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Stem Cell Funds Veto – Who Benefits?

Stem Cell Funds Veto – Who Benefits?

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Bush finally decided to veto something after six years: Stem cell research – a bill that even this Congress passed in both Houses.

“Now that’s something to save yer virgin veto for! All the people who might benefit from the research – well, they don’t matter so much. Those are future people – they don’t hardly count, not like those itty bitty blobs of cells so dear to the heart of that God-guy who’s gonna kill all you damn Liberals right soon. What matters is the manly action (superman!) to protect them pre-differentiated embryonic cells from study before they still get discarded. Well, we never said they wuz goin’ anywheres to thrive.”

My first line of thinking on this was simply that if this research doesn’t go forward here, it will elsewhere. Scientists in other countries will move ahead, and we won’t. Meanwhile, Rove is slinking around with his typical misinformation.
Tell me the truth – are there people who believe anything at all that Rove says? Can’t we just bestow a title, like “Duke of Propaganda and Slander,” upon him? Maybe they could have some pagentry, with flags and boots (or slippers?).

But wait! Didn’t Bush already allow limited funding of embryonic stem cell work in August 2001?
I think we should be debating bioethics on several fronts, including this one.

However, I don’t really think the Bush “virgin veto” is about morals or values – or even religious conformity.
It’s not even primarily about his “base” (did you know that’s how “al Qaeda” translates?).

This bill isn’t so much about the research itself. It’s about the funding! It’s about….privatization!

Private foundations and companies have continued funding this research, after all. It’s an investment.

Hmmm…. could it be that there might be private interests who might (gasp) want to be the ones to make all the money on this?

Maybe even…. some major contributors to Bush and the Republican party?

I wonder if someone would do a crosslisting of the likely companies who might profit from internal discoveries and applications and, say, those who were given the Medicare drug benefit to write for our legislative branch? Can we see a list of the companies who are doing this research now, and their campaign contributions?

I’m sorry to say it (and to believe it too), but when this administration talks values and morals, follow the money.

Corruption is a serious threat to our form of government, and all the more so until we have public-funded elections. The news tonight was full of horrified reporters noticing that some Katrina money was wasted and used inappropriately (they don’t mention the money that went to Pat Robertson, though). Still, we haven’t gotten much explanation of the disappearance of much larger sums through the hands of completely different segments of our population (and corporations who have been granted “personhood”).

What would be the benefit to Americans if the research was funded by the federal government, rather than by corporate interests? I’m not a lawyer, but if anyone out there has an informed opinion on the possibilities here, please comment.

Liar Liar – What more proof?

Liar Liar – What more proof?

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Yesterday I wrote a very long and detailed post on the Plame leak situation. It had quotations and it had links. It had the whole history, the timeline, and it had several compelling points. Just as I was about to publish it, a site in another window crashed my browser. Bummer. I have really got to start writing these things offline. I’m just too disheartened to reconstruct the whole blasted thing. Since you can easily look up everything to do with it, I’ll just contribute my own thoughts to the public conversation.

I believe that Plame was outed intentionally, which is a felony crime if not outright treason. Either Cheney or Bush authorized it. I actually suspect that it was Cheney (with Rove?), and that the official story is a backdated version for coverup purposes. The outing of Plame was meant to punish Plame’s husband (Wilson) for stating the truth – and it was also a message to the intelligence community that they had better give them the “intelligence” that is wanted, rather than assessing reality.

Although people within the administration knew that Bush’s claims weren’t true – and there were efforts to remove them (including by Tenet), these claims kept getting re-added to Bush’s State of the Union speech, which was delivered. It was just one of the ways in which Americans were manipulated – playing on their fears to drum up support for our illegal and unethical invasion of Iraq. This has proven to be a disaster, and all of the people who were demonized for speaking their minds at the time have been proven correct. We took over in Iraq for reasons that will become abundantly clear in future, if they aren’t clear enough to you already (hint – permanent bases on the oil pipeline, Cheney’s secret energy meetings, Enron, Halliburton, record oil profits, corruption, fraud…).

