Margie Phelps Writes to the NYPress

(Yes, that Phelps)

MIKESIGNORILE: You have reached new levels of deceit and depravity ("The Gist," 4/30). Complaining about Sen. Santorum and his family saying goodbye to their deceased baby as though that’s unnatural, while fags use every dead or dying fag in the world to promote anal copulation and similar abnormal behavior! Unbelievable! It definitely draws to mind the passage in the scriptures on homosexuals at Jude 8: "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." That fits you and those you favor to a T.

Have you been to a fag parade lately? Have you seen the bizarre vulgarities that make up their outfits and behavior? Have you listened to the sewage spewing out of their mouths? It’s like you’ve suddenly been transported to a parallel universe where everyone in it is an angry, violent, raging, pitiful, filth-mongering freak. I know–I’ve picketed scores of them. These people are riddled with every manner of mental, physical, emotional and moral deformity–and nothing is sacred with them.

What kind of a distorted lens do you look through, my friends? Where you would mock a man for letting his family say goodbye to a dead loved one, while promoting sex with feces and semen-drinking? You have truly lost all contact with reality. You and your readers are in desperate need of about five dozen readings of Romans 1–quickly.

Margie Phelps, Topeka, KS

Macho Macho Man

Gene Lyons Today:

Evidently, Bush will run as a one-man reunion of the Village People, the dreadful disco act. Having previously costumed himself as a businessman (his ventures mostly failed) and owner of the Texas Rangers (he had an 11.3 percent share when the team was sold), he’s added cowboy and fighter pilot to his repertoire. In reality, his Texas ranch was acquired in 1999; Bush’s time in the saddle is limited to golf carts.

(art by Julius Civitatus)

War Profiteers

Perle and his buddies:

Pentagon adviser Richard Perle briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on the crises in the two countries, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
Perle, who until March was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside advisers to the Pentagon, also serves on the board of several defense contractors. The revelation raises concerns about conflicts of interest.
The Times reported that Perle attended a Defense Intelligence Agency briefing in February and three weeks later participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call in which he advised investors in a talk titled "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

Jewish Blood

The other night on the Daily Show, Chris Matthews said something along the lines of "Yeah, this guy... they discovered he's Jewish! He is not Irish or anything. His name is Kerry, but he's not Irish. He was hiding the fact that he's a Jew!."

As my friend J.C. says:

Kerry is not Jewish, his grandfather was Jewish, but converted to Catholicism. Kerry's father was raised Catholic. John Kerry is Catholic.

Kerry didn't know his grandfather was Jewish until recently.

Most Americans have dozens of ethnic and national backgrounds in their genealogical tree, yet they are not aware of most of them. Kerry's background is also German, English, and other nationalities, but I guess for these racist media-heads, a Jewish ancestor trumps everything else, and makes him instantly a "Jew", two generations removed.
Goebbels would have been proud.

Indeed.

Judith Miller

Here's an interesting article about the odd conflicts of one of the NYT's embeds.

Followers of the Iraq WMD debate know of the Iraqi "scientist" at the heart of Miller's article, the man who favors "nondescript clothes and a baseball cap." Prohibited from interviewing him, Miller based her account entirely on what this individual told U.S. military officers who then -- X to Y to Z -- told Miller what he'd said. Had it appeared on some fringe web site, the piece might be dismissed as not meeting the smell test, or as at least as being premature.

Said Jonathan B. Tucker, a former U.N. weapons inspector currently on sabbatical from the Monterey Institute of International Studies at the U.S. Institute of Peace, "It's very vague and not corroborated. I don't view it as definitive." Saying the story perhaps should have been held for more evidence, Tucker added, "It's pretty thin on the evidence."

But Randy Scheunemann, president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, said, "Miller is an absolutely veteran reporter who has broken a very important story."

Miriam Rajkumar, a project associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said it has a "politically potent use for those who want to justify and validate the allegations made before the war regarding Al Qaeda and WMD. Anything that validates that will be pounced on."

Miller herself appeared on the PBS NewsHour the day after her article appeared and, asked about any proof of WMD, referred immediately to "something more than a smoking gun," in short: "a silver bullet." The metaphors proliferated as the proof evaporated.

The article having leapt from The Times' front page, my dissection of it below will not be the first. Any reading of the piece should perhaps occur in light of Miller's relationship with the Middle East Forum, run by the controversial Daniel Pipes, who has been in the news of late as a Bush nominee to the congressionally chartered U.S. Institute of Peace. A non-profit, the forum was founded in 1994.

Theres's more there.


....and, the Rational Enquirer gives us Judith Miller Watch.

Luskin v. Krugman

I've sort of ignored this, as Luskin and his lapdogs are... how can I put it... dumb as a box of rocks and about as honest as the Iraqi Information Minister Ari Fleischer. But, Demosthenes has been on the beat and if you'd like a little lesson in economics you can go here. (start with Jobs, Jobs, Jobs a followup and go in chronological order).

Max had a piece earlier saying that Krugman could have been wrong on a couple of points, which is true enough, but that's different than accusing him of deception.

Wolf Deserves Pain

Go give him a spanking.

Mitchy-Poo

So, it looks like neither "more time with my family" (not claimed) nor "running for governor" (hinted at) nor "I am the worst Budget Director Ever" (suggested by Brad DeLong) is the sole reason for Daniels' resignation from OMB. Methinks the stink surrounding his recent subpoena caused Rove to extend the plank, tout de suite.

