Stonewalled in the U.S. by Delusional 'Pro Life' Bigots

Amnesty International reports that 38 years after the Stonewall Riots, the LGBT community remains the target of abuse and violence by U.S. police.

How much of this violence is inspired by irresponsible and ignorant elected officials, such as Rep. Debra Maggart (R) - leader and champion of bigotry - is a question that should be the subject of a soul-wrenching national debate.

When you have leaders who promote the view that a minority group is responsible for the sexual abuse of children, why should anyone be surprised by violence against that minority group?

Oh, but I forgot, the important question of the day is the abuse and violence inflicted upon potential life. If only women would stop "killing babies" via abortions and birth control (and you too, God, please stop "killing babies" via violent miscarriages!), we could finally have our picture perfect rightwing Culture of Life.

Nevermind that real live babies die all the time in this damn country because morally superior "pro life" rightwingers are too selfish and stingy to sign on to universal healthcare. The subject of the sanctity of potential life is just one more way for delusional rightwing "pro life" slackards and bigots, such as Rep. Debra Maggart, to avoid any and all responsibility for this world of violence and misery that they are so damn good at making worse.

While the world of the living continues to fall apart, you just keep on singing your goddamn morally superior songs about the sanctity of potential life. Kid yourselves all you want, but in the end it is YOU who are responsible for a larger than life share of the violence and misery of the living.

The next time a gay person is beaten to death, I'm thinking of you Rep. Maggart!

An excerpt from Amnesty International follows. Since it involves violence inflicted upon the living, it will not be of interest to Rep. Maggart or the rest of you delusional "pro life" rightwing crusaders for the sanctity of potential life.

Stonewalled: Police abuse and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the US:

In a new report titled Stonewalled: Police abuse and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the US, Amnesty International (AI) documents serious patterns of police misconduct and brutality—including abuses that amount to torture and ill-treatment—against LGBT individuals. Profiling of LGBT individuals as criminal; selective enforcement of laws; sexual, physical and verbal abuse; inappropriate searches and mistreatment in detention remain commonplace, as does a lack of accountability for perpetrators.

The report also examines how US authorities are in breach of their international human rights obligations by failing to take adequate measures to prevent or punish crimes committed against LGBT people. Case histories documented in the report demonstrate failure to respond or inadequate responses by the police to hate crimes and violence targeting LGBT people, as well as situations of domestic violence that involve LGBT people.

The report’s findings strongly indicate that police abuse and the forms it takes often are specific to different aspects of the victim’s identity. Stonewalled highlights the treatment of LGBT individuals by the police within the larger framework of identity-based discrimination, and demonstrates how the interplay between different forms of discrimination—such as racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia—create the conditions in which human rights abuses are perpetuated. The report shows that within the LGBT community, transgender individuals, people of color, youth, immigrant and homeless individuals, and sex workers experience a heightened risk of police abuse and misconduct.

AI’s findings suggest that police tend to target individuals who do not conform to gender stereotypes that dictate “appropriate” masculine and feminine behavior. Transgender people in particular experience some of the most egregious cases of police brutality. AI heard reports of transgender individuals being subjected by police to discriminatory profiling as sex workers; “policing” of transgender individuals bathroom use; sexual, verbal and physical abuse; inappropriate and illegal searches to determine a transgender individual’s “true” sex; and a failure to protect transgender individuals from abuse while in detention.

Read the whole thing

Hat tip to Pseudo-Adrienne at Liberal-Feminist Bias

Gay Bigot Study Commitee Debra Maggart Gay Adoption Homophobia Hendersonville Reproductive Rights Feminism Abortion Pro Choice Roe v. Wade South Dakota Tennessee

Healthcare, Suicide, & Unprincipled Democrats

Someone from the Governor's office called me the other day and asked if I would sign a petition of support for our Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen.

I said, no, I can't do that, cause Phil Bredesen cut two hundred thousand people off the healthcare rolls and severely restricted benefits and access for hundreds of thousands more.

Charles and Donna Primm are two more reasons why I won't be voting for Phil Bredesen (D). The elderly couple were found dead with suicide notes explaining that she had severe health problems and neither of them had a dime to spend on her healthcare.

If only Charles and Donna had been Canadians.

It is hereby declared that the primary objective of Canadian health care policy is to protect, promote and restore the physical and mental well-being of residents of Canada and to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers. (Section 3 of the Canadian Health Act)

We'll never know how many people have suffered and died in this state because of Phil Bredesen's money-saving, life-wasting healthcare cuts, but we know too many people have, and continue to, suffer and die because of the unprincipled whiz of a businessman Democrat.

Phil is supposed to be such a whiz of a businessman. I'm not a whiz of a businessman, but in my house, we make our cuts on items that won't kill us if we don't have them. If I subjected my children to the kind of cuts that Phil Bredesen made, I'd be sitting in the penitentiary. But I'm not a Democratic politician.

As Mike Huskey asks, in a letter to the editor in today's Tennessean (not online yet, they're slow at the Southern Baptist Times):

Govenor [Bredesen (D)] Has Ruined Health-care System

To the Editor:

Can this state, in good conscience, re-elect the current governor since he has destroyed the previous TennCare system that provided needed aid for thousands?

Mike Huskey
Sweetwater, 37874

The key words in Mike's letter are, good conscience. How the hell do you find leaders, Republican or Democrat, with that?

Police find man, wife shot in head in car at precinct

A married couple was found dead, each shot in the head, in a parked car in front of the East Nashville Precinct last night after a possible double suicide, Metro police Detective Matthew Filter said in a statement.

Sgt. Stephen Duncan with the East Precinct found the Inglewood residents, whose names were not released, slumped over and shot in the head in a white Mercury Grand Marquis about 6 p.m. A gun and notes describing recent financial distress because of medical debt were found in the car, said Sgt. Robert Weaver of the East Precinct investigations night shift.

According to the notes Duncan found, the wife had experienced the undisclosed medical problems.

Although the investigation was in its early stages, Filter said police suspected the couple's deaths were the result of a murder-suicide or double suicide. The family has been informed, Filter said, but it had not been determined why the couple came to the East Precinct.

"It was strange. I don't know why they decided to do this here," he said. "I guess they just thought it would be easier this way."

Metro Police Nashville:

East Precinct detectives have released the names of the married couple found dead in a parked vehicle in front of the East Precinct Thursday night.

Charles M. Primm, 60, and his wife Donna, 58, of 1011 Malquin Drive, were both discovered shot in the head from an apparent double suicide.

