All that glitters is not gold

Interesting development on a slow news day:

"DUMP ROMNEY" contends that no delegates are actually "bound" by law or GOP rules to vote for Romney and that, to win the White House and toss-up Senate seats, delegates must exercise their right to "conscientiously abstain" from Romney on the crucial first ballot, aiming for a stronger ticket leader in subsequent convention voting rounds.

Nothing to do with Ron Paul. And not exactly a fringe group:

Instead, it's a brainchild of Steve Baldwin, the former chief of the Council for National Policy, a low-profile, well-connected conservative group. Baldwin said the memo was sent out to 20,000 people in politics in media, as well as RNC delegates.

"We’re just saying that Romney has so many liabilities that will be exploited by Obama," Baldwin said in a phone interview. "I don’t have a problems with Mormons personally, but it is a liability issue" among evangelical voters, Baldwin said.

Particularly interesting that it's released on a day when the Mittster's poll numbers are tanking and Karl Rove is nervously posting "rally the troops" tweets. Baldwin's group is basically the old Bush crowd. Trying to decide if it's an internal power struggle or a fake out that validates my favorite conspiracy theory.

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Sacred trust

My timeline is becoming an ongoing graphic novel. Often the graphics tell the story better than reams of words and analysis. Today's Facebook find is a particularly good one. This works on so many levels.

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Gotta start all over again

I've been saying for the last ten years that it feels like we're fighting the culture wars of the 60s all over again. The last two have made it all so tragically true. But we won the first time and we can do it again.

this >> #WOW twitter.com/liberalease/st…

— liberalease (@liberalease) March 21, 2012

Never underestimate the power of a bunch of pissed off women...

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The silent treatment

Hell hath no fury like a woman's rights scorned. Love this. David Dayden reports on a powerful protest against Virginia's state sanctioned rape bill. This happened. Hundreds of women gathered and said not a word.

The Capitol ground rules say that we cannot assemble, hold signs, chant, yell or protest. We think silence in the face of this struggle and their unconstitutional rules presents the strongest response to their assault on women. Please come out and stand up for our rights and for the rights of all women in VA to choose the best reproductive route for themselves. These people are used to signs, yelling, chanting etc. It is not new. They are not used to silently being stared at and having to look us in the eye. It gives us the power.

The crazy theocrats got the message, loud and clear. They postponed the vote on the bill. Of course, the polling also showed "55% opposed to the legislation and only 36% in support" so we can assume that factored into their new found reluctance to push it forward quickly. Which is not to say they won't try again to sneak it through when they think no one is watching. Their kind never gives up.

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Darrell Issa stacks the deck

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is at it again, holding yet another inane hearing. This was the scene in his committee room this morning:

Yes, his first panel of witnesses was solely comprised of male religious leaders whose consciences are inflamed by the new rule on women's health services that include contraception coverage. Unsurprisingly, Democrats were enraged and demanded at least one witness to balance this skewed panel.

Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that “As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”

You can view the rejected testimony here.

Apparently, after the media caught wind of the melee, Issa added a couple of women bringing the total witness list to eleven. One assumes he found women who agree a handful of aging Catholic men, sworn to lifelong celibacy, should dictate government policy on contraceptives for the entire female population of the USA.

You have to love the name of the hearing: “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”. Atrios joked on the twitter machine this morning that the Democrats should hold an all-female hearing on the reproductive health of men. I'd agree. Maybe they could call it something like: "Pelvic Thrust: Does the GOP's Support For Easy Availability of Viagra, Risk Back Injury, Encourage Promiscuity in Men and Enable Out of Wedlock Pregnancies?"

Meanwhile, in a related development, at another hearing Rep. Jeanine Notter gravely informed her colleagues that "health plans shouldn't cover birth control because it causes prostate cancer." No, she wasn't joking.

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Contraception contretemps

It's been really interesting to see how many ways Obama's contraception modification has been framed today. The reactions have ranged from ha ha, Obama pawned the GOPers on this one to ZOMG Obama sold women out again. And that's just on the left.