Deserter Storm

Tom Spencer of Thinking it Through discusses Operation Pacific Photo Op.

The Fabulous New Century

Neal Pollack serializes his new novel about his experiences at a certain well-known magazine.

Stupid Conservatives

God, I don't even know what to say about these idiots. The Liquid List has some thoughts.

Party On!

Dude - where's my twins?

Crazy, sexy, cool actor ASHTON KUTCHER sat down with Rolling Stone magazine to talk JENNIFER ANISTON, getting "punk'd" and partying with the BUSH twins -- JENNA and BARBARA! ET has the juicy rundown of Ashton's tales -- don't miss tonight's show for the story!

For the May 29th issue of the mag, on stands Friday, May 9th, Ashton shares tidbits from his sometimes loco life -- including an unforgettable party with the Bush gals. He tells Rolling Stone: "So we're hanging out ... The Bushes were underage drinking at my house. When I checked outside, one of the Secret Service guys asked me if they'd be spending the night. I said no. And then I go upstairs to see another friend and I can smell the green wafting out under his door. I open the door, and there he is smoking out the Bush twins on his hookah."

Butbutbut...Chelsea got a bit drunk once!



(oh Tbogg... I believe this is your cue...)

Santorum is Not Enough

Arthur Silber notices that the wingnuts are angry about the GOP's embrace of homosexuality.

And, yes, John Schlafly is gay.

Pierce The Space on Chatterbox

Over at medianews:

From CHARLES PIERCE: This Space always distrusts columns that call themselves by their own names, particularly when the author is by-lined anyway. This Spaces believes that to be pretentious dweebishness of the highest order, and This Space is tired of it, This Space is.

So This Space was predisposed to dislike Chatterbox right off the top, even before This Space read how Chatterbox is most concerned on who leaked the info on Bill (Sportin' Life) Bennett, rather than why it's good for this sinful world every time a gluttonous pecksniff gets hoisted publicly on his own prodigious petard. (Note To Bill: Re-read "The Ant And The Grasshopper."Now.)

This Space doesn't recall a similar diligence on Chatterbox's part as regards where all those really cool stories about Bill Clinton's extracurricular whoopie were coming from. Of course, this would have imperiled Chatterbox's -- and Mrs. Chatterbox's -- prominence in the bustling Beltway social scene, and This Space would never presume to do that.

Jonah Goldberg Doesn't Know His History

Over at the Corner (yeah, I'm slumming today), Jonah Goldberg says the following:

More important it is a lie that conservatives started the "gotcha game." If we're going to play "who started it?" then we must look to the John Tower affair, the Robert Bork confirmation, and the Clarence Thomas hearings.

What Jonah and many conservatives always conveniently forget is that John Tower wasn't brought down by scheming liberals - he was brought down by the testimony of theocrat Paul Weyrich. Sure there was an almost party line vote on Tower, but it was Weyrich who played "gotcha."

TORTURE WOLF!

GOGOGO

Poor Stanley and Rick and Bill

Check out this couple on the Amazing Race:

Twenty-eight-year-old Reichen is a pilot and teaches at a flight school in Los Angeles. A former US Air Force officer and a graduate of the US Air Force academy, he is married to his teammate Chip. He loves skiing and flying and is very into being physically fit. He describes himself as "detail-oriented, caring and thrill-seeking." He speaks French and has traveled internationally quite a bit. Reichen's views on relationship are much more liberal than Chip's -- He enjoys flirting with other guys, but that makes Chip upset. Reichen likens himself to Ben Affleck--"intense"--and says Chip is like Bruce Willis: "steady and true." Reichen says he never procrastinates; he gets things done NOW.

Chip is 36 years old and is the president of a media company that mainly produces music-related projects. He attended Yale and Harvard Business School. He loves hiking in the mountains and participating in triathlons." He describes himself as "determined, free thinking and mindful." He says he is like Winston Churchill: "steady…never say no; anything is possible." Chip lived in Hong Kong for three years, in Paris for six months and in London for two years. He is in great physical shape.

For some reason the sight of Chip and Reichen makes me want to go cheat on my wife. I'm not sure why, but I'm sure someone inhabiting Planet Kurtz can explain it to me.

But, when I do, she'll surely forgive me. After all, it'll be all Chip's fault.



(via vaara)

Fun With Actuarial Tables

That's probably the last time you'll see that headline. In any case, the House has just passed a bill which has lessened pension funding requirements for blue collar workers on the basis that blue collar workers don't live as long as white collar workers. Now, this could possibly be a reasonable step except for one thing - they aren't similarly increasing the funding requirements for white collar workers.

To explain this so that hopefully even your average House Republican can understand - let's suppose 50% are workers are white collar and are expected to live until age 80. Let's suppose 50% are blue collar and are expected to live until age 70. So, currently companies are required to fund pensions under the assumption that the average worker lives until he/she is 75. Now they want to require that pensions for blue collar workers are only funded for an expected lifespan of 70. Fair enough, but then pensions for white collar workers are only funded for workers living an average 75 years.

The net result is that a population with an average lifespan of 75 years will have pensions that are only funded for people who live an average of 72.5 years.

UPDATE: Oops, Bill hasn't passed. Just in the works. My bad.

Boo Hoo Hoo

A bigot had his feelings hurt.


What Julian Sanchez and Matthew Yglesias say about it.

As one of Julian Sanchez's commenters reminds us, Mistah Kurtz (the other one) thought his pile of warmed-up Anita Bryant barf was actually going to elevate the debate about homosexuality.

