Saturday, December 31, 2005

Republican Horror Movie on Tonight


If you missed the Republican horror movie about the Bush regime, it's on again tonight. Dante's Homecoming, is an aptly chilling portrayal of the Nightmare Bush regime, complete with Ann Coulter's mouth and legs. It's on Showtime at 2:00 am here in Nashville. Jeering the horrific Republican regime sounds like a good way to start the New Year to me.


Directed by Joe Dante, "Homecoming" is a full-frontal assault on the Bush administration, and about as subtle -- and bracing -- as a punch to the jaw.

See the video clip at One Good Move

Imagine if there were no borders . . .


Imagine if there were human rights for everyone. . .

Imagine all the people sharing all the world. . .

Children of the world sing Lennon's Imagine, courtesy of Amnesty International and Yoko Ono.

Just imagine, planting thoughts of world peace in the minds of the world's children.

Be prepared to tear up.

Imagine Video

Here's to a Better New Year. Under the circumstances, I think Happy is a bit much to ask for.

War is Over, If You Want It



Another Gay Movie for You Bushie



Hat tip to xenophile via Bring It On

Gold Star Families Ad: Mr. President...



Watch the Gold Star Families ad here.


Hat tip to Bring It On

TN Senator Named GOP Hypocrite of the Week


The recognition just keeps on coming in for our infamous Tennessee Republican State Senator Jeff Miller.

Buzzflash.com has named the homophobic adulterous lawmaker: GOP Hypocrite of the Week .

Buzz says Miller is a Dick Cheney wannabe. You can listen here.

Hat tip to the Progressive Daily Beacon

Dowd: Rein in the Stallion Sex

Rein in the Stallion Sex
by Maureen Dowd

Conservatives are having fun e-mailing around the sex scenes in Barbara Boxer's new novel, "A Time to Run." A particular favorite is the equine entwine on Page 210, when "these two fierce animals were coerced into their majestic coupling by at least six people."

"The stallion approached, nostrils flared, hooves lifting with delicate precision, the wranglers hanging on grimly," Ms. Boxer wrote with her co-author, Mary-Rose Hayes. Soon, "the stallion rubbed his nose against the mare's neck and nuzzled her withers. She promptly bit him on the shoulder and, when he attempted to mount, instantly became a plunging devil of teeth and hooves."

The mare's owner remarks that she's hotblooded because she's from Argentina.

Ms. Boxer's literary alter ego, Ellen Fischer, the liberal 5-foot-2 senator from California, also has her share of ecstatic biting and nuzzling.

As when Greg kisses Ellen "long and deep."

Read the whole thing...

Friday, December 30, 2005

Most Memorable Bush Phrase of 2005


"Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" has been named as Bushie's most memorable phrase of 2005. We're sure that clueless George is proud. Scroll down to see more psychopathic things your pResident from Idiotville said this year.

The ill-timed praise of a now disgraced agency head became a national punch line for countless jokes and pointed comments about the administration's handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and added to the president's reputation for verbal gaffes and clumsy turns of phrase.

Paul JJ Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, a nonprofit group that monitors language use, says Bush's statement in support of the then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency may be remembered for years to come.

"The 'Brownie' quote leads our 2005 list of Bushisms -- memorable phrases or new words coined by the president," Payack said, adding that Bush may be the foremost White House creator of new words, citing such past efforts as "misunderestimate" (to seriously underestimate) and "embetter" (to make emotionally better).

Although the president did not originate any new words this year, he had several notable statements, Payack said, citing the following:

-- "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda," Bush said in explaining his communications strategy last May.

-- "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?" Bush asked in a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a U.N. Security Council meeting in September.

-- "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table," Bush said in Brussels last February.

-- "In terms of timetables, as quickly as possible - whatever that means," the president said of his timeframe for passing Social Security legislation in March.

-- "Those who enter the country illegally violate the law," Bush said in describing illegal immigrants in Tucson, Arizona, last month.

Frist & Delay: No Man is Above the Law


"I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail."


"No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That's the principle that we all hold very dear in this country."


No man is above the law unless, of course, he is our Republican pResident.

Disclaimer: The above comments were made about and refer only to Democratic presidents caught having extra-marital sex.

Hat tip to The Bulldog Manifesto at dkos

Incompetent Design

"Evo-Evo-Evolution. Design is but a mere illusion."

"Darwin sparked our revolution. Science shall prevail!"


Laugh with your coffee. Story and Video/Song here.

Krugman: Heck of a Job, Bushie

Heck of a Job, Bushie
By Paul Krugman

A year ago, everyone expected President Bush to get his way on Social Security. Pundits warned Democrats that they were making a big political mistake by opposing plans to divert payroll taxes into private accounts.

A year ago, everyone thought Congress would make Mr. Bush's tax cuts permanent, in spite of projections showing that doing so would lead to budget deficits as far as the eye can see. But Congress hasn't acted, and most of the cuts are still scheduled to expire by the end of 2010.

A year ago, Mr. Bush made many Americans feel safe, because they believed that he would be decisive and effective in an emergency. But Mr. Bush was apparently oblivious to the first major domestic emergency since 9/11. According to Newsweek, aides to Mr. Bush finally decided, days after Hurricane Katrina struck, that they had to show him a DVD of TV newscasts to get him to appreciate the seriousness of the situation.

A year ago, before "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" became a national punch line, the rising tide of cronyism in government agencies and the rapid replacement of competent professionals with unqualified political appointees attracted hardly any national attention.

A year ago, hardly anyone outside Washington had heard of Jack Abramoff, and Tom DeLay's position as House majority leader seemed unassailable.

A year ago, Dick Cheney, who repeatedly cited discredited evidence linking Saddam to 9/11, and promised that invading Americans would be welcomed as liberators - although he hadn't yet declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes" - was widely admired for his "gravitas."

A year ago, Howard Dean - who was among the very few prominent figures to question Colin Powell's prewar presentation to the United Nations, and who warned, while hawks were still celebrating the fall of Baghdad, that the occupation of Iraq would be much more difficult than the initial invasion - was considered flaky and unsound.

