Circuit City…March 29, 2007…

Circuit City lays off 3400 employees because they make too much!

Circuit City Stores Inc. has a message for some of its best-paid employees: Work for less or work somewhere else.

The electronics retailer on Wednesday laid off 3,400 people who earned "well above" the local market rate for the sort of jobs they held at its stores.

In 11 weeks they’ll be able to apply for their old positions – which will come with lower hourly wages.

The move put Richmond, Va.-based Circuit City, which has more than 40,000 employees in the United States, at the forefront of a new way of controlling labor costs in the service industry. Employers determine the prevailing market wages for particular jobs in various geographic regions and then find ways to make sure that their workers’ salaries stay within that range.

…

Company spokesman Bill Cimino said Circuit City wanted to be honest with its sales associates so they would understand the reason for the layoffs.

"It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were a good worker or not," Cimino said. "It was a function of their salary relative to the market."

Circuit City expects to reap $110 million in savings in the next year, partly as a result of the layoffs and other changes announced Wednesday, including the outsourcing of about 130 information technology jobs to IBM Corp.

Circuit City…Today…

Circuit City to Close 155 Stores, Lay Off Thousands

Electronic retailer Circuit City plans to shutter 20 percent of its U.S. stores by December 31 and evaluate other cost reduction initiatives, it announced today, citing waning consumer confidence and the struggling financial markets.

The move will close about 155 of its 700 stores, and result in layoffs of about 17 percent of its workforce.  It will also reduce future store openings and renegotiate some leases.

“The weakened environment has resulted in a slowdown of consumer spending, further impacting our business as well as the business of our vendors. The combination of these trends has strained severely our working capital and liquidity, and so we are making a number of difficult, but necessary, decisions to address the company’s financial situation as quickly as possible,” said James A. Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and CEO.

It had nothing to do with their skills or whether they were a good worker or not…  Jackass.  Treat your people like shit and don’t be surprised to find one day that you’re the CEO of a company that isn’t worth shit.

Remember how I keep telling you that the California GOP is completely batshit nuts…?

California GOP files FEC complaint over Obama’s visit to grandmother

In what the Washington Post called "perhaps the most ill-timed press release of the 2008 campaign," the California Republican Party announced that they’d filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Sen. Barack Obama had illegally funneled funds from his campaign account for his personal use.

The use? Visiting his dying grandmother, whose passing was announced this afternoon.

The GOP sent the release at 1:30 pm ET, a few hours before Obama’s grandmother’s death was announced.

"Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use," the release stated. "Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund."

Federal law prohibits campaigns from using campaign funds for personal travel. Obama’s campaign said beforehand that they had reviewed the trips with their lawyers and believed it was allowable. Republicans, meanwhile, contend that because Obama did not campaign in Hawaii, it should not have been budgeted as a campaign expense.

We have our far right nutcases here in Maryland, but I rest easy at night knowing my brother can go about his day with absolutely batshit wingnuts like these babbling in his face constantly and still keep a mellow attitude. 

Via Talking Points Memo…

Gettin’ Sad

Nutball Congressman Chris Cannon (R-UT) tried to hire an Oxford don to use his special computer program to prove that Obama’s memoir was actually written by Bill Ayers. The program "can detect when works are by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases." Apparently, he got cold feet after the he learned that the Oxford academic, Dr Peter Millican, would release the results publicly no matter what they showed.

No sense in letting the voters know something if it isn’t something you want them to know.   The soul of a political movement isn’t the faces at the top of the ticket, or the rhetoric of its intellectuals.  Its soul, its heart, resides in all the people who do its day-to-day grunt work.  The grass roots.  The rank and file.  The True Believers.  It’s not the headline grabbing crimes that reveal the character of an ugly movement…it’s in all the little moments of casual mendacity by its grass roots.  There is where the people are.  There is where the movement is.

Andrew Sullivan almost gets it from time to time…

Althouse makes marriage equality opponent Dean Broyles’s argument clearer:

Let me see if I can make Broyles’s point. I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth — all things Broyles wants — it’s important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong.

Yes! That’s it. One reason I favor marriage equality is that the simple public fact of gay married couples will in itself teach something about the reality of gay people and our lives – without any school or parent having to say a thing. It gives us a way to talk about gay couples for the first time in human history without talking about sex acts.

