LOS ANGELES, Sept. 22 (UPI) — Film director David Zucker says conservatives are so uncomfortable in Hollywood that being a Republican is "the new gay."
"You sort of feel like you have to hide it," Zucker — director of "Airplane!," "Top Secret" and "The Naked Gun" — told EW.com. "When you meet, you give each other a secret look, ‘Are you a Republican, too?’ It’s the new gay."
OKLAHOMA CITY — Democrat Andrew Rice has a divinity degree and has worked as a missionary, but he is being called to account over social values in his Senate race against Republican incumbent Jim Inhofe, who is known for tough campaign tactics.
An Inhofe ad being carried on Oklahoma television stations contains anti-gay overtones, showing a wedding cake topped by two plastic grooms and a photo of Rice as a young man, curly haired and wearing a leather jacket.
Inhofe said the ad is accurate. He pointed to news stories that Rice, before he became a state senator in 2006, founded a group that opposed a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriages.
Ask the Old Gay to show you around the place Zucker… You might recognize the brand name on some of the furnishings…
Preserving Traditional Marriage
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages” licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.
– From the 2008 Republican Party Platform
Esprit and cohesion are necessary for military effectiveness and success on the battlefield. To protect our servicemen and women and ensure that America’s Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture, and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.
– From the 2008 Republican Party Platform
Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values
Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.
– From the 2008 Texas Republican Party Platform.
The New Gay is it? The New Gay? Rot in Hell Zucker. Go fuck yourself with a Big Tent. Republicans have turned the lives of gay Americans into a scorched earth battleground. They pushed anti same sex marriage amendments in swing states, turning gay Americans into second class citizens because they knew voting for president Nice Job Brownie might not be enough to drive their grassroots to the polls. They’ve been using the lives of gay Americans as a baseball bat to smack democrats over the head with ever since Antia Bryant showed them how well the issue played at the polls. So you and your fellow republicans are…uncomfortable…in the glamorous Hollywood social scene are you? How painful that must be sometimes…
Allegations of a sixteen-year-old high-school student beating another because he was perceived as gay have shaken up a small Kansas town.
Police officers in the small town of Tribune, Kansas – population 800 – responded to a report of an intruder at the home of a sixteen-year-old student. When they arrived they found the teen was badly beaten and his attacker had fled.
Dustin Myers was arrested Sunday and charged with attempted murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed explosive, reports the Hutchinson News Online.
Authorities say that after hearing rumors that his classmate was gay, Myers went to his home with a small explosive device with the intention of killing the teenager.
Jenna, one of the victims who requested that South End News withhold her name for safety reasons, said that she and her friends heard a group of men shouting at them from a parked white sedan. The four friends, who were walking home from a night of clubbing at the Roxy, kept walking, but before long, the four men got out of their car and started coming towards them.
According to Jenna, the perpetrators said, "Fuck you, your fucking friends are faggots," before punching her in the face. When two of her friends came to her aid, two the attackers began beating and kicking them in the face, repeatedly yelling, "Fuck you, faggots."
NEW YORK – A fugitive has been convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of a gay man on a New York City street in 2001.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says John McGhee was convicted Wednesday. He says McGhee fled to London after 35-year-old Edgar Garzon died on Sept. 4, 2001, of injuries suffered in a street assault.
Garzon was attacked after leaving a gay bar in Queens on Aug. 15, 2001. Trial testimony showed the victim and McGhee had exchanged words before the assault.
On Thursday, a judge upheld the first-degree murder charge against the man accused in the July 16 bludgeoning death of 18-year-old transgender woman Angie Zapata, née Justin.
Allen Ray Andrade, 31, faces various felony charges in Zapata’s death. Public defender Annette Kundelius argued that the murder charge should be reduced to second-degree, saying that Andrade was driven to kill Zapata after she smiled at him, saying "I’m all woman," after he discovered her male genitals.
"At best, this is a case about passion," Kundelius said. "When [Zapata] smiled at him, this was a highly provoking act, and it would cause someone to have an aggressive reaction."
Phone calls between Andrade and his girlfriend show anti-gay bias and disregard, though he did acknowledge making "a mistake." "All gay things need to die," Andrade said in one conversation, adding that there was "no use crying over spilled milk" in trying to put the murder behind him.
All gay things need to die… Sorry to hear that it’s hard to be a republican in Hollywood Zucker. Try being a gay teenager in Kansas during an election year you gutter crawling maggot.
