outrageous

Depends on What You Mean By "Normal"

Dana Hunter7 Comments

We’ve been assured by Israel’s highest authorities that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s running out of body bags:

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population.

The people of Gaza continue to be caught in the middle of the power play between Israel and Hamas:

JERUSALEM, Jan 5 (Reuters) – People in Gaza were in dire need of food and medical supplies, aid agencies said on Monday, but Israel’s ground assault and air raids were hampering relief efforts.

Freezing cold is compounding the misery of children caught in the conflict. And body bags for victims are in short supply.

[snip]

Hospitals were inundated with Palestinian wounded, the ICRC said. Fresh supplies were urgently needed, including painkillers and anaesthetics but also body bags and sheets to wrap corpses.

Siun at Firedoglake also has a few items that Peres and Olmert apparently missed while they were assessing the humanitarian situation:

The ICRC reports this morning that:

The situation in Gaza since the Israel Defense Forces launched their ground offensive on Saturday night has become both chaotic and extremely dangerous. It is difficult for the ICRC to move around and assess the urgent humanitarian needs created by the continued shelling and bombing, and by fighting on the ground. The ground attack has forced a number of people in the north of the Gaza Strip to flee their homes.

The fighting is causing damage to hospitals, water supply systems, government buildings and mosques. A number of water supply lines have been severed during bombardments, making it very difficult for families in certain areas of the Gaza Strip to get hold of safe drinking water.

And the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports:

According to the Coastal Municipalities Water Utilities (CMWU), about 70% of the Gaza Strip population has no access to water…

Gaza City and northern Gaza are particularly affected due to electricity cuts and a lack of fuel for back-up generators….

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society estimates that thousands of homes have been damaged since the beginning of military operations, exposing their residents to cold weather…

There is an almost total blackout in the governorates of Gaza, North Gaza, Middle Area, and Khan Yunis. Most of the telephone network (both land lines and cell phones) is also not functioning, since it now depends on back-up generators with dwindling fuel stocks.

In today’s Ha’aretz, Amira Haas quotes a Palestinian friend, after recounting more stories from the Gaza Olmert does not want us to see:

It’s cold and the windows are open; there’s fire and smoke in open areas; at home there’s no water, no electricity, no heating gas. And you [the Israelis] say there’s no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Tell me, are you normal?”

Actually, that depends on how you define “normal.” If you mean a human being with a conscience, then no. If you mean “normal for a neocon,” then yes. I’d say, absolutely, they are normal.

When I first saw Glenn Greenwald’s piece yesterday on Michael Goldfarb’s latest missive, I thought there had to be some kind of mistake. Glenn made it sound like Goldfarb, the Weekly Standard writer and former John McCain aide, had endorsed deliberate military attacks against innocent civilians.

But it wasn’t a mistake; that’s exactly what Goldfarb argued. Under a headline that read, “Ruthless,” Goldfarb commented on an Israeli airstrike that killed a Hamas leader, his wives, and his 12 children.

The fight against Islamic radicals always seems to come around to whether or not they can, in fact, be deterred, because it’s not clear that they are rational, at least not like us. But to wipe out a man’s entire family, it’s hard to imagine that doesn’t give his colleagues at least a moment’s pause. Perhaps it will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel under the current conditions.

Glenn adds:

That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It’s the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it’s the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including — one might say, at least in Goldfarb’s case: especially — children.

Pause a moment. Absorb that, before you continue reading.

Palestinians carry the body of Ismail Hamdan, 11, during his funeral in Beit Hanoun northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009. Hamdan was killed Wednesday after he was injured Tuesday in an Israeli airstrike. His two sisters, Haya, 12, and Lama, 4, were killed Tuesday by the airstrike. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

By the way, it wasn’t hard for me to find photos of children killed or wounded in Gaza. There are some extremely graphic ones from the recent fighting here. Another here. One from last year on this page. And if you forget to put the date, you’ll come up with pages of dead and injured kids spanning the last few years. According to Michael Goldfarb, all of these dead kids “will make the leadership of Hamas rethink the wisdom of sparking an open confrontation with Israel.”