There is something else that the haters don’t want happening in schools, beyond teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth as Althouse puts it.  Look more closely.  Kids don’t usually socialize with adult couples other then those of their own immediate family.  Yes, we can hope the next generation grows up without hate in their hearts.  But if they are immersed in anti-gay hate at that age, it’s their peers, those who are gay and those who are only thought to be gay, who will feel the impact of that.

And that’s what Broyles and his kind are adamant must never happen.  Gay kids must be hated.  And that is because gay kids must hate themselves.  What the example of same sex couples living normal, decent, whole lives will do is this: show the gay kids a future where love is possible to them too.  That cannot be.  Gay kids must never feel loved.  Because they are vermin.  More despicable even then the gay adults they will eventually become.  Because their hearts are sincere.  Ever wonder why right wingers seem to hate children so much? 

Or to put it in a way that might appeal to social conservatives: grant marriage equality and we can stop talking about homosexuality. We can start talking about love and friendship and commitment and family – for gays and straights. We can leave this horrible identity politics division behind.

Why would social conservatives want to do that?  Identity politics is their creation.  It’s a belly laugh listening to you blame liberals for it.  When people are discriminated against based on things like race, religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation, when doors are closed to them again and again and again, when they are driven from neighborhoods, job opportunities, when a decent education is denied them, simply for being different, do you really think they’ll continue to see themselves as a part of the whole, or as one of the outcast?  They are supposed to see themselves in terms of their assigned identity.  You can’t marry…you’re a homosexual.  Your very presence in the house of marriage defiles it.  We don’t want no faggots in our community.  I’m just telling you Bruce that there is no place in this company for homosexuals…  That’s the whole point of prejudice.  Not to elevate the bigot, but to make hated other feel hated, cast out, separate.

I would love to see my sexual orientation as just another random, and not particularly important aspect of my being.   But I can’t.  Bigots like the ones pushing anti same-sex marriage amendments keep telling me that it’s the only part of me that matters.  You need to stop blaming the victims of identity politics, for being imprisoned in it.

That said, I’m really heartened to see you acknowledging that the breaking down of real barriers in this election cycle will go a long way towards the day when we see and end to identity politics.  I agree.  Liberals have been trying hard to break down these barriers for decades now, so that we can all be Americans one day…free and equal.

Your staff plants a recording device on your opponent’s podium prior to your debate, so they can record any off the cuff remarks he makes while the mics are off.  Your opponent finds the device and erases the tape before giving it back to them.  Do you: a) Apologize and assure your opponent that the responsible parties will be punished? b) Deny everything and point to your opponent’s support for the militant homosexual agenda?  c) File criminal charges against your opponent for destruction of property for erasing the tape?

This is What It’s Come To…

I guess you file this under the heading of Deep, Late Election Comic Relief. And not surprisingly it comes from a Senate Republican who should have been coasting but now finds himself with a real chance losing his seat.

Last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) squared off in a debate with Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford. But on Lunsford’s podium a GOP operative had placed a small voice recorder, presumably to pick up some off-mic comments Lunsford might make — apparently a violation of the debate rules.

(The recorder itself — sans recording — was eventually returned.)

Now, from here the accounts differ. According to the Lunsford campaign, Lunsford actually didn’t see the recorder. But since it was nestled in among his papers it was included when he handed his papers off to his staffers after the debate — staffers who say they later erased the recording since it violated debate rules to have a planted recorder on the opponents podium.

According to the McConnell staffers, however, Lunsford did see the recorder during the debate and essentially confiscated it. Richard St. Onge, II (who, in a separate story, may have absconded with his name from some neo-gothic southern novel) is the GOP operative who planted the recorder. And according to St. Onge, when he went up to Lunsford after the debate to demand his recorder back, Lunsford said, "No you won’t get it back."

And now St. Onge and the chairman of McConnell’s campaign have filed a criminal complaint against Lunsford for petty larceny and destruction of property — because of the erasure.

