Thursday, June 28, 2007

Fiat Justitia - Ruat Caelum

Fiat justitia ruat caelum
White House refuses to answer subpoenas
Constitutional showdown possible over firing of federal prosecutors.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors. Continue reading ....

The founding fathers designed the federal government to provide a check against the abuses of an imperial president. It's unfortunate that Bush has thrown down the gauntlet. Our duty as free citizens demands that we fight to restore the freedoms usurped by Bush and Cheney.

[P]opular powers must be placed as a guard, a control, a balance, to the powers of the monarch and the priest, in every government, or else it would soon become.... a great and detestable system of fraud, violence, and usurpation.

John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Devolution of Higher Education in Michigan?

Spare state's students from oppressive tuition
The Detroit News
Michigan cannot continue to follow the self-destructive cycle of slashing public support to its universities and passing along appallingly high tuition hikes to college students.
Michigan is tied with Colorado for cutting taxpayer support of its 15 public colleges by more than any other state except Missouri.
"Universities across the state are trying to decide whether they're going to raise tuition. They have no certainty," Ms. Granholm told reporters. "School districts across the state are issuing pink slips because they don't know what their budget is going to look like next year."
Michigan continues its downward slide to join states like Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in providing its citizens with the poorest opportunities for reaching an educational, financial, or cultural level beyond that of their economic class. Why is Michigan one of the few states with a fixed tax rate regardless of income?

Monday, June 25, 2007

Tales from the Dark Side

Cheney tells agency that Vice President's office is not part of the executive branch
Michael Roston
Published: Thursday June 21, 2007
The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney told an agency within the National Archives that for purposes of securing classified information, the Vice President's office is not an 'entity within the executive branch' according to a letter released Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Continue reading ...

Big Dick appears to be planning his escape route by his refusal to provide documentation that would implicate him in the many unconstitutional activities originating within the White House. It will take years to uncover the secret government established by Big Dick right under the dull eyes of the current Moron-in-Chief. It's clear that Big Dick has been, and is, the real power behind Duyba. Is there no one with the courage to stand up to Big Dick?

A comment left on the Pandagon blog.

He may not know much, but he knows one thing for sure: he's not the President. He's not the Decider. He's not the Commander Guy. When it comes to important matters on just about anything, he's not the hand, he's the sock.
Meteor Blades | 06.26.07 - 4:31 am |

Red State Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa

Grassley on Civil Rights
Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage.
Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes.
Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.

Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage.

Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

Rated 20% by the ACLU, indicating an anti-civil rights voting record.

Grassley on Health Care
Voted YES on limiting medical liability lawsuits to $250,000.
Voted NO on increasing Medicaid rebate for producing generics.
Voted NO on negotiating bulk purchases for Medicare drugs.
Voted NO on allowing patients to sue for punitive damages.
Rated 0% by APHA, indicating a anti-public health voting record.

Senator Grassley, You Magnificent Bastard!
by Bob Cesca
Senator Chuck Grassley, you magnificent bastard, you and your cohorts make it way too easy to smack you about the bulbous forehead with the mighty hypocrite stick.

Senator Grassley voted NO on repealing government subsidies for corporations who eliminate American jobs in favor of foreign outsourcing. In other words, he voted to continue giving free money to corporations as a reward for hiring overseas employees instead of American ones. To put it a third way: Senator Grassley, in a sense, is paying American corporations to discriminate against American workers based on their nationality and, by proxy, their desire to earn a decent wage. To put it a fourth way: you're paying to lose your own job. To put it a fifth way: Fucked. Up.

And it gets worse.

When you lose your job to overseas outsourcing, Senator Grassley helped to make your life a further waking nightmare by voting YES on the Bankruptcy Law. But I suppose he figures since you're out of work already, you'll have plenty of time for your federally mandated credit counseling sessions. On the bright side, you'll be home in time to watch all those credit card commercials during another one of Hannity's live telecasts from the Mexican border. Read more ...

