Day: November 15, 2006

Marines Reject Preaching Jesus

Trish

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a talking Jesus doll. Or not.

“We can’t take a chance on sending a talking Jesus doll to a Jewish family or a Muslim family.”

A talking Jesus doll has been turned down by the Marine Reserves’ Toys for Tots program.

A Los Angeles company offered to donate 4,000 of the 1-foot-tall dolls, which quote Bible verses, for distribution to needy children this holiday season…

Toys are donated to kids based on financial need and “we don’t know anything about their background, their religious affiliations,” said Bill Grein, vice president of Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, in Quantico, Virginia.

As a government entity, Marines “don’t profess one religion over another,” Grein said Tuesday. “We can’t take a chance on sending a talking Jesus doll to a Jewish family or a Muslim family.”

…According to the company’s Web site, the button-activated, bearded Jesus, dressed in hand-sewn cloth outfits and sandals, recites Scripture such as “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again”

Whoa! Forget that new PlayStation. Give me a talking Jesus for Christmas!

Quote du Lott 2002

Jon Ponder

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”
— Sen. Trent Lott on Dec. 5, 2002, at 100th birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was the presidential nominee of the segregationist Dixiecrat Party in 1948

Welcome Back, Alice

Jon Ponder

Our friend Alice at 10,000 Monkeys & a Camera missed the election because of a family tragedy. Our thoughts have been with her, and we’re glad to see she’s back and moving again.

Our thoughts have also been with Mike Ostroy at the Ostroy Report, whose wife, the actress Adrienne Shelley, was murdered in her home office in the West Village on Nov. 1. The Ostroy Report has been dark since the tragedy occurred, but we’re hoping Mike will return to fight the good fight as soon as he feels able.

Finally, I have to acknowledge the passing of Richard Nagle, an old pal of mine and Page’s, and husband of our old pal, Nancy Rhyne. Richard died suddenly Friday night in Charlotte of a heart attack at the ripe young age of 51. He was as funny and smart as they come, and his passing is a huge loss to everyone but the fish along the shore of the Outer Banks.

Wave of New Populists Could Return the South to the Dems

Jon Ponder
What the Old Media seems reluctant to point out is that the return of liberal populist politicians to the government suggests a pendulum swing back from the corporatist governments of the last four presidents in favor of the liberal populism advocated by Pres. Jimmy Carter.

The hallmark of the conservative agenda over the past quarter century has been the ceding of power and resources from the government to corporations. The election last week may signal a reverse course away from corporatism toward a brand of liberal populism that has been out of favor since the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Populist themes that resonated with voters this year included raising the minimum wage, slowing the transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas, making healthcare affordable, ending corruption of elected officials by lobbyists for corporate interests and the stopping the rise of undocumented immigration and its perceived strain on local economies and social services.

Even the conduct of the Iraq war, with the unprecedented outsourcing of war operations to Halliburton and its subsidiaries, has played into the idea that Republicans are hellbent on handing the government over to Big Business.

[…]

GOP Hypocrisy Blows the Top Off the Bottle with Martinez Appointment

Trish

The Republican attack on Florida governor candidate U.S. Rep. Jim Davis consisted of slamming him for campaigning. A TV ad was played nonstop for weeks, depicting an empty chair whizzing around Washington, while a Florida tourist family (with vaguely Ohioan accents) trails behind. “Do you think we’ll see him next time, Dad?” the son asks. “I don’t know, son. I just don’t know.”

Martinez was chosen in large part because he’s Cuban, and the Republicans did almost as badly with Latino voters this time as they did with African-Americans

Davis missed votes, we were told. He was too busy with politics to do the work we sent him to Washington to do. Wonder if the GOP will be trotting those ads out in 2008, when Florida Sen. Mel Martinez is running the Republican National Committee?

Doubt it. Predictably, Martinez’s split shift workday is being hailed not as a callous ditching of responsibility, as was Davis’s campaigning, but a big ol’ plus for Florida.

“It’s awesome for Florida. It says a great deal about this state and its strength,” said Republican Party of Florida chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan.

…Martinez, who will keep his Senate seat, will bring that much more attention to a state that is already considered to be a top prize in presidential politics.

Oh come on. Martinez was chosen in large part because he’s Cuban, and the Republicans did almost as badly with Latino voters this time as they did with African-Americans. While 8 percent of all voters were Latino, only 26 percent to 42 percent (it’s an estimate) of them voted Repug.

…Florida Democrats noted that their party won the Hispanic vote in last week’s election for the first time in three decades.

“This reflects the renewed emphasis by Democrats in using multimedia communications to win support from the fastest growing community in the United States, as well as Hispanic support for finding real solutions to raising the minimum wage, affordable health care and the war in Iraq,” said Florida Democratic Party executive director Luis Navarro in a statement.

It also shows Republicans are doing something wrong.

Mel was one of the chairs of the Bush campaign in 2000, helping Katherine Harris in her strategy to keep the votes from being accurately counted. He has been consistently rewarded for his nefarious deeds while Harris has been treated like the embarrassment she is.

But at least one analyst noticed Mel already had a job when he took on his new one.

…the duel role will be difficult, said [Poltical Scientist Matthew] Corrigan.

“Being a senator is a full-time job, so is taking on the RNC. I think it is a serious challenge,” he said. “How he balances those roles is an important question.”

It’s also a question not nearly enough people are asking.

Oklahoma’s Draconian Anti-Gay Adoption Law Is Under Review

Jon Ponder
This is a window into the American Taliban mindset: Punishing gay people is worth the effort at any cost, even if it means taking children away from their parents and returning them to orphanages.

A federal appeals court in Colorado is reviewing a two-year-old Oklahoma law that not only prohibits gays from adopting children in the state but invalidates adoptions by gays in other states if the families were to move to Oklahoma:

In May a lower court struck down the law in a 31 page ruling that was highly critical of the state legislature for passing the measure.

The Adoption Invalidation Law, hastily passed at the end of the 2004 Oklahoma legislative session, had said that Oklahoma “shall not recognize an adoption by more than one individual of the same sex from any other state or foreign jurisdiction.”

Lambda Legal, representing same-sex couples took the state to court, calling the law so extreme it had the potential to make children adopted by same-sex couples in other states legal orphans when the families are in Oklahoma.

“The very fact that the adoptions have occurred is evidence that a court of law has found the adoptions to be in the best interests of the children,” wrote U. S. District Judge Robin Cauthron.

“To now attempt to strip a child of one of his or her parents seems far removed from the statute’s purpose and therefore from [the state’s] asserted important government objective.”

This is a window into the American Taliban mindset: Punishing gay people is worth the effort at any cost, even if it means taking children away from their parents and returning them to orphanages.