"What companies that you know of would be interested in tort reform in Texas with asbestos problems that might support TRMPAC?"  

How about this company?

Brings $1 billion. Polls 83 percent in favor.

Oh Tommy, we hardly knew ye.

Move over Harry Potter.  Tyndale is at it again.  The highly profitable publisher of evangelical Christian vitriol and gore has just printed another installment of its "Left Behind: The Kids Series" propaganda novels.  Tyndale claims that they've sold more than 10 million copies of the books that are "great for kids 10-14."  One enthusiastic reader exclaims, "I absolutly [sic] love your books! These books are the best I've ever read, seriously. I've read all the kids books. The first time I picked up a Left Behind book I couldn't put it down. After reading those books I thought How can anyone read that and not believe in Jesus? Thanks for publishing these great books for everyone to read!"

The books depict the wacky adventures of a group of evangelical teenagers who join forces to convert Jews during Armageddon, lest they be annihilated and cast into hell for all eternity because they haven't embraced Jesus.  When they're not busy proselytizing, the kids are battling swarthy devils who hail from places like Romania.

Kudos to Tyndale for grabbing a hefty slice of the pie while competing with the steady stream of necrophiliac propaganda from Fox News and CNN.  The highly competitive market of calling evangelical Christians to arms against judges, abortion providers, evolution teachers, and Democratic politicians is saturated.  Yet Tyndale thrives.  Their Left Behind series of books has sold more 60 million copies, and two movies starring Kirk Cameron based on the novels are available on DVD at Amazon.  

Thank you, Tyndale.  With millions of youth being so indoctrinated, it won't be long before we return to the days of pogroms, autos da fe, Holocausts and Great Purges.

 

Terri Schiavo's death has spurred right-wing nuts to call for the murder (er, impeachment) of judges.  This is an excerpt from yesterday's Washington Post:

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.

Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment." To cheers and applause from those gathered at a downtown Marriott for a conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," Schlafly said that Kennedy had not met the "good behavior" requirement for office and that "Congress ought to talk about impeachment."

Next, Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."

Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

The column's author Dana Milbank perhaps was giving too much credit to Vieira.  Presumably, people who quote Stalin do not do so with the best of intentions.  And indeed, these are scary times for judges.  Milbank's column continues:

A judge in Atlanta and the husband and mother of a judge in Chicago were murdered in recent weeks. After federal courts spurned a request from Congress to revisit the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."

"The people who have been speaking out on this, like Tom DeLay and Senator Cornyn, need to be backed up," Schlafly said to applause yesterday. One worker at the event wore a sticker declaring "Hooray for DeLay."

The conference was organized during the height of the Schiavo controversy by a new group, the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. This was no collection of fringe characters. The two-day program listed two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope's funeral.

The Schlafly session's moderator, Richard Lessner of the American Conservative Union, opened the discussion by decrying a "radical secularist relativist judiciary." It turned more harsh from there.

Schlafly called for passage of a quartet of bills in Congress that would remove courts' power to review religious displays, the Pledge of Allegiance, same-sex marriage and the Boy Scouts. Her speech brought a subtle change in the argument against the courts from emphasizing "activist" judges -- it was, after all, inaction by federal judges that doomed Schiavo -- to "supremacist" judges. "The Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is," Schlafly asserted.

Former representative William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) followed Schlafly, saying the country's "principal problem" is not Iraq or the federal budget but whether "we as a people acknowledge that God exists."

Farris then told the crowd he is "sick and tired of having to lobby people I helped get elected."

The last quote is vintage sour grapes.  When the evangelical Christian maniacs were anointed by the media for delivering the election to Bush, they naturally expected more in return than 30 pieces of silver.  Now they want blood.

Dear Hindrocket, Trunk and Deacon.  Please, Please, Please keep talking about that memo.  Make sure you go over every single detail again and again and all of the statements by all of the players.  The more time you spend arguing what "Republican Leaders" and "Republican Senators" are or parsing out what it truly means for a noun to be in the plural the better. 

Its really important, because otherwise, you won't be discredited or bring shame on Republicans for their behavior in circulating the memo.

That's right, Arnold's approval rating plummeted 16 points in three months.  Only 43% of Californians approve of the job he's doing.  With Bush hovering at 45%, its a race to the bottom.  Pretty hard to be a tough guy when a bunch of nurses beat your ass up.

