Author: Buck Banks

Poll: Support for ’06 Dem Candidates Rising

Buck Banks

A rising tide: National Journal’s PollTrack reports support for 2006 Democratic candidates is increasing, with 49% of respondents saying they would want to see Dems win control of Congress if elections were held today, while only 36% said they wanted to see the GOP in control, according to a new Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs survey.

Curiously, recent high-profile scandals don’t seem to be affecting legislators’ numbers: 34% of respondents said they approve of how Congress is handling its job — up 3 points since December; 63% disapproved.

President Bush, however, didn’t enjoy a similar bump. Just 41 percent said they approved of his job, and 58 percent disapproved. In the last survey, his split was 42/57.

Many of Bush’s numbers on his work on individual issues slipped a few points since AP/Ipsos’ poll in the first week of December. The approve/disapprove split on his handling of domestic matters went from 39/59 to 35/63, and his split on the economy went from 42/55 to 38/60.

Poll: Alito’s Numbers Look Like Roberts’

Buck Banks

A little Alito: As the Senate cranks up its ponderous judicial confirmation process for Judge Sam Alito today, his initial polling numbers look like Chief Justice John Roberts’ survey results at the beginning of his hearings, according to National Journal’s PollTrack.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found 53% of respondents said the Senate should confirm Alito, while 27% said they did not want Alito to be confirmed; 20% had no opinion.

Those numbers are similar to John Roberts’ figures at the same point in the process. An ABC/Post poll conducted in the days before his hearings, which started Sept. 12, showed that 55 percent of respondents wanted the Senate to confirm him. Twenty-six percent said he should not be confirmed.

Abortion is set to be a flashpoint issue during Alito’s hearings. A 38-percent plurality told pollsters that if Alito is confirmed, he would vote to leave abortion law as it currently is. Twenty-six percent predicted he would vote to impose greater restrictions on Roe v. Wade, and 18 percent predicted he would vote to overturn it.

More than 75% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats support Alito.

Anti-Gay Pastor Arrested for Soliciting Male Undercover Officer

Buck Banks

Better to be known as a sinner than a hypocrite: Lonnie Latham, senior pastor at the South Tulsa Baptist Church and member of the executuve board of the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.), was arrested Tuesday night for “offering to engage in an act of lewdness” with an undercover police officer. According to the Associated Press report, Latham propositioned the officer, asking him to return with Latham to his Oklahoma City hotel room for oral sex.

The arrest was in a section of Oklahoma City where residents had complained of male prostitutes flagging down drivers and propositioning them.

When he left jail after posting $500 bond, Latham reportedly said: “I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police.”

So that’s what they call oral sex in South Tulsa, huh?

According to the AP:

[Latham] has also spoken out against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist Convention directive urging its 42,000 churches to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual “if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their ‘sinful, destructive lifestyle.”‘

Recess Appointment Just Another Example of Bush’s Cronyism

Buck Banks

Heckuva job: George Bush’s appointment of 36-year-old Julie Myers to the post of head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is another example of his penchant for appointing unqualified cronies. And, the fact that it was a recess appointment, and thereby skirts the Senate confirmation process, indicates that his advisors recognized that Myers likely wouldn’t have made the cut.

According to GovExec.com, Myers has some good connections — her daddy is former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers and her husband is chief of staff for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

So what qualifies her to head the second-largest federal law enforcement agency with 15,000 employees and an annual budget of $4 billion? She previously worked in the departments of Treasury, Commerce and Justice, and — here’s the ghost of Harriet Meiers — most recently served as a special assistant to Bush.

To try and combat appointments of incompetent political cronies (remeber Michael Brown aka Brownie?), Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) has introduced legislation that sets standards of experience for high-level appointees to positions requiring Senate confirmation.

That’s all well and good, but when the incompetence starts at the top with the president, it’s going to be nigh on impossible to keep it out of the lower ranks.

