Switzerblog

No all religion.  Not even any specific religion.  Maybe I should amend it to “sometimes the religious just piss me off”.  But I don’t feel like it.  Instead, I’ll just blatantly troll for readers with an inflammatory headline.  hee hee…such a heathen.

So for those of you who don’t already hate me, I’m an atheist.  It’s important to note that atheist means “without god” (not God – the word references any god, it’s neutral as to which one).  It does not mean “antagonistic to god”.  That’s a very important distinction to make – believers often assume that since I’m an atheist, that I “hate” god or am “opposed” to god – or even that I “refuse” to believe.  None of those things are true.  I’m not opposed, I don’t hate, nor do I refuse to believe in any particular god.  It just doesn’t make any sense to me.  A world without a god makes more sense.  To me.  This boggles believers, and that’s okay – I totally get that from that worldview, mine is confusing.  I don’t expect everyone to share my views; some folks are more agnostic on the whole thing, some folks just get more sense from a world with a god.  That’s cool.  But here’s where I get pissed…(okay, there are more, but this is today’s)

This sad story is about an idiotic douchebag whose girlfriend was either having an affair with, or just had a friendship that he didn’t approve of with, another man.  He saw a text from the guy, flipped out, and killed her.  Up to the killing her part, this happens all the time.  When arrested, he told the police that she had made a “Wiccan blood oath” to end the relationship.  Okay, so they’re Wiccan.  Whatever.  Ignoring the idea that this particular religion apparently had him believing that a “blood oath” could be sworn and met with death if broken (this is more a sign that he’s immensely stupid than that religion is evil), what got me is in the comments.  (Okay, no.  It does piss me off.  This evil prick tried to hide behind his particular religion to rationalize murdering his girlfriend.  Fucker.)

Here are the comments that led to today’s post:

Great_Teabagger 29p · 46 minutes ago

This is what happens when liberal religions induce folk to stray from the Cross.

Reply

al_wa 99p · 37 minutes ago

I am having trouble grasping that concept.
Definition of Liberal Religion
"What does it mean to be a religious liberal? To be a liberal according to my favorite scripture, Merriam-Webster, is be open minded, is to be free from the constraints of dogmatism and authority, is to be generous and to believe in the basic goodness of humankind. Religion is defined as that which binds us back or reconnects us to that which is ultimately important. Thus religious liberals are those that are connected, through generosity and openness, to the most important aspects of life."
–Rev. Kimi Riegel, Minister, Northwest UU Church, Southfield, MI

Reply

Great_Teabagger 29p · 18 minutes ago

Fancy talk, but the fact remains that the follower of this liberal-flavored religion dismembered a woman.
Witches, Wiccans, or however they choose to call themselves are bloodthirsty devil-worshippers and this grisly act proves it.

‘al_wa’ is engaging in the time-honored practice of answering religious insult with religious quote, which I think was unneccessary as it’s way off the point, but hey – it’s the internet, and people do it.  But ‘Great_Teabagger’ really captures the worst side of religion. And then prints it on a flag and waves it around.  The suggestion he makes here is that “the Cross”, obviously he means a specific brand of Christianity, is separate and apart from “liberal religions”.  And I think we can safely assume that all non-Christian religions will be lumped in that group.

This is lunacy.  The stupidity of reading the story of this woman’s death and jumping to “liberal religion” and implying that somehow being a Christian would’ve prevented this guy from doing this…it boggles the mind.  Focus, people.  Christianity is not the answer to the world’s evils.  This had nothing to do with “devil-worshippers” (wow, btw. The 16th century called, they miss you.  They want you to come home).  It’s about a crazy guy who did crazy shit.  And should be punished accordingly. 

You see, Wicca is the polar opposite of devil-worship – it’s about respect for the natural forces of the world.  It’s about not causing harm.  I don’t say this to refute Great_Teabagger – I say this to underscore how far from his religion this murderer strayed.  Had be been a Christian, he would’ve strayed just as far.  Religion simply is not a magical panacea that cures all ills. 

