After a contentious public meeting last night the Federal Way School Board lifted it’s moratorium on the showing of Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” and tried to put a positive spin on a controversy that has clearly spun out of control.
Board members have said they hope this controversy will start a healthy debate about global warming.
Actually, what it’s started a healthy debate about is the composition of the Federal Way School Board.
The Board is dominated by religious conservatives and members of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a right-wing faux-think-tank dedicated to busting the teachers unions and dismantling public education. Right wingers have long targeted local school board elections — low profile/low cost races that rarely garner much public spotlight. But they don’t represent the broader community.
As has been seen throughout the nation, from Pennsylvania to Kansas, when the righties overreach as they have occasionally done in pushing Intelligent Design, the voters wake up and replace the the school board. That’s what should happen in Federal Way. That’s what will happen in Federal Way.
Hmmm, I wonder if these guys are the reason 3 Democratic senators have introduced a bill to give parents the option of converting their local school boards from elective to appointed offices? It’s in today’s fishwrapper (aka Seattle Times).
Yeah, I hope we can do at least as well as Kansas and Pennsylvania, and replace wingnut board members when they ignore scientific consensus.
Like the commercial used to say: It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!
So, what are they going to show as an opposing view to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth?”
“Reefer Madness???”
Some obscure little wingnut blog I’ve never heard of attacked me a few days ago, proving that HorsesAss.org is widely read and my reputation is getting around. I’ll merely quote some highlights; you can read the whole thing here: http://tinyurl.com/37meek
“I was reading a post at [another obscure little wingnut blog] about raising taxes (again) to pay for Washington’s education system … a regular poster … left a comment about … http://www.HorsesAss.org, in which they’re considering a state income tax to help pay for education. Let me go on record as stating that I am opposed to a state income tax. The state will just as easily squander revenue they receive from an income tax as they do from our current tax structure – they’ll just have more of it to waist.”
Roger Rabbit sez: It’s painfully obvious this guy is a wingnut because he (a) thinks any money spent on education is “squandered,” and (b) can’t spell “waste.”
“ … Goldy wants to impose an income tax to pay for education …. Keep in mind that I’m not familiar with Goldy’s politics, but judging from the company he keeps at http://www.HorsesAss.org, I’d have to conclude that he’s of the liberal mindset.”
Roger Rabbit sez: Ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a Rocket Scientist.
“ … So to hear a liberal railing for an income tax comes as no great surprise to me. … But that’s not really why I’ve drug you down here. The real reason is the comments left by his readers. Some, like a person calling himself Roger Rabbit, seem to be professional commenters.”
Roger Rabbit sez: I strive for professional quality in my work here, and wish like hell someone would pay me for it, but presently my motivation is patriotism and my compensation is the satisfaction of giving wingnuts what they so richly deserve. Also, I still have a guilty conscience from being a Goldwater Republican long ago.
“Either he is Goldy, or he thrives on arguing.”
Roger Rabbit sez: Someone is accusing GOLDY of being Roger Rabbit? That’s a good one! Disgruntled wingnuts have falsely accused Goldy of being a child molester, but so far as I know this is the first time anyone has falsely accused him of being Roger Rabbit. As for “thrives on arguing,” I’m a lawyer – does that tell you anything? — but to head off any misconceptions, I don’t argue for the sake of argument. Normally I do it for money. But here on HA, I do it to save America!
“… Roger Rabbit … said: … ‘Why don’t you be honest and just admit that … you don’t want to pay your fair share and like the current system that puts the burden on those least able to pay.’ … I want you to focus on the concept of ‘paying your fair share.’ … Libertarians aren’t opposed to paying taxes; they only want to pay for the services they use.”
Roger Rabbit sez: I get it – this wingnut wants to PRIVATIZE every fucking thing under the sun! How do toll roads, toll schools, toll libraries, etc., grab you? How about a war toll? Here’s my idea. If an Iraqi citizen wants U.S. soldiers to guard his house, he puts coins in a meter outside. When the meter runs out, he either puts in more coins, or the soldiers leave. Yeah, this idea, in limited contexts, might have some promise, I’ll give the wingnut that much.
“ … Remember: small government=good; no government=better.”
Roger Rabbit sez: Why don’t you just admit you’re a fucking anarchist?
“ … We still haven’t arrived at my question …”
Roger Rabbit sez: Well, who’s fault is it that you’re dithering around?
” … what is your fair share when it comes to paying taxes? How much is fair? Who decides what amount is fair?”
Roger Rabbit sez: Okay Mr. Rocket Scientist Wingnut, you asked a tough question, and the answer is that poor people paying 17% of their income in state/local taxes while rich people pay 4% of theirs ain’t fair; and, our elected representatives decide what you’re gonna pay, and whether it’s fair according to your subjective definition is irrelevant, because if you don’t pay you go to jail.
“ … The ‘Fair Share’ argument seems to be trotted out whenever someone who’s aim is to take from you wants to guilt you into letting him. How do you argue against ambiguity?”
Roger Rabbit sez: Glossing over his glaring grammatical error (”whose,” not “who’s”) … the only ambiguity here is whether Mr. Wingnut is one of those top 20-percenters who is skating under the current tax system. Sounds like it. Unless the guy is totally stupid, or uninformed, or both, he must know whether he’s a screwer or a screwee.
“ … Is a 10 percent tax on your income fair? Would 11 percent also be fair? How about 12? Or would that cross some imaginary excessive line? Seriously, if anyone can define what ‘fair share’ means, let me know.”
Roger Rabbit sez: Let’s skip over the fact that many wingnuts who bitch about paying 10% of their income to the state think nothing of tithing 10% of their income to some church that doesn’t even provide them with roads, schools, cops, or firefighters. State and local government consistently spends about 15% of national income, and our state is about average, so a fair share of the tab for state and local government would appear to be about 15% of your personal income.