Damn…and I used to like some of your comedies too. Especially Airplane. But you just stopped being funny. You’re really just an asswipe aren’t you? And asswipe comedy has its own special flavor…
Zucker and some of his fellow Hollywood Republicans — including Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper — collaborated on the upcoming movie, "An American Carol" EW.com characterized the movie as "Hollywood’s first unabashedly right-wing comedy."
"An American Carol" — written by Zucker, Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman — is the story of an anti-American filmmaker who tries to abolish the July Fourth holiday, and is visited by the ghosts of famous Americans who try to get him to drop his plan.
Dickens would have ripped you and your republican fat cats a new one Zucker. Oh…wait…he did…in that story of his you’re plagiarizing for laughs…
"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I’m very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can’t go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides-excuse me-I don’t know that."
"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.
"It’s not my business," Scrooge returned. "It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
And a bit more emphatically…
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Scrooge hung his head to hear his wn words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.
"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child."
…
"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!"
"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. "Look here."
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.
"They are Man’s," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
So let me get this straight Zucker… You’re going to take A Christmas Carol and turn it into a right wing comedy. About an "anti American" (that would be a liberal and/or democrat…right Zucker?) film maker who wants to abolish the Forth of July. Oh Ha ha ha… And Republican is the new Gay. They say that all comedy holds within it a nugget of pain. But watching a man rot away from the inside isn’t funny.
The facts are hard to dispute; indeed, the historical record is now so stark that diehard Republicans are probably starting to wonder if there is a curse…. Democrats have outperformed Republicans by almost any measure of economic achievement (GDP growth per capita, unemployment, inflation, budget deficits)…. Thanks to the profligacy of the current administration… average Federal spending as a fraction of GDP… under Republican Presidents now exceeds that under Democrats over the measured period…. The pattern holds up when the span of historical analysis is extended farther back in time… using stock returns to measure economic performance…. (Data are available on my web page, at http://econ.jhu.edu/people/ccarroll/opinion/CapitalismAndSkepticism.)
An economist’s natural inclination is to say that there’s no point in pondering why Republican performance has been so dismal, because the question cannot be answered with the rigor demanded by professional respectability. But as the tenure of George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush shudders to a calamitous close, history seems to require that we try to give an answer.
That answer can’t be found by drilling down (so to speak) into the specific policy proposals of the two parties, which over the years have evolved in ways too arbitrary to permit any meaningful generalization. Nor are there any clearly identifiable differences in doctrine that should translate into a reasonable expectation of better economic performance under one party or the other….
Maybe capitalism works better when its excesses are restrained by skeptics than when true-believers are writing, interpreting, judging, and executing the rules…. Maybe… capitalism works better when it is being held accountable to some external standard…. [F]or better or worse, the defining manifesto of the latter part of the age was Milton Friedman’s Capitalism And Freedom. But that book’s power derived partly from its fierce independence from the orthodoxies of its time…. The book for the new epoch has not been written yet, but I have a proposed title: Capitalism and Skepticism…
I think what needs to be understood here is that the true-believers are merely the useful idiots. Yes, the republicans are awful for the economy. But so what. But they’re great for the billionaires. Look at it this way: under democrats blue collar workers and the middle class grow and prosper. Big business does well, but its CEOs don’t generally become super rich. They still get rich, just not buy entire third world countries rich. Under republicans, unions are busted, the middle class shrinks and many businesses, large and small, suffer. However, many other folks become fabulously wealthy. Even as the companies they once ran go belly up, and their investors loose their shirts, these people shoot into the ranks of the fabulously wealthy. You have to figure that from their perspective, things worked out just fine.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and the fabulously wealthy may be a lot of things, but they’re not crazy. If they keep supporting the republican party despite its pretty consistant track record of wreaking the economy, there’s probably a reason for that. A healthy economy really only benefits the blue collar and middle classes. The uber rich need neither a healthy economy nor a healthy democracy to get even richer. In point of fact, healthy economies and healthy democracies usually get in their way.
Chutzpa: Conducting state business via your personal email account to get around state government email retention policies, then complaining that your privacy was violated when hackers uncover your little scheme.
Priceless: You support Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.