Religion has much to recommend it.  It gives some people hope.  It gives others answers to scary questions.  It gives some people a home, or a family, or peace.  But ultimately, religions are filled with people, and all religions recognize that people are flawed – and none claim to fix that.  They just give you a set of guidelines to strive for.  Too many believers fail to see this distinction, and think they’ve not just been absolved of their sins, but are magically prevented from committing (or at least being found out for) others.  No.  You are still, no matter how pious or genuinely righteous, responsible for you, until the day you die and go to find out if you or I were right all along.

Liberal religion didn’t lead this man to kill his girlfriend.  It can’t be blamed, and when he inevitably turns to “the Cross” in prison, it won’t change what he’s done.  He alone bears that responsibility.  Focus, people. 

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? … Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?”

                                                                     -Barack Obama

This is one of the reasons I was behind Obama early.  He’s able to speak about religion, clearly, openly and directly, to people like me as well as to Christians and people of all other faiths, without dragging us down the rabbit-hole of choosing sides and deciding what God wants “us” to do or not do.  But James Dobson has a problem with this (and specifically, with this two-year old speech).

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy — passages like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application.”

Aside from MSNBC pussing out by saying “Obama said” Leviticus suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination (because, um, A: Obama didn’t just say it, he quoted it, and B: the bible doesn’t suggest it, it confirms it.  This “Obama said” thing is intended to keep MSNBC out of the debate and make it sound as though they’re just reporting on Obama’s “interpretation”.  Thanks, pussies!), I can’t wait to see what James has to say!

Dobson … accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

As Obama said, is this traditional understanding of the Bible Dobson’s understanding, or Sharpton’s understanding? Because they ain’t the same thing.  James, you’re not the arbiter of tradition, as much as you’d like to think you are.  But hey, thanks for making Obama’s point for him!  There are many thousands of biblical literalists whose traditional understanding of the Bible does call for them to avoid shellfish and avoid touching anything a menstruating woman touches (read more about them in this great book).  Anyone who’s spent any time with Christians understands that they’re, um, human.  And being human, they are complex, and within even one congregation you will find many different “traditional” understandings of the Bible.  So Obama’s point stands.  Which would the government choose to teach in schools?

Continuing in his twisting of Obama’s speech (likely) or inability to comprehend it (also likely), Jimmy D says this:

Obama, who supports abortion rights, is trying to govern by the “lowest common denominator of morality,” labeling it “a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.”

“Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?” Dobson said. “What he’s trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.”

What is Dobson referring to here?

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God’s test of devotion.

But it’s fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason.

Those are the words Obama spoke, and some of which Dobson will presumably replay in his 18 minute radio screed.  But Dobson is (probably knowingly) very wrong in his interpretation of these words.  Obama doesn’t say Dobson’s followers “have no right to fight for what we believe”…quite the opposite.  He’s saying they have to fight for what they believe through the democratic process – by convincing non-believers that the evangelist’s values and policies are right and good.  Is this not evangelism defined?  Is this not what Jesus himself calls on his followers to do?

And far from being a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution, this is in fact a brilliant reading of it, and is a roadmap for Christians who seek wider political acceptance of their views.  And lest we think Obama’s just a big ol’ anti-religion, ‘keep God out of the public square’ liberal, let’s look at one more quote from that speech.

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation – context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase “under God.” I didn’t. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs – targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers – that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.

I wonder, does Dobson think this is a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution?  Perhaps he would do well not to argue the Constitution with a professor of Constitutional law…

…with tax cuts for the, um, not poor. 

Grandpa visited a shuttered factory in Ohio yesterday on his “I care, really I do” tour (not sure if his $100 million wife was there), and talked about free trade vs. protectionism, encouraging the out-of-work folks there to consider going to community college and learning how to work a computer.  You know, be part of the “knowledge economy”. 

According to this article, his big plan to help these folks is…wait for it…see if you can guess (hint – he’s a Republican)…yup, tax credits.  

Sen. McCain, who is a father of seven, proposed doubling the tax credit for children. In Youngstown, nearly half of single-working-mother families live in poverty. Sen. McCain said the current tax credit isn’t adjusted for inflation and the increased credit would allow adults to “invest more in their own families.”