Investigators located suicide notes inside the vehicle and at the victim’s residence. The notes detailed Donna Primm’s health problems and the couple’s severe financial debt as the reason the couple mutually agreed to end their lives.

It is unknown at this time why the couple came to the police precinct to complete the apparent double suicide.

Democrats Bredesen Tennessee TennCare Health Care Election 2006 DINO Medicaid is Socialism Medicaid cuts Canada Universal Health Care

Memphis Women to Rally for Reproductive Rights

The Memphis Women's Action Coalition (WAC) will rally for Reproductive Rights on April 29.

The women of Memphis will demand:

To keep women's right to abortion legal, safe, affordable, and accessible
To keep birth control legal and available
To make over the counter contraception (morning after pill) legal and available
To make sure women never again have to turn to deadly, back alley abortions

Given that our lawmakers are so very partial to last minute drama (they go home in May), they may well be ready to debate their draconian anti choice measure - SJR 127 - at the end of April. Cities across the state should follow the example of Memphis.

For more information on the Memphis rally, check out the WAC blog.

Also, in an email alert, WAC reports that University of Memphis VOX will be on hand to Stand Up for Choice when the radical anti choice GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) invades the campus Monday, April 3 and Tuesday, April 4 9am-4pm, at Alumni Mall (directly in front of UC entrance).

From the WAC email alert:

The Genocide Awareness Project is a radical anti-choice group that uses graphic depictions as a scare tactic against reproductive freedom. The photos make vulgar and offensive comparisons of abortion to mass genocide, lynching, and the Holocaust.

VOX feels that our presence will give the student body a chance to see both sides of the reproductive issue and enable them to make an informed choice!

For more on SJR 127, see:
Rabid TN Senate Says Yes to Abortion Ban

Reproductive Rights Feminism Abortion Pro Choice Roe v. Wade South Dakota SJR 127 Memphis Tennessee

FBI Spying on Indy Media and Food Not Bombs

Well, if they're spying on kids who prepare and feed vegetarian meals to homeless people (Food Not Bombs) and the good folks at forums like the Tennessee Independent Media Center, I guess the FBI has agents looking over the shoulders of bloggers too.

It doesn't feel much like a democracy when fear of government surveillance keeps people from participating in democracy. Of course, without that participation, it is most definitely not a democracy.

LA Times:

DENVER — The FBI, while waging a highly publicized war against terrorism, has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless, the agency's internal memos show.

"They don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but they're spending money watching people like me," said environmental activist Kirsten Atkins. Her license plate number showed up in an FBI terrorism file after she attended a protest against the lumber industry in Colorado Springs in 2002.

"We have to be able to go out and look at things; we have to be able to conduct an investigation," said William J. Crowley, a spokesman for the FBI in Pittsburgh. His field office filed a report — released by the ACLU this month — in which an agent described photographing Pittsburgh activists who were handing out fliers for a war protest. The report mentioned no potential violence or crimes.

The murky connection that the federal government makes between some left-wing activist groups and terrorism was illustrated in a Justice Department presentation to a college law class this month.

An FBI counterterrorism official showed the class, at the University of Texas in Austin, 35 slides listing militia, neo-Nazi and Islamist groups. Senior Special Agent Charles Rasner said one slide, labeled "Anarchism," was a federal analyst's list of groups that people intent on terrorism might associate with.

The list included Food Not Bombs, which mainly serves vegetarian food to homeless people, and — with a question mark next to it — Indymedia, a collective that publishes what it calls radical journalism online. Both groups are among the numerous organizations affiliated with anarchists and anti-globalization protests, where there has been some violence.

Elizabeth Wagoner said she was one of the few students who objected to the groups' inclusion on the list. "My friends do Indymedia," she said. "My friends aren't terrorists."

Rasner said that he'd never heard of the two groups before and didn't mean to condemn them. But he added that it made sense to worry about violent people emerging from anarchist networks — "Any group can have somebody that goes south."

Any group? Does that mean they're watching the Southern Baptists?

Read the whole thing, it gets scarier.

Civil Liberties Bush Food Not Bombs Indy Media Democracy 1984 Government Surveillance

Krugman: The Road to Dubai

by Paul Krugman

Creating a permanent nonvoting working class would be bad for America's democracy.

For now, at least, the immigration issue is mainly hurting the Republican Party, which is divided between those who want to expel immigrants and those who want to exploit them. The only thing the two factions seem to have in common is mean-spiritedness.

But immigration remains a difficult issue for liberals. Let me say a bit more about the subject of my last column, the uncomfortable economics of immigration, then turn to what really worries me: the political implications of a large nonvoting work force.

About the economics: the crucial divide isn't between legal and illegal immigration; it's between high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants. High-skilled immigrants — say, software engineers from South Asia — are, by any criterion I can think of, good for America. But the effects of low-skilled immigration are mixed at best.

True, there are large benefits for the low-skilled migrants, who may find even a minimum-wage U.S. job a big step up. Immigration also raises the total income of native-born Americans, although reasonable estimates suggest that these gains amount to no more than a fraction of 1 percent. But low-skilled immigration depresses the wages of less-skilled native-born Americans. And immigrants increase the demand for public services, including health care and education. Estimates indicate that low-skilled immigrants don't pay enough in taxes to cover the cost of providing these services.

All of these effects, except for the gains for the immigrants themselves, are fairly small. Some of my friends say that's the point I should stress: immigration is a wonderful thing for the immigrants, and claims that immigrants are undermining American workers and taxpayers are hugely overblown — end of story.

But it's important to be intellectually honest, even when it hurts. Moreover, what really worries me isn't the narrow economics — it's the political economy, the effects of having a disenfranchised labor force.

Imagine, for a moment, a future in which America becomes like Kuwait or Dubai, a country where a large fraction of the work force consists of illegal immigrants or foreigners on temporary visas — and neither group has the right to vote. Surely this would be a betrayal of our democratic ideals, of government of the people, by the people. Moreover, a political system in which many workers don't count is likely to ignore workers' interests: it's likely to have a weak social safety net and to spend too little on services like health care and education.

This isn't idle speculation. Countries with high immigration tend, other things equal, to have less generous welfare states than those with low immigration. U.S. cities with ethnically diverse populations — often the result of immigration — tend to have worse public services than those with more homogeneous populations. Of course, America isn't Dubai. But we're moving in that direction. As of 2002, according to the Urban Institute, 14 percent of U.S. workers, and 20 percent of low-wage workers, were immigrants. Only a third of these immigrant workers were naturalized citizens. So we already have a large disenfranchised work force, and it's growing rapidly. The goal of immigration reform should be to reverse that trend.