“ … As it stands right now, this is what I envision ‘fair share’ would mean to Roger Rabbit …. You have property. In this case, its money. We need money for our education program to operate, so we’re going to ‘ask’ you to contribute. If you resist, we’ll force you to pay. We’ve determined through a mathematical formula that your fair share will be 10 percent of your property. Now, pay up!”
Roger Rabbit sez: Don’t you just hate it when some wingnut appoints himself as your spokesperson? If this guy is paying only 10% of his personal income to government, we need to look into that. Why should he get away with that, when the rest of us are paying between a third and 40% of our income to government?
“ … Now, here’s my idea of fair share. Let’s say you have a child that needs an education. You open up a phonebook and look under schools in the yellow pages. Finding a listing, you dial their number. After talking to the sales staff, you agree on a price, and arrange to send your child to their school. Did you see how that process worked? … In the end, the consumer controls the education market, not some government bearucracy. That, to me, is fair.”
Roger Rabbit sez: Let me change this around a little bit. Bear with me, Mr. Wingnut, I’m trying to work with you, really I am. Let’s say you want to topple a tinpot despot in some shithole Third World country that happens to be sitting on an ocean of oil you’d like to steal. You open up a phonebook and look under “mercenaries” in the yellow pages. Finding a listing, you dial their number. After talking to the sales staff, you agree on a price, and arrange to send some guys to the country you want to knock over. Did you see how that process worked? You fight your imperialist war on your own dime, and leave me out of it. In the end, consumers will control the war, not some cabal of incompetents who are bound to fuck it up. That seems to me at least as fair as your crackpot education scheme. Go ahead, criticize it, I dare you!
Mr. Rocket Scientist Wingnut must have been raised in a state where you buy your education out of the Yellow Pages, because he a guy who criticizes a bureaucracy he can’t even spell obviously was either home-schooled by illiterate parents or “educated” in some shithole little one-room school. The guy is clueless. The single most important factor behind America’s tremendous economic success is universal free public education. The implementation of public education in the late 1800s is what set us on the path to Manifest Destiny. It made us the richest country on Earth. Could Henry Ford have assembled cars with illiterates who can’t read a blueprint or printed instruction? It’s no accident that America’s post-World War 2 economic boom followed on the heels of the G.I. Bill that made college accessible to millions of Americans. Education is just as important to our future as it was in our past. And this fuckwad wants to sell education out of a phone book? No wonder nobody’s ever heard of his dumb little blog.
I think Gov. Gregoire should appoint the Federal Way School Board. Just in this one case. We can make it happen with emergency legislation. This is an emergency! The Governor should also send the National Guard to Federal Way to rescue the kids.
@3 Why should they show an “opposing view”? And with 98% of the scientific community in consensus, where will you find a valid opposing view? Jiminy chrismas if a teacher said the moon is made of rocks, you people would make the teacher tell the kids some people believe it’s made of green cheese. We need to keep bullshit out of our classrooms. It’s bad enough we have to put up with bullshit in the print media and on the airwaves, but (sigh) that’s the necessary price of free speech.
Hey Libertarian — I bashed your buddy Don Bangert as the fucking idiot he is — the post is in the filter for now, but look for it here.
Roger, I think he was joking.
Roger,
I know Don Bangert by name only. Couldn’t pick ’em out of a line up if I tried. I’ve read a post or two of his on Lacey Libertarian, but that’s about it.
Drool,
Yep, you’re correct. I was making a joke with the “Reefer Madness” thing. Roget sometimes takes it too seriously.
BTW, this global warming thing could work out well for me: I could be sitting on some waterfront property in another 20 year! Plus, I’d get the enjoyment of seeing all those rich a-holes down the street having to leave their fancy-schmancy homes to the encroaching seawater. Sweet!
http://www.effwa.org/main/page.php?number=46
Here’s a handy link that you can use to connect yourself to the “letters to the editor” of newspapers all over the state of WA. It’s on EFF’s own website.
I find it humorous to use their own link to send letters to the editor opposing their little “special ops.” against our schools.
What they are really up to is to destroy teachers’ unions and privatize schools. The religeous conservatives are their unwitting tools.
It always boils down to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ with these conservative bastards.
Kerry Out of ’08 Race
Sen. John Kerry will announce later today that he will not run for president in 2008, and will instead focus on his Senate re-election campaign.
@6 I think he was, too, but why should I pass up an opportunity to needle Lib?
@7 See #10.
@8 Where did you get that cool “colonel” handle? I want one! I want to be Col. Roger Rabbit. In the New South, it was often bestowed as an honorary title. I want to be an honorary rabbit!
I guess that the Federal Way Conservative, Jonathan Gardner, must be up in arms (literally) and gunning for the school board after this reversal.
What a whacko!
Roger @ 10,
Thanks, pardner. I generally never pass up the opportunity to needle you, either. Makes the time pass mre quickly at work.
Hey Roger, there are some guys over at Stefan’s blog that could use some needling right now. Check it out.
12
Go to auctioneer school:
See, you stick around here long enough, you learn things. I would say that I’ve learned that I want no part of being a conservative, but actually I learned that long before I showed up here.
re 12: You can call yourself a John Updike Character. Run Rabbit? Rabbit Run? or , you can call yourself, Col. Roger McGuinn.
That comment was definitely for the Byrds.
Frosty Hardison originally made it abundantly clear what he wanted. His contention was that the implication in the data and analysys presented in An Inconvenient Truth contains at least the implication that this rock we live on is more than 14,000 years old, and this is offensive to him (and his presumed compatriots). His demand was that if the movie was shown, in the interest of “fairness” an “opposing view” would have to be presented. By this, of course, he meant the Bible, or to be more exact the dominionist evangelicals’ questionable interpretation of the abridged King James Version.