Listen, let’s assume that the half of single-working-mother families living in poverty include two children, for the sake of this exercise.  According to the most recent HHS poverty guidelines (pdf), a family of three has to make less than $17,170 to be considered “in poverty”. 

Um, Grandpa?  How much do people making less than $17,000 pay in taxes? 

I don’t have a problem (for the most part) with a higher tax credit for kids.  Childcare is expensive, and it’s the kind of thing where the government can help you out in this way.  But let’s face it.  This is McCain picking low-hanging fruit; he doesn’t know how to help these folks without abandoning his ideology, so he appeals to “I’m helping your kids!”.  It’s the opposite of a third rail.  And the reality is, this will help middle-class families and have little to no impact on folks in poverty – while it’s great to help middle-class families, and there should be a lot more of that than there is here, we’ve got a rapidly expanding bottom tier economically, and keeping the conservative blinders on isn’t going to make things better for them.

Grandpa McCain’s tax policy is immoral.  Telling families in poverty that you’ll help them by giving tax credits to middle-class families is like telling the failing neighborhood store that you’ll help them by shopping at Wal-Mart.  It’s not just immoral, it’s stupid, and more typical Republican magical thinking.

So Hillary’s embrace of right-wing talking points is leading even the righty National Review is starting to swoon for her. After the ABC debate debacle, much has been made about the, um, paucity of quality questions. Much of the media agrees that ABC should be embarrassed by the quality of the questions, and Obama has enjoyed mocking them for wasting the first hour of the debate before asking about a real issue.

But today, Hillary had this to say:

Hillary: Well, we were both asked some pretty tough questions, and you know, that’s part of what happens in a debate and in a campaign. And I know he spent all of yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked. But you know, being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressure you face inside the White House. And in fact, you know, when the going gets tough, you just can’t walk away. Because we’re going to have some very tough decisions that we have to make. And I think that we need a president who can take whatever comes your way. You have to stand strong. You have to fight for the American people. Because it will not be easy to stand up against the special interests. {Switzernote – that’s rich}

Anchor: So you were fine with the debate? You didn’t see any problem with them?

Hillary: Well, can I say I’ve been through, what, 23 of these debates? And if you’ll recall, I was asked some pretty tough questions in nearly every one of them. That goes with the territory. Having been inside the White House, I know the pressures inside the White House, I know how hard it is every single day. When the going gets tough, you can’t run away. It’s going to be tough going dealing with these hard problems… The special interests are going to be a lot tougher than 90 minutes of questions from two journalists.

Yeah, Hillary’s really gonna stand up to those special interests. Heh.

But here’s what gets me about this. The only people calling the wasted first hour of the show “tough questions” are ABC, conservative douchebags, and…Hillary. Not one complaint I’ve seen at Kos, from any progressive, and least of all from Obama has been about “tough questions”. No, the complaints I’ve seen have been that those questions were a waste of time. ABC’s time, the viewer’s time…everyone’s time.

The National Review has this to say:

…And every once in a while, when she demonstrates she has the guts to ‘go there’ in front of a Democratic audience that want their debates to be criticism-free lovefests, I’m tempted to say, ‘I like the cut of your jib, Senator.’”

…

Hey, is anybody else getting this weird tingle up the leg when Hillary speaks lately?

You know, Hillary likes to talk about who Obama’s known or worked with in his life…perhaps the company you keep works both ways! When right-wingers start to like the ‘cut of your jib’, you’re on the wrong path.

But here’s what really concerned me when I heard the audio clip of Hillary making her statement above: They weren’t tough questions. They were stupid questions. And it concerns me that Hillary can’t tell the difference anymore.

In this “commentary” from Glenn Beck, he complains that when he went in for some elective surgery (we should all be so lucky as to be insured enough to have surgery when we wish), things went badly and he felt he was treated without compassion.  To be specific, he felt the staff (not the doctors, because they gave him an unbelievable amount of painkillers) was uncompassionate.  You know, nurses…the ‘help’.

It frankly sounds to me like we’ve found yet another Republican who is, to be crude, a pussy. 