Over at In the Agora, Josh Claybourne was one of the first to speculate that the "Schiavo Memo" was a fake, based on GOP staffers who accused a "renegade aide" to Sen. Harry Reid.  After getting slammed by Michelle Malkin (who knew?) and others, Claybourne "retracted," stating: "I now have reason to believe that in unraveling a hoax I was hoaxed myself."   Of course, the obvious conclusion, that the memo was real, would have caused Claybourne's head to explode from cognitive dissonance.

Lo and behold, it came out on Wednesday that the memo was real.  So how does Josh take it?  Badly. Again he decides to believe every word out of the mouths of Martinez and the rest of the GOP caucus and then takes issue with the reporting on the subject because it wasn't "Republican Leaders" who distributed the memo and that it never circulated "amongst GOP Senators."  I guess a sitting Republican U.S. Senator isn't a "Republican Leader" anymore.  Still don't understand how something that "never circulated" amongst GOP Senators came out of a GOP Senator's pocket.  Large sections of the comments are devoted to the nature of a plural noun.

So I thought I'd post a comment for Josh and his buddies to read:

Please pay attention closely--
(1) Republicans say they have nothing to do with the memo.  You believe it.
(2) Martinez spokesperson denies having anything to do with the memo despite the fact that parts of it are lifted directly from his website.  You believe it.
(3) The Powerline boys, without any factual basis whatsoever, declare the memo a Democratic "dirty trick."  You believe it.
(4) Martinez then admits that the memo came from his staff and that he got it "unbeknownst to me" and personally pulled it out of his jacket pocket, never ever having read it, and then hands it over to one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate.  You believe it.
(6) The Powerline boys declare that the memo wasn't distributed by Republican leaders or Senators, despite the fact that a Republican Senator admitted to handing it over to Harkin.  You believe it.
(7) Martinez did this four or five times during the Republican Senate Primary and the general election.  Martinez would be tied to slimy hit-politics and then some "rouge staffer" or an ad company guy or someone else would be "responsible."  Its called lying, ladies and gentlemen.  You believe it.
(8) You still think it wasn't a crass attempt to capitalize on a family's suffering.  I don't believe it.

Yesterday, I wondered aloud about comments made in the Washington Times regarding the "Schiavo Memo."  Seems that I was right to look closely at the statements made by Robert Traynham,  spokesman for Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.  I noted that his denial involved a very interesting parsing of the levels of staff who were not involved.

Turns out that a senior staffer for Senator Mel Martinez, an attorney no less, drafted the "Schiavo Memo" and that Mel himself "unbeknownst to me" had handed it out to Tom Harkin, Democratic senator from Iowa.

Predictably, the Powerline boys are spinning it just as my post yesterday anticipated they would.  See, it was a low level renegade staffer not Mel "Unbeknownst to Me" Martinez who was responsible.  Their new angle?  Why its all the fault of the "MSM" for misreporting the story as "Republican Leaders" distributing the memo.  But boys, a "Republican Senator" did distribute the memo.  Not only that, but Powerline's entire theory is based on the idea that everything coming out of Mel "Unbeknownst to Me" Martinez regarding the memo is the truth.  Yesterday, however, Mel denied being the source of the memo:

"Senator Martinez has never seen the memo and condemns its sentiments," spokeswoman Kerry Feehery said. "No one in our office has seen it, nor had anything to do with its creation.

Powerline's argument thus rests on very thin spring Minnesota ice.

I think a more likely reconstruction of the story is this:  Over the weekend, the sourcing of the memo was traced to Martinez's office.  The Republican Senate leadership, helped along by our favorite wingnut bloggers around Blogistan planted the "Is the Memo A Fake" story at the Washington Times to begin the job of damage control, based on the idea that "no Republican would ever do this."   Helps make the "unbeknownst to me" story go down easier. 

At the end, what do we have?  Two weeks of lies, Powerline boys desparately spinning "Crass Political Memo" into "MSM Misreported the Story" and Mel "Unbeknownst to Me" Martinez with a new nickname.

Interesting denial on the origin of the "Schiavo Memo" in the Senate from  Robert Traynham, spokesman for Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

In a nutshell, I can just simply tell you that no, we have nothing to do with that memo; no we have not seen that memo; we have nothing to do with circulating that memo. . . Senator Santorum had nothing to do with it. Neither did any member of his staff at the personal level or the leadership level.

