The Family Institute of Connecticut Would be Proud!

of this Christian family that is taking a stand on the very issues and views that the FIC supports:



The only difference between that whacko family and what FIC espouses is that Family Institute of Connecticut soft peddles their bigoted messages.

Soft peddling their message doesn't make the FIC any less dangerous to this country. It just makes them dangerous AND dishonest about their message. That family is the product of the thinking and messanging put forth by the far-right-wingnuts at the Heritage Foundation and taken to into the relms of their wildest wet dreams.

Like it or not FIC, you should be proud of how your messages have enlightened: That whack-job family is one of yours!

You broke'em, you bought'em.

bush Hires and Fires Illegaly?

First bush breaks the law by firing a reservist... And then bush makes a recess apointment that is, very likely, an illegal hire:

Mary Ann Akers of the Washington Post explains why President Bush’s recess appointment of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium may break the law:

To fight the Fox appointment, Democrats are questioning the Bush administration’s plan to have Fox serve in a voluntary capacity — receiving no pay for his duties as ambassador. This is an important legal technicality, as federal law prohibits “payment of services” for certain recess appointments. However, if the recess appointee in question agrees that he or she will take an unpaid position and not sue the government at a later date for compensation, then the appointment can go forward, at least as the White House sees it. …

But here’s the rub that makes Democrats view Bush’s recess appointment of Fox as a major-league no-no: Federal law prohibits “voluntary service” in cases where the position in question has a fixed rate of pay, as an ambassadorship does. That’s how the Government Accountability Office, an arm of the Democratic-controlled Congress, interprets the law.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said today, “I intend to seek an opinion on the legality of this appointment from the General Accountability Office and invite other Senators to join with me in that request.”

It is kindof appropriate that bush would do something illegal for a swifty-boat-liar that would gladly break the laws for him. ctblogger has more on the kindof Joes that are riding the bush crazy train, and how it is going off the rails on this one...


President Bush opens this YouTube video with a cheeky message for America, her soldiers, and her laws:




Ozzy follows with an excellent explanation of bush's opening message.

Bush Fires a Reservist for Serving?

Can you get anymore illegal than this?

ravings of a semi-sane madwoman:

"Docked for Duty?'

The Justice Department called David Iglesias, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, an 'absentee landlord'—a key reason listed for his firing last December. Just one problem: Iglesias, a captain in the Navy Reserve, was off teaching classes as part of the war on terror. Now Iglesias is striking back, arguing he was improperly dismissed."

There are laws against this. This may not be the lowest of the low in bush's mistreatment of soldiers and the military, but it comes pretty close.

Don't ever tell me that the bush administration, or any other republican politician, supports the soldiers or the military. They abuse them and fuck with them any way they can. Especially when it is politically convenient.

Hillary Reacts to Obama Donor News

(AP Photo/Jim Cole and H/T to Mock, Paper Scissors)

"A snapshot of Senator Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the news that Obama had more individual donors (50,000 +++) on the internet alone than she had altogether on the net and off the net. Barrack Obama has yet to triangulate his reaction to Hillary's mild reaction to the news."

Ok... Now that you have had a good laugh. In reality I don't have a clue what that photo is about but the fact that Obama had more donors is significant:

One other quick detail from the Tribune article:

Obama raised $6.9 million—more than a quarter of his total—over the Internet from more than 50,000 online donors, the Illinois Democrat's campaign said from Chicago this morning.

Now look at Hillary's press release from April 1st. It reports a total of 50,000 donors overall.

Obama had more online donors than Hillary had in total contributors.

- Greg Sargent - Election Central -TPM Cafe

They provide a somewhat more complete breakdown of the money for both Republican and Democratic candidates over at TPM Cafe showing that Senator Chris Dodd managed to raise about 4 million dollars towards his Presidential campaign.

Got another beef with a CT Dem? I do.

Spazeboy pointed this out once and they removed the offensive name from the CT Democratic party list... Now they have put him back on as spazeboy points out again:

Once upon a time, I recommended that Joe Lieberman’s name be removed from the list of Democratic Members of Congress at the CT Dems official website.

Within 2 days, it was.

But after reading this comment from PamB about how her invitation to this year’s JJB Dinner lists Senator Lieberman as a special guest…

WTF ??@!??
Did anyone else just get the Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner Invitation today?? Included on the invitation, as Special Guests, no other than Joseph I Lieberman, US Senator, who’s name appears with Chris Dodd, Joe Courtney, John larson, Rosa DeLauro, Murphy, Blumenthal, Bysiewicz, Nappier, etc, etc!!!

My first call shall be to Howard Dean, then one to Pelosi, and then an email to DiNardo telling her how pissed off I am. I really wanted to go this time to hear Nancy Pelosi speak.

Can you believe the GALL of this Ct. party and DiNardo to dare and bring Lieberman into our Dem Dinner????????

…I went poking around the Democratic State Central site, I find that Senator Lieberman’s name has been re-added to the list of Democratic Members of Congress.

It is still there a few weeks later.

Democratic Members of Congress

• Sen. Chris Dodd
• Sen. Joe Lieberman <<<
  
• Rep. John Larson
• Rep. Rosa DeLauro
• Rep. Chris Murphy
• Rep. Joe Courtney

Needless to say, the MAJORITY of Democratic supporters have HUGE beefs with Lieberman... But the CT Democratic party better get their act together if they don't want to get "Liebermanned" (kicked to the curb) in their primaries as well.