It seems the Post’s Karen DeYoung isn’t buying Randy Scheunemann’s line that McCain wasn’t confused just hardcore (from an online chat this morning) …
McCain seemed sort of foggy in the interview, much of which was about U.S. relations with Latin American baddies Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Then interviewer asked about Zapatero and McCain seemed to be winging it, appearing to think that Zapatero was the leader of someplace in Latin America and reciting the same rote answer as for the others about not meeting with leaders who don’t support freedom and the U.S.
Meanwhile, Joe Klein thinks it’s not such a hot idea to put "a chill in the relationship with one of our NATO allies simply because McCain misheard a question."
Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder gave Randy Scheunemann another bite at the apple after it became clear that McCain said precisely the opposite in April of what Scheunemann says he intended to say yesterday. Saith Schuenemann …
In this week’s interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries. It’s called keeping youtr options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publically committed to meeting some of the world’s worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office.
So saying he might meet with Zapatero might amount to making "reckless promises to meet America’s adversaries"? It’s not easy being as deep in a hole as Randy is at the moment. But America’s adversaries? He might want to take a glance back at the NATO charter, which of course commits the United States to treating any attack on Spain as an attack on America. He’s really willing to create a diplomatic incident just to avoid admitting that McCain got confused about what he was being asked. On the other hand, I guess Randy’s nonchalance about binding NATO treating obligations puts his insistence on getting Georgia into NATO into a rather different light.
Ya Think? Read the Newsweek story for a taste of what government will be like under Dubya II…
In fairness to McCain, the reporter has a strong accent and sped through Zapatero’s name. After displaying a detailed grasp of his subject matter for three minutes, McCain suddenly goes Sarah Palin, giving generic talking points about being willing to meet with friends, then he goes off on what seems to be a tangent: "And by the way, President Calderon of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we are now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan, and I intend to move forward these relations and invite as many of them as I can of those leaders to the White House. "
That last bit about inviting as many Mexican leaders as possible to the White House seems to be the key. The guess here is that McCain didn’t catch the question, heard "Zapatero," mistook it for "Zapatista," and thought it was a question about Mexican politics. Hence the diversion to Calderon and the discussion of inviting Mexicans to the White House.
The reporter repeated the question and McCain, presumably realizing that Mexico was not the subject at hand, retreated to platitudes about standing up to those who would do us harm.
"Honestly, I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you I will establish closer relations with our friends and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America," he said. "I know how to do both."
She tried again.
Again, I don’t [he seems on the verge of saying he doesn’t know who she’s talking about]—all I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not, and that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region.
The hemisphere? Latin America? The entire region? She tries again: "But what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain."
This is where McCain should have laughed and said, "Spain? How funny—I misheard you." Then, he should have spouted his Spain talking point. But he plodded on:
"I am willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy, and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
(One would think that our NATO ally is with us on those principles and philosophy, but the Spanish did cut and run in Iraq, so you never know.)
All of this would be recoverable if the McCain campaign came out and said: "The reporter had an accent, he had a cellphone, it was simple case of miscommunication. Of course Senator McCain doesn’t think that Spain might wish the United States harm."
But here’s what Sheunemann told the Post:
"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain’s willingness to meet Zapatero (and ID’d him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," he said in an e-mail.
So…John McCain isn’t sure whether Spain is an ally or an adversary?
Of course not. That kind of thing is something only the Reality Based Community obsesses about…
Breunthor:so, what does this mean for me personally? I suck with big picture scenarios
Have you heard about the Hadron collider that could tear a hole in reality and end the world? Like that, except in your 401k. That’s the way it’s been explained to me.
Gold went up from around $783 to $862 today. Maybe I should hold on to my gold after all. I was going to sell it to pay off some debt. Maybe right now is not the time…
The Down Jones Industrial Index is now lower then it was the week Bush took office…
But you know what? Even allowing that he may not have actually won either election fair and square, enough people voted for him that it was close enough to steal. If the economy is in a mess now, it’s because enough Americans decided that this spoiled rich man’s kid who failed at everything he ever put his hands to in his entire life, cheerfully knowing that either daddy or daddy’s rich friends would bail him out, was good enough for them. They didn’t want to elect a president. They wanted to elect someone who would put his thumbs in the eyes of all the people they hated. All the democrats. All the liberals. All the heathens and the dirty fucking hippies. All the uppity darkies, women, and faggots. They put a moral runt into the White House, as a way of pissing on all of them, and all the other undesirables who mistakenly thought that the American Dream belonged to them too. If they couldn’t have America all to themselves, then they might as well trash it.
