JUSIPER
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Amen to that
"We've gone from history's adversary to destiny's child, but governing has brought a whole new level of challenge," said Jeffrey O. Nelson, publisher of ISI Books, the conservative press in Wilmington, Del., that produced the encyclopedia (of American conservatism).
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Saturday, June 24, 2006
Até logo
JUSIPER will be on hiatus until early August, 2006.
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Thursday, June 22, 2006
John Edwards' "Working Contract"
After today's National Press Club address on poverty, John Edwards dinstinguishes himself among the Democratic pack. He is now the most visionary Democratic candidate for president on domestic policy.
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Zogby June Senate poll
He has the Democrats doing reasonably well nationwide, but not enough to pick up more than one to three seats.
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Wednesday, June 21, 2006
GOP on top consultant: "At least he isn't gay"
From Political Wire:
Political consultant Carey Lee Cramer (R), credited with an anti-Al Gore ad in 2000 that showed a young girl picking daisy petals and ends with a nuclear blast, is charged with molesting two girls, including the one in the ad, according to McAllen Monitor.
The ad was a remake of the famous spot President Lyndon Johnson's campaign ran against Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) in 1964.
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Monday, June 19, 2006
Bush to pardon Libby?
We've been harping on this issue for months, and it just figures.
And of course, excepting John Conyers, Democrats in the House and Senate never made this a political issue. So why wouldn't they pardon Scooter? As Marc Rich's lawyer, I'm sure Scooter gave Cheney tips regarding long term strategy months before his indictment.
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Friday, June 16, 2006
Benedict on Western Islam
On this the new pope is quite right: Islam in the West must be taught in a manner that does not conflict with the values of Western civil society.
If Islam is not taught this way, popular pressure will ultimately force Western governments to curtail immigration from Islamic nations. Or condition residency and citizenship on the acceptance of a code of civil values.
But can a democratic state constitutionally regulate the teaching of a religion? This would be impossible in the U.S., and I suspect it would be quite hard in Europe as well.
Would "Euro-Islam" have any legitimacy in the Muslim world outside of Europe? And if not, would it really have a future within Europe?
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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Police can bust down your door and get your guns!
Republicans don't believe in privacy anymore. To the NRA and all the militia folks who made Alito and Roberts possible: we know you won't protest the Bush court or the Bush administration's diminutions of your rights. But there will be some grim enjoyment when these powers come to the hands of Democrats come 2009.
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Zarqawi wanted U.S. in Iran
Proving once again that there is remarkably little distance between Al Qaeda's strategy and Bush Administration foreign policy.
According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.
"We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq," it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.
"Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans," it said, adding that "the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits."
They included "opening a new front" for the U.S. military and releasing some of the "pressure exerted on the resistance."
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Disgraceful Democrats
Once again supporting credit card companies at the people's expense.
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Wednesday, June 14, 2006
At the Naval War College...
Laughter:
Yesterday the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, opened its annual conference on international strategy with a speech from the Navy Secretary in a vast hall, followed by a panel on American power composed of three scholars, all of whom had opposed the war in Iraq. Indeed, in the biographical notes that were given out to the audience of officers—men and women wearing their dress whites—one of the scholars stated bluntly that he had written about the "folly of invading Iraq."
For an hour the panelists gave their reasons for why they believe America will remain the most powerful country in the world well into this century, regardless of the morass in Iraq. There were about ten questions. The last one was from a Navy commander named Cladgett from Syracuse, who rose in the middle of the audience.
"My question to the panel is, What is the path to success in Iraq?"
There was a damburst of laughter in the audience, then the scholars took it on, one by one.
What did the (hardly liberal) speakers say?
The first, Stephen Walt of Harvard, said "This was a huge strategic blunder, there are no attractive plans forward." The greatest danger—an international conflict in Iraq—would be there no matter when we left. The next man, Robert Art of Brandeis, said, he thought it was extremely important for America's image in the Arab world not to have permanent bases in Iraq.