Talk about the ultimate in insults to the majority of Democratic voters in this state. Nevermind the grassroots that has proven that they can set the agenda in CT's left politics.

Equal Rights to Marriage: Far Right Wingnut Editon

This is a bit about Equal Rights, Civil Rights and, more importantly, knowing your wingnut opposition, and who they chose to associate and share political tactics with. (Please bear with me if it seems to meander a little! CM1)

Via tparty at My Left Nutmeg:

"The Courant's editorial page endorses marriage equality

The debate over legalizing gay marriage is as raucous as the reaction to civil unions has been quiet. The recent Judiciary Committee hearing overflowed even the overflow room at the Legislative Office Building. Bloggers and protesters are loudly weighing in on the rights and wrongs of same-sex marriage.

Why push the question? Connecticut has lived with civil unions for a year and a half in utter peace and quiet. Many couples are happy and secure, with virtually all the rights of traditional marriage that the state can confer.

But not happy enough. Gay couples want the real thing. They deserve marriage and the full panoply of legal privileges that accompany it.."

If you want to see what CT politicians and concerned citizens had to say about all of this, ctblogger has a pretty complete look at the hearing they had last week.

Marriage Equality video highlights

And ctblogger has an important sidenote reminding us all what we are up against on almost every issue:

Sidenote

Question: How are [Maggie] Gallagher and conservative lapdog Armstrong Williams related?

Answer: They were both bought and paid for by the Bush Administration.

Maggie Gallagher is actually notorious. Back in the 2005, her and Armstrong Williams (and others) were found to have received money from the Bush administration while claiming to be independent reporters.

It really doesn't matter what the issue is. The incompetent and lying bush administration has no problems with buying propaganda to slip into our News Media everywhere. Add to that, they couple this bought'n'paid-for media PROPAGANDA pressure with co-ordianted efforts at portraying "ground swell support" with front groups in local areas.

The biggest naysayer, bordering on gay bashing, concerning Equal Rights in Marriage in Connecticut is the small and little read FIC Blog, that is associated with the far right wingnut Heritage think tank, which is little more than a bush cheerleading squad, and where any criticism of bush and his policies is a firing offense:

Last month (ed note: First posted on August 7, 2006. CM1) the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, fired John Hulsman. Heritage refuses to say exactly why they let him go, but the New Republic reports the “reasons for Hulsman’s departure” are “perfectly evident”; he criticized the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Hulsman previously had kept his dissent to himself, but “years of insurgency, civil war, and general chaos” in Iraq led him to speak out.

In an essay last year for The National Interest, Hulsman took issue with Bush’s policy in Iraq:

[N]eoconservatives, through their policies of expending blood and treasure for problematic gains such as Iraq, are significantly retarding America’s ability to act against the true barbarians at the gate - Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists.

And Hulsman criticized the Bush administration’s refusal to talk to regimes it dislikes, specifically Iran:

America, on the other hand, having determined the mullahs in Iran were evil, disdained to engage them. But we cannot only conduct diplomatic relations with Canada; I have always naively thought a major reason for diplomacy was talking to those one didn’t agree with, in an effort to modify their behavior to suit one’s own national interests.

These critiques may seem mild, but as Chris Preble of the Cato Institute explains: “At Heritage, anything that smacks of criticism of Bush will not be tolerated.”

Have a thought that is counterproductive to the neocon agenda and you lose your job at Heritage. That is some quality thinking that Brian and the FIC Blog choses to associate themselves with. Low quality thinking, and kool-aide drinking. The far right skewered Heritage Foundation lists Brian and the FIC as a resource for their far tight wingnut agenda on a couple of issues: Education (much like right wing fanatics across the country, FIC wants to kill the public education system in favor of privatization... See Iraq and Katrina for inevitable results of privatization of our school systems) and, of course, Marriage.

Some of FIC's funding seems to come from sources that finance Heritage and a littany of other far right wingnut organizations. (You can research that one on your own, just know that it is true and would likely take another whole post to dig.) I wonder what would happen to bush poodles like Brian if they actually turned on bush policies? Would the funding for FIC Blog dry up?

FIC's sitemeter proves that his Blog is not read very much by Connecticut residents, so I doubt they are paying his bills. And unless the CT's left Blogosphere links to him, which is why, likely, he tries to pick little arguments with us all the time, he gets little traffic from nutmeggers. (You can see his traffic at sitemeter, and we have already proven this point, much to Brian and the FIC's chagrin)

So... Whomelse is the FIC associated with? People like this:

Jeffrey Satinover:

In cooperation with the Heritage Foundation and under the auspices of the ICQA, Dr. Satinover is overseeing the development of a fully crooss-linked international database of medical, social science and legal citations with associated metanalyses and aggegrated data tables. The purpose of the database is assist concerned scholars, attorneys, social scientists, policy analysts and citizens worldwide in addressing the nearly-universal problem of the embedding in legal documents of gross distortions (or even wholesale inventions) of social science conclusions to make ideologically-driven alterations in public policy appear rationally based.