So what do I think of the Senate Judiciary Committee's proposal, which is derived from a plan sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy? I'm all in favor of one provision: offering those already here a possible route to permanent residency and citizenship. Since we aren't going to deport more than 10 million people, we need to integrate those people into our society.

But I'm puzzled by the plan to create a permanent guest-worker program, one that would admit 400,000 more workers a year (and you know that business interests would immediately start lobbying for an increase in that number). Isn't institutionalizing a disenfranchised work force a big step away from democracy? For a hard-line economic conservative like Mr. McCain, the advantages to employers of a cheap work force may be more important than the violation of democratic principles. But why would someone like Mr. Kennedy go along? Is the point to help potential immigrants, or is it to buy support from business interests?

Either way, it's a dangerous route to go down. America's political system is already a lot less democratic in practice than it is on paper, and creating a permanent nonvoting working class would make things worse. The road to Dubai may be paved with good intentions.

Paul Krugman Democrats Ted Kennedy Immigration McCain Immigrant Rights Krugman

Bushie and the Power of Make-Up

. . Before . . . and . . . uhm . . . After



Hat tip to kayakdave over at Appalachian Greens!

Bush Horse's Ass Impeach Bush King George Lawless Bush Bush Jokes

Progressive Steve Cohen to Run for Congress

For months now, everyone's been talking about Steve Cohen running for Harold Ford's congressional seat in 2006 (Ford is, of course, running for Billie Frist's seat).

Well, it's going to happen. The Democratic State Senator will reportedly file for the 9th District congressional seat at the Election Commission at 11 a.m. on Monday.

This is definitely good news. Steve Cohen is one of the state's very few genuinely progressive elected officials. And he's not shy or timid. This should prove to be a very interesting race.

There's a whole slew of candidates for Ford's seat. If this race is about name recognition, Cohen has it all sewed up!

God knows we are starved in this state for progressive candidates.

Hat tip to LeftWingCracker

Steve Cohen Democrats Memphis Harold Ford Tennessee Pro Choice Progressive Candidates Congress

Report from the Bigot Study Committee: Rep. Debra Maggart

In our previous report on Rep. Debra Maggart (R), the state legislator who is fast becoming world famous for opining that "homosexual couples prey on young males," and adopt them "in order to have unfretted access to subject them to a life of molestation and sexual abuse," we speculated that the name of Maggart's business might be Bigot, Inc.


We were wrong.

The correct name and address of Maggart's business is: Best Buy Carpet & Flooring Inc., 479 Myatt Drive, Madison, TN, 37115 - (615) 868-4008.

Madison is, of course, only minutes from downtown Nashville, aka the Gay Mecca of Tennessee. Members of the LGBT community and their allies are forewarned! We're sure you are not welcome at Best Buy Carpet & Flooring.

Rep. Maggart will have no gay sex on her floors!


As you can see from the photos here, Rep. Debra Maggart, member of the Tennessee General Assembly's "Homosexual Adoption Study Committee," is not just another stigmatized single mother. Rather, Maggart is one serious GOP Groupie.



See her speaking in tongues and doing the famed rightwing waving of arms with Billie Frist? From Bush to Cheney to Frist to evil-eyed Katherine Harris, our famed state bigot gets around!

See Maggart, the GOP Groupie, cavort with more rightwingers here.

Previous TGW posts on Debra Maggart:
Lawmaker (R) Says Gays Unfit to Parent
Straight? Unhappy?
A Letter to Rep. Debra Maggart (R-Hendersonville)

Gay Bigot Study Commitee Debra Maggart Gay Adoption Homophobia Bigotry Bush Hendersonville Radical Right Tennessee

A Letter to Rep. Debra Maggart (R-Hendersonville)

Debra Maggart, the Tennessee State Rep. recently nominated as a candidate for study by the Bigot Study Committee, has reportedly received only a "handful" of emails objecting to her homophobia.

Like a good Church Lady, the bigotted lawmaker describes the emails as "disgusting" and "vulgar".

In the interest of understanding Debra Maggart's curious worldview, we're publishing one of these emails here:

Dear Rep. Debra Maggart,

I have read about your personal crusade against homosexuals, specifically those who adopt and the so called studies you quote which claim homosexuals to be unfit. First of all the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse is categorically done by heterosexual males which we would be more than happy to provide data for.

Second. You are being called a bigot because you are one. Psychiatrists and experts in the medical professions have for many years asserted that there is nothing abnormal about homosexuality. It is only in the face of social stigma nurtured by bigots such as yourself that individuals have bravely stood up and organized for themselves. This movement you call propaganda is made up of human beings who have come together to fight for their lives and their families against the bigotry and projection of people like you Rep. Debra Maggart.

Furthermore you are unqualified to make characterizations or analyses of these matters as you have zero personal expertise. The studies you claim prove your cause have not been corroborated by any objective standard and are in fact propaganda designed to justify their small mined hypotheses.

Your open denial of reality and your subversive comments about homosexuals prove that your attitude toward this segment of the population is distorted and dangerous. The nature of your comments are abusive and by proxy sexually abusive as they target individuals based on their sexual orientation.

This is also a direct form of child abuse which you are unconscious of but nevertheless responsible for. By attempting to criminalize homosexuals in any way shape or form you are abusing especially the young adolescent children who as they discover they are homosexual are traumatized by the bigotry you espouse.

To this effect you are unfit to serve in public office as the nature of your abuse is hostile and directed at a portion of the population with whom you have a personal problem with. While there is room for personal issues in public office this is not one of them. The cultural abuse of homosexuals is completely unacceptable.

Homophobia is a condition based on bad programming and fear whereby severely insecure individuals or groups demonize homosexuals in order to make themselves feel superior and separate from it. This is impossible because homosexuality is integrated into our DNA and the fabric of the human experience.

Remember every one of the millions and millions of homosexuals in all the cities and townships all over the country who are themselves the children of parents and so on. They are brothers and sisters and sons and daughters, cousins, uncles, and aunts. It is impossible to separate from each other without distorting reality which is exactly what you Rep. Debra Maggart seem programmed to do.

It is insanity to think that you Rep. Debra Maggart have some special study that can ever come close to understanding the truth in these matters. You are arrogant and subversive and your ego mind has fallen prey to fear and loathing.

Please step down from the public office you were entrusted with and give a more enlightened individual a chance to lead. Perhaps then you can learn by watching as you seem determined not to learn by doing.