Don’t think for a minute that when the misery of a broken economy reaches their own doorsteps that they’ll have second thoughts. No status or wealth or plenty could ever ease the pain of knowing that the people they despise are peacefully and contentedly living their lives as though what the gutter thinks of them doesn’t matter.
The entire financial system is practically collapsing and they’re lamenting the possibility of more regulation. I don’t think the sports/referee metaphor is perfect, but it’s probably good enough. People who prattle on about "the free market" are usually too stupid to have a clue how complicated and pervasive the "rules" had to be to to get a well-functioning modern market system: sophisticated concepts of contracts and enforcement, property rights, legal entities, proper accounting, bankruptcy, limited liability, etc… etc…, did not descend from the heavens but were, in fact, created.
Dig it. For those of you still willing to prattle on while Rome burns that regulation is the antithesis of freedom and destructive of property rights and free markets, please bear in mind that the power to enforce a contract is a kind of government regulation. And yes, as a matter of fact, government has always distinguished between good contracts and bad contracts. Like for example, if you sign a contact with a hit man to kill someone and they just run off with your money instead…no, you can’t sue them for breach of contract. If you talk a four-year old into signing over all their income for the rest of their adult lives in exchange for a nice cookie, no, you can’t enforce that one either. Which probably does bother a lot of lenders.
If you listen to these jackasses yap, yap, yapping about how evil government regulation is, and you find yourself thinking that they’re not so much arguing for limited government as anarchy, you’re almost right. Their ideal government can be summed up in two words: Money talks.
As John McCain’s manufactured "lipstick on a pig" story was taking flight last week, Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, kicked off the hour by teeing up the story. In a note to viewers that telegraphed his disdain for the lipstick controversy, he announced that during the show, he’d share his own thoughts "about how, with a troubled economy, crumbling bridges, rail and roads, a failing educational system, a war that is now going on for five years, and an uncertain American economic future, we’re sitting here talking about lipstick."
Later, he complained the story was "an insult to the intelligence of our democracy."
Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack ("It’s false. It’s ridiculous"), and they’re seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A "whopper.")
During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.
In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.
Writing on The New Republic‘s website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It’s like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it’s collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:
Reporters demolished the claim that the Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and yet the McCain campaign insolently still uses it. Writers dismantled the McCain campaign’s untrue assertion that Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig yesterday, and yet the campaign put out an audacious ad featuring the ridiculous allegation, presumably on the assumption that Real Americans don’t care what the elite press says anyway.
Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don’t care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don’t think it will matter on Election Day.
They may be right. And that’s the media’s fault. They’ve reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability — its authority — to referee the campaign.
For the past 18 months? How about for the past several decades. They absolutely hated Bill Clinton, and it wasn’t anything to do with his policies, which actually left the nation with a budget surplus and a healthy employment outlook. It wasn’t that Clinton lied about anything. It wasn’t Clinton’s character flaws. If lies and poor character were problems for the news media they’d have been all over Bush during the 2000 primaries. But they fucking worshiped him. Oh no…it was the bubba factor. Picture beltway pudit David Broder huffing that Clinton "came in and trashed the place and it wasn’t his" and then review his nearly eight years of Bush worship you see all there is to see about the news media.
Proof? Let’s go back to the pissed-off Matthews for a perfect example. Raise your hand if, in the past six months, you’ve seen an entire episode of Hardball devoted to discussing our "troubled economy," the sad state of America’s transportation infrastructure, the failings of our educational system, the never-ending war in Iraq, or the "uncertain American economic future."
Matthews claimed those are the key issues that face our country and, by implication, are what are important to this campaign. Yet Matthews hosts a cable news program that pretty much refuses to discuss those issues.
Remember, Matthews is part of the same Beltway press crowd that told news consumers Hillary Clinton’s laugh was extremely important and needed to be analyzed for clues about her true character, that John Edwards’ haircuts raised serious doubts about the man’s candidacy, and that Barack Obama’s bowling score spelled trouble on the campaign trail.
And it wasn’t that long ago that the campaign press stressed how important it was that John Kerry windsurfed and that Al Gore spent time as a politician’s kid growing up in a Washington, D.C., hotel. These were issues of paramount concern for the media.
And now they’re shocked, shocked, to discover the republicans know they can lie through their teeth and nobody cares anymore what the press has to say about it. You fuckers sold out America to the rats, and now there isn’t anyone left to speak truth to power but the grass roots bloggers and web masters that you’ve been helping the rats vilify, because you were more worried about defending your jobs more then keeping the American dream alive.