I do not think that is what’s happening.

Glenn continues:

Those who giddily support not just civilian deaths in Gaza but every actual and proposed attack on Arab/Muslim countries — from the war in Iraq to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to the proposed attacks on Iran and Syria and even continued escalation in Afghanistan — are able to do so because they don’t really see the Muslims they want to kill as being fully human. For obvious reasons, one typically finds this full-scale version of sociopathic indifference — this perception of brutal war as a blood-pumping and exciting instrument for feeling vicarious sensations of power and strength from a safe distance — in the society’s weakest, most frightened, and most insecure individuals.

Here’s right-wing blogger (and law professor) Glenn Reynolds revealing that wretched mindset for all to see:

“Cycles of violence” continue until one side wins decisively. Personally, I’d rather that were the Israelis, since they’re civilized people and not barbarians.

Or, as Goldfarb put it: “it’s not clear that they are rational, at least not like us.”

If you see Palestinians as something less than civilized human beings: as “barbarians” — just as if you see Americans as infidels warring with God or Jews as sub-human rats — then it naturally follows that civilian deaths are irrelevant, perhaps even something to cheer.

And that is why Olmert and Peres, two ostensibly normal people, can stand before the world as Gazans starve, freeze, thirst and die, and say, “There is no humanitarian crisis.”

Depends on What You Mean By "Normal"
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This Is Why We Limit Police Powers

jacob3 Comments

One of the common arguments amongst the law-and-order crowd is that we don’t have to worry about giving law enforcement agencies unfettered surveillance powers because they’ll only use them against the guilty. “If you’re innocent, you have nothing to worry about!” some perky authoritarian will chirp. “We can’t tie their hands!” Which sounds great and reasonable until news like this brings the kumbaya chorus to a rude end:

In July, the Washington Post reported on undercover Maryland State Police officers conducting surveillance on war protesters and death penalty opponents. Today, we learn that the monitoring was worse, and more pervasive, than first believed.

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a “security threat” because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible “crimes” in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: “civil rights.”

And people wonder why “civil-liberties types” worry about government abuse when it comes to surveillance of Americans.

Isn’t there some old police saying that states, “Everybody’s guilty of something?” Apparently, the MD state police took the next logical step and decided that they could make everybody guilty of something. The kumbaya chorus should keep this in mind the next time they’re prattling about how the police would never ever target the innocent.

The best law enforcement officers tend to take a jaundiced view of humanity. The worst tend to employ their police powers to enact their sadistic authoritarian fantasies. American history is full of mad, bad and simply mistaken policemen abusing their powers. This is why we can’t give them power without limits, which is something Antonin Scalia seems to have a difficult time understanding. If the above case doesn’t provide a wake-up call, Ed Brayton has another:

Ever since Justice Scalia declared that there was no more need for a rule against no-knock raids because there was a “new professionalism” among police, Radley Balko has been mocking that claim with example after example of corruption and incompetence by the police. Here’s a perfect one to add to the list. Jonathan Turley has the story:

Police in Galveston, Texas are being sued for allegedly arresting a 12-year-old Dymond Larae Milburn outside of her home as a prostitute in 2006. The girl did not realize that the plainclothes officers were police and fought back as she screamed for her father inside the house. She was reportedly beaten by the officers and ended up with sprained wrist, two black eyes, a bloody nose, and blood in an ear. Weeks later, the police arrested her for resisting arrest.

Sgt. Gilbert Gomez and Officers David Roark and Sean Stewart have insisted that their conduct was entirely appropriate.

The police were responding to a report of three white prostitutes working in the area, but some how ended up arrested and roughing up a 12-year-old black girl in front of her house.

The honor student was then arrested at her middle school on a charge of resisting arrest — but a mistrial prevented further prosecution.