Making the Monkeys Howl

Man they hate when someone brings up the AWOL thing. Eric Zorn hits 'em with it again:

So much for that myth--the cynical distortion that has become conventional wisdom in many circles. During the presidential campaign of 2000, it started going around that Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then the leading Republican candidate, had significant gaps in his military record.

Specifically, that Bush failed to report for duty for an entire year toward the end of his hitch with the Texas Air National Guard.

The short version: In May 1968 the silver-spoon son of a U.S. congressman jumped to the top of a long waiting list despite mediocre scores on his pilot-aptitude test and was allowed to enlist in the Guard, a common way to avoid being drafted into combat in Vietnam.

In May 1972 he sought a transfer from Houston, where he flew F-102s on weekends, to a unit in Montgomery, Ala. There, he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of a friend of his father's and, records indicate, blew off his military obligations.

Bush failed to take his annual flight physical in 1972 so Guard officials grounded him, the story went. He never flew again and received an early discharge to go to graduate school. His final officer-efficiency report from May 1973 noted only that supervisors hadn't seen him or heard from him.

Bush's campaign biography obscured or misrepresented these details. In the summer and fall of 2000, his spokesmen offered various and evolving explanations for what Democrats said represented a far bigger "character issue" than any of the windy exaggerations of their candidate, Vice President Al Gore.

"If he is elected president, how will he be able to deal as commander in chief with someone who goes AWOL, when he did the same thing?" Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey said to the Boston Globe, where veteran investigative reporter Walter V. Robinson, a former Army intelligence officer, wrote several major stories on the subject. "This stinks."

Somewhat Irrelevant Flashback

Who wrote this:

The Framers also understood that stable, tyrannical majorities can best be prevented by the multiplication of minority interests, so the majority at any moment will be just a transitory coalition of minorities.

Krugman Understands News

Why doesn't Howard Kurtz?

But U.S. television coverage ranged from respectful to gushing. Nobody pointed out that Mr. Bush was breaking an important tradition. And nobody seemed bothered that Mr. Bush, who appears to have skipped more than a year of the National Guard service that kept him out of Vietnam, is now emphasizing his flying experience. (Spare me the hate mail. An exhaustive study by The Boston Globe found no evidence that Mr. Bush fulfilled any of his duties during that missing year. And since Mr. Bush has chosen to play up his National Guard career, this can't be shrugged off as old news.)

Anyway, it was quite a show. Luckily for Mr. Bush, the frustrating search for Osama bin Laden somehow morphed into a good old-fashioned war, the kind where you seize the enemy's capital and get to declare victory after a cheering crowd pulls down the tyrant's statue. (It wasn't much of a crowd, and American soldiers actually brought down the statue, but it looked great on TV.)

Let me be frank. Why is the failure to find any evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program, or vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons (a few drums don't qualify — though we haven't found even that) a big deal? Mainly because it feeds suspicions that the war wasn't waged to eliminate real threats. This suspicion is further fed by the administration's lackadaisical attitude toward those supposed threats once Baghdad fell. For example, Iraq's main nuclear waste dump wasn't secured until a few days ago, by which time it had been thoroughly looted. So was it all about the photo ops?

Well, Mr. Bush got to pose in his flight suit. And given the absence of awkward questions, his handlers surely feel empowered to make even more brazen use of the national security issue in future.

You see, when a candidate tries to exploit his military experience, as Bush did with the whole fake "flying the plane thing," it is perfectly appropriate to bring up this issue and start asking the questions, which as Howie has pointed out, Bush has never really answered. In Howie's world, such questions are verboten and we shouldn't worry our little heads about them.

If Clinton had pulled a stunt like that, the lead paragraph of every news story would have been something along the lines of "President Clinton, whose relations with the military are somewhat strained due to his irregular draft record..." This was true even though Clinton never dodged the draft any more (and in some cases less) than did Dick Cheney, Pat Buchanan, Spencer Abraham, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, John Ashcroft, ...

Leave No Child Behind

General Myers on the Gitmo Kids, 4/25:

Myers: I would say, despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people. They are people that have been vetted mainly in Afghanistan and gone through a thorough process to determine what their involvement was. Some have killed. Some have stated they're going to kill again. So they may be juveniles, but they're not on a little-league team anywhere, they're on a major league team, and it's a terrorist team. And they're in Guantanamo for a very good reason -- for our safety, for your safety.

Administration officials today on some Gitmo kids:

WASHINGTON, May 5 — Bush administration officials said today that they would soon release an additional group of prisoners, about a dozen, from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Officials said that the prisoners, captured in the war in Afghanistan, had been determined to have no further intelligence value and that there was no evidence that they had been involved in any crimes.

The impending release comes after officials said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that he was hearing a rising number of complaints from other countries about the indefinite detention of their citizens at Guantánamo.

Those to be released will probably include one or more of the three youths the military recently acknowledged were being held at Guantánamo. The three are believed to be 13 to 16 years old, and the disclosure of their detention by an Australian television network produced a barrage of criticism from human rights groups.

North Carolina Can Fire You For Being Gay

And the little darlings just rejected a bill to change that.

Bogus Statistics and Bigotry

Anytime one advances a cause with lies or obviously bogus statistics one's commitment to truth is obviously called into question. In addition, if someone knowingly uses fake statistics to try and demonize a particular group it demonstrates he/she is not only a liar but a bigot as well.