I wasn’t aware of the current make-up of the Federal Way school board, but that district has a long history of controversy, including a period some years back in which it was stripped of its state accreditation.
Frosty Hardison was just on the Dave Ross Show repeating Dittohead myths about Global Warming, and predicting the exact date of The Rapture.
When the right wing trolls complain about lefty moonbats, keep in mind the Christian Right (ie, all that’s left of the GOP) runs circles around them – any day of the week.
I don’t know how the Christianists can claim the earth is only 14,000 years old. I have leftovers in my fridge that are older than that.
I don’t mind this being shown to students…. it certainly could be a teaching tool as part of a science curriculum.
I think however that teaching/learning math is a bigger problem in schools these days. The school board should focus on that rather than what movie to show students.
I think in Tennessee and Kentucky, they maintain an “honorary” militia. Their drills consist of annual dinners, etc., and an occasional charity fund-raiser. The state legislature has to pass an act commissioning any officer in the militia. So to become a “colonel”, you merely need to have enough political influence to (a) get some state representative to put your name in a bill, (b) and not give anybody any reason to oppose it.
I knew a Tennesee colonel once. He had a certificate (commission) on his office walls, along with his law degree and bar license. When I asked him about it, he just laughed and said it didn’t mean anything.
Hey, Roger, why don’t you form the “Rabbit Militia”? Then you could become the colonel in charge. If anybody invades your park, you could defend it with your rapier wit and claws. If there are to many of them, just wait a few days, then you will outnumber them.
LOL @24
“…and predicting the exact date of The Rapture.”
Funny. Jesus said that only God knows this date, even the angels in heaven don’t know it. I guess he spent so much time trying to add up the generations in the Old Testiment (to determine the age of the world) that he never got to reading that part of the New Testiment.
Dang. “Mike Mailway” died.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....oyd25.html
Well, I think the Federal Way school board had it right the first time and here’s why…
Show the other side, and let the other side be total clowns. I saw the Gore documentary and having receding glaciers in my favorite place to hike – North Cascades – I think it’s time for the denial to stop.
That said, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation – I’m a proud member – doesn’t have a position on global warming. I’d be careful about smearing them, though – they have a LOT of blog buddies.
rhp6033
I can’t believe that ol’ Frosty dissed Bishop Ussher so bad. Doesn’t he know that the date of Creation was October 23, 4004 BC?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher
27
That’s too bad. I loved his columns.
Where did all those fossils come from? Like T.Rex and the others. They’re a lot older than 4004 BC(E).
What does Intelligent Design have to do with Global Warming?
Are we confused?
BTW: Billy O’Reilly believes in Global Warming too
Things can really get mixed up eh?
“Intelligent Design” is essentially “creationism lite”. The evangelicals (or at least the more extreme ones) believe that the concept of divine creation in their “biblical” time frame go hand in hand with the Rapture and the “end times”. I suspect that they really don’t want anyone to forestall anything that might actually bring the End of the World–a lot of them were all excited during the Reagan years about the prospect that we and the Rooskies would actually start slinging nukes at each other, and some are probably sporting wood about mushroom clouds over the Middle East. Why are they so eager for this? They believe that before the planet goes up in a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi-Ho, Silver”, they’ll be the “chosen ones” who’ll get “raptured up” and go to heaven without having to die.
If you think I’m being too flip about this, turn on Channel 22 when Hal Lindsey’d holding forth. (Haven’t watched him in a while, but I think he used to be on Thursday evenings.) He sits there and talks about the events of the day, spins a bunch of conspiracy theories about it all laced with references to biblical quotes, and intones “Friends…..we are getting close!” in his oh-so-authoritative basso profundo.
Mind you, on the air and in print, he’s been saying this for about 40 years.
33
Personally, I am tired of waiting.
This is one of those issues that just simply clarifies the hypocrisy of right-wing ideological thinking.
During the Terri Schivo fiasco, science concluded that her brain had suffered massive damage and she was in an irreversible vegetative state. The area of her brain that controlled sight was severely damaged and she was either legally blind or had severally limited sight.
BUT in right-wing, nut-job world, “Dr.” Bill Frist said upon examination of the video she was “responding to visual stimuli.” Baa haaa haaa haaa haaa.
The zealots on the right argued “we should error on the side of life” and let Terri’s parents take over her care regardless of the inviolate and “sanctimonious” bonds of marriage and the fact she told her husband she’d never want to live in that state.
Now, we have one of the greatest consensuses in scientific history that human beings are causing Global Warming which can cause catastrophic changes to our ONLY sustainable living environment in the infinite universe, but now these ASSHOLES don’t want to “error on the side of life” when it doesn’t fit within the political ideology they’ve been told to follow.
This level of thinking, or lack thereof, is precisely the reason the Republicans were run from power last November and why we’ll continue to see the erosion of the Republican power structure for at least another 10-20 years.
The best part is the hardcore base, the 35% dead enders who still support Bush, don’t realize they’ve just been in one of the largest political train wrecks in modern history.
Losers.
35
Haven’t you heard the news? It’s down to 28% now. You know he’s in trouble when even the nutjobs start thinking he’s a nutjob.
@14 Does your boss know you’re goofing off on your computer when you’re supposed to be working?
@15 That’s an ongoing situation. My people are working on it.
35 I just hope to heaven we don’t end up with a grotesque turning of the tables over Senator Johnson.
@20 I can’t wait for the Rapture to get here! 144,000 Republicans gone in a nanosecond with a single flash-and-bang! It’s not nearly enough, but it’s a start.
