretty much embraced the whole Southern redneck, biker, beer-drinking, country-music-listening themes of that background, well into her adulthood.  But a few years ago, after a particularly painful divorce, she moved, first to anything-goes Austin, where she lived for four or five years, and then to Abilene, which is also a conservative city, but not in the same way as Texarkana.

"Family values" yes.  Racist attacks on a sitting president, no.

And over time, her viewpoints changed.  Though still conservative in many ways, she was a big Obama supporter even before I was, only the campaign was much harder on her, emotionally, than it was for me, because she was still on the right-wing e-mail merry-go-round, and every day, she received the most vile, hateful, nasty stuff in her Inbox from her former "friends."

Usually, she'd forward them on to me to debunk, and even though she told some of the people on her list--or maybe BECAUSE she told them--that she was an Obama supporter, they continued to flood her mailbox with crap.

Eventually, she met a truly fine man, and fell deeply in love for possibly the last--if not the first--time in her life, and moved to be closer to him.

And then one day, she got an e-mail from one of her old right-wing friends.  It was titled, "Ships Named for Presidents."  There was the U.S.S. George Bush and the U.S.S. Bill Clinton, and so on.

Then there was the "U.S.S. Barack Obama."

And the photograph depicted a rattletrap Haitian refugee boat, laden with black people, some hanging off the edges.

This one was the proverbial camel-straw--immediately she responded to the "friend" who had sent it, saying, "I thought you should know that I have a new boyfriend whom I love very much.  And he is an African-American."

She said she never heard from that person again.  Doesn't expect to.  Doesn't want to.

What these two stories of people close to me tells me is something that is verified by an op-ed written by Nicholas D. Kristof in today's New York Times:  "Would You Slap Your Father?  If So, You're a Liberal."

It starts out pretty funny, describing various studies that show the differences between, not just points of view of liberals and conservatives, but emotions as well.

In one study, participants were asked if they were performing in a comedy skit that required them to slap their fathers, and they asked his permission, and he said yes--would they do it?

Those who leaned liberal, the study said, would do so as long as Dad said it would be okay. 

Those who leaned conservative would NEVER slap their fathers, under any circumstances, for any reason.

Kristof writes:

 

"The larger point is that liberals and conservatives often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren't a result of a deliberative process. The crucial part of the brain for these judgments is the medial prefrontal cortex, which has more to do with moralizing than with rationality. If you damage your prefrontal cortex, your I.Q. may be unaffected, but you'll have trouble harrumphing.

"One of the main divides between left and right is the dependence on different moral values. For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty -- and revulsion at disgust."

 

Referring to a column he'd written before on the subject of differences between liberals and conservatives, Kristof says he'd suggested that the best way for people of any persuasion to open themselves up to the best information (rather than spoon-feeding themselves from the pool of like minds), was to engage someone of the opposite point of view in lively debate from time to time.

But a scientist friend called Kristof on that theory, explaining that all such a process would do is "inflame antagonisms."

In other words, neither of us would change our minds, but would most likely wind up with wounded feelings and maybe a cutting-off of a relationship.

So how, as Kristof says, "do we discipline our brains to be more open-minded, more honest, more empiracal?"

It seems we should follow the example that has been set by our own president:

 

"A start is to reach out to moderates on the other side -- ideally eating meals with them, for that breaks down "us vs. them" battle lines that seem embedded in us. (In ancient times we divided into tribes; today, into political parties.) The Web site www.civilpolitics.org is an attempt to build this intuitive appreciation for the other side's morality, even if it's not our morality.

""Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart," Professor Haidt says. "Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games."

"Thus persuasion may be most effective when built on human interactions. Gay rights were probably advanced largely by the public's growing awareness of friends and family members who were gay.

"A corollary is that the most potent way to win over opponents is to accept that they have legitimate concerns, for that triggers an instinct to reciprocate. As it happens, we have a brilliant exemplar of this style of rhetoric in politics right now -- Barack Obama."

 

I wouldn't say that Robby or my sister started out as moderates, necessarily.  But no matter what they believed politically, there was one thing that both they and I had in common--none of us could abide bigotry in any form.

This was a common ground we could build upon.

Most of my family and extended family members are very conservative.  I find that when we get into lively political discussions, the best approach is to (a) remain silent on some of the crazier conspiracy-theory threads (b) stand up for my president when necessary, but do it with humor, humor, humor, and a respectful tone (c) search for common ground.

You would be surprised where you find it.

When one much-adored family member accused me of "not wanting to hear opposing points of view" because I refuse to listen to Bill O'Reilly, I named a raft of conservative columnists who I read, and said I wasn't crazy about, say, Chris Matthews, even though he's a liberal, because I don't like loud-mouths who interrupt and cut off their guests.

She confessed she didn't really like that much, either.

It's a start.

The sound:

We cannot imprison Guantonamo detainees on American soil.

The fury:

We welcome American Torturers back into our communities.

