The Christian Dem Home Journal

NYT: Palin's governorship started tanking after the calendar turned

2009-07-13T09:12:00.000-04:00

If you're a fan of Sarah Palin, today's New York Times isn't the paper for you. It's got a front-page story--above the fold--which shows that Palin started royally failin' not long after she returned from the presidential campaign trail.

How bad did it get? Her fellow Republican governors tried to send help.

In late March, a senior official from the Republican Governors Association headed for Alaska on a secret mission. Sarah Palin was beset by such political and personal turmoil that some powerful supporters determined an intervention was needed to pull her governorship, and her national future, back from the brink.

The official, the association’s executive director, Nick Ayers, arrived with a memorandum containing firm counsel, according to several people who know its details: Make a long-term schedule and stick to it, have staff members set aside ample and inviolable family time to replenish your spirits, and build a coherent home-state agenda that creates jobs and ensures re-election.

But as you might expect from our favorite mavericky diva, Palin didn't listen--and instead kept proving why she was not even remotely ready for prime time.

It started when she came back to Alaska in January to be greeted by a raft of ethics complaints. While most of them were thrown out for want of merit, the NYT says that Palin became consumed by them--to the point her hair started thinning out, requiring an emergency visit to her hairdresser back in Wasilla.

The constant feuding over the ethics complaints and the David Letterman flap, among others, caused a lot of people who supported her to think she was losing focus. For instance, Republican state rep Nancy Dahlstrom, who worked for Palin's 2006 campaign, said that Palin seemed to think she was "all about adoration" rather than governing. Another state rep, John Coghill, thinks Palin misstepped by paying too much attention to the barbs being thrown at her.

The article also details some of Palin's missteps on the national stage. At one point, it seemed her left hand didn't know what her right hand was doing.

After the Conservative Political Action Conference, a meeting of the Republican Party’s evangelical base, announced that the governor would have a coveted speaking role at its annual gathering in February, she canceled, citing scheduling conflicts. Then, organizers of one of the most important Republican Congressional fund-raisers of the year said they had been assured by a political aide to Ms. Palin that she would be their headliner, only to have her Anchorage office announce that she knew nothing about it.

Those snafus particularly concerned one of her major backers, Fred Malek. He tried to tell Palin that she needed to get a better way to return calls. Palin's response? Wait for it--"What number are they calling?" No wonder John Coale, the Democratic lawyer who helped set up SarahPAC, thinks that there were times Palin didn't know what being on the national stage meant.

The NYT did manage to interview Palin for this story. It makes it sound like she was caught by surprise by all the heat she's faced lately. This seems to lend a bit of credence to Andrea Mitchell's report that she might be out of politics for good. For one thing, Palin said the seeds for her resignation were planted when she became McCain's running mate.

“It began when we started really looking at the conditions that had so drastically changed on Aug. 29,” she said. “The hordes of opposition researchers came up here digging for dirt for political reasons, making crap up.”

Hmmm--that couldn't be because McCain himself didn't even bother to vet you, could it?

McCain owes Obama an apology

2009-07-11T13:42:00.001-04:00

In light of revelations that Sarah Palin's "pals around with terrorists" line wasn't a rogue moment, but had been ordered by top McCain campaign operatives (h/t to Jed Lewinson at dKos), it's time for McCain to show some leadership and apologize to President Obama.

By remaining silent on this, McCain is at the very least condoning a vicious attack on someone else's patriotism. Last I checked, attacking one's patriotism is supposed to be a "third rail." Remember how careful we had to be to avoid the appearance that we were dissing McCain's service during the campaign?

If John McCain has even one iota of integrity left in him, he should apologize. Crash his Inbox--and if you live in Arizona, pester him here.

OneNewsNow has a hissy fit over government investigating Tiller murder

2009-06-09T17:21:00.000-04:00

The Justice Department has made it known that Scott Roeder wasn't a lone nut and is determined to find out who else helped plan the murder of George Tiller. And OneNewsNow isn't the least bit happy about it. In an "interview" with Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, OneNewsNow suggests that there's something sinister about the government actually doing its job.

"This may be more of a nefarious effort than it appears on its face," she exclaims, "that in fact, the Department of Justice may be trying to smear pro-lifers, as if we all belong in the same camp, as if we all advocate violence, when it's [actually] just the opposite."

Wright then claims that Holder should devote as many resources to protecting military recruiting facilities as he apparently intends to devote to this investigation. There's a difference here, Wendy. You've got mainstream pro-life leaders issuing veiled calls for violence against abortion providers (see Engle, Lou). Not only that, but you've also got mainstream pro-life movements having in their top leadership people who have admitted to trying to bomb abortion clinics. If there's a parallel here, I don't see it.

My (ex-)pastor compared aborted babies to those who died for our country

2009-05-27T16:30:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned back in February, when you're a charismatic/pentecostal Dem, you have to have a thick skin. On Sunday, however, I heard something that was way, way beyond my tolerance level. The pastor there actually compared aborted pregnancies to the men and women who died for our country.

No, folks, I'm not kidding. Midway through his sermon, the pastor picked up a piece of paper and read off the numbers of people who died during the Revolution, Civil War, both World Wars, Korea and Vietnam. He then unrolled the paper and said every "X" on it represented a pregnancy that had been ended since Roe v. Wade--50 million in all, more than everyone who has died in our major wars.

Now you're wondering, "How come you didn't get up and leave?" Well, I was so shocked at hearing something so outrageous that I didn't know how to react. It wasn't until after I was getting ready to leave that it hit me just how outrageous this was. And this after we started our service by singing "God Bless America", and ended it with an encouragement to visit gravesites of dead veterans to remember what they did. After essentially spitting in their faces? What nerve!

I wanted to give the pastor both barrels as I left, but was still boiling as I left. I seriously thought about ripping him a new one in an email after I calmed down. But then I remembered. His nephew fought in Iraq. If he knew that and still made that comparison, there was really no point. Fortunately, at least one of my more conservative friends was appalled at what my now-ex pastor said.

I know that the old-school religious right is several miles out of touch--after all, a good-sized number of younger born-agains (like yours truly) have realized that abortion isn't the be-all, end-all to everything. But are the tail-enders so fixated that they're willing to cheapen the sacrifices of those who died for our country? If they are, then they deserve to be relegated to the same place as the Larouchies, where they rightly belong.

