Political Rants

...that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were being treated fairly--for the last three years mind you--keep in mind that interrogators at Guantanamo trained the folks at Abu Ghraib.

From a post by Arianna Huffington on Democracy for America, this great site of possible Diebold propaganda posters. Very clever!

Democracy for America has started a petition calling for paper trails for any electronic voting.

We must act now to ensure that our voting systems produce accurate and verifiable results. Some states are planning to use machines that will not allow voters to verify their choices. This means that any flaws in the machine or software will never be caught -- and no recount will be possible.

And the head of the largest e-voting machine company -- who is a major contributor to George Bush and has promised to deliver Ohio to him -- asks that we just trust him.

Today we call on Congress and the states to require any electronic voting machine used in this election to produce a paper trail -- one that allows voters to verify their choices and officials to conduct recounts.

Great site for anti-Bush bumper stickers: www.northernsun.com. In the "Find by..." field, type 'Bush'. I rather liked "Re-Defeat Bush 2004" and "The only Bush I trust is my own." Hm.

Oh, this just brightened my day. Thanks, Glen! From the DCCC it's Republican Survivor. "Nitwit. Payoff. Outsource."

My first love was (and still is, as far as I know) a NY paramedic. So the latest news from the Antics of Bush Co., indicating that BushCo is Ignoring Sick 9/11 Firefighters & Cops makes me just steam.

While the President's very first campaign commercial used photos of coffin draped corpses being pulled from the rubble, the White House has sought to hide evidence that Ground Zero firefighters and cops were exposed to hazardous toxins. Specifically, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) intervened to doctor EPA press releases that were supposed to warn the public about toxins near Ground Zero. The press releases were modified to claim that the air was safe - despite the fact that there was not adequate scientific evidence to substantiate that claim. The CEQ was headed by James Connaughton, a former asbestos industry lawyer who represented companies in toxic pollution cases. [from The Daily Mislead]

Last night the Bush administration gave us a re-hashed version of their already failing plans for Iraq, but they repackaged them into a "five-step plan" so it must be okay, right? Feh.

MoveOn.org wants to know what you really think.

"Do you support immediate withdrawal? Do you support setting a date certain to end the military occupation? Or do you support President Bush's call to "stay the course"? Or do you see a better way to proceed?"

Let them know by taking their survey.

So there's this article on CNN.com about Dubya's commencement speech at Louisiana State University.

Remarking on those who, perhaps, spent more time having fun than studying, Bush said that they, "too, can leave today with high hopes."

"I speak with some authority here," he said. "I've seen how things can work out pretty well for a 'C' student." [emphasis mine]

AAAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!!! [growing despair and disbelief mine]

Thanks to Cecily on the Chatty list...I think.

My views on censorship are pretty clear. I mean, I'm a librarian. This one, though, really burned my chops, not only as a librarian, but as a woman and a citizen. Seems BushCo. has deemed it necessary to simply disappear information pertinent to women's lives. The link is to Salon.com, where you have to register to read the whole article (they have a free one-day 'pass'). Here's an excerpt:

If you'd logged onto the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau Web site in 1999, you would have found a list of more than 25 fact sheets and statistical reports on topics ranging from "Earning Differences Between Men and Women" to "Facts About Asian American and Pacific Islander Women" to "Women's Earnings as Percent of Men's 1979-1997."

Not anymore. Those fact sheets no longer exist on the Women's Bureau Web site, and have instead been replaced with a handful of peppier titles, like "Hot Jobs for the 21st Century" and "20 Leading Occupations for Women." It's just one example of the ways in which the Bush administration is dismantling or distorting information on women's issues, from pay equity to reproductive healthcare, according to "Missing: Information About Women's Lives," a new report released Wednesday by the National Council for Research on Women.

We MUST stand up to this nonsense. The Web has made the dissemination of the huge amount of useful government information so easy and accessible. We can't let them start limiting what will be put out there, based on a religious-based political agenda!

My brother just blogged on this, but I wanted to comment on it. Seems some Unitarian congregations in Texas (of course!) are being denied religious organization tax status. Keep in mind, this is the same state that gave us the Branch Davidians...

"the denials of the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church in Denison and the North Texas Church of Freethought in Carrollton, as well as an earlier denial by Sharp for the Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin, were ordered because the organizations did not mandate belief in a supreme being."

Um...neither do Buddhists, you idiots! But, of course, Buddhists haven't been marrying lots of gay folks lately, so I don't suppose Texas cares. Asshats.

A new article by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker reports that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was approved and planned. Now, during the Gulf War and at other times, Saddam Hussein's regime took American prisoners and subjected them to horrible torture. I don't dispute that. But I don't feel that justifies our actions. Especially when our president continues to try to claim some sort of imaginary moral high ground. And I keep thinking that encouraging National Guard and other soldiers to perform this sort of debasement hurts their souls as well as the victims'

Thanks to James on the LU list for the link. I really wish I could say I was surprised. My world would probably be a happier place if I hadn't already assumed this was the case...

Seems that the Bush administration had a report in February about the Iraqi prison abuses. Did they think no one would find out? For an administration that thinks it's chosen by God they have a remarkably un-Christian way of dealing with the world.

I'm sure many of you have heard about Karen Hughes' little tirade on Wolf Blitzer after the March for Reproductive Freedom, where she effectively equated the marchers with terrorists. Now, Planned Parenthood, among others, is calling for her to apologize.

They're correct, of course, but I'm not sure this isn't exactly what the Right wants.