Not only do we welcome them back to our communities, we give to some a place in the bureaucracy of our nations' government; others remain accredited by their professions.

Two exercises:

1) Develop the relevant Idiocy Index

2) Informed by that index, assume the role of the Sarcastic Fool and offer commentary

That's politics. You're welcome.

    Uh . . .

"You've got the lemmings. I've got the henhouse."

Did ya' hear what the industry groups said to the congress?

Take a guess...

~OGD~

Sometimes it strikes me that the human body is more a witness to sense-of-humor design than to intelligent design.  Two beneficent nature cards I received on recent birthdays testified to that.  In one case the sentiment pointed to the fact that wrinkles develop about the same time as sight dims: the other made the same point about flatulence and hearing.  But neither of those prompted today's musings.  Rather, it is the design of the human knee.  The designer, knowing it would be required to carry near 300 pounders pounding up and down a basketball court, and shifting directions and speeds suddenly and unprepared, must have giggled uncontrollably.  But when (S)He looks at the human-designed health delivery system (H)(SH)e must let out with a cosmic guffaw loud enough to blow out Lucifer's candle.  Which brings me to my reminiscence about Dr. Härtling.

    Back in my mid thirties, I had the kind of knees one expected big galoot former basketball players to have.  They were cranky and fairly accurate weather predictors as I remember them.  There is a history of knee trouble in my family...more than one of nature's knees have been replaced by human invention (literally).  I expected to become bionic eventually, hopefully later than sooner.  One knee was quite a bit crankier than the other, and on my slow-to-move days I limped a mite.  Then came the summer when I met Dr. Härtling (henceforth Doctor H-I don't know if I can make the little dots over the a's on my blog).  My brother, shorter, but far more talented and handsome, was enjoying a career as an opera singer in Germany.  Dr. H was the official medico for the Opera House for everything which wasn't viral or bacterial, I think-certainly all the wear and tear things wound up in his Klinik. 

My brother recommended I pay him a visit, and explained something I didn't know was possible, and would probably be impossible if not excessively rare in the United States.  The good doctor was (a)an orthopedic surgeon, (b) a chiropractor, and ( c) a Dr. of Homeopathic Medicine wrapped up in one cheery bundle.  Oh yes, he was certified in acupuncture too, so if one needed his acu punctured, Dr. H. could do it.

I had never heard of such a thing-a practitioner who could choose the practice which his experience and expertise suggested would best heal the patient.  In the United States, back then the Medical Doctors were quite determined to quackify all the rest-I'm surprised they didn't complain because Dentists had the temerity to call themselves doctors.  Anyhow.  Dr. H put my left knee (the one about which I was grumbling) under his x-ray machine, and when the pictures came out, showed me things which I didn't understand (of course) and prescribed a treatment with Viscum Album and Fango.  Sounded jolly.  Then I found out that Viscum Album was mistletoe juice and Fango was mud.  Well, when in Bavaria do as the Bavarians do (very good advice to beer drinkers, but I digress).  So I lay on the table, Dr. H. took out a syringe with a short small needle attached, and proceeded to inject small amounts of a clear liquid at the edge of the kneecap: six little pricks around the top, and one underneath the knee.

    Then I found out what Fango was.  Hot mud, about the consistency of silly putty, in a sheet about 3/4 of an inch thick, wrapped around the knee.  I lay there, in my mud, for about a half hour.  Then off came the mud, on went the pants, and home to my brother's apartment I went. By the time I got home, I realized I had two bad knees, not the one I thought I had.  The one Dr. H. treated felt so good that I became aware of the pains in the other one.   I was on my way out of town back to the states, so I couldn't stay to have the other one treated.  

    The next year I returned to the picturesque town on the Donau, and with a month's vacation, decided to have the full treatment in both knees.  Two visits per week, for four weeks.  Dr. H. charged me just the co-pay my brother would have paid for treatment in the German system - 8 marks per knee per visit.  (I don't know if he fiddled his books, but I do know he liked opera singers enough to treat a brother like a king.) I'd like to report that after the treatments I could dance like a Bolshoi Boyar, but seeing as I couldn't do that before the treatment, I probably shouldn't have expected that particular miracle.  But I had two very good feeling knees...and they kept feeling good for two years, at which time I just repeated the treatment.

    All good things come to an end eventually, including this blog entry (is it a good thing?).  My brother returned to the United States to take up an academic career,   and while I love him enough to visit Iowa yearly as I visited Bavaria yearly, I have never been able to locate an American Dr. H.  

    Here's the little moral to my story...one of the ways to lower health costs in this country, mho, is to negotiate at least a truce, if not a reconciliation, between the various alternative medicines, and encourage cooperation among them-maybe even encourage the kind of training Dr. H. got.  THEN allow multiple practices to be covered by single-payer insurance. Were this to happen, appropriateness, rather than cultural and political muscle would determine "best practice".

