Repeal of the Lighter Ban!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

Yay!!!

No more frantic scurrying and worrying about trying to find a lighter.  No more trying to be clever sneaking the lighter through security.  No more having to maintain, “The Many Travels of Bic.”

The TSA Pointy Object Patrol finally came to their senses and agreed that we’re not going set each other on fire mid-flight.

And thank G-d.  Although it was refreshing to realize that I had not forgotten all of my French, (”l’incindrier s’il vous plait.”) it was a skosh nerve wracking trying to remember the word after my bic was hijacked by the Pointy Object Patrol at JFK.

TSA to lift ban on flying with cigarette lighters
Authorities found that banning most devices did little to make flying safer

NEW YORK - Airline passengers will be able to bring many types of cigarette lighters on board again starting next month after authorities found that a ban on the devices did little to make flying safer, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said Friday.

The agency also announced that it was changing its policy on breast milk, and will allow mothers with or without children to carry more than three ounces onto planes.

Starting Aug. 4, air travelers will be allowed to carry disposable butane lighters, such as Bics, and refillable lighters, including Zippos, the TSA said. A prohibition will continue on torch-style lighters, which have hotter flames.

The agency said it costs close to $4 million to dispose of the more than 22,000 lighters it seizes every day.

Barred from checked bags
Lighters have been barred from checked bags for decades because of concerns they could start fires in cargo holds.

Congress banned lighters from flights after Richard Reid used matches to try to light explosives hidden in his shoes while on a Paris-to-Miami flight in 2001. Lawmakers worried that Reid might have succeeded if he had had a lighter. The lighter ban took effect in April 2005.

In an interview with The New York Times, TSA chief Kip Hawley said confiscating lighters has not helped security much because other items could be used to detonate bombs.

“The No. 1 threat for us is someone trying to bring bomb components through the security checkpoint,” the newspaper quoted Hawley as saying. “We don’t want anything that distracts concentration from searching for that.”

Next they should review:

• Stupid shoe rule during screening
• Stupid liquid rule (I’m sorry…but I kinda need that contact solution)

Well deserving of a sock party

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

Mere words can not express my utter disgust.

Yeah.  Yeah.  Innocent until proven guilty.  I know.

(Click here to visit The World According to Kang’s Phorum for additional discussion.)

Vick approved electrocution of dog, feds say
Falcons’ star QB, 3 others to be arraigned July 26 on dogfighting charges

RICHMOND, Va. - When a Bad Newz Kennels dog was wounded in a losing fight, NFL star Michael Vick was consulted before the animal was doused with water and electrocuted.

That’s just one of the gruesome details that emerged Tuesday when the Atlanta Falcons quarterback and three others were indicted by a federal grand jury.

The four were charged with competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting the enterprise across state lines.

They are scheduled to appear in federal court in Richmond on July 26, the same day the Falcons begin training camp. The four will have a bond hearing before a magistrate judge at 3:30 p.m., and an arraignment will follow at 4 p.m., the court said Wednesday.

The 18-page indictment, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleged the 27-year-old Vick and his co-defendants began the dogfighting operation in early 2001, the former Virginia Tech star’s rookie year as the No. 1 pick.

The operation was centered at a property Vick owned in Surry County, where a fence shielded prying eyes from the back, and the two-story brick home was surrounded by fencing in the front, with several black buildings further back.

Unlike previous documents, which did not name Vick, the indictment is littered with his name, including this tidbit — Vick was known as “Ookie” in the dogfighting world.

If convicted of all the charges, Vick and the others — Purnell A. Peace, 35, of Virginia Beach; Quanis L. Phillips, 28, of Atlanta; and Tony Taylor, 34, of Hampton — could face up to six years in prison, $350,000 in fines and restitution.

A woman who answered the phone at the home of Vick’s mother, Brenda Boddie, said “no comment” and quickly hung up.

Telephone messages left at the offices and home of Vick’s attorney, Larry Woodward, and an e-mail sent to his office were not returned.

While the Falcons and the NFL said little Tuesday, John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States said the details were especially troubling.

About eight young dogs were put to death at the Surry County home after they were found not ready to fight in April 2007, the indictment said. They were killed “by hanging, drowning and/or slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”

“Some of the grisly details in these filings shocked even me, and I’m a person who faces this stuff every day,” Goodwin said. “I was surprised to see that they were killing dogs by hanging them, and one dog was killed by slamming it to the ground. Those are extremely violent methods of execution — they’re unnecessary and just sick.”

Purses for the fights ranged from hundreds of dollars to the thousands, and participants and spectators often placed side bets on the outcome, according to the indictment.

After two Bad Newz Kennels dogs lost fights in March 2003, the indictment alleged Vick gave a bag containing $23,000 to the owner of the winning dogs.

Started in early 2002, according to the indictment, Bad Newz Kennels began purchasing pit bulls to train as fighters. Eventually, the defendants bought shirts and headbands “representing and promoting their affiliation.”

After an April police raid on the property, Vick said he was rarely at the house, however, and had no idea that it might have been used in a criminal enterprise. He blamed family members for taking advantage of his generosity and pledged to be more careful.

He has since said very little, citing the advice of his attorneys.

But Tuesday the NFL was quick to decry the alleged animal abuse.

“The activities alleged are cruel, degrading and illegal. Michael Vick’s guilt has not yet been proven, and we believe that all concerned should allow the legal process to determine the facts,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

Vick and the Falcons are due to report to training camp next week.

“Obviously, we are disturbed by today’s news,” the team said in a statement posted on its Web site, apologizing to fans for the negative publicity. “We will do the right thing for our club as the legal process plays out. We have a season to prepare for.”

Vick and the others are accused of “knowingly sponsoring and exhibiting an animal fighting venture” and conducting a business enterprise involving gambling, as well as buying, transporting and receiving dogs for the purposes of an animal fighting venture.

The indictment said dogfights were held at the Virginia property and dog owners brought animals from six states, including New York and Texas.