Sincerely,
Mike Jones

Send letters and expressions of your utmost sympathy to Rep. Debra Maggart.

Gay Bigot Study Commitee Debra Maggart Gay Adoption Homophobia Bigotry Gay Rights Radical Right Tennessee Debra Maggart

Thousands at Nashville Immigrant Rights Rally

Approximately 8,000-9,000 people demonstrated for immigrant rights here in Nashville last night - according to police estimates, as reported by the Tennessean.

You know it was a remarkable demonstration when the local daily newspaper sends a reporter and a photographer. The Tennessean was impressed! (The Channel 2 video says police estimate a crowd of 6,000, and the City Paper calls it 5,000.)

As I recall, all of 600 people showed up for the largest anti Bush War demonstration we had here in Nashville. Like the woman on the Channel 2 video said, "We're here!"

Any way you slice it, this is a hell of a lot of people to deny rights to.

NewsChannel5:

The demonstration by the immigrant community ended peacefully Wednesday night. Ralliers even carried away their own garbage. The thousands that came out carried signs and chanted slogans, all while asking for a chance at citizenship.

The rally at Legislative Plaza may have been inspired by politics, but thousands of people covered four city blocks for issues that are intensely personal. “We have the right to have a good job. We have a right to provide for our families, and if we cannot do it in our homeland, we have to do it here,” said Ruben Trejo, an undocumented worker.

The protestors said they felt like their voice was heard. “It’s going to help a lot of people get their papers and get their license and get their life back, you know?” said of one of them.

Protestors chanted “Si se puede,” which translates to “Yes, we can” in Spanish.

The protesters walked across the Woodland Street Bridge on their way to the Legislative Plaza. Many said that the walk across the bridge is a symbolic pathway to a new future that includes them.

Hispanic Nashville has photos and promises to have more.

UPDATE: Brittney at Nashville is Talking was at the historic march and has a great post with awesome photos.

Immigration Protest Immigrant Rights Nashville Tennessee

Two-Month-Old Shows Blatant Disregard for Sanctity of Human Life; Has Fetuses Surgically Removed

by MzNicky

The AP reports that yesterday a young girl in Pakistan had not one, but two, fetuses surgically removed from her body. The surgery was performed at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science in Islamabad on a patient known only as “Nazia.”

Authorities in the US are uncertain how such a case would be handled under new forced-childbirth legislation currently being proposed in many states. That the fetuses were actually “Nazia”’s siblings most likely would be of little consequence, given that there will be no legal exception for incest in such states as South Dakota or Tennessee, says the Rev. Orville T. Glorybag,* legal pregnancy analyst for the Forced Childbirth for Christian and American Values Coalition.*

Fortunately, the fetus-carrier, who is two months old,** resides in Pakistan, rather than the US of the future, and was thus able to have doctors deal with the situation, which is known as fetus-in-fetu— a medical abnormality that occurs about once every 500,000 births, wherein a fetus in the womb has another fetus (or in this case, two) growing inside it. As the hospital’s head of pediatric surgery explained: "Basically, it's a case of triplets, but two of the siblings grew in the other."

Although the infant's fetuses had died at four months, Glorybag remains firm in his belief that "Nazia" should nevertheless have carried her siblings to term, despite the obvious risks such non-termination of her condition would have posed to her health. “We're pushing for 'no exceptions' all across this great land," he said. "Look, that young girl should have thought of the consequences of her actions beforehand. Believe you me, such a blatant disregard for the pre-born will never happen in the US of A, if we have anything to do with it.”

*(not a real person or organization, as far as we know.)

**(this really is true.)

War on Women Reproductive Rights Feminism Bush Abortion Pro Choice Roe v. Wade South Dakota Pakistan

posted by egalia for MzNicky

'Alien' Invasions, 'Reasonable' Republicans & Other Fictions

Did anyone else hear the discussion on BBC about how odd it is that Americans call people "aliens"?

Clearly, the immigrant bill, produced and passed by foaming-at-the-mouth House Republicans, reflects the wild-eyed view that we are a country overtaken by an all out "alien invasion," while the more recent Republican effort in the Senate Judiciary Committee would quietly incorporate the people who are illegal immigrants "into American society as citizens."

"[T]he Senate Judiciary Committee this week restored balance to the debate over immigration. . . Its bill, which now goes to the full Senate, has all the elements of a solution that has eluded Congress and divided the nation: tougher border protections, a guest-worker program for new immigrants, sanctions against companies that don't comply and an opportunity -- not a guarantee -- for immigrants already here illegally to seek permanent residency. Close to what Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have proposed, the bill is not the inverse of the provocative and punitive legislation passed by House Republicans last year: It is a reasoned alternative to it.

Whether reason prevails during the next two weeks of debate in the Senate is another matter. The bill is a long way from becoming law."

Among the multitude of hysteria-driven unreasonable Republican 'solutions' to the "alien invasion" problem is the plan to simply deport eleven million people.

George Will shot that looney idea down earlier this week and, once again, proved that reason and rabid conservativism simply cannot occupy the same space.

And if there is a difference between irrational rabid conservativism and Republicanism, where the hell have all the reasonable Republicans been for the last five years?

George Will:

"It would take more than 200,000 buses, extending in a line 1700 miles from San Diego to Alaska to deport 11 million people, which happens to be the population of Ohio. It's not going to happen. 70% of the illegal immigrants here have been here at least five years. They have roots in the community. Many of them have children born in America who are therefore American citizens. Not ripe for deportation, it seems to me."

Bush Immigration Immigrant Rights

Straight? Unhappy?

We're directing this question to Rep. Debra Maggart. Maggart has recently earned the distinction of becoming one of Tennessee's most famous homophobes. We're waiting for news of Maggart's fame to reach MSNBC's Keith Olbermann show.

What about it, Rep. Maggart? Straight? Unhappy?

This image is via Justinsomnia where blogger Justin Watt was served with a cease and desist order by the ex-gay group Exodus International for daring to create and post the above parody of a billboard ad Exodus sponsored in Orlando, Florida. (Originally, the Exodus logo was on the mocking image.) Justin created the image in the fall of 2005.

Yesterdays's New York Times reports that Exodus has dropped its case against Justin who was represented by the ACLU. Justin has a post on the victory for free speech.

Via Big Queer Blog via Kyra's Pet Volcano

Gay Exodus Ex-Gay Homophobia Bigotry Gay Rights Bigot Radical Right Tennessee Debra Maggart

Kristof: Collapse of Justice

In Disgrace, and Facing Death
By Nicholas Kristof

Aisha Parveen will live another day. Indeed, at least another week.

