Al Franken told a couple of the jokes on his radio show that he said at this Gala and their were awesome. He mentioned that his Judith Miller [spit to remove filth from mouth] was the only one that tanked. I thought it was the funniest one of all.

Last night's gala celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press drew about 500 attendees, including some of the biggest names in journalism, and raised some $700,000 for the committee amid grave concerns about the state of press freedom in the United States.

There were some humorous moments in the presentations, but the evening's least successful joke was delivered by Al Franken, who made the final award presentation, to Ivins. He opened with a funny bit claiming that Dan Rather had told him a great story about Ivins during the cocktail hour that would make a perfect anecdote for his introduction. "Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to confirm it, and there's just one source, so I can't use it," he said to laughter. "Too bad; it's a good story."

Then he turned toward The New York Times table in the front of the room, where sat Judith Miller, best known these days for two things: her articles on weapons of mass destruction that didn't quite pan out and the possibility she will go to jail for not revealing sources in the Valerie Plame case. "Judy,"" Franken said, "maybe you can find some WMD in your cell." Silence. "OK, I shouldn't have told that joke."

Read the whole story here

Derrick Max is the executive director of two supposedly independent, nonpartisan groups: the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security and the Coalition for the Modernization and Protection of America's Social Security, founded by the Business Roundtable.

As the head of organizations advocating for a Social Security overhaul, Max was invited to testify at a hearing before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. But when the panel received his e-mailed testimony, it became quite apparent that the White House had already had its hands all over the document. Max had forgot to turn off the "track changes" feature in his word-processing program and the testimony "included editing comments made by an associate commissioner of Social Security [currently] on loan to the White House."

There has now been a call for an investigation into whether this "ventriloquist" act "violated statues requiring the Social Security Administration to be 'nonpolitical and nonpartisan.'" Max's defense? "The real scandal here is that after 15 years of using Microsoft Word, I don't know how to turn off 'track changes,'" he said.

From C4AP

This seems to be an epidemi. When had Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck talk about killing Michael Moore and now O Reilly fantasizes about killing Michael Kinsley.

"Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said that the Los Angeles Times editorial board wouldn't understand his objection to legal representation for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until terrorists 'grab [editorial page editor] Michael Kinsley out of his little house and they cut his head off.'" He continued on to say, "And maybe when the blade sinks in, he'll go, 'Perhaps O'Reilly was right.'"

From C4AP

Media Matter 4 America is keeping track of Mainstream Media Laziness and Right Wing Media Lies.... This is a good post about "The Top 10 filibuster falsehoods"

Falsehood #1: Democrats' filibuster of Bush nominees is "unprecedented"
Falsehood #2: Bush's filibustered nominees have all been rated well-qualified by the ABA; blocking such highly rated nominees is unprecedented
Falsehood #3: Democratic obstructionism has led to far more judicial vacancies during Republican administrations than Democratic administrations
Falsehood #4: "Nuclear Option" is a Democratic term
Falsehood #5: Democrats oppose Bush nominees because of their faith, race, ethnicity, gender, stance on abortion, stance on parental notification ...
Falsehood #6: Public opinion polling shows clear opposition to judicial filibusters, support for "nuclear option"
Falsehood #7: Filibustering judicial nominees is unconstitutional
Falsehood #8: Clinton's appellate confirmation rate was far better than Bush's rate
Falsehood #9: Sen. Byrd's alterations to filibuster rules set precedent for "nuclear option"
Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed "all" or "most" of Bush's judicial nominees

read the whole things with explainations here

The rising economic cost of the Iraq war One estimate of the military pricetag: $5 billion each month. By Peter Grier

U.S. Is Its Own Worst Enemy in Iraq By Robert Scheer

Waiting for C.E.O.'s to Go 'Nuclear' By Matt Miller

Faith based retirement By Will Durst

Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs By Tim Weiner

On March 1, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) made a reference to Hitler in a speech about the nuclear option. Santorum lashed out at Byrd for his remarks.