A year ago, it was clear that before the Iraq war, the administration suppressed information suggesting that Iraq was not, in fact, trying to build nuclear weapons. Yet few people in Washington or in the news media were willing to say that the nation was deliberately misled into war until polls showed that most Americans already believed it.

A year ago, the Washington establishment treated Ayad Allawi as if he were Nelson Mandela. Mr. Allawi's triumphant tour of Washington, back in September 2004, provided a crucial boost to the Bush-Cheney campaign. So did his claim that the insurgents were "desperate." But Mr. Allawi turned out to be another Ahmad Chalabi, a hero of Washington conference rooms and cocktail parties who had few supporters where it mattered, in Iraq.

A year ago, when everyone respectable agreed that we must "stay the course," only a handful of war critics suggested that the U.S. presence in Iraq might be making the violence worse, not better. It would have been hard to imagine the top U.S. commander in Iraq saying, as Gen. George Casey recently did, that a smaller foreign force is better "because it doesn't feed the notion of occupation."

A year ago, Mr. Bush hadn't yet openly reneged on Scott McClellan's 2003 pledge that "if anyone in this administration was involved" in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity, that person "would no longer be in this administration." Of course, some suspect that Mr. Bush has always known who was involved.

A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot Act that "a wiretap requires a court order. ...When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.

A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the president isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it comes to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

Thursday, December 29, 2005

What do Bush & Paris Hilton Have in Common?


Parade Magazine's celebrity poll finds that roughly the same number of Americans would vote to kick the two off of the first round of TV's Survivor series. Can we have a similar poll asking Americans which of the two is most qualified for the job of president? I vote for Hilton.

If the TV series, "Survivor" were cast with headline-hogging celebrities, whom would Americans vote off first?

Paris Hilton, of course!

Parade magazine's annual celebrity poll found 35 percent of its readers would send the heiress packing, followed by President Bush with 33 percent, Tom Cruise with 12 percent, Britney Spears with 9 percent and Jessica Simpson with 7 percent.

Quote of the Day: King George


"He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. . . A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."



Herbert: War and Lessons Still Unlearned


In this latest column, Bob Herbert looks at the Viet Nam War and concludes that humans are a stupid species. Funny, last night my son - who has spent years studying war in the discipline of Peace Studies - announced that the lesson learned from his many years of study is that humans are a stupid species.


The Jets, War and Lessons Still Unlearned
by Bob Herbert

What struck me when I hit the digital files for information about 1970 was how easy it was to get the data, but how little we seem to have learned since then. Americans were split like the Hatfields and the McCoys over the war. But its opponents did not yet have the muscle to bring it to an end. Many thousands more would have to die, each death more pointless than the last.

In May 1970, during a series of encounters at Kent State University in Ohio, members of the National Guard bayoneted and ultimately opened fire on students (not all of whom were antiwar protesters). Four students were shot to death.

Days later, in Lower Manhattan, flag-waving, helmeted construction workers broke up a student antiwar demonstration and beat up several protesters. As The Times reported:

"The workers then stormed City Hall, cowing policemen and forcing officials to raise the American flag to full staff from half staff, where it had been placed in mourning for the four students killed at Kent State University on Monday."

The hawks claimed the flag and branded the opponents of the war as cowardly and unpatriotic. Nixon invited the leaders of New York's construction unions to the White House and thanked them for their support.

The main lesson that should have been learned from the 60's, the 70's and every other decade is the lunacy of sending young people to die in unnecessary wars. It's a lesson the species seems incapable of learning.

Read the entire column here.

NY Times Ad: Bush Lied & Broke the Law


The President Lied to the American People and Broke the Law, reads this full page ACLU ad in today's (12/29/2005) New York Times.

The ACLU is calling for the appointment of a special counsel who will investigate King George.

Read the ad here.

ACLU Press Release:

"President Nixon was not above the law and neither is President Bush," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "President Bush cannot use a claim of seeking to preserve our nation to undermine the rules that serve as our foundation. The Attorney General, who may have been involved with the formulation of this policy, must appoint a special counsel to let justice be served."

In a formal request sent last week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the ACLU called for the appointment of "an outside special counsel with the independence to investigate and prosecute any and all criminal acts committed by any member of the Executive Branch in the warrantless electronic surveillance of people in the United States over the past four years by the NSA," noting that "such crimes are serious felonies and they need to be fully and independently investigated."

Hat tip to Jeralyn at Talkleft

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Lawyers to File Suits Over Bush Spygate


And the Snoopgate story continues. The New York Times reports that lawyers across the nation are preparing to hit the government with "legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda."

Lawyers are also considering a civil suit against King George.

NY Times:

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.

Jeralyn at Talkleft has lots more and sums up the situation nicely:

"We don't convict on secret evidence in the U.S.... yet."

Reddhedd at firedoglake has more.

Conservative Paper Uses the "I" Word


If Bushie doesn't know he's in trouble yet, he should ask someone to read him an editorial in the conservative Barron's. The paper calls for an investigation into the pResident's possible "impeachable offense."

You are, no doubt, wondering which impeachable offense. Barron's is referring to the Snoopgate affair.

"AS THE YEAR WAS DRAWING TO A CLOSE, we picked up our New York Times and learned that the Bush administration has been fighting terrorism by intercepting communications in America without warrants. It was worrisome on its face, but in justifying their actions, officials have made a bad situation much worse: Administration lawyers and the president himself have tortured the Constitution and extracted a suspension of the separation of powers . . .

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law."

Dowd: Vice Axes That 70's Show

Vice Axes That 70's Show
by Maureen Dowd

We start the new year with the same old fear: Dick Cheney.

The vice president, who believes in unwarranted, unlimited snooping, is so pathologically secretive that if you use Google Earth's database to see his official residence, the view is scrambled and obscured. You can view satellite photos of the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol - but not of the Lord of the Underworld's lair.

Vice is literally a shadow president. He's obsessive about privacy - but, unfortunately, only his own.

Google Earth users alerted The Times to this latest bit of Cheney concealment after a front-page story last week about the international fears inspired by free Google software that features detailed displays of things like government and military sites around the world.

"For a brief period," they reported, "photos of the White House and adjacent buildings that the United States Geological Survey provided to Google Earth showed up with certain details obscured." So Google replaced those images with unaltered photographs taken by a private company.

