Year: 2005

Gov. Conan Girds for Battle, Ready to ‘Kick Butts’

Jon Ponder

The most peculiar thing about state politics here in California is that the local news media has abdicated any serious role it may have had in reporting on the issues. Sure, the local stations will host debates among politicians, but not if they are scheduled to interfere with the primetime line up. During the actual nightly newscasts, politics are rarely mentioned because the topic bores viewers and cuts into coverage of today’s car chase or drive-by shooting.

This works tremendously in favor of someone like Gov. Schwarzenegger who has free access – not just to the national media – but to its most popular sector: the entertainment media. If there was a moment that won the election for him last time, it was his appearance on “Oprah,” where his friend the talk show host lodged a bunch of softball questions toward Arnold and Maria. No surprise that questions about groping or call girls never came up.

That’s what we can expect in the coming debate about Schwarzenegger’s “reforms” of the state government. When the going gets tough, he’ll appear on “Entertainment Tonight” and call his opponents names. Unfortunately, this appeals to a large sector of Californians, mostly men, who rarely vote but who love “The Terminator.” This trivialization of politics would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.

From the Washington Post today:

Critics say the governor is avoiding the budget deficit, and even some of his allies question why he decided to take on so many fights. Schwarzenegger said he was elected “to create reform, to fix the problem, fix the broken system,” not to move slowly. “Remember the greatest things that you can accomplish, the more risks you take,” he said. “It’s directly related to risk. Everything like this — investments and everything else. If you’re willing to take risks, then the upside can be spectacular.”

Schwarzenegger has roused widespread opposition. Now when he travels the state, in addition to crowds of enthusiastic supporters, he is met with protesters: nurses, teachers, firefighters, police and correctional officers, PTA leaders. Schwarzenegger labels them all special interests and inflamed matters when he dismissed the protests of nurses at a women’s event last December. “The special interests don’t like me in Sacramento because I am always kicking their butts,” he said.

Everybody Loses

Trish

O.K., I know we’re all sick of the subject, but an excellent column by Lucy Morgan of the St. Petersburg Times talks about how hard it is to be a “moderate” Republican when the wingnuts rule.

What ever happened to that Republican “big tent” that was supposed to welcome those with differing ideas?

Some members of the Florida Senate are questioning where the tent went and why they are being made to feel like lepers by the Christian right wing.

Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, and eight others were the targets of extreme pressure over the past week…

Democrats often say the GOP is in the hands of extremists. The Schiavo case supports that notion.

Instead of winning support for a bill aimed at restoring Schiavo’s feeding tube, many protesters angered senators who were bombarded with obscene telephone calls and death threats…

Jeb only made things worse for all concerned when he impotently hinted he might have the Department of Children and Families finish the job Bo Gritz started.

[Jeb] Bush didn’t do himself a favor when he said he believes he has the authority to seize custody of Schiavo and provide her with treatment…

Finally Bush surfaced briefly Thursday afternoon to say he would not violate court orders that have denied the state access to Schiavo.

By then it was too late to silence the clamor that was rising among vociferous protesters outside the Capitol.

Loudest among them was Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry, who said “there will be hell to pay” if Bush doesn’t intervene.

Somewhere in all of this the rule of law must prevail, or we are all lost. Bush’s brief flirtation with taking the law into his own hands was a serious mistake that could cost the GOP for years to come.

In the short term, a backlash is taking shape. But memories tend to be even shorter.

One by one, Republicans around the state began announcing: “Enough.”

“I am a longstanding registered, voting Republican, but after watching this disgusting display, I am gone,” wrote Ray Snyder of Crawfordville in a letter to the editor in the Tallahassee Democrat Friday. “I see the dark ages of the Inquisition being born again. Someone needs a large dose of sanity and common sense, but it may already be too late.”

Asked about the impact of the case on the GOP, Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, says he thinks there will be some temporary backlash but voters will have forgotten by the next election…

No one wins. And once again Florida looks incredibly stupid.

Grass Roots Org Counters Rightwing Pressure on the FCC

Jon Ponder

Washington Post:

A California woman has launched a Web site, www.speakspeak.org, meant to counter what she calls the excessive influence of anti-indecency groups, such as the Parents Television Council (PTC), that flood the government with complaints designed to spur fines against radio and television broadcasters.

Speakspeak Website:

Fighting indecency complaints, fighting groups like the Parents Television Council, doesn’t mean you’re advocating for prime-time smut. It doesn’t mean your a pervert. It doesn’t mean you hate America.

It means you believe in free speech. It means you know how to turn your television off. It means you don’t want a group of mobilized politicos to determine what is or isn’t suitable entertainment for you and your family.

In 2004, the FCC fined broadcasters over $8 million for indecency violations. But in recent months, the FCC denied over 40 indecency complaints filed by groups like the Parents Television Council.

In order to give life to this trend of sensible action on the part of the FCC, you need to speak up.

If you don’t, who will?

It takes approximately 42 seconds.

Click here for information on sending a letter to the FCC or your senator advocating the protection of free speech on television.

GOP Schiavo Judge Agrees to Quit Church

Jon Ponder

Over the five years that Pinellas County, Fl., Circuit Judge George Greer has had the Terri Shiavo matter on his docket, he has consistently ruled in favor of ending the young woman’s suffering. It isn’t surprising that these rulings have enraged fantasists on the right who believe Terri’s liquified brain parts might be healed one day. Judge Greer is now under the protection of armed guards, and friends say his family also is protected.

What is surprising is that Judge Greer is hardly the liberal activist judge often described by corrupt conservative pundits and pols on cable news shows. In fact, Greer is a rockribbed Republican, a former county commissioner, and Southern Baptist by faith. Or rather he was a Southern Baptist until last week when antipathy toward Greer in his home church forced him to quit the congregation, reportedly with the assent of his pastor. Sounds like very un-Christlike behavior at the Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida.