You could have seen what these people are ages ago, if you’d just cared one whit to look. Gay and lesbian Americans have been seeing it for decades. Yes they lie. Yes they don’t care who knows it. The lies aren’t meant to fool anyone. They’re war cries meant to whip themselves up for the fight. They’re the bloody flag waving in the wind. They’re spit in the enemy’s face. And the enemy is all of us…every one of us who thinks that the promise of liberty and justice for all belongs to us too. For decades your gay and lesbian neighbors have known that they hate us. For decades we have seen how that hate trumps every other value they claim to hold. Now you know they hate you too. They hate everyone who isn’t in the gutter with them. Because anyone who rises their head above the gutter reminds them of everything they are not. They want to bring it all down, so they won’t have to know what brave and decent and moral humanity looks like. You didn’t want to see it. You didn’t care enough to do your godamned job and look it squarely in the eye and call it for what it is. You cared about your jobs more then you cared about your country. You sold America out to the rats. Rot in hell.
Jeff Frankels Weblog | Views on the Economy and the World: [F]or the last 40 years, rhetoric notwithstanding, Republican presidents have pursued policies… farther removed from the ideal of good… economics than have Democratic presidents. This is especially true… [of] the textbook version…. But… it applies even to the “conservative economics” version that puts priority simply on small government. The criteria underlying this generalization about Republican presidents are:
Growth in the size of the government, as measured by employment and spending.
Lack of fiscal discipline, as measured by budget deficits.
Lack of commitment to price stability, as measured by pressure on the Fed for easier monetary policy when politically advantageous.
Departures from free trade.
Use of government powers to protect and subsidize favored special interests (such as agriculture and the oil and gas sector, among others)….
Republican presidents have since 1971 indulged in these five departures from “conservatism” to a greater extent than Democratic presidents. The name I would give to this set of departures… is neither “liberal” nor “conservative” but, rather, “illiberal”…
To which DeLong Adds:
Real conservatives take note: you will never have a party until you kill the Republican Party, and replace it with something new. You should start now, for all of our sakes.
Were there ever any "real" conservatives? Well…I guess Goldwater was one. But here’s the problem: Real or not, this is what conservative ideology gets you. Small government means no regulation of big corporations, of big money. When big corporations, and big money become more powerful then government, they will simply turn government to their own ends and that leads right back to "big government", just not big government in the people’s interest. So you end up with all the points Frankels makes above, even if you started from a sincere belief in "small government" ideology. When money becomes more powerful then the law, money inevitably becomes the law.
So. No fiscal discipline because big business doesn’t want discipline, it wants its profits and it wants them now. Fed monetary policy becomes whatever big business wants it to be at whatever moment in time it wants it to be that. Free trade is out because if big business hates anything more then regulation it’s competition. And…special interests? When you have government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich, the common folk are the special interest group. And when big business takes over the nation’s news media, it gets kinda hard to find out just how deeply the corruption has taken root. All you see, is the spectacular meltdowns. Iraq. Katrina. The Dot-Com bust. The Housing bust. How big was that deficit again?
That’s what small government ideology gets you. When money becomes more powerful then the law, money becomes the law. Anyone who seriously thought (as I did once) that the way to keep government honest and the economy strong was to cut government down to the bone should be, after decades of republican dismantling of the New Deal, if they are honest, thoroughly disabused of that notion. A government that is smaller then money will never resist the corrupting power of big money. That is what we are seeing now. The moment, the instant the regulatory boundaries were taken away, corruption began running wild. Money does not self regulate.
Some of the people pushing the small government ideology didn’t reckon on that. But probably, most of them did. They talked up free markets, but they weren’t interested in freedom. They wanted the money. It’s easier to get when the law can be bought off. You keep a market free the same way you keep the streets safe to walk at night. It takes a rule of law, backed by impartial justice. There is no safety, let alone freedom, where the police work for the crooks, upholding laws that were written by crooks, for crooks.
And one more thing: morals. The people crafting the laws we all live by need to be people who understand that stealing is wrong. That lying is wrong. That cheating is wrong. Wrong because sooner or later the bills come due, and while Jesus may forgive you, reality is a hard assed motherfucker.
