Sure, he has since backed down a bit from his statement, but Senator Salazar calling Focus on the Family “the Antichrist of the world” was amazingly awesome. I am impressed for the second time in a week at how Salazar is recovering from a couple of really bad actions (including voting for the new bankrputcy bill). Go Ken!
Now, maybe I am disremembering here, but didn’t President Bush say that our attack and subsequent war on Iraq was going to make the world a safer place? Whether he said it or not, it’s a flat-out lie. Terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2003!: “The number of ’significant’ international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed on the numbers by State Department and intelligence officials on Monday.”
It should also be pointed out that the 175 attacks in 2003 were the most attacks in 20 years. This figure is also the one that the Bush administration under-reported, so they could argue that we were gaining ground on the “war against terrorism.”
Obviously, that isn’t happening. 650 attacks. More than triple the record number from 2003. It seems obvious to me that the terrorist threat is increasing - drastically - since we started our “war on terrorism.” Maybe, just maybe, we need to try a different tack here?
Condi Rice worries that Vladimir Putin has too much power. Because apparently only American Republican presidents and vice-presidents are allowed to have a lot of personal power and hob-nob with oil industry magnates.
Condi Rice worries that Vladimir Putin has too much power. Because apparently only American Republican presidents and vice-presidents are allowed to have a lot of personal power and hob-nob with oil industry magnates.
I had some reservations about Ken Salazar - especially after he voted for the new bankruptcy bill. But Salazar answered a lot of those fears - and earned a lot of respect - with his heated response to Focus On the Family’s attack campaign yesterday.
‘I do think that what has happened here is there has been a hijacking of the U.S. Senate by what I call the religious right wing of the country,’ Salazar said at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.He singled out Focus on the Family by name, objecting to full-page newspaper ads that the ministry’s political arm recently placed, targeting 20 senators in 15 states.
‘I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party,’ Salazar said in an interview. ‘I think it’s using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way.’
The cool thing is that Salazar is exactly right. Way to go, Ken!
It’s been 13 years since Colorado passed the horribly intolerant (and unconstitutional) Amendment 2, forbidding anti-discrimination protection for the GBLT community. Since the US Supreme Court struck down this amendment, there’s been attempts to grant anti-discrimination protection for homosexuals. Every time this issue comes up for a vote, though, it gets voted down.
‘Until you have that in your family and it affects you directly, don’t be talking about ‘abomination,’ because I don’t believe that’s true,’ Sen. Abel Tapia said.He was responding to Sen. Ron Teck, R-Grand Junction, who said the bill could force his family ‘to accept an abomination.’
The Senate backed the measure (Senate Bill 28) on a voice vote.
It would have to pass a second vote in the Senate before it could move to the House.
The Republican political machine is starting to show some chinks in its armor. First, there was the whole Terry Schiavo fiasco. And then the Terry Schiavo Talking Points memo fiasco. And now, Daily Kos points us to the next chink: an internal poll shows that most Americans are dead set against the “nuclear option” that would eliminate filibusters for judicial nominees.
Can we say “oops?”
There’s a lot of conversation taking place right now, regarding whether or not Pope Benedict XVI was or was not a Nazi in his youth. One fact that has not been disputed is taht Ratzinger was member of the Nazi youth movement.
Per the AP (via azcentral.com): “In his memoirs, Ratzinger speaks openly of being enrolled in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941, when membership was compulsory. He says he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood.
Two years later, he was drafted into a Nazi anti-aircraft unit as a helper, a common fate for teenage boys too young to be soldiers. Enrolled as a soldier at 18, in the last months of the war, he barely finished basic training.”
However, there is a question on whether he did anything willingly. For example, Sam Ser at the Jerusalem Post points out that Ratzinger was forced to join Hitler Youth: “As the Sunday Times article admits, Ratzinger’s membership in the Hitler Youth was not voluntary but compulsory; also admitted are the facts that the cardinal ? only a teenager during the period in question ? was the son of an anti-Nazi policeman, that he was given a dispensation from Hitler Youth activities because of his religious studies, and that he deserted the German army.”
I am guessing that we’ll hear a whole lot more about this now that Ratzinger has been elected Pope.
Here’s a surprise to, well, no one actually. But BoingBoing has photographic proof that the “Minutemen” are a bunch of old whiteys with guns. If you look closely, you can almost see the red on their necks…
Well, at least to my ears. Including Seattle’s own Lucy Lunchmouth, who’re rocking with their latest CD, entitled Don’t Blame Me… I Live in a Blue State (click on the link to hear samples of the songs). Humorous title aside, there’s some damned fine music on here, including one of my favorites, “Looks Like Rain.”
Good stuff all around!
