Young Republican Profile in Courage Andrew Brock, who represents Davie County in the state Senate, has introduced a bill in the N.C. legislature, "Academic Bill of Rights," which isn't so much a Bill of Rights as it is a warning shot aimed at chilling "liberal" professors. Modeled on David Horowitz's national campaign to root out "liberal hegemony" in American universities, the Brock bill seems unlikely to move during this session. According to the N&O, "With no Democrats as sponsors and no companion bill in the House, the 'Academic Bill of Rights' is headed to a committee where two of its three co-chairmen are Democrats. It is not scheduled for a hearing."
David Horowitz's stock in trade is hair-raising stories of poor conservative college students made to eat out of toilets for expressing love of country ... that sort of over-heated fantasy propagation that wants to see every conservative as a helpless victim of evil, freedom-hating, "liberal" professors. Some of his stuff is just plain fabricated out of grievances over grades, in which the supposedly persecuted student might be said to have an ulterior motive in telling bad stuff on his/her professor.
Whatever. Reality plays a poor second fiddle to fantasies of persecution.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
On the Reservation ... and OFF
The NYTimes features today an op-ed piece by ex-Senator Bill Bradley, making some good sense about rebuilding the Democratic Party from the ground up. It's heavy on the metaphor of the pyramid, or rather an inverted pyramid, with the whole party balancing precariously on the point of a single presidential candidate. Here's part of what he said: "The trouble is that every four years the party splits and rallies around several different individuals at once. Opponents in the primaries then exaggerate their differences and leave the public confused about what Democrats believe. In such a system tactics trump strategy. Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. In the worst case, they embrace 'Republican lite' platforms -- never realizing that in doing so they're allowing the Republicans to define the terms of the debate."
But the more interesting op-ed in today's NYTimes is by ex-Senator and Republican John Danforth of Missouri (also ex-U.N. ambassador, soon to be replaced by Bush hardliner John Bolton), who raises his voice against the take-over of his party by the Religious Right. He knows whereof he speaks, being an ordained clergyman himself.
"The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active," Danforth says. "It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement."
Danforth mentions several initiatives advanced by the Religious Right, but he's clearly most concerned by his president's slamming the door on stem-cell research. And then there's this: "As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around."
But the more interesting op-ed in today's NYTimes is by ex-Senator and Republican John Danforth of Missouri (also ex-U.N. ambassador, soon to be replaced by Bush hardliner John Bolton), who raises his voice against the take-over of his party by the Religious Right. He knows whereof he speaks, being an ordained clergyman himself.
"The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active," Danforth says. "It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement."
Danforth mentions several initiatives advanced by the Religious Right, but he's clearly most concerned by his president's slamming the door on stem-cell research. And then there's this: "As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around."
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
It's Not Just Religion ... It's SPAM!
Religious conviction is now big business. Witness this:
"The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups." (NYTimes story here.)
The direct-mail firm, Response Unlimited, is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses.
What's next? A scrap of The True Bedclothes for a hundred bucks a pop on eBay? Tiny vials of Randall Terry's sweat?
"The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups." (NYTimes story here.)
The direct-mail firm, Response Unlimited, is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses.
What's next? A scrap of The True Bedclothes for a hundred bucks a pop on eBay? Tiny vials of Randall Terry's sweat?
Virginia Foxx, On the (Broken) Record
Congressperson Madame Virginia Foxx met a throng "of more than 20" persons at the Mountain House for breakfast last week (Watauga Democrat article here) and had a few things to say about tobacco quotas and Social Security. We read it so you don't have to:
WHAT SHE SAID: "Meetings are going on now to make it as close to the quota as it should be."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I don't believe in anybody getting any federal money. Except big fat corporations.
......................
WHAT SHE SAID: "The rules are being worked out by other groups of people."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Don't call me with your complaints. There's not a thing I can do about it. Call the Democrats. Democrats probably did it.
.....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "Nobody wants to see people disadvantaged in this situation. It ought not to be overly complicated, but when you get government involved, that's what happens."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I'm not responsible for anything. Thank God I'm in the government but not of the government, if you know what I mean. You have no idea how hard it is to maintain your self-righteousness when you're making 200 grand a year. Did I ever mention to you how poor I was when I grew up?