"Senator Byrd's inappropriate remarks comparing his Republican colleagues with
Nazis are inexcusable," Santorum said in a statement yesterday. "These comments
lessen the credibility of the senator and the decorum of the Senate. He should
retract his statement and ask for pardon." - Sen Rick Santorum [then]

Speaking in support of the nuclear option on the floor of the senate:

It's the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 "I'm in Paris. how dare you invade
me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine." This is no more the rule of the
Senate than it was the rule of the Senate before not to filibuster. - Sen. Rick
Santorum [now]

On air, Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck said he was "thinking about killing Michael Moore" and then began plotting how he would do it. To free himself of questions of right and wrong, he has "stopped wearing" his "What Would Jesus Do?" wristband.

"And this dependence is a challenge to our economic security.… And this dependence on foreign oil is a matter of national security. Now, it's also important to realize that the transportation sector consumes more than two-thirds of all the petroleum used in the United States, so that any effort to reduce consumption must include ways to safely make cars and trucks more fuel efficient." – President Bush, 2/25/02

VERSUS

"The Senate Energy Committee on Wednesday rejected a Democratic plan to require sport utility vehicles and minivans to become more fuel efficient and achieve the same gasoline mileage as passenger cars in six years." – AP, 5/18/05

A House panel agreed yesterday to boost spending on mental health services for our soldiers and veterans by $2.2 billion, and instructed the Department of Veterans Affairs to devote 20 percent of its research money to mental health issues.

From C4AP

The May Edition of the Liberal Patriot Monthly Print Newsletter Available

http://liberalpatriot.webhop.org/

George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators who have accused him of corruption.

Audio-Mp3

Here is a quote:

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.
"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

Oh and by the way, about the oil for food thing:

The Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."


If you didn't already check out the Bill Moyers speech you can download that here.

"And there are a number of vacancies that the Senate has not moved forward on." – White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, 5/17/05

VERSUS

The year is "one-third complete and the president has sent only one new nominee. Twenty-nine other vacancies sit without nominees." – Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), 5/12/05

from C4AP

Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita – citing an anonymous, uncorroborated source – suggested that Muslim detainees were desecrating their own Qurans.

from C4AP

Conservative pundit Robert Novak described Minority Senate Leader Harry Reid's latest offer to break the deadlock over judicial nominations as "like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber."

from C4AP

"[The senior commander in Afghanistan] thought it [the violence] was not at all tied to the article in the magazine," Gen. Richard B. Myers, 5/13/05

VERSUS

"People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said." – Pentagon Spokesman Larry DiRita, 5/14/05

from C4AP

After a "marathon nine-hour session," the all-male parliament of Kuwait passed a law giving women their right to "vote and run for parliamentary polls."

from C4AP

I listened to this first thing this morning and I have to say, it is the best thing I have heard since 1999.

An audio recording can be downloaded at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/moyers.mp3

I personally abandoned public radio shortly after Bush's selection in 2000 and the nauseating "Rah Rah America" Public Radio Pro-Government Fanfare War Parade into Iraq. It was actually the pro-government, inside the beltway, oblivious pundits of NPR, which Bill mentions in his speech, that made me quit listening and supporting NPR.

I became TOTALLY disengaged from ALL NEWS for about 3 years.

Then as most of you know, pre-2004 election, I became an Air America Radio addict. Listening to Bill speak makes me want to join the fight to save Public Broadcasting. Bill makes a great point for telling the truth based on the facts as opposed to this FAKE idea of "balance". He also makes good points against both Right Wing [and Left Wing] advocacy journalism, at least as the main news option. He talks about how everyone going to their preferred brand of news [liberal or conservative] is destructive to democracy and the truth. Of coarse I can hardly believe he would recommend allowing Right Wing Radio and Cable News to operate unanswered from the Left.