Even though the story did not mention the Cheney residence - and even though it's not near the White House - The Times ran a clarifying correction yesterday that said, "The view of the vice president's residence in Washington remains obscured."

Fitting, since Vice has turned America into a camera obscura, a dark chamber with a lens that turns things upside down.

Guys argue that women tend to stew and hold grudges more, sometimes popping up to blow the whistle on a man's bad behavior years later, like a missile out of the night, as Alan Simpson said of Anita Hill.

Yet look at Cheney and Rummy. Their steroid-infused power grabs stem from their years stewing in the Ford White House, a time when they felt emasculated because they were stripped of prerogatives.

[. . .]

Dick Cheney. Then and now, the man is a menace.

Read the whole thing at donkey o.d.

Sanctity of Marriage Crusader in the News, Again


The Washington Post has picked up the AP story about the famously hypocritical and homophobic Tennessee lawmaker who responds to criticism by warning business owners against advertising with a certain newspaper.

This is not the first time Sen. Jeff Miller (R-Cleveland) has received national media attention for being a jackass. The Senator who built his career around a Holy Homophobic Crusade to protect the "sanctity" of marriage by keeping it pure, sacred and forever hetereosexual also received national media attention when it was revealed that he was cheating on his wife.

I wrote about the Sanctimonious Senator Jeff Miller's latest escapade - his effort to intimidate his constituents - here. As did the venerable Jesus General. If you follow the links, you can read about the whole sordid affair.

Washington Post:

CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- A state lawmaker is warning business owners not to advertise in a weekly newspaper that reported he is dating a woman while waiting for his divorce to come through.

Republican Sen. Jeff Miller, who has represented this town of about 38,000 people 20 miles from Chattanooga for 11 years, sent the warning in a letter Dec. 13.

Some business owners said they resented the threatening tone of the letter, but Miller said he was trying to call attention to what he considers unfair treatment from the free Bradley News Weekly.

In the letter, Miller wrote: "Myself and many others are going to be watching in the next several weeks to identify and remember those in this community that wish to subsidize the destructive nature of this type of publication in our community."

[. . .]

The weekly has also called Miller an "irresponsible little boy" who would "rather be spending time with (his) lover" than tending to official duties.

Publisher Susan Shelton said that no businesses have told her they will stop advertising. In fact, she said, she has been approached by business people who want to buy new ads just because of the dispute with Miller.

Other media outlets spreading the news of Sen. Miller's lunacy include: CBS News , Star Tribune, ABC News, LA Times, Salon, etcetera.

Photo of Sen. Jeff Miller from the Bradley News Weekly


Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Bush Drinking Again?



There he goes again...


South Dakota's One Abortion Clinic


Today's Washington Post has a story about the difficulty of obtaining an abortion in South Dakota's one abortion clinic. Yeah, South Dakota looks a lot like Mississippi. Moral of the story? Women should leave the friggin' state.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived -- an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.

It was clinic day, the one day a week when the only facility in South Dakota that provides abortions could take in patients. This time it was a Wednesday. The week before it was a Monday.

The day changes depending on the schedules of four doctors from Minnesota who fly here on a rotating basis to perform abortions, something no doctor in South Dakota will do. . .

One of three states in the country to have only one abortion provider -- North Dakota and Mississippi are the others -- South Dakota, largely because of a strong antiabortion lobby, is also becoming a leading national laboratory for testing the limits of state laws restricting abortion, both opponents and advocates of abortion rights say.

Each week, 15 to 20 or so women from across South Dakota find their way to the Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood for an abortion, no easy feat for many of them. South Dakota is home to some of the poorest counties in the country, including the poorest, Buffalo County, seat of the Crow Creek Sioux reservation. State law forbids any public funding for the $450 procedure, even in the case of rape or incest. Beyond cost, there is the distance. It's a long slog here from places like Rapid City, about 350 miles away in the western part of the state. For some women, the only way to do it -- and not pay for a hotel room -- is to make the 700-mile trip in one day.

"I figured I could get the abortion in Rapid City," said the woman, who has a 2-year-old daughter. "And I didn't know it would be so expensive. We had to borrow the money to get here."

The woman was 45 days pregnant, she said, the day she drove 350 miles to take the RU-486 abortion pill and then drive back. "I have to get back home to my daughter," said the woman, who said she was working full time and attending college part time to become a medical administrator. (She and the others interviewed did not want their names in the newspaper.) The woman said she had decided on abortion because "I can't afford another child, and I need to finish school and work to support the one I got." She receives $50 a month in child support and less than $200 a month in food stamps but was deemed ineligible for any further public assistance because of her full-time job.

Another patient, a 29-year-old teacher who became pregnant while using birth control with her boyfriend of a few months, who is also a teacher, said she was not ready for a child and neither was he.

"I'm pro-choice all the way," said the woman, who is from a town about 90 miles from Sioux Falls. She found out she was pregnant at seven weeks and had to wait two weeks for the abortion because the clinic's schedule conflicted with her work schedule.

When the Planned Parenthood clinic was built six years ago, architects factored in the hostility that clinics faced. It has no windows in the front of the building, so abortion protesters cannot look in, and the parking lot is in the back, on private property safe from picketers. The glass in the encased reception area is bulletproof. Doors are kept locked, and visitors must present identification to be buzzed inside.

Dictionary of Republicanisms


Katrina Vanden Heuvel of The Nation has compiled a dictionary of the Republican doublespeak that is so rampant these days. I didn't expect it, but at times The Dictionary of Republicanisms is even funny.

If you're like me, you can use a few laughs before the Bushies come back to wreak more havoc.