Ms. Parveen, the young Pashtun woman I wrote about on Sunday, was kidnapped at the age of 14 and imprisoned in a brothel here in southeastern Pakistan for six years. She escaped in January and married the man who helped her flee, but now a Pakistani court has charged her with adultery and is threatening to hand her back to the brothel owner — even though she is adamant that he will then torture and kill her.

Ms. Parveen's court hearing was yesterday, and I was afraid that would be the end. But the court adjourned the case for one week for further investigation. And Ms. Parveen's lawyer thinks the mood is different now: the Pakistani press picked up on my column, and the attention will make judges more careful about handling her.

So the publicity may save her life, but it won't make much difference for thousands of other Aisha Parveens around the world. Asma Jahangir, the chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she sees cases like Ms. Parveen's all the time. "There is no such thing called justice in Pakistan," said Ms. Jahangir, a prominent lawyer in Lahore. "It has simply collapsed."

Ms. Jahangir fights heroically for poor women who have been charged — like Ms. Parveen — with zina offenses under Islamic law. Zina encompasses fornication and adultery, and accusations of zina are effective weapons against women. Landlords often evict women tenants, for example, by accusing them of zina. Worse, women who go to the police to report rapes can be arrested for zina, because they have acknowledged illicit sex and yet usually cannot provide four male witnesses to prove that it was rape.

Even professionals like Ms. Jahangir are targeted if they confront the government. Last year, for example, the police attacked her and a group of other middle-class women demonstrating for women's rights. She says that an aide to President Pervez Musharraf gave the police instructions about her: "Teach the [expletive] a lesson. Strip her in public." Sure enough, the police ripped off her shirt.

Ms. Parveen, now living in hiding after several kidnapping attempts in the last few days, faces an even more brutal struggle. Her only stroke of luck is having her new husband, Mohamed Akram, who rescued her from the brothel, on her side. The young couple are lovebirds, and each keeps talking about being so lucky to have found the other. But Mr. Akram, while unwavering in his love, has disgraced his family by marrying a supposedly fallen woman, and his older sister is suffering.

"My brother-in-law sent me a message: 'Unless you divorce her, I will divorce your sister,' " Mr. Akram lamented. "She has two kids. And he's also beating her now. He's very upset because I married a girl who was in a brothel, who is not a virgin." The couple cannot seek refuge with Ms. Parveen's parents, because Pashtun parents routinely protect their family honor by killing daughters accused of zina.

"I cannot go back there because if I do, they'll kill me," Ms. Parveen said. "In their eyes I'm dishonored, because even if a girl is kidnapped, then in their eyes she still should be killed." Saddest of all, her story isn't newsworthy in a classic sense. There's nothing at all unusual about a young Asian woman suffering years of sexual enslavement, or judicial malpractice or murder.

And that's the challenge for us all, Asians and Americans alike — to change our worldview and put gender issues like sex trafficking higher on the global agenda.

A quarter-century ago, Jimmy Carter plucked human rights abuses from the backdrop of the international arena and put them on the agenda. Now it's time to focus on gender inequality in the developing world, for that is the greatest single source of human rights violations today.

Political dissidents tend to get the world's attention. But for every dissident who is beaten to death by government torturers somewhere in the world, thousands of ordinary women or girls die prematurely because of the effects of discrimination. In India, for example, girls 1 to 5 years old are 50 percent more likely to die than boys of the same age, because the boys are favored. That differential accounts for the death of a young Indian girl every four minutes.

Since these victims usually are voiceless, I'll give Ms. Parveen the last word so she can prick our consciences.

"God should not give daughters to poor people," she said in despair. "And if a daughter is born, God should grant her death."

Nicholas Kristof Rape Violence Against Women Aids Sex Slavery Gender Discrimination Pakistan Aisha Parveen Kristof

The Red Burka for A Red America

Get your Red Burka T-Shirt here, and tell the world what you think about the relentless, never-ending, Republican-led and State-financed War on Women.

I plan to wear a Red Burka Shirt when I go downtown to watch my elected representatives vote on whether or not women should be returned to the 19th century when the male-dominated state had the unmitigated audacity to rob women of their personhood.

The women of America have not forgotten that for most of our nation's history we were denied the most basic of citizenship rights. We have not forgotten that we were once property!

We have not forgotten and we will not go back!

Tennessee is now on the frontline of the abortion wars. South Dakota's recent abortion ban is not an isolated attack on women's rights. Tennessee is one of at least 12 states engaged in the battle to defend women's health care against hard-line, anti-choice, anti-family planning politicians.

Tennessee currently has 58 bills pending in the Legislature that deal specifically with abortion or reproductive healthcare. Forty-three of those 58 initiatives would take away the rights of Tennessee women.

These measures are so cynical and cruel that many would even force a victim of rape or incest to bear the child of her attacker. While Tennessee legislators are trying to make it harder for women to access abortion services, they are doing next to nothing to help women prevent unintended pregnancies.

War on Women Reproductive Rights Feminism Bush Abortion Pro Choice SJR 127 Roe v. Wade South Dakota Red Burka T-Shirt Tennessee

Republicans Running Scared

Republicans are running so scared this election year that the new fun game of the season is watching Republicans scatter and run whenever Bush and Cheney curse them with a campaign appearance.

When the insufferable pResident took his horrid vanity and arrogance to Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum survived the ordeal by avoiding all public appearances with the toxic Bushie.

When Cheney cursed New Jersey with his presence, Senator Tom Kean Jr. didn't show up at the fundraiser until some 15 minutes after the Cheney monster vanished in his motorcade.

And the fun of watching Republican candidates flee in mortal fear and horror from Bush and Cheney has only just begun!

Time Magazine has the latest on the rapidly approaching downfall of the nightmare regime:

In recent weeks, a startling realization has begun to take hold: if the elections were held today, top strategists of both parties say privately, the Republicans would probably lose the 15 seats they need to keep control of the House of Representatives and could come within a seat or two of losing the Senate as well. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who masterminded the 1994 elections that brought Republicans to power on promises of revolutionizing the way Washington is run, told TIME that his party has so bungled the job of governing that the best campaign slogan for Democrats today could be boiled down to just two words:

"Had enough?"

In a TIME poll conducted last week, Bush's job approval rating was mired at 39%; 3 in 5 Americans said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and when those surveyed were given the choice between a generic Republican and a generic Democrat for Congress, the nameless Democrat won, 50% to 41%. The signs suggest an anti-Republican wave is building, says nonpartisan electoral handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, whose Rothenberg Political Report is closely followed in Washington. "The only question is how high, how big, how much force it will have. I think it will be considerable."