Also anyone who thinks that Left Wing radio is just pro-democrat omissions and half truths to match the Right Wing Total Lies and BS should think again. You don't fight fire with fire, you fight it with water and Air America Radio http://www.airamericaradio.com/ is anything but typical Talk Radio. My favorite shows on Air America go after ANY politicians that betray progressive values, not just the republicans.

Here is more info about the speech from Freepress.org:

In an historic speech on Sunday, legendary television journalist Bill Moyers blasted Kenneth Tomlinson of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) for launching a partisan witch hunt at PBS and called for a series of town hall meetings across the country.

"I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House," Moyers told a packed room at the National Conference for Media Reform. "And that's what Kenneth Tomlinson has been doing."

You can watch the video at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/freepress-closing40515.mov

This Good News from the New Hampshire Peace Action Yahoo Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhpeaceaction/

Dear Proponents of Peace and Adversaries of the "Bunker Buster" research:

Please find an update from David Culp, a nuclear disarmament lobbyist from Friends Committee on National Legislation, below. Many of you have contacted Rep. Bradley on the bunker buster issue and/or written letters to local papers.
Thank you for mobilizing around Rep. Bradley--you're amazing!

Peace,Anne

------------------------from David Culp, of FCNL (5/16/2005):
"Many thanks for all the hard work on the nuclear bunker buster. It has already paid off. Unexpectedly, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces last Thursday deleted all the funds in the Energy Department's budget for the bunker buster. The deal was a bipartisan agreement reached before the subcommittee meeting. The Republican majority was willing to strike a deal because they were worried they were going to loose on the floor of the House next week. This is a big victory for us.

Rep. Jeb Bradley is a member of the full committee. Exactly what role he played (if any) in deleting the bunker buster funds I don't know as all the negotiations were done behind closed door.

On the same day the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee also voted to terminate the program.

There is unlikely to be any votes on the floor of the House this year because of the cuts in committee. There will be one or more votes on the Senate floor, perhaps as soon as the week of May 23. That date could slip as the Senate may tie itself in knots over the filibuster fight.

FCNL and other groups in Washington are shifting our efforts to the Senate. If the House cuts the funds and the Senate approves it, it will go to a conference committee to be resolved. We are likely to lose a floor vote in Senate. However, the closer the vote, the better our chances of winning in conference committee.

Gregg and Sununu are not near the top of my list of possible Republican votes. However, we have picked up support from Republican representatives that I never thought we could get, because of strong grassroots pressure.We are working on a Senate action alert that will be up on our web site (www.fcnl.org) some time tomorrow."

Recent Senate Votes

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act - Vote Agreed to (100-0)The Senate gave final approval to this $82 billion supplemental spending bill to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sen. Judd Gregg voted YES......send e-mail or see bio
Sen. John Sununu voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Recent House Votes

Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act - Vote Passed (279-144, 10 Not Voting)This House bill is intended to combat street gangs by making gang violence subject to federal law.
Rep. Charles Bass voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Faster and Smarter Funding for First Responders Act - Vote Passed (409-10, 14 Not Voting)The House approved this bill that would change the formula used to allocate emergency responder funding.
Rep. Charles Bass voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

US: Morgan Stanley Ordered to Pay Out $600m

INDIA: Spice Farmers in Misery

US: Edison Awarded Two More Schools

SOUTH AFRICA: Easy money Lures Men to War-Torn Iraq

MEXICO: Pemex Accidents Reveal Troubled Oil Monopoly

IRAQ: Big Salaries Blur Risk for Hired Guns

Rove's Fingerprints on Radical Bush Nominee

Defense Dept. Scrubs Report Criticizing Rumsfeld

Hundreds Killed in Uzbek Uprising

Most of you who read this blog already know that the Republican Douche Bag Bass voted to exempt makers of MTBA from law suits. But did you know this:

The Saudi company SABIC, leading maker of the potentially cancer-causing gasoline additive MTBE, spent over a million dollars lobbying Congress to limit its liability for damages caused by the chemical. The House of Representatives delivered. from C4AP

The SAUDI company…

So… can we start calling Republican Voter’s Stupid Yet?

