The Family Values Party Strikes Again

Former aide to GOP officials arrested in prostitution sting

StarTribune / Minneapolis- St. Paul, MN

Tim Droogsma, a former press secretary to a U.S. senator and a Minnesota governor, was arrested Tuesday in a mid afternoon prostitution sting on St. Paul's East Side.

He allegedly arranged a deal for sex from an undercover officer through Craig's List, police spokesman Tom Walsh said Wednesday.

Authorities cited Droogsma, 50, of Red Wing, on a misdemeanor charge of engaging in prostitution and jailed him for about 12 hours before releasing him on his own recognizance early Wednesday.

Sordid details here (if you need more)...

The Best They Have to Offer

Rudy, the Anti-Statesman

Giuliani's loopy foreign-policy essay.
By Fred Kaplan / Slate

A Little Out of Step?

Rudy Giuliani's essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, laying out his ideas for a new U.S. foreign policy, is one of the shallowest articles of its kind I've ever read. Had it been written for a freshman course on international relations, it would deserve at best a C-minus (with a concerned note to come see the professor as soon as possible). That it was written by a man who wants to be president—and who recently said that he understands the terrorist threat "better than anyone else running"—is either the stuff of high satire or cause to consider moving to, or out of, the country.

The article contains so many bizarre statements, it's hard to know where to start, so let's begin at the beginning and go from there.

Find the rest of it here...

Abandoned Dreams

Why Interventionism Fails

The complexity conundrum
by Justin Raimondo

Aggressive wars are immoral: mass murder is unforgivable, and our foreign policy of global interventionism puts us in the same moral class as any of the European imperialist powers that blundered their way through Africa, Eastasia, the Americas, and the Middle East. Anti-imperialism is, first and foremost, a moral position, especially for Americans, who have always utilized the world stage to dramatize their own virtue.

Yet the question of how, when, and if we ought to intervene abroad, either militarily or in some other, less obtrusive manner, can also be settled in its own terms. The case against interventionism can be made in a purely practical, empirical framework: i.e. it can be shown that it just doesn't work. Not because the wrong people are in charge, not due to incompetence, the wearing of ideological blinders, or some other disability or shortcoming on the part of policymakers – but because it is simply not possible, no matter who is in charge.

What rules out any really effective foreign intervention, either military or economic (i.e. taxpayer-funded "aid" programs of one sort or another), is the sheer complexity of the terrain we find ourselves on. There are just too many factors to fit comfortably into convenient equations, too many layers of historical debris to uncover and clear away, too many ancient disputes that can only be dimly understood by outsiders. The common complaint, by war critics and the neocons, is that there wasn't enough "planning" done by the administration, that insufficient resources made available to the Iraq war effort, etc., etc. Yet no amount of resources deployed under the constraints of even the most meticulous, well-thought-out plan can achieve what we set out to do in Iraq, i.e. create a stable democratic ally, or even a stable replacement for the despotism we upended.

More on this though here ...

Your tax dollars hard at work

Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns

Marisa Taylor and Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Top Commerce and Treasury department officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.

Political appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received at least four briefings - all in the election years of 2002, 2004 and 2006.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the White House's political briefings to at least 15 agencies, including to the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the State Department, violated a ban on the use of government resources for campaign activities.

Read it and weep here ...

Ya gotta wonder what would have happened if Republicans had uncovered a real crime like this during the Clinton administration. What do you suppose the reaction would have been?

I really don't know how much more right wing "honesty and integrity" we can afford but I do know that Bill's blow job didn't cost the tax payers anything until the voyeurs on the right got involved with it.

New Mexico Express

New Mexico Express
from a series


On Sibyl Road
from a series

OK ... so, who's watching the watchers watching YOU

Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU / NYT
Published: August 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 — Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

Surveil THIS ...

I am firmly convinced that those of us who were born in the 40s and 50s, grew up in the 60's and 70's, and came of age in the 80s and 90s are the luckiest people who have ever lived. We got to experience the American Dream of being who we wanted to be, pursuing happiness in what ever way we chose. We had the greatest personal freedom and the greatest privacy of person and thought. We could befriend anyone we chose.

In the 60s we could protest injustice and change the world ... and we did ... though, to my chagrin, those changes we made appear to have been only temporary.

My greatest fear is that it is downhill from here. Those wonderful freedoms our fathers fought and died for in defense of this country 65 years ago, against the juggernaut of unbridled xenophobic hatred, war profit motivation and the dream of world domination are now ... a mere 65 years later, being surrendered to the same forces in human nature they fought against ... and all because, pressed for time to get on with their precious vacations, our duly elected representatives can't be bothered to read what they are voting on in Congress!