I was most surprised by Charlie Pierce's reaction. He called it a graceful dive but I'm confused by his disdain for the terms of the compromise.

And what's to prevent the clever Catholic CEO of Greedy Bastard Health Insurance, LLC from deciding that he has an objection of conscience to providing contraception as part of his company's insurance plan.

As I understand it, the Republican's bill would allow that but unless the insurance company is run by a Catholic church, Obama's rules wouldn't. And then there was this bit.

(If there's one thing that insurance companies produce more of than profits for their executives, it's arcane reasons not to do something. And, as for the institutional Church, it has no earthly reason to accept this deal. It doesn't think anyone should use birth control for any reason ever. If it accepts the deal, by which it essentially farms out its conscience to insurance companies, it looks foolish. If it sticks to its guns and rejects the deal, what's the president going to do? Run against the Church? He pretty plainly doesn't have the stomach for that. The Clan is empowered again. The comeback from the conspiracy to obstruct justice of the crime of sexual assault is complete.

I get being pissed off that the same Church which covered up its ugly history of pedophilia gets away with hypocrisy in claiming moral grounds on contraception, or anything, but nothing about this rule prevents holding them to account for it in the future. And from where I sit, Obama took a pretty bold stand against allowing them to dictate health care choices for women. Furthermore, as Greg points out Obama reversed the dynamic in the debate. The so-called attack on religious liberty has been negated, leaving the Church and the GOP with the sole position of being against any reproductive health care at all. Not a popular stand.

As for the insurers, they save money by passing out birth control instead of paying for abortions and pregnancies. They'll still be scum sucking skimmers, but that would true in any case. It's who they are and what they do. Granted this isn't a glorious victory, but not seeing how this isn't a win for Team Obama and for women. It's certainly more than we had three weeks ago.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Pink, pink, you stink: Komen backs down

I've been offline for a couple of days so the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation fiasco played out without me. I see it didn't take long for the pink ribbon people to back down in the face of overwhelming criticism. Komen announced today they would restore Planned Parenthood funding.

The official line is they realized they made a mistake in basing the decision to defund on a poltical investigation and absent an actual criminal finding of guilt. Thinking it's more likely it's because their major sponsors looked likely to jump, wealthy pro choice advocates wanted their money back and insurrection within the foundation itself. "Two top Komen officials resigned in protest following the announcement. Local chapters of Komen also rebelled, pledging to defy the order and continue funding Planned Parenthood."

Furthermore, the enormous pushback exposed unsavory details about their spending. It appears Komen for the Cure is a gigantic scam:

Komen’s founder and CEO, Nancy Brinker, is a big money Republican with ties to the past three Republican administration who received a political appointment from George W. Bush as a reward for her fundraising largesse. She draws a salary of $459,000 annually, money well spent compared to the 39% of its budget the foundation spends on “public health education” (i.e., marketing itself). Not to mention that they also spend a million bucks per year in legal fees to threaten other non-profit groups who use the phrase For the Cure, to which Komen(tm) claims to have intellectual property rights.

It couldn't be more clear the choice to pull Planned Parenthood's funding in the first place was driven by highly placed anti-choice wingers within the foundation. Under the circumstances, the walk back is too little, too late.

Planned Parenthood issued a gracious statement thanking Komen for the reversal however, one has to ask why anyone should support Komen ever again. I figure just about everyone has lost someone to breast cancer and these people have preyed on their wish to help find a cure mainly to enrich themselves. Seems to me pro-choicers would do better to donate directly to Planned Parenthood and skip the middlewomen.

Much more in a dozen other posts at Balloon Juice and Memeorandum. [graphic via]

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Theocrats anoint Santorum

The 150 "Christian right" powerbrokers at the evangelical confab in Houston, no doubt after much public prayer, decided to bestow their blessing on little Ricky Santorum. It took three rounds of votes to get there. Apparently the first round was offered up in symbolic support for the other Rick, Gov Goodhair. I guess the second vote was to make it look like a hard choice. And they are very careful to inform us that the word Mormon never even came up in conversation.

