Human Food Is Also Contaminated

You saw Scary Toxic Pet Food, now stay tuned for Scary Toxic Human Food. Hollywood needs to stop making scary movies. If they want scary, all they need to do is make documentaries about everyday life under the Terrifying Reign of the Incompetent Bush Administration.

It turns out that China has been mixing melamine into animal feed and selling it as "protein-rich pig, poultry and fish feed." They've been doing this for years, and we only just found out.

As far as we know, at least 45 California residents haven eaten contaminated pork "from hogs that consumed animal feed laced with melamine from China . . The effects of melamine on people are thought to be minimal, but no one really knows."

I mean they use it to make plastic. How bad can it be?

As far as we know, the contaminated feed has been sent to hog farmers in California, Utah, Ohio, Kansas, Oklahoma, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. And maybe Missouri. We don't know for sure.

As far as we know, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has "ordered more than 6,000 hogs to be quarantined or slaughtered."

"At a time when food imports are growing, and only 1 percent to 2 percent of food imports receive any government scrutiny, critics say the scare reveals the shortcomings of a weakened food safety bureaucracy, the inadequacy of existing regulations and the inability of the FDA, which has suffered significant cutbacks, to protect the food supply."

The FDA defends itself by pointing out that they have suffered major cuts since 2003.

After all, there's a war on.

And it's not just the wheat gluten that's poison -- rice protein is also toxic. I'm not sure, but that sounds like something that might be in my granola. Until we know more, the safest course may be to forego eating.

But here's your reassurance from the FDA. (I'm trying to remember who Bush put in charge of the FDA. Wasn't it one of those 23 year old graduates from Divinity School?): Joint Update: FDA/USDA Update on Tainted Animal Feed

HorsesAss and Huffington Post have more and it ain't pretty:
Melamine-spiking “widespread” in China; human food broadly contaminated
Human Food Broadly Contaminated

FDA News Politics Human Food Scare Melamine China Contaminated Human Food Pork Bush

Dennis Kucinich On Bill Maher's Real Time

Video: Bill Maher Interviews Dennis Kucinich (04/27/07)

Damn, Dennis Kucinich is good! Why don't I get to hear him talk more often? Or to paraphrase Bill Maher, how come Kucinich is the crazy one?

Dennis Kucinich News Politics Bill Maher Real Time Progressive Democrats 2008 Video

Drug War: Tennessee Officials Retaliate Against Bernie Ellis

Apparently, some of our high officials don't like it when the public gets involved in miscarriages of justice.

Brittney at Nashville is Talking reports:

An estimated 280 people raised $10,000 [at the Belcourt in Nashville] to help an aging epidemiologist save his Maury County farm from the federal government, which is pursuing an asset forfeiture case against the land after a 2002 marijuana raid.

Bernie Ellis could not make the benefit concert . . in Nashville - he sat in a halfway house on “lock down” after months of daytime freedom as he neared the end of a four-year probationary period. Ellis was busted on the Fly, Tennessee farm he had owned for 40 years with several pounds of marijuana he was growing and providing free to sick and dying friends, all of whom are now deceased. The rumor at the benefit was that a state court judge did not like the Nashville Tennessean’s weekend story about Ellis’ cause, which made the judge look tyrannical, so (the rumor went) the judge locked Ellis down as punishment, knowing he would miss all the fun.

Wiley50 at DU has an alarming update. Life has changed for Bernie since he requested to attend the benefit. He has been detained at the halfway house ever since.

"He has not been allowed to work and it looks like he will not be allowed to return to work (costing him $1,000 in salary). He will also not be allowed to attend his weekly support group and his monthly pass to visit his farm has been denied. He has been put on double work details at the "house", and his only opportunity to leave the "house" will be to attend church services at St. Ann's Episcopal Church (419 Woodland Street; he attends the 10:30 am service)."

How bad does the government want Bernie's farm? Anybody know that judge's name?

"Even if you've been found innocent of a crime, your home, money and personal posessions can be taken by law enforcement, and you MAY NEVER get your property back." -- Read more at the Save Bernie's Farm website

Marijuana Martyr
Pot grower who may lose farm says his only crime was caring
Maury County Center Of Medicinal Marijuana Debate

Photo: Bernie Ellis at HIS Maury County Farm

Bernie Ellis News Politics Medical Marijuana Save Bernie's Farm Nashville Tennessee Drug War Maury County

Another Economic Disconnect

Profit Gusher
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last fall Edward Lazear, the Bush administration’s top economist, explained that what’s good for corporations is good for America. “Profits,” he declared, “provide the incentive for physical capital investment, and physical capital growth contributes to productivity growth. Thus profits are important not only for investors but also for the workers who benefit from the growth in productivity.”

In other words, ask not for whom the closing bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Unfortunately, these days none of what Mr. Lazear said seems to be true. In the Bush years high profits haven’t led to high investment, and rising productivity hasn’t led to rising wages.