Holy Rollers Plan Holy Land Theme Park

Buck Banks

Lord, please smite ’em: A consortium of U.S. evangelical Christians and the Israeli goverment are negotiating a deal for an evangelical theme park near where, legend has it, Jesus fed the multitudes on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The leader of the Bible-thumpers is Hugo-hatin’ nutcake tee-vangelist Pat Robertson.

The Israelis are planning to lease the land — about 125 acres — for free and the Jesus freaks will spend about $48 million to create what is tentatively called the Galilee World Heritage Park. It would be located northeast of the Mount of the Beatitudes, where Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and Capernaum, Jesus’ hometown. Plans call for a garden and nature park, auditorium, Holy Land exhibition, outdoor amphitheaters, information center and a media studio (Heeeeere’s Pat — Live from the Holy Land!).

Despite the million additional visitors the park is projected to bring to Israel, some Israeli Jews are suspicious of the evangelicals’ motives. The Guardian describes it this way:

The primary reason [the American Christian right has been among the strongest supporters of Israel in the U.S.] is that according to the Old Testament, Israel was given to the Jews by God. Fundamentalist Christians believe that in order for Jesus to return, two preconditions are Jewish control of the land of Israel and the conversion of the Jews to Christianity.

And that Rapture Plan doesn’t sit well with some Israeli Jews:

Yossi Sarid, a former government minister and member of the Knesset, said he was wary of the friendship of the American Christian right and projects such as the Galilee centre. He said: “I am not enthusiastic about this cooperation because I have no desire to be cannon fodder for the evangelists.

“As a Jew, they believe I have to vanish before Jesus can make his second appearance. As I have no plans to convert, as an Israeli and a Jew, I find this a provocation. There is something sinister about their embrace.”

But in the end, Israel seems willing to trade the souls of the Jews for the tourism dollars of fundamentalist Christians:

Avraham Hirschson, the Israeli tourism minister, said: “I’m not a theologian, I’m the minister of tourism, and I’m not interested in the politics of our tourists as long as they come here. They come here as tourists, and they’re friends of Israel.”

First Human Avian Flu Deaths in Eurasia Confirmed

Buck Banks

Health authorities in Turkey have reversed an earlier diagnosis in the death of a 14-year-old boy who they now say died of avian flu last weekend. They had said his death was caused by pneumonia. His sister died today and two other siblings are hospitalized with flu symptoms.

Health authorities have confirmed that the strain of flu that killed the boy and his sister was of the H5 variety, but said further testing will be required to determine if it is the H5N1 strain that killed more than 70 people in Southeast Asia in 2005.

The children worked on a poultry farm and allegedly became infected after eating an infected bird. The World Health Organization says that there still are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

For more details, visit the BBC or CNN.

NBC Affiliate Caves to American Family Association Pressure

Buck Banks

Christian bullies, TV wimps: AdAge is reporting that an Indiana NBC television affiliate has caved to American Family Association pressure not to run the network’s mid-season replacement, “The Book of Daniel.” The irrepressible and reprehensible Donald Wildmon, chair of the cross-carting, Bible-thumping AFA, is oozing pride over his band of bullies’ latest victory for Jesus.

The program was slated to premiere Jan. 6, but at least in Terra Haute it won’t:

Mr. Wildmon’s group was crowing that NBC affiliate WTWO in Terre Haute, Ind., has decided not to air the show. The group’s beef against the show is how it depicts Christianity. The AFA’s press release describes the show as having a main character who is a drug-addicted Episcopal priest with an alcoholic wife, a gay son, a daughter caught selling drugs, an adopted son having sex with a bishop’s daughter and a lesbian secretary.

Recall that the AFA mounted an impotent boycott of Disney for nine years due to the company’s gay-friendly policies. That boycott ended last spring only to be replaced by a boycott of Ford Motor Co. for its gay-friendly policies and advertising. That boycott was suspended in June and rescinded in December after Ford dropped its advertising in several gay publications.