A few years back Wee Willy Bennett kept repeating some obviously fake statistics about the average lifespans of gay men. When confronted with the fact that the methodology used to obtained these numbers was flawed in a way which would be obvious to your typical 9 year old (and probably obvious to Brad Delong's kid when he was about 3), Bennett refused to back down. Instead, he cited another source to back up his claims - a source which simply cited the flawed original numbers.

Bennett - bigot, liar, hypocrite.

Kurtz Must Be Seen to Be Believed

Today.

From today's Media Backtalk
Kingston, R.I.: Re: Photo op on the Abraham Lincoln

Observation: a president who basically blew off most of his Air National Guard hitch would fly onto an aircraft carrier to declare an end to a war, and that amid all the media's gushing over this stunt there was virtually no mention of the president's military record -- or lack thereof. Question: I realize that this may be "old news," but wouldn't it have been apropos to bring up his Air National Guard absence?

Howard Kurtz: I've seen a couple of references to Bush's National Guard service, but since we never got a definitive explanation as to whether he was absent without leave, it's hard to keep pounding that as an issue.

In other words, since we've never actually gotten an answer we should stop asking questions about it or even bringing it up.

On Selective Biographies and the Press: Howard, you say candidates can't offer selective versions of their biography, but that is exactly what Bush successfully managed in campaign 2000, effectively shutting off all discussion of his drug use and other "irresponsibilities" of his youth and middle age. Earlier you claimed, essentially, that there's no there there in the questions about Bush's Guard service. Why is Bush's Guard duty, which you would probably have to admit is still cloaked in mystery, off limits to reporters when every other candidates military service will not be?

Howard Kurtz: Bush didn't shut off discussion of his youthful irresponsibility; he just refused to talk about it in any detail. The press was filled with stories questioning what he was trying to hide, examining his youthful drinking, speculating about whether he used cocaine, questioning his explanation to a Dallas reporter that he could have signed a government application attesting to no drug use in the past 15 years. There was also the story of his DUI charge that broke in the last week of the election. So this was hardly a non-issue.

UPDATE: The Horse reminds us of this nonsense by Kurtz:

Howard Kurtz then:

HOWARD KURTZ: "Josh Marshall, you
don't know the extent of damage or
vandalism by departing Clinton White
House aides, and neither do I. So, in
writing in Slate Magazine that the press
wildly overplayed this story, it kind of
sounds like you're acting as a knee-jerk
Clinton defender."

Howard Kurtz Now:

HOWARD KURTZ: I've seen a couple of
references to Bush's National Guard
service, but since we never got a
definitive explanation as to whether he
was absent without leave, it's hard to
keep pounding that as an issue.

David E. All Over the Place

David Ehrenstein of FaBlog had a piece in the LA Times yesterday, and will be on Signorile's radio show today.

My New Hero - Etan Thomas

A bit of poetry:

Stephanie Hill shoved her way through the crowd and whipped out a pen for Washington Wizards center Etan Thomas. She wanted his autograph, but had no idea he is a professional basketball player -- Hill was impressed by his poetry.

...

"People usually have a stereotype when they see a basketball player anyway. When they see you and you break those stereotypes, they come up to you afterward and they want to talk with you. I like that."

And the crowd at Borders liked Thomas.

"This poem is called, 'Republicans,' " said Thomas, wearing glasses and khakis.

Them hypocrites don't care about you.

Kinsley on Bennett

I think Kinsley hits about the right note on Bennett (as does Dr. Josh). The defense that Bennett never condemned gambling, so therefore he can't be a hypocrite, is silly. Bennett didn't just tell us we must obey Bill's 10 commandments, he told us that we should all be a bunch of moralizing assholes and that we should apply social pressure to things we consider bad - doubly so for people in public life.

I don't think that drinking, smoking, gambling, and eating are for most people such a big deal. Clearly, nor does Bill Bennett. I also don't think homosexuality is a bad thing, I think decent people (and not so decent ones including many of Bennett's pals) get divorced, and once in awhile people get a blowjob. But, Mr. Virtue is the one who has argued we should bring back the Scarlet Letters for things we disapprove of. When he made that argument he wasn't saying it was for things that he disapproved of, but as Kinsley points out he argued that we must "enter judgments on a whole range of behaviors and attitudes."

Have You Ever Noticed?

Seriously. Have you ever noticed the way that Republican women seem almost embarrassed by being women? It's odd.

Insuring Kids is Easy and Cheap

Max Sawicky says offering to insure kids is a dodge by candidates offering some form of universal health coverage because it's easy and cheap. Big Media Matt says that's all the more reason to do it. I'd take it a step further and argue that it's probably the one part of our health care system for which universal coverage - of any reasonable sort - would be easy and cheaper than our current system. I'm just making this up of course, not having done any research, but I have a hard time believing that the expensive abuse of the emergency room system isn't predominantly a result of poor parents bringing in their uninsured kids.

Bob Dole Didn't Get the Memo

So, of all things Dole thought the topic du jour on 60 minutes should be Reality Television - and specifically the Osbournes. You know, the show praised by even Dan Quayle, with the star hamming it up with Bush last year at the WHCA dinner.

I wonder why Dole didn't choose any of the numerous reality television on That Other Network, the one run by that whatshisname from Australia. You know, all those shows which trivialize marriage and glorify casual sex... Or, maybe Dole could have asked about soft drink companies which use an opened soda can as an obvious symbol of a viagra popping old man's orgasm at the sight of a teenage girl half clad, or...

In any case, the real outrage with the Osbournes isn't that their son had to go to rehab - it's all the sons and daughters of not so well-to-do people who end up in jail instead of rehab. Speaking of that, one wonders also why Dole didn't pick on that other favorite reality show - Jeb!