Read more . . .

Paul Krugman Inequality Republicans Bush Conservative Greed News Politics

DC Madam's Clients Include White House & Pentagon Officials

The DC Madam's clients are sweating it out in anticipation of ABC's report on the sex scandal and the Madam's client list on "20/20" on May 4. Raw Story reports that the anticipation has Washington in a state of 'shock and awe.'

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, aka DC Madam, has recently named US naval commander Harlan Ullman as one of her "regular customers."

After the alleged prostitution service customer U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias resigned, he told ABC's Brian Ross that he doesn't remember any of the women's names.

"He said it was like ordering pizza."

Yeah, well, I bet the women remember the Anti-Condom Man.

ABC News’ Brian Ross reveals that the client list of "the alleged Washington-based prostitution service includes White House and Pentagon officials as well as prominent attorneys."

“There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers,” Ross said. “And there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list.” Ross added that the women who worked for the service, potentially as prostitutes, “include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.”

Here's hoping Karl, Dick and George are on that list!

via memeorandum

UPDATE: DC Madam's Client List: Bad News for Bushies

Sex Scandal Randall Tobias D.C. Madam Escort Service Harlan Ullman Politics 20/20 ABC Brian Ross Karl Rove Bush Cheney Deborah Palfrey News

Brooks: Republicans Just Want to Be George Allen

"Rudy Giuliani has an unusual profile that won him a majority of votes on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, of all places, but he’s suppressing that to be George Allen."

The idea that the current crop of Republican presidential candidates just want to be George Allen may sound to you like a liberal idea. Today, however, it comes to you from David Brooks.

The conservative columnist also observes that Republicans are "like people quietly marching to their doom."

You know it's bad when suddenly all your best cheerleaders are throwing rotten tomatoes at you. Well, some of us know it's bad, but the Bush-in-the-Bubble crowd probably won't know it until the morning of November 7, 2008. An excerpt from David Brooks' scathing attack on the wannabe-George-Allen Republicans follows.

Grim Old Party
by David Brooks

At the University of Chicago there’s a group of scholars who are members of what is called the Rational Expectations school of economics. They believe human beings tend to anticipate unpleasant future events and seek in advance to avoid them. Their teachings do not apply to the Republican Party.

The Republicans suffered one unpleasant event in November 2006, and they are headed toward an even nastier one in 2008. The Democrats have opened up a wide advantage in party identification and are crushing the G.O.P. among voters under 30.

Moreover, there has been a clear shift, in poll after poll, away from Republican positions on social issues and on attitudes toward government. Democratic approaches are favored on almost all domestic, tax and fiscal issues, and even on foreign affairs.

The public, in short, wants change.

And yet the Republicans refuse to offer that. On Capitol Hill, there is a strange passivity in Republican ranks. Republicans are privately disgusted with how President Bush has led their party and the nation, but they don’t publicly offer any alternatives. They just follow sullenly along. They privately believe the country needs new approaches to the war against Islamic extremism, but they don’t offer them. They try to block Democratic initiatives, but they don’t offer the country any new ways to think about the G.O.P.

They are like people quietly marching to their doom.

And at the presidential level, things are even worse. The party is blessed with a series of charismatic candidates who are not orthodox Republicans. But the pressures of the campaign are such that these candidates have had to repress anything that might make them interesting. Instead of offering something new, each of them has been going around pretending to be the second coming of George Allen — a bland, orthodox candidate who will not challenge any of the party’s customs or prejudices.

Read more. . .

David Brooks News Politics George Allen Bush Republicans Rudy Giuliani Grim Old Party 2008

Rich: All the President’s Press

The Press's Failures
by Frank Rich

It was Alsop’s spirit, not Halberstam’s, that could be seen in C-Span’s live broadcast of the correspondents’ dinner last Saturday, two days before Halberstam’s death in a car crash in California. This fete is a crystallization of the press’s failures in the post-9/11 era: it illustrates how easily a propaganda-driven White House can enlist the Washington news media in its shows. Such is literally the case at the annual dinner, where journalists serve as a supporting cast, but it has been figuratively true year-round. The press has enabled stunts from the manufactured threat of imminent “mushroom clouds” to “Saving Private Lynch” to “Mission Accomplished,” whose fourth anniversary arrives on Tuesday. For all the recrimination, self-flagellation and reforms that followed these journalistic failures, it’s far from clear that the entire profession yet understands why it has lost the public’s faith.

That state of denial was center stage at the correspondents’ dinner last year, when the invited entertainer, Stephen Colbert, “fell flat,” as The Washington Post summed up the local consensus. To the astonishment of those in attendance, a funny thing happened outside the Beltway the morning after: the video of Mr. Colbert’s performance became a national sensation. (Last week it was still No. 2 among audiobook downloads on iTunes.) Washington wisdom had it that Mr. Colbert bombed because he was rude to the president. His real sin was to be rude to the capital press corps, whom he caricatured as stenographers. Though most of the Washington audience failed to find the joke funny, Americans elsewhere, having paid a heavy price for the press’s failure to challenge White House propaganda about Iraq, laughed until it hurt.