To be included in The Updated Book Of Virtues by William J. Bennett:  It’s Not Cheating If You Do It To Win …or… Extremism In The Defense Of The Party Is No Vice…

Ahem…

To The Three Dim Bulbs With Full Shopping Carts Who Monopolized The Self Checkouts At The Superfresh Just Up The Street:  Thank you for wasting the precious minutes of the lives of everyone in the long line that developed behind you, watching you struggle to cope with a device even someone with a lead pipe shoved through their brains could figure out how to use.  But not you apparently.  Oh…and with shopping carts half full of unlabeled produce no less.  Which means you have to flail around for five or ten minutes trying to figure out what you have in your hands and then how to enter the produce code for it, and then ohmyfuckinggod how to weigh the motherfucking thing and then remember that you have to put it in the fucking bag when your done.  Nice.  I’m talking to you Mrs Upscale Granola Lady, who probably knows the precise nutritional value of every motherfucking one of those bananas and carrot sticks and broccoli heads and other produce section crap you loaded your shopping cart up with, but can’t be bothered to learn how to use a goddamned self checkout machine before you fucking walk up to it.  Oh…and You, Mr. Middle-Aged Overweight Sports Slacks Polo Shirt And Golf Cap.  The patient as a saint lady behind the service counter had to walk up and help you fourteen, count em, fourteen times while you tried valiantly to do what the goddamned screen prompts were telling you to fucking do in the first place.  Like…you know…place the item in the bag after you’d scanned it.  Let me give you a hint…just between you and me…  Scan your motherfucking coupons in by placing the bar code face Down.  Moron.   Oh…and swipe your credit card on the side with the goddamned magnetic strip on it.  You didn’t have to try another card.  The first one you picked out of that wallet full of plastic would have worked if you’d just…you know…swiped correctly.  Jackass.  Do you even Know what that magnetic stripe on the card is for?  No…it’s not for sticking your credit card to the refrigerator door. I hope your wife is paying your bills because you’d be licking the wrong side of the envelope flap before you mailed them.  With the wrong checks inside the envelops.  When you were done the bagging side of that self checkout machine was so full I swear I thought it was going to tip over.  And sure enough it took you another…what…five minutes…to carefully…meticulously…re-pack your shopping cart while the self checkout machine just sat there waiting for the next customer.  Good thing the lady behind the service counter came over to help you with that mentally challenging task or you’d have been there for the rest of the afternoon. Let me guess…it was too much like having to put the square pegs in the square holes in kindergarten wasn’t it?  The bags…they don’t fit…maybe if I placed the one with the bread in it underneath the one with the three two-liter bottles of Coke in it…  Golly…the line behind you folks sure cleared out fast once you got the hell out of the way didn’t it?  I have a wee suggestion.  Next time you’re buying groceries, use the regular checkout lines.  The time you save getting to the front of the self checkout lanes, because most of the people using them are only buying just a few items, you loose in spades because you just don’t fucking have a clue.  Admit it.  Embrace your destiny.  You are not qualified to check yourself out of a mental hospital, let alone a grocery store.  Use the regular checkout lines.  Trust me…the folks who are being paid to scan your items, weigh your produce, enter the produce codes, and bag everything, do it a hell of a lot faster then you.  You will get out of the store quicker, even if you don’t get to the head of the line quicker.  And you won’t have a long line of people behind you, all picturing how good it would feel to cut your empty head off, place it on the scanner tray, enter the produce code on the touch screen for Inconsiderate Time Sucking Asshole and stuff it in one of those little plastic grocery bags.

Okay…done…

Via SLOG…  Oh look..the wingers are all going to go live on a commune…

From The National Review, we have the Republican version of “I’m moving to Canada if their side wins”:

Canada or Galt’s Gulch? [Lisa Schiffren]

So, what happens if McCain really does pull it out and win? After the urban riots, might this be the year that all those libs with Bush derangement syndrome actually make good on their threat to leave the country? What if Canada had a special policy to lure them in? (Win-win-win situation —them/us/Canada )

…

Of course conservatives don’t threaten to leave the U.S. as a rule. However, on more or less the same subject, I haven’t heard so much about John Galt since …well, ever. (And objectivists were thick on the ground in D.C. during the Reagan administration.) I suppose, with all the projections of the Obama administration and its confiscatory tax rates on people and businesses, subordination of the productive to the dependent, public schools turned into training camps for radicals and legions of speech/thought police — i.e. — the end of liberty as we knew it — it might be time to start thinking about the mechanics of Galt’s Gulch. Actually, this is probably a great time to buy property in the Rockies. Love to see the video for that…

For those of you who are unaware, Galt’s Gulch is where all the world’s libertarian intellectuals flee to in the novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. In the novel, the resulting lack of intellectuals and competent businessmen causes the rest of the world to nearly die in an apocalypse of mediocrity. I’m willing to take the gamble that it’s not going to work out that way in the real world, and I implore the conservatives to move to the Rockies and start working on their conservatopia. I’ll even donate to a fund in their honor.