A few examples:

abstinence-only sex education n. Ignorance-only sex education

"burning bush" n. A biblical allusion to the response of the President of the United States when asked a question by a journalist who has not been paid to inquire

Cheney, Dick n. The greater of two evils

compassionate conservatism n. Poignant concern for the very wealthy

creationism n. Pseudoscience that claims George W. Bush's resemblance to a chimpanzee is totally coincidental

DeLay, Tom n. 1. Past tense of De Lie

dittohead n. An Oxy(contin)moron

girly men n. Males who do not grope women inappropriately

God n. Senior presidential adviser

laziness n. When the poor are not working

leisure time n. When the wealthy are not working

neoconservatives n. Nerds with Napoleonic complexes

pro-life adj. Valuing human life up until birth

woman n. 1. Person who can be trusted to bear a child but can't be trusted to decide whether or not she wishes to have the child. 2. Person who must have all decisions regarding her reproductive functions made by men with whom she wouldn't want to have sex in the first place

Hat tip to Echidne of the Snakes

Monday, December 26, 2005

Who Would Do the Impeaching?


Alexander Cockburn asks a very good question. Even if the Democrats take back Congress in 2006, do they have even an ounce of what it takes to defend the Constitution? Do the Democrats have the courage to impeach Bush?

All the evidence suggests that they do not.

. . . Now Bush is saying that the job will be done when Iraqis enjoy the democratic freedoms guaranteed Americans. We should say, They do! Bought news stories, secret surveillance of phone calls, emails and faxes, arrest without warrant, disappearances, torture You've brought our democracies into sync. Call it a day, bring the troops home, and then we can start impeaching you.

But who would do the impeaching? The Democrats have lost as much credibility as the President and the Republicans. Ever since the New York Times loitered a year late into print with its disclosure about the NSA spying program (only the latest in a sequence of unconstitutional infamies by that Agency stretching back for decades, mostly against domestic political protesters) I've seen it argued that if the Times had gone with the story last year, Kerry might be president.

But if the Democrats had cared about the Constitution they could have broken the story themselves last year. Democratic congressional leaders knew, because the whistleblowers from the NSA desperately tried to alert them, only to get the cold shoulder. Kerry's prime advisers ­ Richard Clark and Rand Beers ­ on such matters knew, because they'd previously been Bush's top functionaries in the war on terror.

We're heading into a year when the Democrats could be making hay, by actually doing the right thing. In 2005 is a pointer, they never will. The latest evidence is that Rahm Emanuel, in charge of selecting Democratic Congressional candidates for 2006, is choosing millionaires and fence-straddlers on the war. He shunned Christine Cegelis, who nearly beat sixteen-termer Henry Hyde in 2004, and whom Illinois polls show to be a popular contender to succeed Hyde. But Cegelis has the disadvantage in Emanuel's eyes of not being very rich and of agreeing with John Murtha on immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Emanuel picks Tammy Duckworth, who embodies the cynicism of the "Democratic strategists", being a double-amputee woman Iraq veteran who is not from the district, has a hot-air position on the war and is thought to espouse a "pro-business/centrist platform".

For years Democrats have been dreaming of having a brawny, non-nonsense type, preferably draped in medals, lead them into political battle. They picked a clunker last year, in the form of John Kerry, who had a glass jaw, six houses, a silly billionaire wife and an infinite capacity for talking out of both sides of his mouth. Along comes Murtha, who was actually a Marine drill sergeant at Parris Island, who has 100 per cent credibility on military matters, who showed how to talk about the war, how to say It's quitting time. And they fled him like a poisoned thing. They still do.

[...]

So that's it for Christmas, 2005: No credibility for the President, or for the Democrats, or for the New York Times, which took a year to figure out whether the Constitution is worth fighting for.

Read the whole thing..

Bush Presses Media to Keep His Secrets


When Bush isn't paying journalists to write the news he wants to hear, he's pressuring editors to kill the stories he doesn't want to hear.

Last week we heard that Bush summoned, or commanded New York Times editors to appear in the Oval Office where Bushie attempted to persuade them to axe the Your-government-is-spying-on-you story. This week we learn that Bushie tried similar tactics with the Washington Post. According to Howard Kurtz, the pResident tried to persuade the Post to kill the CIA secret prison story.

One can only wonder how often Bushie actually succeeds in persuading the media to keep quiet about his shady secrets.

Bush Presses Editors on Security

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

I think Kurtz means to say, the efforts have failed in these two instances.

Not exactly a media bragging point. After all, the Times bowed to Bush's will and sat on the spy story for a year. We really have no idea how many times Bushie has successfully persuaded the media to change or kill a story. We do know that until very recently we were living with an embarrassingly docile media.

Hat tip to SusanG at dkos...

Herbert: A New Civil Rights Movement

A New Civil Rights Movement
By BOB HERBERT

One of the cruelest aspects of slavery was the way it wrenched apart black families, separating husbands from wives and children from their parents.

Read the whole thing..

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Santa Identity Leak


Happy Holidays!!

WASHINGTON, DC—The recent leak revealing Santa Claus to be "your mommy and daddy" has been linked to President Bush's senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

..... The Onion


Rich: The Mythical Christmas War

I Saw Jackie Mason Kissing Santa Claus
by Frank Rich

The good news today is that the great 2005 war on Christmas, the conflagration that launched a thousand op-ed pieces and nearly as many battles on Fox News, is now officially over. And yes, Virginia - Christmas won!

Secularists, Jews, mainline Protestants and all the other grinches failed utterly to take Kriss Kringle down. Except at those megachurches that canceled services today rather than impede their flocks' giving and gorging, Christmas is alive and well everywhere in America.

Last night NBC even rolled the dice and broadcast "It's a Wonderful Life" in prime time. With courage reminiscent of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's defiance of Stalin, the network steadfastly refused to redub the final scene's cries of "Merry Christmas!" with the godless "Happy holidays!"

As Michelle Goldberg wrote last month in her definitive debunking for Salon, there was in fact no war on Christmas, but rather "a burgeoning myth of a war on Christmas."

Most of the grievances cited by Christmas's whiniest protectors - red and green banned from residents' wardrobes in Michigan, "Silent Night" censored in Wisconsin - were either anomalous idiocies or suburban legends.

The calls for boycotts against chain stores with heathen holiday trees lost their zing when it turned out that even George and Laura Bush's Christmas card had called for a happy "holiday season."

But like every other chapter of irrational hysteria in America's cultural history, from the burning of "witches" in colonial Salem to the panic induced by Orson Welles's radio broadcast of the fictional "War of the Worlds" on the eve of World War II, the fake war on Christmas was not without its hidden meanings. Or not so hidden.