The last one to speak was the one who had used the word "folly" in the program: John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is 58. He told the audience that when he was a teenager, he had enlisted in the Army. Then he'd spent 1966-1970 at West Point. Then he said this:
"I remember once in English class we read Albert Camus's book The Plague I didn't know what The Plague. was about or why we were reading it. But afterwards the instructor explained to us that The Plague was being read because of the Vietnam War. What Camus was saying in The Plague was that the plague came and went of its own accord. All sorts of minions ran around trying to deal with the plague, and they operated under the illusion that they could affect the plague one way or another. But the plague operated on its own schedule. That is what we were told was going on in Vietnam. Every time I look at the situation in Iraq today, I think of Vietnam, and I think of The Plague, and I just don't think there's very much we can do at this point. It is just out of our hands. There are forces that we don't have control over that are at play, and will determine the outcome of this one. I understand that's very hard for Americans to understand, because Americans believe that they can shape the world in their interests.
But I learned during the Vietnam years when I was a kid at West Point, that there are some things in the world that you just don't control, and I think that's where we're at in Iraq."
The panel was over. For a moment or two there was stunned silence, and then applause—at once polite, sustained and thunderous.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
All eyes on Abramoff
Because carting GOP lawmakers off to prison looks, at this point, like the only way chance Democrats have at taking back either branch of Congress. In the meantime, a terribly dark cartoon by Ward Sutton.
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Monday, June 12, 2006
Edwards ahead of Clinton in Iowa!
Exciting news indeed for the stop-Hillary crowd from today's Des Moines Register:
Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina leads a list of potential Democratic presidential candidates while Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack holds fourth place, trailing Edwards by 20 points in an early test of support among likely Iowa caucus participants.
A new Iowa Poll conducted for The Des Moines Register shows that Edwards, the runner-up in the Iowa Democratic caucuses two years ago and a frequent visitor to the state since then, is the choice of 30 percent of Iowans who say they are likely to take part in the January 2008 caucuses.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York follows on Edwards' heels with 26 percent in the Iowa Poll.
Experts say it's the first poll showing anyone besides Clinton as the preferred Democrat in the race for the White House.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who used his victory in the 2004 caucuses as a springboard to the Democratic presidential nomination that year, is a distant third in the Iowa Poll with 12 percent. [...]
Speculation about the 2008 race centers to a large degree on Hillary Clinton, who now casts a bigger political shadow than her husband and is considered a front-runner nationally for the Democratic nomination. While she hasn't put Iowa on her travel schedule since 2003, she recently altered her position on ethanol by calling for a major research effort to boost the fuel's use. She has opposed ethanol mandates. Iowa is the nation's leading producer of the corn-based fuel.
Leanne Kennard, a retired teacher from West Des Moines, is among the 34 percent of likely caucus participants who have a very favorable impression of Clinton.
"I think she's so smart. I think she's got her head in the right place, and I think it's her time" to run for president, said Kennard, 71. "There's a lot of women that feel Hillary deserves a chance, and she might do a better job than some of the stuffed shirts that are running around out there."
While Kennard is also impressed with Edwards, "I think he missed his moment" in 2004, she said. As for Vilsack, she thinks he's very talented but lacks charisma.
The poll shows Clinton with a 14-point lead over Edwards in eastern Iowa's 2nd Congressional District. But Edwards holds double-digit leads over Clinton in the 3rd District, which includes Polk and Jasper counties, and the 4th District, which includes Dallas, Story and Warren counties.
Stimson and Georgetown University professor Stephen Wayne say it's the first poll they've seen with a Democrat other than Clinton topping the presidential preference list.
"I think it's very interesting that Hillary comes in second, that she only gets 26 percent of the vote," said Wayne. "That should be very encouraging to other Democrats, that she's not a shoo-in."
Since it now appears that Governor Vilsack will not be a factor even if he is a candidate, Iowa becomes a must-win for Clinton and Edwards--or whomever the anti-Hillary will be.