In my college years I succumbed to the rhetoric of Ayn Rand.  So did a lot of folks, some well before me.  Alan Greenspan for one, who was at one time a member of her inner circle.  I became a Libertarian.  Fiercely so.  But to my credit I think, I never let my new found ideology interpret reality for me.  Eventually Ronald Reagan showed me what sort of people make money synonymous with morality, and the kind of government we were likely to end up with with them in charge.  So I shrugged…and left both Rand and her bastard child, the Libertarian party.  Is it so insufferably arrogant of me to say that I’ve been waiting for the rest of them to wise up ever since?

Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation

For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.

But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

I had my Damascus moment twenty years ago you drooling moron and it was called the Silverado Savings and Loan Scandal.  You could have seen then if you’d just taken a look at it, that what happens when financial institutions are deregulated is a mad rush to stuff other people’s, mostly working people’s money into their pockets.  Self interest after all, is about Self, not about the institution you work for, let alone the communities they serve.  It doesn’t matter if the whole shitpile collapses if you can get out of it with enough cash to live in the lap of luxury for the rest of your life, does it?  If self-interest is all there is to it, then you’ve done pretty good haven’t you…even if thousands of other people had to loose everything so you could live high on the hog.

Greed is, contrary to Randian dogma, Not Good.  Ambition is good.  But ambition is self actualizing.  You want to become something.  Something better.  Greed is just wanting what someone else has.  There was a time when I believed that Rand’s attempt to redefine Greed as Ambition was just an artifact of her not knowing English natively.  But no…she knew what she was doing.  It was from the beginning, all about raping the working class for the benefit of the rich and powerful.  Her revenge for the communist appropriation of her father’s pharmacy.  If she couldn’t stick it to the Russian proletariat, she could at least help the rich here in America carpet their mansions with the life savings of working Americans.  She raised a generation on her Greed Is Good religion.  And when they got the power they craved, they put her ideas into practice.  The only practice they could have been put to.  The only practice they were ever meant to be put to…

401k Losses May be Double than Previously Thought

Along with the rest of America, Rep. George Miller has watched the value of his retirement investments plummet in recent weeks.

"I’ve lost 30 percent like everybody else. This hits home with the Miller family, too," the California Democrat said in a recent interview.

In recent years, Congress has promoted the dramatic movement in corporate America away from defined-benefit pensions to 401(k)s with policies encouraging automatic enrollment and raising contribution limits. Under 401(k) plans employees contribute to their own investment accounts and assume the risks and rewards that go with them. Lately, with the crisis on Wall Street and across the globe, it’s been more risk than reward.

Earlier this month, Miller’s House Education and Labor Committee found that Americans’ retirement plans, pension plans and 401(k)s included, have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months– about 20 percent of their value. At a committee hearing Wednesday in San Francisco, Miller cited new research suggesting that the losses might be as much as double that.

And they almost got Social Security during the Bush administration too.  Remember that?  They were going to let individuals "invest" their retirement money.  Basically, give it to Wall Street to play with.  It was going to be better then Social Security…just like our 401ks were going to be better then real pensions.  When the butcher’s bill for decades of Randian inspired market deregulation is added up, a lot of folks are going to be Real Glad they didn’t get their hands on that trust fund too.

In the coming years, as the folks who lined their pockets during the past few decades with other people’s life savings are made to pay some of it pack, there is going to be a lot of bellyaching from the high and mighty about class warfare.  As though they haven’t been engaging in it themselves.  Once upon a time the robber barons lived by the simple maxim that might makes right.  If they thought of it at all in moralistic terms they saw themselves as a kind of Darwinism in action…survival of the fittest and all that.  Then Rand came along and told them that anyone who isn’t rich is a leach on those who are.  Capitalism, by which she meant the unrestrained greed motive of the rich and powerful, was not only the best economic system, it was the only Moral one.  Now in the higher echelons of wealth, raping the rest of us isn’t merely something you do because you can.  Now it’s your moral obligation. 

But no amount of apologetics can make what is essentially a pillage and conquest based economic model work for very long, now that we’re not living in caves anymore.  Cooperation is necessary.  Trust is necessary.  For there to be rewards for industriousness, there also need to be guards against perdition.  The marketplace needs a cop on the block, or it simply degenerates into gang warfare and shear thievery and collapses.  Preying on other people, trusting people, naive people, weaker people, is not made into a workable, sustainable economic model simply by calling it good.  Greed is not good.