In China now, they’re undergoing an upheaval in the baby formula market. Children are dying after being fed baby formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t carelessness. It wasn’t neglect. It was greed. Melamine, a chemical used in plastics, contains a concentration of proteins which make it useful for hiding the fact that the milk in baby formula has been diluted. Profits are always higher, when there is less product in the product.
Practically the minute Bush stole the 2000 election, our national news media have happily reduced themselves to stenographers, jotting down whatever comes out of the white house PR office. They cheerfully swallowed all the lies that led to the Iraq war, looked the other way as his henchmen blew the cover of a CIA agent for political revenge, and ignored one republican corruption scandal after another. The slow steady relentless erosion of our civil liberties is something the TV talking heads just can’t be bothered to pay attention too. Here’s what’s going on during the Democratic convention, via a Dave Barry column that’s both funny and sad all at once…
7:48 – Through intense effort I manage to surge maybe eight feet, where the path is blocked by a TV network that has set up a platform on the floor so its reporters can report on the convention by talking to each other with their backs to the actual convention. There is huge excitement in the surge as people catch glimpses of both Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer, who are, in this environment, the Beatles. The surgers all stop, whip out cell phones and take pictures of the backs of the heads of people who are taking pictures of the backs of the heads of people who might actually be getting direct visual shots of Anderson and Wolf. It is a lifetime convention memory.
So…reporting from the middle of the democratic convention, in the last days of one of the most destructive presidencies ever…a president who has all but publicity torn up and crapped on the bill of rights, the Geneva Convention, and Habeas Corpus among other things….most of the TV news media chatter is about…themselves. Its like the process of electing a president is all about them. Its like nothing Bush has done over the past eight years to destroy our constitution matters a whit to them.
So the following cheered me up…somewhat. Of course they’ll never do this sort of thing during the republican convention…
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker’s neck, then twisted the producer’s arm behind him to put on handcuffs.
A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.
Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.
Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.
The sheriff’s officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later, he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.
It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.
During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, "You’re lucky I didn’t knock the f..k out of you."
Eslocker was released late today after posting $500 bond.
Schedenfraude. It’s like German chocolate cake for the soul…
This from Glenn Greenwald, who is on fire here. Maybe you are aware, if not utterly disgusted, at how abjectly the democrats capitulated on telcom immunity for illegally spying on American citizens. Maybe you’re aware of how the immunity bill not only gave the telcoms immunity for illegally spying on us, but made it even easier for Bush to keep spying on us without having to bother with all that getting a warrent and other forth amendment do-wah. Maybe you’re wondering how democrats can be such absolute wusses when it comes to fighting Bush’s abuses of power. Maybe your wondering why democrats don’t really seem to care much about protecting and preserving our precious democracy. Maybe this will enlighten you…
Last night in Denver, at the Mile High Station — next to Invesco Stadium, where Barack Obama will address a crowd of 30,000 people on Thursday night — AT&T threw a lavish, private party for Blue Dog House Democrats, virtually all of whom blindly support whatever legislation the telecom industry demands and who also, specifically, led the way this July in immunizing AT&T and other telecoms from the consequences for their illegal participation in the Bush administration’s warrantless spying program. Matt Stoller has one of the listings for the party here.
Armed with full-scale Convention press credentials issued by the DNC, I went — along with Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Stoller and others — in order to cover the event, interview the attendees, and videotape the festivities. There was a wall of private security deployed around the building, and after asking where the press entrance was, we were told by the security officials, after they consulted with event organizers, that the press was barred from the event, and that only those with invitations could enter — notwithstanding the fact that what was taking place in side was a meeting between one of the nation’s largest corporations and the numerous members of the most influential elected faction in Congress. As a result, we stood in front of the entrance and began videotaping and trying to interview the parade of Blue Dog Representatives, AT&T executives, assorted lobbyists and delegates who pulled up in rented limousines, chauffeured cars, and SUVs in order to find out who was attending and why AT&T would be throwing such a lavish party for the Blue Dog members of Congress.
Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party’s purpose was, why they were attending, etc. One attendee said he was with an "energy company," and the other confessed she was affiliated with a "trade association," but that was the full extent of their willingness to describe themselves or this event. It was as though they knew they’re part of a filthy and deeply corrupt process and were ashamed of — or at least eager to conceal — their involvement in it. After just a few minutes, the private security teams demanded that we leave, and when we refused and continued to stand in front trying to interview the reticent attendees, the Denver Police forced us to move further and further away until finally we were unable to approach any more of the arriving guests.