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Sunday, June 11, 2006
Five years of presidentially sanctioned homophobia lead to this
Awful.
Four youths were charged with a hate crime assault on a gay singer who was attacked as he left a Manhattan gay bar, police said on Sunday.
Kevin Aviance, 38, who scored No. 1 dance hits on the Billboard charts with ``Da Da Din'' and more recently ``Alive'' in 2003, was attacked late Saturday and kicked by four youths who called him ``faggot.''
He suffered head trauma and was in stable condition in a Manhattan hospital, where he was being treated for his injuries.
Police charged four young people aged 16 to 20 with hate crime assault and hate crime harassment. They were being held pending arraignment, police said in a statement.
Aviance told the New York Post from his hospital bed that he was especially distraught by the assault because he had been scheduled to perform at a host of gay pride events next week in advance of the city's Gay Pride march on June 25.
``I'm supposed to be doing all this stuff. With my jaw wired shut, what can I do?'' he was quoted as saying.
Aviance, born Eric Snead in Richmond, Virginia, told the paper his attackers kicked him in the head a dozen times during the early morning assault in Manhattan's East Village.
``They kicked me in my back, they kicked in my knees. They just kept kicking,'' he said.
A friend of famous singers like Janet Jackson and Madonna, Aviance has appeared on Tyra Banks' television shows and has performed at parties for Whitney Houston and Lil' Kim.
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Osama leaves Pakistan
When he arrived in Scotland, he was asked what he missed the most about Scotland, He said, "everything."
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Saturday, June 10, 2006
Cheap trick
Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report on John McCain's overtures to Jerry Falwell:
But on Tuesday, before the vote, Falwell gave his thoughts on the potential fallout from the Marriage Protection Amendment fight. "I want to see where everyone stands. It's my opinion that anyone in the Senate running on the national level will be committing political suicide by voting against it," he told the
As expected, the amendment failed, by a 49-48 vote, with three senators not voting.
Senator John McCain was among the senators voting against the amendment.
Falwell's strong statement has obvious implications for McCain. Either Falwell will continue to speak positively about McCain and project an openness to supporting him for president. Or, Falwell will back away from the Senator, work actively to make sure he does not win in 2008, and match his actions with his statement about the importance of the marriage vote.
Overall for McCain, this vote will likely stall, if not hinder his recent outreach to the socially conservative Republicans he needs to win the Republican presidential nomination.
The religious right demands a mistress, not a one-commencement whore. John McCain will find out the hard way.
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Friday, June 09, 2006
Jimmy Carter on Left Behind
Via BustedHalo:
BH: You allude to the Left Behind series in your book and about how it’s formed the religious right’s position with regards to Israel—could you talk about the reasons behind their policy towards Israel—and as a follow up—does this position have inherent anti-Semitic overtones?
JC: Well it’s a strange anomaly, the Left Behind series, which has been kicking around, as you know in religious circles for hundreds of years, I think in a twisted analysis of certain chosen verses in the holy scriptures. As far as the Mid-East is concerned, first of all, these people believe that first of all that Israel should occupy the entire holy land all of the West Bank, all of Gaza, without any exceptions. Secondly, they believe that the temple Mount area should be wiped clean and that the original holy Jewish temple should be re-erected where the mosque is located now—which would cause horrendous violence in that area. And the ultimate description is after all this is done, and there’s a rapture, that all the Jews, in the world, either are killed or have to become Christians against their will. This is their ultimate description of what’s going to happen in the future. So these kinds of things are very disturbing, and of course, they have been amazingly influential in shaping our own government’s policy.
The latest Left Behind book was released on 6/6/06.
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Sunday, June 04, 2006
Indonesia: Yet another GOP paradise
As parliament makes a move not only to ban porn but women who dare to wear miniskirts.
And hooray for the governor of Bali, who would rather than secede than live in a fundamentalist regime. A whole lot of people in the Gore-Kerry states would agree with that notion.