We need another moratorium on further proceedings with detainees

2009-05-23T15:32:00.000-04:00

I'd been willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt regarding his plan for tribunals to try terrorist detainees, since he intends to include safeguards that would ensure due process and avoid the appearance of drumhead proceedings. After all, an argument can be made that these people are still at war with the United States and thus can't be tried in normal civilian courts.

However, the staggering revelation by Yvonne Bradley, attorney for former detainee Binyam Mohammed, that his entire case is based on evidence obtained through torture, changes the whole picture. No amount of safeguards are enough to alleviate the possibility that any statements made by the detainees regarding their crimes aren't legitimate. To my mind, the only justifiable course is a new moratorium on further proceedings against them. It would allow us time to determine whether there's enough credible evidence to even try them.

It's been argued here that we can't even try those against whom the evidence is overwhelming because we have forfeited the moral authority to seek justice. I disagree. If there's enough credible evidence left after we exclude what was obtained through torture, we should try them. It would be grossly irresponsible to do otherwise.

A moratorium would also allow us to look more into the circumstances of the extraordinary renditions. Did anyone know, or have reason to know, that the detainees were being sent to countries where they would be tortured? If they did, it's possible that the Geneva Conventions would demand that we release even those who are manifestly guilty. Even if they are "the worst of the worst," there is no defensible reason I can think of to knowingly send them off to be tortured.

I find myself thinking back to the Ted Stevens case. Stevens was manifestly guilty, but the prosecutorial misconduct was so egregious that to my mind, the only option was to effectively vacate the conviction. The discovery that the prosecution may have knowingly allowed the star witness to perjure himself, I believe, would have been enough to throw out Stevens' conviction on appeal. When Holder saw this, I believe he decided to cut his losses and dismiss the indictment.

Any releases that occurred after a moratorium, I believe, would shut up the inevitable criticism that Obama is letting out people who have said they will kill Americans again. He can say, "We've looked at this extensively, and have determined that we have no credible basis to continue holding them."

So this needs to be our next course--call for a moratorium. After all, going too fast is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Wingers falsely claim that hate crimes bill would protect pedophilia

2009-05-10T11:20:00.000-04:00

Conservatives have a new game plan to derail the hate crimes bill--they're now claiming it would provide special protection to pedophilia and other forms of sexual deviancy.

Apparently this tempest in a teapot began when Steve King (R-IA05) tried to tack on an amendment to the bill in committee which specifically excluded pedophiles from claiming they were a protected "sexual orientation" under the bill. The amendment failed. Then during debate on =the full House floor, King claimed that since sexual orientation wasn't defined in the bill, he could only assume they were voting to protect the 547 "paraphilias" defined by the American Psychological Association--including pedophilia.

Naturally, the wingers are all over this. WorldNutDaily is urging people to call their Senators and tell them they oppose what it calls "the Pedophile Protection Act."

But as always, those carnsarn facts are never really important to wingers.

What King and the other wingers aren't telling their foot soldiers is that sexual orientation is already defined in federal law. The Hate Crime Statistics Act specifically defines "sexual orientation" as "consensual heterosexuality or homosexuality." And Tammy Baldwin (D-Madison) reminded King of this during the markup for the hate crimes bill.

But in every other case, gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, national origin, color and—I am missing one—the architecture of the hate crimes statutes in the United States is those definitions do not lie within that architecture. They exist elsewhere in federal law, and we rely on them. So there is a clear, concise definition of sexual orientation.

Your amendment is unnecessary and also, I would add, inflammatory in terms of insinuations, I would say. But given the definition of sexual orientation meaning consensual homosexuality or heterosexuality, it is absolutely clear that that could not include pedophilia.

Even this inconvenient fact isn't enough for the other Repub leading the charge against supposed protection of pedophilia, Louie Gohmert (R-TX01). He told WorldNutDaily that the failure to define sexual orientation opens up a can of worms.

"Having reviewed cases as an appellate judge, I know that when the legislature has the chance to include a definition and refuses, then what we look at is the plain meaning of those words," explained Gohmert. "The plain meaning of sexual orientation is anything to which someone is orientated. That could include exhibitionism, it could include necrophilia (sexual arousal/activity with a corpse) ... it could include urophilia (sexual arousal associated with urine), voyeurism. You see someone spying on you changing clothes and you hit them, they've committed a misdemeanor, you've committed a federal felony under this bill. It is so wrong."

Now, King can be cut some slack because he is one of the few non-lawyers on the House Judiciary Committee. But Gohmert has no excuse. Not only is he a lawyer, he was a judge in Texas for 13 years before being elected to Congress with the help of the DeLaymander. The Hate Crime Statistics Act was signed into law in 1992--the same year he became a judge. It's hard to believe he doesn't know he's blowing smoke on this.

We already know the wingers want to make it look like Democrats have no moral values. But they're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Richard Land comes out against waterboarding

2009-05-09T12:24:00.000-04:00

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has broken ranks with most other evangelicals and condemned waterboarding as torture.

There is no room for torture as part of the United States’ intelligence gathering process, in Richard Land’s view. The practice known as “waterboarding” is torture, he said.

Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said there is no circumstance in which torture should be permissible in interrogations by U.S. officials, even if the authorities believe a prisoner has information that might involve national security.

Where in the world was Land on this seven years ago? As one of Bush's top advisers on religious freedom, you'd have thought he'd have said something.

This question becomes even more stark when you read Land's take on waterboarding--it sounds a lot like something you'd read on dKos.

Land said he considers waterboarding torture because included in the definition of torture is whether a procedure causes permanent physical harm, noting he is unable to “separate physical from psychological harm” in this instance. The practice contravenes an individual’s personhood and their humanity, he said.

“It violates everything we believe in as a country,” Land said, noting the Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Land also rejects the argument that waterboarding saved lives, saying it is a "very slippery slope." He also pointed out that the Southern Baptists passed a resolution condemning torture in 1977, and even now they still stand behind it.

The last paragraph, in particular, could have been written by a Kossack.

“There are some things you should never do to another human being,” Land said, “no matter how horrific the things they have done.

“If you do so, you demean yourself down to their level,” he said.

Civilized countries should err on the side of caution, Land said. “It does cost us something to play by different rules than our enemies, but it would cost us far more if we played by their rules,” he said.

Unfortunately, some of the comments reveal just how ingrained the idea that it's OK to torture is among born-agains.