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "While I can tell [your complaints] to [Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr], it's much more effective coming from you all."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Liddy Dole ... bitch won't return my calls.
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "Demographically, things have changed so dramatically in this country. [Social Security] is a broken system."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I got stinking rich. Why don't you try that too?
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "The president is trying to get people thinking about planning for retirement by saying personal accounts. We need a mindset change in the country."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I love a strong man. Those thighs, those... Wha? I mean, baseball. I'm thinking about baseball. Boring game. Boring, boring game. Have I mentioned to you lately how I love the Lord and shower with Him daily?
...................
WHAT SHE SAID: "It'll take gas prices getting more expensive before people's attention will be caught."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Big corporations just get me hot.
WHAT SHE SAID: "Meetings are going on now to make it as close to the quota as it should be."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I don't believe in anybody getting any federal money. Except big fat corporations.
......................
WHAT SHE SAID: "The rules are being worked out by other groups of people."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Don't call me with your complaints. There's not a thing I can do about it. Call the Democrats. Democrats probably did it.
.....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "Nobody wants to see people disadvantaged in this situation. It ought not to be overly complicated, but when you get government involved, that's what happens."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I'm not responsible for anything. Thank God I'm in the government but not of the government, if you know what I mean. You have no idea how hard it is to maintain your self-righteousness when you're making 200 grand a year. Did I ever mention to you how poor I was when I grew up?
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "While I can tell [your complaints] to [Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr], it's much more effective coming from you all."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Liddy Dole ... bitch won't return my calls.
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "Demographically, things have changed so dramatically in this country. [Social Security] is a broken system."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I got stinking rich. Why don't you try that too?
....................
WHAT SHE SAID: "The president is trying to get people thinking about planning for retirement by saying personal accounts. We need a mindset change in the country."
WHAT SHE MEANT: I love a strong man. Those thighs, those... Wha? I mean, baseball. I'm thinking about baseball. Boring game. Boring, boring game. Have I mentioned to you lately how I love the Lord and shower with Him daily?
...................
WHAT SHE SAID: "It'll take gas prices getting more expensive before people's attention will be caught."
WHAT SHE MEANT: Big corporations just get me hot.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Pill-Pushers Get All Self-Righteous Too
See this article in today's WashPost for the latest eruption of religious fanaticism ... so-called "Christian" pharmacists who believe that any form of birth-control is tantamount to abortion and who therefore refuse to fill prescriptions.
They wear their white lab coats like pontifical robes.
No one knows the extent of this "movement" to inflict "God" on women having sex, since many young, scared women don't complain when faced by a judgmental pharmacist. According to the WashPost article, only one pharmacist has had charges brought against him:
"Pharmacists are regulated by state laws and can face disciplinary action from licensing boards. But the only case that has gotten that far involves Neil T. Noesen, who in 2002 refused to fill a University of Wisconsin student's birth control pill prescription at a Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., or transfer the prescription elsewhere. An administrative judge last month recommended Noesen be required to take ethics classes, alert future employers to his beliefs and pay what could be as much as $20,000 to cover the costs of the legal proceedings. The state pharmacy board will decide whether to impose that penalty next month."
Wonder what would happen if a pharmacist decided it was against her "religion" to dispense Viagra?
They wear their white lab coats like pontifical robes.
No one knows the extent of this "movement" to inflict "God" on women having sex, since many young, scared women don't complain when faced by a judgmental pharmacist. According to the WashPost article, only one pharmacist has had charges brought against him:
"Pharmacists are regulated by state laws and can face disciplinary action from licensing boards. But the only case that has gotten that far involves Neil T. Noesen, who in 2002 refused to fill a University of Wisconsin student's birth control pill prescription at a Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., or transfer the prescription elsewhere. An administrative judge last month recommended Noesen be required to take ethics classes, alert future employers to his beliefs and pay what could be as much as $20,000 to cover the costs of the legal proceedings. The state pharmacy board will decide whether to impose that penalty next month."
Wonder what would happen if a pharmacist decided it was against her "religion" to dispense Viagra?