Give some reputable scientific agency authority to determine which practices are beneficial for which conditions, if necessary, but don't let any let any one school of medicine be judge and jury on who quacks like a duck.  

    In the meantime, if anyone knows someone who's dispensing Viscum Album and Fango in the states these days, preferably in New England, please let me know.  We've had a wet, cold, miserable spring, and my knees, while reasonably well behaved, are making cranky mutters from time to time.

Amike (who finally got his grades turned in)

This is a letter from a community of concerned black men in the North about a lynching in Palmetto, Georgia. One of those men is my great great grand-father's brother.

From the Canton Repository circa 1911

Strong Protest

"Massillon Colored People Adopt Resolutions:

Want Law Upheld"


They Declare that Outrages Perpertrated at Palmetto
Georgia and have a Debasing Effect on Nation

The colored people of Massillon, probably for the first time in the history of the town, have been aroused to a definite consciousness of the wrongs being done their race in the South, and the result is the adoption of the following resolutions.

"Resolved, That we abhor crimes of every description: that we have no sympathy for criminals of any race or nationality [and] that honor and virtue should have the fullest protection; and we hearby pledge ourselves to do everything in our power to sustain the law, lessen crime and elevate mankind in general and more particularly the race variety which are identified.

Be it further resolved, That we view with alarm the practice that prevails in some sections of our country, the most recent example of which occurred at Palmetto Georgia, a few days ago, of men accused of crime being put to death without a trial and in a manner too horrible and barbarous to think of , because such practices have a debasing and brutalizing effect upon the people, arouse bitter strife between two peoples that are destined to dwell together, do our country great harm by injuring its standing as the foremost civilized nation, and because the laws of man and God are outraged by such inhuman methods of punishing offenders, real or alleged. We believe that the strong arm of the law is adequate to punish all criminals.

Therefore, in the name of humanity, in the name of the down-trodden people, in the name of our beloved country, whose name is being sullied in the name of a just God we protest against these wrongs."

The resolutions bear the signatures of Rev. Little, pastor of the A.M.E. Zion church, J. Clemens, G.N. Porter, J. Fields, C. Peters, R. Lacy, A.Jackson, W.Bell, A. Jackson,J. Goins, C. Robinson, R. Emery, A. Simms. The only persons who refused to sign were J.Emery and C.Weber.

Hi! My name is Maggie and I am an alcoholic.  I probably repeat those words 4 -5 times a week at AA meetings.

 

Now I am sure people are muttering, "Why is she sharing this with us?"  Good question.

Well, I have shared a part of me with you already and being an alcoholic is another chapter in my life.  I am not ashamed to be one and I do not hide it.  I don't know where I "caught" this disease and I really don't care.  I have it, I am in recovery and I will be for the rest of my life. One day at a time.  I have found there is no cure for alcoholism.

 

I do know that when asked as a child, "And what do you want to be when you grow up, Maggie?"  I never once answered, "I want to be an alcoholic!"    The idea of becoming a nurse had been a dream of mine and I kept to that idea of being the newest Florence Nightingale until I went away to college, where I entered into a two year course of study which was to be followed by three years of nursing school.   For someone who didn't like schooling nor do particularly well at it, I was very ambitious.

 

Sadly to say, I found college to be the greatest place to party, not to study.  I began to find that alcohol and I had become good friends.  Being a shy person, and very introverted, drinking seemed to give me the courage to say and do things I had never considered before.  A sense of daring and devil-may-care attitude came over me and I often found I did not give a damn what anyone thought of my behavior.

 

Of course, my grades were going down and at that time, I met a guy.  Six months later, we eloped and that ended my childhood dream of becoming a nurse. Just like that!  Poof!

Becoming a nurse was no longer in my mind.  Marriage and having children sounded much more romantic.

 

But - it became a romantic haze that went on and on.  At times, it was exhilarating and fun; other times, it was downright sloppy and disgusting.  However, it didn't seem to matter which mood or actions came forth, I continued to drink on and off for many, many years.  Physically, the damage was minimal which was extremely amazing.  The amount of alcohol I consumed should and could have caused many health issues.  My only repercussion in the health field was constantly falling down and breaking bones.

 

Mentally, the toll was a great deal worse.  I was completely insane.  I knew my head was screwed on wrong but somehow; it never occurred to me that I had a problem with drinking.  I truly believed that other people drank the way I did.  Didn't everyone drink until they either passed out or went into a black out?   Wasn't it common for others to want a drink earlier and earlier in the day?  Truly I wasn't the only person to frequent different liquor stores so as not to be seen in the same one too many times.  And the local tavern I drank in was like Cheers; everyone knew my name.  Wasn't that an ordinary occurrence?

 

 

In other words, I was in complete denial that I was in deep doo doo because of my drinking.  I blamed what AA refers to as people, places and things.  If people would do things the way I wanted to, I wouldn't drink.  If the town I lived in was better, I wouldn't drink.  If I had a new car, TV or wardrobe, I wouldn't have to drink.  I could go on and on.  This is also referred to as the blame game.  I was good at it and never did I think I was to blame; I was the one who picked up that first drink.  If I hadn't picked up that first drink, I wouldn't have had the second, third, etc. I would not have gotten drunk.

