Conyers lays it out!

In a new editorial on Buzzflash.com, Rep John Conyers combines with the works of his own bloggers to create an excellent article which clearly outlines the slow and eminant demise of the Republican Party. Proving that the voiceless can be heard, and that at least some of our Representatives are still listening.

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/04/con05129.html

When the history is written concerning fall from political grace of the Bush presidency, I believe we will point to the emergency passage of the Schiavo legislation as constituting the turning point. Clearly there is short term political fall-out from the unprecedented legislative intervention into a private family matter. The most recent CBS poll shows the president's popularity is at an all time low - 43%, while the Congressional approval rating is down to 34%.

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To begin with, Americans now understand that Republicans can no longer claim the mantle of being "pro-life," when they are decimating Medicaid, when they are preventing life-saving stem cell research, when they allow guns to flow freely to terrorists, when they ignore the tragic school shooting in Minnesota, and when more than 1,500 American soldiers and more than 100,000 innocent civilians have died in Iraq as a result of a misguided war.

...

They certainly can't claim to be "pro-family," when their bankruptcy bill would put credit card companies ahead of families, when they tolerate families living on a minimum wage below the poverty level, and when the president signed legislation in Texas authorizing the removal of life support systems for financial reasons.

The Schiavo case has taught the entire country that the Republican leadership is willing to systematically cast aside the norms of politics and comity in the Congress, the courts, the state legislatures, and even our most intimate family decisions.

Read it, enjoy it - share it with your friends. This link needs to be everywhere on the web - NOW!

Vyan

Send Ashley to Fallujah!

Reposted from Media Matters.org:

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Coulter: Fly Ashley Smith to Saudi Arabia to save Muslims' souls

Attacking what she portrayed as the anti-religious views espoused by liberals and the "secularist crowd," right-wing pundit Ann Coulter compared Muslims to Brian Nichols, the suspected rapist accused of killing a judge and three other people after escaping police custody at an Atlanta courthouse in March. Coulter claimed that Nichols's hostage, Ashley Smith, had "saved [his] soul" by "talking to him about Christianity" during her period of captivity, and could do the same for "the Muslims."

From Coulter's April 7 nationally syndicated column:

Smith saved the soul of a man on a killing spree [Nichols] by talking to him about Christianity. But the liberals think this won't work with the Muslims? We ought to fly this Ashley Smith to Saudi Arabia. We could just make her a box lunch every day and send her on her way.

Coulter's comments echo similar remarks from a September 13, 2001, column for National Review, which resulted in her dismissal as a contributing editor:

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Media Matters for America has documented other instances of Coulter's anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Blame Canada!

When in doubt, Conservative Pundits rarely fail to find a way to blame the Democrats for their own excesses...

It's all a "Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy" - don't cha know?

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Conservatives on Fox baselessly cast ethics charges against DeLay as partisan attacks by Democrats, "liberal media"

Conservative media figures on Fox News have portrayed allegations of ethical misconduct by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) as a conspiracy by the "liberal media" to aid Democrats, echoing DeLay's own efforts to defend himself. The most recent revelations concern trips to Moscow, London, and South Korea -- apparently funded by lobbyists attempting to influence congressional business -- in 1997, 2000, and 2001, respectively; and revelations that DeLay's political action and campaign committees have paid his wife and daughter $500,000 since 2001.

On the April 6 edition of Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity described the most recent charges against DeLay as "liberal allegations" and asked: "Is he the target of a smear campaign?" Former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) also characterized the allegations against DeLay as partisan: "I think the left has a way of vigorously imposing political correctness, and they viciously punish anyone that doesn't comply. We all know that Tom DeLay is not one that -- that is going to comply." Watts later suggested that the charges against DeLay are likely "frivolous": "I think you usually find ... on the Republican and the Democratic side, at the end of the day, probably 90 percent of the ethics complaints ... are frivolous."

Read more...

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Dissecting a right-wing smear: How conservatives used trumped-up evidence to blame Democrats for Schiavo memo

Despite a lack of evidence, several media sources have repeated conservative speculation and accusations that Democrats secretly authored a "talking points" memo that described the Terri Schiavo case as a "great political issue" for Senate Republicans. These baseless accusations, apparently hatched on right-wing blogs and in conservative media such as The American Spectator, were given credibility by The Washington Post and CNN's Inside Politics. But as recent reports indicate, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) has admitted publicly that one of his aides is the true author of the memo.