Lots of detail about those levels there, hmmm.....  Of course, the Washington Times thinks that just because all Republican's deny giving out the memo, it must be a Republican Plant, despite the fact that passages were lifted from the website of Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida.  Under that set of logic, Nixon didn't do a damn thing.  Imagine that, Watergate with the Washington Times around.  Would have been different, I must say.

Front Page:  Washington Post: DeLay's 1997 Travel Questioned

Front Page:  New York Times: Political Groups Paid Two Relatives Of House Leader

Oh, Bugman, come out and plaaaaaaaay!

The mission of the District Attorney's Office is to see that justice is done by providing the highest quality legal representation for the public . . . A state-funded division of the office investigates and prosecutes crimes related to the operation of state government . . .

 

Go slow, Ronnie, go slow.

April 4, 2005

Hon. John Cornyn
517 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510

     Re: Comments on Senate Floor, April 4, 2005

By Fax and Mail

Dear Senator Cornyn:

It is with great disappointment that I read in news accounts this evening that you, on the floor of the United States Senate, have suggested that a recent spate of courtroom violence is the result of justifiable public anger at judicial decisions.  Your statement implied that the murderers of a state judge in Atlanta and the family of federal judge in Chicago were somehow justified in their actions.  Such remarks can serve only to undermine the respect for justice which is essential to a nation of laws and show a profound lack of respect for the victims of these senseless tragedies.  I ask that you retract your words on the floor of the United States Senate, and in a televised press conference so that the damage you have wrought may be undone.  I also respectfully suggest that a public apology to the families harmed by the recent violence is in order.

A close look at the words you spoke on the floor of the United States Senate this evening makes clear that the remarks were wholly inappropriate:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence.  Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share.

This statement implies that the murderers of Judge Rowland Barnes in Atlanta, Georgia and the family of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow in Chicago were somehow justified in assaulting officers of the court because they were rightly angry about decisions made by those jurists.  Although you sought to qualify your remark, the meaning of the first two sentences is clear—the current spate of judicial violence is the result of citizens’ justifiable anger at decisions made by judges. 

This statement implies that the murderers of Judge Rowland Barnes in Atlanta, Georgia and the family of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow in Chicago were somehow justified in assaulting officers of the court because they were rightly angry about decisions made by those jurists.  Although you sought to qualify your remark, the meaning of the first two sentences is clear—the current spate of judicial violence may be the result of citizens’ justifiable anger at decisions made by judges. 

The speculative nature of your statement does not excuse the error.  The mere suggestion that these acts of cold-blooded murder were the result of anything other than evil intent on the part of the killers gravely undermines the respect for law and order which is this country’s strength and demeans the memory of the jurists who gave their lives in the service of the community.

It is my understanding that these statements were made in the midst of a political debate about the use of filibusters during votes on federal judicial nominees.  While I understand that you are personally opposed to the practice, no political gain is worth the damage done to the institution of the judiciary and the families of those who have lost loved ones at the hands of these killers.

I therefore ask that you publicly retract your statements, not only on the floor of the United States Senate, but also in a televised press conference, where the effect of your retraction will work to undo some of the harm that they have done.  I also respectfully suggest that a public apology to the families of those brutally murdered in these tragedies is in order.

                                      Sincerely yours,

                                      RW

cc:    Hon. Willam Frist
        Pres. George W. Bush
        file

From one of J. Scott Barnard's Comments below:

Bush didn't put a big 'ol footprint in the middle of Iraq because of WMD, haven't you folks realized this by now? It was simply ONE of the excuses he used among many for intervention.

You heard it right: WMD was one of the "excuses" Bush used.  Sounds like our 43rd President wasn't being honest with the people of the United States of America, and made up an "excuse" for invading Iraq.  Remember, he started talking about regime change and it polled horribly.  So out came the WMD story, which caught on like wildfire with a good chunk of the folks at home.

I think it is a President's duty to be honest with people for the reasons behind his policy decisions, especially decisions as momentous as going forth to war against another nation.  Bush failed to be honest with us.  His failure to be honest then is exactly the reason he has continued to fall in the eyes of ordinary Americans.

Not surprisingly his fall has accelerated because he continues to fail to tell the truth today.  Remember the beginnings of the Social Security debate?  Bush started out talking about a Social Security "crisis."  When sober, non-partisan analyses from both the OMB and the Social Security Trustees showed the benefit crunch in conservative scenarios coming decades in the future, the White House backed off from that claim.  Bush's people also dropped their claim that the accounts would solve the now non-existent "crisis" when called on that one as well.