 

The people I was hurting was another thing.  I was too selfish to think about the family, friends, co-workers, bosses and assorted people I met in my every day life who were affected by my drinking.  I was the harmed one I thought; no one else was influenced by a drunk who cared little for anything but for herself.

 

Sometime, later in my long life, I had left a trail of broken marriages, devastated children, a father who was enabling me by taking care of my family for me, numerous jobs I had had to quit because of absenteeism and lack of work, and worst of all, a shell of a person living in my body whom I did not know and did not care to know.  I was suicidal, in and out of rehabilitation facilities, under the care of a psychiatrist and in a deep, deep depression.  I had tried Alcoholics Anonymous several times, but in my self centered state, I could not identify with those "drunks" who seemed so happy and carefree.  How could anyone who drank too much be smiling and caring?

 

Walking in the door of that church, six years ago to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, was probably the hardest thing I had ever done.  I felt alone, vulnerable, afraid of what I might find, scared to death of what people would think of me, and I felt very, very old.  I was sixty four and I was miserable.

What I found beyond that door that night, was a miracle.  I found men and women who actually cared about me and put out their hands to me.  There was laughter and talking and suddenly I wanted to be a part of that.  I listened when people shared.  I heard things that I knew I had heard before but they sounded different this time.  I had a tiny glimmer of hope that I too, could find a smile to put on my face.  It was a beginning.

 

Since that night, I have found peace.  Something I never had before.  I found serenity, hope, willingness, a bit of humility, and the desire to have what other people with good sobriety had.  I wanted to be me, whoever I found "me" to be.  It didn't matter anymore if I had been lost and soulless.  I could find a life to share with my three daughters, five grandchildren and one great grandson (who now has a brother).  I had friends, good friends; I cared about them and they cared about me.  I found a Power greater than myself in whose hands I could place myself with trust and love.  I found Maggie!

"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman,...Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism. A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."                                           Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the House.

Newt is referring to a speech that Judge Sotomayor gave to the University of California-Berkley Law School in 2001.   But if you examine her remarks in context they seem much more reasonable.    The quote is directed as a response to  Justice Sandra Day O'Conner's famous quote, "a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in  deciding cases"

"I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement," Sotomayor says. "First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society...Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown."

"However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give....For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges CHOOSE to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage....each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices ARE appropriate."

So in retrospect, instead of a racist, we have a realist for a nominee.   She claims that she believes that ALL judges are influenced in their decisions by their personal experience.  (Much as our personal life experiences help to shape our view of the world)  She also feels that diversity on the bench helps a judge to understand issues that his or her own life experiences may not cover.   The key is to recognize your personal predjudices and NOT to allow them to inappropriately influence your decisions.

This is a sentiment that is shared by Justice Ginsberg, who recently commented that she was glad that she was on the bench to help explain to the male Justices why a strip search was so invasive to the privacy of a 13 year old girl.

Some on the Right would argue that such "empathy" will result in a Court that makes laws instead of interpreting those laws.    They are already calling Judge Sotomayer an "activist" judge who will swing the court into a liberal body that will alter the very fabric of our culture!

Unfortunately, there is very little proof of that in her past decisions.    She has sided with business over environmentalists, she has come down on both the side of pro-life decisions and pro-choice decisions.   She has handed down over 3,000 decisions (either personally or as a member of a panel of appellate judges).   Of those 3,000 decisions, less than one-tenth of one percent of those decisions have been appealed successfully to the Supreme Court.   

Judge Sotomayor is many things, but I think trying to pin her with the label of "Racist" or "Activist" is stretching it just a little.

Perhaps, we should all sit back and wait for the hearings before we condemn this woman.   Soon a written questionaire will be released which will give us an idea of HOW she thinks.    Perhaps it will be more important to listen to her discuss the thought process that goes into her decision making instead of cherry picking each individual decision she has made for the past two decades.

Kansas senator Pat Roberts (R) has already announced that he will vote against her confirmation.    Does it seem proper that he has already decided his vote without benefit of hearing her testimony?    Or is the condemnation of Party Leader Limbaugh enough to sway his vote?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there should not be some hard questions put to the nominee.   It is a lifetime position that has huge influence on American society.   There are parts of her professional life that deserve questioning.  But to automatically decide that a "NO" vote is correct without those questions indicate that this has less to do with judical qualifications and more to do with continuing the GOP's tradition of "just say no!" to Obama.

But the current line of GOP attacks are very reminicent of the logic used by the people in MONTY PYTHON'S HOLY GRAIL to convict a woman of witchcraft.  Take tiny details out of context, add a few well phrased leaps of misplaced logic and you discover:  "She's a witch....Burn Her!"   