You’d think that l’affaire Colbert would have led to a little circumspection, but last Saturday’s dinner was another humiliation. And not just because this year’s entertainer, an apolitical nightclub has-been (Rich Little), was a ludicrously tone-deaf flop. More appalling — and symptomatic of the larger sycophancy — was the press’s insidious role in President Bush’s star turn at the event.

It’s the practice on these occasions that the president do his own comic shtick, but this year Mr. Bush made a grand show of abstaining, saying that the killings at Virginia Tech precluded his being a “funny guy.” Any civilian watching on TV could formulate the question left hanging by this pronouncement: Why did the killings in Iraq not preclude his being a “funny guy” at other press banquets we’ve watched on C-Span? At the equivalent Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association gala three years ago, the president contributed an elaborate (and tasteless) comic sketch about his failed search for Saddam’s W.M.D.

But the revelers in the ballroom last Saturday could not raise that discrepancy and challenge Mr. Bush’s hypocrisy; they could only clap. And so they served as captive dress extras in a propaganda stunt, lending their credibility to the president’s sanctimonious exploitation of the Virginia Tech tragedy for his own political self-aggrandizement on national television. Meanwhile the war was kept as tightly under wraps as the troops’ coffins. . .

After last weekend’s correspondents’ dinner, The Times decided to end its participation in such events. But even were the dinner to vanish altogether, it remains but a yearly televised snapshot of the overall syndrome. The current White House, weakened as it is, can still establish story lines as fake as “Mission Accomplished” and get a free pass.

Read more . . .

Frank Rich Press Bill Moyers Stephen Colbert Bush Colbert White House Correspondents Dinner Colbert Report Media Politics MSM News

Bushie Sex Scandal - Condi's Deputy Linked to Call Girl Service

Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias Only Used Call Girls For Massages -- Not Sex! -- But Condi's Deputy, aka Abstinence Czar, Resigns Anyway. Go Figure.

Isn't it odd how many Bush scandals break on a Friday night? Randall Tobias quit the post of Deputy Secretary of State for "personal reasons." Said personal reasons being that Tobias is a client of the "D.C. Madam's" escort service. The D.C. Madam has been charged with running a prostitution service, but Condi Rice's Deputy did not have sex with those call girls!

Deputy Tobias only got massages from call girls. He wants you and his wife to know that.

And just two days ago Bushie was praising Tobias for his work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Randall Tobias -- aka the Bush AIDS Czar -- is infamous for bashing condoms and praising abstinence while allegedly getting massages from call girls and working to alleviate the AIDS epidemic.

As a commenter over at The Blotter asks:

So did Tobias wear a condom when he didn't have sex or not?

Funny how all these abstinence freaks turn out to be sex addicts. And the Bush Administration is overflowing with abstinence freaks.

The D.C. Madam, aka Deborah Jeane Palfrey, has threatened to expose yet more prominent Washington D.C. men, saying that she has 10,000 names in her client phone records. Now ABC News owns that client list. And how many loyal Bushies are on that list? Sex -- or massage -- could bring down a whole lot of abstinence asses.

Just imagine if the Bush Administration were to completely fall to pieces because of sex.

Oh, the irony.

via memeorandum

Photo: Anti-Condom Randall Tobias being heckled at a global AIDS summit in Thailand. And: The D.C. Madam will talk about her client list on 20/20 next Friday.

Randall Tobias D.C. Madam Escort Service Condi Rice News Politics Bush Abstinence AIDS Czar

Rush Attacks Obama with Racism (Video)

"Barack the Magic Negro" and More Racist Ditties Aimed at Al Sharpton via the Rush Limbaugh Show -- Limbaugh Needs to Go Spend Time with Imus!

A ground swell of anger is erupting from listeners and employees of color at radio stations across the country, reports Crooks and Liars. "This is starting to boil over. . "

Remember when pResident Bush was on the racist Rush Limbaugh show?

Video above via The Horses' Mouth

And here's the "Barack the Magic Negro" video shown to subscribers on the Rush Limbaugh website, entitled -- "U Da Real Negro Al, Screw Obama":


Enough of racist radio! Rush Limbaugh needs to be fired!

What they're saying:

EURweb: LIMBAUGH VIDEO PITS OBAMA AGAINST SHARPTON: Clip has duo pointing out differences in their ‘blackness.’
The Nation: Rush's "Magic Negro" Routine
Taylor Marsh: Racist Wingnut Radio Led by Rush
The Moderate Voice -- a round-up of blog reaction.
via memeorandum

Rush Limbaugh Politics Racism Rightwing News Radio Barack Obama Al Sharpton Barack the Magic Negro Video Racist Bush

Tenet’s Air Ball

More Like an Air Ball
By Maureen Dowd

Poor Slam-Dunk.