That combination took me to an incredibly dark place. I began having trouble breathing, and I started to hallucinate. Every time I closed my eyes it was like I entered my very own movie theater running the movie “Saw” on a loop. I would see horrific, unimaginable images of death and after two and a half days, the combination of pain and hallucinations drove me to a point where I was literally suicidal. It felt like there was no hope and, quite honestly, if I could have ended it all right at that moment I probably would have (Sorry to disappoint some of you).

Listen, pain sucks.  We all know this.  Pain from surgery can be debilitating, but what he’s describing is no worse than what thousands of people go through every day – some folks have pain like this as a daily component of their lives.  But, who am I to judge?  It wasn’t my pain, maybe it really was uniquely horrible and one for the ages.  What’s up next, Glenn?

At the hospital I was often treated more like a number than a patient. At times, staff members literally turned their back on my cries of pain and pleas for help. In one case a nurse even stood by tapping his fingers as if he was bored while my tiny wife struggled to lift me off a waiting room couch.

Um, no.  First of all, it sounds like you were demanding a lot of attention with your cries of pain and pleas for help.  Hospitals are busy, overloaded places facing staff shortages just like everyone else, and they don’t have time to baby the Glenn Beck’s of the world through their difficult times.  It’s tough, but they’re really there to make you healthy, not sympathize with your plight.  Bedside manner is nice, but not really job one.  Further, the last sentence there has a bit too many flourishes to be believable – the nurse “tapping his fingers” while his “tiny wife struggled” to lift him?  Please. 

That’s why I don’t want to hear anymore about universal health care or HMOs or the evils of insurance companies until each and every hospital in this country can look me in the eye and tell me that they their staff is full of truly compassionate people who treat their visitors like patients, not products. Hire and train the right people, and then and only then come talk to me about everything else you need.

Really?  You want compassion first, care second?  That’s the Beck solution to the healthcare problem?  The big, tough Republican answer to healthcare is that nurses should be nicer to you?  Again, please. 

The secret is “care.” After all, at the lowest of my lows, it didn’t matter to me whether the hospital had marble in its bathrooms or plasma televisions on all its walls. The only thing I cared about was finding someone who actually cared about me.

You wanted someone to bring you your Wubby and tuck you in, you baby.  Honestly, compassionate care is nice, but the priority here is to make you well.  Do you think someone who has no insurance and has to wait until they’re actually in a crisis cares if the folks at the hospital are compassionate, or will they consider relief of their suffering compassion enough? 

Finally, “it didn’t matter to me whether the hospital had marble in its bathrooms or plasma televisions on all its walls“?  I think your straw man fell on your head and did some damage, there, Glenn…unless you can point to which Democrats’ healthcare plan calls for plasma TVs and marble restrooms, you just wrote a stupid thing. 

See, this is a circular argument.  Assuming we actually get some form of “universal” healthcare, Glenn will complain A) about the cost and B) about the lack of compassion he got for his butt surgery.  Should Democrats listen and require some form of compassion training or rigorous niceness standard, Glenn will rail in outrage at the waste of taxpayers’ money – you’re there to get well, not get massaged!  (they won’t do this, btw, but at some point I assure you Glenn Beck will accuse them of spending money on precisely this kind of thing)

The reality is this:  It’s too goddamn expensive for poor folks to get even basic preventive care in this country, much less elective butt surgeries, and REALLY much less compassionate care.  Democrats, unlike Republicans and Glenn Beck, just want people to get the basic care that any American should be able to expect – and if compassion comes in the mix, then so much the better.

<Switzernote:  This was written, apparently, in August, and never published.  I decided to go ahead and post it because…well, why not.  So, it isn’t new or anything, just old thoughts.  Please make a note of it.>

Well, frick.  No sooner do I write about Bush’s gas-tax blah blah blah (see post below), Devilstower at  Kos goes and does a better job of it.  Read my version if you want, but you must read DT’s version.