Todd Gitlin is a Git

Avedon Carol, back at her old digs, tells us why.

Sid Tidbits

From CBS:

Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned: Sid Blumenthal’s forthcoming book, “The Clinton Wars” contains a number of juicy anecdotes, but one of the most telling takes place on Inauguration Day 1997.

President Clinton had finished his speech with a quote from the late Chicago Cardinal Bernadin saying “It is hard to waste the precious gift of time on acrimony and division.” People on the podium warmly shook the president’s hand, Blumenthal reports, but Chief Justice Rehnquist had been “chilly and expressionless toward the president throughout the morning.”

Following the speech, Rehnquist turned to speak to Mr. Clinton. “Good luck, “ he said. “You’ll need it.”

Hillary figured it out. “They are going to screw you on the Paula Jones case, “ she said while the president waved to the crowd.

Indeed.


You can order the book here:


And, you can order Hitlery Klint00n's book here (just to piss of the freepers):

Dean in Philadelphia

Went to the Dean fundraiser in Philadelphia today. I'd say there were maybe 100 people there. The governor spoke for about 30 mins. - mostly hit the right notes. Seems pretty good at managing to express an appropriate degree of outrage without resorting to hyperbole that the media can use against him. He spoke out clearly why he's for affirmative action, using an example of when he told his female chief of staff to try and hire more men, and attacked Bush for his bigoted dishonesty about the U. of M.'s "quota" system. He relayed an anecdote of an 80 year old gay Normandy Vet thanking him for his support for Civil Unions.

I think Dean has an approach which lets him get away with things other candidates can't. The senators who are running have a hard time criticizing Bush because most of them voted to support too many of his proposals, or at least the watered down versions of them. While one can explain away some of their individual votes (or even all of them) on practical grounds, it does give the Tim Russerts of the world the opportunity to make any criticism of Bush look like opportunism. Whether fair or not, Dean's "outsider" status makes him immune to this kind of badgering, at least for the moment.

(full disclosure: I had a comp ticket)

Bill Bennet On Homosexuality

From This Week, 11/9/97

WILLIAM BENNETT: Now it's my turn. Now it's my turn. But because we hold the relationship between man and woman in marriage to be special and sacred. We also hold it to be the grounds of continuation of society and we've ruled other things out.

Now, on what grounds do you say two homosexuals should be able to marry, but not a homosexual and his sister, or not some guy and four women? If it's a matter of, as I've heard and read in your documents, two adults who love each other, why not five adults who love each other? You have failed to provide a principled difference.
...
WILLIAM BENNETT: We don't know. I think the best state- of-the-art science right now is the belief that some people are hardwired this way. Some people make the choice. And there are a lot of people in the middle.

If there are a lot of people in the middle, if there are a lot of waverers, we should be sending signals of what - of what society needs to prefer. And it needs to prefer heterosexuality.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Why?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Well, for a lot of reasons. One, it needs to continue, and this is the way we continue. Second, by their own testimony, homosexuals are very unhappy. If you read...

ELIZABETH BIRCH: So you think people should only be able to marry to procreate?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Let me finish. You asked a question. Let me finish.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Just to procreate?

WILLIAM BENNETT: Let me answer. No, no. Let me answer. They're very unhappy by their own testimony.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: Oh, that's not true.

WILLIAM BENNETT: Third, death. Death in this community - - the loss of life, the misery brought on by this life -- is a fact which you may wish to deny, but is a fact.

SAM DONALDSON: She says she's not unhappy.

ELIZABETH BIRCH: You know, Mr...

WILLIAM BENNETT: She says she isn't. But read the homosexual literature. This is the argument they make about genetics. They say if we weren't hard wired this way, we wouldn't choose it. No one in his right mind would choose to live the life they
are leading.

...
WILLIAM BENNETT: Well, it depends on how you ask the question. I mean, as the president said last night, you know, your mechanic, the guy who's doing your balanced budget, is he gay or not? You don't care. I mean, I ran these federal agencies.
We had tons of gay employees, perfectly fine with me.

But if parents say, look, we have some concern about a scout master or we have some concern about adoption by gay couples, that's perfectly reasonable. When you put it to a vote actually, as they did in the state of Washington last week, people
in the state of Washington did not come out the way Mrs. Birch says. So if you -- as Ms. Birch says.

If you ask the question, you know, are you in favor of not discriminating, all of us are in favor of not discriminating. But if you're saying should we be indifferent as a society to whether people are gay or not, the answer to that has to be no.

We Secured the Oil

But we didn't secure the Iraqi nuclear waste depository.

I feel safer already.

And, what Brad DeLong said, though my conversion came a bit earlier.

French Bashing

One reason to bash the French is the fact that they forbid Islamic girls from wearing headscarves to school. I was struck by a comment over at War Liberal which expressed disdain for any religious belief which required members of one gender to cover their heads.



Discuss.

Disabled or In Prison

Nathan Newman reminds us of a dark ugly side of the 90s - that disability and prison populations about doubled. The former changed just about one for one with reductions in the welfare rolls, and the latter...well, that's quite an expensive use of society's resources.

FUNNY CIDE!!!!!!

Hey, I won for once.

(thanks to mrs. atrios)
Don't get too excited, was a $2 bet

The Rule of Law

According to the Washington Monthly:

In 1998, The Washington Times reported in a light-hearted front-page feature story that he plays low-stakes poker with a group of prominent conservatives, including Robert Bork, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

According to the UPI:

Bennett has long been known to be part of a small-stakes poker game in Washington with Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and lawyer Robert Bork.