Let us just hope that King Rush and his faithful servant "NEWT" go skipping away with their coconuts quickly! 

It does not follow, the argument by the Republicans that nominee for the United States Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a racist.  Starved for attention and relevancy, Republican strategist, pundits and have beens, have grabbed on to a statement made by Judge Sotomayor and have taken it out of context to paint this nominee as some kind of racist.  Clearly, these "macaca" crowd simply wish to smear the nominee with hopes of derailing the nomination process.  What's more, these aggreived "white male" Republicans are not only beating the war drums before the congressional hearings on her nomination, but are also vent on character assassination of the nominee.  Further, while they can only muster a charge of a perceived racist statement, these Republicans are prominently showing their cross and stars fabric.  One prominent Republican stated that Judge Sonia Sotomayor's name was too hard to pronounce and that she should change her name.  Perhaps he did not like the foreign sounding name.  Another leading Republican and former candidate for the presidency even called the nominee by the wrong name and called her Maria.  Ooops!  But one known Republican pundit stooped so low, when he refered to the nominee as an "affirmative pick."

It seems that the Republican party is resorting to depraved and self destructive measures.  And while those Republicans who are attacking Judge Sotomayor are having trouble attacking the nominee's academic credentials or her skillful jurist temperament, these individuals are acting like the crowd that they are; a group of desperate grumpy white males whose elephant emblem is fast transforming into an extinct wooly mammoth.  Further, it is apparent to the Latino community and the majority of decent Americans, that usage of race innuendo or reference to the nominee's ethnicity is by all accounts- race baiting.

It should be noted, that Judge Sotomayor  does not deny having made the statement, and perhaps regrets having made such statement.  However, she made such reference only in the context of wanting to distinguish her perspective as a Latina, as opposed to that of a "white male."  Conversely, one should not infer or conclude that by using the phrase - "as a white male, my perspective would be different from that of a Latina" - that such statement could be construed as derogatory against a white male making such statement.  Regrettably, in the Anglo-American experience, much is placed on the concept of race and color of one's skin.  While in the Latino experience, race is viewed more in the context of language.  For example, the Latino community may include peoples of many ancestries including Russian, German, Italians, French, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, American Indian, and not limited to, of African decent.  Thus, the common language is the binding force rather than race.  Yet, the Anglo-American perpective is to categorize every individual with roots from Latin America as other than white.  Accordingly, Latinos have grasped the   Anglo-American perspective on race, but truly do not use it in the same context. Thus, the Republican argument that Jude Sotomayor's tatements were racist, is simply an a non sequitur (does not follow logic).

It does follow however, that the nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, an American, is eminently qualified to be a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.  She brings to the Court eminent academic credentials, experience from the bench, proven intellect, a jurist temperament, but more importantly, she brings a unique perspective that is lacking in the Court today; the experience of being from a category of Americans - Latin Americans.

In sum, Judge Sonia Sotomayor does not harbor racist sentiment and never meant such statement she made to be construed as racist.  And regrettably, we are at the door step of the 21st century and our society is still consumed with race and color -when current scientific knowledge shows us that such concept is but superficial in nature. 

A legal maxim states: an act does not make a person guilty unless his mind (or intention) is guilty.  Thus, Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not  guilty of the Republican charge.

 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor.... bienvenida!

 

Joseph Chez

 

 

President Barack Obama, with all due respect, you simply MUST demand that war crimes be investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan IMMEDIATELY!

Those who are found guilty should be seen LIVE on television during their trials, just as LIVE as say OJ Simpson's trial was or former President Bill Clinton's trial was, for all the WORLD TO SEE.

They MUST know that we Americans do NOT tolerate the torturing of prisoners, no IF's, THEN's or BUT's about it --- we do not authorize TORTURE, no matter HOW ugly the enemy gets, we are a nation of laws and moral values.

Please Mr President, by ignoring these crimes, you are ALSO committing a crime by covering them up.

You denied the release of those photos because you feared for the LIVES of our soldiers sir.  Well sir, this information is spreading like wild fire -- you are ENDANGERING our soldiers lives by IGNORING the War Crimes.

How would you feel if one or both of your daughters or wife was tortured in the manner that is being reported (brutally raped with different devices, let alone by a man)?

Stand up sir!  Stand up for our soldiers, other Americans and your family values.

All this focus on the fight to get Sotomayor confirmed is fine because it will probably have significant political repercussions. That said, I'm not worried about the eventual outcome, if she's not confirmed you can paint me red and call me conservative because that there's no way that is happening.

My problem is: with democratic senators generally supportive of her candidacy and republicans opposed it will be republicans driving the substantial questioning. I trust Obama to have nominated someone I will like having on the SCOTUS but there are questions about her views on issues that will be in front of the court that I would like to have answered, if only out of curiosity. I don't imagine that many of my concerns will be addressed by conservative senators because their's are different from mine and I doubt liberal senators that do share my concerns will press her too much on any question. Furthermore, who among you thinks that her answers to any tough question will be substantive? We need a source of information outside of her hearings; I'm not sure what we can use.