Bush wants to get rid of Social Security for one reason and one reason only: he has turned a record surplus into a deficit which drags down our economy and binds each and every young person in America to pay off his debts to Asian central banks--and the Social Security Trust fund.  By getting rid of Social Security a large proportion of IOU's lent by the Trust Fund can be written off--in other words, he wants us to pay for his folly.

Trust me Scott, us folks "realized" Bush wasn't invading Iraq because of WMD the minute he started talking about it.  We also "realize" that he cares not a whit for the solvency of Social Security.

More of J. Scott Barnard at Burton Terrace.

The huge news footprint of the Shiavo story has left news from Iraq on the back pages.  However, the Iraqi war is entering a new phase--a phase where both failure and success are on the table in a new way.  In short, the "Insurgency" that U.S. forces have been engaging for the last two years cannot succeed on its own--conditions in the country must change for any serious anti-U.S. political regime to arise in Iraq.  However, the ethnic, religious and tribal difficulties that have sharpened recently could provide the catalyst for a wholesale change for the worse in Iraq.  Should these difficulties be overcome, the first steps towards an establishment of a stable, democratic Iraq can be taken.  Should these difficulties prove intractable, the result could be fatal for the U.S. mission for Iraq.

The "Insurgency" as it is known, is really made up of two insurgencies.  One was designed by Saddam Hussein and his loyalists along traditional lines as an asymmetrical counterweight to overwhelming U.S. firepower.  The second is a much smaller group of foreign terrorists whose media savvy has created an image that is much larger than its actual strength on the ground.  Neither has the power alone to win political power in Iraq without a major change in the course of the Iraqi nation.  Unfortunately for the U.S., such a change in the political course of the nation is more likely to occur now than at any other time.

The Sunni Insurgents

The Sunni Insurgents appear to be paid for and armed by a loose group of former Baathist/tribal leaders who have much to lose in the new Iraq.  They are certainly responsible for the majority of attacks in Iraq.  They may collaborate with the foreign terrorists from time to time, but are not led by them.  Their strength is their weakness.  As a decentralized force apparently designed to inflict damage on American occupation forces, they are able to avoid wholesale destruction through cell structure.  However, they appear to lack any real political leadership.  Some links with the Association of Muslim Scholars exist, however, there is no Sunni insurgent leader who can move masses--a necessary ingredient to a successful insurgency.

The Foreign Fighters   

These groups are more terroristic in nature.  The best known is Tanzim Qa'idat Al-Jihad in Bilad al-Rafidayn, or Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.  The group is much smaller than the Sunni insurgency groups, but cuts a larger media profile through its combination of video executions with internet-savvy.  Furthermore, the Bush Administration in the lead up to the 2004 elections placed a heavy emphasis on al-Zarqawi as an insurgent leader because his existence made it easier to link the September 11 attacks to the invasion of Iraq.  Of late, the foreign fighters, have focused their attacks on Shia in order to provoke ethnic strife in the country.

The Threat to Iraq's Future

The attacks on Shia have intensified because the real threats to a unified Iraq come from two potential sources: (1) generalized ethnic strife and (2) Shia alienation from a democratic, Western-backed Iraq.  Generalized ethnic strife could create the type of chaos that an anti-U.S. leader could exploit to rise to power in Iraq.  Should such a leader emerge in these conditions and gain mass adherence of Iraqis, it is doubtful the U.S. could remain in the country.  Similarly, if the Shia population became alienated and coalesced around a leader such as al-Sadr, the difficulties for the U.S. could become unbearable.

Whither Iraq?

The question is, therefore, whither Iraq?  The last two months have seen a decrease in U.S. casualties--but the current wrangling over the Iraqi power structure could prove the undoing of the relative stability of recent weeks.  Another unknown is Iran.  It is thought that Iranian state actors play a large role in supporting Shia leaders in Iraq--with various Iranian factions supporting differing brands of Iraqi Shia political groupings and styles.  This support has played an unknown role in shoring up the Shia and the Iraqi regime as a result.  Should the U.S. launch an attack on Iran, the Mullahs in Tehran could counter by fomenting trouble in Iraq. 

The cost of the Iraq adventure has been high for the U.S.  The nation has taken its eye off of the ball in the fight against global terrorism and instead finds itself fighting homegrown terrorists in Iraq.   Currently the state of Iraq is hopeful, but should the political solution fail, America has a long way to fall in Baghdad.