If you worked at Fox News, wouldn't you want to change the subject from the war in Iraq to a war in which victory is a slam-dunk?

Rabble-rousing paranoia about a supposed assault on Christmas also has a strong anti-Semitic and far-right pedigree.

In Salon, Ms. Goldberg noted that fulmination about supposed Jewish opposition to Christmas dates to Henry Ford's infamous "The International Jew" of 1921.

That chord is sounded in the very first anecdote in the book by the Fox News anchor John Gibson, "The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought": a devastated father discovers that his 4-year-old son has brought home preschool artwork showing a Hanukkah menorah and Kwanzaa candles, rather than a Christmas tree.

But Mr. Gibson goes on to add ecumenically that "not just Jewish people" are out to kill Christmas. As he elucidated on Christian radio, all non-Christians are "following the wrong religion," though he reassures us that they will be tolerated "as long as they're civil and behave."

Even so, much of this manufactured war was more banal than malicious. Like Christmas itself, an anti-Christmas scare is an ideal means for moving merchandise.

The first Fox News segment warning darkly of a war on Christmas occurred on Oct. 20 - coincidentally the very day that Mr. Gibson's book hit the nation's bookstores. Many of the five dozen ensuing Fox segments contained lavish plugs for the book or for the Christmas baubles hawked by Bill O'Reilly on his Web site - no yuletide loofahs, alas.

(His wares were initially listed as "holiday" gifts until a Web exposé forced a frantic rebranding.)

Read the whole thing. .

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Dowd: Hey, W., It’s Safe! Read This

Hey, W., It’s Safe! Read This
By Maureen Dowd

As a Christmas present for our president, who’s been going through a rough time lately, I’m not writing the column this Christmas Eve.

In keeping with a holiday tradition I began last year, I’m giving the space to my conservative brother, Kevin, who delights in turning the Gray Lady a vivid shade of red.

I asked Kevin, a salesman and father of three boys who lives in a Maryland suburb of Washington, to write you, dear readers, a letter with his thoughts on the year. You will find his meditation a refreshing, or regrettable, change from me, depending on your perspective. Here it is, unexpurgated:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Maybe it was the extended absence from the stern Franciscan nuns at Nativity grade school. But more likely it was the decorations, the songs, the movies like “A Christmas Carol” and “Miracle on 34th Street,” that filled people with an unbridled joy and an unusual generosity of spirit. Christmas has generally been celebrated as both a secular and religious holiday in this country. Recently, the P.C. police have decided that the word Christ carries an unbearable religious aura, so they are working hard to strike the word entirely for the more generic Holiday. The battle for the soul of Christmas has heated up.

So first, I’d like to give a big thank you to Speaker Hastert for ordering the renamed Holiday tree to revert to its original title of Christmas tree. And why not? We do not decorate the tree for Easter or the Fourth of July. It is a Christmas tree.

[...]

To Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Alec Baldwin: When did you get back?

To MSNBC: Susan Estrich, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Lanny Davis.

To Hillary: A hearty welcome to the Republican Party.

Read the whole thing..

Swing Voters Flock to Democrats

Despite Bush's miniscule rise in the polls, the Republican House of Corruption remains in deep trouble. It appears that 2006 may really be the year of the delusional Boy King's impeachment.

The latest NPR poll finds:

"Swing voters are turning to the Democrats in very large numbers... Independents vote Democratic by 17 points – double the margin for the electorate as a whole. It is hard to imagine how one overcomes that big a swing to the Democrats, particularly if Democrats are also doing better in the world of base politics."

"[A] good 60 percent of American voters at the close of 2005, according to the NPR poll, believe the country is headed in the wrong direction."

Via Taegan Goddard

Friday, December 23, 2005

Rightwing Wackos (TN) Get Letters from Jesus General


Did you know that every time a rightwing wacko gets a letter from Jesus General, an angel laughs and breaks out a bottle of French bubbly?

The angels from Tennessee are partying tonight!

Not one, but two rightwing wackos from the red state of Tennessee have received their letters (or badges of honor) this week.

First there was Councilman Eric Crafton's successful effort to have the city of Nashville resolve that "Whereas Jesus Christ is an actual man," logic dictates that "Holiday" is a naughty term to be forever shunned by true Christians and heathens alike, "the welfare of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requiring it."

The General wrote:

Dear Mr. Crafton,

Although I'm sure you meant well, I'm very disappointed with your resolution declaring Jesus to be "an actual man." You could have done so much more. You could have declared him to be a Republican. . . .

Be sure to note ultra rightwing Councilman Crafton's rather snarky response.

For background, see this post:

Nashville Metro Council Endorses Jesus

Next there was State Senator Jeff Miller's efforts to stop the press from speaking about his adulterous affairs. The Salacious Senator has built his career around a Holy Homophobic Crusade to keep matrimony pure, sacred and forever hetereosexual. So naturally, the Senator who grew a beard to prove his hetereosexuality, would send threatening letters to and about his constituents.

The General wrote:

Dear Sen. Miller,

You're a fighter. You didn't hide out in your office when your brother came out as a homosexual. Instead, you fought back by growing a beard, having an extra-marital affair, and sponsoring legislation to institutionalize discrimination against homosexuals. . . .

The latest of my own modest efforts toward getting the Sinful Senator the kind of attention he so deserves:

Anti-Gay Lawmaker Retaliates Against Press

If you follow the links, you will see that this is not the first letter the General has penned to the Sanctimonious Senator from Cleveland Tennessee. The homophobic adulterer will soon return to Nashville to resume his part time career as Legislating Homophobe and, no doubt, celebrate his successful efforts to get same-sex marriage on the ballot in 2006. Stay tuned.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has more on Jeff Miller's efforts to intimidate his constituents.

Krugman: The Tax-Cut Zombies

The Tax-Cut Zombies
By Paul Krugman

If you want someone to play Scrooge just before Christmas, Dick Cheney is your man. On Wednesday Mr. Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of legislation that increases the fees charged to Medicaid recipients, lets states cut Medicaid benefits, reduces enforcement funds for child support, and more.