However that hasn't stopped the pundits from pointing a finger at Dems:

March 24

Accuracy in Media press release: "[E]vidence suggests that the memo may have been manufactured as part of an effort to make Republicans look bad."

Rush Limbaugh: "The memo was made up by Democrat staffers."

The American Spectator claims: "It's Rathergate all over again."

Bill Bennett: "I think it was planted either by a fraud or an idiot."

Hinderaker: "There is no evidence that this memo came from the Republicans."

March 27

Tucker Carlson: "...within a week or two, it will become clear that it -- that memo -- was a forgery, possibly written by Democrats..."

March 28

Fox News' Brit Hume repeats claims that Republicans had never seen the memo and that it contained "numerous factual and typographical errors" to discredit it.

March 29

Limbaugh asserts the memo is forged.

March 30

Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post: "[T]here are several strange things about [the memo]."

Accuracy in Media press release: "[M]edia outlets who reported on this bogus memo need to admit their error."

Wes Vernon of NewsMax claims examination by American Spectator, Limbaugh, Hannity and others indicates the memo is a "fraud" and "political dirty trick."

April 4

Fred Barnes op-ed in The Weekly Standard: "[T]he memo story turns out to be yet another instance of crude liberal bias."

April 6

The Washington Times: "Was the Schiavo memo a fake?"

The answer to all these questions is -- "NO!".

Read more...

The Minutemen and Immigration Reform

Much has been made in recent days of the so-called "Minutemen", a group of volunteers who plan to spend a month playing lookout for illegal immigrants along the Arizona border. http://www.minutemanproject.org The issue has the ACLU up in arms, so much so that it has decided to provide it's own set of observers to watch the watchers and document any potential civil rights abuses. If the function of the Minutemen is to simply watch the border and report what they see to overworked and overtaxed Federal officials, I see little problem with the effort. However, if they are to attempt to apprehend illegals on their own, the issue of their qualifications, experience with law enforcement techniques, as well as legal authorization to detain and hold anyone on public property is a serious concern.

Clearly there are tangible national security interests to border security, as we do seem to be continually bleeding along our southern border. But activities such as those by the Minutemen are unlikely to stanch that wound. Many people are clearly outraged that the Federal Government seems completely unable to address this problem, letting these "illegals" enter at will - but few people ever seem to ask the question. Why can't these people enter legally? Do they have no respect for our laws, or is something else at work?

The answer may reside with the U.S. State Dept. Visas offered by the State Dept to immigrants from various nations are limited by a quota. Quotas of this type began to first be established in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, as the scare of the "Yellow Menace" began to rise and the need for railroad workers (who were primarily Chinese) began to wane. In the 1920's there was the "Red Scare" and in the 1940's the internment of Japanese Americans. In the 21st century we like to consider ourselves more 'enlightened' than we were in the past, yet these types of quotas remain.

So again we return to the question, besides National Security concerns, why are we so desperate to keep certain people out while allow near open-ended immigration from Europe and Asia, especially since most illegal immigrants are frequently Europeans who have overstayed their visas? And more importantly, how do we fix this?

I submit that a we can go a large way toward resolving our problems with illegal immigration by reforming and correcting inadequacies that currently exist in our legal immigration system. We need to either fix or abandon the current "quota" system. The President has suggested a "Guest-Worker" program to allow migrant workers entry into the U.S. when they have a specific job waiting for them. I support measures of this type, because the vast majority of immigrants from Central America are coming to the U.S. to find work. Rather than simply employing the revolving door of "catch and release" at the border, I suggest that we crack down on the employers of illegal migrant workers and offer them a choice. Either these employers will abide by the law, pay their employees the legal minimum wage, and get involved with the State department to help find and screen migrant workers who do not present a security risk - or else be fined severely and risk losing their business. If we are going to expect immigrants to abide by the law, we need to expect American companies who employ them to do exactly the same.

From the latest information I've heard, In California, immigrant workers provide over $100 Billion to the economy compared to using $6 Billion in state services. Understandably, many residents of the border states do not appreciate their tax dollars being spent to support people who have evaded the law - however what they often ignore is the savings on locally produced goods and products they are benefiting from, particularly in agriculture, as a result of undocumented workers who are being paid under the table. If the law were being applied consistently across the board, these workers would and should become "documented" and paid competitive wages as well as have access to healthcare. (The demand for these undocumented workers might even decrease if wages were made more attractive to native U.S. citizens who are trying to make ends-meet.) If this were the case, much of the state services they now utilize would be reduced because people who pay taxes and have health-care don't have to use the county emergency room as their regular doctor. Mandatory Government expenditures on Medicare (and the need for supporting tax revenue) would go down, while prices for some goods might rise, but so would the pool of people with funds to purchase those products.