He speaks widely to both public and professional audiences and is the author of numerous articles, chapters and books on topics ranging from brain neurophysiology to the psychology of narcissism to the breakdown of modern society. Dr. Satinover is a trustee of the Family Institute of Connecticut and on the Board of Directors of Toward Tradition. He serves on the scientific advisory board to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and is a former medical advisor to Focus on the Family,

and:

Kenneth Von Kohorn

Kenneth Von Kohorn is the founder and president of Von Kohorn Research and Advisory, an investment advisory firm located in Westport. He is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. In addition to serving on the Yankee board, Kenneth also serves as chairman of the board of the Family Institute of Connecticut and as a board member of the Institute for American Values and of Toward Tradition.

Now, we all know pretty much about Focus on the Family, and we are also familiar with the Heritage Foundation's fanatacism, but it seems that FIC has a link to "Toward Tradition" as well as Heritage:

Toward Tradition is a non-profit (501.c.3), educational organization working to advance our nation toward the traditional Judeo-Christian values that defined America’s creation and became the blueprint for her greatness. We believe that only a new alliance of concerned citizens can re-identify and dramatically strengthen the core values necessary for America to maintain that greatness and moral leadership. These values are: faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government; the rule of law; representative democracy; free markets; a strong military; and, a moral public culture.

Objectives:
Using both classic and contemporary tools of persuasion, Toward Tradition promotes these positive traditional values while opposing the negative forces of “secular fundamentalism” and anti-religion bigotry. In his best-selling book of the same name, Rabbi Lapin labeled this mission “America’s Real War”

Concerned Jews share this objective with many evangelical and conservative Christians. Working together, they focus on our common cultural, moral, and political goals. The corollary benefit of this alliance is that the majority gentile culture sees that American Jews are not monolithically liberal, and that many of the “progressive” forces in this country are advocating positions that are in fact abhorrent to traditional Judaism.

Just another group hellbent on portraying bush policies as the rightous way and Liberalism as "abhorrent to traditional Judaism." Sounds like he is soft peddling the "anti-semite" label on us, doesn't it? And obviously, against Jews as well:

Why So Many Jews Are Liberal
As a visible, politically conservative rabbi, whose conservatism flows inevitably and directly from his Judaism, I endure a never-ending barrage of attacks. I don’t much mind them as they remind me of my mission—standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity, but I do feel sorry for the pain these assaults cause my family. Especially so since most of these attacks come from other Jews; indignant Jews outraged by a rabbi who does not subscribe to the principles of liberalism.

Yes... The Liberals, and especially the Jewish Liberals that attack you the most, the one's that are "standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity" are the cause of all your problems and you are the victim, constantly being attacked by everyone.

Do any of you wingnuts ever stop to think that this barrage comes at you from everywhere because of the load of crap that you spew daily?

In the same way that the rabbi is couching "anti-semitism" (IMHO) in his soft peddling of radical views, the FIC is soft peddling their bigotry against gay and lesbians in their war against Equal Rights in Marriage and couching it in their extremist views of religion and politics. We aren't buying. None of us in CT are buying it.

In other words: If you don't want your FIC Blog to remain in the miniscule minority of the Connecticut Blogosphere Brian:

Stop being such fringe-thinking far right wingnuts. OK? And stop soft peddling a bigoted agenda against Marriage Equality.

I said you would have problems with the Marines CPL Matt Sanchez

I just never thought it would be this much trouble...

Just a little refresher on CPL Matt Sanchez from an earlier post of mine for those of you that don't remember:

----------

What's the problem CPL Matt Sanchez?

"Wow, who knew a little award and a couple of pictures would get me all this attention? Death threats, hate mail and plenty of people who want to be my "friend"--and it's not even 4 pm!!!" - CPL Matt Sanchez, CPAC honoree

What is the problem?

Is it Matt's service in the Marines?




Nope. He can still be proud of that, regardless of what the right wing will now say about him (and until the military gives him the boot, AND THEY WILL. Even from the Reserves.)(ed note: I told ya so...CM1)

Is it because both Hannity and O'Reilly championed Matt's cause at Columbia Universtiy?




Nope. But this is partly why CPAC made him a TOP honoree last week.

Is it Matt's association with GOP candidates?




Nope. GOP politicians love guys like Matt. Lots of guys like Matt...

Is it because of Matt's short-lived enamoured support from radical right wing pundit-wannabees like Malkin?




Well, not really...

Is it Matt's show of support from noted gay-basher and all-around-hater Ann Coulter?




UMMMM? Ya, that and the fact that Matt is a gay porn star known as Rod Majors:




And... Matt is a male escort as well. <<<(WARNING!!! Nudity in that link.) The Jeff Gannon story all over again.

Michelle Malkin is on top of the story after learning the truth about her former hero, and even answers her own question before asking it:

It's only a matter of time before the MSM goes nuts with the story. Report on the everyday progress in Iraq? Forget it. Sex, homosexuals, and the GOP? Get ready for wall-to-wall coverage a la Foley, Gannon, and Haggard.

Should CPAC organizers be embarrassed if the rumors about his alleged porn star past are true? Well, yes. Next time, they should do more extensive background research before handing out an honor with Jeane Kirkpatrick's name on it.

snip

I guess we'll see who the real bigots--on both sides of the aisle--are now.
(You can find the link for the bigot Malkin here...)

Here is the problem Matt Sanchez:
It doesn't take her more than a few paragraphs to say something really, really stupid and hypocritical. Malkin has Matt going from hero to zero, and all because Malkin and most of her, and Coulter's, CPAC ilk are bigots.