Local authorities have been investigating since an April 25 drug raid at the property. On June 7, officials with the Department of Agriculture with help from state police executed their own search warrant and found the remains of seven dogs.

Surry County prosecutor Gerald G. Poindexter said he didn’t know of the indictment before it was filed, and said he’s not sure how the county will continue its separate case.

At the start, authorities seized 66 dogs, including 55 pit bulls, and equipment commonly used in dogfighting. About half the dogs were tethered to car axles with heavy chains that allowed the dogs to get close to each other, but not to have contact — an arrangement typical for fighting dogs, according to the search warrant affidavit.

Before fights, participating dogs of the same sex would be weighed and bathed, according to the filings. Opposing dogs would be washed to remove any poison or narcotic placed on the dog’s coat that could affect the other dog’s performance.

Sometimes, dogs weren’t fed to “make it more hungry for the other dog.”

Fights would end when one dog died or with the surrender of the losing dog, which was sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method, according to the documents.

Go Miss Kitten!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as LOL Swedes, News, Observations, Swedish Stuff

Our resident Kitten and birthday girl received a very nice pressie today.  A published article!

Go Miss Kitten!  Go!  Go!  Go!!!

The House of Sweden: More than Just Free T-Shirts
An IKEA furniture wonderland, and oh-so-much more

After a visit to the House of Sweden at the Swedish Institute, you’ll take away much more than just a fancy fashion statement. The cultural gifts here are varied and plentiful too.

The word “Sweden” might conjure up images of blonde girls named Inga or cheap, easy-to-assemble furniture, but one can deduct very little in the way of expectations from the name “House of Sweden.” Would all of Sweden be enclosed in one house? Would I be intruding on some modest family’s day to day? Would they offer me a choice of t-shirts? And would they serve meatballs?

All of these insights were waiting at the House of Sweden, which not only houses the Swedish Embassy but offers visitors a variety of ways to experience some of what this unique culture has to offer.

…read on…

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Op/Ed, Politics

Perhaps I have a romanticized view of the Fourth Estate.  Ok…I must have a romanticized view of the Fourth Estate because this story has me so angry, I would kick the dog if he wouldn’t look up at me with those giant Labrador eyes once I finished with the kicking.

Granted, Journalists are people and citizens.  But this sort of behavior taints any sort of neutrality they should possess in order to effectively do their jobs.  Their job of informing the public without some sort of political slant.

Boo hiss!

Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly)
News organizations diverge on handling of political activism by staff

BOSTON - A CNN reporter gave $500 to John Kerry’s campaign the same month he was embedded with the U.S. Army in Iraq. An assistant managing editor at Forbes magazine not only sent $2,000 to Republicans, but also volunteers as a director of an ExxonMobil-funded group that questions global warming. A junior editor at Dow Jones Newswires gave $1,036 to the liberal group MoveOn.org and keeps a blog listing “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, the NRA and corporate America (”these are the people who are really in charge”).

Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

The donors include CNN’s Guy Raz, now covering the Pentagon for NPR, who gave to Kerry the same month he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq; New Yorker war correspondent George Packer; a producer for Bill O’Reilly at Fox; MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough; political writers at Vanity Fair; the editor of The Wall Street Journal’s weekend section; local TV anchors in Washington, Minneapolis, Memphis and Wichita; the ethics columnist at The New York Times; and even MTV’s former presidential campaign correspondent.

‘If someone had murdered Hitler …’
There’s a longstanding tradition that journalists don’t cheer in the press box. They have opinions, like anyone else, but they are expected to keep those opinions out of their work. Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates.

Traditionally, many news organizations have applied the rules to only political reporters and editors. The ethic was summed up by Abe Rosenthal, the former New York Times editor, who is reported to have said, “I don’t care if you sleep with elephants as long as you don’t cover the circus.”

But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity — aside from voting — no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.

What changed? First came the conservative outcry labeling the mainstream media as carrying a liberal bias. The growth of talk radio and cable slugfests gave voice to that claim. The Iraq war fueled distrust of the press from both sides. Finally, it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors.

As the policy at the Times puts it: “Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides.”

But news organizations don’t agree on where to draw the ethical line.

Giving to candidates is allowed at Fox, Forbes, Time, The New Yorker, Reuters — and at Bloomberg News, whose editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, set the tone by giving to Al Gore in 2000. Bloomberg has nine campaign donors on the list; they’re allowed to donate unless they cover politics directly.

Donations and other political activity are strictly forbidden at The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, CNN and NPR.

Politicking is discouraged, but there is some wiggle room, at Dow Jones, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. (Compare policies here.)

NBC, MSNBC and MSNBC.com say they don’t discourage or encourage campaign contributions, but they require employees to report any potential conflicts of interest in advance and receive permission of the senior editor. (MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft; its employees are required to adhere to NBC News policies regarding political contributions.)

Many of the donating journalists cover topics far from politics: food, fashion, sports. Some touch on politics from time to time: Even a film critic has to review Gore’s documentary on global warming. And some donors wield quiet influence behind the scenes, such as the wire editors at newspapers in Honolulu and Riverside, Calif., who decide which state, national and international news to publish.

The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms — at least among the donors, who are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.

The donors said they try to be fair in reporting and editing the news. One of the recurring themes in the responses is that it’s better for journalists to be transparent about their beliefs, and that editors who insist on manufacturing an appearance of impartiality are being deceptive to a public that already knows journalists aren’t without biases.

“Our writers are citizens, and they’re free to do what they want to do,” said New Yorker editor David Remnick, who has 10 political donors at his magazine. “If what they write is fair, and they respond to editing and counter-arguments with an open mind, that to me is the way we work.”

The openness didn’t extend, however, to telling the public about the donations. Apparently none of the journalists disclosed the donations to readers, viewers or listeners. Few told their bosses, either.

Several of the donating journalists said they had no regrets, whatever the ethical concerns.

“Probably there should be a rule against it,” said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine’s profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. “But there’s a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don’t regret it.”