Not since Madame Butterfly has anyone been so cruelly misunderstood and misused. Slam-Dunk says that when he pantingly told the president that fetching information on Saddam’s W.M.D. would be a cinch, he did not mean let’s go to war.

No matter how eager Slam-Dunk was to tell W. what he wanted to hear while polishing W.’s shoes, that intelligence they craved did not exist. “Let me say it again: C.I.A. found absolutely no linkage between Saddam and 9/11,” the ex-Head Spook writes in his new book, self-effacingly titled “At the Center of the Storm.” Besides, Junior and Darth had already decided to go to war to show the Arabs their moxie.

The president and vice president wanted Slam-Dunk to help them dramatize the phony case. Everyone had to pitch in! That Saturday session in December 2002 in the Oval Office was “essentially a marketing meeting,” Slam-Dunk writes, just for “sharpening the arguments.”

Hey, I feel better.

Slam-Dunk always presented himself as the ultimate guy’s guy, a cigar-chomping spymaster who swapped jokes with the president. But now he shows us his tender side, a sniveling C.I.A. chief bullied by “remote” Condi. . .

. . . If you worry about your own survival more than your country’s, you might end up as the whiny fall guy.

Read more . . .

Maureen Dowd News Politics Bush Iraq War George Tenet Slam Dunk CIA Cheney Tenet

Toby Keith's Misogynic Video -- CMT Nominee for Best Video

Because misogyny and domestic violence are just so haha funny! Toby Keith's "A Little Too Late" was nominated for Best Video at the Country Music Television Awards.



via Jessica at Feministing

Gender Politics Toby Keith CMTV Awards Misogyny Feminism News Video A Little Too Late Domestic Violence Nashville Tennessee Country Music

TGW Tip Jar

If you think the Tennessee Guerilla Women blog provides a valuable service, and you can afford to do so, please consider making a donation of any amount via the Paypal link near the top of the sidebar.

Donations as small as $5 will help this blog survive and grow.

As always, thank you for reading and for doing whatever you can to end this nightmare conservative era and paint this state and this nation a deep deep blue!

TGW Progressive Blogging Tennessee Liberal Politics Tennessee Guerilla Women Feminist

Thank Goddess Bill Moyers is Back

If you missed Bill Moyers' Buying the War, be sure to catch it online at the Bill Moyers Journal.

And on tonight's show, Moyers will discuss the success of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show, and blogger Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo will weigh in on Attorneygate -- the controversial and possibly illegal firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Bill Moyers Iraq War Media Incompetent Journalists Politics Jon Stewart Josh Marshall Bush News Buying the War

Gilded Age

Gilded Once More
by Paul Krugman

One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the era’s injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.

Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.

Consider a head-to-head comparison. We know what John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in Gilded Age America, made in 1894, because in 1895 he had to pay income taxes. (The next year, the Supreme Court declared the income tax unconstitutional.) His return declared an income of $1.25 million, almost 7,000 times the average per capita income in the United States at the time.

But that makes him a mere piker by modern standards. Last year, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, James Simons, a hedge fund manager, took home $1.7 billion, more than 38,000 times the average income. Two other hedge fund managers also made more than $1 billion, and the top 25 combined made $14 billion.

How much is $14 billion? It’s more than it would cost to provide health care for a year to eight million children — the number of children in America who, unlike children in any other advanced country, don’t have health insurance.

The hedge fund billionaires are simply extreme examples of a much bigger phenomenon: every available measure of income concentration shows that we’ve gone back to levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s.

. . . [T]he G.O.P.’s defeat in the midterm election has put on hold other plans to restore the good old days.

But it’s much too soon to declare the march toward a New Gilded Age over. If history is any guide, one of these days we’ll see the emergence of a New Progressive Era, maybe even a New New Deal. But it may be a long wait.

Read more . . .

Paul Krugman Inequality Republicans Bush Conservative News Plutocracy Politics

Netroots Rooting for Edwards in Presidential Debate

The majority of the netroots is rooting for John Edwards in tonight's Democratic Presidential Debate, according to an informal poll over at dkos.

But that's no surprise.

Time and time again, John Edwards has led on issues crucial to the base. Obama and Clinton have sometimes followed his lead; other times they have not. While polls among the general population find Clinton in first place, Obama in second and Edwards in third, that is far from the case when it comes to the netroots.

The dkos poll results are in line with virtually every netroots poll I've seen.

The question:

Who are you rooting for in tonight's Democratic presidential debate?

Edwards is currently at #1 with 37 percent; Obama is #2 with 22 percent; Bill Richardson is #3 with 14 percent; No one in particular is #4 with 13 percent.

Hillary? Trailing behind Dennis Kucinich, Senator Clinton is #6 with 3 percent.

Number of votes at this time: 10,078.