As for Malkin's reports on progress in Iraq?

Here it is: More bombs are going off, more bullets are flying, and more Americans and Iraqis are needlessly dying today because of what semi-epsilon-moron-minuses like Malkin call progress.

H/T to Matt Browner-Hamlin at Emboldened.

----------

But that is just the begining of the tale as the Marine Corps is investigating charges that CPL Matt Sanchez “solicited more than $12,000 from private organizations by asking them to fund a deployment to Iraq he never made.”

Ann Coulter’s favorite ex-gay porn performer may be in big trouble.

From Marine Corps Times:

The Corps on Friday was slated to wrap up an investigation into allegations that a corporal in the Individual Ready Reserve who appeared in gay porn films before enlisting solicited more than $12,000 from private organizations by asking them to fund a deployment to Iraq he never made, according to e-mails from the investigating officer forwarded to Marine Corps Times.

Reserve Col. Charles Jones, a staff judge advocate called to Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, Mo., on temporary orders that expire Saturday, informed Reserve Cpl. Matt Sanchez of the allegations against him in a March 22 e-mail that advised Sanchez of his rights.

Jones wrote that Sanchez’s participation in porn films was part of the investigation, but that two of the three allegations against him involved lying “to various people, including but not limited to, representatives of the New York City United War Veterans Council and U-Haul Corporation” about deploying to Iraq at the commandant’s request.

CPAC sure is an interesting group when you consider bigots like Malkin, noted vote fraudster and hatemonger Ann Coulter, as well as "male escorts/gay porn stars" and (possibly) con men like Matt Sanchez.

Not like I didn't warn you the Marines would have a problem with you Matt. I suppose CPAC, and their ilk, could chalk this up to the famous Liberal Media Bias that the Marine Corps Times is well known to exhibit. If by "Liberal" you mean they report the facts?

White House Provides 3 Good Reasons to Discredit Dowd

Think Progress notes the White House's counteroffensive reaction to criticism concerning bush's continued failures in Iraq:

Dowd “said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated.” This morning on CBS, White House Counselor Dan Bartlett crushed any such hopes that Bush’s inner circle would heed the advice of a once-trusted aide. Instead, as it has done frequently in the past, the White House engaged in a counteroffensive, assailing the character of the person sounding the alarms.

The New York Times noted Dowd’s distancing from Bush came at the same time one of his “premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq.” Bartlett latched onto these difficulties in Dowd’s personal life in an effort to undermine his substantive concerns about Bush’s Iraq policy.

Bartlett said Dowd has been on a “long personal journey…in his private life” and that he had become too emotional over the war. CBS host Bob Schieffer interrupted to ask: “Are you suggesting he’s having some kind of personal problems and this is just what has resulted?” Bartlett denied that’s what he was doing, but then returned to his talking point, suggesting Dowd’s views should be evaluated in light of the fact the he was going through “personal turmoil.”

In reality, the White House does offer a few good arguments for why Dowd might really be concerned:

1. His son is preparing for deployment to Iraq.
2. His son is preparing for deployment to Iraq.
3. His son is preparing for deployment to Iraq.

Of course, there is no legitimate reason to be concerned about those facts, is there?

According to John McCain it is all just a walk in the park anyways. What he doesn't mention is that he needs a Flak vest, about 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawks, and 2 Apache gunships providing security for him while takes his little hypocritical walk... And if he needed to go outside of “the very, very, very heavily secured Green Zone,” he needed to travel in armored military vehicles under heavy guard.”

No Dowd... You have absolutely no insane reason to be concerned. Not according to those White House talking pointy heads using offensive reasoning to smear you.

More Right Wing Partisan Politics

Remember this extremely hypocritical and partisan post from JimK, a Connecticut Blogger at "far right wingnuts thoughts," last December?

As you listen to JimK talk about Kerry and Dodd's planned visits to the Middle East:

Right Thoughts - Dodd Plans Trip To Middle East:
"I’m far more concerned with the idea of two Senators from an opposing party blatantly and openly undermining the sitting President in matters of foreign policy. This kind of behavior has consequences that go well beyond the next two years of Bush’s term.

It’s time to get past this cheerleading for the Dems or the GOP and start thinking about how this dirty political pool is affecting the way we can govern this nation going forward."

Well JimK, when are you going to get past the partisan political cheerleading? You are real quick to paint Kerry and Dodd as having undermined the president and even suggested they are breaking laws, even though the fact is they have not and will not break any laws on their trips.

But if you were really being honest about the paritsan cheerleading your diary would have mentioned the treacherous and traitorous Republican Specter:

Nelson said he reported the information to embassy officials and will brief his congressional committees on the trip. Also expected to visit Syria is Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa..

"We don't think that members of Congress ought to be going there," White House press secretary Tony Snow said, adding that the United States continues to denounce Syria's meddling in Lebanon and its ties to terrorist groups.

It is highly appropriate that Tony Snow starts off the sentence there with "We don't think...",

Well... The little GOP talking pointy head footballs just can't seem to get kicked around enough these days as more Hotair expells from the partisan dung heap side of the Blogosphere:

This makes three prominent Democrats who have gone abroad to undermine our foreign policy in the past three months. Kerry’s done it twice, Dean-o’s boasted of having done it repeatedly, and now, by far and away the most high profile of the lot, Madam Speaker herself’s going to Damascus to meet with the proprietor of the launching pad for 85-90% of the suicide bombers in Iraq, according to the State Department’s estimation.