Because it’s really easy to confuse a 12 year old black girl in her front yard for 3 adult white prostitutes on a street corner. And by the way, she was several blocks from where the prostitutes were allegedly at.

[snip]

This is a perfect example of Scalia’s new professionalism. An amateur would have been fooled by her clever disguise as a middle school honors student of an entirely different race far from the scene of the alleged crime. But not these professionals.

div.blogMain p.newMeta2 a {display: block; float: left; margin-right: 24px; padding: 3px 0 3px 24px; background-position: 0 50% ! important; background-repeat: no-repeat;} Oh, yes. Beating a young black female. Uber professional, that is. We might as well throw the laws limiting police power and behavior right out the window, because they’d obviously never abuse their authority.

Police these days are so super-professional, in fact, that you can’t find stories of them killing people with the enthusiastic over-use of tasers here, here, here, here, here, and here. Oh, and a nice story about police shooting a man who took a Taser here. Oh, and did I mention that was all during the month of December? I especially liked the one about the man in diabetic shock getting shocked, didn’t you?

I’m not going to spend the next paragraph being fair-and-balanced and saying how much I wuv da police. Anyone who’s read this blog for a long time knows I respect and appreciate the vast majority of our policemen and women. Calling for clear and strict rules for them to follow, laws that restrict their behavior, and limits on their power doesn’t diminish that appreciation. Corruption and beatings and killings do. Things like that stain the reputations of the officers out there doing the job right. They make it harder for good officers to do their jobs.

For their sakes, let’s make it harder for law enforcement to go to such ridiculous extremes.

This Is Why We Limit Police Powers

Roland Burris is a Power-hungry Maniac

jacob

Roland Burris, who let Blago appoint him to Obama’s Senate seat, seemed to come highly recommended. The arguments against seating him have mostly revolved around the fact that the Senate said “no fucking way are we going to seat anyone Blagojevich appoints.”

Perhaps it’s because they knew that anyone who would accept an appointment from Blago has got to be batshit fucking insane. Little tidbits about the supposedly saintly Burris keep trickling out. First, there was his monument to himself. As if that wasn’t enough to tell us the man had an ego the size of the Milky Way, here we have a cascade of commendations all falling from Burris’s own lips:

“The 71-year-old Burris — who often refers to himself in the third person — has never been shy about broadcasting his ambitions and loudly celebrating his achievements,” writes Andrew Herrmann of the Chicago Sun-Times. When Burris ran for governor in 2002, his third unsuccessful try at the job, he told the paper’s Kate Grossman: “Roland Burris, who started way down here, in the segregation of a southern Illinois community, was able to set goals, plan and strategize and make it.”

Appparently Roland Burris’ confidence had long been in place. In a 1994 interview with the Sun-Times, Herrmann informs us, “Burris said his past success — he had been elected comptroller and attorney general — was ‘divine providence’ that began at age 15 when he decided to become a lawyer and officeholder.”

[snip]

During Burris’ 2002 run for governor, David Axelrod — yes, that David Axelrod — told Grossman of the Sun-Times, “I think one of his challenges is to project a vision.” To which Burris responded: “I disagree 1,000 percent. I am visionary. How do you think I got to where I am?” Grossman concluded her article with a swell anecdote about Burris once performing as Muhammad Ali in a skit before journalists, lobbyists and politicians. “Wearing shorts and boxing gloves, he wasn’t shy about repeating one of Ali’s famous lines: ‘I am the greatest.'”

Of course, that was many fights ago. As Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader points out, Burris’ recent forays into the political ring have hardly floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Acknowledging that Burris was once “considered a smart, pragmatic, progressive politician,” Dumke states that “over the last, oh, decade and a half, he’s shown a mastery of losing elections.”

So much for being the greatest. And I’m sorry, but anyone who speaks of himself in the third person is just too fucking creepy.