Conservative-leaning journalists tended to greater generosity. Ann Stewart Banker, a producer for Bill O’Reilly at Fox News Channel, gave $5,000 to Republicans. Financial columnist Liz Peek at The New York Sun gave $90,000 to the Grand Old Party.

A few journalists let their enthusiasm extend beyond the checkbook. A Fox TV reporter in Omaha, Calvert Collins, posted a photo on Facebook.com with her cozying up to a Democratic candidate for Congress. She urged her friends, “Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!” She also gave him $500. She said she was just trying to build rapport with the candidates. (And what builds rapport more effectively than $500 and a strapless gown?)

‘You call that a campaign contribution?’
Sometimes a donation isn’t a donation, at least in the eye of the donor.

“I don’t make campaign contributions,” said Jean A. Briggs, who gave a total of $2,000 to the Republican Party and Republican candidates, most recently this March. “I’m the assistant managing editor of Forbes magazine.”

When asked about the Republican National Committee donations, she replied, “You call that a campaign contribution? It’s not putting money into anyone’s campaign.”

(For the record: The RNC gave $25 million to the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004.)

A spokeswoman for Forbes said the magazine allows contributions.

Briggs also is listed as a board member of the Property and Environment Research Center, which advocates “market solutions to environmental problems.” PERC has received funding from ExxonMobil, and tries to get the industry’s views into textbooks and the media. The organization’s Web site says, “She exposes fellow New York journalists to PERC ideas and also brings a journalistic perspective to PERC’s board. As a board member, she seeks to help spread the word about PERC’s thorough research and fresh ideas.”

Americans don’t trust the news or newspeople as much as they used to. The crisis of faith is traced by the surveys of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. More than seven in 10 (72 percent) say news organizations tend to favor one side, the highest level of skepticism in the poll’s 20-year history. Despite the popularity of Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann, two-thirds of those polled say they prefer to get news from sources without a particular point of view.

‘My readers know my views’
George Packer is The New Yorker’s man in Iraq.

The war correspondent for the magazine since 2003 and author of the acclaimed 2005 book “The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq,” Packer gave $750 to the Democratic National Committee in August 2004, and then $250 in 2005 to Iraq war veteran Paul Hackett, an anti-war Democrat who campaigned unsuccessfully for a seat in Congress from Ohio.

In addition to his reported pieces, Packer also writes commentary for the magazine, such as his June 11 piece ruing Bush’s “shallow, unreflective character.”

“My readers know my views on politics and politicians because I make no secret of them in my comments for The New Yorker and elsewhere,” Packer said. “If giving money to a politician prejudiced my ability to think and write honestly, I wouldn’t do it. Fortunately, it doesn’t.”

His colleague Judith Thurman wrote the New Yorker’s sympathetic profile of Teresa Heinz Kerry, published on Sept. 27, 2004. Ten days later, the Democratic National Committee recorded Thurman’s donation of $1,000. She did not return phone calls.

Their editor, Remnick, said that the magazine’s writers don’t do straight reporting. “Their opinions are out there,” Remnick said. “There’s nothing hidden.” So why not disclose campaign donations to readers? “Should every newspaper reporter divulge who they vote for?”

Besides, there’s the magazine’s famously rigorous editing. The last bulwark against bias slipping into The New Yorker is the copy department, whose chief editor, Ann Goldstein, gave $500 in October to MoveOn.org, which campaigns for Democrats and against President Bush. “That’s just me as a private citizen,” she said. As for whether donations are allowed, Goldstein said she hadn’t considered it. “I’ve never thought of myself as working for a news organization.”

Embedded in Iraq, giving to Kerry
Guy Raz does work for a news organization.

As the Jerusalem correspondent for CNN, he was embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq in June 2004, when he gave $500 to John Kerry.

He didn’t supply his occupation or employer to the Kerry campaign, so his donation is listed in federal records with only his name and London address. Now he covers the Pentagon for NPR. Both CNN and NPR forbid political activity.

“I covered international news and European Union stories. I did not cover U.S. news or politics,” Raz said in an e-mail to MSNBC.com. When asked how one could define U.S. news so it excludes the U.S. war in Iraq, Raz didn’t reply.

Margot Patterson not only covered the war and gave money to stop it — she also signed a petition against it.

Covering the war, opposing the war
Patterson has covered the Iraq war and anti-war movements for the National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper in Kansas City.

She gave to anti-war Democrats: $2,100 to Sen. Claire McCaskill, $1,000 to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, $250 to Howard Dean and $800 to the Democratic Party.

And she signed a petition and paid to have it published as “KC Metro Citizens Oppose War On Iraq!”

Patterson said the danger isn’t the journalist who reveals a bias by making a campaign contribution, but journalists who quietly hold to their biases.

“I feel my responsibility as a journalist is to be fair to the people and issues involved and to be as accurate as possible,” she said. “When I see my country embark on a course of action that I think disastrous to its future and fatal to its citizens, I think it my duty to do my utmost to stop it.”

She didn’t disclose her political activities to her readers, or her editor, Tom Roberts. He said he wasn’t sure about campaign contributions, but “a reporter signing a petition crosses the line to activism.”

‘The Ethicist’
At this point, we need a journalism ethicist. How about Orville Schell? He favorably reviewed Eric Alterman’s book “What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News.” And this Feb. 9, while he was still dean of the journalism school at the University of California, Berkeley, Schell gave $1,000 to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Or we could ask Randy Cohen, who writes the syndicated column “The Ethicist” for The New York Times. The former comedy writer gave $585 to MoveOn.org in 2004 when it was organizing get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat Bush. Cohen said he understands the Times policy and won’t make donations again, but he had thought of MoveOn.org as no more out of bounds than the Boy Scouts.