You know how it is that some Über heterosexuals just have this…overwhelming need…to project their cheapshit character flaws and emotional infirmities onto gays?  Yeah…it’s like that…

William Shatner goes on video rant over George Takei wedding snub

William Shatner is aiming his phaser at his former "Star Trek" colleague George Takei, calling him "sick" and "psychotic" in a YouTube rant.

Ticked off that Takei didn’t invite him to his recent California wedding, Shatner trashed the actor who played Mr. Sulu on the 1960s sci-fi series as if he were a villainous Klingon.

"The whole thing makes me feel badly, poor man," Shatner said in the video. "There is such a sickness there. It’s so patently obvious that there is a psychosis there. I don’t know what his original thing about me was."

…

"He has continued to speak badly about me for all these years," Shatner continued. "Obviously, hiding his homosexuality – talk about festering and not living the truth of your life and feeling badly about yourself – and being fearful somebody would find out about this terrible, terrible secret, so he thought."

Geeze Bill…Ego much?  I like the response of Takei’s spouse, Brad Altman…

Altman later told the News that the pair "definitely" sent an invitation to Shatner through his manager, Larry Thompson.

"Maybe he thought it was junk mail," Altman said. 

KaPow!  

And in other news…at least one happy gay man out there managed to land an Altman.  Not that I happen to know anyone by that name myself…precisely… 

Nice work George.  I’d be all smiles too…

Your gay and lesbian neighbors have been watching this for decades.  Decades. 

Lies, half-truths and contradictions: the significance of McCain blowing off Letterman

The recap: McCain was supposed to stop by Letterman’s show Wednesday. But Dave explained to his audience that McCain "was nice enough to call me on the phone and said that he was racing back to Washington." But part of the way through his late-afternoon taping, Dave learned that Johnny Mac was still a few blocks away in New York — taping an "excloo" with Katie Couric.

…

Dave’s anger gradually built through the show. He got truly incensed when he showed his audience the internal CBS News feed of McCain getting his makeup dabbed on before his Couric interview. "He doesn’t seem to be racing to the airport, does he?" Letterman said. Then he shouted at the television monitor: "Hey, John, I got a question! You need a ride to the airport?"

Okay…so he blows off a late night talk show host.  Big deal…right?  On the other hand, Mr. Straight Talk Express could have given Letterman a little…you know…straight talk.  Something like, "I’m sorry to have to do this to you Dave, but with this terrible economic crisis developing I can’t really be doing late night comedy shows now.  I’m going to be talking with Couric on CBS news instead…

Straight talk.  Letterman would have accepted that.  He might not have liked it, but he would have accepted it.  But that’s not what he got, and if you think the busting he gave McCain that night was pique you are sadly mistaken. In her novel The Charioteer, Mary Renault wrote that "some events are crucial from their very slightness; because circumstances have used no force on them, they are unequivocally what they are, test-tube reactions of personality."  McCain just flat out lied to him and the casually unnecessary nature of it shocked him. 

You get the feeling that the sight of this…indifference…to telling lies…on the part of so many conservative moralists is starting, finally, to shock a lot of people…

McCain Lies: "I’ve Bought American Literally All My Life"

Yesterday, we learned that not only does McCain own thirteen cars, but that the McCain fleet includes imports, a VW from Germany and a Honda from Japan. (His wife drives a Lexus, but that car is owned by her beer distributorship.)

And now it turns out that earlier this month he lied to Michigan voters about his car purchases, telling them "I’ve bought American literally all my life" during a September 7 interview with Detroit’s WXYZ-TV. Earlier in the interview, he had told the interviewer "Cindy and I own an automobile that’s American-made" which was about best an extremely misleading statement.

McCain Lies About Social Security Privatization

In March, after ThinkProgress caught Sen. Joe Lieberman lying to cover up Sen. John McCain’s support for Social Security privatization, I posted video (with the help of reader Tom M.) from 2004 of McCain, in response to an audience question, explicitly backing Social Security privatization by name.

Q: Will privatizing Social Security be a priority for you going forward?

…

McCAIN: Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.

Today at a Nashua town hall (his best forum!), McCain himself lied about his position, saying:

I’m not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.

As Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler once tersely said, "This is the operative statement.  The others are inoperative."