I mean, I know it is politically bad to do so, because we would like them to come over to our side. But at what point do we just call someone who proves themselves again and again to be just plain stupid. Just Plain Stupid.

Look at my below post for more proof of republican voter stupidity.

"[A]n all-Democratic congressional delegation would have little political influence if President Bush is elected to a second term … [then-Senate Minority Leader Tom] Daschle's role as leader of Bush's opposition would be a 'terrible liability' during a round of base closures." – Case being made by Jim Thune (R-SD) as to why he could do a better job than Daschle in protecting Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, 10/27/04

VERSUS

"Ellsworth in South Dakota on military base closure list" – Headline, 5/16/05


From Center for American Progress

Left Wing Christians 

Many people before me have noticed the colorful and only slightly terrifying website of FORCE Ministries. But if you haven't seen it yourself, check it out. As you'll see, it's an organization of former and current Navy SEALs with the stated purpose of "equipping military personnel for Christ-centered duty.”

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000515.html

Virginity was an inheritance to be brought into a marriage, and the father of the bride was responsible to preserve that inheritance. If a new husband slandered his bride and claimed that she was not a virgin, the bride's father and mother would defend her name and the name of their family. They would present the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city (Deuteronomy 22:15). But if the charge was true, and the woman was not a virgin, then the bride was to be executed in front of her father's house. "But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house. So you shall put away the evil from among you" (Deuteronomy. 22:20-21). Why the doorway to her father's house, rather than her husband's house? Because she had rebelled against her father's authority, and dishonored him.

In scripture it is obvious that daughters are to submit to their father's authority, while the father's responsibility is to protect their daughters.

http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/92.htm

His column in Sunday's NY Times ask the question so many of us have been pondering. Why is the right wing so obsessed with gays? Rich nails just how gay the right wing is:

"What adds a peculiar dynamic to this anti-gay juggernaut is the continued
emergence of gay people within its ranks. Allen Drury would have been
incredulous if gay-baiters hounding his Utah senator had turned out to be gay
themselves, but this has been a consistent pattern throughout the 30-year war.
Terry Dolan, a closeted gay man, ran the National Conservative Political Action
Committee, which as far back as 1980 was putting out fund-raising letters that
said, "Our nation's moral fiber is being weakened by the growing homosexual
movement and the fanatical E.R.A. pushers (many of whom publicly brag they are
lesbians)." (Dolan recanted and endorsed gay rights before he died of AIDS in
1986.) The latest boldface name to marry his same-sex partner in Massachusetts
is Arthur Finkelstein, the political operative behind the electoral success of
Jesse Helms, a senator so homophobic he voted in the minority of the 97-to-3
reauthorization of the Ryan White act for AIDS funding and treatment in
1995.

But surely the most arresting recent case is James E. West, the powerful
Republican mayor of Spokane, Wash., whose double life has just been exposed by
the local paper, The Spokesman-Review. Mr. West's long, successful political
career has been distinguished by his attempts to ban gay men and lesbians from
schools and day care centers, to fire gay state employees, to deny City Hall
benefits to domestic partners and to stifle AIDS-prevention education. The
Spokesman-Review caught him trolling gay Web sites for young men and trying to
lure them with gifts and favors. (He has denied accusations of abusing boys when
he was a Boy Scout leader some 25 years ago.) Not unlike the Roy Cohn of "Angels
in America" - who describes himself as "a heterosexual man" who has sex "with
guys" - Mr. West has said he had "relations with adult men" but doesn't
"characterize" himself as gay. This is more than hypocrisy - it's pathology.

ALLEN Drury might not have known what to make of Mr. West or of another odd
tic in the 30-year war, the recurrent emergence of gay-baiting ideologues with
openly gay children (Phyllis Schlafly, Randall Terry, Alan Keyes).

