Monthly Archives: June 2008

Holy moly!

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This was forwarded by Columbia Christians for Life. Scary stuff. These folks’ preoccupation with “gay abomination” looks a whole lot like sicko titillation.

Wiley Drake is a California pastor vying to be president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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He caused a stir last year after he used church stationery and an Internet radio program to endorse former Gov. Mike Huckabee for president. After Americans United for Separation of Church and State protested, Drake issued a call for “imprecatory” prayer — specifically for the death of several of the AU leaders.

Using God as a hit man? Now that’s deviant!

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From: wileydrake @hotmail.com
Subject: Legal Same Sex Marriages
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:45:22 +0000

What Legal Same Sex Marriages Bring into society………..

Oral Sex with the ingesting of semen and anal contamination bringing about hepatitis A, gonorrhea, HIV, and hepatitis B

Rectal Sex brings a mixing bowl for saliva and its germs and/or an artifical lubricant which penetrates the rectal lining (which is only one cell thick) rectal intercourse is the most efficient way to spread hepatitis B, HIV, syphilis and a host of other blood-born diseases. This brings about the enteric parasites collectively known as “Gay Bowel Syndrome”

Urine Sex In a San Francisco survey of 655 same sex people, 5% drank urine, 7% practiced fisting, 33% ingested feces via anal/oral contact.

Some say same-sex marriage is ok and we should be concerned about the community that want same-sex marriage. We should be concerned when their life style brings early death to them and the rest of society. God called what same-sex marriages do sodomy and those who do it sodomites.

If we do not stand and fight this plague God will as He did in sodom and their neighborhood.

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Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:38:01 -0400
To: Columbia Christians for Life
From: Columbia Christians for Life
Subject: What Legal Same Sex Marriages Bring into society………..

Exactly – we don’t need just to DEFEND “traditional” marriage – we need to re-criminalize the filthy, immoral, abominable commission of ACTS of SODOMY!

I smell cake!

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Hard to believe, but this blog is a year old today. Time do fly. I’ve learned a lot since that first, hopeful post, not the least of which is that I may not be a Luddite after all. Who knew? I’ve found this to be a truly swell tool for grassroots organizing, and I’m committed to making this space as useful and relevant as I can for as long as folks keep stopping by.

And it promises to get better. Next month I’ll be going to St. Paul, MN, for a three-day workshop put together by the Progressive Technology Project. (Me, Little Luddie, going to a techie conference!) So watch out, boys and girls. Once my good intentions are supported by real skills, there’s no telling. I especially want to learn how to produce and share video clips of our members (meaning the SC Progressive Network – this blog’s daddy) who are doing amazing things in the trenches, largely unnoticed by the mainstream press.

Thanks to New Morning Foundation, the Network got a camcorder this year and, as communications czarina, I get to play with it. It is the best toy ever but, novice that I am, the videos posted here and on the Network’s new YouTube channel, so far have been, well, just sad. Sorry. But I have every reason to believe that the good people at the Technology Project can help.

The plan is to feature profiles of our Network members, clips from our meetings and trainings, video of rallies, protests, vigils, legislative hearings and whatever else we hope might interest the uppity class in South Carolina. Note to Network member groups: if you want us to document something you’re doing, or if you want to borrow the camera to shoot your own footage, e-mail me at becci@scpronet.com. Also, if you are a writer-sort/thinker interested in a soap box upon which to rant – politely – let me know. We need more local voices here, more original content about what’s going on in the Palmetto State – and what ought to be.

Finally, thanks to Steve Hait for all the years of tech support at POINT and the SC Progressive Network. We owe you big.

Becci Robbins

North Carolina advances public financing options

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North Carolina added the town of Chapel Hill to its Voter-Owned Elections roster this week (we call them Clean Elections here is South Carolina) when the town council approved a measure to offer a full public financing option for town council races.

Following the national trend, the cost of running for office has risen in Chapel Hill in recent years, putting the cost of running for office out of reach of many town residents. Public financing will help remove that barrier to entry, and encourage people from all backgrounds to seek office.

North Carolina has made steady progress in advancing Voter-Owned Elections policy thanks to the efforts of Democracy North Carolina and their allies. Candidates for the state’s Supreme and Appellate courts as well as three of the nine Council of State positions all have the option to run with public financing.

The republic on a knife’s edge

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By Robert Parry
consortiumnews.com

There are two ways of looking at the landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision recognizing the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: As a stirring victory for individual liberty over collective fear – or as a reminder that the one more right-wing justice could make George W. Bush’s imperial presidency “constitutional.”

At the heart of the June 12 decision was the majority’s recognition that President Bush and his political allies have been playing games with the Constitution by turning Guantanamo into a legal black hole for the indefinite imprisonment (or kangaroo-court trials) of people Bush deems “unlawful enemy combatants.”

By the narrowest majority, the Supreme Court rejected Bush’s legal loophole, declaring that the U.S. government cannot evade the constitutional tradition of judicial oversight simply by citing an indefinite “war on terror” and by placing detainees off-shore at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s majority.

The majority also saw the Guantanamo loophole as a device used by the President and the Republican-controlled Congress of 2005-06 to evade the authority of civilian courts as well as the habeas corpus obligation for the Executive to justify a person’s detention.

“The writ of habeas corpus is itself an indispensable mechanism for monitoring the separation of powers,” the majority ruled, adding that it “must not be subject to manipulation by those whose power it is designed to restrain.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice David Souter also noted the duration of many Guantanamo imprisonments, “some of the prisoners represented here today having been locked up for six years,” he wrote.