Of course, Gov Goodhair would have been the natural choice. He's one of them. A true evangelical patriot. He speaks their language. He has money. He's never lost an election. Can't you just imagine the convos in the quiet rooms. Something along the lines of, "We gotta stop that Yankee heathen from walking off with this thing. We loves us some Rick but sweet Jesus, the man is stumblin like a street drunk on a Saturday night."

So little Ricky Santorum it is. Because he's the most reliable. Meaning he hasn't done anything wildly embarrasing yet. In light of this development, my pal Joe Gandelman puts his money on Romney. That's the safe bet for sure. Nobody is going to drop out before the vote. They all have decent money left and they're going to spend it on media buys. Willard's numbers are relatively solid. Looks like the vote only splits under him.

Me, I like long shots. I'm taking the under. If Willard doesn't win by at least ten points, it's still an open race. And no, I'm not impressed by the polling in Florida. The numbers change daily. All it would take is a Rovian style whisper campaign to change everything. [graphic credit]

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No, Vitter should not resign

I understand the irritation with the double standard and the hypocrisy, but Steve Weinstein is right. This outcry on the left for the resignations of GOPers who have been in sex scandals is not helping. As Steve says:

But there is a reason some wise person named Mahatma once said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Blind serves the GOP as they goose step about demolishing Planned Parenthood and unions, plundering jobs and any hopes for the survivability of an American middle class. The more they can saturate the airwaves with noise about penises and diapers, the easier it is for them to murder everything liberals hold dear.

And beyond the distraction factor, the remaining question is, are liberals really willing to act as proxy theocrats? Are they really willing to condemn non-harmful sexual conduct between consenting adults because it's a political opponent commiting the act? Not seeing how that's so different from what Bretibart and the fundies are doing.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Perry's Inferno

I didn't know until now that Texas is being ravaged by an unprecedented rash of wildfires. Just horrible. But in response, unrepentant climate change denier, Governor Perry of Texas issues a proclamation to pray for rain? For the next 72 hours, Perry implores the people to raise their hands to the heavens and beseech their gods of choice to pour water on the parched lands of his realm.

Thinking, Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, in his remarks to MoJo, has the appropriate response:

"I certainly don't think that praying will hurt. My concern is that the Governor has no Plan B," wrote Dessler in an email. "If praying doesn't work, what then? If we don't start taking reasonable steps to protect ourselves soon, then I will indeed be praying—for better leadership in Austin."

Me, I'll pray to the rain gods, but only to spare the good people of Texas and deliver them from Perry's reign of error.

Sanctity of Life

Shorter ""Pro-lifers": Ban medically safe abortions and sanctify forced pregnancies or we're going to kill you. [Roy Edroso has the longer.]

Of course the sanctity of life stops at the womb. No way they want those "dead beat" poor kids to get health care or free lunch at school after they're born.

It's Just Us

I missed the President's presser today, but I'm hearing it went very well. Of course the Park51 cultural center was brought up by Fox, and Obama gave the perfect answer. Read it all at the link, but this part really resonates:

The other reason it's important for us to remember that is because we've got millions of Muslim-Americans, our fellow citizens, in this country. They're going to school with our kids. They're our neighbors. They're our friends. They're our coworkers. And, you know, when we start acting as if their religion is somehow offensive, what are we saying to them?

"I've got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan, in the uniform of the United States armed services. They're out there putting their lives on the line for us, and we've got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes: They are Americans. And we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don't differentiate between 'them' and 'us.' It's just 'us.'"

I made sort of the same point in a related post at DetNews this afternoon relative to the Twin Towers Muslim prayer room, a compelling story that should also be read in full. Ground Zero and the tragedy of Ground Zero belongs to everyone -- Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Shiks, Hindus, atheists and probably a dozen other religions among the 70 countries who lost their citizens there. No one has the sole claim to dictate who what happens in that space.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Practically my neighbor

They call this the Bible Belt and the evangelists make a big show of preaching on street corners and parading their piousness. But all too often I hear about ministers in these churches preaching hate against "the other" and barring those even of their own faith who don't conform to their purity tests from attending their services. This guy is especially egregious though.