Read the whole thing

Bush Cheney Santorum Election 2006 Incompetence Gingrich Democrats 2008 Toxic Bush

Krugman: Immigration Facts

North of the Border
by Paul Krugman

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat. I'm proud of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.

In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.

First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration — especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration.

That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants. Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should — and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.

Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive. Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

We shouldn't exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the Borjas-Katz study, has played only a "modest role" in growing U.S. inequality. And the political threat that low-skill immigration poses to the welfare state is more serious than the fiscal threat: the disastrous Medicare drug bill alone does far more to undermine the finances of our social insurance system than the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.

But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a major political issue. What are we going to do about it? Realistically, we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration. But the harsh anti-immigration legislation passed by the House, which has led to huge protests — legislation that would, among other things, make it a criminal act to provide an illegal immigrant with medical care — is simply immoral.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's plan for a "guest worker" program is clearly designed by and for corporate interests, who'd love to have a low-wage work force that couldn't vote. Not only is it deeply un-American; it does nothing to reduce the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no incentive to become integrated into our society.

What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to citizenship? I'd still be careful. Whatever the bill's intentions, it could all too easily end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice — that is, it could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.

We need to do something about immigration, and soon. But I'd rather see Congress fail to agree on anything this year than have it rush into ill-considered legislation that betrays our moral and democratic principles.

Paul Krugman Bush Immigration Demonstrations Immigrant Rights Krugman

Red State Media Watch

Nashville's major daily newspaper continues to leave clues to help us answer that all-important chicken and egg question:

Which came first, red states or red media?

Today's front page headline story (print edition) in The Tennessean, aka The Southern Baptist Times . . . drumroll please. . . .

Baptists Split on Praying in 'Tongues'
"A move by Southern Baptists to bar enlistment of missionaries who profess to speak in tongues as they pray is stirring some controversy within the nation's largest Protestant denomination."

A Google News search by yours truly reveals that one (1) other newspaper carried this momentous story of the day. However, Ohio's Akron Beacon Journal labeled the story "Living/Religion."

We think that means it wasn't on the front page.

A quick glance around the newspapers of the world reveals that, yes, there were a few important news stories today:

Former DeLay Aide Enriched by Nonprofit
Tom DeLay's ex-chief of staff got more than a third of U.S. Family Network's $3.02M in revenue, mostly drawn from clients of Jack Abramoff.

The Word at War
U.S. firm that planted stories in Iraqi papers calls its actions "influence," not propaganda. . . Oh, no, not at all -- the Lincoln Group does not do propaganda. Sure, the firm's been tarred by some in Congress, the media and the defense establishment for paying Iraqi newspapers to publish hundreds of "news" stories secretly written by U.S. troops.

30 Beheaded Bodies Found; Iraqi Death Squads Blamed
The discovery of the bodies provides more evidence that the death squads in Iraq are becoming out of control.

Record crowd of 500,000 protests proposed federal crackdown
Joining what some are calling the largest mobilization of immigrants ever in the U.S., a crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously marched here Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border.

Putin accused of plagiarising his PhD thesis
The career of President Vladimir Putin of Russia was built at least in part on a lie, according to US researchers. A new study of an economics
thesis written by Putin in the mid-1990s has revealed that large chunks of it were copied from an American text.

Saddam planned to deploy 'camels of mass destruction'
Saddam Hussein planned to use "camels of mass destruction" as weapons to defend Iraq, loading them with bombs and directing them towards invading forces.

Stay tuned for more clues from The Southern Baptist Times.

Media MSM Red States Corporate Media Radical Right Blue States The Tennessean Tennessee Southern Baptist Times

Immigrant Rights: The Sleeping Giant

"We construct your schools. We cook your food. We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King. Now it is time for us." -- Jorge Ruiz

The massive demonstrations across the country for immigrant rights have reportedly surprised everyone.

There were school walkouts, fired-up marches and work stoppages in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Milwaukee and Atlanta. According to the New York Times, activists report that "tens of thousands of workers did not show up at their jobs" in Georgia "after calls to protest a state bill that would deny state services to adults living in the country illegally."

In Atlanta, "about 200 protesters converged on the steps of the State Capitol, some wrapped in Mexican flags and holding signs saying 'Don't panic, we're Hispanic' and 'We have a dream, too.'"

In a Dallas rally of 1,500, rapper Jorge Ruiz said, "We construct your schools. We cook your food. We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King. Now it is time for us."

But revolutions never come for just one group. One group may lead, but many follow. Discontent and anger with the status quo of repressive public policy is on the rise among all minorities.

I can almost feel a breeze from the coming progressive era.

LA Times:

Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.

Saturday's rally, spurred by anger over legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December, was part of what many say is an unprecedented effort to organize immigrants and their supporters across the nation. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is to take up efforts Monday to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. Unlike the House bill, which beefed up border security and toughened immigration laws, the Senate committee's version is expected to include a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants.

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have staged demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious communities have launched immigrant rights campaigns, with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony taking a leading role in speaking out against the House bill and calling on his priests to defy its provisions that would make felons of anyone who aided undocumented immigrants. In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions against the House legislation and some, such as Maywood, have declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

Bush Immigration Demonstrations Immigrant Rights Democrats Progressive Era Jorge Ruiz

Anti-Choice Dems Should Leave the Party

Below is another action directed at the Six Dems for Misogyny, or the six Democratic Senators who voted for SJR 127 - the measure that would outlaw abortion rights in this state. SJR 127 is an effort to make Tennessee over in the image of South Dakota. It grants no exceptions for rape, incest, or to save the life of a woman.

This action comes from Bunnie Riedel, and I think it's a great idea for every red state. As Bunnie points out, women have always been the core of the Democratic Party. If we don't hold the Democratic Party accountable, who will?

I'll let Bunnie explain:

I have just sent the Executive Committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party the following email. I have told them it is time to issue a statement asking the six Senators who voted for the abortion ban to leave the party.

You can send your own message by cutting and pasting their email addresses in your email.

Please send this to everyone you know...we need to start a drum beat here at the grassroots that will be heard to the top of the DNC. I haven't finished going through the campaign contributions for these Senators yet, but I have already found generous contributions by the AFL-CIO and other labor groups. I will be drafting a letter to the AFL-CIO after I finish my contribution search.

This message and the campaign funding research needs to be done in every state where this is happening. Anybody want to do Missouri or South Dakota?