I’m gonna get on all 4 knees right now and pray to the Rabbit Spirit to make the Rapture arrive in a swing state.
40 & 41 are examples of liberal humor.
@24 “Hey, Roger, why don’t you form the ‘Rabbit Militia’?”
That should be easy to do, as I’m already running around in the woods, and I’m already armed!
35-36 There’s of course this disgusting possibility that BushBag’s “hardcore base” is abandoning him because he’s not wrecking things fast enough for their liking.
Shit from the same myth-brained people who are convinced the world was created 6000 years ago.
@31 “Intelligent Design” is a legal strategy invented by lawyers to get around the First Amendment.
@35 Sanctimonious bonds of marriage … that’s a good one! I gotta tell that one to Mrs. Rabbit. But I’d better put on a helmet first.
Where’s Goldy today? Still sleeping off the SOTU? My Bangert bash is still locked up in filter jail.
Roger @ 37,
Sometimes there are slack periods where there isn’t much going on. Kind of like a career in government “service” at times. Other times can be very, very busy. I usually come in on Saturdays to take care of one thing or another that didn’t get done during the Monday thru Friday gig.
“Intelligent Design” is a legal strategy invented by lawyers to get around the First Amendment.
Shakespeare was right about the lawyers.
ArtFart @ 39:
What’s to worry?
Unless Sen. Johnson dies or resigns he can remain a sitting Senator. Nothing, can force him to resign even if he’s incapacitated.
Since his health is improving we don’t need to worry about him dying. And, because he’s a Democrat who understands the stakes he ain’t quittin’ either.
@ 36:
35%, 28%?!?!? God, who can keep up??
I think it’d be easier to just call him President Toilet Bowl!
It’s where his approval rating are and where his best ideas come from. No wonder his ideas are so “shitty.”
Sorry, that was bad.
Col. Rabbit @ 47:
Depending on Mrs. Rabbit’s sense of humor you may need more than just a helmet, you might need full battle rattle, soldier.
52
Yeah, you’re right. Funny, but bad.
Lib @ 50
Indeed, Shakespeare was correct about lawyers. His oft-quoted line, “first, let’s kill all the lawyers,” is rarely provided context. I can’t remember which play at the moment, but the scene involved a band of thugs descending upon a town to wreak havoc. Their leader suggested killing the lawyers as a means of destroying the rule of law and hence providing the thugs an easier route toward pillaging. So, indeed, Shakespeare recognized the value of lawyers in maintaining a civilized community.
re 55: Well, let’s kill them anyway.
When are people going to wake up. Vouchers would allow parents to choose which school is best. The left has a problem with tax dollars going to private schools but have no problem shoving their lefty idiology down everyones throat. IT IS TIME FOR VOUCHERS.
@58: Some say we should kill you, Wally. Now I didn’t say this, but some folks, as I understand, have. I suggest you get a passport.
When are people going to wake up.
Most are indeed awake when not sleeping. This must be one of those wingnut rhetorical questions.
Vouchers would allow parents to choose which school is best.
Assume everyone has vouchers. Assume they all want their kid to go to the same school because it is “best”. What happens next? Confine your answer to 500 words or less. Any more, you expose yourself as a fucking idiot.
The left has a problem with tax dollars going to private schools …
No. I have a problem with tax dollars subsidizing already wealthy people…a VERY BIG PROBLEM. You, on the other hand, do not appear to have this problem. Why the fuck is that?
…but have no problem shoving their lefty idiology down everyones throat.
Yeah, sure. Like the GOP loses a national presidential election (2000) and uses a slim legislative majority to ram tax cuts for the rich down our throats. You’re a fucking windbag. A liar. A jerk. A hack. A laughingstock. An irrelevancy. Go off and get drunk with Christopher Hitchens and stick your purple finger up your ass.
…..God, who can keep up??
been there, done that. the keep it up part, not the god part.
sheesh.
Sometimes there are slack periods where there isn’t much going on.
This has been a chronic problem for conservative thought since Thomas Hobbes. Thus always the clarion call from conservatives for “action” against “the others”. Otherwise, they have a hard time justifying their existence.
What do conservatives stand for, anyway? I mean, fuck all, Al Gonzales claims there is no right to habeus corpus. People who share this opinion are derranged, and should be shunned…..aggressively I might add.
re 64: He’s a lawyer. Need I say more?
When conservatives refer to the constitution, they always want to point out that if the constitution does not expressly give you a right, that means you automatically DO NOT have that right.
Gonzales, arguing with Arlen Specter about the right of Habeus Corpus, pointed out that the constitution does not expressly give people the right of Habeus Corpus. Specter wisely pointed out that the constitution says the government is not permitted to take it away, therefore , the constitution inherently assumes you have that right.
Gonzales is just a godammnnn Nazi.
An Inconvenient Truth
When Republicans try to steal the next election we are going to have to kick some Republican ass. We already know that they are hot air and physical cowards. I’m talking about the on-the-ground operatives. If I hear they are putting thugs on the street like they did in Florida, I am going to meet them.
It may sound radical, but it may come to that. Our strength is that we are in the right.
Their weakness is that they are only in it for the money.
Do you know what “Blackwater” is in the water damage restoration? It’s water that is contaminated with shit or ather equally harmful stuff.
The left has a problem with tax dollars going to private schools …
No. I have a problem with tax dollars subsidizing already wealthy people…a VERY BIG PROBLEM. You, on the other hand, do not appear to have this problem. Why the fuck is that?