Go vote in the dkos poll. (Thanks to Bill in Portland Maine!)

John Edwards Democratic Debate Netroots Poll Politics Obama Hillary Clinton 2008 South Carolina News

At Debate Edwards Will Call on Bush to Fire Rove

At tonight's Democratic presidential debate, John Edwards will call on Bush to fire Karl Rove, according to email alerts from the Edwards campaign.

Edwards asks that you sign his petition so that it is clear that he is speaking for thousands, if not millions.

An excerpt from the campaign email follows:

There is a trail of rot making its way through our government—and it leads straight to Karl Rove.

New evidence shows that Rove has been methodically working to twist even the most impartial branches of the federal government—including the Justice Department—to serve the Republican Party at the expense of the American people.

Enough is enough. Impartial justice must be protected. Integrity in government must be defended. Karl Rove must be fired.

Tomorrow, John Edwards is going on national television to take part in the first presidential debate. And that night, he's going to call on George Bush to fire Karl Rove.

. . . John will speak out to the national media gathered to cover the presidential debate and call on President Bush to fire Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales. That means we have 24 hours to gather enough support to ensure that when John steps forward, he's not stepping forward alone.

John Edwards Democratic Debate Rove News Politics Fire Karl Rove 2008

Video: Giuliani Fearmongering at RNC Convention

Fearmongering Clips of Rudy and the Neocons at the RNC 2004 National Convention

Since Rudy Giuliani has reverted back to the Republican campaign strategy of "Vote Democratic and DIE!" -- it's a good time to stroll down the RNC's fearmongering lane.

The cast of characters in this montage of clips includes George Bush, Zell Miller and Dick Cheney, but even in the darkest of company Rudy's performance is impressive.

And just listen to John McCain -- he was just as tired in 2004 as he is now.

No clip is a repeat.

via fly at dkos

Also: Not Breaking: Rudy Giuliani Is A Fearmongering Jackass
Giuliani Kissing Up to Pro-War Faction of GOP

Rudy Giuliani Fearmongering Bush 2008 Republicans 9/11 Terrorists News Democrats Politics RNC 2004 Convention Video

Earth to Bubble Boy: Americans Agree with Democrats

Earth to Bubble Boy -- Americans agree with Democrats -- it's time to set a deadline for troop withdrawal! A mere 37 percent agree with you, Mr. pResident.

The NBC/WSJ poll finds that 55 percent of Americans think victory in Iraq is NOT possible! How many more lives will be wasted because you are too damn stubborn to admit you have failed?

WASHINGTON - As the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House clash over an Iraq spending bill, with President Bush vowing to veto it because it contains withdrawal deadlines, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that a solid majority of Americans side with the Democrats. . .

Bush opposes the bill and has threatened to veto it. "They know I'm going to veto a bill containing these provisions, and they know that my veto will be sustained," the president said on Tuesday. . .

Yet the poll shows that 56 percent say they agree more with the Democrats in Congress who want to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, versus the 37 percent who say they agree with Bush that there shouldn't be a deadline.

Yesterday the House passed the "$124.2 billion supplemental spending bill that contains the troop withdrawal timetable." The Senate is expected to do the same today. Bush is expected to ignore the American people, throw another baby fit, and veto the bill next week, possibly on the 4th anniversary of the Boy King's foolish Iraq "victory" speech.

MSNBC image via the Left Coaster

Iraq Bush Troop Withdrawal Republicans Supplemental NBC/WSJ poll News Democrats Politics

Hooked on Violence

Gun Violence
By BOB HERBERT

Two days after the massacre at Virginia Tech, a mentally disturbed man with a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun opened fire in a house in Queens, killing his mother, his mother’s disabled companion and the disabled man’s health care aide. The gunman then killed himself.

Sixteen months ago, in the basement of a private home in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, four aspiring rappers, aged 19 to 22, were summarily executed in a barrage of semiautomatic gunfire. Two teenagers were arrested five months later, and one was charged as the gunman.

I had coffee the other day with Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and she mentioned that since the murders of Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, well over a million Americans have been killed by firearms in the United States. That’s more than the combined U.S. combat deaths in all the wars in all of American history.

“We’re losing eight children and teenagers a day to gun violence,” she said. “As far as young people are concerned, we lose the equivalent of the massacre at Virginia Tech about every four days.”

The first step in overcoming an addiction is to acknowledge it. Americans are addicted to violence, specifically gun violence.

Read more. . .

Bob Herberts Guns Violence News Politics USA

David Brooks On Obama

I guess I've been reading too much Dowd. Suddenly David Brooks' column about Barack Obama appears refreshing. And there's not one word about hair or emasculation!

Obama, Gospel and Verse:

"Whereas President Bush sees the war against radical Islam as the organizing conflict of our time, Obama sees radical extremism as one problem on a checklist of many others: global poverty, nuclear proliferation, global warming. When I asked him to articulate the central doctrine of his foreign policy, he said, 'The single objective of keeping America safe is best served when people in other nations are secure and feel invested.'”