I have always respected Dr. Land, but now I am rethinking this as he now agrees with of the Obama administration, with McCain who lost the election because he no longer stood for working from a position of strength, and with the enemies of this great nation who behead people on camera, who fly airplanes into buildings, who have sworn to destory both this nation and God’s people Israel. They would certainly agree with you, but they will never think that this rule applys to them, they will torture without mercy. Dr. Land you are getting weak as you age and stood think about stepping down in order to let someone who will not compromise with the weak politicians and with the enemy. This is not only a horrible opinion from Dr. Land, it is asking our nation to cowardly compromise and weaken itself in this very real war.

I must disagree. I believe that the lives of thousands are more important than the one life of one unrepentant murderer who will continue to murder God’s children in the name of God. We have to take a stand somewhere and I am drawing my line at coddling mass murderers. I am quite certain that “lasting psychological trauma” was inflicted on this man long before we ever heard of him.

Only one commenter supports Land's stance on this. As a born-again Christian, this truly saddens me. One would think that we born-agains would agree that there are certain things we just don't do as a nation.

Sadly, however, Land says that he could condone tactics such as sleep deprivation or forcing someone to remain in a cold room. Which is odd, since it seems to me that either tactic would cause "permanent physical harm," and it would be awfully difficult to separate psychological harm from physical harm in these case. Still, one can only hope he comes around on this as well.

Proposed cyberbullying law goes too far

2009-05-07T17:33:00.001-04:00

Linda Sanchez has proposed a law that would specifically criminalize cyberbullying. I'm concerned, though, that this bill might be an overreach.

The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act would make any electronic speech that is intended to "coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person" as part of a pattern of "severe, repeated and hostile behavior" punishable by up to two years in prison. I hope I'm very wrong here, but this seems to be far too broad as currently worded.

In fact, the wording of this bill is very similar to a 2006 law that makes it a crime to post "annoying" messages without disclosing your true identity.

Volokh suspects that this may be a case of poor drafting, and suggests the following scenario that could come into play under this law.

I try to coerce a politician into voting a particular way, by repeatedly blogging (using a hostile tone) about what a hypocrite / campaign promise breaker / fool / etc. he would be if he voted the other way. I am transmitting in interstate commerce a communication with the intent to coerce using electronic means (a blog) "to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior" -- unless, of course, my statements aren't seen as "severe," a term that is entirely undefined and unclear. Result: I am a felon, unless somehow my "behavior" isn't "severe."

He describes other instances, but I'm not willing to copy too much without violating fair use.

I'd like to think it would be a matter of taking out "severe" since that term isn't well defined in the text of the bill, or even adding in "with intent to criminally harass." As it stands now, this bill wouldn't pass First Amendment muster.

Janis Karpinski: Memos raise questions about Abu Ghraib guilt

2009-05-01T10:21:00.000-04:00

Janis Karpinski was on CNN's "American Morning" today to air out her take on the released torture memos. Karpinski, for those who don't remember, was commander of Abu Ghraib prison when inmates there were mistreated. As we now know, Jay Bybee's memo may well have opened the door for the mistreatment of those inmates. Now Karpinski says that the memos may vindicate the soldiers who were convicted of mistreating those inmates. There's video as well--unfortunately, it won't embed.

Karpinski suggests that since the behavior at Abu Ghraib was apparently authorized at the time, she and the seven soldiers ought to be exonerated. I wouldn't go that far, simply because there is no justifiable reason that they should go completely unpunished. However, at the same time, they ought to have some--but certainly not all--of the black marks removed from their names.

Karpinski said that her troops got their orders from personnel who knew about the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used elsewhere.

The soldiers at Abu Ghraib were receiving instructions from people who obviously had experience at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or Bagram Air Force Base, or somewhere in between. The people who were giving them those orders or those instructions certainly had access to, if not directly to, the memorandums. They understood the permissions given to them in those memorandums. And, in some cases, you look at the memorandums, you look at the photographs that were kind of hand-drawn to support the instructions in those memorandums, then you see in living-color in a photograph taken from Abu Ghraib what those memorandums produced. So five years ago I believed, and now I really believe, from those memorandums, the administration, the people in the Pentagon, the people in the White House, the top level of our government, they were terrified because these photographs were the photographic evidence of what the memorandums were saying.

In other words--apparently when the Abu Ghraib story broke, the people who signed off on these memos were scared to death in case it could be in any way traced to the memos. Had that happened, the outcry would have been such that a lot of heads would have rolled (Gonzo, Bybee and Yoo immediately come to mind--and possibly Condi and even Cheney). So they must have figured that if they blamed it on a few rogue soldiers, that would be the end of it. But of course, they didn't bank on things going to hell and fast in Iraq--one of the major reasons they're out of office now.

However, I can't agree with Karpinski's call for the soldiers to be completely exonerated. She wants them to have their convictions and bad discharges overturned, along with a full presidential pardon. And if I'm understanding her right, she also wants to be restored to her old rank of brigadier general (she was busted down to colonel as a result of the scandal).

Looking at this from my journalist's perspective, these troops had it drilled into their heads from basic training onward that they are morally and legally bound to disobey an illegal order. It's hard to believe they didn't at least wonder if something sounded right about what they were being told. And Karpinski essentially abdicated control of the prison to the interrogators--a pretty serious dereliction of duty.

However, in light of the fact that these tactics were apparently authorized at very high levels, it would be almost as wrong to continue to let these troops be held solely responsible for what happened. While the full exoneration Karpinski wants would be going too far, removing the dishonorable and bad conduct discharges is the least that should be done. And it's all the more reason for why those responsible for those memos should be up on charges. If Karpinski's account is true, then you can add "accessory before the fact to war crimes" to the long list of charges against Bybee, Yoo and Co.

AFA still purity-trolling on Sebelius nomination

2009-04-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

One would think that with the current flu outbreak that maybe, just maybe the religious right would ramp down their vocal opposition to Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary because she's more than qualified for the job.

Unfortunately, that was way too much to expect from the American Family Association. By way of its in-house wire service, OneNewsNow, the AFA blasts Sam Brownback for his support of Sebelius.

Wichita pastor Terry Fox, a longtime friend and supporter of Senator Brownback, says the word "disappointment" would not be strong enough to describe his reaction to Brownback's actions. Pastor Fox says members of his Wichita church have made hundreds of phone calls to Brownback's office, but the senator "doesn't care what conservative Christians think" on this matter.

Never mind that the WHO has just run up the threat level of this outbreak just one step below a full-blown pandemic. Never mind that there are now 109 confirmed cases in this country alone. No, no. All that matters is that Brownback supported a baby-killing librul in the Cabinet.

Fox suggests that there could be hell to pay from Kansas fundies when Brownback runs for governor in 2010.

