Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Santeria Works Wonders With Pregnant Teens

Kevin Drum links to an article in the Washington Post about a couple of lawsuits against Dubyah’s favorite InnerChange Freedom Initiative, run by evangelist Charles Colson’s Virginia-based Prison Fellowship

So, the bottom line is this: the Iowa program gives prisoners special privileges as long as they agree to become Christians.

And that’s not a violation of the First Amendment? That’s not using coerceive government power to promote one religion over another?

And if it isn’t, what is?

I think the Bush argument is that this misses the real point. They say the government has been using the coercive power of the state to discriminate against religion. According to them, by funding this program the government is not establishing a particular religion because if the Muslims or the Moonies want to start a prison outreach program, the constitution is obligated to allow them to “compete” in the marketplace of religious ideas in state institutions. There is no separation of church and state. In fact, the state should be enmeshed with as many different permutations of faith as possible because all people will benefit from some kind of religion. We know this for a fact. (Atheists can piss up a rope.)

In other words, religion has been oppressed by the big bad secular government and the conservatives are going to set it free. It’s an equal protection issue and like so many conservative causes these days it is framed as if Charles Colson is the Rosa Parks of the thoroughly downtrodden oppressed Christians who are just trying to become part of the mainstream.

And once again, the liberal monolith is bent on keepin’ the voices of these minorities down. As with the news media, the “man” works overtime to silence and marginalize the sad, struggling conservatives.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but seeing paunchy millionaires whine about their supposed victimhood just makes my gorge rise.

Peace On The Beach

To any of you folks who live in the Santa Monica environs, the above linked peace gathering will feature Ron Kovic and Tom Hayden as speakers.

PLUS:

FORMATION OF PICASSO INSPIRED PEACE SYMBOL

** DARK BLUE OR SOLID COLOR SHIRT WILL HELP AERIAL PHOTO**

The UN recently covered Picasso’s “Guernica,” a painting depicting the horrors of war, as Powell addressed the Security Council. You can’t cover thousands of people on the beach. Aerial artist and environmentalist, John Quigley, will guide and shape over a thousand people on Saturday, as they become Picasso’s “Face of Peace.

It’s supposed to be about 70 degrees tomorrow…

There are worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon even if you are consorting with a bunch of commie Priests, socialistic soccer moms and Pro-Saddam military veterans.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities

– Voltaire

MWO posts John Breaux’s use of the RNC talking points on Lou Dobbs:

BREAUX: Well, Lou, I respect the right of Democrats to filibuster a nominee, but I differ on this particular nominee. I think that at a time in this country when we’re under orange alert and we have advice on stockpiling water and buying duct tape and who in the heck knows what’s going to happen in North Korea and Iraq, that this is not a time that we should be filibustering a nominee who has been called well qualified, the highest recommendation the American Bar Association can give a nominee…

Doesn’t it occur to anyone that maybe it’s Bush who should table this nominee while he’s trying to rally the country around his cause? Why on earth is the President pushing controversial judicial nominees during a time of national crisis and causing unneeded partisanship? I thought he was going to change the tone.

After all, the Republicans refused to confirm the two Clinton nominees for this circuit on the grounds that it didn’t need any more judges. Now, it’s so important to confirm this apparently vacant nominee that not even a war will stop them, even if it means that the Senate is tied up in knots on the eve of war. This must be what being a uniter not a divider means.

How About A Pageant?

Can’t we just pretend to dress up the naked Boy Emperor and his Boyz in some fancy uniforms like Idi Amin and throw a big parade and bow down to their huge swinging machismo and just skip all the actual killing? I’d do it gladly if it would cure these frustrated eunuchs of their need to prove their manhood. Clearly, they didn’t get the yellow ribbon treatment after fighting the Battle of Bureaucracy to “win” the cold war, so they desperately need some affirmation that they are the true heroes of their time. Fine.

But what with everything else about this administration being such total bullshit, I’m sure nobody would even notice if we just skipped the war and went directly to the ceremonies and parades. How about we just put on a pageant?

MOSS

What do we have that they want?

BREAN

“Freedom.”

MOSS

Why would they want that?

HAKAN

They’re Oppressed.

MOSS

No, no, no. Fuck Freedom. No. Fuck Freedom.

They…. They Want… They Want To Destroy the Godless

Satan of the United … They want to destroy our Way of

Life. Okay, okay, okay, could we … okay: the

President is in China. He is dealing with a Dispatch

of the B-2 Bomber to Albania. Why?

(HE SHRUGS, HOLDS UP HIS HANDS, TO SAY,

“YOU TELL ME…”)

AMES

Alright, well, alright: geopolitically…

MOSS GESTURES FOR SILENCE.

MOSS

We’ve just found out They Have the Bomb. We’ve Just

Found Out They Have The Bomb, aaaand… No, No wait a

second, no, no, wait a second, No. The Bomb’s not…

it’s not there — because they’d have to have a

rocket and that shit n’they’re a buncha wogs– it’s …

it’s a suitcase Bomb. Ooookay. It’s a suitcase bomb,

and it’s …. in Canada! Eh? Albanian Terrorists have

placed a suitcase Bomb in Canada, in an attempt to

infiltrate the bomb into the USA.

AMES

You know what? This is good. This is terrific, and

I’ll tell you why: it’s cost effective. This is….

MOSS

(SHRUGS)

It’s producing.

Unfortunately, we’re going to inflict “Shock and Awe” instead.

BREAN

We remember the slogans, we can’t even remember the

fucking wars. Y’know why. Cause it’s show business.

That’s why I’m here. Naked girl, covered in Napalm.

Five marines Raising the Flag, Mount Suribachi.

