Tag: Conservative Values

More Questions About Rove Exorcism

Trish

Cousin Jon beat me to this newser but I still have to add my two cents’ worth.

I was going to say it would be funny if you could just ignore the other parts.

Rove, the Bush political shaman Democrats love to demonize, enlisted a trio of clergymen to exorcise Hillary Rodham Clinton’s left-wing spirit when he moved into her West Wing office in 2001…

“I talked to Karl; he said it’s not true and, beyond that, he will have no comment,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said…

Deal Hudson, a former Fordham University professor Rove enlisted to woo Catholic voters, told Moore and Slater that he witnessed the exorcism, which he described as “an actual liturgical ceremony.”

Other parts: Is this what actual leaders of organized “mainstream” religions do?

Does Rove honestly fear other people — in this case, Hillary Clinton — and believe them able to hurt him through their leftover “vibes”?

If was just an attempt to be cute, can Rove and his “actual liturgical cohorts” be more cynical or blasphemous than to invoke God’s protection against someone who only happens to hold differing views?

Gay Son, Unwed-Mother Daughter Campaign Against Wingnut Dad Randall Terry

Trish

Things are getting good in a Florida state senate race that’s coming down to the wire on Tuesday. Anti-abortion zealot Randall Terry is running against moderate Republican incumbent Jim King to represent much of Northeast Florida.

Terry’s family values include divorce and remarriage to a younger wife and abandoning fatherhood when children disappoint you

Two of Terry’s children are coming forward to offer some reality checks on their dad, whose family values include divorce and remarriage to a younger wife and abandoning fatherhood when children disappoint you.

Terry’s adopted son has inserted himself into the election – publicly criticizing his father’s claim to uphold family values as hypocritical and even offering to help his opponent.

Jamiel Terry, 26, who is gay, said he is estranged from his father because Randall Terry disapproves of his sexuality. His sister, Tila, said she is also estranged from their father because she had a child out of wedlock.

…Tila, 21, who was also adopted by Randall Terry, said she asked her father for help with her child, but he turned her down.

“He told me he couldn’t help me because he was running for office and he had his own baby on the way,” Tila Terry said.

I’ve heard that many of these anti-abortion crusaders are only interested in babies before they’re born, not after. I wonder what Tila thinks about that?

For his part, King took the high road and declined the Terry children’s offers of assistance.

“I am a father just like Randall Terry is a father, and there are things that happen in a family that are personal, and they shouldn’t have much to do with a campaign,” King said.

Terry’s low blows in the race include getting not one but two cronies to qualify as last minute write-ins, shutting non-Republicans out of the primary vote, which in this case, will decide the seat.

Bankrollers of Swiftboat Vets and McCain Smear in Trouble With the Feds

Trish

The Wyly brothers (as in Wiley Coyote) are finally being investigated for their byzantine finances. The guys who funded the smear campaign on John McCain that led to Bush’s primary victory in 2000, and more recently, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, are in trouble for evading taxes.

The Wylys represent the ultra-rich of Dallas.

They started, bought and built several successful businesses including Earth Resources, Sterling Software, Michaels Stores, the Bonanza restaurant chain and electricity supplier Green Mountain Energy…

Sam [Wyly] says they decided to pay for the attack ads because, ultimately, they back their friends.

A report released this month by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations alleged that the Wylys established the offshore trusts in the Irish Sea’s Isle of Man, a commonly used tax haven, to get around their U.S. tax obligations…

Senate investigators allege that the Wylys used the offshore trusts to buy $30 million worth of artwork, jewelry, furniture and other items for their personal use. Among the purchases: a $937,500 portrait of Ben Franklin; a $13,000 French bronze chandelier; $721,000 in official documents from Abraham Lincoln’s presidency; and a $759,000 emerald necklace.

Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who launched the investigation, said the Wylys “participated in a 13-year scam and scheme to circumvent U.S. tax, securities and anti-money laundering requirements.”

With the brothers in so many powerful back pockets, it’s surprising they needed to resort to all this.

Staunch Republicans, the Wylys have been big party donors since the Nixon presidency, personally giving about $10 million to Republican causes and candidates since the early 1970s, they say…

They’re invited to the most elite Christmas parties at the White House. They’ve spent time at Camp David. Sam [Wyly] used to motorboat on the Potomac with former President George Bush.

“George the younger kind of inherited us,” Sam said…

[…]

Harris View of the World Pisses Off Jews, Other Non-Christians, Christians, Democrats, Republicans, Gays, Straights, and Model Airplane Enthusiasts

Trish

Florida Jews and other non-Chrisitians are expressing outrage at U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who recently stated that only the twice-born are fit to hold office.