"The part of the body of Christ that I'm a part of feels that we've been betrayed by Sam Brownback," says Fox. "Pat Roberts has disappointed us before, and we know him some; but really, Sam Brownback has been a huge disappointment. And I would say [that] we must, we must hold Sam Brownback accountable for this vote."

No, Pastor Fox. The real betrayal would have been forcing Obama to start the confirmation process all over again in the face of this crisis. Has it occurred to you that maybe--just maybe--this head-in-the-sand approach is why it'll be 2014 at the earliest before you can even think of getting even ONE congressional chamber back?

Then again, looking back at Fox' history, it's not entirely surprising he's among the tailenders on this. Fox was at the forefront of anti-abortion activism in the Wichita area before being forced out of his old church due to financial irregularities. In other words--part of the old generation of born-agains who are still hung up on abortion and gay rights.

Maybe we should let Fox know what we think of his irresponsibility. Drop him a line at his church's contact form.

Michael Hayden calls release of memos a threat to national security

2009-04-20T10:05:00.001-04:00

Bush's last CIA chief, Michael Hayden, blasted Obama's decision to release the Bush-era torture memos, saying that Obama has made it harder for the CIA to do its job.

"What we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an al Qaeda terrorist. That's very valuable information," Hayden said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

"By taking [certain] techniques off the table, we have made it more difficult -- in a whole host of circumstances I can imagine -- for CIA officers to defend the nation," he said.

No, General Hayden. We took these techniques off the table for one reason and one reason alone. Any reasonable person would know that these methods are torture. Period.

Here's an excerpt:

Hayden claims that with the release of these memos, CIA officers will now have to live in fear of prosecution--something which he believes dangerously politicizes their jobs. If taking methods off the table simply because they go against who we are as a nation is politicizing your job, then you need your head examined.

He also claims that declaring waterboarding and other tactics illegal is counterproductive since they're still being studied. You mean to tell me you need a study to know waterboarding is torture?

Then again, we're talking about a guy who thinks probable cause isn't in the Fourth Amendment:

Star Parker warns us not to count the fundies out yet

2009-04-14T09:37:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned on Daily Kos in November, a critical step in building a long-term Democratic majority is to marginalize the religious right. Even James Dobson admits the "culture wars" are lost.

But there are a few tailenders, as you might expect. And one of them's Star Parker. In a column for OneNewsNow, she tells us, "We're not going anywhere."

For although the Pew Research Center reports that the partisan gap in approval for President Obama is the widest this gap has been in modern times with the difference between Democrat approval of Obama, 88 percent, and Republican approval, 27 percent, the "values" gap reflected in Pew and other studies is far too significant for some to suggest that conservative Christians take their voting rights home to be buried.

Parker then ticks off several moral issues where there is a huge chasm between Democrats and Republicans--a not-so-subtle statement that Republicans are the party of values. But one bullet she pulls out actually undermines her argument.

Abortion is morally acceptable to 51 percent of Democrats compared to 25 percent of Republicans. And with 48 million abortion deaths since Roe v. Wade, should no political concern address the societal costs of this law?

Hmmm ... by my math, that's only a bare majority of Democrats who are strongly pro-choice, while something like three-fourths of Republicans are pro-life. Could that mean that Democrats are more tolerant of people who oppose abortion, while Republicans are pushing out pro-choicers? Doesn't sound like Democrats are as hostile to pro-lifers as you think, Star.

She then makes a patently offensive statement that needs no analysis:

Homosexuality is morally acceptable to 55 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of Republicans. And 52 percent of Democrats are ready to legalize same-sex marriage compared to 22 percent of Republicans. We only need to look at 30 years of inner-city data and see the impact of coupling government social engineering with unbridled sexual impulse.

Parker then slips into the siege mentality that is all too familiar to veteran watchers of the religious right.

The Christian right has interjected itself into the political world because the political world came into their world.

The public schools that are educating the majority of America's children have been increasingly secularized and politicized. The workplace has been purged of biblical ethics. All public space is darkened by lawless and vulgar lasciviousness and becoming increasingly intolerant of practicing Christians.

The result is that secular Americans have had a disproportionate impact on our country over recent years and biblical Americans are now fighting back with their voting rights.

What she conveniently forgets is that "Biblical Americans" had control of the White House for eight years and complete control of the government for four years. And what did that get us? Staggering corruption, a war with Iraq that is almost certainly an illegal war of aggression, an administration that thinks you need a briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture--need I go on? If this is your idea of a more moral, Godly government, this reality-based charismatic/pentecostal Christian would rather have strychnine.

Apparently Parker doesn't know that a significant number of born-agains of my generation (mid 20s to mid 30s) has figured out that there are things more important than abortion and gay rights. We want to impact our society--but unlike Parker, we're sincere in wanting a place at the table rather than simply grabbing it and throwing it on top of everyone else.

Obama at G-20: America was responsible for financial crisis

2009-04-12T15:03:00.000-04:00

We already know that the Obama administration has been a breath--or more accurately, a full gale--of fresh air. Just how fresh, however, is something that most of us don't know. At the G-20 summit, Obama made a startling admission--the responsibility for the financial crisis rests squarely on our shoulders.

"It is true, as my Italian friend has said, that the crisis began in the US. I take responsibility, even if I wasn't even president at the time." And he underscored how important it is for him "that we now genuinely make progress. Thank you."

The statement came in response to a statement by Silvio Berlusconi that pointed the finger at the United States for causing the crisis and that "now he (Obama) has to address it." And Obama's response? No buck-passing. No assertion of superiority.

For those who don't know, Der Spiegel is the German counterpart of Time. You can practically feel its surprise at Obama's statement.

The others couldn't believe their ears. Was that really a confession of guilt from the US? Was it a translation error, or at least an inaccuracy?

It also created quite a buzz among the other leaders there. For instance, Japan no longer opposes holding the next G-20 summit in the United States now that we've shouldered responsibility.

Der Spiegel suggests it may have been privy to one of the great moments in world history.

Obama's confession may go down in world history as one of the greatest statements ever made. The US president is accepting responsibility for the beginning of one of the worst economic crises of the last century. By doing so, he has admitted that one of the excesses of the American way of life -- the insatiable craving for huge profits -- has brought the world to the brink of disaster. The others may have played their part, but the origins lie in the US. The fact that Obama has now admitted this sends a strong signal of hope to the world, perhaps the strongest to emerge from the G-20 summit in London last Wednesday and Thursday. Such an admission could begin to pave the way towards rectifying the situation.