ABC News has learned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to visit Syria next week to meet with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The visit will make Pelosi the most senior U.S. official ever to meet with President Assad…

Pelosi’s visit to Syria would come as the United States has severed high-level contacts with Assad’s government…

Traveling with Pelosi will be Congressmen Keith Ellison (D-MN), Nick Rahall (D-WV), Tom Lantos (D-CA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and David Hobson (R-OH).

Mind you, Assad and his terror apparatus are also the prime suspects in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, whose pro-western political heirs are currently deadlocked with Hezbollah in Lebanon. If she’s not loyal enough to her own country to refrain from handing one of its biggest enemies a propaganda windfall, you’d think she’d at least be decent enough not to legitimize a suspected killer under UN investigation by doing meet and greets with him.

Repulsive. As usual.

Yep... Repulsive as usual. And as per usual they ignore the fact that the State Department has to OK travel like this. This has become another right wingnut blowhards sudden story of the day BUT where was all of this Hotair when this happened?

Pelosi's outreach to a state sponsor of terrorism is a ``really bad idea,'' White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said at a briefing in Washington. ``Someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends and the message that it sends to our allies.''

Perino's remarks come as a group of Republican lawmakers has embarked on their own trip to Syria. Michael Lowry, a spokesman for Representative Robert Aderholt, said that the Alabama lawmaker will visit Syria as part of a Republican delegation led by Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican. Wolf is the top Republican on the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the State Department.

Perino wasn't available to comment about that trip.

Another embarrasing chapter in the far-right-wingnut's archive of shameless GOP talking points.

One day partisan right wingnuts might "get past this cheerleading for [...] the GOP and start thinking about how this dirty political pool is affecting the way we can govern this nation going forward." But if that day ever comes listen for a loud POP as they all pull their heads out of their asses.

Republican Cronies Were Scanning OR Reading?

Josh Marshall over at TPM digs this up:

If you're a Cunningham case afficionado, you know that in early 2002 Mitchell Wade was still acting as a cut out for his corruption mentor Brent Wilkes -- who's now awaiting trial in the Cunningham case. And around the same time Wilkes was greasing palms in DC trying to get into the Anthrax mail screening racket himself.

He got some help from Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) who got money from Wilkes. We pick up that part of the story from the San Diego Union-Tribune from March 19th, 2006 ...

Julie Doolittle was working at Buckham's offices in 2002 when Buckham introduced Brent Wilkes to her husband. Federal contracts for his flagship company, ADCS Inc., were drying up, partly because the Pentagon had been telling Congress it had little need for the company's document-scanning technology. So Wilkes was trying to get funding for two new businesses.

One was tied to the 2002 anthrax scare, when tainted letters were sent to Capitol Hill. Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

He called his proposed solution MailSafe – similar to the names of several anti-anthrax companies launched at that time – and began vying for federal contracts, even though the company had little to its name other than a rudimentary Web site.

The House Administration Committee, on which Doolittle sat, oversees the congressional mail system. Doolittle told his colleagues about MailSafe and introduced them to Wilkes, but the project never got off the ground.

Note the reference to the House Administration Committee. That was the committee then chaired by another Abramoff buddy -- the now-imprisoned Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH). And Ney, as he'd earlier done for Abramoff associate Adam Kidan, actually read into the House record an encomium to Wilkes.

So it all comes back to the same question. Why did a company like Wade's, which had no track record whatsoever and had only been approved to receive federal government contracts two months earlier, get a contract from the White House to screen the mail of the President of the United States?

Are you sure it was only the Presidents mail they were screening?

Note the Tribune story:

Wilkes' idea was to have all Capitol Hill mail rerouted to a site in the Midwest, where ADCS employees wearing protective suits would scan it into computers and then e-mail it back to Washington.

All Capitol Hill mail? Wouldn't that mean that these Republican cronies were also "scanning" sensitive mail from the Democratic party side of the aisle (and to and from God knows who else inside the Hill?) as well?

To me, this seems to give these Republican cronies the ability to spy on people's mail if they were unethical enough to abuse this contract for their corrupted GOP's advantage... Does anyone think these guys weren't reading what they were scanning? "Oooh, here's a hot one! Send it to Karl..." It's not like the GOP has ever been known to be ethical when given the opportunity.

Joe neocon Lieberman surrounding himself with Republicans

Joe neocon Lieberman knows who he is in bed with, as he surrounds himself with Republicans. Via ctblogger at MLN:

Even those who didn't vote for Lieberman in November have higher expectations for him than this. Pouting about the last election? Proposing a war tax without any plans to pursue it?

Then there's his fixation with seating charts.

As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Lieberman should be focusing on the many security issues facing the nation. But this month, the big news from the committee was that Lieberman had rearranged the seating chart.

From now on, he announced, the senators will sit Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican, instead of one party on one side of the room and the other party on the other side.

[...]

Instead of focussing on seating charts, instead of proposing a war tax that's dead on arrival, instead of reveling in his hurt feelings, Lieberman should do what he said he would do while running for re-election last year " focus on representing Connecticut, focus on holding the Bush administration accountable for its war policies.

Yep! His biggest boldest action since winning the 2006 election with the support of Republicans' money and the Connecticut Republican vote is to surronund himself with Republicans.