Do any of you share this concern? What questions would you like answered?

I would like to know how she views state rights and more narrowly how she thinks the Commerce Clause applies to various regulatory disputes. That covers things like a national ID, the enforcement of drug laws when state and federal law is in conflict, the expansion of aspects of election standards and regulations that the federal government can impose on states (Let's get rid of gerrymandering!), and countless more. Then there's the other big one: executive power. What does she think of state secrets, executive privilege, the Freedom of Information act, etc.?

Again, I'm sure these topics will be broached in her confirmation hearings but I don't think republicans are going to come at them from my angle of interest and I don't think we'll get substantive answers.

What are your questions for her? Does anyone have ideas on where we can look for answers to these questions? I don't think a few speeches she's given are enough to draw conclusions, despite what GOP operatives are saying on TV.

There will be five Catholics on the Supreme Court once Sotomayor is seated among them.

I just finished my daily perusal of the Internets Tubes. Sonia Sotomayor and the conservative outrage upon her was about 80% of what's lighting up the electrons today. They hate her. They hate women. They hate her cuisine preferences. They hate Obama. They have a lot of hate to go around, that's for sure.

But not one word about her religion. Plenty about how her vagina will skew her opinions and votes on cases. Plenty about how her marital status will skew same. Her 'empathy'. Her 'immigrant parents'. Her Latino messiness.

How about her religion? Will that help John Roberts and the rest of the Neocon Gang make abortion illegal again? Not one word. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Maybe it's like reverse psychology; maybe conservatives are hiding their SUPPORT for her while trumpeting their opposition? Or maybe it's more like Pavlovian psychology than anything else.

I love to watch professional journalists insist that the only kind of judge they want on the SCOTUS is a "strict constitutionalist"--who empties all past experience the moment they put on the black robe and reaches directly into the pure meaning of our Constitution.  This notion of a strict constitutionalist supposedly stands in opposition to the constitution as a "living document" interpreted by a "shootin'-from-the-hip (terrorist sympathizer) constitutionalist" or an "empathy (non-Caucasian male) constitutionalist" or whatever implication has the most potential to spoil an appointment.

 JPMorgan warns on credit card woes

"At the end of the first quarter, 12.63 per cent of the WaMu credit card loans were deemed uncollectable by JPMorgan. The bank estimates that figure could reach 18 to 24 per cent by the end of 2009, depending on economic conditions."

The Chase credit card loan portfolio isn't doing so hot either -- especially in Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada and Virginia

This is why credit card interest rates are so high -- to compensate for all the deadbeats.

A comment made elsewhere in the ongoing "Southern" battle deserves further examination and refutation because it shows, in my opinion, a lack of understanding with regard to the Supreme Court -- something that we are seeing with the overheated Republican reaction to the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court. The comment suggests that "northern" justices were responsible and deserve derision for one decision and "southern" justices have been overlooked and deserve credit for another. (That is the argument boiled down to its essence.)

Recently, we've read a similarly structured argument about slavery: that "the north" started it. (FACT: Jamestown, Virginia was the first US colony to accept 20 slaves as payment for repair supplies from a slave ship damaged off the shores of Jamestown. That started this country's long and painful history with slavery.) [AUTHOR'S NOTE: See sidebar, below.]

Although some would point to the distinction of "legalizing" slavery came first in the North as justification for its continuance in the south. I would retort that in the game of "geographic who's more guilty," Virginia once again upped the ante by changing the initial "legalization" from what amounted to "indentured servitude" from which descendents of slaves could be born free, into enslavement into perpetuity, for not only the slaves but all of their descendents for always and forever. (Even those determined to have just one drop of Negro blood.)

But (if you want to go there) the point is not who started it, but rather, who ended it.

The eleven states that chose to forcibly secede from the nation (and had to be forcibly returned), in part at least to preserve their "heritage" of slavery, will always be remembered for that. Just as Arizona will always be remembered as the last state to approve the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

(This argument reminds me of pleading with my parents that I was not as culpable as a sibling when we were bickering over this or that, because he or she "started it." An argument that got no traction then, and gets none now.)

The variation on the "he started it" argument now comes with the suggestion that Plessy v. Ferguson (the "separate but equal case later overturned by Brown v. Topeka B.O.E., which is included in this variation on a theme) was decided by a majority of justices from "the north," and that Brown was decided by justices from the South.

Let me state that this represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the judicial system -- particularly the appellate court system -- in this country. Trial courts are the finders of fact. To the extent that geographic location might play a part in the outcome of a case, it would be at the trial level.

From US Courts.gov: "The federal courts often are called the guardians of the Constitution because their rulings protect rights and liberties guaranteed by it. Through fair and impartial judgments, the federal courts interpret and apply the law to resolve disputes. The courts do not make the laws. That is the responsibility of Congress. Nor do the courts have the power to enforce the laws. That is the role of the President and the many executive branch departments and agencies."