Amazingly, there was no mention of this at all in the American press--according to the Christian Science Monitor, the only American outlet to even touch it was Politico, and then only in passing. It's too bad. Reading this is a reminder of how proud we should all be to have a president in office who is willing to take the responsibility being the leader of the developed world entails.

Obama gets lectured by WND for not finding a church

2009-04-09T16:56:00.000-04:00

As if WorldNetDaily hasn't already abandoned any claim to be a bastion of serious journalism, today it jumps all over Obama for--horrors!--not going to church even once since taking office.

Despite his vow to find a new church after disassociating himself with Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery rhetoric, President Obama reportedly has not attended a single church service since he took office.
[snip]
However, after 11 Sundays in office, Obama still hasn't found a church – even with Easter just four days away.

Has it occurred to Joseph Farah that Obama has more pressing needs to take care of--like the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? Oh, that's right. He's too busy trolling about whether he's really a natural-born citizen. This article hits a particularly raw nerve with me as well. As many of you know. I was a member of a cultish Christian group that also thought your butt should be in church every Sunday unless you were sick--and more pressing needs (like studying) be damned.

The article tut-tuts that three of Obama's four most recent predecessors attended several church services within weeks of taking office--all except Reagan, due to security concerns (no doubt related to the attempt on his life). But did any of them face nearly the crises that Obama has faced so early? I doubt it.

I find it unconscionable that WorldNutDaily is wagging its finger at Obama for not dropping everything and going to church, considering what he was handed from Shrub. But then again, I'm not surprised given WorldNutDaily's Pharisaical orientation. As I've mentioned several times, during my first semester at Carolina I was a member of a hypercharismatic Christian campus ministry. Need to study? Have a homework assignment that's giving you trouble? Didn't matter--your butt was expected to be in church on Sunday, as well as other activities during the week. Even during exam week, of all times. I'm not kidding--I was in my dorm, getting ready to head up to the library and study when one of the guys in that bunch walked in--all dressed up for church! When I told him I needed to study, he said, "Those are your priorities" with obvious disdain. Read more about my experiences with this bunch at my personal blog.

Given the circumstances Obama faces, I'm pretty sure God will understand Obama missing church. Perhaps this article's author, Chelsea Schilling, needs to be reminded of this fact--email her at cschilling at wnd.com.

Powell's former chief of staff: Innocent people detained at Gitmo

2009-03-20T09:25:00.000-04:00

Colin Powell's former chief of staff has just told the world what many of us have long suspected--an awful lot of detainees at Gitmo are actually innocent.

Many detainees locked up at Guantanamo were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Lawrence B. Wilkerson, a Republican who was chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, told The Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years."

Wilkerson goes on to say that the sole reason a lot of these people are being held is that they just happened to be on or near the war zone, they knew something of importance. That's like saying everyone who lives in the same neighborhood as a reputed Mafia boss has to know his activities.

In a guest post at The Washington Note, Wilkerson accuses those responsible for vetting people for transit to Gitmo of staggering incompetence.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said vetting on the battlefield during the early stages of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan was incompetent with no meaningful attempt to determine "who we were transporting to Cuba for detention and interrogation."
[snip]
In his posting for The Washington Note blog, Wilkerson wrote that "U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released."

How bad was it? According to Wilkerson, scores of people were repatriated in the early going. Considering the rather loose definition of "enemy combatant" practiced at Gitmo, that's saying something. However, Wilkerson says the "they're all terrorists" meme was an obvious attempt to cover their asses for 9-11.

Here's something even more staggering--Wilkerson thinks that of the 240 detainees still at Gitmo, only 10 percent of them pose any real threat. And he suggests we might not be able to try even that bunch because "we tortured them and didn't keep an evidence trail." This is a former colonel, a Vietnam vet--and a Republican--talking here, folks.

Wilkerson's sat on this for awhile, but says Cheney's recent fearmongering compelled him to speak out.

Wilkerson, who flew combat missions as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and left the government in January 2005, said he did not speak out while in government because some of the information was classified. He said he feels compelled to do so now because Cheney has claimed in recent press interviews that President Barack Obama is making the U.S. less safe by ordering Guantanamo closed and reversing other Bush administration policies.
[snip]
"I'm very concerned about the kinds of things Cheney is saying to make it seem Obama is a danger to this republic," Wilkerson said. "To have a former vice president fearmongering like this is really, really dangerous."

That's what I call an understatement.

The only quibble I have with Wilkerson is that he suggests we should throw those 24 he thinks are actually dangerous into Supermax without trial. They need to be tried--at the very least before a proper court-martial. Remember, folks, terrorists are unlawful combatants under the Geneva Conventions--and it's no small thing that they can be tried.

Who is Philip J. Berg?

2009-03-17T09:42:00.000-04:00

I initially thought that Orly Taitz was the biggest strike against the credibility of the birther cause. After all, we're talking about a woman who studied law at an online degree mill and has been sued 34 times for medical malpractice. But no--her partner, Philip Berg, who is supposedly a Democrat, has some credibility issues that, in my view, dwarf even those of Taitz. We already know that Berg was a truther--something which by itself should blow apart his credibility. But oh, the things that have come up since he became a birther.

For starters, when Berg initially announced he was suing to get Obama thrown off the ballot, he seemed to have forgotten one important detail.

Mr. Berg has posted documents on his Web site, ObamaCrimes.com, he says back up his claims. But he said he doesn't know where they originated.

Believe it or not, that's not the best part. Berg was on the business end of one of the most severe smackdowns ever handed down to a lawyer.

According to The Legal Intelligencer, in 2001 Berg was retained to represent a contractor being sued by several pension funds for missing pension fund contributions. Berg didn't even respond, and a court issued a summary $5,300 judgment for the pension funds. A few months later, the pension funds won an additional $4,700 judgment to recover fees for the work they had to do to respond when Berg finally tried to get the judgment thrown out.

In late 2004, the contractor sued Berg for malpractice in Pennsylvania state court. Only then did Berg bother to actually respond to the original pension fund suit, claiming that the pension fund was making a fraudulent claim. That suit was shifted to federal court, and Berg's attempt to collect damages was thrown out. The pension fund then filed for sanctions, and Berg again failed to respond. The judge, already ticked off, said Berg's claim of fraud was "inadequately pled, not grounded in fact, time-barred, and utterly irrelevant to the pending malpractice action against him." He then ordered Berg to pay over $10,000 in legal fees and complete six hours of ethics courses (courses he must have slept through, given his behavior in the birther suits). He also recommended that the Pennsylvania Bar Association investigate Berg's conduct. Read the full decision here.

