Is Newsweek Responsible?

Shoot the messenger! That seems to be the Republican cure-all.

In an attempt to place the blame for reporting on the torture being committed by the US, Newsweek is being painted with the "Blame America first" brush. Who should be blamed? Instead of being appalled at the torture being perpetrated, the Rove machine in manipulating us into being angry at it being reported. The military denied that the Koran was desecrated and that's supposed to be enough for us. We're supposed to ignore that everything the interrogators did was geared to insult the sensibilities of Muslim men and accept that it didn't include desecrating the Koran.

Scott McClellan said the Newsweek story damaged the image of the US and caused deaths. According to the Downing St. memo the White House knew full well that this war was unnecessary. Did an unprovoked invasion not damage our image? Did it not cause deaths?

In a case of deja vu, just as the planted Dan Rather story about Bush's AWOL halted any further questions about his military service, the Newsweek story being blamed for causing deaths will probably put an end to critics blaming Bush's determination to attack Iraq for causing deaths.

For anyone paying attention, it's a rather transparent ploy.

Absolute Power

Lord Acton said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Now that the Republicans are in power it seems not only to corrupt, power has become their religion and anything or anyone that attempts to check that power in the name of balance is labeled as being against "people of faith". They will change the rules just as Henry the VIII changed the rules of his religion when the Pope challenged his power and denied him a divorce.

These Neo Con Republicans have no interest in the Constitution unless it suits their purpose.

In 1788, James Madison published Federalist Paper #47 titled, "The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts". In it Madison wrote about the importance of the different branches of government to serve as checks and balances on each other.

"No political truth is of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty," wrote Madison. "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

The fact that 205 out of 215 of Bush's judicial nominees have been confirmed for lifetime appointments is not enough for the "Powerists". Opposition is heresy. They must have absolute control and so, like Henry the VIII, they want to change the rules of the Senate and abandon the 200 year tradition of allowing the filibuster. The filibuster is a check on total power which would allow the minority party to prevent total control by the party in power.

This is a threat to democracy. It is also a barrier to accountability. We have abandoned the Geneva Conventions against torture. That policy did not originate with a handful of National Guardsmen. It came from the White House.

From the leaked London memo, we now know that the intelligence about WMD in Iraq was "fixed" to dupe the American people and our elected representatives to support an unnecessary and preventable war that this administration had already pre-planned to wage.

Would lifetime Bush appointed judges be apt to allow charges to be brought against him and his co-conspirators? Not likely.

The Republican Congressional clergy will simply denounce the opposers and accusers as immoral heretics and since the "Powerists" define morality the followers of their cult will believe them.

The American people must make a choice. Tyranny or Democracy.

Should Politically Active Churches be Tax Exempt?

Churches engaged in religious activities have enjoyed tax exempt status. When churches host a telethon like the recent Justice Sunday that claim a political party wants to filibuster "people of faith" because they disagree with their politics and when a church wants to oust members who don't vote the way the pastor wants them to vote, it's time to re-think the tax exempt status.

In order to maintain its 501(c)(3) tax exempt status churches are prohibited from "any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office."

In the lead up to the 2004 election, the Catholic Church denounced John Kerry's stance on abortion rights and said anyone who voted for that stance would be in violation of Catholic doctrine.

There have been numerous violations of the IRS rule since 2000. Any endorsement of a particular political candidate by a minister at an offical church function or in an official church publication is grounds to pull the tax exemption.

Defining Morality

This week we learned that a Republican Mayor trolled gay chat rooms and had sex with men. Also this week we found out that reknowned Republican Christian Reconstructionist Neil Horsely's first girlfriend was a mule. Today, we find that Republican nominee for Ambassador to the UN forced his ex-wife to have group sex and made many paid visits to Plato's Retreat, a swinging sex club in NY in the 70's and 80's.

These are the same folks who want to define our morality. Are they kidding? There's a Republican sex scandal that comes out every other day. These aren't just sex scandals. These are perverted sex scandals.

If you want to protect your children from indecency, the solution is clear. Don't let them anywhere near a Republican!

Is This Our Tax Dollars At Work?

Are public funds being used for George Bush's "town hall meetings" to discuss Social Security that only supporters of Bush's privatization/destruction plan are allowed to attend? People have been denied entrance to these supposedly "public" talks for no other reason than a parking lot check of their vehicle revealed a bumper sticker that read "No Blood For Oil".