State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

Each year in Michigan:

  • Nearly 30,000 babies are born to mothers who received less than adequate prenatal care, one in every five births.
  • 5,000 toddlers (ages 1-2) are found with high enough lead levels in their systems to compromise their development.
  • Poor children in Michigan are more likely to lack consistent health insurance and access to a regular care giver, and suffer from compromised health than higher income children.

To: Members of the United States Senate
From: Mary G. Wilson, President, League of Women Voters of the United States

The League of Women Voters urges you to support reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote. In the ten years since Congress first passed SCHIP, the program has provided access to health care coverage to six million low-income children. However, there are still nine million children who remain uninsured. Continue reading ....

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

It Could Happen!

WASHINGTON, June 18 (AP) — E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.

The Bush administration may have committed “extensive” violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, the committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said.

An interim report from the panel said the number of White House officials who had accounts at the Republican group and the number of messages sent and received were more extensive than had been thought. The White House said about 50 officials had accounts in President Bush’s tenure. The House panel found at least 88.

The Republican group has preserved messages by some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 sent or received by Karl Rove, the top political adviser in the White House. Full story ...

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Democrats allow Iraq war to continue.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Holy Terror: Extremist Clerics Justify Killing Non-Combatants

Yes, they're at it again, those bearded fanatics with their violent religious extremism, justifying the mass murder of innocent people by citing supposedly holy scripture. Is there no atrocity or abomination that cannot be countenanced by these Muslim -- What? Hang on a second.

Oh, so it's not Muslims advocating the murder of innocent people with God's blessing. So that's OK, then. In fact, we learn from the good rabbi's son -- who is also a cleric -- that the number of innocent people who can be murdered with God's blessing is virtually unlimited:

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million."

Or hey, why not six million? After all, the sky's the limit when you start down that "collective responsibility" road.
***

Revenge of the Shrub

Bad Attitudes.com
Of course. We’ve known all along, those of us who are not purblind, that Bush means to pass his trash to the next president. And most of us have seen this as just the latest and worst demonstration of Bush’s lifelong pattern of irresponsible cowardice.

But I, at least, never before understood it as an act of kindness toward the next president. A selfless sacrifice of one’s own place in history by forcing the next occupant of the White House into doing the right thing, even if he or she is a blackhearted, brie-sucking surrender monkey of a Democrat.

By Inaugural Day in 2009, our crackpot savior hopes, the quicksand will already have closed over the head of whichever poor sucker is taking the oath that Bush has so dishonored. Continue reading ...


From the "Our Moron in Chief" files

Several mothers who have lost children at war in Iraq took part in a new talk show today on National Public Radio.One of them, Elaine Johnson, recounted a meeting that she had with President Bush in which he gave her a presidential coin and told her and five other families: "Don’t go sell it on eBay.”

Banning an Abortion Procedure Because It Protects Womens' Health

Several weeks ago, in Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court rejected a facial challenge to the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act, even though there is substantial medical evidence that the prohibited procedure, an "intact dilation and extraction," is less of a risk to the health of many women than the alternative, unregulated procedures, including most importantly "standard" dilation and extraction, in which the fetus is dismembered before it is removed from the woman's body.

Pro-life groups are especially angry with Focus on the Family, one of the anti-abortion groups that sponsored the ban and that has most prominently celebrated Carhart. "The old procedure [standard D&E], which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling." Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family Vice President. Continue reading ...

Yes, that's correct. The goodly pro-life folks believe the increased risk associated with the legal D&E procedure is the cost a woman should pay for her indiscretion.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Bush Rekindles Cold War

A Russian general has threatened a tough response if the United States goes ahead with a plan to site a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"If the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic take such a decision, the strategic missile force will be able to aim at these installations," said the force's head, General Nikolai Solovtsov, on Monday.

Russia, he said, could easily restart production of medium-range missiles if the decision were taken to withdraw from a Cold War-era treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), signed by Moscow and Washington in 1987.