Does anyone on the Democratic side of the Senate think this is a good thing?

Short Circuiting Labor

Ever see a great reason for the resurgence of unions? The Hartford Courant shows you one:

courant.com | Circuit City Step Risks Backlash:

"A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, risking a public backlash by implying that its wages are as subject to discounts as its flat-screen TVs

The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers - immediately - and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible"

Risking a public Backlash??? They have got to be kidding?

They are kicking 3400 employees to the curb and then replacing them with even lower paid workers.

A nice little extra thought to warm the hearts of those recently unemployed curb dwellers via Vassmer at dKos:

And of course, Circuit City's CEOs' salaries will not be cut for being overpaid:

Circuit City Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a $975,000 salary. Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson received $3.85 million, including a $1.17 million salary.

Mmmm, what do you expect from a company who donates 90% of its political contributions to Republicans, according to BuyBlue?

Figure the odds? Well... I guess I am not shopping at Circuit City ever again.

This is the epitome of the bush economy. Someone should unionize those workers just to fuck with these unethical bums.

[update]
The Onion does an intersting parody of blaming immigration for these kinds of problems. An issue that republicans will try to push, hopefully with the same laughable results, in the next election cycle:

Immigration: The Human Cost


It is obvious that, in the case of Circuit City's fiscal abuse of employees to continue the enrichment of incompetent Management like their CEO, it has little to do with immigration and everything to do with the deterioration of workers rights in the USA under the Corporate owned Republican party.

The Flip Flop Express

The Flip Flop express flies off the never-ending GOP deepend:

The McCain peace train in 1993 on Somalia:

MCCAIN: …this resolution establishes, in effect, a date certain for a vote on the commitment of United States forces to Somalia…I think we all realize that we have drifted from the use of force to secure humanitarian relief to an open-ended effort at peace enforcement and nation building. …the orderly way to stop it is for the President to present a plan for shaping U.S. withdrawal, set a date for that plan, and have the congress of the United States either endorse or reject such a proposal. [Senate floor speech, 9/9/93]

In that 1993 vote McCain and his other peaceniks - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sens. Bennett, Bond, Cochran, Domenici, Hatch, Hutchison, Lugar, Specter, Stevens and Warner — ALL voted in favor of cutting funds and setting a timetable for withdrawal.

The McCain Flip Flop Express today:

MCCAIN: These same provisions were rejected by the Senate two weeks ago by a 48-50 vote. Now here we are debating the same provisions that we have — that have the same serious problems. I hope they’ll be rejected again by the same, if not a larger margin. Supporters of this provision say they want a date certain for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. But what they have offered us is more accurately described as a date certain for surrender — a date certain for surrender — with grave consequences for the future of Iraq, the stability of the Middle East and the security of Americans at home and abroad. And they offer it just as the situation in Iraq, though fraught with difficult challenges, is beginning to improve.

The Flip Flop Express is rolling, and smoking some pretty strong drugs to manage live in these two seperate realities.

What about the Fifth?

Denis Horgan gives you a peek at the latest bush league maneuver:

DenisHorgan.com:

"It is a vital piece of our freedoms. It protects Americans from the goverment:

'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.'

Neither is it a Get Out of Jail Free card for Bush administration types who rather simply do not choose to have be asked thunderously important questions by the trifling, insignificant legislative branch of the American people's government."

I read the Fifth Amendment and the only thing I can see by Monica Goodling taking the Fifth is precisely what everyone else can see:

Effectively conceding that there is criminal activity involved which could trigger a "criminal case" Monica Goodling turns to the Fifth.

The key here is that you can't take the Fifth (by my layman's reading of it) unless there is criminal activity involved. This not some political ploy to be trifled with.

Either she is admitting there is criminal activity that she knows about and/or is involved in OR she is attempting to abuse a law that doesn't apply to her for political purposes. Either way, it is a telling sign of how the corrupt bush administration and GOP operates.

Iraq Good News Explosion

Lewis Black brings us the good news from Iraq:



I like the new video service The Daily Show is providing but I hope they change it to make the video feeds permanent archives of this shows high quality news and comedy format. Otherwise they will, likely, go the way of the dinosaurs in the wake of the YouTube evolution. Expiring in a month is not good enough for what the Blogs are trying to do.

Not 60... It is a 50 Vote Hurdle for Withdrawal Timetable

BooMan takes a look at a common misperception concerning current legislation on the timetable for withdrawl:

THE DUDE: Yeah, my thinking about the case, man, it had become uptight.

All the time I have been thinking about this supplemental bill for funding the war in Iraq I have been working on the assumption that the Senate would need 60 votes to pass the legislation. I thought, briefly, that Reid could invoke reconcilation because the bill would affect the budget, but that only pertains to regular budget legislation, not supplemental funding. Nonetheless, it looks like I've had my head up my ass.

Proponents of the troop withdrawal deadline face a lower hurdle than in earlier Senate votes. Earlier efforts to win approval for a withdrawal timetable needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster; this time, opponents will be trying to strip a withdrawal plan that's already in legislation. That means it will require a simple 50-vote majority to keep it in.

So, okay, I'm still learning Senate procedure.

WALTER: Dude, nothing is fucked. Come on. You're being very unDude.

This changes things substantially. There was literally no chance that the House version would pass the Senate if it required 60 votes.

