Republican Family Values

The GOP is becoming the party of child molesters.

A South Texas jury has found a 44-year-old political consultant guilty of four counts involving the sexual molestation of children.

[snip]

The 44-year-old Cramer was convicted of one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two of indecency with a child by contact and one of indecency with a child by exposure.

Cramer, who now lives in Tucson, Ariz., gained national attention during the 2000 presidential election.

His McAllen company created a TV ad accusing the Clinton-Gore administration of giving away nuclear technology to China in exchange for campaign contributions.

Perhaps we should save time and just automatically register Republicans as sex offenders?

(No, we're not serious.)

End Religious Bigotry

This is from an ad campaign by Faith In America (click the image to enlarge it). Faith In America is “dedicated to the emancipation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from bigotry disguised as religious truth.” It’s run by Rev. Jimmy Creech.

We like the ad, and the others viewable here. You can help Faith in America by purchasing a poster or t-shirt for the campaign here.

Unbiasedly Unflattering

Today's News and Leader includes a story about a St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV poll showing Claire Claire McCaskill slightly ahead of Jim Talent in their race for the U.S. Senate. The web site version includes these photos of the two candidates. We don't think either benefits either campaign. But we're certain neither photo helps the image of Missouri.

Civility

The next time some blogger wants to opine about the need for more civility in discussions of politics, remind them of this.

Exactly!

Think Progress has this post on a Wall Street Journal article critical of Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which attempts to counter Gore with a "grievously flawed study." Commenter MrTimPA notes:

An apt analogy would be - you’re on a ship and 9 people tell you that it’s sinking and 1 tells you it isn’t - who are you going to believe? (Of course, if that one person was GW - 35% of the people on the ship would drown… go figure)

Now, would you rather drown, or get in the life boat?

This One's for Stoner

BlogAmy alerted us to this web site, which explains "Sexuality According to the Word of God." We have no idea if those responsible for the site are serious, but we think you have a right to know about these things.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Someone directed us to this gem of a video - Bush 'singing' U2's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.' We wish we had the fortitude to sit through all the Bush speeches necessary to come up with this. Bless the Internets.

Subliminal Messaging

Bridgeport. CT Mayor John Fabrizi made a tearful confession on Tuesday admitting he used cocaine, and apologized to the city's residents. The New York Times posted a story on its web site with the above photo (screen capture of the page is below). Think the choice was intentionally chosen for its subliminal message? Curiously, this photo was not included on the accompanying story page.



The Times posted a "corrected" story the next day with a slightly different photo (screen capture is below).

Sunglasses

Is Laura going to where those sunglasses during the speech? There's no sun.

Stop Desecrating the Flag!

United States soccer fans show their disappointment after the Americans lost 2-1 to

Ghana on Thursday and were eliminated from the World Cup in Nuremberg, Germany.
The U.S. scored just one goal during the tournament.
ELISE AMENDOLA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Damn these so-called Americans! Wearing the flag as clothing! How dare they? Quick, we need a constitutional amendment to stop this!

And since the News-Leader decided to plaster this photo all over Friday's sports page (and its web site), let's boycott all businesses which advertise in the News-Leader. Bunch of communists, I tell you!

Is Our Children Learning?

The Springfield News-Leader ran an article recently on summer school teachers' pay. The above photo accompanied the story. Mrs. DocLarry noted that the photo helps explain why children have difficulty with math. How exactly does one have a "Fifth Quarter?"

Has Bush Violated the Constitution Again?

The U.S. Senate will likely vote next week on a constitutional amendment that would criminalize desecration of the U.S. flag. The Senate Judiciary Committee gave its nod to the amendment last week, moving it to the Senate floor. Both parties say it could be within one vote of passing.

A year ago the House of Representatives passed the same legislation by the required two-thirds margin. Should the Senate also pass the amendment, 38 state legislatures would need to ratify it within seven years for the amendment to be added to the U.S. Constitution.

If that happens, it will be the first time in 214 years that the Bill of Rights has been restricted by a constitutional amendment. It will also place the U.S. among a select group of nations that have banned flag desecration: Cuba, China, Iran and Iraq (under Saddam Hussein).

Flag burning is exceedingly rare in this country. Since the Supreme Court's 1990 flag decision in United States v. Eichman, there have been fewer than 70 burning incidents, according to Lawrence J. Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) says the amendment is too vague because it doesn't define desecration.

The amendment would ``leave to the authority of the government to make a subjective judgment as to whether or not the action taken relative to the flag is a violation of the law,'' Biden said.

That could permit the prosecution of women on beaches ``wearing a very skimpy bathing suit'' decorated with the flag's stars and stripes, he said. ``Is that desecration of the flag?''

The proposed amendment is phrased in such broad and vague language that it could have unintended consequences, such as censorship of images of the flag in works of art, advertising, or commerce. Additionally, the amendment would permit prosecution of individuals who purchase these works of art, or who use advertisements that desecrate the flag. This could happen even though these consumers intend no disrespect.

"The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States," the amendment reads. If it became part of the Constitution, the House and Senate would have to pass separate legislation to ban flag burning, mutilation or other forms of desecration.

Which begs the question, if I burn my flag and bury the ashes to properly dispose of it, would I be violating the Constitution?

But perhaps more important to those supporting the amendment, would George Bush be violating the constitution when he signs U.S. flags?.

Now That's Funny!

A Springfield Wiccan creates a monthly public access cable show which airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on Mediacom channel 26. It's fun to watch just for the poor production values and odd characters. (No, not all Wiccans are odd) This month's show begins with a shot of a train, followed by the hostess on camera waiting to begin. The camera operator (a child) is heard saying "You're on." The hostess replies, "No I'm not, I don't have my teeth." We see her reaching for her dentures, then cut to her on camera again, this time with her teeth.

We did a spit take on that one.

Bloggity Blog

Blogger has been acting odd these past few days. That and the move have made for light posting. We'll do better.

Is There an Honest Republican?

Republican Senator Rick Santorum is the latest to re-write quotes and pander to different audiences differently. Santorum adapted his 2005 book, "It Takes a Family," to an audio version and changed portions from the print version.

Will Bunch notes that in the print version, the Pennsylvania GOP senator decries the "weird socialization" that he believes that children get in public schools.

That quote is likely one of the many reasons that Santorum is losing by as many as 23 points in the polls to Democrat Casey -- after all, most voters send their kids to public schools and either a) don't think the socialization of learning to interact with a broad and often diverse community is "weird" or b) can't afford to school their kids any other way. In Santorum's case, the whole subject reminds people that his kids were attending an online cyberschool from his now $962,000 McMansion in Leesburg, Va., while working class taxpayers in Penn Hills, Pa. were paying for it.

Soooo...in the audio version, Santorum simply changed the quote -- but not so much. As the Casey campaign is trumpeting today, the auto book now talks of "strange socialization."

There's also a section "in which he extolls the virtue of his kids' cyberschool [which] has simply vanished down the memory hole."

Now about that pandering. . .according to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum seemed to be sending different messages to different audiences on his campaign Web site this week.

English-language visitors to www.ricksantorum.com encountered a home page filled with concern about the "amnesty-ridden proposal" the U.S. Senate adopted to deal with illegal immigration.

But a section of the site for Spanish readers made no mention of amnesty in its discourse on immigration. Nor did it refer to "rewarding criminal behavior" of illegal immigrants, as the English version did.

Jim Hoefler, a professor of political science at Dickinson College, noted: "The English version is kind of the Rick Santorum we know - no amnesty, law and order, tough guy. The Spanish version is a lot softer - we need to find a balance, that sort of approach."

Is it any wonder Al Franken titled his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them?