Your gay and lesbian neighbors have been witnessing this behavior on the part of the kook pews for decades.  Decades.  We’ve watched them grow in power from the backwater gutters to the heights of power.  And they’ve never changed their spots.  What’s happened is that the republican party has been utterly corrupted by them, by their holy war, by their Kulturkampf.  It got them votes.  It won them elections.  But the price was their souls…

Conservative "Christians" Misrepresent Scientist’s Beliefs

Bob Sith, the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC’s) National Strategist for Gender Issues, has recently misrepresented the scientific conclusions of Dr. Francis Collins (of the Human Genome Project) in the Baptist Press‘s Did God create Ray Boltz gay?. Here’s how he described Dr. Francis Collins’ conclusions:

…For example, in 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, which, among other things, identified each of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. The press release read: "The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over."

While this accomplishment was widely reported, almost no one reported the words of Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the project. Collins, arguably the nation’s most influential geneticist, said, "Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality."

Somehow the major media missed that little tidbit. Collins and others acknowledge that genetics can predispose but not predetermine. This supports other studies that clearly document the possibility of change for people who struggle with unwanted homosexual desire.

Dr. Collins apparently never actually said this; this quote is taken from a OneNewsNow article by Jim Brown — Brown quoted self-identifed former homosexual Greg Quinlan, who appears to have made up the statement whole cloth. Bob Sith apparently quoted the statement verbatim — putting quotation marks around the statement that Jim Brown hadn’t put around the statement — without checking to see if the quote had any veracity. Apparently, it didn’t have any verasity at all.

David Roberts of the Ex-Gay Watch has been following the repeated twisting of Dr. Collins’ words for awhile. As Roberts documented in his post Major Geneticist Francis Collins Responds to NARTH Article, this isn’t the first time Dr. Collins words have been twisted by conservative Christians…

It would hardly be the first time the religious right has built carefully crafted deceptions with the material provided to it by science.  Some weeks ago Jim Burroway debunked a beaut from the Family Research Council , purporting to show that statistics gathered by the CDC on domestic violence proved that same sex relationships were much more violent then heterosexual ones…

The third point the brochure is built on is this:

Intimate partner violence: homosexual and lesbian couples experience by far the highest levels of intimate partner violence compared with married couples as well as cohabiting heterosexual couples. Lesbians, for example, suffer a much higher level of violence than do married women

They base this claim on the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Violence Against Women Survey (PDF: 62 pages/1,475 KB) If you want to see how they construct this particular distortion, I encourage you to download the report yourself and we’ll go through it step by step. Believe me, it’s worth it because this is a classic example.

On page 29, you will find that when you only look at victims with a history of same-sex cohabitation and compare them with those with a history of opposite-sex cohabitation, then it’s true, gays and lesbians experience higher levels of intimate parter violence. But that’s not true for gay and lesbian couples.

To see this, go to the next page. Among women with a history of same-sex partnership:

• 30.4% were raped, assaulted or stalked by their husband/male partner
• 11.4% were raped, assaulted or stalked by their wife/female partner.

And among men with a history of same-sex partnership:

• 10.8% were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their wife/female partner.
• 15.4% were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their husband/male partner.

So here is what it all means. Many women with a history of same-sex partnership also have a history of opposite-sex partnership. Because of that, they are far more likely to report being raped, assaulted or stalked because it is the men in their lives who are doing the raping, assaulting or stalking, not the women. Same-sex cohabiting women were nearly three times more likely to report being victimized by a male partner than a female partner.

And here is where the statistic gets really interesting: 20.5% of women in opposite sex relationships were raped, assaulted or stalked by their husband or male partner. That compares to 15.4% of men who were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their male partners. In other words, gay men are safer around their same-sex partners than straight women are around their husbands or opposite-sex partner.

For decades now…decades…your gay and lesbian neighbors have watched the moralists of the religious right, in the name of virtue, in the name of fighting amoral secularism, in the name of decency and family values, in the name of the man on the cross who they claim to venerate as their holy savior, lie through their teeth every chance they get, and then lie again, and then lie again, and then lie again, Amen.  We have watched their hatred of ecumenicism, their hatred of secularism, their hatred of the American Dream of liberty and justice for all and especially their vitriolic hatred of gay and lesbian people, eat everything within them that could ever have been good and decent and noble, rot every moral fiber that was ever inside of them, that might once have kept them from looking their neighbor in the face, and lying through their teeth.  All that’s left of them now, are the slogans, and the bellicose religiosity.  And the hate.  If you ever need to know what hate will do to you, to your soul, and why you need to fight it more then any other enemy you will ever face, behold Sarah Palin.  If you ever need to know why you have to look hate in the face directly, unflinchingly, and see it for what it is, and never, Never, grant it any excuse or pity, behold John McCain and the party that is now owned by America’s multitude of Sarah Palins.