But at 50 votes... The hurdles don't seem quite so insurmountable, eh?

It even renders Joe neocon Lieberman's vote and positions as a moot point. There will be enough moderate Republicans that will, likely, make the 50 vote mark an easy one to surpass in this political climate. Ya gotta love that! heh Poor ol' obsolete Joe...

Daily Show: Viacom vs YouTube

I don't know how well this Comedy Central embed works...



Just testing it out here. I won't know if there are comercials or anything like that until I post this and check it out myself.(update: Nope! No commercials, YET, and the video quality is A1 primo)

The BIG problem with these videos?

They expire in a month.

How are we supposed to keep a record of The Daily Show's comedic and politically insiteful genius if it expires? And does their genius expire with this link?

Don't Tread on the 9-11 Dead

Via Nicole Belle at Crooks & Liars:

Kansas City Star: (h/t Sisyphus Shrugged)

The pulverized remains of bodies from the World Trade Center disaster site were used by city workers to fill ruts and potholes, a city contractor says in a sworn affidavit filed Friday in Manhattan Federal Court.

Eric Beck says debris powders - known as fines - were put in a pothole-fill mixture by crews at the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, N.Y., where more than 1.65 million tons of World Trade Center debris were deposited after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I observed the New York City Department of Sanitation taking these fines from the conveyor belts of our machines, loading it onto tractors and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts," Eric Beck said.

Beck was the senior supervisor for Taylor Recycling, a private contractor hired to sift through debris trucked to Fresh Kills after the trade center attacks. Before the arrival of Taylor's equipment at Fresh Kills in October 2001, the debris was sifted manually by workers using rakes and shovels.

Beck's affidavit was filed by lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims who are suing the city in hopes of creating a formal burial place for debris that they say contains human remains.

"It's devastating," Norman Siegel, an attorney representing the families, said of Beck's statement. "When the 9/11 families found about this, they were wiped out."

No wonder the FDNY wasn't too happy with Giuliani. What a way to honor our fallen heroes.

WTF were they thinking?

Have they no decency?

Kucinich: IMPEACH? Yes or No

Watch it, think about it, and respond to it.





Impeach for Peace wants you to tell him what you think:

Respond to this video question from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) via comments, e-mails, letters and most importantly a DIY Impeachment petition of memorial.

Call Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 202-225-5871 or E-MAIL REP. KUCINICH.

We report... You decide. No spin on this one.

UPDATE:
Chuck Hagel talks impeachment via Saramerica:

“Any president who says, I don’t care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don’t care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that,” said Sen Chuck Hagel R - Nebraska.

Oooh! Tell me more Chuckie!! I love it when Senators actually speak as if they have (gasp) balls. Or a scrotum, to use the word a certain subsector of librarians loves to hate.

"He’s not accountable anymore, which isn’t totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don’t know. It depends on how this goes,” Hagel says in an interview in the April edition of Esquire magazine.

A far-right-wingnut (and make no mistake on this, he is a wingnuton ALMOST every other issue) talking impeachment.

amnesty day marches on

As Blogtopias' (Y! YCTP!) one and only skippy carries the banner forward with his John Swift inspired Blog amnesty day:

amnesty day marches on:

"amnesty day marches on
one bitchin' bottom line of our blog bump business from the big box blogs' blogrolls brou-ha-ha, if we may be alliterative, is all the new cyber-friends we have made thanks to our subsequent whining about the whole fiasco.

we have not only found a literal plethora of wider scopes and broader swaths in analysis, ideas and opinions, we've made long-lasting acquaintenances with a variety of interesting thinkers and writers"

I want to encourage everyone in the left to take a few minutes every week visiting Blogrolls on other people's Blogs... You never know what gems you might find just by clicking around aimlessly from Blog to Blog. :)

Minutemen Violence Gets Exposure in Court

Battles for control. Defamation of character. Trashing peoples' personal belongings. Stolen money. Beating on women.



The Minutemen Project, founded by ctblogger's favorite Danbury no-show and noted bigot Jim Gilchrist, has it it all and is getting exsposed for what it really is as the battle over control of this freakshow of "armed vigelantes" run amok starts to heat up in the public domain and, more importantly, in the courtrooms.

Man Eegee - Latino Político:

"I can't help but smile. There's a lot going on with the vigilantes this week. Their multi-faceted leadership spat is being battled out in the courts, along with some concrete action by law enforcement to ferret out the ways these nativist movements are fertile ground for hate crimes and human rights violations.

San Diego Police served the leader of the San Diego Minutemen, Jeff Schwilk, and another prominent member of the group with search warrants on Wednesday. The warrants were granted in connection with vandalism at a Rancho Penasquitos migrant camp. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson has details.

Last January, six people sliced up migrant workers’ belongings in the camps. Police say the vandals cut up blankets, clothes and even workers' shoes.

It's important to understand the context of this investigation. The Minutemen are actually two separate groups that underwent a schism between founder Jim Gilchrist and prominent leader Chris Simcox. This formed the Minutemen Project and Minutemen Civil Defense Corps."

Click on for more on this as Man Eegee fills out the rest of this story.

Major Change at MLN: "The torch; be yours to hold it high."