THE ANSWER: Because alot of them are gay.

From americablog

Wal-Mart is pushing a proposition that would overturn a ban on big-box retailers in Flagstaff, Arizona, with an add featuring "a photo of Nazi book-burning taken from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and a close-up of a person's mouth covered with tape."

from C4AP

"We must pay respect to the Constitution of the United States of America, and that is advice and consent, and that means up-or-down votes."
-- Sen. Bill Frist, 3/1/05

VERSUS

"The question: Does the Constitution say that every nominee of the President deserves an up-or-down vote? And the ABC is - the answer is: no, the language is not there."
-- Sen. Bill Frist, 5/12/05, in response to a question from Sen. Robert Byrd

from C4AP

Last week, we noted that while CNN paid no attention to little things like secret intelligence memos about the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence, it has plenty of time for "news" about the so-called "Runaway Bride" and "American Idol."

CNN president Jonathan Klein defended the network's coverage of those stories in an interview with Brooke Gladstone on the May 6 edition of National Public Radio's On the Media:

GLADSTONE: Well, let's talk about the other end of that gamut then. Let's talk about Monday, May 2nd. CNN Daybreak -- the rundown had "Runaway Bride." American Morning -- "Runaway Bride Could Face Criminal Charges." Live from CNN -- "Runaway Bride Back Home." Crossfire -- "Should Runaway Bride Faces Charges?" Anderson Cooper, Paula Zahn, Larry King, Aaron Brown -- all of them devoted at least part of their program to Jennifer Wilbanks, the runaway bride, and Jonathan, I have to ask you -- does this fit into the roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling that you have in mind?

KLEIN: Well, sure. I mean, The New York Times covered the runaway bride too, and I'm sure I heard a story about it on NPR.
[...]

GLADSTONE: -- is the lesson here that cable news simply operates at a level of inertia and entropy that no one can change, that you throw blanket coverage at a story that really doesn't merit it?

KLEIN: No. If you were listening to me, Brooke, you would have heard me say that on some days, that story that we decide to focus on will be the runaway bride. On other days, the story will be the spread of democracy in Lebanon. We looked around. We didn't see any other network anchor in Lebanon. And then we went to Syria. And we didn't find any network anchor there, either. Now, you could criticize us for covering that story too heavily as well.

GLADSTONE: But are you saying that CNN's coverage of the runaway bride was an appropriate amount of coverage?
KLEIN: Oh, for sure. It was a fascinating story that left a lot of questions unanswered -- what drove her to this? Is this a crime?
[...]

GLADSTONE: It seems to me that, for the purposes of our discussion, you keep equating stories like Lebanon, which need no justification, with a weird little blip of a story like the runaway bride, which actually does need some justification.

KLEIN: Well, and yet, that's possibly a pretty elitist thing to say, because I don't know that you can say that one story needs justification, one doesn't. Who are you to argue with "the people" who flock to watch one story and not the other? The reason that I keep bringing up Lebanon and Syria is because our coverage of those stories and the tsunami and the Iraq election are as indicative of the kind of work in journalism that CNN ought to be known for as one day in which we covered the runaway bride. I mean, I'm sorry that you didn't like it -- [laughter] but if you like the rest of what we've done for the last five months, then I feel OK, because I think over time we prove out and are getting even better at being worth the attention of our audience. And yeah, sometimes I'll disagree with it. Sometimes you personally will disagree with it, Brooke. But, you know, maybe you need to get more in sync with what viewers out there [laughter] want to know about.

While Klein kept referring to other stories CNN covered, such as Lebanon and Syria, he missed the real problem with the network's wall-to-wall coverage of a woman's trip to Las Vegas: the stories CNN didn't cover, like the British intelligence memo.

from Media Matter's for America

9 US Dead in Week of Intense Combat

Democrats Maneuvering for Bolton Filibuster

CIA-Trained Terrorist Comes Home to Roost

Bush Told Blair Invasion was "Inevitable"