But an outsized ego and an eagerness to wriggle into higher office even if he has to accept that office from a disgusting little douchebag like Blago aren’t even the worst problems with Burris. His penchant to pursue the innocent is a little more worrisome:

Public fury over the governor’s alleged misconduct has masked the once lively debate over Burris’ decision to continue to prosecute – despite the objections of one of his top prosecutors – the wrong man for a high-profile murder case.

While state attorney general in 1992, Burris aggressively sought the death penalty for Rolando Cruz, who twice was convicted of raping and murdering a 10-year-old girl in the Chicago suburb of Naperville. The crime took place in 1983.

But by 1992, another man had confessed to the crime, and Burris’ own deputy attorney general was pleading with Burris to drop the case, then on appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Burris refused. He was running for governor.

So let me get this straight. This egomaniac is so obsessed with obtaining higher political office that he would pursue the conviction of an innocent man, indeed would sacrifice that man’s life, merely so that he won’t appear “soft on crime.”

Unfit for office, anyone? I say never in a hundred million years should we let this fuckwit sit his ass in a Senate seat.

Stick to your guns, Harry.

Roland Burris is a Power-hungry Maniac

Sheriff Joe Jumps the Shark

jacob

Apparently, being treated as some sort of redneck hero for dying jail underwear pink and creating tent cities has rather gone to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s head. He was always an authoritarian bully, but he’s been getting crazier and crazier over the years. This year, it appears, he’s finally tipped himself right over into fascism:

I’m spending my Christmas vacation in lovely Maricopa County, AZ, this week with my in-laws. And I have to tell you that, thanks to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his gang of thugs deputies, I’ll be somewhat relieved when I leave.

After all, how would you like to live in a place where law enforcement actually arrests you for applauding briefly at a public county council meeting? Where they threaten and intimidate you just for showing up in the first place?

That’s what’s been happening here.

It all has to do with an anti-Arpaio group called Maricopa Citizens for Safety Accountability, which formed last spring in response to investigative reports and studies demonstrating that Arpaio’s insane obsession with illegal immigrants was destroying his office’s ability to actually deal with real law enforcement work.

MCSA’s members have been turning up at meetings of the county Board of Supervisors and trying to speak, but the board refuses to let MCSA do so except for brief comment periods at the end of its meetings. Moreover, the board meetings are now patrolled by a huge contingent of deputies who treat the citizens who attend like criminals.

Last week, they went even further:

[snip]

And, of course, deputies and security agents at the Board of Supervisors meetings have begun to arrest spectators. That development came Wednesday.

During the meeting, Board of Supervisors chairman Andy Kunasek warned spectators that they were being disruptive by applauding speakers, but deputies neither dismissed nor arrested spectators who applauded an animal advocate or a public transportation advocate who sang a birthday song for Kunasek.

The scene was different when about 15 spectators stood and clapped for 20 seconds after a Maricopa Citizens group member spoke critically of Arpaio during her turn at the lectern.

Deputies arrested Joel Nelson, Jason Odhner, Monica Sandschafer and Kristy Theilen on allegations of disorderly conduct and trespassing.

[snip]

Deputies made the arrests in a clear attempt to intimidate people associated with Maricopa Citizens, said Carlos Calindo, who attended the meeting.

“It is incredible the way they behaved,” said Calindo, who is not a member of the citizens organization. “You come in there and the atmosphere is incredibly oppressive. They yell at you. They scold you. They try to intimidate you. It is improper.”

Must be because Faux gave him a teevee show. He thinks he’s acceptable.

It’s time for me old home state to wake up and smell the reality. Joe must go.

Sheriff Joe Jumps the Shark

Bulldozing Kindergartens

jacob

Israel is getting well beyond ridiculous. Now they’ve got plans to demolish a Palestinian kindergarten. It is, of course, being done in the interests of “national security.”

From here, it looks like they’re intent on creating more terrorists. Demolishing a village and ensuring kids don’t get an education is a pretty good way of proving you’re a right bunch of bastards.