This brain dump is about something I’ve been pondering for a while – the magical thinking of modern Republicans.  I keep listening for some sort of logic or proof point in their policies and public statements, but I just keep hearing the same bizarre belief that if you just don’t do anything, good stuff magically happens.  They live in an evidence-free world, where the poor are happily getting rich off the government, the rich are poor, and teenagers wouldn’t have sex without Democratic insistence.

• Infrastructure – no new taxes.  As long as we “prioritize”, the trillions needed for our overall infrastructure will magically materialize
• The poor – no government help.  No proof of this, no study has ever shown it to be true, but they’ve convinced themselves that government assistance for people who can’t afford food somehow forces those folks into dependence.  If you just let them starve, they’ll magically find jobs and money for food.
• Healthcare – get the government out of it.  If you help folks who can’t afford healthcare, they won’t magically get better! 
• Sex – if we prevent kids from gaining any knowledge of how sex works, they won’t have any until they’re married.  Hormones are magically blocked!
• Evolution – the evidence is all wrong!  Humans were magically created from clay.  Everything else was magically created from nothing (this is the root of the Republican problem).

I can go on and on, but you see the problem.  Their solution to all problems is to either do nothing or do less.  Looking out for number one is magically seen as helping the community.  In the case of our infrastructure, Bush seriously seems to believe that it’s worse to ask for a few hundred bucks from Americans than it is to see them die in repeated tragedies as bridges collapse, blackouts increase and sewers give way. 

So yesterday, Bush announced that we “won’t raise” the gasoline tax $.05 (I put it in quotes, because the Transportation Appropriations committee will make that decision, not him).  He feels that, instead of raising a tax, the Senate should “prioritize”.  In other words, since the transportation budget that he agreed not to veto isn’t quite enough money to simply maintain our roads at the status quo, he believes they should magically use that money to improve our roads. 

Here’s the deal.  The US uses 137 billion gallons of gas annually, which translates to just under $7 billion in taxes raised if we raise the gas tax by a nickel.  To put that in “you” terms, that’s about $5 a week.  (assuming 2 weekly fillups for 2 cars at roughly 13 gallons per fillup, and doubling the tax to a dime so the oil company can weather the incredible strain of taking in an extra nickel.  IOW, this is an aggressive estimate).  (Oh, and let’s say you drive a big duallie pickup with a 40 gallon tank and fill up twice a week.  That comes to about $8 and a heaping helping of personal responsibility – you chose the big truck, you can pay the bills) $5 a week is about $270 for a 2 car household.  George Bush believes this $270 will “affect economic growth”, and thus opposes it. 

Never mind, of course, that the imploding credit situation in this country is guaranteed to have a negative impact on economic growth - he’s not concerned about already strapped folks losing their homes and having their credit destroyed, he’s concerned about folks paying a tax.  And losing one viente latte a week.  That’s the deal, folks.  We can pay the $5 a week and share the responsibility for restoring our infrastructure to the finest and safest in the world (and get home safely), or we can keep our latte and continue our slide into life-threatening third-world irrelevancy. 

Seriously, does anyone think $5 a week is going to “affect economic growth”?  That’s just bullshit from a President who’s afraid to anger his anti-tax zealot bosses in the Party.  The cost of saving actual lives, not to mention preventing the economic impact of a broken infrastructure that can prevent the movement of goods, is around $200 billion.  That’s just to fix our roads, and doesn’t take into account our failing steam pipes, sewer systems, eroding electrical grid, etc.  $200 billion dollars is 17 months in Iraq.  You want to talk about priorities?  Get our military spending out of the stratosphere, put our kids in responsible, strategic locations (i.e., not Iraq) with efficiently made weapons and raise a small gas tax, and you’ve got a safer country with a rebuilt infrastructure.  Just like that.  But this giant pussy is afraid to ask Americans for an extra 5 cents. 

You think collapsing bridges don’t impact economic growth?  Did you know that more than 500 bridges failed in the U.S. during the 90′s?  Wanna guess if the loss of those access points affects the ability to move commerce?  Luckily, most of those bridges, like most things, gave warning before they failed – you know, warnings like the Alaskan Way Viaduct is giving that we’ll ignore until it collapses on some nice tourists from Illinois.  But the time is coming when what happened in Minnesota will be more and more frequent.  Our system can only age so much before it fails.