Clearly we still need to secure our borders. We need to complete fixing the fence as was begun under the Clinton Administration. We need to recruit and train more members of the Border Patrol and better equip them with security and surveillance gear. Further, we need to close the revolving door - fingerprinting and taking pictures of all illegal entrants, then placing them on a Tipoff/No Entry List so that they are restricted from access to legal immigration for several years. If they are caught a second time, they should be held in custody for ever increasing periods before being deported. We should make those who defy our laws pay a penalty, but similarly we should reward those who do follow the rules and are only seeking a better life for themselves while contributing to the best of their ability to America society and growth.

Vyan

EPA pays to poison children

WASHINGTON, April 6 - Stephen L. Johnson, President Bush's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, encountered unexpected turbulence at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday as Senator Barbara Boxer of California threatened to hold up his nomination over a small but controversial pesticide program in Florida.

Appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Mr. Johnson, a 24-year veteran of the agency who has been acting administrator since his predecessor, Michael O. Leavitt, became secretary of health and human services, was greeted warmly by Republicans and faced predictably pointed questions from Democrats over recent agency initiatives, including emission control rules put into place last month.

Ms. Boxer's objections were based on a little-known research program near Jacksonville, Fla., sponsored by the agency and the American Chemistry Council, that offered money to low-income families willing to allow the agency to measure the effects of pesticides on their children under one year of age. The project, called Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or Cheers, was suspended last year after negative public reaction that prompted the agency to call in outside experts to assess its feasibility.

The program was limited to families in Duval County that routinely used pesticides inside their homes. It offered parents $970 over two years if they made sure their young children went about their usual activities as the use of pesticides continued. Researchers would then visit the home every three to six months to collect data.

In a letter that reached Ms. Boxer several hours after she raised her concerns, Mr. Johnson said, "No additional work will be conducted on this study subject to the outcome of external scientific and ethical review."

But that was well short of her demands. Calling the program "appalling, unethical and immoral," Ms. Boxer implored Mr. Johnson "to pull the plug on this program tomorrow." In an interview later, she said she would do whatever she could to hold up Mr. Johnson's confirmation so long as the program had any chance of being revived.

"Until it's canceled, I will do anything I can to stop this nomination," she said. "This program is the worst kind of thing; it's environmental injustice where children are the victims."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/politics/07enviro.html

Bush: Another Slip of the Lip?

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

George W. Bush, Jan 20, 2005

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"There is no 'trust fund,' just IOUs that I saw firsthand, that future generations will pay — will pay for either in higher taxes, or reduced benefits, or cuts to other critical government programs.

The office here in Parkersburg stores those IOUs. They're stacked in a filing cabinet. Imagine — the retirement security for future generations is sitting in a filing cabinet."

George W. Bush., April 5, 2005

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The Constitution of the United States

Article XIV

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

Academic Liberalism?

Wash. Times news, opinion pieces peddled flawed survey on liberal professors

Over the past week, The Washington Times ran one news report and columns by Suzanne Fields and Cal Thomas about a recent study indicating that more self-identified liberals than conservatives are serving as professors at U.S. colleges and universities, a conclusion reached by comparing data from faculty surveys taken in 1984 and 1999. Two of the articles repeat the claim that the study demonstrates a profound "ideological shift to the left among college faculty" and a pervasive anti-conservative bias in hiring and tenure decisions. In fact, neither conclusion is warranted based on the study itself.

The study, released March 29, is titled Politics and Professional Advancement Among College Faculty. Its authors are Stanley Rothman, director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change and Smith College professor emeritus of government; S. Robert Lichter, George Mason University professor and director of GMU's Center of Media and Public Affairs; and University of Toronto professor Neil Nevitte. The study was sponsored by the Randolph Foundation, a private philanthropy that funds many conservative organizations, such as Americans for Tax Reform, the Independent Women's Forum, and right-wing pundit David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

The Washington Times reported in a March 30 news article that the study found that "nearly three-quarters" of faculty members describe themselves as liberals, according to 1999 data from the North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS), up from 39 percent in a 1984 survey by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Relying on this comparison, the Times described a "shift to the left among college faculty [that] has become much more pronounced in the past 20 years." In fact, the two surveys examined such dissimilar samples that one cannot draw valid conclusions about a trend.