Culture of Lies & Hypocrisy

Jon Ponder

From the Los Angeles Times: Turns out Tom DeLay “murdered” his own father in the same way his supporters say Michael Schiavo and his henchmen on Florida bench are “murdering” Michael’s permanently incapcitated wife, Terri.

Sixteen years ago, as a result of household accident, Charles Ray DeLay lay in a coma, kept alive by intravenous lines and oxygen equipment. Faced with the prospect of his father living in a vegetative state for who knew how long, Tom DeLay, who was in his third term in Congress, faced a difficult decision.

[Today] DeLay is among the strongest advocates of keeping [Terri Schiavo], who doctors say has been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, connected to her feeding tube. DeLay has denounced Schiavo’s husband, as well as judges, for committing what he calls “an act of barbarism” in removing the tube. In 1988, however, there was no such fiery rhetoric as the congressman quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die.

“His father wouldn’t have wanted to live that way,” says Tom DeLay’s 81-year-old mother today. DeLay’s aunt says doctors advised that he would “basically be a vegetable.”

When his father’s kidneys failed, the DeLay family decided against connecting him to a dialysis machine. “Extraordinary measures to prolong life were not initiated,” said his medical report, citing “agreement with the family’s wishes.” His bedside chart carried the instruction: “Do not resuscitate.”

On Dec. 14, 1988, the DeLay patriarch “expired with his family in attendance.”

And there’s more. The DeLays sued the manufacturer of the equipment that they said had caused Charles Ray’s accident. DeLay is a noted critic of “frivolous lawsuits” and “predatory, self-serving litigation.”

Ohio Gay Marriage Ban Backfires in Domestic Violence Cases

Jon Ponder

Planet Out:

A second judge in Cleveland has agreed that the state’s new constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage also weakens the state’s domestic violence statute.

On Thursday, Cleveland Municipal Judge Lauren C. Moore ruled that a man accused of physically abusing his live-in girlfriend could not be charged with domestic violence, because of Issue 1, which voters approved last fall. That amendment to Ohio’s constitution says the state cannot give legal status to unmarried couples.

Moore’s ruling came one day after another Cuyahoga County judge reached the same conclusion. In that case, where a man was also charged with striking his girlfriend, Judge Stuart Friedman reduced a felony domestic violence charge to a charge of misdemeanor assault.

Ironically, while Issue 1 was designed to deny legal status to same-sex couples, the vague wording of the amendment is now affecting heterosexual couples, as evidenced by the two judges’ rulings.

Did Jeb Call Out his Goons to Kidnap Terri?

Jon Ponder

I tried to get this from the Miami Herald site this morning but my online registration had expired so I had to re-up, which took a very long time. When I was done, I still couldn’t log in. So here it is via Talking Points Memo:

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted — but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge’s order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called “a showdown.”

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

“We told them that unless they had the judge with them when they came, they were not going to get in,” said a source with the local police.

“The FDLE called to say they were en route to the scene,” said an official with the city police who requested anonymity. “When the sheriff’s department and our department told them they could not enforce their order, they backed off.”

Young Conservatives Held “Immigrant Hunt”

Jon Ponder

Asian Week:

When a branch of the Young Conservatives of Texas held “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” at the University of North Texas, it predictably upset many students of color. The game involved “catching” other members posing as illegal immigrants and winning candy-bar prizes for their efforts.

Students at the University of Texas, Austin wanted to make sure that the same thing would not happen on their campus, said Stephen Torres, student director of the university’s Multicultural Information Center. “We wanted to be preventative,” he said. “We didn’t want the YCTs to get away with this again.”

Torres and company were successful. Learning of the massive protest against an “Immigrant Hunt,” the Young Conservatives at UT Austin called off an event planned for March 2. About 350 Latino, Asian American, black American and white American students went ahead with the protest at UT Austin’s main mall. Holding up signs reading “Hate is not Activism” in multiple languages, the protesters included 30 Latino groups, one South Asian American sorority, and many individual students and community members.

Wingnut Puts a Bounty on Michael Schiavo

Jon Ponder

CNN reports that a western “North Carolina man was arrested Friday by FBI agents on charges of soliciting the murder of a judge and the husband of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a legal and moral tug of war.” Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview, North Carolina, offered a $250,000 bounty for the killing of Michael Schiavo and a $50,000 for executing Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who ordered Schiavo’s feeding tube removed a week ago.

Notice that the librul media never refers to nutcases like this as “violent religious extremists” or similar. I guess you have to be Muslim to wear that label.

(Fairview is just a few miles from the old homeplace. Hope we’re not related to this guy!)

Death Threats for Inventor of “Fox Blocker”

Jon Ponder

Sam Kimery is the proud inventor of a device that rids your television of Fox News infestations. “Fox Blocker” is a small silver device that attaches to the back of the TV. Once installed – poof! – no more Hannity, O’Reilly, Shep or those three yokels in the morning who look like they’re doing a local news in Des Moines.

Sales have been slow, so far. Kimery, a former GOP precinct captain from Tulsa, has only sold about 100 units. This doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a lot of interest in Fox Blocker, however. Kimery says he has received “thousands of e-mails, both angry and complimentary — as well as a few death threats.

“‘Apparently the making of terroristic threats against those who don’t share your views is a high art form among a certain core audience,’ said Kimery, 45.”

The reaction of the Fox official who commented on the story is classic: “The channel’s [high] ratings speak for themselves.” Meaning: We’re popular. So that fact that we’re no better than Tass, the Kremlin’s propaganda channel back in the Soviet days, is irrelevant.

Order yours today – www.foxblocker.com