So that you see where Bush is coming from in his no new taxes stance (and in case you’re wondering if the GOP is already circling the wagons to protect their ideology from any fact), the Investor’s Business Daily led the way with an editorial blaming this on state legislature’s spending priorities.  You see, in their world, we’re enjoying a “Bush boom” and surging tax revenues.  Well, we are certainly enjoying a boom in service sector jobs.  But those tax revenues?  They’re not up because of the economy (which is failing AGAIN, btw, thanks to the economic ideas the IBD has promoted, like, ahem, subprime lending and the bankruptcy bill).  No, they’re coming from the increased sales taxes, service fees and property taxes that states and municipalities have had to levy thanks to the GOP’s massive cuts in state funding.  You want to talk priorities, IBD?  How about deciding to cut taxes on wealth while raising taxes on work, and depriving local governments of the money they need to repair this infrastructure.  Check this out:

But cities, towns, counties and states aren’t spending on unsexy projects like bridge and highway infrastructure, which benefit everyone. No, they’re focusing their efforts on entitlements, opting for easy votes over public safety. When the time comes for infrastructure spending, funds get diverted instead to day care centers, “affordable housing” and other pork — not bridges, ports and roads.

…

Nevertheless, something failed that will probably require more spending for infrastructure. The latter is not as sexy as day care centers, bilingual education or global warming boondoggles. But it’s far more badly needed.

The fucking gall.  Guess why we need that affordable housing?  Because of the increased number of people living in poverty thanks to this administration’s economic policies – you know, the IBD’s “Bush boom”.  Yay, I’ve got a job at Wendy’s!  Now I can live in a shit apartment and drop my kids off at the 10% subsidized day care where I hope they won’t be molested, while my boss writes off his capital gains.  Thanks, George Bush!  To call affordable housing and day care for the millions of people Bush’s policies keep in poverty “pork” shows an appalling disregard for traditional American principles. 

Well, all the bilingual education, global warming investment and affordable housing spending in this country combined falls far short of the money needed to fix our infrastructure – and I think anyone who understands our system of government, common human decency, and simple responsibility to our own nation can see that one need not be sacrificed for the other.  Unfortunately, George Bush and the anti-tax zealots just don’t see it that way.  Get used to collapsing bridges.

One of the most enlightening things about all the subpoenaed aides from the Bush administration (because frankly, the politicizing of science and “above-the-law” chicanery is unsurprising) has been how…well, dumb these aides are.
On some level, you sorta knew they weren’t bringing in the best and the brightest, and with the revelations about Regents University serving as a pipeline for Bush appointees it became clear what sort of qualifications were needed, but you still sort of expected (or at least I did) that some professionalism and intelligence was needed to survive working in the highest levels of government. I mean, agree with them or not, aides from previous administrations, R and D, have been intelligent, professional people, even if they were unqualified for the specific job or were evil. Not so with this bunch.

First we had Monica Goodling, the Gonzales aide who testified that she broke the law by crossing the line, but she “didn’t mean to“. (btw, that last linked article sees Goodline as wicked smart – I disagree. I think we saw her as she is, and she’s exactly what the administration wanted: a patsy who’s ballsy until she’s actually confronted.) I mean, really. A grown woman saying that she broke the law, but “didn’t mean to”…as if that’s a defense to be taken seriously by anyone over the age of 8? For those who think she’s smart and/or mature – this is a woman who worked at an executive level in the Justice Department and carried a Hello Kitty purse. I’m just sayin’…

Today, though, we get this nugget from former White House aide Sara Taylor:

“I don’t believe there was any wrongdoing by anybody,” Taylor said. “I don’t believe anybody in the White House did any wrongdoing.”

Just for the record, CNN refers to this as a “stiff defense” of her coworkers. Seriously, read the last sentence of her statement again. “I don’t believe anybody in the White House did any wrongdoing.” This is not something a person would say if they had anything going on upstairs. Let’s take a look at what she said in defense of herself:

Loyal to Bush even outside the White House, Taylor said she was trying not to answer questions that might violate the president’s claim of executive privilege. At one point she told the committee that as a commissioned officer, “I took an oath and I take that oath to the president very seriously.”