A measure before parliament would ban "pornoaksi," or porno action, a newly created offense so broad that it could include wearing a miniskirt or baring a navel. Kissing in public would be punishable by up to five years in prison. Dancing erotically could bring seven years. Exposing body parts that could be deemed erotic would be punishable by as much as 10 years.
"If you wear something sensual or sexy, it will be considered pornography," said Gadis Arivia, a professor of human rights and Western philosophy at the University of Indonesia who has helped organize opposition to the bill. "It will criminalize a lot of women in Indonesia."
Opposition to the measure has been especially strong in Bali, the predominantly Hindu island that depends heavily on tourism. Some worry that restrictions on attire could ban traditional Balinese dress and scare off foreign tourists accustomed to wearing revealing clothing. At one point, the governor of Bali threatened to secede if the bill was passed.
The threat of having to cover up has stirred moderate and middle-class Indonesians to political action, something that has seldom occurred since President Suharto was ousted and democracy was ushered in eight years ago. Opponents have organized demonstrations, launched a petition drive and pressured members of parliament to reject the measure.
"It's frightening because we see Indonesia being slowly turned into a conservative country," said Arivia, who attended high school in the United States. "We are scared to death that Indonesia will become an Islamic state. The majority of people would not want that."
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Novak: Rahm Emanuel to replace Pelosi if Dems don't take House
Why? Because some Democrats want to replace a poor communicator with a mediocre one?
One should take the interested commentary of an Opus Dei member and Traitorgate perjurer with a huge grain of salt on anything except the internal workings of his crazed party.
If Democrats feel the need to replace Pelosi (who is hardly more of a party hack than the usual suspects), they could do a lot better. How about a strong leader who could inspire the nation, like the great John Lewis? Or a savvy insider like Charlie Rangel, who could take Republican lies down with a withering oneliner and a well-placed line item?
We can do a whole lot better than Pelosi, but Rahm Emanuel is hardly the solution.
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Going to the well one too many times
Some evangelicals have had it with Bush's insincerity on gay marriage. Too bad they haven't quite figured out that the GOP doesn't mean to get rid of abortion either. But it's a start.
"I'm going to go and hear what he says, but we already know it is a ruse," said Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, which opposes gay marriage. "We're not buying it. We're going to go and watch the dog-and-pony show, [but] it's too little, too late." [...]
Such comments have raised the prospect that the debate over gay marriage — designed to galvanize one of Bush's most important constituencies, social conservatives — could instead exacerbate the president's political headaches. [...]
But if pleasing a key element of the Republican Party is the aim, the effort doesn't appear to be working.
"Social conservatives are disappointed that there hasn't been more action on the issues that were highlighted in the 2004 election," said Gary Glenn, head of the American Family Assn. of Michigan.
He added: "Increasingly, social conservatives expect real action, not just politically timed attempts to motivate and organize the base."
Other complain that Bush, despite Monday's planned event, has not put the full heft of the presidency behind the bid to ban gay marriage.
"President Bush's position is actually quite good on many … life and family issues, but he needs to get out front on them," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in a message to supporters last week. There is also dismay among some activists over the wording of the amendment.
At least two prominent social conservative groups — Concerned Women for America and the Traditional Values Coalition — believe the language contains a loophole that would allow gays to seek civil unions.
The proposed amendment reads: "Marriage in the United States shall consist solely of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any state, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."
Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, and others say the second sentence leaves open the option that gays and lesbians could enter unions other than marriage; and that's a deal breaker for them.
On its website, the Concerned Women for America says it "does not support the Marriage Protection Amendment as currently worded because the second sentence is open to differing interpretations."
And here's an intriguing quote that suggests Bush may not have anything to gain politically from this cynical move.
Pat Toomey, head of the anti-tax Club for Growth, agreed. He said the GOP's biggest problem was anger about federal spending and the deficit among fiscal conservatives and small-government advocates.