Churchill, V for Victory, Y’remember the Picture, fifty

years from now, they’ll have forgotten the war. Gulf

War? Smart Bomb, falling through the roof. 2500

missions a day, 100 days, One Shot of One Bomb. The

American people bought that war. M’I getting through

to you? War in the Balkans, don’t mean nothing, till

some G.I. flyer, went down, Eating Snakes for Ten days.

It’s show business, Mister Moss.

He Is The Better Rhetor

Shock & Awe/Build & Heal:

Past and Future Fact in Iraq

As best as I can understand it, the case for war against Iraq rests primarily on what Aristotle—these old Greeks, they understood things—called the argument of future fact, or the possibility that a thing might occur in the future based on events that have happened in the past.

So we are preparing to decimate Iraq based on the possibility that the Iraqi government might in the future provide Al Qaeda or other terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has been a bad actor in the past, this argument goes, and it is likely they will continue to be a bad actor in the future. Indeed, they will likely try to kill all of us, hence we should get them first. That is basically the administration’s argument: The U.S. should invade Iraq on the basis of what they might do to us—and to Israel—in the future. The events in the past on which we base these future possibilities are fuzzy and riddled with contradictions, but never mind. The very possibility that Iraq might do something bad is proof enough.

[…]

But here’s the thing. The argument of “future fact” is one you make when the outcome of a path is not certain, and when you are not sure how things will turn out. In such cases, you argue on the basis of the probable, on what’s most likely to happen, given the situation. You strive for the correct and prudent course, even when the outcomes are unclear.

But if we go this way, commit to war, then some things become inevitablly and inescapably certain: Appalling numbers of people will die, and a great many of these dead will be children.

More

In the Manichean world of President Cowpoke and his starry-eyed neocon superheroes, there are only two choices. Us or Them.

We’re Good. They’re Evil. And, if a huge number of children have to die, well it isn’t our fault. That’s just the way the world works.

But, He Seemed So Helpful

Via Vaara

First there was the plagiarized British “intelligence” dossier, and now this:

“ABC News reports that a key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to law enforcement officials.

The officials said that a claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a ‘dirty bomb’ sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination.

The informant described a detailed plan that an al Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops, sources told ABCNEWS. The informant reportedly cited specific targets of government buildings and Christian or clerical centers.

But upon subjecting the informant to a polygraph, he flunked. “

Apparently, the interrogations are being run by the cops who interrogated the central park “wilding” gang.

Who Let The Talking Dog Out?

The bad news: North Korea has a nuclear weapons program which may have created one or two nuclear bombs, and it has ballistic missiles capable of hitting the West Coast — Washington, Oregon, maybe even California. The good news, Mr. President: none of those states voted for you.

AND

Here’s something interesting: the first suspect anywhere in the world to actually go through a trial for participating in the 9-11-01 events, Moroccan national Mounir el Motassadeq, is undergoing the completion of his trial in Hamburg, Germany. His lawyers argued that the case against him (which includes handling the financial affairs of 6 of the 9-11 hijackers) was circumstantial and based on supposition. We’ll see: what is amazing is the complete dearth of publicity this trial has received in the United States (this is the first I’m seeing of this, and, by American standards, I’m EXTREMELY well informed).

Of course, any mention that Germany was cooperating in the War on Terror might somehow alter American public opinion, which is supposed to resent Germany for its resistance to American positions in the War to Avenge Papa Bush

And check out his ongoing Alphabetized Blog Critique and dog matching series. (I’m a border collie.)

“The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.”

Unlike La Noonan, when Paul Krugman writes an open letter in his column he doesn’t pretend to be a dead beloved icon to make his point. He puts his own name on it and tells it straight.

And he pretty much tells Alan Greenspan that Little Aynnie wouldn’t have ever confused him with that sexy bodice ripping master of the universe, John Galt. That’s gotta hurt.

Via Mr.TBOGG

Kenny-Boy who???

The BBC writes that the Senate finance committee Enron Report is a blockbuster expose of bribery, greed and “desperation.”

“The report reads like a conspiracy novel, with some of the nation’s finest banks, accounting firms and attorneys working together to prop up the biggest corporate farce of this century,” he said.

The investigation provides the first complete story of Enron’s efforts to manipulate its taxes and accounting.

The findings of the investigation, which have been kept tightly under wraps until now, have been described by senators as “eye-popping”, “disturbing”, and “barn-burning”.

He barely knew him. Seriously. Wouldn’t even recognize him.

Heck, I reckon you wouldn’t even be human beins if you didn’t have some purty strong personal feelings about nukular combat.

Matthew Yglesias and Hesiod address Insty’s rhetorical question today asking whether France ever called Roosevelt a cowboy seeing as he said, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” The article Insty quotes from, in which the phrase is approvingly cited, also notes that Roosevelt wrote the speech himself.

Is it at all possible that the French call Bush a cowboy not because of his (well-written Michael Gerson) speeches but because of the puerile “Bonanza” babble that bursts from his pie-hole whenever they let him speak extemporaneously?

How about some of these greatest hits?

”I can hear you. And the rest of the nation can hear you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”

“I want justice. There’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘wanted dead or alive.'”

He’s not in charge of Afghanistan anymore. He’s not the parasite that’s invaded the host. … Now, he’s maybe in control of a cave. He’s on the run. We’re going to get him running and keep him running and bring him to justice.”

“We will find those who did it, we will smoke ’em out of their holes, we will get them running, and we will bring them to justice.”

“As long as there is al-Qaeda influence anywhere, we will help the host countries rout ’em out and bring ’em to justice,”

You just have to wonder where in the hell those damned cheese eaters get their ridiculous ideas…