So you have a probem with rich kids going to public school, right? Dont we already subsidize it now? How many rich kids go to Bellvue HS or Mercer Island HS? I bet you it is more then you think. I cant wait for the response on this. What a dumbass reason to be against vouchers. hehehe
The Army Times says: http://www.armytimes.com/news/.....ded070119/
“Defense Department officials have laid off most of their case workers who help severely injured service members, sources said.”
re 69: Go fuck yourself, traitor! And don’t show your face on the street.
@4 Holy shit!!! Father, I have sinned!!! Forgive me!!! I must beg the King’s pardon for I have slaughtered his English!!! About 1/3rd of the way down the commenbt, “Who’s” should read “Whose” … eek! How could I have done such a wingnutty thing.
68
Why go through all that. Just win a presidential election with honest votes. The last time you dems did that it was 1976. Judging by how the dems in the senate are acting we will win easily in 2008 unless another Perot decides to run.
@29 Josef, doesn’t it just kill you that the love of your life married someone else? You should’ve asked Zits for a date when you had the chance. Now she’s gone forever.
http://www.rollingstone.com/po....._can_win/1
Run, Al, Run
The ideal candidate for the Democrats may be the man who won the popular vote in 2000 — and who opposed the war in Iraq from the very start
TIM DICKINSON
“He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration’s most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he’s also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.
’”He’s perceived very differently now than he was six years ago,” says Frank Luntz, the Republican consultant who advised George W. Bush to dispute global warming during the 2000 and 2004 elections. “He’s an icon….’”
@51 I think you have a misconception about what government service is. Every government office I ever worked in was understaffed, and my last job was in an office that had three lawyers on the organization chart but I was the only one on the payroll, so I had to do the work of three people. This is typical of government work. There is no such thing as “slack time” in government work. In addition, they fire you for using the state computer for personal bullshit.
re 73: Your problem is that you have no spine. You are backing down. You are chickenshit. You are not afraid to kill, but you are afraid to die. Because all you are about is the almighty dollar.
Republicans have a case of political “jellyfish syndrome.”
The stiffest thing in your party is in a log cabin — and I’m wondering when they will see you offer them nothing.
@54 Chimp has accomplished the extraordinary feat of an approval rating lower than the middle class marginal tax rate.
@55 Mrs. Rabbit doesn’t have a sense of humor. She doesn’t think a goddamn thing is funny.
@57 Henry VI (Part 2), Act IV, Scene II
@59 Nobody made your parents send you to a public school, and it’s obvious they didn’t.
@63 Yeah, I noticed through the 40 years of my working life that every supervisor on the planet thinks his workers aren’t working hard enough. They must all be reading Hobbes — yeah, that’s it, is where they get it from.
@64 Here in Washington, they’d flunk you on the bar exam for saying that.
@64 (continued) I guess they don’t ask about habeas corpus on the Texas bar exam. In that state, they just kill ’em, and worry about possible innocence later.
@64 Wanna hear sumpin real scary? As attorney general, Gonazales normally is 7th in the line of presidential succession, but there’s always one cabinet member who doesn’t attend the SOTU, to preserve succession in case our enemies blow up the Capitol Building and kill everyone inside — and yesterday Gonazales was the guy designated to become president in such a catastrophe.
Can you imagine Gonzales running our government immediately after a terrorist attack — with every member of Congress and the Supreme Court dead?
@66 That one would be a failing answer on Washington’s bar exam, too. Except for lawyers licensed by Texas, every lawyer in America knows that Constitution expressly reserves to the people all powers not specifically granted to government.
@67 There are two things you don’t need a license to get in this country: an abortion, and a gun.
@67 The real “inconvenient truth” here is that the Constitution allows any jackass who is a citizen and over the age of 35 to be president.
@ 64, 83, 84 & others:
Committee staff members for Sen. Leahy & Sen. Specter have speculated that AttyGen Gonzales may be impeachable for that profoundly idiotic comment about habeas. Some crazy Texas bloggers are checking into whether Gonzales may be “disbarred” for the statements.
Apparently, his opinion about The Great Writ is not exactly the mainstream view of the legal profession. Others have pointed out that a juris doctor degree is not needed to understand high school civics (SOME people say, however, that civics classes are no longer taught). Another group has pointed out that the AttyGen was not under oath when he made the blunder. A silly lefty blogger who claims to have connections within the Senate Judiciary Committee has commented that Sen. Leahy is tempted to call Gonzales back & put him under oath for a do-over.
Scary, hunh?
70 Yup, the support-the-troops crowd is popping smoke again.
@75 I would like to see Gore run. No one else has his knowledge, experience, grasp of issues, or is better qualified to sweep up all the broken glass left behind by the chimp and the newt.
@ 88:
But you do need licenses to peform an abortion or sell a gun—-fortunately, not the same licenses.
90 Well of course the fix is already in at the Texas bar, but as a backup measure, they probably have a contingency plan to have some friendly federal judge swear him in to the D.C. bar.
“Election staff convicted in recount rig
“By M.R. KROPKO Associated Press Writer
“© 2007 The Associated Press
“CLEVELAND — Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election … in Ohio’s most populous county.
“Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.
“Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand ….”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/ytr4h2
@93 Yeah, most people performing abortions are competent to do what they’re licensed for.
‘Moonie’ Cult Leader Behind Obama/Hillary Hit Piece
“By Robert Parry
“January 23, 2007
“If you’ve ever wondered how agit-propaganda works, you might take a look at the latest case study from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s media empire – a bogus story about Barack Obama attending a Muslim ‘madrassah’ when he was six years old, a smear that was then attributed to operatives of Hillary Clinton.
“The shrewdness of Moon’s Insight magazine story is that it hit two enemies with one anonymously sourced stone, a strategy of slime and divide straight from the textbooks of a spy agency like the CIA.