It’s not the first time they’ve done something outrageous in this village:

In 1983 the IDF declared Al Aqabah a “training area” and even engaged in live fire training in the village, killing 8 villagers, wounding dozens more and driving many residents to leave until an Israeli court several years ago ordered an end to training inside the village.

That’s just so far beyond the pale of decency it’s not even describable.

If you care to sign a petition against this bullshit, there’s one all ready for you.

Bulldozing Kindergartens

I Beat Up Rick Warren Because He Begs Me To

jacob1 Comment

Are you ready for your (near) daily dose of Fundie Christian Hypocrisy Exposed? Stirling Newberry’s got us covered. Here ye go:

Many people praise his social engagement, in for example, AIDs intervention. The people who I know in NGOs are considerably less impressed. It turns out that Warren’s social gospel is a great deal like his theological gospel: a fraud, used to beat down opposition by declarations of love and submission, and then a demand for money to be used for the multiplication of his, rather than His, servants. Let me take two examples from his PEACE project.

The arguement of PEPFAR, Bush’s AIDs plan, is that churches, already being present and having authority, can be used for service delivery. However, the “P” in “PEACE” stands for… “plant churches.” If Churches are already present, then there is no need to plant them, now is there? If they are not already present, it means that funding for PEACE is really government funding for missionary conversion work. In fact, the second letter is to create missionaries. One has to get to “A” before doing anything for actual people. Warren pays himself first.

Let’s take two examples: one is the PEACE, “Hispanics for Christ” project. It’s sole objective? Create churches among American Hispanics and convert them. That’s the whole project. One can say many things about the American hispanic population, but an absence of Christianity isn’t any of them. As a group Hispanics attend church more than whites. Saturation planting of churches is its aim, with no other objective. PEACE means sectarian conflict first. There is one for Mexico too. Note that the “ACE” is dispensed with, and only the “PE” is funded. Help the poor? First get their donations and devotion. Rick Warren Pays himself first.

The whole piece is a devastating salvo. I suggest you make up a nice tub of popcorn before you go enjoy the whole thing.

And you know what? I didn’t believe Rick Warren’s PEACE propaganda was that bad. I didn’t believe that the stupid homophobic fuckwit could possibly be so stupid as to put something like “plant churches” right in the P for PEACE. And hadn’t I read somewhere that it stood for “Promote Reconciliation”? Why, indeed I had. But check this out:

Interesting how he has “plant churches” right under the “promote reconciliation,” innit?

And you and I are paying for this bullshit, as Digby points out:

The difference, of course, is that a large amount of the funding for the Warren project comes from taxpayers who don’t know that they are paying to convert the third world to evangelical Christianity as part of the plan. Not that they have a choice in the matter. Their tax dollars a spent on this religious project whether they like it or not.

Well, I like it not. And I don’t like the fact that this lying, self-aggrandizing, homophobic, homicidal, hypocritical douchebag is going to be giving the invocation at Obama’s inauguration. But at least we can take the opportunity to drag his rat bastard ass down. He won’t be able to hide his fundie self under moderate’s clothing for much longer.

I Beat Up Rick Warren Because He Begs Me To

With Progressives Like This, Who Needs Republicons?

jacob2 Comments

Kos had this cryptic little entry on Daily Kos tonight:

The Center for American Progress should not make a habit of doing this.

And for the record, the editors on the site can say whatever they want about whoever and I won’t get all creepy and Big Brother on them.

p.s. And yes, the Third Way is a bunch of assholes who make the DLC look downright palatable.

Fascinating. Of course I had to follow the link to see what the hell was going on, and I found this ham-fisted editorial interference:

This is Jennifer Palmieri, acting CEO of the Center for American Progess Action Fund.

Most readers know that the views expressed on Matt’s blog are his own and don’t always reflect the views of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Such is the case with regard to Matt’s comments about Third Way. Our institution has partnered with Third Way on a number of important projects – including a homeland security transition project – and have a great deal of respect for their critical thinking and excellent work product. They are key leaders in the progressive movement and we look forward to working with them in the future.