Sunday, March 27, 2005
The Exterminator
Tom DeLay, who made his money spraying house foundations for termites, famously went to the wall for Terri Schiavo, forcing the U.S. Congress into a constitutional contortion for "the sake of life." DeLay accused Schiavo's husband and the courts of "an act of barbarism."
Well, now. 'Pears Mr. DeLay had his own moment of "barbarism" 17 years ago when he joined other members of his family in persuading doctors NOT to take extraordinary means to keep his own father alive (AP story in the N&O).
The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father's case, but a press aide said it was "entirely different than Terri Schiavo's."
Yeah, right. "Entirely different." In that Terri Schiavo is a perfect stranger who can be exploited for political purposes, while his father was ... well, his father, and DeLay didn't need no stinkin' federal government telling him what was best for his father.
Well, now. 'Pears Mr. DeLay had his own moment of "barbarism" 17 years ago when he joined other members of his family in persuading doctors NOT to take extraordinary means to keep his own father alive (AP story in the N&O).
The congressman declined to be interviewed about his father's case, but a press aide said it was "entirely different than Terri Schiavo's."
Yeah, right. "Entirely different." In that Terri Schiavo is a perfect stranger who can be exploited for political purposes, while his father was ... well, his father, and DeLay didn't need no stinkin' federal government telling him what was best for his father.
Unhinged
This is now positively ancient (story came out Friday) but worth noting for its quite local connection: Richard Alan Meywes of Buncombe County was arrested in Fairview, N.C., on Thursday and charged by the FBI on Friday with "murder for hire," for an e-mail he sent soliciting someone -- anyone -- to kill Michael Schiavo for $250,000, and he tossed in another $50,000 for the death of the Florida judge in the case. (Russert on "Meet the Press" this a.m. was showing that judge's picture, which almost seemed designed to help any would-be, home-grown assassins out there successfully identify their target.)
The text of Meywes' e-mail was somewhat tortured, as though he had the foresight to attempt to deflect accountability: "It is my understanding that whoever eliminates Michael Schiavo from the planet while inflicting as much pain and suffering that he can bear stands to be paid this reward in cash." As we read that sentence, he was soliciting not just murder but a little freelance torture as well.
The e-mail also noted -- in the interests of scholarship, no doubt -- the recent death of a judge in Atlanta and the death of a judge's family members in Illinois.
We haven't found anything additional on who this Buncombe County cat is, his background, but we think it safe to assume he's the poster child of the fanatic religious right, the bunch that induced the Republican Congress & El Presidente to monkey with the constitution.
While we're on the topic of soliciting murder, the notorious anti-abortion screamer Randall Terry thrust himself into the Schiavo circus as "spokesman" for Terri's family against her husband Michael. Randall Terry is best known as the leader of Operation Rescue, which blockaded scores of abortion clinics back in the day and who arranged for the presentation of a dead fetus to candidate Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Charming guy.
For the subject at hand, it's important to note that one of Randall Terry's ardent followers, a malleable chump named James Kopp, took on the mission of murdering by ambush a Buffalo, N.Y., abortion doctor in 1998. Kopp went to jail. Randall Terry is free to agitate anew.
That agitation almost, ALMOST sparked a brawl between competing law enforcement agencies in Florida last Thursday. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to Terri Schiavo's hospice on Thursday (I mean, they were on the road!) to forcibly remove her from the premises, take her to a hospital, and oversee the reinstallation of the feeding tube. But the local cops in Pinellas Park, who've been providing security to the hospice against the Randall Terrys and their acolytes, warned they would stand their ground. To avoid what could have been a very ugly scene, not to mention a disaster, the Guv's boys turned around and went home before arriving at their destination.
The place -- as of the onset of this weekend -- had gone completely nuts. And not just Florida, obviously.
The text of Meywes' e-mail was somewhat tortured, as though he had the foresight to attempt to deflect accountability: "It is my understanding that whoever eliminates Michael Schiavo from the planet while inflicting as much pain and suffering that he can bear stands to be paid this reward in cash." As we read that sentence, he was soliciting not just murder but a little freelance torture as well.
The e-mail also noted -- in the interests of scholarship, no doubt -- the recent death of a judge in Atlanta and the death of a judge's family members in Illinois.