Read more. . .

David Brooks Barack Obama Foreign Policy News Politics 2008 Democrats

No One Suffers More than George and Laura Bush

"No one suffers more than their President and I do."

-- Laura Bush, Today Show, 4/25/07

Gawd! The humility! Don't you feel their pain? Poor Laura and George.

Molly Ivins, did you hear that?

Lady Bush was responding to this question on the topic of the Iraq War:

"Do you know the American people are suffering?"

Grieving families everywhere will be gratified to know that the nobility in the White House suffers so. Guess that's why King George and Lady Laura can't attend the funerals. The pain would be so much more than our betters could endure.

We are reminded that it runs in the family:

"But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."

-- Barbara Bush, 2003

And now I must leave to go vomit.

[via Blue Oregon]

Laura Bush Iraq War Suffering Bush Politics News Barbara Bush

Giuliani: Elect A Democrat & A Terrorist Will Get You!

Rudy Giuliani is back to his old self, the self we knew and loathed before 9/11 struck and transformed Mayor Legree into a pseudo hero. Rudy told a gathering of Republicans that Democrats are sissies and Republicans are big strong protective daddies, especially Republicans named Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy Giuliani said that if a Democrat is elected in 2008, the terrorists will attack us! But if Rudy is elected, life will be grand. We will all be safe and warm in our beds.

And big strong Daddy Giuliani said they hate us for our freedoms!

The Politico:

MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president —- and I think obviously I would be the best at this —- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

He added: “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”

. . . “America will safer with a Republican president.”

. . . "They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.”

. . . Addressing the terrorists directly, Giuliani said: “We are not giving that up, and you are not going to take it from us!”

The crowd thundered its approval.

Why are all the Republican candidates certifiable?

via Real Clear Politics

Rudy Giuliani 2008 Republicans 9/11 Terrorists News Democrats Politics

Bill O'Reilly Meets Richard Dawkins (Video)

O'Reilly Interviews Richard Dawkins. . . Dawkins Wins.


One Good Move: "Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins author of The God Delusion. . . Billo's arguments, design, Stalin was a bad dude, and I'm a Catholic and that's truth to me. Apparently Bill's only standard for truth is that he believes it. My only complaint, it was too short."

The God Delusion is currently 13 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Richard Dawkins Bill O'Reilly Religion Science Atheist Fox News News Rightwing Politics

Dowd: Obamas’ Routine

She’s Not Buttering Him Up
By MAUREEN DOWD

Usually, I love the dynamics of a cheeky woman puncturing the ego of a cocky guy. I liked it in ’40s movies, and I liked it with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, and Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis in “Moonlighting.”

So why don’t I like it with Michelle and Barack?

I wince a bit when Michelle Obama chides her husband as a mere mortal — a comic routine that rests on the presumption that we see him as a god. The tweaking takes place at fundraisers, where Michelle wants to lift the veil on their home life a bit and give the folks their money’s worth.

At the big Hollywood fund-raiser for Senator Obama in February, Michelle came on strong.

“I am always a little amazed at the response that people get when they hear from Barack,” she told the crowd at the Beverly Hilton, as her husband stood by looking like a puppy being scolded, reported Hud Morgan of Men’s Vogue. “A great man, a wonderful man. But still a man. ...

“I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There’s Barack Obama the phenomenon. He’s an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right?

“And then there’s the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy’s a little less impressive. For some reason this guy still can’t manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn’t get stale, and his 5-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is.”

She said that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she’d like to meet him sometime. Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband — under fire for lacking experience — as an undisciplined child.

At a March fund-raiser in New York, she tweaked her husband for not “putting his socks actually in the dirty clothes.”

. . . The Chicago Tribune profile of “Barack’s Rock” on Sunday noted that her career had caused her husband discomfort: “Critics have pointed out that her income has risen along with her husband’s political ascent. She sits on the board of a food company that supplies Wal-Mart, which Sen. Obama has denounced for its labor practices.”

. . . But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk the mystique?

Read more . . .

Maureen Dowd Barack Obama Michelle Obama News Politics 2008 Democrats Rezko

Video: Response to Limbaugh's Latest Anti Liberal Rant

This video offers a response to Rush Limbaugh's laughable claim that Virginia Tech killer Cho Seung-Hui was a Liberal.


"If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal." -- Rush "Idiot" Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh Liberal Cho Seung Hui Virginia Tech School Shooting Virginia News Rightwing Killers Gun Culture Politics

Karl Rove Under Investigation

Update: Scroll down for some Scott Bloch reasons to disbelieve and scoff, or Are Loyal Bushies Investigating Loyal Bushies?

Investigating Karl Rove, now there's an idea. For some reason, the Office of Special Counsel has decided to step up to the plate. By all accounts, the OSC is an obscure federal investigative unit which normally deals with some relatively tame stuff. Certainly, nothing on the level of nailing the White House Turd Blossom. As Rove's dream of a permanent Republican majority goes down the drain, he should too.