These are not moral warriors.  They say they are, but they are not.  They are runts.  Cowards.  Not even rising to the level of gangsters, because a gangster knows what he is, and embraces it with a smirk.  The culture warriors are hollow shells, who discarded virtue and morality long, long ago, at the first touch of shame.  And the last thing on earth they want now is for the rest of us to embrace morality, reach for the higher purpose, be virtue.  Because that would mean we’d have to hold them accountable for all their pathetic lies, all their squalid cheats, all the damage they’ve done to America all these years.

For decades we’ve watched this movement of cheats grow into a political powerhouse, and take the republican party down into its gutter.  And we’ve been speaking out, trying to warn the rest of America what was happening.  But in the end, people really can’t be expected to believe a betrayal of this magnitude without seeing it for themselves. 

"Hey, John, I got a question! You need a ride to the airport?"

Morality.  Values.  The soul of a nation isn’t in its leaders, but in its grassroots.  The soul is in the millions and millions of us who wake up every day and choose whether to cheat our way to tomorrow or try and make the best of it, as best as we can, as best as we can understand what the good is, and how to get ourselves there.  It’s not making the grand gesture for Truth, Justice and the American Way.  It’s not declaring your devotion to God.  It’s flinching away from the easy lie, because for better or worse you still need to look at yourself in the mirror the next day.  It’s not wearing your moral values on your sleeve, or putting a little halo around your head.  It’s keeping a little nugget of pride deep down in your heart, that simply won’t let you cheat a friend or a neighbor, because the trust in their eyes matters to you.

Picture someone for whom cheating a friend is less important then winning an election and you have what the religious right has done to the republican party in a nutshell.  They fought for the soul of the party.  They got it.  Look at what they did with it.  Look at it.  They have said for decades that they are fighting for the soul of America.  Think of what they did to John McCain, the man who wouldn’t leave Vietnam without his brother soldiers, as an example of what they think winning means.

Oh…those poor persecuted…republicans…

Zucker: Republican is ‘the new gay’

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."

Hey…Mr. New Gay…  Meet the Old Gay…

Walk up and shake their hand…

Inhofe on attack again in Senate race, Rice disputes claims

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…

Teen Beaten Over Gay Rumors

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.

  

No more arrests in alleged gay bash

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."

 

 NYC fugitive convicted of murder

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.

 

Colorado judge unsympathetic to ‘transgender panic’ argument

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.

Via Talking Points Memo…  Christ Almighty…McCain really is as friggin’ dense as President Smirk …

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…

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.

What is this contact thing of which you speak…?

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.

So…Joe Lieberman, the Last Honest Man In The Senate, gives a speech at the GOP convention, in which he says, among other things…

When others were silent, John McCain had the judgment to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq. When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground,

John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge, and because of that, today, our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure, but in honor!

Honor…is it?

If Obama voted against funding the troops, so did Lieberman

To support the charge, the McCain campaign has cited Obama’s vote of May 24, 2007, against an appropriations bill that included funding for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (and passed, 80-14).

So was that a vote "to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield"?

Not primarily.

Obama was fighting at the time for a requirement that President Bush begin to bring the troops home from Iraq. The bill in question did not include such a requirement, and that is why Obama voted against it. Obama said at the time that he wanted to fund the troops, he just didn’t want to fund the particular military strategy that the bill would enable.

“We must fund our troops," Obama said at the time. "But we owe them something more. We owe them a clear, prudent plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war."

Clearly Obama wanted to provide funding for the troops — just not the president’s military strategy.

If, by voting against funding for a strategy he opposed, Obama voted to "cut off funding for the troops," then so did almost every Republican in the Senate — and Lieberman himself — when they voted against a $124-billion appropriations bill on April 26, 2007, that would have funded operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also required Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. (McCain missed the vote on that bill, which passed 51-46 and was subsequently vetoed by Bush.)

What part of honor involves lying through your teeth Joe?