It was really the perfect symbol for how the Beltway political system functions — those who dictate the nation’s laws (the largest corporations and their lobbyists) cavorting in total secrecy with those who are elected to write those laws (members of Congress), while completely prohibiting the public from having any access to and knowledge of — let alone involvement in — what they are doing. And all of this was arranged by the corporation — AT&T — that is paying for a substantial part of the Democratic National Convention with millions upon millions of dollars, which just received an extraordinary gift of retroactive amnesty from the Congress controlled by that party, whose logo is splattered throughout the city wherever the DNC logo appears — virtually attached to it — all taking place next to the stadium where the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming he will cleanse the Beltway of corporate and lobbying influences, will accept the nomination on Thursday night.
Sometimes I wonder if things really are getting more corrupt these days, or if we’re just seeing more of the corruption because of the grassroots media that has emerged during the Bush years. In any case, the above isn’t to my mind so much an argument against voting for democrats too, as for paying more attention to local elections, because congress is an aggregate of many local elections. I strongly doubt that the voters in the districts represented by the Blue Dogs approve of having their phones tapped, let alone giving the tappers a free pass in exchange for millions of dollars to run a convention.
We need to break the republcan grip on power in Washington, so they can’t do any more damage then they’ve already done to the courts, to the economy, to civil liberties at home and America’s moral stature abroad. But we also need a grassroots effort to get more people elected who want to serve the people, not the corporations. Because the corporations don’t give a good goddamn about democracy, let alone about America. All they see is their bottom line. We need better democrats.
You may have heard that an Australian named Matthew Mitcham won the gold in the 10 meter diving event. You may have heard that in doing so, he broke the Chinese sweep of the diving events. You may have heard that a string of disappointments some years ago caused him to drop out of the sport briefly and that his comeback this year was the end result of a lot of very hard and determined work. What you might not have heard, if your only exposure to the China Olympics was our mainstream news media, is that Mitcham is openly gay…
According to OutSports.com, of the 10,708 athletes at the Olympics this year, just 10 have identified themselves publicly as being gay. Of the 10, Australian diver Matthew Mitcham is the only male gay athlete.
NBC did not mention Mitcham’s orientation, nor did they show his family and partner who were in the stands. NBC has made athletes’ significant others a part of the coverage in the past, choosing to spotlight track athlete Sanya Richards’ fiancee, a love triangle between French and Italian swimmers and Kerri Walsh’s wedding ring debacle.
As Atrios said the other day: love triangle okay…gay, not so much.
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people. The first is the relentless demonization of gay people. By churches, by religious leaders, by politicians and their parties, by bigots with a platform. The public is told we are a threat to children, to families, to society, to the very existence of the human race. We are portrayed as sexual predators, disease spreading sociopaths, self-centered narcissistic parasites on society. We are said to be shallow, vain, self-centered and interested only in self gratification on the one hand, and self-hating, self-destructive and miserable on the other. When we are not dangerous sociopaths we are contemptible faggots. The other part is the silencing of gay voices. Where we are not allowed to tell our own stories, in our own voices, where social invisibility is imposed upon us, as though we are a dirty secret best kept away from view, the only voices that are heard, are the voices of those who hate us. The hatemongers go unanswered, and this is what happens…
Oh…and this…
I now feel very fortunate that I was able to spend some private time with Matt last summer during my vacation from Saudi Arabia. We sat and talked. I told Matt that he was my hero and that he was the toughest man that I had ever known. When I said that, I bowed down to him out of respect for his ability to continue to smile and keep a positive attitude during all the trials and tribulations that he had gone through. He just laughed. I also told him how proud I was because of what he had accomplished and what he was trying to accomplish. The last thing I said to Matt was that I loved him, and he said he loved me. That was the last private conversation that I ever had with him.
Impact on my life? My life will never be the same. I miss Matt terribly. I think about him all the time—at odd moments when some little thing reminds me of him; when I walk by the refrigerator and see the pictures of him and his brother that we’ve always kept on the door; at special times of the year, like the first day of classes at UW or opening day of sage chicken hunting. I keep wondering almost the same thing that I did when I first saw him in the hospital. What would we have become? How would he have changed his piece of the world to make it better?
Impact on my life? I feel a tremendous sense of guilt. Why wasn’t I there when he needed me most? Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Why didn’t I try to find another type of profession so that I could have been available to spend more time with him as he grew up? What could I have done to be a better father and friend? How do I get an answer to those questions now? The only one who can answer them is Matt. These questions will be with me for the rest of my life. What makes it worse for me is knowing that his mother and brother will have similar unanswered questions.