“We admire those colleagues who participate in their communities — help out at the local school, work with Little League, donate to charity,” Cohen said in an e-mail. “But no such activity is or can be non-ideological. Few papers would object to a journalist donating to the Boy Scouts or joining the Catholic Church. But the former has an official policy of discriminating against gay children; the latter has views on reproductive rights far more restrictive than those of most Americans. Should reporters be forbidden to support those groups? I’d say not.” (Update: The newspaper in Spokane, Wash., The Spokesman-Review, decided today to drop Cohen’s column, which was scheduled to begin running in the paper on Saturday. The editor explains that if Cohen had been employed by the paper when he made the donation to MoveOn.org, he would have been suspended, at least.)

Tom Rosenstiel hasn’t given anyone a dime. The former media critic for The Los Angeles Times and director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, he co-wrote the classic book “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect.”

Journalists have sometimes gone too far, Rosenstiel said, in withdrawing from civic life. “Is it a conflict of interest for the food editor to be the president of the PTA? Probably not,” he said. “You don’t want to make your journalists be zoo animals.”

Planet Journalism
But giving money to a candidate or party, he said, goes a big step beyond voting. “If you give money to a candidate, you are then rooting for that candidate. You’ve made an investment in that candidate. It can make it more difficult for someone to tell the news without fear or favor.

“The second reason,” Rosenstiel said, “it would create — even if you thought you could make that intellectual leap and not let your personal allegiance interfere with your professionalism — it creates an appearance of a conflict of interest. For journalists, that’s a real conflict.

“Giving money, you’re not doing the profession of journalism any good. All of the ethics of journalism are about trust. They don’t come from Planet Journalism. They come from the street.”

Rosenstiel said that even opinion journalists, such as columnists and arts critics, should not make donations, because there’s a difference between having opinions and being captive of a particular party or faction. Major newspapers, he said, have mostly gotten the message. You won’t find any journalists in the recent FEC records from The Washington Post, where executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. is so famously politically agnostic that he doesn’t vote, though he doesn’t prohibit his reporters from doing so. At least, you’ll find no Post journalists other than Stephen Hunter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, who gave to the Republican Party in 2004. (The film critic at The New York Times, Manohla Dargis, gave to Democrats when she was at the L.A. Times. She finds Michael Moore’s new film “persuasive.”)

Is it legal for companies to restrict donations? After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has classified campaign contributions as a form of speech. In the best-known case, in a state court, the News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma, Wash., reassigned to the night copy desk its education reporter, socialist and gay-rights activist Sandy Nelson, after she helped launch a ballot initiative for a nondiscrimination ordinance. In its 1997 decision (Nelson v. McClatchy Newspapers), the Washington state Supreme Court said the newspaper can enforce conflict-of-interest codes to preserve “the appearance of objectivity.” The reporter’s right to free speech, the court wrote, was trumped by the newspaper’s right to freedom of the press, to control its own news operations.

The San Francisco Chronicle transferred the editor who handled letters to the editor, William Pates, after his donations to Kerry were disclosed by a Web site in 2004. The Newspaper Guild objected, and after a time on the sports copy desk, he’s back in charge of deciding which letters get published.

Networks of influence
Fox News Channel is alone among the four major TV networks in placing no restrictions on campaign contributions. But there were surprises in the records for those who think everyone at Fox is a Republican. Researcher Codie Brooks, of Brit Hume’s “Special Report,” gave $2,600 last year to the Senate campaign of Harold Ford Jr., the Memphis Democrat. She said she raised much of the money from friends. “A lot of Fox employees have contributed to Democratic candidates,” she said. “I know I’m not the only one.”

At the Fox station in Washington, WTTG, anchor Laura Evans gave $500 in August to Democrat John Sarbanes, who was elected to the House from suburban Maryland. She initially told MSNBC.com that the donation was made by her husband, lobbyist Mike Manatos.

But the records show that her husband had already given the legal limit to Sarbanes. When asked about those records in a follow-up interview, she said, “I hadn’t talked to my husband. He reminded me that he had actually talked to me about this, because he had maxed out, could we write a check in my name. I said, sure. Now I remember having this conversation. It’s within Fox policy, it was OK for me to do it.”

Evans has also taken stands in line with Rep. Sarbanes’ votes opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq. On her blog on WTTG’s Web site, she commented recently on the congressional debate: “Everyone’s trying to save face here … all the while people are dying. Didn’t voters in November speak loud and clear, saying they’re tired of the fighting and want an end in sight?”

At ABC News, “Primetime” correspondent Mary Fulginiti gave $500 this February to Bill Richardson, a Democratic presidential candidate. The legal correspondent had been a white-collar defense attorney until she joined ABC in November. She said the donation “is not a reflection of my political views,” although she had given regularly to Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. “Look, I’ve made a mistake here,” she said. “I’m a legal analyst — this is all new to me. I have been politically active in the past. This is when I was just starting out at ABC. I was still thinking as a lawyer.”

At NBC News, which says donations require approval of the senior editor, “Dateline” correspondent Victoria Corderi gave $250 in 2005 to Democratic Senate candidate Josh Rales in Maryland. “In a word, yikes!” she said when asked about the donation. Her husband wrote the check, she explained, when a friend threw a fundraising party. “I’d not even thought to consider that since my name is on our checks that I would appear in public records as a contributor.”

MSNBC TV host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican member of Congress from Florida, gave to a Republican congressional candidate from Oregon last year. In addition to anchoring an evening newscast, “Scarborough Country,” and a morning talk show on MSNBC, he provides political commentary for MSNBC, CNBC and NBC’s “Today Show.”

At CBS News, “Sunday Morning” correspondent Serena Altschul gave $5,000 to the Democratic Party in 2004. And producer Edward Forgotson gave $1,000 to Patrick Kennedy last June, two weeks after the Rhode Island congressman pleaded guilty to driving under the influence. Until September, the CBS policy discouraged, but allowed, contributions; now it forbids them, a spokeswoman said.

An ABC anchor in Wichita, Susan Peters, gave $600 to America Coming Together. At the CBS station in Memphis, anchor Markova Reed gave to a Democratic House candidate. And in Boston, host and former anchor Liz Walker gave $4,000 to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats; the station said this was allowed, because at the time she was hosting a public affairs show. Now that she’s back doing news segments, she can’t donate.