According to the study, the NAASS "American sample" included 1,643 faculty members from 183 universities and colleges. The responses came from "81 doctoral, 59 comprehensive and 43 liberal arts institutions." The 1984 Carnegie survey, however, contained "data obtained from over 5,000 faculty employed at a variety of institutions from Two-Year Community Colleges to Research Institutions." * Remarking on these two contrasting samples, the weblog Critical Montages observed that "the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for accentuating the proportion of liberals":

Research has shown that faculty and students at research institutions are more liberal than those at primarily teaching institutions (see, for instance, Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, "War and Dissent: The Political Values of the American Professoriate," The Journal of Higher Education 65.5 [September/October 1994], especially p. 586; and Richard F. Hamilton and Lowell L. Hargens, "The Politics of the Professors: Self-Identifications, 1969-1984," Social Forces 71.3 [March 1993], especially pp. 608-609, 613-614, 616), so the NAASS's exclusion of two-year colleges and overrepresentation of doctoral institutions is a recipe for accentuating the proportion of liberals.

On the question of ideological orientation, the study's comparison of the 1984 and 1999 surveys violates a fundamental principle of survey research. As decades of research have shown, altering questions in even subtle ways can produce dramatically different results. Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte base their conclusion that "a sharp shift to the left has taken place among college faculty in recent years" on questions asked in two entirely different ways in the two studies, one asking respondents to place themselves on a ten-point scale, and one asking them to select from a list of descriptions.

Does this mean that there has been no shift to the left among faculties? Not necessarily -- but with the available data we have no idea whether such a shift has occurred, and neither do Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte.

The study attempted to depict an epidemic of "liberal bias" on campus by contrasting the alleged "sharp shift to the left" among college faculty to the "relatively stable" ideological makeup of the general public over time. This comparison has little illustrative value, however, since the vast majority of the general public lack the necessary credentials for a professorship at the surveyed schools. Moreover, available data suggest that highly educated Americans may be more left-leaning than the general population. Exit polls from the November 2004 presidential election indicate that 55 percent of voters who have postgraduate study experience voted for Democrat John Kerry, compared to 44 percent for Republican George W. Bush. (Interestingly, when New Yorker staff writer Nicholas Lemann asked Bush adviser Karl Rove how to identify "who's a Democrat" as opposed to a Republican for a 2003 profile, Rove answered: "Somebody with a doctorate.")

Both the news report and an April 4 Times column by Fields quoted Lichter -- whose Center for Media and Public Affairs states on its website that it conducts "scientific studies of the news and entertainment media" but receives funding from numerous conservative organizations -- saying that "this is the first study that statistically proves bias [against conservatives] in the hiring and promotion of faculty members." But Lichter's own study undermines this claim. The study specifically notes: "The results do not definitively prove that ideology accounts for differences in professional standing" [emphasis added]. Rather, the study concluded more modestly that the findings are merely "consistent with the hypothesis" of bias [emphasis added]. According to Lichter's study:

The results do not definitively prove that ideology accounts for differences in professional standing. It is entirely possible that other unmeasured factors may account for those variations. That said, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that political conservatism confers a disadvantage in the competition for professional advancement. ...

Our findings on the more controversial issue of discrimination against conservative faculty should be regarded as more preliminary. [PDF p. 15]

Considering that, according to Lichter's bio on the Center for Media and Public Affairs website, "Dr. Lichter also directs the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of news involving statistical or scientific information," his statement is little short of shocking. Cross-sectional studies like those cited in Lichter's study seldom "prove" anything; at best they can demonstrate associations and relationships.

Furthermore, the study does not even show, much less "prove," that conservatives have been discriminated against in hiring and promotion. Few would doubt that liberals outnumber conservatives among university faculty. But justifying claims about hiring and promotion would data on the number of conservatives and liberals who applied for various positions or came up for tenure review. Despite Lichter's comments, the study's authors present no data addressing the issue. (Academic promotion is extraordinarily complex; in such a study, researchers would have to determine, for instance, which respondents were denied tenure at a first-tier institution, then received tenure at a second-tier institution, then decide how such a person should be classified.)

The conservative claim of bias (as opposed to mere underrepresentation) rests on the idea that there are significant numbers of conservative Ph.D.s who have been denied faculty positions or tenure because of their political views. Lichter, Rothman, and Nevitte provide no evidence to support this assumption.