We haven't found anything additional on who this Buncombe County cat is, his background, but we think it safe to assume he's the poster child of the fanatic religious right, the bunch that induced the Republican Congress & El Presidente to monkey with the constitution.
While we're on the topic of soliciting murder, the notorious anti-abortion screamer Randall Terry thrust himself into the Schiavo circus as "spokesman" for Terri's family against her husband Michael. Randall Terry is best known as the leader of Operation Rescue, which blockaded scores of abortion clinics back in the day and who arranged for the presentation of a dead fetus to candidate Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Charming guy.
For the subject at hand, it's important to note that one of Randall Terry's ardent followers, a malleable chump named James Kopp, took on the mission of murdering by ambush a Buffalo, N.Y., abortion doctor in 1998. Kopp went to jail. Randall Terry is free to agitate anew.
That agitation almost, ALMOST sparked a brawl between competing law enforcement agencies in Florida last Thursday. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to Terri Schiavo's hospice on Thursday (I mean, they were on the road!) to forcibly remove her from the premises, take her to a hospital, and oversee the reinstallation of the feeding tube. But the local cops in Pinellas Park, who've been providing security to the hospice against the Randall Terrys and their acolytes, warned they would stand their ground. To avoid what could have been a very ugly scene, not to mention a disaster, the Guv's boys turned around and went home before arriving at their destination.
The place -- as of the onset of this weekend -- had gone completely nuts. And not just Florida, obviously.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Sen. Burr: No Right to Life for Waterfowl
The Sierra Club is pressuring Sen. Dick Burr (and Liddy Dole too) to get involved in trying to head off a planned Navy airstrip in close proximity to a wildlife refuge in eastern N.C. that hosts 100,000 migratory waterfowl each winter and "poses a severe risk of birds striking aircraft about half the year." The case is being litigated, and U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle issued a decision last month stopping (temporarily at least) the Navy from proceeding.
Sen. Burr piously said through his spokesman, "As long as this is in the court, the senator does not believe that congress should intervene."
Unless, of course, it's a "right-to-life" issue, since Sen. Burr seems not to have had a problem with the Senate's interfering with Florida state courts in the Terri Schiavo case. Is that because Burr is more afraid of Terry Randall than he is of a bunch of waterfowl huggers?
Sen. Burr piously said through his spokesman, "As long as this is in the court, the senator does not believe that congress should intervene."
Unless, of course, it's a "right-to-life" issue, since Sen. Burr seems not to have had a problem with the Senate's interfering with Florida state courts in the Terri Schiavo case. Is that because Burr is more afraid of Terry Randall than he is of a bunch of waterfowl huggers?
Home Is Where Your Hatred Blooms
Republican Commissioner of Mecklenburg County Bill James is leading a crusade to crack down on a huge threat to our democracy ... homeless voters! (James is already a party to Bill Fletcher's initiative to disfranchise over 11,000 provisional voters, but having grown bored with that success, he's apparently decided to open a new front in his war against full ballot access for everyone.) What you do unto the least of these, eh, Commissioner James?
James has spent his spare time scouring the voter registration rolls of Mecklenburg, ferreting out malfeasance. He says he's found 350 homeless registrations that list as "home" addresses such places as the Urban Ministry Center and Charlotte Rescue Mission. He wants that stopped. He wants the homeless to draw a map and specifically pinpoint the chicken coop, culvert, or packing crate where they sleep.
The Board of Elections has established guidelines that allow the homeless to list Hospitality House-type sites as "home." James claims that policy is illegal.
So how did Republicans get a reputation for meanness?
James has spent his spare time scouring the voter registration rolls of Mecklenburg, ferreting out malfeasance. He says he's found 350 homeless registrations that list as "home" addresses such places as the Urban Ministry Center and Charlotte Rescue Mission. He wants that stopped. He wants the homeless to draw a map and specifically pinpoint the chicken coop, culvert, or packing crate where they sleep.
The Board of Elections has established guidelines that allow the homeless to list Hospitality House-type sites as "home." James claims that policy is illegal.
So how did Republicans get a reputation for meanness?
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