So in other words, one of the leaders of the birther cause is a conspiracy theorist and an attorney who has been proven to be asleep at the switch. Reminds me of the fact that the "he's a Muslim" canard was started by a vexatious litigant, an anti-Semite and a fugitive. In other words--the birthers have even less credibility than their claims.

Did you know NC's constitution bars atheists from holding office?

2009-02-24T17:16:00.000-05:00

When I found out that an Arkansas state rep is trying to repeal a provision in his state constitution that bars atheists from holding office, I remembered that, sadly, North Carolina's constitution has a similar provision.

Article 6, Section 8 says that anyone who "shall deny the being of Almighty God" can't hold office in the state. And here's another kicker--this provision was carried over verbatim from the 1868 Constitution even though SCOTUS threw out a similar provision in Maryland just 10 years before the current constitution was adopted.

To be sure, this provision has never been enforced since the adoption of our current constitution, since it would almost certainly be thrown out as a violation of the 1st and 14th Amendments (and possibly Article 6 as well). Still, to my mind the fact it's still there makes the state look backwoods.

I have to think there's a better chance than one may think of repealing this provision, if only because of the drubbing Liddy Dole took from Kay Hagan. Take a look at the county map of the Senate race. See that lovely swatch of blue on the coast? Conventional wisdom suggests that Liddy's "Godless" ads would have actually helped her here, especially since this area was usually the backbone of Jesse Helms' support. However, Hagan actually outperformed Obama in this part of the state.

This is an important distinction, because the real battle would be even getting an amendment to throw this provision out on the table. Per Article 12, the constitution can be amended by either a constitutional convention or a referendum. However, a convention can only be called by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly, and an amendment by referendum can only get on the ballot after a three-fifths vote of the General Assembly. I have a hunch that there's a majority in the General Assembly, as well as a majority in the whole state, in favor of throwing it out (since the Charlotte/Triad/Triangle corridor elects a substantial majority of both houses). After all, Hagan would have won even without doing as well as she did on the coast. So here's the $64,000 question--are there enough votes in the mountain and coastal legislative districts to even get this on the ballot?

2009-02-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

Most of you know that I'm a pentecostal/charismatic Christian. As such, there are a lot of times where I feel like the "embedded" Democrat, since I sometimes see first-hand the disconnect between the reality-based community and 25 Percent Land.

A little background--while I live in Charlotte, many of the charismatic churches around here that cater to people my age (20s and 30s--I'm 31 now) are steeped in the Dominionist/Latter Rain lunacy Dogemperor writes about. Having been part of a particularly notorious Latter Rain outfit for a brief time in my freshman year at Carolina, I wouldn't get within a country mile of it again. So since October, I've been going to a little church just across the county line in Gaston County. Even though Gaston has a plurality of Dems and is a mostly working-class area, it's got a strong tinge of social conservatism. Because of this, it's only voted Dem for president twice in recent memory--in 1964 and 1976.

As you might expect, there are times where I have to bite down hard--for instance, on gay rights. This church preaches the usual about gays being in sin--something that reflects on me personally, since I attended a predominantly gay church for three years, and several of my closest friends are lesbians (including a few who are charismatic--"lesbicostals," if you will).

Yesterday, however, I got a lesson in just how divergent things are in circles like this when the pastor quoted Perry Stone (a popular televangelist) as saying that Vince Foster was murdered by the Clinton administration. This myth is the 1990s equivalent of "he's a Muslim"--in fact, as we all know, it's been debunked several times over, including by Ken Starr of all people.

I have to admit, I gave some thought to leaving. But having some time to think about it, I remembered how often I talked to some of my born-again friends about Obama. I had to endure a lot of carping about it--at least one of my friends said that as a Spirit-filled Christian, I should hold views totally different from what I hold. But it was worth it--I got at least two of my friends to go from on the fence to voting for Obama, including at least one who was appalled at what emerged about Palin. They were willing to listen, and I suspect these people are the same way. The pastor, for instance, is as down-to-earth a guy as I've ever met in a pulpit.

As I've said numerous times, you've got a lot of people in my part of the country who really have no business voting Republican. The area where I go to church is a textbook case. However, a big reason the born-again vote flowed to Shrub in such large numbers in 2000 and 2004 is because we made the mistake of thinking that born-agains are all cut from the same cloth as the Robertsons, Falwells and Dobsons. I know from experience that you really can't reason with a disturbing number of them, to be sure. But a good many of them are willing to listen. Especially the younger generation, which seems to have figured out abortion and gay rights aren't the be-all, end-all to everything. Some, like yours truly, figured out back in the 1990s that the religious right was selling us a bill of goods. But an increasing number of them--especially younger ones--are figuring out that abortion and gay rights aren't the end-all of everything.

We all know the religious right's cycle of the last three decades--grab power, overreach, get taken to the cleaners, climb back again after a few years. Wash, rinse, repeat. But I figure I have to do my bit to break the cycle by tearing up the AstroTurf.

AP helping religious right again--this time in Arkansas

2009-02-22T09:48:00.001-05:00

I'm starting to wonder if the American Family Association has a moleat the Associated Press. That's the only plausible explanation for an AP story about a possible referendum about removing constitutional restrictions on atheists and agnostics' political rights.

An Arkansas legislator has proposed letting voters decide whether to lift the state's constitutional restrictions on atheists.

Amendment 19 of the Arkansas Constitution says "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this state, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court."

Some quick digging indicates that this is actually referring to article 19, section 1 of the state constitution. But to my mind, that's not as egregious an error as leaving out something anyone with a ninth-grade education should know--under the 1st and 14th Amendments to the federal constitution, these provisions are almost certainly unenforceable.

Some quick digging indicates that there are no instances of anyone attempting to enforce this provision in modern times. And with good reason--there is no way, no how, this provision would ever stand up in court. However, provisions like this are in the same category as provisions in some Southern state constitutions that were used to restrict blacks from voting--even though they're unenforceable, their continued presence makes them look backwoods.

Clearly, the AFA must think we're stupid--why else would it feature such an obviously inaccurate story? After all, as I write this, this article is one of the feature stories on the Website of OneNewsNow, the AFA's wire service--an obvious attempt to push buttons among the AFA's base. About the only other plausible reason is that there must be an awfully large homeschool/Christian school base in Arkansas that believes the religious right's "Christian nation" myth.