You would think that someone acting as CEO of a group that documents so much Republicon PR stupidity and the resulting disasters would know better than to shit all over one of her own bloggers like this. You would especially think that someone acting as CEO of a progressive organization who is being considered for assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, would know better than to shove her foot so far in her mouth she’s tickling her colon with her piggies. And yet, she has gone and done so. In the process, she managed to sully the reputation of the Center for American Progress (a group which I have a great deal of respect for, sans Jennifer), alienate Matt Yglesias’s readership, draw attention to the very post she was disputing, caused people who had no interest in Third Way to rumage around in their dirty underwear and come away believing their policies are not only – how did Matt put it? – “hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit,” but that the whole organization is very likely committing tax fraud to boot, and she’s probably just shot her job prospects in both feet.

I know enough about Third Way now to know that a) they’re the sort of mealy-mouthed, show-your-belly-to-the-Cons-and-maybe-they’ll-stop-ripping-out-our-jugular, wishy-washy fucktards who have made it so damned difficult to present a strong Democratic party and robust progressive agenda to the country, and b) that they supported that fucking FISA bill. The fact that I also know c), that they’re more concerned about their image than getting things accomplished, is just one extra reason to despise them. Before Jennifer’s announcement, I didn’t even know Third Way existed. What a public relations coup, eh?

Note to Jennifer and her BFF Third Way: this kind of asshattery is best practiced by Cons. They’re the ones with the authoritarian followers who swallow this high-handed bullshit to the last drop and then ask for more. As you’ve no doubt gathered from the nearly 400 comments on your Big Brother message, Dems are rather less impressed.

I believe she would serve her country best by withdrawing her name from consideration for Obama’s administration and turning CAP’s reins over to a more savvy progressive. I’m sure she’ll be able to find gainful employment with the DLC or Third Way. She’s certainly proven she’s not cut out for public relations. Since they aren’t either, they should be perfect for each other.

With Progressives Like This, Who Needs Republicons?

Joyous. The Fucking Crusades.

jacob

Our military’s turning Iraq and Afghanistan into a holy war. And we all remember how well it went the last time when Christian armies swept into the Middle East and employed a kill-or-convert policy.

How bad is it? Oh, you know – they’re only embedding fucking evangelists with the troops:

When I interviewed Mikey Weinstein the other day, he mentioned video that they had found that showed Christian missionaries actually embedded with American troops in Afghanistan. The missionaries actually traveled with American troops, handing out Bibles in the local language to Afghanis. This was done for a show on JCTV called Travel the Road. You can see the MRFF page about this here…. Here’s what MRFF writes about this situation:

Season 2 of this series ended with three episodes filmed in Afghanistan — Journey to the Line: Afghanistan: Part 1, Terrors of the Night: Afghanistan: Part 2, and Fog of War: Afghanistan: Part 3. For these episodes, the missionaries were completely embedded and, thus, actually permitted to stay on U.S. military bases, travel with a public affairs unit, and accompany and film troops on patrols, all for the purpose of evangelizing Afghanis and producing a television show promoting the Christian religion. The number of DoD Public Affairs regulations violated in the military’s participation and assistance in producing a religious program alone is staggering, not to mention other violations (including constitutional) documented in the content of the program, which include the outrageous violation of the United States Central Command’s General Order 1-A, which absolutely prohibits any proselytization whatsoever in the Middle Eastern theater of operations. In complete disregard of this bedrock standing order, the U.S. Army facilitated these evangelizing Christian missionaries in their distribution of New Testaments in the Arabic native language (“Darri” dialect) to the Afghani people.

This shit is not fucking legal. It is not fucking helpful. And it’s even worse when the fucking Christian soldiers get in on the proselytizing:

Jason Leopold has more on the situation I reported last week where the military allowed Christian missionaries to be embedded with them, travel with them to meet Afghan villagers and then hand out Bibles to them and proselytize them to convert to Christianity. One of the things I didn’t mention was that an active duty military chaplain said in one of the videos that he tries to convert Afghani Muslims himself:

In one scene, an Army Chaplain named Capt. Brad Hanna of the Oklahoma National Guard, talks about the possibility of a “revival” in Afghanistan and says he frequently speaks to Afghans about converting to Christianity. Hanna was made a full-time support chaplain for the Oklahoma National Guard after he returned from Afghanistan.