At the Fox TV station in Omaha, reporter Calvert Collins learned that there’s no such thing as a private, personal donation. And there’s no such thing as a personal page on Facebook, either.

‘Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!’
Collins, a 23-year-old reporter for Fox station KPTM in Omaha, said that her father actually wrote the check for $500 to Jim Esch, the Democrat who lost a House race last fall.

“I had told my dad that I was friends with this man. He said, ‘Would you like me to make a donation?’ I said, ‘That’s up to you, but don’t do it in my name.’”

The reporter also posted a photo of herself with Esch on her Facebook page, with the note, “Vote for him Tuesday, Nov. 7!” After the photo was posted on a Nebraska political blog, she apologized but explained that “it is part of my job to build rapport with candidates and incumbents during election season.”

“I foolishly wrote, in jest, to vote for him, and forgot completely that that was on there,” Collins told MSNBC.com. “When my boss heard about it, I immediately removed it.”

“In a way, I’m glad this happened to me at age 23, and not 33,” Collins said, “and I will learn from it.”

‘I would never qualify what we do as journalism’
If you don’t trust the mainstream media, perhaps you prefer to get your news from, say, MTV.

The concept of staying off the field of battle was a completely new one to MTV’s “Choose or Lose” presidential campaign correspondent in 2000 and 2004. Gideon Yago, whose first appearance on MTV was on the game show “Idiot Savants,” gave $200 to Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign, $500 to the Democratic Party, and $500 to America Coming Together. MTV advertised his reports as unbiased.

“I don’t understand. Things that I do as a private citizen?” Yago asked. ” I mean, what the f—, man?”

Yago said he always tried to be fair. “We’re not a traditional news network in the sense of NBC or Fox or CBS,” he said. “I would never qualify what we do as journalism. But we’re sensitive about equal time or fairness.”

He said his reporting in Iraq for MTV prompted him to give $250 to VoteVets, which is running ads criticizing President Bush’s handling of Iraq. “After my second trip to Iraq in 2004, I felt the conventional news media was not doing a good enough job of conveying the horrors and the failures of the war in Iraq,” Yago said. “I was never told by my boss or anyone that we couldn’t give to a campaign.”

‘People I don’t like’
Although donations are banned for journalists at Dow Jones — if they would be considered newsworthy, the policy says — several staffers at The Wall Street Journal made donations. Senior special writer Henny Sender said she was just back from Asia and didn’t know the Journal’s rules when she gave $300 to Kerry in 2004. The editor of the Weekend Journal, Eben Shapiro, gave $1,000 to Democratic Victory 2004. He said the donation was actually the purchase of art at a fundraiser, and when he was reminded of the paper’s policy, he got a refund. Credit markets editor Billy Mallard at Dow Jones Newswires gave $200 to MoveOn.org in October and said he “thought MoveOn.org was OK because it wasn’t the Republican Party or Democratic Party.” Once MSNBC.com called, Mallard said, he realized that it was a partisan group and asked for a refund.

The tally of donors doesn’t include a group that gave money to defeat President Bush by paying to hear the Boss. In 2004, Bruce Springsteen and other musicians raised money for MoveOn.org and America Coming Together at a series of 34 concerts billed as “Vote for Change.” The ticket buyers included an MSNBC.com producer and more than 20 other journalists. Although all of the purchase price went to the effort to defeat Bush that fall, the intent may have been entirely musical, so those donors are not on our list unless they made other contributions.

One of the Springsteen fans appears to be a blogging editor at Dow Jones, Samuel J. Favate Jr., who gave $1,036 to America Coming Together in 2004. He didn’t return phone calls. Favate rewrites press releases for Dow Jones Newswires in New Jersey, which may explain his views that corporate America is “really in charge.” On his personal blog, Favate rails against the Iraq war, for gun control and for a tax audit of Christian psychologist James Dobson. After MSNBC.com left him a message asking about the blog and his donation, Favate’s name disappeared from the blog. A previous blog listed Favate’s “people I don’t like,” starting with George Bush. (”You can be sure that I will be adding to this list from time to time, so try not to piss me off.”) That blog went dark the day after MSNBC.com called.

Dow Jones spokesman Howard Hoffman said it doesn’t monitor employee blogs, “and we’re not overly concerned about what Sam did or didn’t do on his blog exercising his free-speech rights.”

On the job at Newsday, which forbids donations, section designer and artist Rita Hall tried to slip an anti-Bush line into a personal column she wrote. Hall gave $210 to Hillary Clinton in March 2006. “Dig deeper,” she said. “I gave $2,000 to Kerry. I’m not allowed to do this. I know it’s against the rules. I’ll probably get fired. They’re looking for any excuse to cut staff here.”

Hall said she wrote a column about her son, who won the “Top Chef” competition on the Bravo network. “In passing I mentioned that I was interested in finding people who hated Bush as much as I did. They took that out. My view is: You’re still going to have an opinion whether you admit to it or not. If you don’t admit to it, you’re being dishonest. Let’s be transparent.”

Hall didn’t disclose her donations to her editors — or the readers of Newsday.

The new bumper sticker
Several of the journalists reasoned that their activism is acceptable precisely because the public would not know — unless they go to the trouble to search the FEC records.

“A lot of us want to be politically active. But marching in a war protest isn’t an option, being a recognizable person, so we give with our checkbook,” said Alix Kendall, the morning anchor for Fox station KMSP in Minneapolis, who gave $250 in September to the Midwest Values PAC, which passed the money on to Democratic candidates. “I don’t think that working for a news organization I give up my rights. I interview plenty of people that I don’t agree with, but I also ask questions to get the other side.”

Senior editors, who every day are accused of a bias one way or another, may be more sensitive to appearances. Several editors said they are thinking of tightening their policies, lest they keep handing ammunition to critics.

At the Muskegon Chronicle, a daily newspaper in Michigan, reporter Terry Judd gave $1,900 to the Democratic National Committee in six contributions from 2004 through 2006; and $2,000 to Kerry in March 2004. “You caught me,” Judd said. “I guess I was just doing it on the side.”