According to DC laws, that's punishable by imprisonment of up to 5 years.

Book'em Dano.

Rewriting the Times

Here's Kit "Spite-Girl" Seelye on Bennett today:

"It's his own money and his own business," Grover G. Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative advocacy group, said. "The downside of gambling losses is that the government gets a third of the money, which is unfortunate and probably a sin in and of itself," said Mr. Norquist, whose group advocates smaller government.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and another conservative ally of Mr. Bennett, agreed that this was a matter between Mr. Bennett, his wife and his accountant. "It would be different if he had written anti-gambling screeds," Mr. Kristol said. "I'm sure he doesn't regard gambling as a virtue but as a rather minor and pardonable vice and a legal one and one that has not damaged him or anyone else."

Mr. Kristol said that Mr. Bennett was not being hypocritical. "If Bill Bennett went on TV encouraging young people to gamble the rent money at a Las Vegas casino or was shilling for gambling interests, that would be inconsistent" with his moral crusades, Mr. Kristol said. ...

s.m. rewrites it:

"It's his own penis and his own business," Grover G. Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative advocacy group, said. "The downside of getting the occasional blowjob is that Clinton gets a cheap thrill, which is unfortunate and probably a sin in and of itself," said Mr. Norquist, whose group advocates smaller government.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and another conservative bitter enemy of Mr. Clinton, agreed that this was a matter between Mr. Clinton, his wife and his aggressive little wannabe paramour. "It would be different if he had written anti-sex screeds," Mr. Kristol said. "I'm sure he doesn't regard the occasional blowjob on the side as a virtue but as a rather minor and pardonable vice and a legal one and one that has not damaged him or anyone else."

Mr. Kristol said that Mr. Clinton was not being hypocritical. "If Bill Clinton went on TV encouraging young people to engage in oral sex at halftime during the Homecoming game or was shilling for extramarital interests, that would be inconsistent" with his domestic policy on the economy which has resulted in an unprecedented surplus, Mr. Kristol said. ...

Cable Ratings

From eggman:

FOX BUSH SPEECH 4.3 [RATING] O'REILLY
2.7
HANNITY/COLMES 2.5
GRETA 1.5
SHEP 1.5
CNN BUSH 1.3
LARRY KING 1.3
AARON BROWN 0.8
MSNBC BUSH 0.6
OLBERMANN 0.6
HARDBALL 0.4
SCARBOROUGH 0.3

So, Donahue gets a 1.5 and he gets fired. Chris Matthews gets a .4 and he keeps his job. The important point to make here is that these ratings declines came after Donahue was sacked - not only was his show more popular than the others, he also likely brought in additional sticky eyeballs to the network.

I'm no big fan of Donahue - he isn't my top choice for the only liberal host on television (though I do think his show probably would have been a lot better had he had more freedom to do it his way), but this is just ridiculous.

Bennett

Over at O. Dub's place, commenter Leonard says this:

Once again, the essential is getting overlooked by the specific -- or, rather, we got us a big forest here. but hey! Look at this one tree!

Bennett isn't a hypocrite because he gambles; after all, as is rightly pointed out, he's never condemned gambling.

Bennett is a hypocrite because he's never condemned gambling.

Get it? His hypocrisy is not in condemning dope-smoking, homosexuality and porn, while he himself gambles; his hypocrisy is in condemning every vice except the one he happens to have. All the proscriptive arguments he makes in attacking vice could easily be applied to gambling; it's just, since gambling happens to be legal and he happens to enjoy it, he makes an exemption to his moral absolutism for gambling.

I don't have a problem with gamblers; it doesn't scandalize me one iota that Bill Bennett is a compulsive, self-deluding gambler. What's offensive -- and hypocritical -- is for Bill Bennett to defend his gambling with the argument that (a) it's harmless, (b) it's legal and (c) if it's a consenting adult doing it it's no one's business but his, and then to reject the exact same argument when it's made in defense of pornography or homosexuality (and could easily be made in defense of marijuana, were that legal).

Bennett's hypocrisy is made evident not by his gambling, but by the way in which he defends gambling.

Dean in Philly

Don't forget, you can meet the candidate tomorrow. And if that's not enough, you can meet me too! Well, my alter ego anyway.

More Jobs

I took quick look at the unemployment numbers in more detail below, but here's a more careful look from EPI.

Fun with MSGOP

I can't verify if this is true (no transcript), but here's an account of a fine moment on MSGOP:

An MSNBC news woman is interviewing families waiting for the Lincoln to dock. She asked a little boy of about 6 what he thought his daddy would want to do when he got home.

The kid says "NAKED FIGHT!"

The lady laughs a little and asks, "What's NAKED FIGHT?"

And the kid says "It's when they take their clothes off, and fight....At night, when it's dark....."

Nervous giggle from the interviewer, but the kid continues,

".....in the shower."

And finally, an embarrassed reporter has had enough......but not before they pull back to show Mom, who will be participating in the naked fight.

Glorifying Lynching

I wonder if there will be any controversy about the Toby Keith song that glorifies lynching?

Let's see, saying you're ashamed of a president who [insert numerous things here] gets you assaulted by Diane Sawyer for an hour. Lovingly remembering the good old days of ropes hanging over trees - nada.

White House Lies

The spin, swallowed by our kneepad wearing press, that Bush had to fly in a jet because the ship was too far off was bogus. Of course, the greater spin, that flying in a jet to get to the ship, as CNN reporter Kyra Phillips did, was any big deal was also lovingly swallowed.