And he wasn’t the only soldier helping the missionaries:

Additionally, Decker and Scott prominently cite SSgt. Sheldon Hoyt, who was stationed in Afghanistan with the Oklahoma National Guard’s 45th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, as playing a hands-on role in helping the missionaries facilitate their proselytizing as opposed to simply being a tour guide of sorts.

These fuckers are now planning to step up their efforts in Afghanistan. Obama, as Commander in Chief, needs to put a swift end to this fuckery. It was bad enough when we thought we were spreading democracy at the point of a gun. The fact that we’re handing people Bibles while training guns on them, and that this is done by American fucking soldiers in fucking uniform on official fucking duty, is so far beyond outrageous it’s unbelievable.

Things like this make me ashamed to be an American.

Joyous. The Fucking Crusades.

The War on Science

jacob1 Comment

Ed Brayton has an appalling article pointing up just how very fucked science has been under Rethuglicon rule:

Never before has science been so highly politicized as during the Bush administration. As Chris Mooney so aptly demonstrated in The Republican War on Science, on issue after issue the Bush administration distorted, ignored or stifled science in the service of political aims. Emily Badger has an excellent review of the Bush administration and a look forward at how Obama can fix some of the problems.

Barack Obama received a relatively quiet endorsement on Aug. 23 from 61 of the country’s Nobel laureates in physics, medicine and chemistry — scientific heavyweights who used the occasion to both call for a scientific renewal in America and critique the state of American science at the end of the Bush era.

“During the administration of George W. Bush,” their open letter charged, “vital parts of our country’s scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government’s scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk.”

It gets worse, and worse, and worse… and even then, only the surface is scraped, as Jason F. points out in a long and sobering comment:

I’m a biologist, employed by the federal government. I won’t say which agency.

I honestly think most folks would be absolutely horrified to hear some of the specifics of what has gone on under the Bush administration. Yeah, we hear about the regulatory and policy changes they’ve pushed through, and even some of the omission of key findings from reports, but I’m telling you, it goes much, much, much deeper than that.

It was immediately clear after Bush was “elected” in 2000 that federal agencies tasked with an environmental mission were in for a rough stretch, but no one I’ve talked to ever imagined it would end up as bad as it did. Political appointees in D.C. would call staff-level biologists and say, “Your opinion is X”, and if the biologist argued that the data said otherwise, he either had his job threatened or was “reassigned” to meaningless busywork. This would go on and on until either someone was in place who would comply, or (what happened to me numerous times), the document would go up the ladder and would get “edited” to suddenly say the opposite of what it had said before. Yet there would be no record of this change, so it would appear the biologist wrote it.

But that’s not all. These agencies regularly had their budgets cut (or frozen, which is the same, i.e. costs go up but your budget doesn’t, you have to make cuts somewhere). Promotions were denied wholesale, and entire staffs in most offices would frequently work one or two pay grades below what they were actually doing. As I was fighting to get a pay grade I deserved, I came across a policy document that stated all reviews of employee grade levels must be consistent with the overall bureau efforts to reduce staff average grade! And when did this policy go into effect? Why 2001 of course.

Offices were split apart, administrative support was denied, basic office supplies were short, travel budgets were slashed, early retirements were offered so that when someone took an early out, their position was done away with rather than filled. Meanwhile, workload continues to skyrocket.

The end result of all this is a work force that is understaffed, underfunded, underpaid, yet faces an increasingly complex and heavy workload, and has had to endure 8 years of overt, agressive, and counterproductive political interference. As one former employee put it when interviewed by Slate Magazine, “We’re walking around like a bunch of whipped pups”.