The guy who proposed this is Richard Carroll, who represents part of Little Rock in the state house. Send him some love at carrollr at arkleg dot ar dot state dot us.

Sharon Keller must be brought up on civil rights charges

2009-02-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

Last night, I mentioned an article in yesterday's NYT that seemed to indicate Sharon "We close at 5" Keller may have known that Michael Richard was about to file an appeal for his pending execution well in advance of her decision not to allow his attorneys to file an appeal after the deadline.

Well, I just had a chance to read the formal bill of particulars in the Keller case (hat tip to Scott Cobb). The findings of fact in the case indicate that Keller knew or had reason to know that Richard was about to file an appeal--and yet closed the court anyway. Simply refusing to accept any new business would be by itself grounds for removal from the bench. However, knowingly refusing to let Richard's appeal go forward, is, to my mind, grounds for bringing Keller up on charges of violating Richard's civil rights.

The complaint strongly indicates that Keller knew in the early afternoon that Richard's lawyers were going to file an appeal for a stay of his execution based on SCOTUS' decision to grant cert in Baze v. Rees. At that time, a proposed order had already been drafted in anticipation of Richard's appeal.

A few hours later, the Court of Criminal Appeals' general counsel got word from the Harris County (Houston) DA's office that Richard's attorneys intended to appeal the execution. The general counsel then emailed all of the judges on the court with this information--including Keller.

Based on this evidence, the commission found that when Keller got a call from the general counsel asking for permission to forward the appeal, she knew exactly what the call was about.

To my mind, we're not merely talking about a judge who simply refused to keep the clerk's office open for any new business. We're talking about a judge who knew an appeal for a stay of execution was about to be filed, and refused to permit it to be filed. That, to my mind, is a violation of Richard's right to a fair trial as enshrined in the Sixth Amendment to the federal constitution and Article 1, section 10 of the Texas constitution.

In light of this, simply removing Keller from office and seeking her disbarment won't be nearly enough. She needs to be brought up--either in a criminal case or a civil suit by Richard's family--on charges of violating Richard's civil rights. This is a black mark not just on Texas, but our entire criminal-justice system.

Did Sharon "Killer" Keller know that appeal was about to be filed?

2009-02-20T18:55:00.002-05:00

Today's New York Times contains what may be the most damning allegation yet against Sharon Keller--she knew a death-row inmate intended to appeal his sentence.

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct took the highly unusual step Thursday of starting proceedings against the presiding judge of the state’s highest criminal court because, two years ago, she closed her office promptly at 5 p.m. when she knew a death row inmate was about to file an appeal.

It's one thing if she simply decided she wasn't accepting any new business, which is still pretty bad. But closing court when she knew Michael Richard was about to file an appeal? That's a willful violation of Richard's rights under the state and federal constitutions. If she knew an appeal was coming and she closed court anyway, then Sharon Keller better get her resume ready.

The NYT report portrays Keller's behavior on that day as unbelievably callous.

Mr. Richard’s lawyers called Judge Keller’s chambers and asked her clerk for an extra 20 minutes past the 5 p.m. closing time to file the papers because of a computer breakdown, according to the commission’s report. Judge Keller had gone home early to meet a repairman. When the court’s general counsel called her to ask if she would keep the court open to accept the appeal, she said no.

This was despite the fact that she was going against long-established procedure at the court.

“Judge Keller knew that it had been common in the past to receive late pleadings on execution days after the clerk’s office closed,” the commission’s inquiry found, “and she knew that the execution day procedures called for the designated judge to remain available after hours to receive last-minute communications regarding the scheduled execution.”

Sounds like State Rep Lon Burnam's article of impeachment accusing her of "gross neglect of duty" and "willful disregard for human life" might be an extreme understatement. Especially if she knew an appeal was about to be filed. Even by Texas standards, this is disgusting.

Creationists' new angle--it's in the name of academic freedom

2009-02-12T16:54:00.001-05:00

Looks like the creationist crowd is trying a new tack to try and get a toe in the evolution debate. Apparently shutting out discussion of creation amounts to a denial of academic freedom.

Today (February 12) is Darwin Day, proclaimed by its celebrants as "an international celebration of science and humanity." The observance, according to the event's website, "expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity."

The same day, a counter-celebration -- Academic Freedom Day -- is being observed, encouraging students across the U.S. to defend their right to debate the evidence for and against Darwin's theory of evolution. John West, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute, explains that the idea for Academic Freedom Day came from evolutionary critics who believe the pros and cons of evolution should be discussed in public school classrooms.

The Discovery Institute is the same outfit that helped touch off the Dover controversy--and had its head handed to it in that case when the judge all but said it was trying to get creation through the back door.

Admittedly, it's a clever ruse--all we want is equal time. The problem is that it's been proven time and again that "creation science" is not science, but simply putting a scientific gloss on "Well, God made it that way." It's not stifling debate. We're simply saying, "You want to make your argument? Fine. Just don't call it science."

Also, their ultimate goal is not merely "a place at the table," but to push out evolution entirely. The Discovery Institute all but admits this in the first paragraphs of its manifesto, the Wedge Document.

The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West's greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.

Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment. This materialistic conception of reality eventually infected virtually every area of our culture, from politics and economics to literature and art.

So no matter what the evidence for evolution, it's invalid because it's rooted in materialism. Believe it or not, this is actually a common argument from the anti-evolution crowd. For instance, one anti-evolution site lists the number-one reason for why evolution is invalid is that it promotes atheism. Nope, it's not the usual arguments that it's bad science. It's because it turns people away from God.

So when you hear the religious right complain about academic freedom being stifled, just remember--it's another dog whistle. Fortunately, as a reality-based charismatic/pentecostal Christian, I can hear the pitch.

Religious right threatens lawsuit over provision of stimulus bill

2009-02-08T15:32:00.000-05:00

The American Center for Law and Justice is threatening a lawsuit over the stimulus package. At issue? A provision that it claims may force colleges receiving funds to renovate their facilities to throw Christian student groups off campus, as well as bar schools from letting churches hold their services at their facilities. However, a closer reading of the "objectionable" provision proves that this is just a load of hot air from Virginia Beach.

OneNewsNow was very kind to actually quote the section of the bill that has the religious right so upset.

Specifically, the provision reads that stimulus funds may not be used for "modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities -- (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."

Huh? I don't see anything there that could even remotely be construed as forcing student Christian groups to shut down, or bar churches from meeting at college facilities.