For all its cruelty, however, the legislation will make only a tiny dent in the budget deficit: the cuts total about $8 billion a year, or one-third of 1 percent of total federal spending.

So ended 2005, the year that killed any remaining rationale for continuing tax cuts. But the hunger for tax cuts refuses to die.

[. . . .]

In fact, even as Congressional leaders struggled to pass a tiny package of mean-spirited spending cuts, they pushed forward with a much larger package of tax cuts. The benefits of those cuts, as always, will go disproportionately to the wealthy.

Here's how I see it: Republicans have turned into tax-cut zombies. They can't remember why they originally wanted to cut taxes, they can't explain how they plan to make up for the lost revenue, and they don't care. Instead, they just keep shambling forward, always hungry for more.

Read the whole thing . .

NY Times: The Imperial Presidency

The Times appears to be trying to make up for past sins. Today's editorial is yet another blistering attack on pResident George W. Bush and his puppet master, VP for Torture Cheney.

George W. Bush has quipped several times during his political career that it would be so much easier to govern in a dictatorship. Apparently he never told his vice president that this was a joke.

Virtually from the time he chose himself to be Mr. Bush's running mate in 2000, Dick Cheney has spearheaded an extraordinary expansion of the powers of the presidency - from writing energy policy behind closed doors with oil executives to abrogating longstanding treaties and using the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to invade Iraq, scrap the Geneva Conventions and spy on American citizens. . . .

There are finally signs that the democratic system is trying to rein in the imperial presidency. Republicans in the Senate and House forced Mr. Bush to back the McCain amendment, and Mr. Cheney's plan to legalize torture by intelligence agents was rebuffed. Congress also agreed to extend the Patriot Act for five weeks rather than doing the administration's bidding and rushing to make it permanent.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court refused to allow the administration to transfer Jose Padilla, an American citizen who has been held by the military for more than three years on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks, from military to civilian custody. After winning the same court's approval in September to hold Mr. Padilla as an unlawful combatant, the administration abruptly reversed course in November and charged him with civil crimes unrelated to his arrest. That decision was an obvious attempt to avoid having the Supreme Court review the legality of the detention powers that Mr. Bush gave himself, and the appeals judges refused to go along.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney have insisted that the secret eavesdropping program is legal, but The Washington Post reported yesterday that the court created to supervise this sort of activity is not so sure. It said the presiding judge was arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges and that several judges on the court wanted to know why the administration believed eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants was legal when the law specifically requires such warrants.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are tenacious. They still control both houses of Congress and are determined to pack the judiciary with like-minded ideologues. Still, the recent developments are encouraging, especially since the court ruling on Mr. Padilla was written by a staunch conservative considered by President Bush for the Supreme Court.

Read the whole thing...

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Wicked Women Blamed for Tsunami



Tsunami was God's revenge for your wicked ways, women told

Religious wacko men are up to their old tricks, blaming women for everything that goes wrong in their lives. Outdated religions differ on many things, but when it comes to patriarchal values, they all blame Eve, and they are all a united bastion of a*holes. Hell, the misognyistic patriarchs don't treat each other very well either.

The Times, UK:

MARLUDDIN JALIL, a Sharia judge who has ordered the punishment of women for not wearing headscarves, was uncompromising: “The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh.”

Thundering into a microphone at a gathering of wives, he made clear where he felt the fault lay: “The Holy Koran says that if women are good, then a country is good.”

A Sharia police force modelled on Saudi moral enforcers enthusiastically seeks out female wrong doers for public humiliation.

The Wilayatul Hisbah, which loosely translates as “Control Team”, has arrested women, lopped off their hair, and paraded them in tears through the streets while broadcasting their sins over a megaphone.

More than 100 gamblers and drinkers — men and women — have been caned in public and some clerics are calling for thieves’ hands to be amputated.

The Islamic law introduced without popular enthusiasm in 2002 has been implemented rigorously since the tsunami, especially in towns such as Lhokseumawe, where Fatimah Syam, of Indonesian Women for Legal Justice, knows of 20 women who have fallen foul of it.

She said: “They seek out women without headscarves or unmarried girls meeting boys in private and parade them through the streets in an open car. I’ve seen the police laughing and boasting, and the girls in tears. The Sharia police say the tsunami happened because women ignored religion. We never heard of this parading before the tsunami.”

Funny, in America our natural disasters are now the fault of gays. We could call this religious tenet, When Times Get Rough, Kick a Woman or a Gay.

And, no, the recovery from the tusnami is not going well at all.

INDONESIA: ONE YEAR ON

18,149 permanent shelters built; 75,576 living in organised barracks; 67,504 in tent camps; 293,740 in host families.

A quarter of those in need expected to be in permanent housing by end of year

Almost 70 per cent of fishing boats destroyed rebuilt or being constructed

Hat tip to Raw Story

Censure Bush First, then Impeach Him





Everything you wanted to know about the campaign to censure Bush is at Censurebush.org

Also, Evil Mommy wisely suggests that you check out Redneck Mother's Impeachment Toolkit.

Herbert: Blowing the Whistle on Gangsta Culture

In today's column, Blowing the Whistle on Gangsta Culture, Bob Herbert chastises the Black community for its "glorification of violence" and failure to "protect and nurture all of the community's children."

Sheesh. Somebody call the anthropologists, quick, Bob Herbert has discovered that there are savages amongst us.

Herbert should save his chastisements for the callous fat cats in charge who know absolutely nothing about nurturing "all of the community's children," else they would not be so busy actively promoting poverty, inequality and violence in every friggin' culture that lies outside their friggin' gated community.

Read the column here..

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Nashville Metro Council Endorses Jesus


File this one under News from a Red State that Cut its Own Throat by Bringing you George W. Bush.

Last night, the Nashville Metropolitan Council passed a resolution affirming that Jesus was "an actual man." I kid you not. I think it's safe to assume that the Christian Governing Body means Jesus was a macho heterosexual white man who would be driving an SUV and living in Belle Meade, with a wife and two children, if only he were alive today.

Jesus sure wouldn't be wearing sandals and living amongst the poor cuz then he'd wouldn't have no health insurance like all those other bums. He'd be too sick to save the world. He sure wouldn't be hangin' with a bunch of male disciples cuz then people would think he was gay.