His editors said they’re not sure there is an “on the side.”

“This information makes us want to think farther and more deeply about what we encourage and discourage in reporters,” said the metropolitan editor, John Stephenson. “We have always historically said, you guys can have any political beliefs you want. Just don’t wear your hearts on your sleeve or your bumper.

“Truthfully, this sort of thing may be the new bumper.”

Stupid Democrats!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Keith Olbermann, News, Op/Ed, Politics

When the folding of the cards was first announced on Tuesday night, I wasn’t surprised.  Really.  And I do not accept the fact that the Democrats on The Hill had their collective backs to the wall, either. 

If memory serves me correctly, the general message from the elections in November was, “Change!  Now!  Stop the war.”  It just goes to show that the current political party system does not work.  Those serving this country do not care.  Not enough, in my esteemed opinion, to risk their concept of, “political capital” to push for change, demand change, enact change.

I have long toyed with the concept of a viable third party.  My political leanings are not as liberal as they seem.  However, I no longer feel, “Centrism” is the place for me either.  None the less, we cannot have things continue as they are now.  Not when the politicians purposefully disregard the demands of those they serve.  And they did.  Make no mistakes…they did.

Keith Olbermann provided us with special commentary last evening regarding the war funding and I agree entirely.  My biggest hope is that the press will jump on the Democrats, pursuing this issue the way they pursued bl0w-j0b-gate.  I want to hear and see Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the rest of the lunatic fringe justify this ass-banditry.  I need to hear those that do not support this acquiescence, this capitulation speak out.  And for those candidates who do speak out…a call to the Democrat primary participants…vote for that candidate.  Not those who are going to sign off on this bullshit measure to give Georgie-Porgie-Douchebag-Pie more carte blanche at the expense of our soldiers and national security.

The entire government has failed us on Iraq.
For the president, and the majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

• The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
• The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
• The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
• The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning… is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.

And this President!
How shameful it would be to watch an adult… hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.
But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.
You lead this country, sir?
You claim to defend it?
And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.
How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.
Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer.
A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.
Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.
You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Not that these Democrats, who had this country’s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not since earned all the blame they can carry home.

“We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame,” Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…”

That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.
All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.
Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.

And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening?
See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?

Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.

The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided… tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President’s dishonest construction “fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy,” the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to—for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops—denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

• Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats… have failed us.
  They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.
• Mr. Bush and his government… have failed us.
  They have behaved venomously and without dignity—of course.
  That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted.
  We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.

With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.

They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.

Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process—indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice—has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not—doubtless will not.
The Democrats will figure it out, during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest they stay there—and  permanently.
Because, on the subject of Iraq…
The people have been ahead of the media….
Ahead of the government…
Ahead of the politicians…
For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.

Our politics… is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.

That’s one way to look at it…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as LOL Swedes, News, Observations

From the blog on The Local - Sweden’s News in English:

American deejay calls basketball team ‘diaper-headed hos’

According to an article on Thursday in newspaper Dagens Nyheter, American radio deejay Don Imus is in hot water after having made racist remarks on his MSNBC radio show ‘Imus in the Morning’. At an NCAA women’s basketball championship between the University of Tennessee and Rutgers University, Imus described Rutger’s team – mainly comprised of African Americans – as a bunch of “nappy-headed hos.”

Dagens Nyheter translated “nappy-headed” as “diaper-headed” (blöjhövdade), which would be a rather juvenile insult, but hardly worth the uproar it’s caused in the US (which has subsequently led to Imus being canned by NBC). While a “nappy” in British English would refer to something covering a baby’s bum, according to Merriam Webster, in American English it describes the “kinky” or “fuzzy” hair characteristic of black people. In the 1950s, it was used as a derogatory term.

Imus deserves to lose his job, and Dagens Nyheter ought to get a better dictionary.

Granted I am many days late and many dollars short with respect to this discovery, but can we not admit that there are two different forms of English?  Finally?  And the King’s version isn’t, necessarily, the gold standard any longer?

Sad…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News

=(

Rest in peace, sir.  And thank you for the laughs and stimulating reads.

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84
Author of at least 19 novels, including ‘Slaughterhouse Five,’ ‘Cat’s Cradle’

NEW YORK - Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle,” died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In “Slaughterhouse-Five,” he drew a headstone with the epitaph: “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”

But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.

Struggles and a suicide attempt
Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

His mother had succeeded in killing herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated 135,000 people in the city.

“The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am,” Vonnegut wrote in “Fates Worse Than Death,” his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW’s inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

“He was sort of like nobody else,” said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II.

“He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn’t go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull.”

Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a “fourth-generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker,” and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.

When he returned, he reported for Chicago’s City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, “Player Piano,” in 1951, followed by “The Sirens of Titan,” “Canary in a Cat House” and “Mother Night,” making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Novels impossible to ignore
Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially “Cat’s Cradle” in 1963, in which scientists create “ice-nine,” a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.

Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers’ aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

His characters tended to be miserable anti-heroes with little control over their fate. Pilgrim was an ungainly, lonely goof. The hero of “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” was a sniveling, obese volunteer fireman.

Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.

“We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard … and too damn cheap,” he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with “A Man Without a Country,” a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration (“upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography”) and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book’s success “a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life.”

Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister’s three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he’d prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon,” Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.

“My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I’ll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children.”

Choice…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Phucking Hissing, Politics, Tentacle Wagging

…with a side of emotional abuse and intimidation.

I haven’t spoken with one woman who was thrilled about having an abortion.  It’s an agonizing choice and not one to be made lightly.  In an attempt to strong arm women, South Carolina’s State Senate has advance legislation requiring women to view the ultrasound of the fetus before an abortion is performed.

This is a disgusting abomination that could only be cooked up by those insane right-to-lifers who do not understand the concept that they do not have domain over a woman’s body and a woman’s right to choice.