Have we heard about any of these restrictions on mainstream media? This is not a campaign stump paid for by campaign contributions of supporters. These are our tax dollars at work. A gay prostitute can gain entrance to the White House Press Room and address Bush but someone with a bumper sticker protesting the Iraq invasion cannot gain entrance to hear Bush speak in their home town auditorium about Social Security, a subject unrelated to either Iraq or their bumper sticker.

Showing film clips on the news of Bush entering to wild applause and his remarks being met with cheers is simply staged propaganda with a selected audience masquerading as "fair and balanced" news. In reality it is neither fair, nor balanced, nor news. The news would be that public funds are again being used to produce propaganda to promote programs that can't stand on their own merit.

The Sounds of Silence

Listen! Do you hear that? It’s the sound of silence. And the silence is deafening. Something’s very wrong. There shouldn’t be any silence. There should be multitudes of voices raised in outrage. What has happened to us as Americans?

There was a time not too long ago when the people of this country were good and their motives pure, when they stood for justice and tolerance, a time when America was respected throughout the world.

What has changed the very fiber of people that they now accept their government torturing people? They saw the evidence with their own eyes in a series of pictures from Abu Ghraib. They heard the reports of the CIA “rendering” people for interrogation to countries that permit torture. Ironically, some people who supported the invasion of Iraq claimed it was justified to prevent Saddam Hussein from torturing people. Yet there is silence.

There was a time when we valued our freedoms and fought to defend our democracy. Now our government asks our military to fight to spread democracy to other nations while it passes laws to restrict our freedoms here and we accept it in the name of security. We laud elections in countries we invade but refuse to have a paper trail in our own elections that would guarantee fair results. And there is quiet.

Our Constitution provides for freedom of religion yet a radical religious sect is imposing its views on everything from the teaching of science to cheerleading. We have allowed them to define morality and legislate their morality for the entire country. We mutely tolerate their intolerance of anyone who disagrees with them.

We have allowed designated free speech zones where dissenters are penned. No one wants to shout that all of America was once a free speech zone.

For three and a half years there were hints that intelligence on WMD was cooked to gain support for a pre-emptive invasion. Those who made those accusations were called conspiracy nuts. The administration said they were lies. We accepted what our government told us, even when it was revealed that the speech our Secretary of State, Colin Powell gave at the UN was lifted from a student paper written twelve years earlier. We accepted the lie about Iraq seeking yellowcake from Niger in a State of the Union speech when Ambassador Wilson said he had told the administration it was false. When his CIA wife was outed by a White House source in retaliation for his “outing” the George W. Bush lie we haven’t demanded a resolution to that investigation.

Now a secret memo has come out from England with the minutes of a meeting that describes the ruse used by Bush and Tony Blair to “fix” the intelligence to fit the policy already made to attack Iraq knowing full well the intelligence was phony. The corporate controlled American press has basically ignored this smoking gun although it’s been reported on the front pages of the London papers. It was not mistaken intelligence. The memo says that Britain and America deliberately lied to create the conditions to justify a war. Our military sons and daughters are dead and continue to die. Innocent civilians in Iraq are dead and continue to die. Their voices are silent. How long will our voices also remain silent? When will we regain our American values and raise our collective voices of outrage at this most outrageous criminal act?

Musings

Has anything else in the world been going on besides the Michael Jackson Trial and the Runaway Bride? Are these the replacement fare for the Scott Peterson trial? If anyone has seen the movie "Wag the Dog" they are familiar with the methods used to manipulate public opinion.

The news shows predicted a win for Tony Blair based on exit polls. Why are exit polls reliable for the UK election but unreliable for the 2004 US election?

Why are public funds being used for George Bush's "town hall meetings" to discuss Social Security that only supporters of Bush's privatization/destruction plan are allowed to attend?

Our Congressional corporatocracy, as part of the energy bill, voted to drill in the ANWR. In 10 years it is projected that it will produce 1 million barrels of oil a day. A proposal by the Democrats to have automakers build cars that would average a minimum of 33 mpg was voted down by the Republicans. That would have saved TWO million barrels of oil a day in 10 years. It's not about the oil per se. It's about the PROFITS that oil would bring. Conservation makes no money. It's only good for the people and the planet, two things this administration has no interest in at all.