“The Book of Daniel” is a situation comedy, of course, and I’ve seen a couple of previews where Jesus hisself appears to the priest, played by Aiden Quinn, and other oddball family situations arise. Here’s what “Wildman” Wildmon has to say about it:

“We are tired of NBC’s anti-Christian bigotry,” Mr. Wildmon said in a statement. The group has organized its members to call other NBC affiliates to pressure them to follow WTWO in not airing the new show.

WE are tired of your group’s un-Christian bigotry, Mr. Wildmon.

Search for Avian Flu Vaccine Hampered By Lack of Autopsies

Buck Banks

In an article in the Guardian, a flu expert warns that the ability to understand and treat bird flu is being hampered because of a failure to conduct postmortem examinations on most victims.

The news comes as fears of the first human death from the disease on Europe’s doorstep were allayed. A 14-year-old Turkish boy who died on Sunday of pneumonia tested negative for the virus, along with three members of his family.

“The big problem, of course, is that the number of people on whom real extensive pathology has been carried out is limited,” said Albert Osterhaus, head of the national influenza centre at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Of 74 people who have died in the Asian outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, only four or five full post-mortems have been carried out – all of them in Thailand.

“Autopsies are not regularly done,” he said. “That’s really an enormous problem.” The main barriers in the countries that have confirmed human cases – Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China and Indonesia – are cultural and religious. Islam, for example, prohibits postmortem examinations under most circumstances.

Dr Osterhaus fears that the lack of post-mortem information will slow the search for a vaccine. Such data can help scientists choose the best animal species on which to test potential vaccines, for instance.

Poll: Congress Is Corrupt

Buck Banks

Gypsies, tramps and thieves: With legislators looking for way to divest themselves of ill-gotten Abramoff-tainted money, Americans are looking at their congressional representatives with a jaundiced eye, according to National Journal’s PollTrack:

CNN/Gallup/USA Today pollsters found that a 49% plurality said most members of Congress are corrupt, and 46% said they were not. With nearly nine in 10 respondents saying corruption will be at least moderately important in the 2006 midterms, CNN’s analysis suggests that “Congress’ image could emerge as an election topic.”

Numbers didn’t vary much between the two major parties, however: 52% said “only a few” Democrats in Congress are corrupt; 49% said the same of Republicans; 2% for each party said no members are corrupt, and fewer than two in 10 said “almost all” were crooked.

Respondents to a recent National Public Radio survey don’t see ethics problems limited to one party, either — 19% said troubles lie more with Republicans than Democrats and 14% said the reverse, but a 65% majority said both parties had problems with ethics.
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The Abramoff Effect — Enough Fallout for Everybody

Buck Banks

Duck and cover: With the announcement that licentious lobbyist and Indian slighter Jack Abramoff had rolled over for prosecutors yesterday, congresspersons on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate are sweating bullets.

While Democrats will likely point to the Republican “culture of corruption” as the investigation begins to uncover the money trail (i.e., Delay, Ney), Repugs will be quick to note any links between Abramoff and Democrats, as they, too, took donations from the Jackster. The “Abramoff Effect” likely will paint any legislator who took money from Abramoff and then voted for or against one of the lobbyist’s pet issues within a certain period of time — say, ever — with the tar brush of corruption.

Because Abramoff lobbied a number of legislators on a wide variety of issues, the scandal has no end in sight. And don’t think for a minute that the investigation will not be pursued with vigor. Leading the investigation is the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice — guys in the mold of Elliot Ness — along with the FBI and the IRS. Here’s how the PIS is described on its Web site:

The Public Integrity Section oversees the federal effort to combat corruption through the prosecution of elected and appointed public officials at all levels of government. The Section has exclusive jurisdiction over allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of federal judges and also monitors the investigation and prosecution of election and conflict of interest crimes. Section attorneys prosecute selected cases against federal, state, and local officials, and are available as a source of advice and expertise to other prosecutors and investigators. Since 1978, the Section has supervised the administration of the Independent Counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government act.

To read the DOJ’s press release issued following the plea deal yesterday (which covers the crimes and the investigation), click […]