The key phrase Jay Sekulow hopes you don't notice--and, I suspect, what Don Wildmon hopes you don't notice--is "substantial portion." It would seem to me this section's intent is to prohibit the use of this money to help renovate any building whose primary purpose is religious--that is, an on-campus chapel or something along those lines.

DeMint tried to introduce an amendment stripping out this provision--but it failed largely along party lines, 54-43. And yet, according to Thomas, no House Repub tried to cut this out when this bill was under consideration in the House--even though the House Repubs are much more influenced by the religious right than their Senate counterparts.

The sad part about it is that a large number of religious right people are already up in arms about this. Remember, you're talking about people who, for the most part, live their lives in a fundie cocoon--homeschooling their kids, filtered Internet service, SkyAngel satellite, etc. Most of them probably rely heavily on CBN and OneNewsNow to get their news.

If Iraq War is found to be first-degree murder, those responsible should get the death penalty

2009-01-29T12:49:00.000-05:00

For a long, long time, I have opposed the death penalty. However, if there is ever a cause for an exception, it is if it ever emerges that the actions leading up to the Iraq War amount to first-degree murder. If evidence of this does emerge, the only appropriate sanction for everyone responsible is the death penalty. And I mean everyone--including the former president.

As it stands now, the evidence that Bush is guilty of murder, as laid out in Vincent Bugliosi's The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder only supports, in my mind, a charge of second-degree murder. But if there is evidence that bumps this up to first-degree murder, I would be among those not only supporting, but demanding, that the prosecution seek to send everyone responsible for this to the electric chair. It was specifically because of the possibility evidence could emerge to bump this up to first-degree murder that I came to believe impeaching Bush was not an option because it would be hard under the circumstances (a politically charged impeachment against the backdrop of a presidential election) to find an impartial jury.

As it stands now, the evidence that would support murder charges against Bush, Cheney, Rice, et al is the very definition of second-degree murder. Most of us know there are two pieces of particularly damning evidence.

Bush deliberately edited the White Paper of a 2002 NIE to make any threat posed by Iraq more ominous than it actually was. The original report stated that while Iraq had WMD capability, it would only use it in self-defense.

According to the NYT, Bush had already decided on war as early as January 2003, and was even willing to send U2s falsely painted in UN colors over Iraq in an attempt to provoke Saddam into starting a war. When I read this, the picture I got was of Hitler staging a phony attack on a German radio station located right on the Polish border--thus giving him justification to start World War II as a "counterattack."

Based on this and other evidence, the Iraq War was not an instance of invoking our right to self-defense, but an unlawful war of aggression. Therefore, the Iraqis were well within their rights to defend themselves--which makes the death of every American soldier an act of murder. As Bugliosi points out in his book:

[I]f a conspirator (or anyone for that matter) deliberately sets in motion a chain of events that he knows will cause a third-party innocent agent to commit an act (here, the killing of American soldiers by Iraqis), the conspirator is criminally responsible for that act.

But what if--God forbid--Bush and his people willfully planned the deaths of our troops, as opposed to merely planning an act with reckless disregard and indifference for the lives of the troops? If that evidence were to emerge--and so far, it hasn't--then to my mind, it would constitute an act of such depravity that to my mind, the death penalty would be the only appropriate punishment. If Bush, Cheney, et al. used the power of the government of the United States to plan thousands of deaths, that would be an offense against civilized society for which a life sentence would be a joke.

I thought long and hard about where to stand if evidence of first degree murder were to emerge. In the final analysis, I decided that the very reason I oppose the death penalty--humanitarian considerations--would merit the death penalty if it ever emerged that Bush and the others deliberately planned to kill our troops (as opposed to merely planning a war where they knew people would die--a depraved act by itself).

Know Your Enemy: American Family Association on Facebook

2009-01-25T14:49:00.001-05:00

I was checking out my Facebook page when I got home from church when I noticed that three of my friends had joined the American Family Association's group on Facebook. Curiosity got the better of me, so I took a peek.

Well, suffice to say that I got a lovely impression of what the 25-percenters seem to be thinking. Seriously--when I looked at some of the wall posts, I could have sworn I was in Freeperville. It was also a somewhat sobering reminder of the fact that I came so close to being just like these people, no thanks to a nutburger Christian group at Carolina.

Among some of the lovelier wall posts:

It is with a cheerful heart that I tell you that the end of the world is right around the corner. It may be a matter of weeks, not decades, before the Lord's sandals touch down on what our wonderful FORMER President calls "terror firma." Yes, as soon as the Lord Jesus arrives on Earth He will start kicking human trash out of His way, making a beeline to a handful of folks He actually wants to join Him in Heaven while sending everyone from Chinamen to Episcopalians hurling straight towards the fiery volcanic mouth that marks the entrance to Satan’s abode. Friends, I haven’t felt this good about anything since they found that splattered Monica Lewinsky dress. (Thank goodness, Godly Bill O’Reilly’s sexual shenanigans were all by phone so there is no physical evidence other than a dumpster full of Energizer AA batteries.). Everything in the Book of Revelation is coming true.

If this country is over 80 percent Christian, I say we must rise up to take back our courts, schools, and our very government. We must stand up for what we know is right!! Our very religious freedoms are at stake. It started small with taking prayer out of school, now they are trying to take the Ten Commandments out of the courtrooms, and "In God We Trust" off our currency... We are under attack by evil provinces. It is not the time to sit back and think that this is going to all blow over. The ACLU is WAY TOO active in destroying this country. IMHO!

I have NEVER been ashamed of my country, but I am VERY ASHAMED of my countrymen for electing this man. The Rapture is just around the corner, and then the Great Tribulation.
I am so amazed to see my Christian friends being deceived by this man, Its like getting a glimpse of the Anti-Christ.

es, I am ashamed of my fellow country people for voting in Obama...BUT I am deeply appalled at the CHURCH (supposed Christians) for electing him into office. I have an deeper burning in my heart at the pastors who did so and ENCOURAGED others to do so or SAY NOTHING at those who did. I truly have serious issues with those who KNOWINGLY voted for a man who stood on the issues he did and call themselves by the name of Christian. I, myself, do have questions of what spirit these people are operating under!!

Tsk, tsk.

It's actually saddening, in a way--the Republicans are actually dependent on people like this to keep their party afloat. This is exactly why we need to use the next two years to make sure the Wildmons and Dobsons are completely and utterly marginalized. By all rights, they belong in the same realm as the LaRouchies--let's send them there.