Subject: Democratic Supporters of Abortion Ban
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:21:20

To the Executive Committee of the Tennesee Democratic Party:

It is unconscionable that six Democrat Senators in Tennessee would support and vote for a ban on a woman's ability to receive an abortion.

The Democratic Party does not need anti-choice democrats in this very real struggle to secure a woman's right to choose. That the following six Senators would ignore one of the key values of the Democratic Party is beyond the pale.

These Senators should receive no more funding from the state party and they should be asked to leave the party altogether. As the Executive Committee of the state party you have the power to make this demand.

Anything less on your part is collusion in this attack against women in Tennessee and women across this country. I, along with other women across this country at the grassroots of the party are urging women to leave the party until such time the Democratic Party shows that it will stand solidly with us. Needless to say, women are the core of the Democratic Party, we will not be sold out for convenience and arguments that we have no place to go ring hollow.

It is time for you to issue a statement telling the following Tennessee Senators to leave the party.

1.) Sen. Jerry Cooper (D - Smartt)
2.) Sen Douglas Henry (D - Nashville)
3.) Sen. Doug Jackson (D - Dickson)
4.) Sen. Tommy Kilby (D - Wartburg)
5.) Lt. Gov. John Wilder (D-Mason)
6.) Sen. Charlotte Burks (D - Monterey)

Bunnie Riedel
Lifelong Democrat, United Methodist, Mother of Two,

Email Addresses of the Executive Committee of the Tennesee Democratic Party:

bables722@aol.com; gayle.alley@netzero.com; youngdem@aol.com; marytn@aol.com; baxters@vallnet.com; jwbilbo@tenulaw.net; mamabee@twotzus.com; brownm46@hotmail.com; burchampaige@aol.com; aburns@hillboren.com; nathan.burton@shadowsync.net; ranbutton@aol.com; sarahcaldwell@comcast.net; blake@netease.net; galecarson@bellsouth.net; Chismmem@bellsouth.Net; gaylebruce@aol.com; davistnvollaw@aol.com; damron@centurytel.com; rep.lois.deberry@legislature.state.tn.us; judelrod@aol.com; wefarmer.lebanon@worldnet.att.net; jmfarris@farris-law.com; stfebles@comcast.net; chipforrester@hotmail.com; bfraley@bellsouth.net; karensgarner@aol.com; Jhall@hallassoc.net

More on the effort to outlaw abortion rights in Tennessee:
Take Action Against Anti-Choice SJR 127
The List: Six Dems for Misogyny
Rabid TN Senate Says Yes to Abortion Ban

Reproductive Rights Feminism Bush Abortion Pro Choice SJR 127 Democrats Tennessee Roe v. Wade South Dakota Dems for Misogyny Tennessee Democrats

Kristof: A Woman Trapped

A Woman Without Importance
by Nicholas Kristof

Aisha Parveen doesn't matter. She's simply one more impoverished girl from the countryside, and if her brothel's owner goes ahead and kills her, almost no one will care.

Ms. Parveen, an outspoken 20-year-old woman with flashing eyes, is steeling herself for a state-administered horror. Just two months after she escaped from the brothel in which she was tortured and imprisoned for six years, the courts are poised to hand her back to the brothel owner.

Sex trafficking, nurtured by globalization and increased mobility, is becoming worse. The U.N. estimates that one million children are held in conditions of slavery in Asia alone. Yet it never gets much attention, because the victims tend to be the least powerful people in these societies: poor and uneducated rural girls. Ms. Parveen was a 14-year-old Pashtun living in the northwest of Pakistan when she was hit on the head while walking to school. She says she awoke to find herself imprisoned in a brothel hundreds of miles away, in this remote southeastern Pakistani town of Khanpur.

A person of unbelievable strength, Ms. Parveen fought back and refused to sleep with customers. So, she says, the brothel owner — Mian Sher, the violent sadist who had kidnapped her — beat and sexually tortured her, and regularly drugged her so that she would fall unconscious and customers could do with her as they liked.

This went on for six years, during which she says she was beaten every day. The girls in the brothel were forced to sleep naked at night, so that they would be too embarrassed to try to escape. Ms. Parveen says she believes that two of them, Malo Jan and Suwa Tai, were killed after they repeatedly refused to sleep with customers. In any case condoms were never available, so all the girls may eventually die of AIDS.

I wanted to look into the eyes of a man who could do these things. So I barged into Mian Sher's brothel, identified myself and interviewed him.

He warily offered me tea, pleasantries and flashes of violent temper. He denied kidnapping Ms. Parveen, saying that he had married her six years earlier. He also denied that he pimped the girls — a claim undermined by a customer who was walking out of his brothel as I arrived. Others working in the area said that Mian Sher unquestionably ran a brothel, and that Ms. Parveen had been imprisoned in it. (Video of Ms. Parveen and the brothel is here.)

In January, Ms. Parveen got a break. A metalworker, Mohamed Akram, had been doing work in the brothel, and he pitied her. "She laid her scarf down on my feet and begged me, in the name of the Holy Koran, to rescue her," he remembers, and soon he felt not only pity but also love. So on Jan. 5, Ms. Parveen stealthily arose in the middle of the night, crept past Mian Sher and padlocked the door with him inside. Then she ran to a car that Mr. Akram had sent. The next day, they were married.

Then the judicial nightmare began. Mian Sher brought charges against the couple, claiming that Ms. Parveen is his wife and must return to him.

"The police have taken money from him," Ms. Parveen said. "They say, 'You're married to him, so you should go back to him.' Well, I would rather die than go back to the brothel." The police are now prosecuting Ms. Parveen for adultery. She is free on bail, but thugs have attacked her home and tried to kidnap her. Mian Sher told me his plan: if Ms. Parveen is jailed for adultery, then as her supposed husband he will bail her out and take her away. Ms. Parveen says she believes he will then rape and torture her, and finally kill her.

So the judicial system, while ignoring the sex trafficking of children, may now, in the name of morality, hand a young woman over to a brothel owner to do with her as he wants. The new abolitionism, against sex trafficking, is being pushed in America by an unlikely coalition of religious conservatives and liberal feminists; leaders include the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Ecpat, Equality Now and International Justice Mission. But progress is slow because the victims tend to be voiceless young people like Ms. Parveen.

Whether Ms. Parveen is returned to her brothel owner and killed may be, in terms of global issues, a small matter. But after spending a couple of days with this smart and lovely young woman, after seeing her in moments of giddy laughter and terrified weeping, I can't help thinking that slavery should be just as outrageous in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.