However, four right-wing justices – Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito – saw nothing wrong in creating this modern-day Devil’s Island outside the reach of traditional justice for the duration of the indefinite “war on terror.”

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain also has vowed to appoint more justices in the mold of Bush’s selections, Roberts and Alito. If another Roberts or Alito replaces one of the five more moderate justices, the new right-wing majority would be in position to reverse the latest ruling.

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Sean Kennedy’s killer sentenced in Greenville

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Stephen Moller, who murdered Sean Kennedy on May 16, 2007, was sentenced June 11 to a five-year suspended sentence to three years with three years probation after he gets out of jail. He will spend about 10 months in jail, after which he is then entitled to parole. If granted, he will then be on probation for three years. Moller was also sentenced to 30 days community service, ordered to take anger management classes and undergo alcohol and drug counseling.

Sean’s mother, Elke Kennedy, held a press conference after the hearing. Here is her statement:

I want to thank you all for being here today. You have followed the story since Sean’s violent murder last year and I appreciate it. There was no justice today for my son Sean. The sentence that Stephen Moeller received is a joke and a slap on the wrist.

Once again it proves that in the state of South Carolina there is no justice for the victim, especially for a victim of a senseless, violent, bias-motivated crime. I understand that the judge had to sentence according to the plea agreement and the existing restrictions in the law, but that does not make this any easier!

Our judicial system is a joke and it is trying to make you believe that it is there to assure justice. Decisions are made by the solicitor instead of judges and juries. Like in Sean’s case, nobody will ever hear the evidence and all the facts like the voice mail because it was plea bargained by the solicitor, who has only met with me one time almost 10 month ago.

In essence, when the solicitor plea bargains any case, are they not really working for the defendant instead of the victim? Most pleas benefit only the defendant because it results in a lesser charge.

In fact, I believe that Sean’s case has been mishandled from the beginning. Getting the investigation started – we had to initiate the securing of evidence – sheriffs deputies did not take it serious. Our Solicitors got a lot of pressure about the case, received weekly phone calls from our SC senators from Washington and from congress man Inglis himself. Do any of you know of another local case that our Senators and congressman would be that interested in? I don’t!

Furthermore, our officials have known about the 25-year gap in our laws and have not done anything about it! When asked why there was this gap I was told that nobody had ever complained. Well this mother has and will continue to do so.

Bob Arial stated last October that involuntary manslaughter charge and the maximum time with that is not enough in the case of Sean’s Murder, but that is all they could do according to the existing law! Our solicitor invited me to help him change these laws – Mr. Arial – I am here, I am willing and I demand that we change these laws.

So moving forward we must identify the gaps, educate the public and we must demand all inclusive laws in our state that will protect all human beings. We need to be able to identify bias-motivated crimes and be able to report them.

Remember, this is an election year – you can make a difference!

My son was violently murdered because of hate, and as his mother I want justice. This could have happened to anybody’s son, daughter, brother or sister. My family will never be the same. A big part of our lives has been ripped out of our hearts and we are all struggling through birthdays, holidays, etc.

No mother should ever have to bury her child. No mother should ever have to lose her child to violence and hate. No mother should ever have to fight to see justice for her child!

Me and Scott McClellan, brothers in arms

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by Eric Boehlert
Media Matters

“Some Bush defenders, including former press secretary Ari Fleischer, [suggested] that McClellan may have had a ghostwriter or undergone heavy-handed editing.” Washington Post, May 30

“McCellan’s publisher, Peter Osnos, denies that a ghostwriter worked over McClellan’s draft.” Slate, May 28

Now that Scott McClellan has come clean in his book about the real nature of the Bush White House, I’ll confess my own secret: Scott McClellan was a ghostwriter for my 2006 book, Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.

No, really.

But let’s be honest, prior to McClellan’s new turncoat book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, where the formerly loyal aide confirms so many liberal critiques of the White House, as well as chastises the complacent media for rolling over for Bush, how many people would have even believed my unlikely tale of collaboration? Talk about a possible career-killer for McClellan.

And trust me, he understood the risk of colluding with a liberal media critic, especially while he was on the White House clock. I remember back when he was secretly helping me with the book, I’d say, Mac (that’s what I called him), are you crazy? What would Republicans say if they found out you were being disloyal to Bush, as well as aiding to puncture the long-running myth about the “liberal media”? I warned him that party elders like Bob Dole would open a can of whupass on him if they found out.

But McClellan was committed to my project and insisted on helping me craft my critique of how the press adopted a flagrant double standard when covering the Bush administration. He was especially angry about the media’s lapdog performance during the run-up to the Iraq war.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the revelations in his new book last week. In fact, they sounded a little bit too much like Lapdogs, if you know what I mean. (But Mac and I are buds, so it’s all good.)

This passage from his new book certainly had a Lapdogs ring to it:

And through it all, the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it. … [T]he media would neglect their watchdog role, focusing less on truth and accuracy and more on whether the campaign was succeeding. [Page 125]

So did this blast:

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. … In this case, the “liberal media” didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served. [Pages 156-157]

And, man, did the press act shocked last week, or what? Tim Russert on NBC was stunned that McClellan was using “MoveOn.org” language to describe the Bush White House, and the Politico’s Mike Allen likened it to rhetoric used by the “left-wing haters.” (C’mon, Mike, don’t be a hater hata.)

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