That liberal media...At least they get it after the fact:

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN — President Bush didn't have to make a dramatic tailhook landing on this aircraft carrier. He could have flown here on a helicopter as presidents normally would, the White House said Friday.
Officials also acknowledged positioning the massive ship to provide the best TV angle for Bush's speech, with the vast sea as his background instead of the very visible San Diego coastline. ...

... Fleischer had said last week that Bush would have to fly out to the carrier by plane because the Lincoln would be hundreds of miles offshore, making helicopter travel impractical.

As it turned out, the ship was just 39 miles from the coast ...

... The changes did not keep personnel at sea longer than they otherwise would have been, said John Daniels, a ship spokesman. ...

Will they ever bother to, you know, verify first and report later?

Politics

Aside from the rightness and wrongness of any military action, could there be anything more cynical than this:

Anna Perez, White House communications counselor, Friday sharply contested a United Press International report that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and political adviser Karl Rove shut down a Pentagon plan to expand the Iraqi ground war to Syria in closing days of combat.

...

Another source with close knowledge of the matter told UPI: "The hawks didn't understand the emphasis had all changed: Everything was focused, not on the war any more, but on the president's re-election."

This official added that Rove had handled the elections of 2002 on the basis that "the American public knew the economy was a disaster, but the president asked them to put the war on terror first, and to vote Republican. And the public voted Republican. We think he felt any movement into Syria was pushing his luck."

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You

Gee, Andy, look in the mirror much?

OKAY, OKAY: Like Glenn Reynolds, I'm besieged by people who think I'm wrong about the tone of Bush's campaign speech last night. Fair enough. It's a subjective judgment call, and I certainly respect those who took it otherwise. But what amazes me is the vituperative tone, and how many then accuse me of being anti-war, anti-Bush and anti-American. Me? Are politics so polarized that you have to either engage in hagiography or hatred of our leaders? Is there nothing permissible in between?

Andy and Reynolds have both had their David Brock moment. I doubt they'll stray far from the reservation again.

Bush Service Records

Despite my having posted them the usual monkeys keep claiming I haven't. So...

Here's Martin Heldt's FOIA request.

Here's the list of documents obtained.

Here's the Boston Globe story on the issue.

Here's UggaBugga's handy timetable of events.

Here is Martin's copy of an unaltered document which was subsequently altered when it appeared in a George Magazine article.


(UPDATE:oh jeez, heldt not feldt of course....)

Torture Blitzer

The idiot.

Behind the Numbers

So, taking a peek at the bigger employment picture a few things are striking. African-American unemployment jumped from 10.2% to 10.9% in April, compared to a change from 5.1 to 5.2% for whites. The labor force seems to be growing, not shrinking, as some have suggested. For white males, there was a fairly big jump in the rate, from 4.7 to 5.0%.

Nancy Grace is a Menace to Society

The woman has never met a suspect (actual or imagined) that she didn't assume was guilty. Hearing that her fiancee was murdered made me less, not more, sympathetic towards her. Trying to calm her inner demons by lashing out at innocents night after night, enabled by 8-wives King, makes her a contemptible creature.

The Howler deals with her.

Bennett's a Bit of a Gambler

Well, it's just one more piece of evidence that he picks and chooses his virtues as well as his outrages. He also seems to be a wee bit disingenuous about his losses.
And I'm sure his various non-profits could use an audit...

Chutzpah Defined

Voila

Several companies under investigation for accounting irregularities are reportedly seeking to recoup taxes they overpaid based on inflated profits.

MCI, Enron, Qwest and HealthSouth are either pursuing or considering filing for tax refunds or credits for payments made on billions of dollars falsely claimed as earnings, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Here's an Interesting Wrinkle

So much for the "marriage is about procreation" sillyness:

Scientists in Pennsylvania yesterday said they had turned ordinary mouse embryo cells into egg cells in laboratory dishes -- an advance that opens the door to creating "designer" eggs from scratch and, if repeated with human cells, could blur the biological line between fathers and mothers.

The work undermines the standard model of parenthood because the scientists made egg cells not only from female cells, but also from male cells, indicating that even males have the biological capacity to make eggs.

If the science holds true in humans as in mice -- and several scientists said they suspect it will -- then a gay male couple might, before long, be able to produce children through sexual reproduction, with one man contributing sperm and the other fresh eggs bearing his own genes.

(via the Michelangelo Signorile Show)

Ha Ha Ha

From the horse.

Santorum Trips Over Chair

Oops

WASHINGTON, May 1 — Four parents of gay children had a fiery private exchange tonight with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The meeting did not go well, and Mr. Santorum, who has infuriated gays by likening homosexuality to incest and bigamy, left in a hurry, tripping over a chair, the parents said.

"What we tried to do in this meeting was reach him on a human level, and we found no humanity there," said Melina Waldo, a former constituent of Mr. Santorum who lives in Haddonfield, N.J. She said he was "condescending, belligerent, argumentative and arrogant."

Dr. Josh is Such a Tease

Here.

Stating the Obvious

So even MK Ultrahack can understand.

As Ailes points out, contrary to the Mickster's assertion, expanding hate crimes laws to include sexual orientation does not expand the law to just protect gays.

Of course, if we could just declare homosexuality and heterosexuality "religions," like those lifestyle choices which are currently covered under hate crimes laws, ...

April Unemployment Rate

Comes out tomorrow. Place your bets in comments on what the official number will be.