Since He chooses our rulers, He chose Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton as surely as He chose Katherine herself. God sounds a little conflicted.

As PR Editor Buck noted, statements by Harris published in the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist Convention surpassed even her own unmatched record of looniness. Others are starting to agree.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she was “disgusted” by the comments “and deeply disappointed in Rep. Harris personally.”Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, “clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a Representative . . .”

State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, demanded an apology, saying the statements were “outrageous, even by her standards.

“What is going through this woman’s mind?” said Slosberg. “We do not live in a theocracy.”

…Ahmed Bedier, the Central Florida Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said he was “appalled that a person who’s been in politics this long would hold such extreme views.”

Bedier said most Christians would find such comments “shameful.”

…The criticism was not limited to Democrats.

Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris’ remarks “were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican.”

“To me, it’s the height of hubris,” said Brooks, a former Largo Republican Club president and former member of the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee.

And Jillian Hasner, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said: “I don’t think it’s representative of the Republican Party at all. Our party is much bigger and better than Katherine Harris is trying to make it.”

What did Harris say to get everyone so upset? It’s best to read it for yourself. […]

GOP’s ‘Average’ Joe Scarborough Turns on Bush

Jon Ponder

Nothing Joe Scarborough, the former Gingrichite GOP congressman and current MSNBC Fox-News-wannabe, could ever say or do would give him credibility at this point. Still, it is interesting to note that he has joined rightwing rats like George Will and William F. Buckley in jumping off the good ship George W. Bush as it capsizes:

For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether “George Bush’s mental weakness is damaging America’s credibility at home and abroad.” For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, “IS BUSH AN ‘IDIOT’?”

But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly “no.” While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: “I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don’t think he has the intellectual depth as these other people.”

Prof. Stephen Hawking: Quit Donating Organs from Dead People if Stem Cell Research is Bad

Trish

As other western countries line up to fund or not fund stem cell research, Dr. Stephen Hawking offers some words of sanity.

[Stem cell research] is morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident.

Stephen Hawking, the world’s best-known living scientist, has attacked “reactionary” forces in Europe and America who are trying to ban research into stem cells derived from human embryos…

“I strongly oppose the move to ban stem cell research funding from the European Union,” said Professor Hawking…

“Europe should not follow the reactionary lead of President Bush who recently vetoed a bill passed by Congress and supported by a majority of the American people that would have allowed federal funding for stem cell research,” he said in a statement to The Independent.

He was doing good up to last part. In fact, at least 60% of Americans support the government funding stem cell research.

…President Bush and some religious authorities, notably the Catholic Church, argue that the microscopic four-day-old embryos from which stem cells are derived are potential human lives…

But Professor Hawking dismissed these objections, saying that banning stem cells from human embryos is equivalent to opposing the use of donated organs from dead people…

“Stem cell research is the key to developing cures for degenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease from which I and many others suffer,” he said…

“The fact that the cells may come from embryos is not an objection because the embryos are going to die anyway,” Professor Hawking said.

“It is morally equivalent to taking a heart transplant from a victim of a car accident.

Good analogy. Is anyone on the Bush team listening?

Pensito Review Releases Draft of Bush Veto Signing Statement

Buck Banks

Executive power play: President George Bush today vetoed a bipartisan bill that sought to expand the limitations currently imposed on human stem cell research purportedly based on his religious beliefs. It was Bush’s first veto of a congressional bill in the five-and-a-half years of his presidency.

Instead of vetoing bills he disagrees with, Bush usually cheerfully signs them in public ceremonies that make it appear that he gets along with the legislative branch of government and even thinks it serves a useful purpose. Then, as soon as everyone leaves the room, he does a take-back via the signing statement.

A signing statement is a written proclamation issued by the executive branch that accompanies the signing of a law passed by the government’s legislature. Historically, they are mainly used for rhetorical or political proclamations, but U.S. presidents have used them to set forth how they intend the executive branch of the federal government to interpret and enforce the new law.

Pensito Review’s investigative team has uncovered what appears to be an early draft of a signing statement Bush intends to append to his veto of the stem cell bill today. Ordinarily, presidents do not attach signing statements to vetos, but it is obvious that Bush wants to extend his “take-back” powers to vetos, in case he ever does it again.

Here is what is believed to be an early draft of Bush’s veto signing statement recovered from a discarded dictaphone transcript:

As president of the United States of America, I hereby exercise my absolute power as supreme … no, strike that, … as commander and chief to determine at some time henceforth in the future … man, I like to add in those henceforths … to re-, re- … what’s that word? … oh yeah, rescind … rescind this veto of the Stem Cell Research Expansion Act and hold it not to be applicable to the executive branch except insofar as I say so.