At the appellate level, particularly the federal appeals system, the facts of the case have already been determined, and the case is within the juridiction of the appeals court if the matter is a:

• Case that deal with the constitutionality of a law;
• Case involving the laws and treaties of the U.S.;
• Ambassadors and public ministers;
• Dispute between two or more states;
• Admiralty law, and
• Bankruptcy.

"State courts are the final arbiters of state laws and constitutions. Their interpretation of federal law or the U.S. Constitution may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court may choose to hear or not to hear such cases." (Also from US Courts.gov.)

"For example, in the United States, both state and federal appellate courts are usually restricted to examining whether the court below made the correct legal determinations, rather than hearing direct evidence and determining what the facts of the case were. Furthermore, U.S. appellate courts are usually restricted to hearing appeals based on matters that were originally brought up before the trial court. Hence, such an appellate court will not consider an appellant's argument if it is based on a theory that is raised for the first time in the appeal." (From Wikipedia/)

From US Courts.gov: The Founding Fathers of the nation considered an independent federal judiciary essential to ensure fairness and equal justice for all citizens of the United States. The Constitution they drafted promotes judicial independence in two major ways. First, federal judges are appointed for life, and they can be removed from office only through impeachment and conviction by Congress of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

Second, the Constitution provides that the compensation of federal judges "shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office," which means that neither the President nor Congress can reduce the salary of a federal judge. These two protections help an independent judiciary to decide cases free from popular passions and political influence."

So the decisions handed down by the appellate courts, as well as the Supreme Court, are not dictated by the home state of the judges or justices presiding. That is because the judges and justices are responsible for the interpretation of a range of laws and at the US Circuit Court of Appeals, each of the 13 districts may hear cases from a number of states.

Now, could we, by some stretch of the imagination arrive at the conclusion that "home state" influence plays a part in the role of impartial judgement of the constitutionality of a ruling or (without being circumlogical) equal protection under the law? No. Although judges and justices on both the federal appeals bench and the Supreme Court may come from various geographic locations, and their alliances may morph into stranger configurations than an amoeba, the fact that they are limited in the scope of what may be considered to render a decision prevents this geographic alignment.

In short, we cannot come to some conclusion that our country's tawdry racist past is the fault of one region over another. We can argue -- and history supports -- that the eleven states which opted to secede from the union did come from one section of the country. We can argue that the de jure segregation which plagued this nation for the century after Emancipation was centered in one region of the country. We can categorically state that although de facto segregation was pervasive throughout this country, north and south, its most despicable displays were in one particular region of the country.

This is not a question of who started it. It continues to be a question of who ends it. And when.

SIDEBAR

From the Washington Post, by Courtland Millow, September 6, 2006:

(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501288.html)

"There came . . . a Dutch man-of-warre that sold us 20 negars."

-- from the diary of John Rolfe, a tobacco farmer in

Jamestown, Va., in 1619

And so began slavery in America -- with the first 20 Africans being referred to with a word that retains its sting some 400 years and 30 million African Americans later.

As Jamestown begins a commemoration of its founding in 1607, this less-than-cheery subject poses a special challenge for party planners. Jamestown is distinguished as the first permanent English settlement in what would become the United States; but it was also the first to achieve what historian Paul Johnson called "self-sufficiency through the sweat and pain of an enslaved race." [...]

The museum exhibit, on the other hand, may not offer such an easy out. A group of transatlantic researchers has finally put a face on those anonymous 20. And as more is learned about how their stories began, there will be no escaping the pain of their tragic end. The slaves were from Angola, in Southwest Africa. Their homelands were the kingdoms of Ndongo and Kongo, regions of modern-day Angola and coastal areas of Congo. They were entrepreneurs, a literate and morally upright people who held family in the highest regard. They were renowned for preparing their children for adulthood -- and the tradition persisted even after the slave ships began to arrive.

Thanks to the researchers, what had been a central feature of slavery -- the dehumanization of the black slave -- has finally been personalized for the first of the millions who would follow.

Steven Leber filed a $4 million lawsuit against Paul J. Konigsberg and his accounting  firm, Konigsberg & Wolf charging Konigsberg with negligence and professional malpractice with respect to a Madoff account opened by Leber in 1998.   

The suit was initially filed in Palm Beach District Court in March 2009 and subsequently removed to the Southern District of Florida in April 2009.

The complaint can be read here. (The actual complaint begins on p. 13.)

Konigsberg's response to the complaint can be read here. While admitting he does have a fiduciary responsibility to Leber, he claims the suit is not valid for several reasons.  

Paul Konigsberg, of course, is the CPA who owned a small percentage of Madoff Securities International Limited in London. He also prepared the 990s for the Madoff Family Foundation.

Konigsberg and his wife accompanied the Madoffs on a 2004 ski trip to Switzerland.

Konigsberg's homes in Greenwich CT and Palm Beach Gardens FL are both held in the name of his wife, Judith, only.