......the Office of Special Counsel is preparing to jump into one of the most sensitive and potentially explosive issues in Washington, launching a broad investigation into key elements of the White House political operations that for more than six years have been headed by chief strategist Karl Rove.

The new investigation, which will examine the firing of at least one U.S. attorney, missing White House e-mails, and White House efforts to keep presidential appointees attuned to Republican political priorities, could create a substantial new problem for the Bush White House. . . .

One of its primary missions has been to enforce the Hatch Act, a law enacted in 1939 to preserve the integrity of the civil service.

Loyal Bushies Investigating Loyal Bushies?

Melissa at Shakesville is skeptical. 'Skeptical' may be too mild of a term. Lots of other folks are weighing in with the opinion that an OSC investigation led by shady Bush appointee Scott Bloch, may be yet more smoke and mirrors from the crooks in the White House. And that Bloch is of the same mold as Michael Brown and Alberto Gonzales. Or in Lambert's words, "the guy's a loyal Bushie."

And Bloch is a known homophobe who used to work for the DOJ, adds Southern Beale at MRDTalk.

A word of caution from the Carpetbagger Report: "Bloch has been relatively even-handed over the last couple of years, and has even launched some legitimate investigations. I wouldn’t necessarily assume that this look into Rove’s operation is meaningless."

(thanx to Southern Beale)

Scott Bloch Loyal Bushies Karl Rove Bush Politics News OSC Office of Special Counsel

There's Sex Discrimination in the U.S.???

Study Finds Stark Gender Pay Gap
Do You Have to Be A Bitch to Get Equal Pay?

This story is everywhere. But, of course, there's never been a time when we did not have a "stark" pay gap. Possibly it's getting starker. Lord knows everything else is.

But is there some way we can blame this pay gap on women? Well, yeah, the woman on CNN is saying that women are just not aggressive enough. Let me finish that thought. Women aren't men. Women smile too much. Women are too nice.

Except when we are bitches.

Stark pay gap for US women graduates

College-educated American women working full time earn dramatically less than male colleagues in the same field even just one year out of university, according to a new report.

The report, released on Monday by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, a Washington, DC-based group, said that one year after receiving a college degree, women make 80 per cent of what their male counterparts earn. . .

Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning 69 per cent of what men earn. By that point, college-educated men have more authority in the workplace than do their female counterparts. For instance, men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others and setting pay.

The report, which analysed data from the US Department of Education on nearly 20,000 college graduates from the years 1992-93 and 1999-2000, also said that even after controlling for hours, occupation, parenthood, and other factors, the pay disparity remains.

The study showed that while in college, women outperformed men academically, and their grade point averages were higher in every major subject, including science and mathematics.

Photo: President John F. Kennedy signs the 1963 Equal Pay Act into law. Don't you feel better?

Gender Pay Gap Equal Pay Feminism Politics News

Video: Genarlow Wilson is Still in a Georgia Prison

Don't Take Your Kids to Georgia

"This is the story of a 17 year old boy sent to prison for 10 years for an act of consensual sex with a 15 year old girl. Genarlow Wilson was a football star at his high school. He was voted prom king and was on the honor roll. He had NO PRIOR charges. Yet two years later, he sits in prison fullfilling a 10 year sentence instead of all his boyhood dreams."

Updates and petition at: Wilsonappeal.com

Previous TGW Posts:
Genarlow Wilson and the Racist Red State of Georgia
Don't Take Your Kids to Georgia
Ten Years of Prison for One Night of Sex

Genarlow Wilson Video Georgia Racism Politics Conservative Red State News Sex Abstinence Only United States Human Rights

Georgia School Holds First Integrated Prom!

This is so sick. Small town Georgia has decided that blacks and whites can go to the same prom!

Ending segregation in 2007! Gee, what will the red state of Georgia think of next?

No wonder Genarlow Wilson is serving ten years for consensual sex in Georgia.

ASHBURN, Ga. -- For the first time, the faces of students at the Turner County High School prom were both white and black. Each year, in spite of integration, the school's white students had raised money for their own unofficial prom and black students did the same to throw their own separate party, an annual ritual that divided the southern Georgia peanut-farming county anew each spring. . .

"I couldn't be more proud of these young people," said Ray Jordan, the county's school superintendent. "The changes needed to come from the student body."

The changes needed to come from the student body??? Why? Because the adults in Ashburn, Georgia have a thing for Jim Crow traditions?

Apparently, kids trained in Jim Crow tradtions may have trouble changing:

Still, traditions die hard. Only about two-thirds of the school's 160 upper-class students purchased tickets for the prom, blacks still easily outnumbered whites at the dance, and many whites still attended their own private party a week earlier. Few other white students would comment about the dance, telling reporters gathered outside the gym that school officials told them not to talk to the media.