Impact on my life? In addition to losing my son, I lost my father on November 4, 1998. The stress of the entire affair was too much for him. Dad watched Matt grow up. He taught him how to hunt, fish, camp, ride horses, and love the state of Wyoming. Matt, Logan, dad, and I would spend two to three weeks camping in the mountains at different times of the year—to hunt, to fish, and to goof off. Matt learned to cook over an open fire, tell fishing stories about the one that got away, and to drive a truck from my father. Three weeks before Matt went to the Fireside Bar for the last time, my parents saw Matt in Laramie. In addition, my father tried calling Matt the night that he was beaten but received no answer. He never got over the guilt of not trying earlier. The additional strain of the hospital vigil, being in the hospital room with Matt when he died, the funeral services with all the media attention and the protesters, [and] helping Judy and me clean out Matt’s apartment in Laramie a few days later was too much. Three weeks after Matt’s death, dad died. Dad told me after the funeral that he never expected to outlive Matt. The stress and the grief were just too much for him. Impact on my life? How can my life ever be the same again?
Excerpt of Dennis Shepard’s Statements to the Court
November 4, 1999
There are two parts to the culture of violence toward gay people…and to all minorities. The first is hate. The second is that silencing of the voices of the hated, which allows hate to go unchallenged and unquestioned. Last week a young Australian diver, after a difficult struggle to come back from burnout and defeat, won a gold medal for the 10 meter dive, beating out the best of the Chinese diving team. You were allowed to know that. He is openly gay, and his parents and his lover were there to support him in his quest for the gold. He said his boyfriend was part of the support network that made his dream possible. You weren’t allowed to know that. Because then you might start wondering about all those things you were taught about homosexuals.
And then you might start wondering why the news media doesn’t give a damn.
Five weeks. That’s how much vacation time I have accrued. My employer allows us to store up to three months worth and then you begin to loose it. I doubt I’ll ever get that much stored away, but a couple years ago when the layoffs were pending I had two months stored, because if they lay you off you get your unused vacation time as part of the severance. A lot of us back then were hording our vacation time in case we needed it to tide us over between jobs. I’m not willingly hording mine now…I just can’t afford to take the kind of vacation I like…the extended road trip. The cost of gas is forcing me to hold off until I get some actual money saved up, as opposed to vacation time alone.
But saving that money has become unaccountably hard lately. Well…not… I know what’s happening. I only think I’m cutting down on my gas expense. In reality, I’m just nibbling at it. You may think you’re saving money by not driving as much too. Well…no. You aren’t.
Oh yes…I see the price of gas creeping back down a tad at the local gas stations, and the corporate news media is waving that around. Whoop-de-do. Oh look…it’s back below four dollars a gallon now! Sweet! But you need to keep in mind that you’re paying for fuel every time you buy something. What’s that you say? Your grocery bill hasn’t risen all that much? Hahahahaha…
Here’s a fun little mystery for you guys. How can taking away 4 oz of coffee produce more cups of coffee? We’ve been thinking about it ever since Blueprint for Financial Prosperity sent us this photo the other day, and we just can’t figure it out. Could it be magic? Some strange new property of the Grocery Shrink Ray?
Click on that last link…the one marked Grocery Shrink Ray. Go ahead. In the meantime, I need to add The Consumerist to my blog roll. They’re kinda like the Upfront and Selling It pages of Consumer Reports, but more pissed off.
The Air Force’s top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules’ carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.
Production of the first capsule — consisting of two sealed rooms that can fit into the fuselage of a large military aircraft — has already begun.
Air Force officials say the government needs the new capsules to ensure that leaders can talk, work and rest comfortably in the air. But the top brass’s preoccupation with creating new luxury in wartime has alienated lower-ranking Air Force officers familiar with the effort, as well as congressional staff members and a nonprofit group that calls the program a waste of money.
Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.
The effort has been slowed, however, by congressional resistance to using counterterrorism funds for the project and by lengthy internal deliberations about a series of demands for modifications by Air Force generals. One request was that the color of the leather for the seats and seat belts in the mobile pallets be changed from brown to Air Force blue and that seat pockets be added; another was that the color of the table’s wood be darkened.
These are the guys who are massively against letting gays serve in their military. Because…you know…that would damage moral and stuff…
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