Neither American lives nor Iraqi lives (remember, we’re “rescuing” them?) matter enough to this administration for them even to answer the basic question of what cause our soldiers are fighting for. Modus operandi: when in doubt, change the subject – when in doubt, use doublespeak – when in doubt, use your media assets or run commericals as news – when in doubt, change the “reason” we’re there – when in doubt, hide everything. If they had nothing to hide, we’d be getting a lot more information instead of being under surveillance ourselves.

To claim that “declassifying” Plame and leaking her CIA status to their kiss-butt reporter friends (remember, it wasn’t a White House press release) was in the interests of national security is an outright lie.

Tell me – how does disrupting a valuable source of intelligence, undoubtedly along with others who could be tied to her, help our national security? Isn’t it obvious that it is actually a serious breach of our national security? I wonder how many people died as a direct result, and how much real intelligence has been squandered. It is a felony for good reason.

When he was asked about this leak, he stood up and said he’d get to the bottom of it, that whoever was responsible would be fired. Fire Cheney and yourself, Mr. President. Resign. If there wasn’t anything wrong with what your administration did, you would have explained yourself at the time, not years later when Libby was in court.

Oh wait, we still haven’t really gotten an explanation from the mouth of the king. His sycophant messengers have just given us some spin, that’s all.

Whatever voting machines haven’t been hijacked yet will tell you our judgment – if that matters anymore. We’ve seen what the interests of the American people mean to you – that is, nothing at all.

Take a good look around. Our land and water are being polluted. Corporate interests are all but writing our laws. Our system isn’t functioning – ask people from New Orleans, ask people who have to face new interest rates, ask people who are working part-time in more than one job, ask people trying to navigate Medicare and Medicaid, ask the children who are left behind or who graduate from our schools with a substandard education. Many people who believe they are religious have been hookwinked into following false prophets who would like to see this country turned from the land of the free into a pseudo-christian theocracy – money-grubbers of hate and corruption are even attempting to start ’em young with home schooling and bible classes in the public schools. People openly assert claims of empire and world domination. Now you’re deliberating whether we might use nukes on Iran? So what, we’re worse than Hussein now? Wasn’t that the ultimate no-no? Oh, and didn’t you just make a deal on that very topic? What was that all about?

I’m watching to see what happens in November. We know about the election fraud, the hidden programming in the voting machines. We know that even now Diebold technicians are making the rounds. With popularity in the 30-40 percent range, it would be very strange if the Republicans retained control of both houses, wouldn’t it?

So what’s on the menu? Planning to blow up a few more towers? Maybe a Bin Laden sighting in Chicago? A nuclear meltdown in Florida? A small dirty bomb in some suburban neighborhood?

Contact your congresspeople – it’s time for them to show some spine. We still – so far – have only the soft version of fascism. There is still a chance to use our democratic system the way it was intended.

Wherever you are, do whatever you can – while you still can.

How can anyone still support this President, this Vice-President, these cronies of theirs? What more proof do you need?

Vote. Vote. Vote.

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

No Tax Money for GA Public School Bible Classes

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The Georgia State Senate has passed two pieces of legislation that pose a serious threat to the separation of church and state.

One would create state-funded Bible classes in Georgia public schools.
The second would allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed by county governments.

Both bills are on Governor Sonny Perdue’s desk, and he is contemplating whether to sign them.

Take action now and demand that Governor Perdue defend the Constitution and Georgia’s citizens from these attacks on the separation of church and state.

If these were really christians, they would want to post something that better represented Jesus’ teaching. The focus on the ten commandments is symptomatic of their seeming inability to understand love, forgiveness and grace. Neither do they take into account hundreds of years of Jewish and Christian scholarship and debate on issues of interpretation, translation, or socio-historical context. Their “take” on christianity is a perversion of their own religion. Their absolutist views of human beings show little evidence of any of the spiritual virtues. Think I’m overstating? Try Googling “Christian Reconstruction” or “theonomy” – they want a theocracy here, complete with the total control of women, even stoning!

From the Forerunner – I’m not linking to this site – Google a phrase:

We are not looking for a “voice a the table” nor are we seeking “equal time” with the godless promoters of pornography, abortion, safe-sodomy subsidies, socialism, etc. We want them silenced and punished according to God’s Law-Word.