So…mentally abuse and inflict even greater emotional trauma on those seeking to exercise their right to terminate the pregnancy.  Try your Jedi-mind tricks all you like.  Apparently, it’s the only ammunition you have left in your abortion clinic bomb making tool chests.

Let’s not forget one thing, however.  That fetus…at that stage of development…is nothing more than a parasite unable to survive without sustenance from a host.

Let’s not forget something else.  Those rabid right-to-lifers generally do not have a problem with Capital Punishment.  It’s ok in their world to make a woman carry a parasite to term so she wouldn’t kill a baby.  It’s also ok to kill an adult via Capital Punishment who can survive outside the womb.

What price life?  What value life?

Furthermore, where are these people when the Foster Care system is so overrun with the misfits of toy island?  Oh…right…they’re off procreating because they can only love a child that shares their DNA.

See you in hell, right-to-lifers.  I’ll be in the corner of advocates for choice while you’re in your corner of advocates for killing grown up human beings.

Phuckers.

Abortion ultrasound-viewing advances in S.C.
Senate, governor expected to OK measure with rape, incest exemptions

COLUMBIA, S.C. - With calls of emotional blackmail from opponents, a measure requiring women seeking abortions to first review ultrasound images of their fetuses advanced Wednesday in the South Carolina Legislature.

The legislation, supported by Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, passed 91-23 after lawmakers defeated amendments exempting rape or incest. The House must approve the bill again in a routine vote before it goes to the Senate, where its sponsor expects it to pass with those exemptions.

Some states make ultrasound images available to women before an abortion, but South Carolina would be alone in requiring women to view the pictures.

Critics consider the proposal a tool to intimidate women who already have made an agonizing decision.

“You love them in the womb, but once they get here, it’s a different story,” said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democrat and a social worker. “You’re sitting here passing judgment? Who gave you the right?”

Proponents hope women will change their minds after seeing an ultrasound.

Rep. Alan Clemmons, choking back tears as he talked about his two adopted children, recalled a prayer given by his 11-year-old daughter.

“She thanked her God, her father in heaven for her birth mother for loving her enough to give her life,” said Clemmons, a Republican. “I thank my God for those young mothers who chose to give them life.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Greg Delleney, a Republican, said the measure would save lives and a lifetime of regret for some women.

“She can determine for herself whether she is carrying an unborn child deserving of protection or whether it’s just an inconvenient, unnecessary part of her body and an abortion fits her circumstances at that time,” Delleney told NBC affiliate WIS-TV of Columbia.

The state’s three abortion clinics already perform ultrasounds, paid for by the woman seeking the procedure, to determine the fetus’ age. The state’s informed-consent law, passed in 1994, requires abortion doctors to tell women at least an hour before the operation the likely age of their fetus and give them information about fetal development and alternatives to abortion.

An opponent, Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democrat, said there was no need to change the law, because women already have access to ultrasound images if they want them.

“It suggests that women don’t know what they’re doing, that they’ve arrived at this decision quite lightly, and nothing could be further from the truth,” Cobb-Hunter told WIS.

For Chappell Fennell, the mother of a newborn, it’s a close call, but in the final analysis, she said, it’s a bad idea.

“I can see both sides,” Fennell told WIS. “I think it’s a woman’s decision in the end, and that’s how it should be. I don’t think it should be left up to senators or House members whether or not she should look at an ultrasound.”

The News Hole

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Op/Ed, Politics, T3h Intarweb

Out of respect for those at The Local who have grown absolutely weary of Yanks chewing on each other regarding American politics, I have found a new forum to discuss politics.  It’s a lot more diverse and has some interesting (and luzly) people posting.  MSNBC offers The News Hole (an off-shoot of Countdown with Keith Olbermann) as a blog with comments.  And…those commenting appear to interact with each other.  The only drawback is the fact that it is so heavily moderated it takes hours for the comments to appear (grrrrr).

A story appears on The News Hole regarding the emails which link The Snake (Karl Rove) with the firings of the U.S. Attorneys:

On one level, the White House’s full court press late yesterday to negate the damage of new e-mails which link Karl Rove to the plan for firing U.S. Attorneys as far back as January, 2005 appears to have worked. Only one major newspaper put the story on its front page this morning.

On the other hand, it does not appear to have helped the administration’s cause on Capitol Hill. Two more Republican congressman have called for the attorney general to go. Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon became the second Republican in that chamber to signal it was time for a change at Justice (You’ll recall that New Hampshire Senator John Sununu called for President Bush to fire Mr. Gonzales on Wednesday.)  While over in the House, Congressman Dana Rohrbacher told CBS News that Mr. Gonzales is “finished.”

In response to the story and subsequent comments, one person writes:

It is truly amazing that so many seemingly intelligent folks can exhibit so much intellectual blindness and self-delusion. Why is there a problem with the dismissal of the eight U.S. Attorneys? There are political appointments, serving entirely at the pleasure of the Administration, who can dismiss and replace any of them at any time for any reason. That is the nature of a political appointment. It was equally true when Janet Reno dismissed all 93 U.S. Attorneys. She had the the legal right and power to do so and needed to give no explanation for it. So too, Gonzalez has the right and the power to dismiss any U.S. Attorney, without cause or explanation. That is the nature of a political appointment. If you are complaining about this, then either you are too stupid or blind to undersatnd the legal philosophy and structure of our government, or you deliberately reject it. In which case, you are probably a Communist by philosophy. So, if that is true (and given the policy pronouncements by most Democrats, it is demonstrably true!), why don’t you all just fess up and rename the Democratic Party to the Communist Party?

Now…I am the only one laughing and shivering at this idiotic response?  Here is my response which is pending in the queue:

Alexander said, “If you are complaining about this, then either you are too stupid or blind to undersatnd the legal philosophy and structure of our government, or you deliberately reject it. In which case, you are probably a Communist by philosophy. So, if that is true (and given the policy pronouncements by most Democrats, it is demonstrably true!), why don’t you all just fess up and rename the Democratic Party to the Communist Party?” (end Alexander)

Kang:  Oh dear.  How can you say that those who question the actions of a Government are “Communist” in thought?  This country was founded on the concept that citizens can question anything and everything the government does.  Your statement that those who dare to question the Federal Government are “communist” is nothing but blind ignorance on your part.  Apparently, it is *you* who does not understand the scope and spirit of The Constitution.