A court hearing to decide Ms. Parveen's fate is scheduled for tomorrow here in Khanpur. I'll let you know what happens.

Nicholas Kristof Rape Violence Against Women Aids Sex Slavery Pakistan Kristof

Quote of the Day: Bush Crimes

"Bush is saying 'I'm the president' and, on a range of issues -- from war to torture to illegal surveillance -- 'I can do as I like.' This administration needs to be slapped down and held accountable for actions that could change the shape of our democracy."

--Michael Ratner, Washington Post, 3/24/06

Michael Ratner is an international human rights lawyer and president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The Center for Constitutional Rights is the publie-interest group responsible for filing the first lawsuits on behalf of people detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bush Impeach Bush King George Lawless Bush

Bushies Profit from Katrina Disaster

While I don't believe in blaming moms for the sins of their children, in Barbara Bush's case I'll make an exception.

Little Bushie had an outstanding role model for the fine art of abject selfishness in Lady Barbara. No wonder Georgie turned out so foul.

When the former First Lady "donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund," she made certain that her 'gift' would benefit the Bush family. Cuz Barbara takes the title 'First Family' literally.

Mama Bush's gift was given with the stipulation "that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil."

While hundreds of thousands of Katrina victims were displaced and living in abject poverty, Lady Barbara was looking after her own. But profiting off the misfortune of others is what the Bushies do best.

Like Bill Maher said, educational software is just what destitute Katrina victims need most.

One Good Move has the video of Keith Olbermann honoring Lady Barbara with the Worst Person in the World award (Castro took second place).

Hat tip to The Moderate Voice

Related Post: Barbara Freakin Blue Blooded Bush

Bush Barbara Bush Neil Bush Bush Dynasty Katrina

Dowd: Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Happy Dr. Gloom
by Maureen Dowd

It doesn't take much to make Dick Cheney happy. According to a list of his travel perks, printed by the Smoking Gun Web site, all he needs is a few cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite, a big bed, a pot of decaf. (And global hegemony, of course.) Dr. Gloom, who once dismissed conservation as a "personal virtue," likes all the lights blazing before he gets to a hotel suite and all the TV's beaming Fox News.

Sometimes happiness means being protected from news about other people's unhappiness.

Washington may be gripped by a malaise over the miasma in Iraq. But elsewhere, in business, books and academia, there is a scavenger hunt under way to root out the scientific, economic and emotional reasons for joy. When I was in college, in the Vietnam-Watergate era, sullen mugs trumped smiley faces. "Happiness was very uncool," my friend Michael Kinsley recalls of his Harvard days. "There was a huge premium on being depressed."

Leon Wieseltier, who graduated from Columbia about the same time, agrees that "happiness was considered embarrassing, a mark of shallowness." He still calls joie de vivre "a sign that you're not paying attention." But in the Ivy League now, students are eager to embrace the group therapy of positive thinking. As Carey Goldberg wrote in The Boston Globe, the most popular Harvard course is one taught by Tal Ben-Shahar about how to shed pathologies.

You'd think just being lucky enough to get that Harvard edge would cause elation. But Ms. Goldberg reported that more than 800 students left smiling and cheering after hearing Dr. Ben-Shahar offer self-help formulas like these: "Learn to fail or fail to learn"; don't think, "It happened for the best," but rather, "How can I make the best of what happened?"

He meditated with the students, telling them to "give yourself permission to just be." A gut on trusting your gut. If there's post-traumatic stress disorder, he told me, there can be "post-peak experience order" spurred by music or giving birth. Or making love — but "not all the time, unfortunately," he said, laughing.

Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who popularized positive psychology, says the field is growing because there are ways to measure it. He adds: "The epidemic of depression seems to be completely democratic. It hits the Harvard kids and the rich people and the poor people at about an equal rate."

Dr. Seligman developed the theory of "learned helplessness." He found that dogs who were given shocks for anything they did would become passive, accepting shocks they could escape if they tried. Humans, he says, should try to escape the culture of victimology, the self-absorption of "a huge I and a small we," and shortcuts like drugs and shopping. In his class, he offers "positive emotion" exercises. One is writing down three things that went well during the day. Another is taking someone on a "strength date," encouraging the person to show off a skill or talent. Another is writing a "forgiveness letter." (I'm Irish, so I won't be doing that.)

One of his teaching assistants once told his students they'd all get A's, in the spirit of positive emotions. But we don't need to worry about a placid Stepford universe. The guru of good vibes, as Dr. Seligman is called, warns that people can increase their happiness only within a "set range." "It's like a waistline," he says. "Everyone can't be happier in the pleasure sense. Maybe people can be happier in the engagement sense" — for example, taking a job where you use your strengths every day — "and in the sense of more meaning in life."

Studies show the happiest people are the most resilient. (And probably regard positive-psych classes as demented psychobabble?) Since they didn't have to learn to be resilient in the Depression and World War II, yuppies and their offspring succumbed to narcissism and materialism.

They say money can't buy happiness, but maybe it can buy some. In 2004, two economists declared that money seemed to buy greater happiness but, surprisingly, not more sex. (Explain Ron Perelman.) David Blanchflower of Dartmouth and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England calculated that if you increased your sexual activity from once a month to once a week, you'd be as happy as if you had an extra $50,000 a year.

But is the converse true? For $50,000 more, you're just as happy as if you'd quadrupled your sex? Along these lines, how much will it cost us to get rid of Dick Cheney and end his trillion-dollar war, because that would buy us happiness?

Maureen Dowd Cheney Iraq War Bush Sex Dowd

Outlaw Bush At it Again

Once again, our royally bad joke of a pResident has been caught making up his own laws. Once again, we almost didn't find out. Not that it really matters when you have a Congress that excels only at rolling over and playing dead.


The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers. . .

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law. . .

Everyone keeps saying that people get the leaders they deserve. I don't believe it. I don't know any man, woman, or child who deserves the contemptible and unconstitutional leadership of outlaw George W. Bushie.

Josh Marshall weighs in on the "lawless presidency of George W. Bush," as does Andrew Sullivan, who asks, "Upon what Constitution doth this our Caesar feed?"

Graphic found at AfterDowningStreet.org

Bush King George Patriot Act Signing Statement Congress Lawless Bush

Calling Bill Napoli

This is by Stephanie McMillan. She says "the phone numbers are real, taken from the South Dakota senate web site. But don't you go bothering anyone now!"

Check her out.

Reproductive Rights Feminism Feminist Comics Abortion Pro Choice War on Women