Further, keep in mind Bush et al. have 8 years to put their cronies in key positions, and they in turn hire more neo-cons, who hire more under them, who hire more under them, and so on. The end result after 8 years is Bush loyalists who see environmental regulation as unnecessary in positions all the way down to the field office level. So the last couple of years, it hasn’t been so much political appointees in D.C. you’re fighting, but your immediate supervisor!

In sum, whatever you read (including this post) about the Bush administration treatment of science agencies, keep in mind the reality almost certainly 10 times worse.

For the sake of science, to ensure we have a future, we need to make bloody damned certain that Cons don’t get their filthy stinking cretinous hands on the reins of power for at least the next 8 years. Dems sometimes do a horrible job themselves, and there are short-sighted, ignorant sons of bitches in their ranks, but they are never this fucking greedy, insane or stupid.

Not even Blagojevich.

And the fucktards are rare exceptions, rather than being, as in Con ranks, the fucking rule. A few clueless dumbshits can be picked off in targeted primaries. A whole herd of conniving Cons back in charge of the federal government doesn’t even bear thinking about.

There’s going to be a temptation to forget about the endless stream of abuses and outrages perpetrated by the Cons while they ruled. After four years, or eight years, of Democratic rule, people are probably going to be tempted to give the other party a turn at the wheel.

My question will be this: What did you love so much about being steered over a cliff the last time?

Never. Forget.

The War on Science

The Timothy McVeigh Finishing School

jacob2 Comments

Fighting the terrorists over there so that the terrorists here gain valuable experience in killing brown people and blowing things up:

Two years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center ran a devastating report describing the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the ranks of the American military. The Pentagon’s official response was steadfast denial of the problem.

The SPLC’s David Holthouse just published a follow-up report, and found, predictably, that the problem is getting worse as the conflict in Iraq drags on:

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11,” which was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide: “Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as ‘ghost skins,’ in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement.”

The FBI report details more than a dozen investigative findings and criminal cases involving Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as well as active-duty personnel engaging in extremist activity in recent years. For example, in September 2006, the leader of the Celtic Knights, a central Texas splinter faction of the Hammerskins, a national racist skinhead organization, planned to obtain firearms and explosives from an active duty Army soldier in Fort Hood, Texas. That soldier, who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, was a member of the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group.

Fantastic. As if we didn’t have enough of these insane fuckers to deal with, now we’ve handed them the training they need to be even more fucking dangerous.

And if you think we’re going to win Iraqi hearts and minds with a bunch of skinheads in the mix, think again:

One of the Blood & Honour members claiming to be an active-duty soldier taking part in combat operations in Iraq identified himself to Kennard as Jacob Berg. He did not disclose his rank or branch of service. “There are actually a lot more ‘skinheads,’ ‘nazis,’ white supremacists now [in the military] than there has been in a long time,” Berg wrote in an E-mail exchange with Kennard. “Us racists are actually getting into the military a lot now because if we don’t every one who already is [in the military] will take pity on killing sand niggers. Yes I have killed women, yes I have killed children and yes I have killed older people. But the biggest reason I’m so proud of my kills is because by killing a brown many white people will live to see a new dawn.”

Asking yourself how batshit insane haters like this ended up in the military, aren’t you?

The source of the problem, as the report explained, was the extreme pressure military recruiters were under to fill their recruitment quotas. “Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces,” said Barfield, “and commanders don’t remove them . . . even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members.” The military downplayed a neo-Nazi presence in the ranks, Barfield added, “because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they’ll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists.”

Well. Isn’t that just an excellent fucking reason not to do something about a problem that’s going to (literally) blow up in our faces? There aren’t enough cursewords in the dictionary to express what I’m thinking right now.

David Neiwert calls our military “the Timothy McVeigh Finishing School.” He’s absolutely right, and it’s absolutely appalling.

Yet another Bush-era mess we’ll be cleaning up for a long time to come.

The Timothy McVeigh Finishing School