Branford Boy at MLN announces a passing of the torch:

My Left Nutmeg :: Where Connecticut Dems Scratch That Progressive Itch:

"From the get-go, MyLeftNutmeg was envisioned as a community site, not a vehicle for any one person. However, the real world demands that every blog must have an 'owner,' someone who controls the domain registration, pays the hosting bills, responds to media inquiries, and so forth. Since August 2005 that person has been me.

But no more. I am moving on to other things and have passed the baton, as it were, to younger, more capable hands. The new 'owner' of My Left Nutmeg is ctblogger of ConnecticutBLOG fame."

Thanks for what you have helped to do in and for Connecticut and good luck to you, Branny, and a little note to ctblogger:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

These simple words that spurred champions on:

To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.

Ct Bob takes a hit From CNN

Kudos to Ct Bob on making CNN's hit list for his past efforts:

"Gee, they make a big deal about the fact that I picked up a lousy 1,000 hits, and the other one got like 2 million. Oh, well."

Go check out some of the things that rebel is noted for.

Bilmon, Elizabeth Edwards, and Doing Something About It

Renee over at HowardEmpowerd digs up a nice litlle nugget from Billmon explaining what is happening to supposed "A-list Bloggers":

I wanted to make sure I pointed out this essay by Nonpartisan at My Left Wing. It, in turn, refers to an op-ed piece written by former ("A-list") blogger Billmon way back in September of 2004. It ends with this...

To be sure, there are still plenty of bloggers out there putting the 1st Amendment through its paces, their only compensation the satisfaction of speaking the truth to power. But it’s going to become more difficult for those voices to reach a broad audience. If the mainstream media are true to past form, they will treat the A-list blogs — commercialized, domesticated — as if they are the entire blogosphere, while studiously ignoring the more eccentric, subversive currents swirling deeper down. Not the most glorious ending for a would-be revolution, but also not a surprising one. Bloggers aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, rebellious critics to try to storm the castle, only to be invited to come inside and make themselves at home.

Billmon was a real A-list Blogger... He saw it coming, and spelled it out like very few Bloggers ever could. No matter what the subject was. Some "other" A-list wannabe Bloggers are living the commercialized and domesticated dream now.

Good for them.

They don't represent my "more eccentric, subversive" views, nor what the bulk of the Blogtopia (y! skippy ctp!) is really about. They can continue to try and corner the market on that all they want, and to the exclusion of those that will continue to work for REAL changes.

But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. I pointed to that post by Renee because of Elizabeth Edwards recent announcements:

elizabeth edwards said she was "incredibly optimistic" and said her expectations about the future were unchanged.

We all wish her, and her family well on her road to recovery. And while her post has nothing to do with Elizabeth Edwards directly, a comment in Renee's diary does in a roundabout way.

The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).

This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors /advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.

Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.

http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/

A free Mamogram for someone that may need one. I rarely ever ask for anyone to pay anything to anyone on this website. I have no adds here to make money. I am no A-list Blogger (by a longshot... heh) and you should note that all I do is toil away on a regular basis trying to make a difference in this town, state and country. Not for money, not for noterioty, and Lord knows not for "access to the powers that be.

All I am asking you to do here is to click a couple of times with your ever-clicking-mouse-finger to make a difference, yourselves, for a stranger. Maybe even for someone you do know? No money, no buying anything from anyone. Just a few clicks. If you won't do it for me: Do it for Elizabeth Edwards and every other woman that has had to deal with Breast cancer.

Much like Elizabeth Edwards, I think we should all remain "incredibly optimistic" and and our expectations about the future should remain unchanged. Whether we are talking about storming the castle, speaking truth to power, toiling away and doing the little things that make a difference, or trying to cure cancers in our society.

It is the little things that we all do everyday that add up to the big changes in the world around us. Most of these things won't make you rich or powerful, but they might make you feel a little better about yourselves, at the end of the day, thinking you might have made a difference.

And it does, all of it, make a difference.

Oregon: Portland Police Gone Wild

Janet from Peace Gone Wild:

Portland, my home, was terrorized Sunday several times. Not by foreign "terrorists". Not by drugged out hippies.

But by the police force.

snip

An eye witness account speaks to the "peacekeepers":

"Towards the end of the march a group marched towards Burnside and were stopped infront of Carl Greve's by the police. There was massive use of pepper spray initially. However, once things had calmed down and the police were in their alignments it continued to happen. A woman was standing 4 feet away from the police line of for officers chanting "This is what a police state looks like" she was not flipping the police the finger and she was not using any profanity. She was not asked to move, and she never made any attempt to get closer to the police line. She made no gesture of violence, or of any other kind. She just stood there chanting "This is what a police state looks like" when an officer randomly sprayed pepper spray in her face. After the prick police assholes payed out $300,000 for excessive pepper spray force for another protest and promised it wouldn't happen again, guess what, IT DID. To the organizers of the protest YOU CAN NOT TRUST THE POLICE. They lie, they manipulate, and deceit is one of their main character traits. I keep hearing from the organizers of these marches that they are cooperating with the police, but this cooperation is still harming the people protesting. This woman was on the sidewalk, chanting, standing still, she was acting in a non violent fashion, and it didn't matter. You wore t-shirts saying peacekeeper, you failed to do so, and a citizen who was abiding by the law and excising her constitutinal rights had to pay the price."

She has some Videos and a bunch of pictures up from the Portland peace march. Here is one of the YouTubes she has up on march:





Go on and check out the rest of her story, pics, and videos on what happened...