"I don't think [the gay marriage amendment] is going to help much," Toomey said. "The social conservative wing of the Republican Party is the part that's happiest — their most important thing was getting" conservatives added to the Supreme Court, he said, referring to the confirmations within the last year of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
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Saturday, June 03, 2006
Stupid people of the day
Today's prize goes to the 51% of Utahns who still approve of George W. Bush.
Let's meet one!
"I'm against the war in Iraq — and what happened with Hurricane Katrina, well, it was a failure by everybody," said Ron Craft, a sales manager in Provo who said he was a devout Mormon and a strong conservative who considered himself independent politically. "I tend to judge a person by their character. And President Bush reminds me of President Reagan. He's a man of principle."
Another moron:
"He's strong, and he doesn't waver," said Jaren Olsen, 18, a freshman at Brigham Young, the nation's largest religiously affiliated private university, who is from Albany. "I like that he is for the family, that marriage should only be between a man and woman. And the war, we need to finish what we started."
And a special award to Danielle Pulsipher, today's JUSIPER Queen of the Stupid:
Another student at Brigham Young, Danielle Pulsipher, a junior, offered blanket approval of the president. Asked to name which of his actions as president she liked most, she was hard-pressed to answer.
"I'm not sure of anything he's done, but I like that he's religious — that's really important," Ms. Pulsipher said.
Dum dum dum dum dum.
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Friday, June 02, 2006
Stop the pardons
Given today's news that Scooter Libby's trial will be about lying rather than the war in Iraq, you have to assume that he now realizes that his only way out is a pardon.
As we have written before, Libby knows the pardon process intimately; his last paying gig before serving Darth was serving as Marc Rich's lawyer.
And once again, this is a reminder to Democrats that they need to pressure the White House to promise not to pardon any White House officials involved in the treasonous outing of a CIA official.
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Paul Fortunato
His Opus Dei cilice leaves no marks. Does he have a special dispensation for PR purposes like these (the part about Opus having a sense of identification with the poor was particularly rich)? And if so, do fellow acolytes like Justice Scalia's son consider him a bit of a pansy?
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Thursday, June 01, 2006
How could I have missed this
Wow:
A controversial ringtone, which made fun of deporting illegal Latin-American immigrants, was pulled from Cingular's web site yesterday after the company received a complained from the league of United Latin American Citizens. The ringtone played the sound of a siren and then a voice that said: "Calmate, calmate, this is la migra. Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I`m deporting you back home-o." Cingular says it will put more efforts in reviewing ringtones that are submitted to them by a variety of providers.
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America: Bush is the worst president of the last 61 years
Quinnipiac poll:
Strong Democratic sentiment pushes President George W. Bush to the top of the list when American voters pick the worst U.S. President in the last 61 years. Bush is named by 34 percent of voters, followed by Richard Nixon at 17 percent and Bill Clinton at 16 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Leading the list for best President since 1945 is Ronald Reagan with 28 percent, and Clinton with 25 percent.
While it is true that white evangelical christians rank Clinton the worst modern president, it's far from overwhelming: just a 29% plurality. A good 18% say Nixon and Carter (too Christian)--not all that far from overall numbers. And 15% say George W. Bush: far from the overall population's 34%, but hardly insignificant.
Among white Catholics, some signs of a return to sanity: 35% believe the worst modern president was Bush; 19% give the dishonor to Nixon, 15% to Carter, and just 13% to Clinton. In addition, while 61% of white evangelicals still believe the war with Iraq "was the right thing for the United States to do," only 41% of white Catholics do, and a full 55% say it was the "wrong thing"--pretty close to the overall national numbers.
The poll doesn't even mention nonwhite voters, even though it breaks down white voters three different ways. But a quick view of the numbers suggests that Clinton gets rave reviews from them, while Reagan gets significantly fewer "best" votes from them. And as for the worst president ratings, it looks as if about 40% nonwhites seem to believe it's Bush .
Given that Bush really is the worst modern president, it's possibly more significant that 66% of the population doesn't realize it yet. You've got to wonder what it would take to convince them.
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