It would be my perogative to rescind the veto as command and chief in the following circumstances: In the event that Mom or Dad, or both, or Jeb or any other close family relatives, and maybe Karl Rove, comes down with kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer or diseases of the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease, or any other illness that expanded stem cell research holds great promise for the treatment or cure of.

President Photographed Sexually Harassing German PM at G8 Summit

Jon Ponder

President Bush was on a tear at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week. While the Middle East exploded into violence that threatens to ignite a world conflict, the president was filmed eating with his mouth open — and recorded saying the s-word — with British P.M. Tony Blair, and now this photo montage has come out showing the president sexually harassing the German P.M., Angela Merkel.

I’m sure the president’s advances were okay with Merkel, however, as both she and the president are rightwingers.

Leader Boehner Follows Former Leader DeLay’s Path to K Street

Jon Ponder

House Majority Leader John Boehner never acknowledged the corruption in his party under the leadership of his predecessor, former Rep. Tom DeLay — so we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s not a reformer. But now it’s clear he’s out to make the DeLay era look, well, conservative:

Representative John A. Boehner won the job of House majority leader amid a post-Abramoff clamor for an overhaul of lobbying and ethics rules. But nearly six months later, the changes are still tied up in Congress.

And far from trying to put the brakes on lobbyists and the money they channel into Republican coffers, Mr. Boehner, who has portrayed his ties to Washington lobbyists as something to be proud of, has stepped on the gas.

He has been holding fund-raisers at lobbyists’ offices, flying to political events on corporate planes and staying at a golf resort with a business group that has a direct stake in issues before Congress.

Tapping a rich vein of longstanding relationships with lobbyists and their corporate clients, Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, has raised campaign contributions at a rate of about $10,000 a day since February, surpassing the pace set by former Representative Tom DeLay after he became majority leader in 2002, a review of federal filings shows.

His fund-raising pace is roughly twice what it was before he became majority leader in February; in April his two federal committees took in $334,500 from political action committees, a monthly take that Mr. DeLay did not match for more than two years after the elections in 2002.

Mr. Boehner’s biggest donors include the political action committees of lobbying firms, drug and cigarette makers, banks, health insurers, oil companies and military contractors. Seven American Indian tribes with casinos have contributed $32,000.

Jeb Keeps Picking Loser Christians

Trish

Jeb Bush might be wondering how the godly could get him in so much trouble. First he had to call for the resignation of his appointee as secretary of the Department of Corrections after a string of scandals that make former FEMA head Michael Brown look like he really DID a heck of a job.

“I need political influence in order to obtain the things that I think that I need to obtain for the Lord, Jesus Christ”

Under James Crosby’s DOC, Floridians have watched steroid abuse among prison guards while they lived in state housing and pilfered state supplies and vehicles; rapes of female inmates; fatal beatings of a prisoner in 1999 and a teenage boot camper this year; kickbacks from privatized prison vendors; and an investigation by the FBI.

But Jeb said when he explained to Crosby earlier this year that things must calm down soon or else he would need his resignation, the man was downright pious.

“If you’ve done something wrong, tell me now and I’ll ask for your resignation,” Bush recounted his talk with Crosby. “Lead or get out of the way. This is an important department.”

Crosby said he wanted to pray about it and discuss it with his family.

Aw, isn’t that nice? What a guy. Crosby surrendered yesterday in Jacksonville, citing alcohol abuse as the reason for his rotten-to-the-core leadership. He faces eight years in prison and the loss of his state pension.

But that’s not the only area where things have gone south for Jeb and the lordly. We recently reported that the Rev. O’Neal Dozier, Jeb’s man in the black Republican community, was in trouble for making slurs about Islam on the radio. Now the gov has asked for his resignation from his Jeb-appointed post on the judicial nominating committee of Broward County.

[Dozier’s] views, criticized by Muslims, will mean his political involvement may be less influential, which he sees as a regrettable consequence to his primary mission.

“I need political influence in order to obtain the things that I think that I need to obtain for the Lord, Jesus Christ,” he said Tuesday, two days after turning in his resignation…

“If you look at the Quran, all the way from the beginning to the end it speaks of evil and violence,” Dozier said.

And so, you see, in that respect it differs starkly from the Bible, which does not have a blood sacrifice, war, stoning, salt-turning, plague, crucifixion, or four riders of the apocalypse on every other page. But there’s a bigger lesson for Dozier, according to Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“He might take a look at his Bible again and see what Jesus what would do in these circumstances,” Hooper said. “I doubt that Jesus, peace be upon him, would seek to increase divisions and hostilities in the society in which he lived. Jesus preached love and respect, not hatred and mistrust.”