“Only in this case, it is … Moon using his media outlets subsidized by his mysterious foreign money to manipulate and distort the U.S. political process, again.
“The Insight ‘madrassah’ story … turned out to be false. As CNN reported on Jan. 22, the Indonesian school that Obama attended as a child was not a ‘madrassah’ where sometimes extreme forms of Islam are taught, but rather a well-kept public school in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Jakarta.
“The boys and girls wear school uniforms and are taught a typical school curriculum today as they were 39 years ago when Obama was a student there, while living with his mother in Indonesia, reported CNN correspondent John Vause, who has had prior experience covering real ‘madrassahs.’
“While most of the school’s students are Muslim – Indonesia is a Muslim country, after all – Vause reported that the religious views of other students are respected and that Christian children at the school are taught that Jesus is the son of God.
“Nevertheless, the nasty Insight story is sure to hurt Obama by pushing anti-Islamic hot buttons of many Americans. By citing Clinton operatives as the supposed source of the story, Moon’s publication also played to the negative image of the New York senator as a ruthless politician who would sling mud at an opponent.
“Moon’s media empire has planted similar stories in other U.S. presidential campaigns, publishing false or exaggerated stories that disparaged Democratic candidates and helped Moon’s political favorites – particularly in the Bush family.
“In Election 1988, Moon’s Washington Times floated a story that … Michael Dukakis had psychiatric treatment, harming George H.W. Bush’s Democratic opponent; in Election 1992, it bannered an accusation that … Bill Clinton had worked for the KGB, again aiding the senior George Bush; in Election 2000, … the Times pushed allegations that Vice President Al Gore was ‘delusional’; in Election 2004, to boost the younger George Bush again, it trumpeted attacks on … John Kerry’s patriotism.
“The Right’s Echo Chamber
“Once Moon’s media empire surfaced these accusations, they would reverberate through the right-wing echo chamber and often into the mainstream press. Usually, the charges spotlighted a purported flaw so severe – such as mental instability or treason – that the Democrat would be disqualified in the eyes of many voters.
“Also, since it’s difficult to prove a negative, mainstream news outlets often would treat the charges as a point of legitimate dispute, forcing the Democrat to issue a denial or refuse to comment. Sometimes, TV pundits would add insult to the injury by critiquing how poorly the smeared Democrat countered the attack.
“Moon’s long record of engaging in this agit-propaganda helps explain his value to the Right and particularly to the Bush family. In turn, the Republicans have protected Moon from government investigations into his questionable sources of money, which finance both his media empire and his allied right-wing political organizations.
“The Korean cult leader spends more than $100 million a year just to subsidize his flagship newspaper, the Washington Times, according to former Moon insiders. Longtime Washington Times reporter George Archibald recently put Moon’s total investment in the newspaper at over $3 billion since its founding in 1982.
“Though Moon’s finances remain murky, the evidence is overwhelming that he engages in international money-laundering and has been closely tied to major crime syndicates in Asia and South America. …
“The latest attack on Obama is framed as a heartfelt desire to test out the credibility of the 45-year-old Illinois senator who identifies himself as a Christian and belongs to a church in Chicago. But Insight magazine – citing supposed opposition research from the Clinton camp – contended that Obama actually was raised as a Muslim and is trying to keep that secret from the American people.
“’He was a Muslim, but he concealed it,’ a source supposedly close to the background investigation told Insight. ‘The idea is to show Obama as deceptive.’
“Insight uses no named sources in the article, nor did the magazine check out the facts about the school as CNN did. The article simply relies on its unnamed sources to claim that Obama was indoctrinated at a ‘madrassa,’ a school for religious studies where boys are sometimes taught Islamic extremism such as Saudi-based Wahhabism. ‘Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case – and are seeking to prove it,’ Insight magazine claimed. …
“The Fox Effect
“After Moon’s magazine published the ‘madrassa’ story, it quickly spread to the wider audiences of Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing media outlets. Fox News and the New York Post – both owned by Murdoch – picked up and further disseminated the ugly stories that portrayed Obama as a secret Islamic militant and Clinton as a smear artist.
” … [T]he New York Post ran its story under the headline ‘”Osama” Mud Flies at Obama’ …. Many right-wing pundits also have insisted on using Obama’s middle name, ‘Hussein’ apparently to disqualify Obama by associating him with Saddam Hussein though there is no connection. … As the Obama-madrassa article spread through the right-wing media world, Fox News made sure the story was put in the harshest possible light. ‘Hillary Clinton reported to be already digging up the dirt on Barack Obama,’ said John Gibson, anchor of Fox’s ‘The Big Story.’ … ‘That’s right, the Clinton team reported to have pulled out all the stops to reveal something Obama would rather you didn’t know – that he was educated in a Muslim madrassah.’ …
“But the troubling back story to this latest smear is the long history of Moon’s publications injecting damaging propaganda against Democratic politicians in ways meant to confuse American voters. Viewed over the past quarter century, Moon’s media empire has the distinct appearance of a well-designed covert operation that uses foreign money … to influence the U.S. political process in ways beneficial to Moon’s political and financial goals.
“Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. …”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/26yd9h
Roger Rabbit Commentary: “Rev.” Sun Myung Moon, who claims to be Jesus Christ, is one of the world’s most vicious robber barons. He makes much of his money by employing virtual slave labor in Asian sweat shops.