In case you missed it in school, here's the text of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America - the one that just went away:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What part of "shall not be violated" don't they understand?

Totally free enterprise at work

Plumbing boss charged Pentagon $1m for two washers

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday August 17, 2007
Guardian Unlimited / UK

Plumbers are notorious for excessive bills. But none has come even remotely close to matching an extravagant claim by a South Carolina firm: almost $1m (£500,000) for two metal washers worth 19c each.

Charlene Corley, 47, co-owner of the plumbing and electrical firm C&D Distributors, who supplied parts to the military, is awaiting sentence after pleading guilty yesterday to defrauding the Pentagon. She faces 20 years in jail.

The most expensive washers in history were part of $20.5m the company stole from the Pentagon over the last 10 years. The company shipped plumbing and electrical parts to US bases round the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The rest is here ...

An old dictum from the extreme right tells us:

Profit is Good
War is Profitable
Therefore War is Good

That would be the syllogism that made war so attractive to Hitler and the Nazis, as well as Mussolini and his Fascists. If you recall, aside from the motivations of Hitler's racist xenophobia, he and Mussolini were leading Germany and Italy out of a severe depression and rampant inflation (yes, the Great Depression of the 1930 effected more than just the Dust Bowl here in the US). War fuels industry. War IS profitable. There's nothing like a war to ramp up the gears of an economy.

Unfortunately, there are several significant risks with war:

1. You can't predict the winner. In the 1940s Germany had THE war machine and was a Super Power in its era. They invented the Blitzkrieg and, throughout 1942 the world considered Germany unstoppable. They lost everything in 1945. The USSR (a Super Power at the time) took on Afghanistan during 1979-1989 and had their asses handed to them by the ISI/CIA supported, cave dwelling Mujahideen. Truth be know, the Mujahideen, who literally routed the Soviet Super Power kinda morphed into the Taliban that we (another Super Power) are fighting now. During the American Revolution, England was unquestionably the Super Power of the era. It didn't do them all that much good in their fight with the colonists in our neck of the woods. So, being a Super Power doesn't really count for a lot when you come right down to it. It may be great when it comes to bragging rights but never underestimate your enemy.



2. Even if you could predict the winner, when you come right down to it, figuring out who won isn't always easy. It's probably more accurate to define the so called "winner" as the side that lost the least. That is to say, in the end, everyone looses in a way ... except war profiteers.
   

God Bless Me, It's a Best-Seller!

(Christopher Hitchens shares his notes from his recent book tour. Rapier sharp wit that kept me chuckling all the way through. Very much worth the read!)

One of America's most seminal books is William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience, in which he argues that the subjective experience of the divine can be understood only by the believer. I have just been finding out how true this is. You hear all the time that America is an intensely religious nation, but what you don't hear is that there are almost as many religions as there are believers. Moreover, many ostensible believers are quite unsure of what they actually believe. And, to put it mildly, the different faiths don't think that highly of one another. The emerging picture is not at all monolithic.

People seem to be lying to the opinion polls, as well. They claim to go to church in much larger numbers than they actually do (there aren't enough churches in the country to hold the hordes who boast of attending), and they sometimes seem to believe more in Satan and in the Virgin Birth than in the theory of evolution. But every single time that the teaching of "intelligent design" has actually been proposed in conservative districts, it has been defeated overwhelmingly by both courts and school boards. A fascinating new book, 40 Days and 40 Nights, describes this happening in detail in the small town of Dover, Pennsylvania. Its author, Matthew Chapman, is the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, which helps make Dover the modern version of the Scopes "Monkey Trial," in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, with the difference that this time the decision went the other way. A Republican-appointed judge described the school board's creationist effort as "breathtaking inanity."

Full article in Vanity Fair ...

Jesus Wept

Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore's sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days.

Baldwin became a right-wing, born-again Christian after the 9/11 attacks, and now is the star of Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among active-duty members of the US military. As an official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU plans to mail copies of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces to soldiers serving in Iraq. OSU is also scheduled to embark on a "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future.

"We feel the forces of heaven have encouraged us to perform multiple crusades that will sweep through this war torn region," OSU declares on its website about its planned trip to Iraq. "We'll hold the only religious crusade of its size in the dangerous land of Iraq."

The rest is here ...

So ... for example, if you're Catholic or Jewish you don't have a prayer?

Letters to the Editor: Welcome to Utah

Reproductive misuse cause of world's woes

A lack of workers has created a giant vacuum in the U.S. labor pool that is sucking in millions of workers from Mexico to keep the economy going. These foreigners are not doing jobs that Americans won't do; they are doing jobs that Americans can't do, because their lives were terminated in the womb. Since Roe v. Wade, over 80 million Americans have been slaughtered. This has created the need for foreign workers to take their places.

