Bush makes obscene gesture at press (?)

I think it's real. It certainly looks real in the video.

That Slippery Slope...

Pre-emptive warfare, even when properly justified, is a slipperly slope... and it seems some members of congress want to plunge down it. From an action alert sent out by the ADC:

July 18, 2005, Washington, DC - In a radio interview last Thursday, July 14, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) advocated the United States preemptively strike Mecca with nuclear weapons. The Colorado Congressman’s made his comments on the Pat Campbell Radio Show (AM 540) in response to Campbell’s statement that terrorists are seeking the means to attack the United States with a dirty bomb. Tancredo suggested that a preemptive attack on Mecca would be enough of a threat to make terrorists think twice about attacking the United States again.

There's a sound file at a site (that apparently supports this type of talk) here.

That'll make us very popular overseas, won't it?

Even if he was only speaking hypothetically...

Patriot Act Revisited. Or Not

From Rep John Conyer Jr's blog:

Blogged by JC on 07.13.05 @ 11:25 PM ET

Patriot Act Reauthorization
I didn't need my civil liberties anyway

I just got out of a 12 hour markup in the House Judiciary Committee on the Patriot Act. The GOP bill, which passed on a party line vote, would essentially make the expiring sections of the Patriot Act, passed in 2001, permanent.

He goes on to say the amendments to it fell along the party line votes as well, and that this may hit the floor next week. Full text with public comments is linked in the title.

So NOW is the time to object to your reps and senators, folks. Especially any Republican reps and senators. You can use the capwiz link on the side of this blog if your usual action alert groups don't have this particular action alert. Or even better, send a printed letter.

And if you haven't yet, you may want to add Conyer's blog to the list of blogs you follow. It's been an interesting read so far.

Chief Justice O'Connor?

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up.

"I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program "Face the Nation." "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."

Describing what he called credible speculation, Mr. Specter said that before she retired, "there was some speculation in the intervening week that Justice O'Connor might be waiting to see what Chief Justice Rehnquist did, perhaps with the chance to become chief justice herself."

Mr. Specter also said he intended to push hard for a bill, expected to come up in the Senate this week, to authorize federal financing for research using stem cells derived from human embryos left over at fertilization clinics. Many social conservatives object to the research, saying it destroys potential human life, but supporters argue that the research could yield new treatments for many life-threatening diseases.

As a Pennsylvanian and a registered independent, if Bush must choose a (Republican) replacement for O'Connor, why not choose Specter?

Santorum Book Excerpts

Rick Santorm, who recently recommended Goodnight Moon as "Summer beach reading" in The Penn Stater (pg 50), has written a book of his own. Excerpts courtesy of CapitolBuzz:

Keep The Mom At Home: "In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don’t need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do… And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home." (It Takes a Family, 94)

Thanks Gloria Steinem: "Many women have told me, and surveys have shown, that they find it easier, more “professionally” gratifying, and certainly more socially affirming, to work outside the home than to give up their careers to take care of their children. Think about that for a moment…Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders." (It Takes a Family, 95)

Who Needs College? "The notion that college education is a cost-effective way to help poor, low-skill, unmarried mothers with high school diplomas or GEDs move up the economic ladder is just wrong." (It Takes a Family, 138)

"By asking the right question, we can see that when it comes to socialization, mass education is really the aberration, not homeschooling. Never before in human history have a majority of children spent at least half their waking hours in the presence of 25 to 35 unrelated children of exactly the same age (and usually the same socio-economic status), with only one adult to keep order and provide basic mentoring. Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment. It’s amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools." (It Takes a Family, 386)

Slavery Wasn't So Bad: "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave." ((It Takes a Family, 241)


Diversity is Bad: "The elementary error of relativism becomes clear when we look at multiculturalism. Sometime in the 1980s, universities began to champion the importance of “diversity” as a central educational value." (It Takes a Family, 406)

Wal-Mart is NOT Bad: "Another corporate good citizen cooperating with parents to keep kids from inappropriate content has been Wal-Mart." (It Takes a Family, 332)

More excerpts to come at CapitolBuzz.

Black Box Voting reports

I don't know if any of you follow Black Box Voting (link above)on a regular basis, but these folks have been working tirelessly since long before this last election to clean up our badly flawed election system. They've uncovered numerous instances of outright fraud. Amazingly, the press remains mostly silent. Gotta love Big Brother, er, I mean, Big Business.

There are two very interesting reports there recently, one on July 3rd about the Diebold Corporation's earnings restatement, conveniently released just before a holiday weekend. (Diebold is the voting machine manufacture for a large percentage of the country, and has strong ties to the Republican party. The fact their machines are easily manipulated does not appear to disturb the folks buying them overly much.) In the restatement, Diebold cites the following issues: "potential security violations to the company's information technology systems" -- "challenges raised about reliability and security of election systems products, including the risk that such products will not be certified for use or will be decertified" -- and "unanticipated litigation, claims or assessments". Looks like the Black Box Voting people are making some serious inroads there!

The second report, released July 4th, is the Black Box Report, discussing "the mother of all security holes" in the Diebold system.

Oh, and speaking of news conveniently released just before a holiday, how about the name Karl Rove turning up in the notes of the reporters who leaked that CIA agent's identity? His lawyer denies he was involved, of course, though they do admit a conversation with the reporters took place.

"For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -"
--Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor retiring

From the BBC:

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, is confident that Mr Bush would nominate someone who shares the president's conservative judicial philosophy to replace Justice O'Connor.

He says there has never been more of an organised lobbying effort "on our side - ever".

Ralph G Neas, president of the left-leaning People For the American Way Foundation, says the top priority of the "radical right" is gaining dominance in the Supreme Court.

That goal is more within reach than at any point in the past two decades, he believes.

"A court with more justices who share the radical legal philosophy of the far right's favorites... would reverse decades of legal and social justice accomplishments," says Mr Neas.

I'm a little bit afraid. Anyone else?