If there was a rallying cry, a ballyhoo against the Democrats, would you be calling those who object “communists?”  I should think not.

The issue is that those in power, regardless of political party, are abusing their power.  Do we allow that to continue or stop it in the best interests of our government?  According to your logic, it’s ok when some parties engage in this behavior but not ok when it goes against your political leanings.  You, sir, are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

I simply cannot understand how someone thinks this is acceptable behavior by anyone in the government; regardless of party.  Just because the behavior is standard operating procedure doesn’t make it ok.  It makes it a crappy paradigm which is in dire need of correction.

Sure, each administration is going to stack the deck to their favor.  Sure, there are instances where I am eternally grateful for that (Supreme Court nominations, for example).  However, if people are not permitted to question their government, demand change and push for a better way of governing, where are we living?

It appears that someone confused Communism with totalitarian rule.  It appears that someone has no objections to totalitarian rule so long as it suits his immediate needs.

Regardless of who is in control, I do not agree with totalitarianism.  Everyone should be questioned.  No one party, ideology, what-have-you, is entirely flawless, fool-proof and correct.  That is why we have those lovely checks and balances.  To ensure those in power cannot abuse their power.

And what is with the “Communism” reference, anyhow?  That is soooooooo 20 years go.  Sheeeeeeesh.

To all the idiots who said this wouldn’t happen…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as News, Phucking Hissing, Politics, Tentacle Wagging

Phuck yous!  I told you so.

Yeah.  What is the definition of doing anything wrong?  What prompts the call to watch a citizen?  Ask the Federal Government.  Go ahead…just ask the phucking question and you’ll find out (as the Pentagon likes to read this blog, anyhow). 

So…you think you have nothing to hide.  That’s good.  Good on you.

I should like to have my civil liberties back now, kplzthnx.

Justice Department: FBI acted illegally on data
Audit finds agency misused Patriot Act to obtain information on citizens

WASHINGTON - The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

And for three years the FBI has underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

FBI agents sometimes demanded the data without proper authorization, according to the 126-page audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine. At other times, the audit found, the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was to blame for not putting more safeguards into place.

“I am to be held accountable,” Mueller said. He told reporters he would correct the problems and did not plan to resign.

“The inspector general went and did the audit that I should have put in place many years ago,” Mueller said.

The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct.

Still, “we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities,” the audit concludes.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who oversees the FBI, said the problems outlined in the report involved no intentional wrongdoing. In remarks prepared for delivery to privacy officials late Friday, Gonzales said that “there is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible.”

At issue are the security letters, a power outlined in the Patriot Act that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The letters, or administrative subpoenas, are used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers — without a judge’s approval.

About three-fourths of the national security letters were issued for counterterror cases, and the other fourth for spy investigations.

Chief acknowledges deficiencies
In an earlier statement, Mueller called Fine’s audit “a fair and objective review of the FBI’s use of a proven and useful investigative tool.”

The finding “of deficiencies in our processes is unacceptable,” Mueller said.

“We strive to exercise our authorities consistent with the privacy protections and civil liberties that we are sworn to uphold,” Mueller said. “Anything less will not be tolerated. While we’ve already taken some steps to address these shortcomings, I am ordering additional corrective measures to be taken immediately.”

Fine’s annual review is required by Congress, over the objections of the Bush administration.

The audit released Friday found that the number of national security letters issued by the FBI skyrocketed in the years after the Patriot Act became law.

In 2000, for example, the FBI issued an estimated 8,500 letters. By 2003, however, that number jumped to 39,000. It rose again the next year, to about 56,000 letters in 2004, and dropped to approximately 47,000 in 2005.

Over the entire three-year period, the FBI reported issuing 143,074 national security letters requesting customer data from businesses, the audit found. But that did not include an additional 8,850 requests that were never recorded in the FBI’s database, the audit found.

Also, Fine’s audit noted, a 2006 report to Congress showing that the FBI delivered only 9,254 national security letters during the previous year — on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents — was only required to report certain types of requests for information. That report did not outline the full scope of the national security letter requests in 2005, nor was it required to, Fine’s office said.

Additionally, the audit found, the FBI identified 26 possible violations in its use of the national security letters, including failing to get proper authorization, making improper requests under the law and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records.

Of the violations, 22 were caused by FBI errors, while the other four were the result of mistakes made by the firms that received the letters.

Unauthorized signatures
The FBI also used so-called “exigent letters,” signed by officials at FBI headquarters who were not authorized to sign national security letters, to obtain information. In at least 700 cases, these exigent letters were sent to three telephone companies to get toll billing records and subscriber information.

“In many cases, there was no pending investigation associated with the request at the time the exigent letters were sent,” the audit concluded.

In a letter to Fine, Gonzales asked the inspector general to issue a follow-up audit in July on whether the FBI had followed recommendations to fix the problems.

“To say that I am concerned about what has been revealed in this report would be an enormous understatement,” Gonzales said in remarks prepared for delivery to the privacy officials. “Failure to adequately protect information privacy is a failure to do our jobs.”

Senators outraged over the conclusions signaled they would provide tougher oversight of the FBI — and perhaps limit its power.

“I am very concerned that the FBI has so badly misused national security letters,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the FBI.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., another member of the judiciary panel, said the report “proves that ‘trust us’ doesn’t cut it.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said the audit proves Congress must amend the Patriot Act to require judicial approval anytime the FBI wants access to sensitive personal information. “The attorney general and the FBI are part of the problem, and they cannot be trusted to be part of the solution,” said Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU’s executive director.

Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said Gonzales “commends the work of the inspector general in uncovering serious problems in the FBI’s use of NSLs.”