The Music City USA Metro Council went so far as to say that Jesus "impacted" the United States of America more than the rest of the world.

Cuz we're special.

Oh, yeah, the Metro Christian Council also said, we ain't got no Holiday Trees!

I voted for some of these Fox News Disciples.

I won't do it again.

The Nashville Metro Council Sayeth:

WHEREAS, the word Christmas is derived from the act of celebrating the Mass of Christ, which appears in Old English text dating back to 1038; and

WHEREAS, Jesus Christ is an actual man who was born over 2,000 years ago, as recorded by history;

WHEREAS, Jesus' life and teachings were and are so extraordinary that they have profoundly impacted the entire world, especially the United States of America; and

WHEREAS, the US Code regulations concerning the celebration of Christmas as a legal holiday are mirrored throughout all the United States, with Alabama having the distinction of being the first state to declare Christmas as a legal holiday, doing so in 1836. By 1907, Oklahoma rounded out the list of then-states by enacting a declaration of its own; and

WHEREAS, ninety percent of Americans consider themselves Christians, according to a recently completed national survey; and

WHEREAS, the modern world's calendar is categorized into two major sections: B.C. - before Christ's birth, and A.D. - after Christ's birth; and

WHEREAS, the vast majority of Americans are not offended by use of the words Christmas and Merry Christmas, but rather give and receive love, hope, comfort and joy to and from one another by using those words; and

WHEREAS, it is fitting and proper that the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County states that it affirms and supports the use of the words Christmas or Merry Christmas, instead of non-descript, generic terms such as Happy Holidays, Winter Festival, and the like, when referring to Metro Government events or activities traditionally associated with Christmas, such as the Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony, Christmas Parade, and Metro School's Christmas vacation for our school children.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE COUNCIL OF THE METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT OF NASHVILLE AND DAVIDSON COUNTY:

Section 1. That the Metropolitan County Council hereby goes on record as affirming and supporting the use of the words Christmas or Merry Christmas, instead of non-descript, generic terms such as Happy Holidays, Winter Festival, and the like, when referring to Metro Government events or activities traditionally associated with Christmas

Section 2. The Metropolitan Clerk is directed to send a copy of this Resolution to Mayor Bill Purcell.

Section 3. This Resolution shall take effect from and after its adoption, the welfare of The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County requiring it.

Sponsored by: Eric Crafton, Charlie Tygard, Jim Gotto, J. B. Loring, Rip Ryman, Michael Craddock, Feller Brown, Parker Toler, Billy Walls, Randy Foster, Jim Forkum, Jamie Isabel, Buck Dozier, Edward Whitmore, Michael Kerstetter, Adam Dread, Jason Alexander, Carl Burch, Jason Hart, Vivian Wilhoite, Sam Coleman, Carolyn Baldwin Tucker

Bah Humbug!

On a related note, if you should ever be required to make an appearance in Music City USA's traffic court, be prepared to bow your head in Holy Christian Prayer. I kid you not.

Send books, therapists and money!

Hat tip to Bruce Barry at Pith in the Wind

UPDATE: Gen. JC Christian at Jesus General has a few suggestions for Councilman Eric Crafton, the wacko city father who came up with this grand waste of time.

Republican Jesus photo found at Jesus General

Bush Lie #6,666



Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

--George W. Bush,
Q and A in Buffalo, N.Y., April 20, 2004


Hat tip to Timothy Noah at Slate

I Spy Gays, I Spy PETA . . .

You'll feel better now that you know your government is spying on gays and vegans. I know I do. I mean the "credible threat" to homeland security of a gay kiss-in is enough to instill fear in most any of our nervous-about-their-masculinity Republican leaders. As the angry white men in Washington keep on proving, nervous government is bad government.

And doesn't it feel good to know that the FBI has informants attending PETA conferences? Some of these animal rights activists sound almost as radical as Mark Twain.

You knew Big Brother would be on hand for the "Vegan Community Project event at the University of Indiana during which the group distributed vegetarian starter kits to students and faculty, an animal rights conference in Washington, DC that was open to the public, and a planned protest of Cindy Crawford’s decision to become a llama fur spokesperson."

Other scary groups under surveillance include Greenpeace, the ACLU, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Catholic Workers Group, as well as the peace activists who attended a 2002 conference at Stanford University aimed at ending sanctions in Iraq.

And then there's the "potential terrorist threat" posed by those Quakers . Like the five Quakers and 79-year old grandmother "who met at their local Quaker meeting house to discuss how to protest military recruiting at an area high school."

Let's face it, if you are gay, vegan, Quaker, or just a peacenik, somebody is probably watching you. If you are all of the above, you may as well turn yourself in.

Just be careful what you read. Books like Mao Tse-Tung's "The Little Red Book" are apparently on a "watch list." That means if you try to obtain them, Homeland Security will be watching and may well show up at your door .

Media Girl has more.

Dowd: The Squires of Surveillance

The Squires of Surveillance
By Maureen Dowd

Dick and Rummy are holed up in the den of Rummy’s Chesapeake Bay retreat, Mount Misery, pawing through sheafs of transcripts of wiretapped telephone conversations, hunting for inside dope.

Chinook helicopters patrol the skies above the red-brick waterfront mansion. Rummy loves the take-no-prisoners lineage of his $1.5 million getaway, built in the 19th century by Edward Covey, an evil slave owner.

Winter weekends by a crackling fire are cozy and conspiratorial, now that the two men have nearby spreads in St. Michaels, Md.

These squires of surveillance while away their evenings sipping from goblets of Glenlivet and perusing the illegally bugged phone conversations of any American they please. Getting in the holiday spirit, they’re mining data to revise their naughty and nice lists.

“Check this one out, Dick,” Rummy says excitedly. “I’ve been reading Jennifer Aniston’s conversations for the last six months now, and I gotta say, I don’t get what she sees in this guy Vince Vaughn. ‘Wedding Crashers’ was funny. They shot that here in this village, you know. But I don’t trust the guy. No way he’s going to give up lap dancers and be true. I just don’t want to see Jen get hurt again.”