This past Tuesday, the FBI arrested 26-year old Christian radical Justin Carl Moose in Concord, NC for “providing information to create explosives” to “blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic.” Through his conversations with an FBI informant and his Facebook page, Moose expressed virulent “anger at abortion doctors, President Barack Obama’s health care plan, and plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city.” He goes on to describe himself as “the Christian counterpart to Osama bin Laden” who “has learned a lot from the muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics.”

This "Christian" terrorist leaves less than an hour from me. In the course of the sting operation he gave explicit instructions to the FBI informant on how to carry out a murder spree. The scary part is, if you read the comment sections in the local media under any story having to do with religion, such as the county commissioners who wanted to open their meetings with Christian prayers only, you'll see this sort of hateful intolerance is bubbling under the surface all over the state. This guy is more blatant than most, but I doubt he's the only one willing to kill for Jesus. Just crazy.

Florida burning

It's bigotry day in the news. Those good "Christian" nutcases in Florida intend to go forward with their "burn a Koran day" and announced yesterday they will have a security force at the conflageration.

Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones has accepted the support of Right Wing Extreme, which he said offered to come to the church with between 500 and 2,000 men on September 11. He described the organization as an armed civilian militia group.

And without a trace of irony, this:

But in a statement sent to CNN by the Dove World Outreach Center, Right Wing Extreme founder Shannon Carson said: "We fully support Dove World Outreach Center and its efforts to put an end to the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. Islam is a violent cult with the goal of world domination."

As opposed to the Christian Taliban who want to ban birth control, criminalize abortion and otherwise force their religion beliefs into public law? And why am I suddenly remembering Altamont?

Defending the Ground Zero Mosque

A couple of great defenses were made yesterday for building the Muslim cultural center in New York. Mayor Bloomberg made a brilliant speech within the context of the history of the fight for religious freedom in New York. The money quote:

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

Also, of all people Jeffrey Goldberg made an equally eloquent defense.

Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative's proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama's most dire enemies are Muslims. This is quantitatively true, of course -- al Qaeda and its ideological affiliates have murdered thousands of Muslims -- but it is ideologically true as well: al Qaeda's goal is the purification of Islam (that is to say, its extreme understanding of Islam) and apostates pose more of a threat to Bin Laden's understanding of Islam than do infidels.

I know Feisal Abdul Rauf; I've spoken with him at a public discussion at the 96th street mosque in New York about interfaith cooperation. He represents what Bin Laden fears most: a Muslim who believes that it is possible to remain true to the values of Islam and, at the same time, to be a loyal citizen of a Western, non-Muslim country. Bin Laden wants a clash of civilizations; the opponents of this mosque project are giving him what he wants.

Both are well worth reading in full. In a sane world, people would listen and the protests would end.

Freedom of religion

I confess I haven't followed the mosque at Ground Zero story that closely until today. I assumed it was going to be just another shiny distraction for the usual hatemongering wingnuts and would die out on its own. Sadly I was wrong. I see, in a grim illustration of how far our media has fallen, the NYT is pimping the ADL's thinly veiled bigotry this morning.

So we have yet another colossal tradmed fail in merely reporting the bigots' commentary and it's once again the bloggers who provide the context. To start, there's already a mosque a block away from the proposed site of the new one. It's been there since 1970. Also the new site is not even a mosque, it's a cultural center.

And J Street nails an important point:

What better ammunition to feed the Osama bin Ladens of the world and their claim of anti-Muslim bias in the United States as they seek to whip up global jihad than to hold this proposal for a Muslim religious center to a different and tougher standard than other religious institutions would be.

Like free speech, when you deny religious freedom to one religion, it endangers that freedom for all religions. This should be obvious. Not sure why it's not.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

The crazy just never stops in the south. I'm actually a liberal who supports gun rights, but Jeebus, is nothing sacred? This strikes me as a taking gun rights to the extreme limit.

Louisiana state Rep. Henry Burns (R) has introduced a bill in the Louisiana House that would allow churches to institute a "security plan" enabling congregants with concealed weapons permits to carry guns into churches and temples.