...and the winner is, 6.0%

Whatever else you want to say about him...

...that Moussaoui has a bit of a sense of humor.

From Talk Left:

Zacarias Moussaoui wants John Ashcroft to take a quiz:

Zacarias Moussaoui wants Attorney General John Ashcroft to answer a multiple choice quiz about the government's theory of his role as a terrorist conspirator. Several of 17 handwritten pleadings released Thursday by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema have a version of the quiz, which asks Ashcroft to check one of four boxes.

The choices are:

20th hijacker.
5th plane pilot missing in action.
I, Ashcroft don't know.
Let's kill him anyway.

Isaiah 61

In the speech tonight, Great Leader quoted this passage from Isaiah:

To the captives, come out; and to those in darkness, be free.

The full context, in a different translation is:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has annointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

Pilot

It is odd watching the military and the press fawn over a wartime deserter.


And, does anyone want to look into the legality of an unlicensed pilot - in fact one who had his national guard flying privileges suspended - flying a plane?
Just asking...

On Demand

So, not having quite the stomach for Great Leader's rally, I was playing around with my cable system's "On Demand" programming. Though they don't actually have much content worth watching yet (at least free content - plenty of stuff for pay) it really is an example of one of those technologies that we'd been promised for years, but which was always just around the corner. Well, it's here now.

Still no flying cars, but it's a start.

Paging Mickey Kaus

Oh Mickey....have you seen this?
As all reasonable liberals stated at the time - the real test of the 1996 welfare reform would happen when the economy hit an economic downturn. I'm sure Mickey can be proud of his accomplishment - massive increases in extreme poverty rates.

WASHINGTON _ The number of black youths living in extreme poverty is at its highest level in the 23 years that such statistics have been kept, according to a report released Wednesday.

More than 932,000 blacks under age 18 are in that category, a 50 percent increase from the 622,000 classified that way in 1999, according to a Children's Defense Fund analysis of Census Bureau data.

Oh Canada!

Gay marriages are-a-coming!

Bush Practices Affirmative Action

So why can't the U. of M?

White House officials said the nominations flow from Bush's commitment to expanding gender and racial diversity on the federal bench. "The diversity thing is a constant with him," one official said.

Legal sources said the White House is so focused on finding minority nominees that after officials have exhausted their personal networks in particular geographic areas, they have scoured the directories of federal and state judges, and even the rosters of major law firms, in the quest for qualified minorities they may have overlooked

Chasing the Same Audience

I really can't fathom why it's believed there is an even greater audience for conservative blowhards on afternoon radio. Clearly many of the radio stations who carry O'Reilly didn't really think there was, as they demanded substantial "Talkola" payments to do so.

The same can be said for MSNBC - since choosing to go 100% Fox Lite their prime time ratings have dropped from a 1.5 to a .5 - they're barely on the meter anymore.

And, CNN continues to lose the war. Aside from Crossfire, they don't have a single liberal host, unless we define liberal as "not conservative." On the right we have Jack Cafferty, Judy Woodruff, Lou Dobbs, Paula Zahn, Wolf Blitzer, Kyra Phillips, Bill Schneider, Jonathan Karl, Candy Crowley...

Thank Jeebus Racism is Dead

Otherwise we'd still have segregated proms:

ALBANY, Ga. — A year after holding their first integrated prom, some students at Taylor County High School (search) have decided to again hold a separate, private party for whites only.

While many whites say they still plan to attend next week's integrated prom, the decision to hold the whites-only prom this Friday saddened senior Gerica McCrary, who helped organize last year's dance.

"I cried," said McCrary, who is black. "The black juniors said, 'Our prom is open to everyone. If you want to come, come."'

Juniors are in charge of planning the prom each year and last year they decided to have just one dance — the first integrated prom in 31 years in the rural Georgia county 150 miles south of Atlanta.

Until then, parents and students organized separate proms for whites and blacks after school officials stopped sponsoring dances, in part because they wanted to avoid problems arising from interracial dating.

This year, a small number of white juniors decided they wanted a separate prom.
...
The school has 439 students, 232 of them black. McCrary and a white friend passed out fliers informing students of all races that they would be welcome at the May 9 prom at nearby Fort Valley State University.

(via Tbogg)

It Just Doesn't Stop

Between turning May Day into Loyalty Day, the official government news service turning an airplane landing into an all-day "historic event," and the discovery that the new US-sponsored Iraqi news service is run by a Christian Fundamentalist news agency...

Guess I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue...

UPDATE: ok ok, Clinton did it too..

New Jobless Claims High

And, as usual, the previous weeks' were revised upwards.

The labor market continues to deteriorate. Last week 448,000 people filed for first-time jobless claims, exceeding consensus estimates. The previous week’s number was revised up to 461,000. Initial claims have exceeded the benchmark 400,000 level for 11 consecutive weeks. Initial claims have actually trended higher since the end of March. Continuing claims have risen also, to 3.68 million. Tomorrow’s employment report will show a third month of net job losses.

More Disturbing Judicial Nominees

Neal Pollack runs down the list.

And, you can now pre-order the greatest book ever written.

Ha Ha Ha

Drudge is reporting that O'Reilly's radio ratings are in the gutter.

Choicepoint Database Story

Hesiod has more.

If some Spanish speaking readers want to check the Latin American newspapers on this story I'd appreciate it.

FBI Agent In Spy Case Gets Immunity

So, we'll never know the truth on this one. Oh journalists? Time to speak up...