“In the 1970s, many journalists portrayed Moon as a cult leader who used mind control and brainwashing on his followers to extort money from them. Moon was accused of breaking up families by aggressively encouraging young college students to break off contact with the outside world, and sell trinkets and flowers to raise money for the church. … Congressional investigators such as Robert Boettcher … reported what they described as breathtaking financial misdoing …. In 1982 Moon was convicted by the U.S. government for willfully filing false federal income tax returns and conspiracy. … He … spent 13 months in [a] Federal Correctional Institution …. In the 1990s, thousands of Japanese elderly people successfully claimed to have been defrauded of their life savings by Moon followers’ spiritual sales. Moon’s church was the subject of the largest consumer fraud investigation in Japan’s history … and court decisions upheld a … decision to pay two women coerced into donating their assets to the Unification Church. … Church members worked in munitions manufacturing in South Korea during the 1960s, as documented in a U.S. Congressional Report on the Unification Church from 1978.”
As for the Bush family’s connections to this gangster:
“In the mid-1990s former United States President George H.W. Bush accepted millions of dollars from Moon’s Women’s Federation for World Peace to speak on his behalf around the world, a fact that Moon touted to his advantage in his media outlets. In June 2006 the Houston Chronicle reported that in 2004 Moon’s Washington Times Foundation gave $1 million to the Greater Houston Community Foundation, which made donations to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. A man described as a ‘Virginia electronic gumshoe …’ by reporter Rick Casey suggested that this was to lobby Bush’s son President George W. Bush for a pardon for Moon’s 1982 felony tax conviction. In 2006 Parry reported that Moon exerts considerable influence over the Bush family and thus indirectly over the government of the United States.”
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon
New translation of the Magna Carta of Great Britain, 1215 prepared by Xavier Hildegarde, November 2001. These lines are not directly in sequence; some paragraphs omitted by me & my boldface.
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/magnacarta
It is astonishing to read this document from 792 years ago & realize that the barons forced King John to recognize “common law.” Reading the entire Magna Carta makes clear exactly what George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney & the tag team of John Ashcroft & Alberto Gonzales & their rethuglican henchpeople are stealing from US citizens.
It also makes very clear why AttyGen Gonzales is a fraud because an almost 800 year old document refers to a still older tradition of the laws that are intended to keep Bu$hInc out of our lives. I used to despise Bu$h & his thugs; now I hate them. Goddamned fascist motherfuckers.
test
Fragment 1
Moon Poured Billions Into Rightwing Propaganda
“The American Right achieved its political dominance in Washington over the past quarter century with the help of more than $3 billion spent by Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon on … the Washington Times, according to a 21-year veteran of the newspaper.
“George Archibald, who describes himself ‘as the first reporter hired at the Washington Times outside the founding group’ …, has now joined a long line of disillusioned conservative writers who … warned the public about … the newspaper. …
“Moon was funneling vast sums of illicit money into the United States to influence the American political process in ways favorable to right-wing leaders – and possibly criminal cartels – around the world.
“Though best known as the founder of the Unification Church, Moon … has long worked with right-wing political forces linked to organized crime and international drug smuggling, including the Japanese yakuza gangs and South American cocaine traffickers. Moon insiders … have described Moon’s system for laundering cash into the United States and then funneling much of it into his businesses and influence-buying apparatus ….
Fragment 2
“The Times … has targeted American politicians of the center and left … [which] then resonate through the broader right-wing echo chamber and into the mainstream media. Washington Times articles are routinely cited by C-SPAN, for instance, without explanations to viewers that the newspaper is financed by an ultra-right religious cult leader …. Most American listeners just think they’re getting straightforward news.
“The Times also has led attacks on investigators who threatened to expose crimes committed by Republican and right-wing operatives. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Times targeted Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, who recounted in his memoir … the importance of the Times in protecting the Reagan-Bush administration’s legal flanks … in that case the Moon organization may have had a direct interest in containing the probes that could have exposed its relationship with South American drug lords.
“Besides … the Washington Times, Moon has spread money around to influential right-wingers, often coming to their rescue when they are facing financial ruin as happened with Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell in the mid-1990s. …
“Moon also has paid lucrative speaking fees to political figures, such as former President George H.W. Bush who has appeared at Moon-organized functions in the United States, Asia and South America. … Moon has key defenders, too, in the U.S. Congress, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah ….
Fragment 3
“Moon’s multi-billion-dollar political investments … have shielded him … since 1978 when he was identified by the congressional ‘Koreagate’ investigation as part of a covert Korean influence-buying scheme. As a result of those findings about his finances, he was convicted in 1982 of tax fraud. Ironically, however, as Moon implemented the influence-buying blueprint exposed by the ‘Koreagate’ probe – investing in U.S. media, politicians and academia – he became an untouchable.
@ 96: Bad link.
http://www.magnacartaplus.org/magnacarta/
test 2
Fragment 5
Quoted under Fair Use; for complete article and/or copyright info see http://tinyurl.com/yfdpyd
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This in-depth article is much longer than I can quote here, and also describes
* Moon’s ties to organized crime and South Korean intelligence
* Moon’s sexual exploitation of “church” members
* Moon’s ties to (and financial support of) the Bush family
* Moon’s bizarre religious beliefs
* Moon’s scary plan to rule a global theocratic state
Obviously I’m having posting difficulties, which makes me wonder if this web site is monitored and someone is “editing” my comments … I keep getting an error page.
This is very strange. All of my attempts to post the rest of the article, and the link, have gone into a black hole.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/122706.html
Okay, I snuck the link to the in-depth Moon article past the “censor.”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This in-depth article is much longer than I can quote here, and also describes
* Moon’s ties to organized crime and South Korean intelligence
* Moon’s sexual exploitation of “church” members
* Moon’s ties to (and financial support of) the Bush family
* Moon’s bizarre religious beliefs
* Moon’s scary plan to rule a global theocratic state
OK, now I got that piece through, too. If some of this stuff went into the filter and appears later, it will be a holy mess, because it’s all out of order.