Seeing a chance to weaken Taylor’s observance of Bush’s executive privilege claim, Leahy corrected her: She took an oath to uphold the Constitution, he said.

“Your oath is not to uphold the president,” Leahy lectured her.

She also earlier added:

“I’m trying to be consistent and perhaps have not done a great job of that,” Taylor said. “I have tried.”

Sound familiar? It’s “I stepped over the line, but I didn’t mean to” all over again.

Sadly, it’s now becoming clear that this administration has surrounded itself not just with yes men, not just with ideological partisans, not just with fundamentalist toadies, not just with boot-licking sycophants, but with immature, slow-witted children in adult bodies who had the good sense or good fortune to be associated with the right colleges and were willing to do the right work on behalf of Republicans.

By the way, correcting her interpretation of her oath wasn’t a chance to “weaken [her] observance of Bush’s executive privilege claim”, but was entirely accurate and showed that her ignorance of her responsibilities not to Goerge Bush but to the nation hadn’t gone unnoticed.

It pains me to see people like this in positions of authority in this administration, but sadly, I think it’s the norm. I just hope we haven’t seen too much damage already done.

[Note: This was written by the switzermom and switzerdad, who sent it my way. I apologize that I do not possess their writing skill. Back to inflicting my nonsense shortly.]

Scooter Libby is George Bush’s Lt. William Calley.

In January, 1968, Charlie Company killed some 500 old men, women, children and babies in the so-called My Lai massacre. Despite an attempted cover-up, the army eventually indicted 26 officers and soldiers for their roles in the massacre. In the end, Lt. Calley was the only one convicted. Calley was given life in prison for killing 22 civilians, but his sentence was later reduced to 20 years and then 10 years. He actually served about 3 1/2 years of house arrest at Ft. Benning, GA. This seemed to satisfy our national need to hold someone accountable.

In July, 2003, Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a covert CIA operative was revealed as the result of information leaked from the highest levels of the White House. Evidence suggests this may have been a deliberate attempt to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, and that both George Bush and Dick Cheney may have been involved, as well as Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and others.
As more and more Americans became aware of the leaking of Plame’s identity to a White House friendly pundit, the outrage grew. It became obvious, even to this arrogant administration, that someone would have to be “held accountable”. Enter Patrick Fitzgerald, an apparent darling of the mainstream media, repeatedly lauded as a hard-nosed prosecutor and a man of unquestioned integrity. Despite the praise heaped upon his head, imagine our surprise and disappointment when the best he could do was indict a staffer, Scooter Libby, for lying to the grand jury.

My expectation is that Libby will be convicted of perjury, the conviction will be appealed for years to come and he will ultimately serve no jail time at all. But the conviction will satisfy our national need to hold someone accountable.

When we have a White House that has little, if any, regard for the Constitution, it is a shocking betrayal of the American people that the real traitors will remain scot-free and in control of our government. It is obvious to all who care about this nation that this administration is still in the process of taking over the judiciary and will continue to manipulate any “trial” which involves a crony.

“…and justice for all.” Right!

I received a forwarded email from a Republican friend of mine – we tend to get along and see eye to eye on lots of things, but he occassionally runs off the rails. This forwarded email, which I’ll reproduce in its entirety, draws a parallel between the snowstorms in Colorado and Hurricane Katrina. (I may provide helpful links in-line, but otherwise, no editing) Check this:

Up here, in the ” Mile-Hi City “, we just recovered from a Historic event— may I even say a “Weather Event” of “Biblical Proportions” — with a historic blizzard of up to 44″ inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10′s of thousands.

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit – or report on this category 5 snowstorm. Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody – I mean Nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Shepard Smith, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Striesand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV’s to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn’t ask for a penny.

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.

Families took in the stranded people – total strangers.

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is “Work or Die”.

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a

mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin at home’ checks.

Even though a Category “5″ blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.

“In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world’s social problems evaporate.”