These foreign workers and their families have more reproductive vitality. The most often conferred baby name in Britain today is "Mohammed." Mexican mothers in America average over five children each. U.S. mothers average 1.3. Abortion and birth control, the twin relics of hedonism, have brought western "civilization" to the brink of disaster. Meanwhile, the "scientists" scurry here and there in a dither over global warming.

Global warming is not caused by man's misuse of fossil fuel resources; it is caused by misuse of sacred reproductive resources. God has merely bumped the thermostat up a few degrees to see if man will repent.

Original here ...

They're contaminating our vital bodily fluids!! (See the dialog in Dr. Strangelove.)

In the meantime, it's "good science" when it brings you an iPod or bigger melons or a more tricked out ride. It's good science when it cures your cancer, saves your children from typhus and small pox. It's "junk science" when it doesn't agree with your orthodoxy, though.

They just keep loading it on ...

Possible Senate candidate removes copied language from Obama site

Associated Press - August 16, 2007 4:55 PM ET

KINGSPORT, Tenn. (AP) - A potential Republican state Senate candidate had to edit his Web site because it contained language lifted from the site of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Mike Faulk, a lawyer from Church Hill, is considering a challenge to Senator Mike Williams of Maynardville. Williams this year shed his Republican affiliation to become an independent.

State Democrats pointed out this week that the "Get Involved" and "Donate" sections on Faulk's site mirrored the same sections on Obama's site. Faulk has since removed the language from his site, but questioned why he has become the target of state Democrats.

Load up here.

I wonder. Some people think the only crime is getting caught. I'm sure the Democrats are subject to their own indiscretions but they're no where near as good at grabbing the headlines with them.

Hey! At least he didn't steal from a fellow Republican. Now that's a demonstration of honor and integrity if ever there was one!

As for questioning why he's been targeted by state Democrats, it seems to me that it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. A.) He's unethical; B.) He's a Republican. (Though, I'm beginning to wonder if those aren't one and the same thing.)

On a side note, I think the head line editor had his head up his but. I would think the headline probably should have read: "Possible Senate candidate removes language copied from Obama site". After all, he didn't remove the language from Obama's site as the head line seems to imply ... he removed the language he plagiarized from his own site!

But then, with text messaging and all, who the F@&% really cares about accuracy in language use, anyway. You know what I mean?

As my Japanese friends used to say, "Spreak Engrish!"

Times that try men's souls

These are difficult times for rational people, particularly in the United States. Those of us who believe that scientific evidence should be the bedrock of policy formation, that logic should be the basis for argument and that uncertainty should beget tolerance are not honored in the political world. Rather, scientific evidence is ignored when it leads to politically unacceptable conclusions, logic is tossed aside when faith is involved, and tolerance for minority opinions is simply out of political fashion. Why should this be? For one thing, we seem to be becoming an increasingly religious country, and because religion supplants evidence and logic with faith—and faith can mean anything you want it to—politicians can get away with appealing to faith without having to justify themselves.

Book review at American Scientist Online.

Yet ANOTHER load of Republican honesty and integrity!

Rising GOP star arrested

Angelo Cappelli is accused of theft from the estate of a deceased bank client.

By NICOLE HUTCHESON and AARON SHAROCKMAN, Times Staff Writers
Published August 16, 2007


Would you buy a used car from this man?

ST. PETERSBURG - Less than a year ago Angelo Cappelli was a hot newcomer on the local political scene, building key allies in his race for House District 52.

Cappelli narrowly lost the election, but his fundraising prowess, Ivy League pedigree and well-established banking job with SunTrust solidified his future with the local Republican Party.

That was until SunTrust began taking a closer look at paperwork coming from his office.

Get more honesty and integrity here.

After literally years of having to put up with petty Bill-bashing, it's interesting to see how many Republican scandals surface ... not petty, made-up scandals, mind you ... the Republicans provide the real thing!

They used to call Bill "Slick Willie" but I think stealing from the dead really takes the cake when it comes to being "Slick"! It would REALLY be ironic if Cappelli stored the $100 thousand he ripped off in his freezer!

Family Values ... Manson Family?

Nothing says “Family” like marrying your cousin, getting your pedophile priest friend to annul it, marrying somebody else, carrying on public affairs with various floozies while your shamed wife is in the New York mayor’s mansion, holding a press conference to announce you’re divorcing your wife and mother of your children, enraging your kids to the point that they never speak to you again, and then marrying some nutty whore and running for the president of terrorism.

on Wonkette.