"If the political decision is taken to withdraw from this treaty the strategic missile force will be ready to fulfil this task," Solovtsov said at a news conference.

While Russia had destroyed all its medium-range missiles under the treaty, "all the technical documentation remains and restarting their production will not be difficult," he said.

The United States has said it wants to begin formal talks soon on deploying a missile defence system comprising missiles to be sited in Poland and a radar station to be sited in the Czech Republic. Continue reading ....

Our "Moron in Chief" now threatens to bring back the Cold War over his plans to expand a missile defense system into former Soviet territories. Is there no possible way we can stop this bellicose moron before he turns the entire world into an abattoir?



Walberg Supports Oil Drilling in Great Lakes

LANSING – Today Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer criticized Republican Representative Tim Walberg for his comments supporting oil drilling in the Great Lakes. Walberg told a group of Lansing area constituents on Friday “ I don’t understand” why the United States does not drill the Great Lakes.

“Tim Walberg’s support for oil drilling in the Great Lakes threatens Michigan’s most precious resource,” said Brewer. “The oil drilling that Walberg supports would endanger our coastline, our fishing, our drinking water and damage an important industry to our economy. This is just another example of how out-of-touch Walberg is with voters in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District.” Continue reading ....

Walberg and Rogers both have a long history of supporting big oil's plan to drill in the Great Lakes. To drill for oil in the world's largest source of fresh water presents, without question, an environmental risk far in excess of any potential benefit.

A Clash of Civilizations

Friday, June 01, 2007

40 years after the rebellion

Forty years ago this summer, Detroit burned, leaving 43 dead, 467 injured, and 2000 buildings burned to the ground. Although some argue that this ended up being the impetus for white flight, the fact of the matter is that even as whites had the opportunity to leave in droves (and many did), it took a hard fought electoral victory by Coleman Young to seal the deal. Whites, fearing what a black run city would look like, in effect took their marbles and fled.
Continue reading ...

I'm a New Yorker with over 10 years as a resident of the Detroit area. My introduction to Michigan occurred during the Malice Green trial – 2 Detroit cops, a 6 pound flashlight, and one dead black crack dealer in the back of the black and white. As a New Yorker, I matured in an environment that, while ignorant of black culture, was comfortably free of Jim Crow stereotypes. How very different was my first introduction to the rough-edged blue collar mentality of many Michiganders. White or Black, sensitive travelers can probably name several episodes where the level of racism was so overt, so muscular, so far in excess of what we had ever experienced in our communities that it shattered our long-held belief in the ultimate triumph of social progress. Welcome to Michigan: We’re now partners in Devolution with the likes of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Michigan’s inability to deal with checkered racial history will continue to jeopardize its transition to a 21st Century community of like minds. Michiganders need to learn that blacks have always had a “life of the mind” but it required their self-imposed exile to decadent Europe to satisfy their hunger for intellectual stimulation. In his seminal book Partisanship, Race, and the Public Intellectual, Gerald Early reminds us that “[T]here was virtually nothing in American society to support a black person who wanted to live a life of the mind, a life of ideas, except perhaps the Communist Party where most black intellectuals and thinkers cut their teeth in this country before 1970.”

Reconstruction of Detroit’s proud reputation as a tolerant, progressive promoter of individual freedom (1st state to eliminate the death penality, and home of the 8 hour work day) and liberty is threatened by the continued deterioration in Michigan’s economic climate. Michigan needs to nurture that intellectual, bi-racial, life of the mind necessary to recapture its position as a leading defender of human values. Unfortunately, preparation for this difficult task requires that we work through those malformed and crippled embarrassments we once believed to be ideas. Dostoyevsky wrote that, “Every man has reminiscences that he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind that he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things that a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.” As decent citizens, let’s work together in developing a community where a “life of the mind” is available for all its citizens.

Morph through 500 Years of the Female Face