Konigsberg had a number of Madoff accounts under his name including two in the name of the Westlake Foundation. Paul J. and Judith Konigsberg are officers and directors of the foundation.  

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

On Tuesday, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying. Regardless, Sotomayor would be an excellent choice for the Supreme Court, signaling to Latino/as that the White House is aware of our need for more representation in government.

Reporting on Sotomayor's nomination, the Washington Independent's Daphne Eviatar notes that, while the choice doesn't push the envelope in terms of liberalness, it does indicate that Obama was "willing to stand up to unfounded criticism of Sotomayor as a far-left liberal." Interestingly enough, President George H. W. Bush originally nominated Sotomayor for the district court, and her life reads like Many GOP-adored tales of hard work leading to success.

Which leads one to wonder why are they attacking Sotomayor's nomination with such vitriol, by painting her as a "radical, judicial activist/scary Latina feminist/underqualified diversity pick"? As Michelle Chen reports for RaceWire, Sotomayor has a reputation for "principled independence suffused with real-world experience" and the GOP's squawking is a typical barrage of "hypocrisy, shrill animosity and racist code words."

Sotomayor describes herself as a "Newyorican," which is someone who has been born in New York City from parents hailing from Puerto Rico. While her nomination sparked controversy as to whether or not one can technically "immigrate" from Puerto Rico, there is no denying the country's colonial history. Many see Sotomayor's nomination as a success story for immigrants. She certainly does.

New America Media's Roberto Lovato writes that despite the GOP's desire to overlook Sotomayor's uplifting and quintessentially "American" story, the Republican party would do well to use this opportunity very carefully. Sotomayor's nomination provides an opportunity to draw a line between the GOP that bled Latino/a votes due to their immigration stance and what they hope to become. According to Lovato, Sotomayor--and we--should view the confirmation hearings as "nothing less than a trial to determine whether the GOP is ready to make restitution for its role in a number of judicial and political wrongdoings perpetrated in the Bush era."

But it doesn't seem that the Republican party is very concerned with the Latino/Hispanic vote, let alone common decency, judging by the desperate moves of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself. In an attempt to clean up the state deficit, Schwarzenegger would "eliminate four programs that provide money and food to more than 100,000 legal immigrants," many "elderly and disabled." This action will hurt many people who are a vital part of our social fabric.

Daphne Eviatar, writing for the Center for Independent Media, reports on the perversely-named "Secure Communities" initiative, in which ICE officals are quoted defending a program that aims to deport those ticketed for so much as a red light. Under this soon to be expanded program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to deport "tens of thousands" of immigrants in 2010. Under the Secure Communities initiative, even a legal immigrant could be deported if accused and not able to hire or enlist legal representation.

Secure Communities "represents a new comprehensive approach to remove all criminal aliens held in the United States prisons and jails." Even the phrase "criminal aliens" conjures up visions of hooded creatures with sinister intent...and maybe dangling antennae. Little is required to sweep an immigrant into the detention system and classify them as "criminal." It can be nothing more than an overstayed visa, or being profiled at a 7-11 by ICE officials looking to make quota. It's all part of a thriving detention industry: DHS projects a budget for new detention centers, including the needed number of arrests (400,000 are planned for next year) to fund and staff said centers. As a result, arrests are made for any infraction, imagined or real, the beds are filled, the lawyers can't be afforded and aren't provided, workers and family members are deported, the budgets justified, the checks cut, and the detention center industry looms larger every day.

In Deportation While U Wait, RaceWire's Michelle Chen reports that ICE has found a way to further expedite the process. "At one downtown Los Angeles courthouse," Chen writes, "Officials have found an efficient way to cut through the red tape: kicking people out of the country without waiting for a decision from the judge." If there is a previous deportation order in their records, ICE rules on their own and deports the man or woman. But we should be careful to rush to judgment as often, "what looks on paper like a justifiable deportation often masks the nuances of individual hardships and structural problems that limit immigrants' ability to press their legal cases."

In the Colorado Independent, Erin Rosa reports that the Obama Administration is moving forward with plans to end the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which funds local jails and state prisons to house undocumented immigrants. Rosa notes that Colorado "netted $3.1 million from the program last year, and $3.3 million in 2007." The White House defends the move by saying the resources can "better be used to enhance federal enforcement efforts."

There are many people waiting to see those "enhanced" efforts in the shape of legislation. There is hope these efforts will improve the quality of peoples' lives, not DHS's budget. Many people who harbor those hopes demonstrated in Postville, Iowa in memory of the ICE raid that shattered the community a year ago. Lynda Waddington writes of this year's difference in attitude for the Iowa Independent. In 2008, emotions were raw and more anger was expressed, but this year, there was "a specific focus and call for comprehensive immigration reform."

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration.

Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter.

And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net.

This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.

According to 538, most car dealers are republicans, and so therefore the closing of GM dealerships is neither discriminatory nor politically retributive.