According to a Burns spokesperson, "we buy fire extinguishers in case there's a fire," and allowing churchgoers to carry concealed is just the "final stage of security" for places of worship.

What kind of threat do they think they face? Unless they allow liberals or say an abortion doctor in their congregation, and most of them don't, who is threatening them? If anything they're the ones who threaten those who disagree with them. With my politics, I certainly wouldn't want to attend services where the crazy cons are packing concealed heat.

I won't be surprised if the bill passes though. Burns says he "believes he has the votes" and notes Arkansas passed a similar bill already. God can't rapture up these people soon enough for me.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The GOP's sex fetish

This is a new low in political ad smearing. A GOP ad digitally manipulates a still photo to make it appear the Democratic opponent is masturbating.



What is it with the GOP and sex anyway? From abortion to gay rights, they're always ogling our sex lives and wanting to dictate how and when people have sex. Yet the kinkiest sex scandals seem to be on their side of the fence. And the more holier than thou they are, the kinkier is gets.

The latest poster boy for "do as I say, not as I do" is of course George Alan Rekers, co-founder of the ultra-right, Christian based Family Research Council, who was caught coming off a plane with a young male prostitute at the conclusion of a long European vacation.

Rekers claims he had no idea the kid was a hooker and only hired the escort to lift his luggage, but as Joe.My.God points out, the Rentboy site where Rekers found his barely of legal age paramour is obviously a sex site. And if the kid was supposed to "lift his luggage," why was Rekers the one wheeling it through the airport?

I don't really care what the guy does in his sex life, but he's been a front line anti-gay warrior for years. It's the hypocrisy that rankles. And it's also clear that suppressing their sex drives is probably what makes GOPers and religious conservatives so effing crazy.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Atheists get an audience at the White House

In a counterpoint to the post below on the theocratic coup attempt going on in my state, this is a real change. In fact it's another historic first.

White House officials will this morning meet with leaders of the atheist community, who will discuss their concerns about the "privileging of religion" by the government "that harms real people," in the words of Sean Faircloth, executive director of the Secular Coalition of America.

I suspect it will turn out to be more symbolic than productive in terms of policy, but it's good to see the government acknowledge that non-Christians should have a voice too.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Separation of Church and State - Updated

In a county nearby to me the county commissioners voted on whether to appeal a court order telling them they couldn't open their meetings with prayers that specifically reference Jesus. The county wouldn't be paying for the appeal, a bunch of fundie churches apparently are willing to spend hundreds of thousands to "protect their freedom of religion." Don't ask me why but I read the comments and became so irritated, I actually left several comments under an assumed name.

I jumped in at the first dozen or so, and then again a few times at around 115 in. Didn't expect it to last more than one day, but it's still up. I'm betting you can guess which one I am.

Update: Sorry, I linked to wrong article. My comments are here at the local Fox afilliate's post. They've since updated the story and the appeal has been filed.

The initial coverage led me to believe this was going to be funded by a local Christian alliance, but as it turns out, this is a project of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national organization run by far right theocrats. Founded by Dobson of Focus on the Family, its funders include Erik Prince of Blackwater, and his sister Betsy DeVos who is married to Richard DeVos who made his fortune on the Amway scam. Another funder is Bolthouse Farms, who sell organic products in health food stores, including Whole Foods. You might want to keep that in mind when you're shopping there.

The latest figures I can find show the Alliance is sitting on at least a $39 million war chest to pursue their theocratic agenda, that includes anti-choice, anti-equal marriage initatives, and encouraging spiritual leaders to endorse candidates from the pulpit so they have test cases towards establishing churches be allowed to abridge the separation of church and state in this manner without losing their tax-exempt status.

Also sitting on their board is Charles Pickering as Senior Counsel. You may recognize the name from when Bush made a recess appointment to seat him on the Fifth Circuit court. His nomination had been blocked because of his dismal civil rights record on the lower bench. A look at the Alliance's allies turns up the Heritage Foundation among other orgs dedicated to destroying free choice and government as we know it.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]