Day: December 10, 2005

Eugene McCarthy Has Died

Jon Ponder

Associated Press:

Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.

McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.

Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson’s withdrawal from the race.

The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

Ford Agrees to Meet with Gay Leaders

Jon Ponder

365Gay.com:

Facing a maelstrom of criticism over allegations it caved in to conservative Christians, Ford Motor Company has agreed to meet with national LGBT groups over the company’s decision to pull advertising from the gay media.

The meeting will take place on Monday, Rita Sklar, the spokesperson for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, told 365Gay.com.

Following Ford’s announcement that it was dropping ads in the gay media for its Land Rover and Jaguar lines the American Family Association declared victory and said it was ending its threatened boycott.

The AFA said the Ford decision was made following a meeting between it and the company at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

Ford claims that the decision to cut back on advertising and the AFA meeting were not related but the company did not dispute the conservative group’s interpretation of the meeting…

The disparity between the AFA and Ford over the real reason for the advertising decision and the timing of the announcements by the two led 19 LGBT civil rights groups to demand an immediate meeting with Ford.

“If there is an agreement with AFA, we expect Ford to disavow it,” the groups said in a joint statement.

The GOP’s Tortured Soul

Jon Ponder

“I am growing more and more disgusted by anyone who remains a Republican anymore. We find out today that many of the false intelligence claims the administration made to get us into Iraq came from a man we tortured. It turns Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, one of the top al-Qaeda lieutenants we captured, made up stories about an al-Qaeda link to Iraq just so that we would stop torturing him.

“Of course, he did. This is why every military officer they asked told the administration not to use torture — because it is unreliable!

… “How many stories do you have to see about this before you get it through your thick head that they purposely picked the worst intelligence to make their case because they were going to war no matter what? The CIA told the administration just ten days after September 11th that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq. A Presidential Daily Briefing on September 21, 2001 explained at length that Saddam not only did not work with al-Qaeda but considered them a threat. And Dick Cheney goes around to this day insinuating a link.

“How bad do these people have to be before your conscience kicks in? I hit that threshold about three years ago when I ran screaming from the Republican Party. I am beginning to believe anyone who remains after hearing this type of evidence against the administration is simply not a good person.”

— Cenk Uygur, The Huffington Post

Schwarzenegger Continues Shake Up of Senior Personnel

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

In another step toward rebuilding his government after painful defeats in the special election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is removing one of his top deputies and installing two new aides in senior roles.

Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he was shifting his Cabinet secretary, Democrat Terry Tamminen, into a new job as an advisor on energy and environmental issues — a far less influential post. Tamminen, one of the more liberal voices in Schwarzenegger’s inner circle, is valued by the governor for a creative mind, but colleagues say he was miscast in a job that requires strong administrative skills.

He will be replaced by Fred Aguiar, a former Republican state Assemblyman from Chino now serving as Schwarzenegger’s secretary for State and Consumer Services.

Schwarzenegger also hired an executive from an insurance lobbying trade association as a deputy responsible for devising policy. Dan Dunmoyer, a 43-year-old Republican, will fill the newly created position.

The shuffle comes at a time when Schwarzenegger is recasting his administration following a disastrous result in the Nov. 8 special election. The costly and divisive campaign culminated in the defeat of four initiatives that the governor had said were crucial to California’s future.

Christianists Used Nazi-esque ‘Science’ to Convince Ford to End Gay Ads

Jon Ponder

Gullible in Detroit: AmericaBlog is leading the fight against Ford Motor Co.’s decision to stop advertising to gays and lesbians because of pressure from the ultra-crazy American Family Association (AFA) and other fundamentalist extremists. Now they have uncovered evidence that the AFA based its case against gays on psuedo-scientific data created by an organization listed as a “hate group” by the Southern Law and Poverty Center (SLPC).

“It is tragic that Ford ‘values’ a lifestyle which is harmful to so many, and leads to an early death. The average lifetime for a practicing homosexual is in the lower 40’s. Ford equates homosexual relationships with marriage.”
-AFA, citing fake data on longevity of gay people

What is worse than the AFA using such shoddy, discredited propaganda is the fact that executives at Ford were either complicit with the AFA, or they were incredibly gullible and naive (which might explain the downward slide of American auto manufacturing over the past 30 years).

Readers of AmericaBlog found an action alert about homosexuality from the AFA that was based on false data developed by Paul Cameron, head of the hate group, the Family Research Institute. Now the question is, did Ford use the AFA data – which the SLPC says “echoes Nazi Germany” – in its use the fake data to influence decision to pull its advertising from gay magazines and events:

1. FORD MUST COME CLEAN ABOUT NAZI-ESQUE SCIENCE

We now know the AFA used Nazi-esque “science” in 2002 to try influence Ford, and may very well have used that Nazi-esque science in its ongoing communications with Ford this year. Ford must immediately come clean as to whether any Nazi-esque anti-gay science was discussed in any of its secret meetings, phone calls and communications with the AFA. And more importantly, Ford must immediately disclose whether its decision to drop the gay ads and events was in any way based on its consideration of this hate group’s science that “echoes Nazi Germany.”

Specifically, the AFA is using Paul Cameron’s fake “study” in which he determines that gay men die by the age of 40. I’m serious. (Cameron simply read the obituaries of gay men in gay publications in 1993, then averaged the age of death – really.) The AFA literally cited the results of this study in their action alert – I’ve been following Cameron’s “research” and the religious right’s use of him for the past 13 years.

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