Why do we even let Georgia be in the United States?

Georgia Racism Politics Integration Red State Race News Jim Crow 2007 Ashburn Genarlow Wilson

Michael Moore's "Sicko" at Cannes Film Festival

Sicko will be at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The festival will take place from May 16-27. This will be the first time Sicko is seen by the public.

Sicko is set to be released in June. Moore's new film is billed as "a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth."

Michael Moore Politics Sicko Cannes News Health Insurance USA Healthcare

Campfield Praises Rob Briley (D) for Pro Gun Stance

Notorious Stacey Campfield Praises Nashville's Democratic Rep. Rob Briley for Pro Gun Amendment

"Why don't we just let you take your gun anywhere you want to?" -- Rep. Rob Briley

You have to worry when your Democratic Representative receives praise from the infamous Stacey X. But it does sound like there is something else going on. Just imagine working with wingnuts like Campfield on a daily basis. Still. . .

In a post titled "Rob Briley I hardly know you," Campfield writes on his blog:

"OK I had to have had one of the biggest shocks I have had in the legislature when I was sitting in Criminal practice sub committee (No that is not where criminals go to practice) I was waiting for my bill to come up when my good friend and office mate Frank Nicley had a bill up that would allow people to carry a handgun in a state park if they have a licence (think wild bear).

What happened next was mind boggling Rep. Rob Briley amended the bill to allow people to carry any where except where not allowed by federal law(as long as they have a licence). . . Where is the Rob Briley we know and hate? I had to applaud I was so in shock. Rob if you keep this up we may have to make you an honorary Republican."

The report from the Knoxville News Sentinel suggests that Briley may have acted out of frustration. Still, this is not good.

In a surprise move, a House panel voted Wednesday to repeal a state law that forbids the carrying of handguns on property and buildings owned by state, county and city governments - including parks and playgrounds. . . Rep. Rob Briley, D-Nashville, promptly proposed an amendment to expand its scope. "We've been piecemealing this thing year after year," Briley said. "Why don't we just let you take your gun anywhere you want to?"

. . . Briley, Sontany and others said afterward that it would allow permit holders to take their guns on most other state, county or city government property - including the Legislative Plaza, where signs are now posted to prohibit weapons except those carried by law enforcement officers.

Briley said in an interview that he and a handful of other legislators in subcommittees have borne the brunt of harsh criticism from some gun owners for opposing past efforts to "nibble away" at restrictions on where handguns can be taken. "This has been on the backs of just a few people," he said. "Now it's time for other people to stand up and say, 'We want these protections in the law' - or not."

Of course, Legislative Plaza is the site of our legislators' offices, and it is right across the street from the Capitol. If this bill becomes law, then the next time Republicans hold an angry brick-throwing protest at the Capitol -- they'll be legally entitled to bring their guns.

Hmmm. That's one way to achieve Rove's dream of a permanent Republican majority.

Photo: Rep. Rob Briley, Phone: (615) 741-2184 / rep.rob.briley@legislature.state.tn.us

Hat tip to Vol. Voters

Rob Briley Politics Stacey Campfield Stacey X Guns Tennessee Legislators Frank Nicley News Nashville

Fred Thompson's Wife and Wolfowitz Share

Caption this!


Fred Thompson's current wife - wannabe First Lady Jeri Kehn enjoys herself with World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Via Kiss My Big Blue Butt [Hat tip to Whites Creek Journal]

Check the link above in Jeri Kehn's name for another revealing photo. The church ladies are going to vote for Jeri as First Lady?

Pssst -- Fred Thompson worked as an abortion rights lobbyist!

Wolfowitz Fred Thompson News Jeri Kehn Picture 2008 Republicans Thompson's Wife Politics White House Correspondents Dinner

U.S. Military Deserters Seek Refuge in Canada

Niagra Falls, the major escape route.

Sky News reports about Americans who flee to Canada rather than return to Iraq. U.S. soldiers who seek asylum in Canada are aided and supported by the The War Resisters Support Campaign.

More here: War resisters welcomed in Canada.

Canada Politics Iraq War War Resisters News AWOL Bush Deserters Refugees Video

Krugman: Iraq Funding

A Hostage Situation
by Paul Krugman

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.” . . .

The fact is that Mr. Bush’s refusal to face up to the failure of his Iraq adventure, his apparent determination to spend the rest of his term in denial, has become a clear and present danger to national security. Thanks to the demands of the Iraq war, we’re already a superpower without a strategic reserve, unable to respond to crises that might erupt elsewhere in the world. And more and more military experts warn that repeated deployments in Iraq — now extended to 15 months — are breaking the back of our volunteer military.

If nothing is done to wind down this war during the 21 months — 21 months! — Mr. Bush has left, the damage may be irreparable.

Read more . . .

Paul Krugman Iraq War Funding Democratic Congress Bush Politics News Supplemental Miserable Failure Iraq Republican Crooks