“Let his colleagues beware,” Dr. Dobson warned, “especially those representing ‘red’ states. Many of them will be in the ‘bull’s-eye’ the next time they seek re-election.”
He singled out Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Bill Nelson of Florida. All six are up for re-election in 2006.
Silly me, I always thought that nonprofit organizations couldn’t endorse - or oppose - particular candidates. Perhaps it’s time to mount a campaign to strip Focus on the Family of its tax-exempt status?
I want to repeat Dan Gillmor’s impassioned plea to give to organizations which are helping the people of South and Southeast Asia recover (as much as anyone could be expected to recover from something on this scale) from the horrific tsunamis which have dwarfed other very real tragedies such as 9/11:
The tens of thousands who will have died when the counting ends are the immediate tragedy. But their numbers are dwarfed by literally millions of people whose lives have been turned inside out by this disaster. They must be the world’s focus now. We must all do what we can to help.
He has links to the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and a blog with some excellent links to information related to the tragedy. I just received an email from Sojourners which had several others:
- Catholic Relief Service
- Christian Aid
- Church World Service
- International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
- Lutheran World Relief
- Mennonite Central Committee
- Mercy Corps
- World Relief
- World Vision
This tragedy will not be overcome in short order, so I would encourage us all to give now and keep on giving in the months to come.
Given the events in Southeast Asia yesterday, most of what I usually talk about seems pretty unimportant.
Pray for the survivors. Give to relief organizations. Use every second wisely, because we have no guarantee of another.
Mr. Bush liked to tell his supporters that “John Kerry is going to raise your taxes” when in fact that was only the case if they managed to be one of the top one percent of Americans. Most of the rest would have received tax cuts under a Kerry administration. Well, apparently he really didn’t have a problem with Kerry’s idea of raising taxes on a portion of the population - he just thought Kerry was choosing the wrong portion:
To pay for that and the more generous savings accounts, the “least radical” proposal would eliminate the itemized deduction for state and local income taxes, while imposing a tax on Social Security benefits and employer-provided health care benefits.
Pay state and local taxes? Your taxes are going up a few thousand a year. Get healthcare through your employee? Yep, your taxes will go up a few thousand as well.
Interestingly enough, if you’re VERY, VERY rich, you’re going to get a big tax CUT in the form of the elimination of the Alternative Minimum tax and the Estate Tax. Imagine that, you mean to tell me that this President is planning on RAISING taxes for the majority of Americans so he can fund yet ANOTHER tax cut for the rich? Don’t be fooled - when tax reform is “revenue neutral” and includes big tax cuts for the rich, it means that the rest of us had better check for our wallets.
There are Mr. Bush’s moral values for you. Screw the poor and the middle class in order to pay back his rich supporters.
It’s looking more and more like our military’s use of torture was far from isolated. In fact, it looks like it may have been ordered by the President, himself:
Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union “suggest that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq.”
I wonder how many seconds it would have taken for the Republicans to launch impeachment hearings into Clinton had he done the same thing?
As much as I would like to believe that these charges would lead to the Democrats retaking Congress in 2006 and then impeaching him AND his Vice President, I fear that the 51 percent of the American people who voted for Bush in November don’t care much about how evil our policies are as long as they believe he is keeping us safe…
So much for “moral values.”
This is straight from the “What the Hell Were They Thinking?” Department:
President Bush “heads into his second term amid deep and growing public skepticism about the Iraq war, with a solid majority saying for the first time that the war was a mistake and most people believing that” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “should lose his job,” according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
We elect Presidents like major corporations appoint CEOs - poor performance shouldn’t get in the way of a good reward.
Unless you voted against this President in the last election, you should have no gripes about how the war in Iraq is going. You’re getting what you paid for.
I have some words on what is, and what is not persecution and what we should do about it over on The Gutless Pacifist. Please go there, read it, and comment if you get a chance.
Hug your kids and pray for an end to this crazy war:
Sad to the depths of his 4-year-old soul, Jack Shanaberger knew what he didn’t want to be when he grows up: a father.
“I don’t want to be a daddy because daddies die,” the child solemnly told his mother after his father, Staff Sgt. Wentz “Baron” Shanaberger, a military policeman from Fort Pierce, Fla., was killed March 23 in an ambush in Iraq.
Why do I reflexively check for my wallet every time Mr. Bush makes a policy proposal? Here is his latest:
President Bush said today he would send proposed legislation to Congress to limit “frivolous lawsuits” as a way to help the economy grow.
Mr. Bush, speaking at a two-day White House-sponsored economic summit, said the legislation would curb class-action litigation, lawsuits seeking damages for exposure to asbestos and medical malpractice suits.
Now, maybe this really is an attempt by the President to reign in truly “frivolous” lawsuits. But given his policy track record to date, my guess is it is just another way of redistributing wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. Who says Republicans aren’t in favor of income redistribution?
This Is Rumor Control: I suppose it was inevitable that, after reading news from Iraq on a daily basis, that I’d come down with a touch of “outrage fatigue.” My moment of self diagnosis came when I read in today’s news that U.S. Navy just released a ton of documents — we’re talking around 10,000 files, folks — showing that the abuse situation (remember Abu Ghraib?) runs far deeper and wider than anyone previously thought-or feared.
Outrage fatigue - that’s pretty much been an ongoing condition for me for at least the last year.
The administration may continually try to blame the troops for all of this, but the troops who engaged in these activities aren’t the ONLY ones to blame. That blame lies on our soon-to-be Attorney General, who crafted the administration’s legal justifications for torture. That blame is shared by our Defense Secretary, whose “by any means necessary” interrogration policies encouraged the troops to stride brazenly across the line. And finally the buck stops with our President. Even though he continually passes it.
But what is most disheartening is the fact that fifty-one percent of the American people endorsed this behavior by putting Mr. Bush back in power.