Dick grunts. He’s deeply absorbed in the classified reports on the F.B.I. infiltration of a Vegan Community Project and a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals protest against llama fur. He’s ruminating over a naked picture of Pamela Anderson emblazoned with the PETA slogan, “I’d rather go naked than wear fur.”

“Porter Goss tells me that Pam was shacking up with Mark McGrath - you know, he used to be with that band, Sugar Ray?” Rummy says. “Listen, Dick, we need to jawbone about this flapdoodle about our stateside spying operation that developed while you were on your whirlwind tour of American torture chambers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Dick interrupts, “More torture.”

“Some pansies are making unwarranted claims that we should have gotten warrants,” Rummy continues. “But we can’t worry about the Constitution’s fine print during war.

Read the whole thing..

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Impeachment Talk


Jack Caffetry of CNN is asking the impeachment question today.

4 p.m. ET: Do you think it’s an “impeachable offense” for the president to authorize domestic spying without a warrant?

You can say, hell yes, here.

Barbara Boxer is on CNN at this moment, quoting John Dean, President Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense."

Add these voices to the others who are raising the subject of impeachment:

U.S. Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who was a critical player in the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations into presidential wrongdoing, has introduced a package of resolutions that would censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the Administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.

The Conyers resolutions add a significant new twist to the debate about how to hold the administration to account. Members of Congress have become increasingly aggressive in the criticism of the White House, with U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, saiying Monday, "Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous President. It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country's law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution." Even Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, are talking for the first time about mounting potentially serious investigations into abuses of power by the president.

Members of Congress in both parties will need to feel a lot of heat if these improtant measures are going to get much traction in this Congress.

The grassroots group Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), which has had a good deal of success organizing activists who want the Democrats to take a more aggressive stance in challenging the administration, will play a critical role in the effort to mobilize support for the Conyers resolutions, as part of a new Censure Bush Coalition campaign.

The campaign's website can be found at www.censurebush.org

Stand with Congressman Conyers

Barbara Boxer and John Lewis Start Impeachment Talk

For more on Barbara Boxer's efforts, see Josh Marshall

Anti-Gay Lawmaker Retaliates Against Press


It's been a while since I wrote about the Sanctimonious State Senator, Jeff Miller (Cleveland). Miller is the anti-gay senator who crusades tirelessly to rid this state of gays and lesbians. He is the senator most responsible for getting the anti same-sex marriage bill on the ballot (2006) in Tennessee. Miller is also the senator who sought to prove his heterosexuality by growing a beard -- shortly after it was revealed that he has a gay brother.

After preaching endlessly about the need to keep marriage pure and sacred by keeping it for heterosexuals only, many of us were startled when the lawmaker's wife sued for divorce, and charged that Miller was cheating on her.

Ah, but the holier-than-thou crusading lawmaker has since found someone new to persecute. Not content to confine himself to the persecution of gays and lesbians, Miller is now crusading against the First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The sanctimous lawmaker has a problem with a newspapers that dare to criticize or mock him.

In a story in the Bradley News Weekly, entitled, The Jeffster Gets Ugly, Barry Graham reports:

So, it seems Jeff Miller didn't like our cover story about him a couple weeks ago. We discovered today that he's threatening our advertisers. Bad boy, Jeffy. Remember how you tried to sponsor a bill to put us out of business? Don't you ever learn?

With Andy Wells in tow, armed with a camera, I went to the Sanctimonious Senator's office this afternoon, holding a copy of the threatening letter. He wasn't around, so I told his long-suffering secretary that we were doing a story for next week about how he's threatening businesses that advertise with us, and asking if he'd like to comment.

Here's what he wrote to our advertisers:

"Myself and many others are going to be watching in the next several weeks to identify and remember those in this community that wish to subsidize the destructive nature of this type of publication in our community."

What a guy. Well, Jeffy, you and your merry men may be watching our advertisers - but we are watching you.

Below is a scathing editorial that has the alleged hetero Miller in a tizzy. Kudos to the fearless Bradley News Weekly for proving that there is too a free and liberal press in this red state. And shame on you Sen. Miller for using the power accrued from your position as lawmaker to attempt to whip the press into line by assaulting their First Amendment right to mock and ridicule you.

Romance is Still Alive and Well in Cleveland

In this age of selfishness, we have to take our hats off to Senator Jeff Miller. Sure, he's useless as a public servant, since he doesn't show up at the Senate, and he's useless as a Delinquent Tax Attorney, since he doesn't show up in court when he's supposed to (though he still gets paid upwards of $70,000, so no harm done there)... but we can't deny that the guy knows how to treat a lady right.

Well, maybe not every lady. His soon-to-be-ex-wife probably doesn't appreciate how he's treated her. Most women don't appreciate their husbands espousing family values and then having an affair with one of their employees and then lying about it.

But, but, but... we're not going to be negative. Because, if you're not Mrs. Miller, the Senator knows a thing or two about romance. Lest you doubt us, consider what he did earlier this week. His divorce trial was supposed to start on Tuesday. We were looking forward to it, but apparently he wasn't. He didn't want to go to trial, and we can't say we blame him. He wasn't going to come out of it looking very good - especially if it's true that he was planning to represent himself, in which case a fool of a client would have had a fool of an attorney.

Anyway, Miller apparently decided to agree to settle with his wife, and was supposed to sign the divorce papers on Monday. And, when he came to town to take care of this business, who did he bring with him? His girlfriend. Jessa Fahey. The one he had an affair with. The lucky lady who's now his primary squeeze. . .

Also from the Bradley News Weekly: Miller Comes to Town with Girlfriend, Doesn't Get Divorced

More on Miller:

UPDATE: The WaPo has an AP story about the infamous Sanctimonious Senator from Cleveland, Tennessee.

Jeff Miller Makes DU's Top Ten Conservative Idiots
Jesus General: Homosexual marriage claims another victim
Canada Notes Miller's Hypocrisy

Guerilla Women Posts:

Sanctimonious Anti-Gay Senator Caught with Pants Down
More on Anti-Gay Sen. Jeff Miller . .
Sen. Jeff Miller's Hometown Newspaper . .
Holy Homosexuality! . .

Photo from the Bradley News Weekly