Fields similarly claimed that "a left-wing conspiracy -- or something close to it -- flourishes on the campus." But this conclusion assumes, implausibly, that hiring bias is the only conceivable overrepresentation of liberals on campuses relative to the general public.

Nationally syndicated columnist Thomas also referenced the flawed study in his March 30 column (reprinted in the April 4 Washington Times). He used the study as a springboard to inveigh against "liberalism on college campuses," which he criticized as fostering curricula that is "anti-American, anti-religious, anti-Israel, pro-homosexual rights and pro-abortion, often to the exclusion and ridicule of opposing views."

* Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte reference the 1984 Carnegie survey in their bibliography as "Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1989. The Condition of the Professoriate: Attitudes and Trends. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1989." Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte do not provide information on the sample used in the 1984 survey. A Media Matters internet search did not produce the 1984 Carnegie survey, but it did produce references to the same survey (based on the bibliographic information) -- including the one linked above -- that contained information about the 1984 survey sample.

— N.C., S.S.M., & P.W.

Foot-n-Cornyn Disease

Reposted from Dailykos.

Cornyn's defense of domestic terrorism is making lots of noise online.

The Left Coaster (Soto)

[I]f Cornyn and DeLay think that there may be a connection between violence against lifetime appointment judges and their allegedly political decisions, does that mean that DeLay and Cornyn would have found it acceptable if millions of Democrats had made direct threats against the GOP majority in the Bush V. Gore case? Would DeLay and Cornyn somehow excuse any subsequent violence that may have ensued against Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and the rest of the gang by wondering if there were a connection?

AmericaBLOG (Aravosis)

We now have Republican Senators making excuses for terrorists. Explaining why terrorism is understandable. Why terrorists have legitimate concerns. Justifying why the victims of terrorism are really to blame for these heinous crimes. Wonder what Senator Cornyn thinks of rape victims?

This is utterly outrageous. Outrageous. The GOP is now embracing domestic terrorists who are trying to undermine our democracy. And they're doing it so they can take down the judges who "killed" Terri Schiavo, and instead impose some Pat Robertson-like theocracy on our country. This is absolutely utterly beyond contempt. Tell Judge Lefkow in Chicago that her mother and husband are dead because she brought it on herself.

And the ultimate irony is that it is people like John Cornyn who now risk inciting violence against judges by giving aid and comfort to these homicidal maniacs. Cornyn should resign immediately.

Rep. Conyers (yeah, he blogs)

This apparent effort to rationalize violence against judges is deplorable. On its face, while it contains doubletalk that simultaneously offers a justification for such violence and then claims not to, the fundamental core of the statement seems to be that judges have somehow brought this violence on themselves. This also carries an implicit threat: that if judges do not do what the far right wants them to do (thus becoming the "judicial activists" the far right claims to deplore), the violence may well continue.

If this is what Senator Cornyn meant to say, it is outrageous, irresponsible and unbecoming of our leaders. To be sure, I have disagreed with many, many court rulings. (For example, Bush v. Gore may well be the single greatest example of judicial activism we have seen in our lifetime.) But there is no excuse, no excuse, for a Member of Congress to take our discourse to this ugly and dangerous extreme.

My message is not subtle today. It is simple. To my Republican colleagues: you are playing with fire, you are playing with lives, and you must stop.

Atrios:

We get so used to hearing this kind of wingnuttery, and while it's wrong when Michael Savage says something like this, it's certainly way beyond any standard of decency for a United States Senator. And, as Josh points out, it's certainly fascinating for Senator Cornyn to find common cause with murderer and accused rapist Brian Nichols...

Update: Cornyn has been going around citing the supposed support of three constitutional scholars for the GOP's nuclear option. I write "supposed", because all three of those scholars have denied such support. One of them, asked by Kagro X about her supposed support, wrote back:

This is a carefully structured misrepresentation which does seem to get repeated. Attached is a memo I have written to Boyden Gray and Senator Cornyn, the two that I know have been misrepresenting my views.

Bloch’s March 14th reply memo to Gray states the following:

You have seriously misrepresented my views. In a February 28, 2005 memo to journalists on behalf of the Committee for Justice, you argue that the Senate’s use of the filibuster against judicial nominations is unconstitutional. In so doing, you suggest I said such use in unconstitutional. In fact, I have never said such a thing. On the contrary, in the article you quote (but never cite), I said precisely the opposite, explicitly distinguishing the Senate filibuster from the House Rule thater, I was criticizing.

Despite attempts to get Cornyn (and Gray) to stop the lies about the matter, both persist in keeping up the charade.