They use God as a tool. Jesus would think they were jerks. This is about votes! This is about scapegoating and turning us against one another so that we don’t notice that we’re all getting robbed. I mean literally robbed – of our traditions, our ideals, our treasury, our natural resources, our futures.

From Apologetics Index:

Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea of Biblical ”warfare” is the centrality of capital punishment under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen) call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, ”sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, ”unchastity before marriage.”

I can’t believe this. Really. I’m shaking my head. So now they want to get ’em while they’re young – and use our own tax dollars to do it! Already they have uniforms. What next, a special salute?

The separation of church and state protects religious rights, the freedom of religious expression. There should be no state sponsorship of a specific religious tradition. Religious training of minors is the right and responsibility of families and their own religious tradition.

There is no proposal here to teach a wide range of religious texts or religious themes across the world’s traditions. The cuts to more fundamental educational areas serve only to highlight the political motivation of these bills.

Bible classes for minors are an unconstitutional use of funds. At the college level, courses related to religion, such as comparative religion and mythology, spiritual autobiography, Bible as literature, and the like are appropriate as elective courses at state universities. I have been trained in theology and ethics at a state university, and taken courses in religion at the undergraduate level at another. But courses and departments of religion have a different set of approaches than the ones we can expect to see from public school teachers. They started with home schooling, now this. Questions of belief will enter the classroom, and we will see a newly indocrinated “Christian Youth” if they get their way. Wake up, sheeple.

No – you can’t use our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children. No – you can’t fool us, we know what this is all about, and we’re not all as ignorant as you seem to think. Add these totalitarian “religious” power freaks to the neo-cons of empire and the puppets of corporate interests, and you see the unholy trinity that is killing this country and all it stands for! Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, take heed!

Stop the pseudo-religious right from pushing their dubious “theology” in our public schools and our public square.

Take Action – Protect Health

Take Action – Protect Health

New Air Pollution Rules Threaten Public Health

Take action now

Disregarding and misrepresenting recommendations from their own scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed new air pollution standards that do not sufficiently protect public health. The new rules apply to particulate matter pollution, sources of which include agricultural activity, vehicle exhaust, and emissions from coal-fired power plants. Over 2,000 recent studies have linked particulate matter exposure to heart disease, respiratory ailments, and premature death. The EPA needs to hear from you today. We have until April 17 to urge the EPA to listen to their scientists and create standards that will adequately protect our health and the health of our children.

Take action now

Pombo in Pocket

Pombo in Pocket

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Latest on Rep. Richard Pombo from Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and Pombo’s in Their Pocket

If you’re getting ready to pay your taxes, you may feel like you need a break. But after you hear how Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) spent his vacation — and our tax dollars — you’d be right to demand that he is the person to give you one.

It was August of 2003 and Pombo, America’s #1 Wildlife Villain, wanted a vacation. So Pombo used our tax dollars to rent an RV for a two-week family vacation in some of our nation’s most scenic national parks – parks like the ones he’s since proposed selling off to the highest bidder.

Interestingly, Pombo just can’t seem to get his story straight about this trip. After the trip, Rep. Pombo wrote on the official House Resources Committee website:

“This August, my family and I rented an RV and set out to explore the West. We spent two weeks on vacation, stopping along the way to enjoy the splendor of many of our national parks.”
Now he says it “was not a personal trip” and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “insists that he spent virtually all day talking to the park superintendents and other officials.” But, in the words of his hometown newspaper, “officials from at least two parks Pombo says he visited have no recollection of him making an appearance.”

What’s most amazing about all of this is that Pombo has proposed selling off 15 national parks and requiring the Park Service to sell commercial advertising and the naming rights to visitors’ centers and trails. Now that he and his family have enjoyed the parks, he’s content to hand them and the vulnerable animals that call them home over to the clutches of his developer buddies.

Click here to email Richard Pombo and demand that he immediately cease trying to sell our national parks and return the money he took from taxpayers for his personal enjoyment.

American Idiots

American Idiots

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It is an extraordinary time.

  • We borrow money from other countries so that rich people don’t have to pay taxes.
  • We borrow money from other countries and let private corporations steal it.

And somehow, the American people seem to be all right with that.