It does seem that way, at least to me.

I hope this gets passed on.

Maybe SOME people will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living.

I’ll take this pretty much in order. I grew up in Colorado. I’ve been through four storms that were this severe – it’s a big, hairy deal (although we never missed a day of school), but easily survivable. This is evidenced by the death toll of…zero. I live in Washington now. We have windstorms like this every year; it’s part of our landscape. I and a million of my closest friends spent from 3 to 14 days without power last month after a particularly brutal one (8 days in my case).

The difference between windstorms, snowstorms and hurricane Katrina? In the first two, stores reopen. Basic amenities of life still function. No one is under 9 feet of water. With few exceptions, houses don’t fall apart, and entire communities aren’t destroyed. Tens of millions in costs, versus hundreds of millions. Quite the opposite with hurricane Katrina.

George Bush didn’t come because Colorado didn’t vote for him. But he has been asked for help.

FEMA is paying the govenrment’s cost for police and fire overtime, repairs, and snow removal. This means that my federal taxes are paying for Colorado’s recovery from a storm that they are always prepared for – their state taxes will not bear the burden. So it’s either stupidity, ignorance or lying to say FEMA did nothing.

And wait, what’s this…? Seems them tough ol’ ranchers do want some FEMA aid, after all! What a surprise!

President Bush has declared two emergencies in Colorado after two blizzards beat up counties up and down Colorado’s Front Range.

The declarations came Sunday, two days after local officials expressed frustration with the delay by the federal government in recognizing the severity of the impact of the storms on ranchers in southeast Colorado, but do not include aid to those who have lost thousands of head of cattle stranded without food or water by drifting snow last week.

The federal government is yet to act on a request for low-interest loans for those ranchers.

No one howled for the government because…wait for it…they were doing their jobs (I’ll get to this later)

The mayor of Denver didn’t blame Bush because FEMA is helping him. Same for the Governor.

Please see inline links above to dispute the moron’s claim that the major networks didn’t cover this storm. Seriously, to claim nobody covered it? Please.

Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards because no one was evacuated thousands of miles away from their bank accounts, which were destroyed along with their banks. Unlike Katrina, where people were left with literally nothing but the clothes on their backs – no ID, no money, no nothing – people in Denver were snug in their homes, and their bank kept on workin’.

No one needed a FEMA Trailer because no one found themselves suffering the indignity of homelessness, as hundreds of thousands did in Louisiana and Mississippi. No one looted, again, why? Because people had access to their own money, stores, water, and homes.

As for expecting the government to do anything…I suppose people drove the snowplows themselves? I suppose avalanche control (which failed at Berthoud Pass) was handled by the hardy locals at their own cost? I suppose the fire and police and national guard that were called out to help aren’t part of the government? The airlifted food for cattle came from…where? Folks’ living rooms?

I will admit, no one from Hollywood seems to have jetted off to Denver to try and alleviate all the…people not suffering.

Now we get to the part about melting snow for water. Apparently, this email was written by Grizzly Adams rather than someone who lives in Denver, because this is just fucking nonsense. It’s a major metropolitan area, and the water still worked. Those on ranches have wells. If you’re going to spread right-wing anti-government puke, at least don’t make up outright stupid things.

As for people pitching in to help each other – apparently this moron missed the constant coverage of truck drivers helping people, teenagers commandeering school buses to get people to safety, restaurants opening, millions upon millions of dollars in donations, clothes, food, shelter all being donated during Katrina. Nope, only them rootin’, tootin’, toughest-on-the-plains Denver ranchers help each other.

I especially like the connection between putting on layers of clothing (don’t normal people learn to do this when they’re 5?) and “Work or Die”. HA! Yeah, Denver’s got a real do-it-yourself wild west cowboy work ethic. Sweet.

As for the rest of this drivel, seriously – I’d love a follow-up email to tell me how an “affirmative action” government’s “welfare program” caused New Orleans to be under water for a month. Amazing how government did nothing to save this self-sufficient, brave person in their suburban hell of snow, and no one blamed the government for their predicament, but somehow government DID cause New Orleans to flood….odd, ain’t it?