Fragment 4.5
“Similarly, Moon’s operation is not really ‘conservative’ in the normal sense of the word. While it has worked with everyone from right-of-center Republicans to neo-fascist organizations, it also has joined forces with the reclusive communist leaders of North Korea when that was to Moon’s advantage. …
Fragment 4.75
“But the Times and other right-wing news outlets risk a credibility crisis as more and more Americans turn away from the Bush presidency and are turned off by the right-wing rhetoric demonizing citizens who have objected to Bush’s policies. Nevertheless, history will surely record that Moon’s $3 billion-plus investment succeeded in buying a remarkable degree of Washington influence – and legal protection – for his dubious political/business/religious empire. …
Fragment 4.25
More substantively, it is an international conglomerate with investments in fishing, restaurants, gun manufacturing, tourism, banks, real estate and media. Since its finances often operate on the shady side of the law, Moon’s organization requires, most of all, political influence for protection.
I absolutely cannot get the final paragraph, Fragment 4.0, up on this board. That’s the paragraph describing how Moon funneled money to the Contras.
There seem to be some key words or phrases that trigger rejection, and I can sneak stuff through by chopping the comment up in pieces to identify which portions the server is rejecting, then paraphrasing those parts.
I wonder if Goldy’s filter software is doing this, or whether someone is hacking this site and interfering with what can be posted? This is the third or fourth time in the last 2 weeks I’ve had this problem.
I’ve been paranoid ever since a year ago when I saw a white van with “DHS” on the side parked outside my house, and two guys appeared to be working on the phone wires.
I would opine there’s a high probability that, as one of HA’s most incendiary liberal posters, my activity here is being monitored by someone not friendly to my views. I haven’t been harassed by the IRS, though. It’s pretty hard to fuck with a taxpayer who files a Form 1040A taking the standard deduction. (That’s what happens to your tax preparation when you don’t pay mortgage interest.)
Yeah, Roger, all those state workers are just busy as beavers (no pun intended). Just go into any office where you have face-to-face contact, and what you get is a surly “you-owe-me” attitude.
Need an example? How was it the last time you had face-to-face contact with the DMV? No THERE’s a bunch of hard workers! Yeah, right…
Funny, every time I’ve been at the DMV there are a long line of people waiting and a handful of workers. They seemed pretty busy, handling one person after another. They were polite and professional, although not exactly bubbling with enthusiasm. If I had that job, after a few years and untold thousands of “customers”, I wouldn’t be bubbling with enthusiasm myself.
Personally, I think the DMV workers get a bad rap. We just don’t like the hassle of having to go there. The department is underfunded (hence understaffed)so we always have to wait, so we are already in a bad mood before we see the DMV worker. They have to face that every day, and there isn’t much they can do about it.
@ 120:
Plus, they have to take our picture for our new license, and we never like the result. (I think they should just have us bring in our own photos, like they do for passports – then we could take as many shots as it takes for us to not look like zombies).
Yes, I suppose we should all just break down and cry for the government workers in WA who have terrible jobs.
Yeah, right….
97 The scary part of this, Roger, is that it appears the republican propaganda machine (of which Moon’s Wash. Times is certainly an integral part) is already at work picking off Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential election one by one. The objective is to wind up with a nominee they believe is easiest to beat.
@119 I last renewed my driver’s license about a year ago. There was a line. The DOL workers appeared to be processing license applications and renewals at a steady and reasonable pace. The job looks pretty similar to grocery checker: You’re on your feet all day, there’s a steady flow of customers, and the only time you’re not working is during your twice-a-day piss breaks. Pays about the same, too. (Roughly $14 an hour.) Your point is?
@119 (continued) If it’s such a great job — high pay, good bennies, no work — why don’t you apply for it?
@122 They’re not asking you to do that. They don’t even expect you to be civil in your “contact” with them. They simply do their job, serve asswipe citizens like you, go home at the end of the day, and cash their paycheck on the 15th and 31st. And after 30 years of this bullshit, they get paid to not show up anymore.
@123 I’m not worried. First, more Americans now understand they’ve been fed bullshit by a media industry that is neither objective nor honest. Second, so many Americans are now so angry at what the bullshitters have done to them, that how many lies and smears the right wing noise machine flings at the Democratic candidates is trivial and irrelevant. The Democrats could run a cabbage in ’08 and still win — even if the Republicans steal 10 million votes. That’s how pissed off America is at the right wingers.
Roger Rabbit says:
@66 That one would be a failing answer on Washington’s bar exam, too. Except for lawyers licensed by Texas, every lawyer in America knows that Constitution expressly reserves to the people all powers not specifically granted to government.
01/24/2007 at 10:26 pm
Thank you, Roger Rabbit, for reminding all of us about this important passage in the Constitution. I haven’t had a civic class in more decades than I care to admit. But I’d love to learn more about Constitutional Law. Not to become a lawyer or a Constitutional scholar, but just to learn the basics.
Could your recommend some books that break down each section of the Constitution and gives a fundamental explanation of what the law is and how it’s applied?
Thanks,
GBS
127 I wouldn’t get overly confident about that. I’ve long maintained that the collective American body politic isn’t stupid, by any means–but it has an awfully short memory. There’s a lot that can happen between now and November of 2008. One thing that’s already well under way is a full-court press by the executive branch to screw up everything they can get their slimy mitts on and blame it all on the Democratic Congress.
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Roger Rabbit, since you persist in persecuting me here instead of my own blog, I’ve written a response to your comments @4. You’ll have to go to my blog to read it, though, as I don’t feel it’s fair to force others to endure yet more of your personal attacks on me. *
*I’m not sure if Roger Rabbit will get this so if anyone sees/hears/reads from Roger Rabbit, let him know I’ve responded to him.
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