The ‘pro-sanity” part of the rally (lead by Jon Stewart) introduced Mr. Islam who sang “Peace Train,” only to be interrupted by Stephen Colbert (the ‘pro-fear’ part of the rally) who proceeded to introduce a surprisingly lucid Mr. Osbourne who sang “Crazy Train.” The battle was effectively a draw, only to be resolved by a surprise appearance by the O’Jays who sang “Love Train.” And the world began to heal.
For all their iconoclasm, Stewart and his sidekick-in-sanity, Stephen Colbert, calculate to honor mainstream liberal pieties. Daily, Stewart shores up caustically the conventional wisdom of a moderate-left orthodoxy, scolding what are perceived to be the extremes, almost invariably of the right, in a fiesta of self-congratulation.
9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Conservatives are using an eight year old video clip to incite hate, racism, and intolerance among Tea Party Republicans. This right-wing effort to call into question Congresswoman McCollum's Christian faith, her belief in God, and her patriotism is blatantly anti-American and all too similar to the extremists who earlier this year mailed a soiled American flag to her Congressional office and threatened the Congresswoman with violence.
Congresswoman McCollum rejects this radical agenda and condemns the extremist tactics behind this poisonous political exploitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Then today I was given some information about a certain individual who has been making the rounds on the internet and spamming the blogs that have carried the video and written about Betty's disrespect for the pledge. This individual is using the name MN04, but the email address is (District4.Minnesota@mail.house.gov) a government address. So now we have a United States Congresswoman's campaign staff using official government equipment to attack citizens while doing damage control. Below is the comment that has been left on thousands of sites that posted the video of her disrespecting the Pledge of Allegiance on the floor of the Peoples House.
"Congresswoman McCollum has led the Pledge of Allegiance on the House floor several times before. Check out http://mccollum.house.gov/pledge. It's all there."
For any tech savvy individuals out there, here is the IP address { 143.231.249.141 } from the computer that sent the damage control comment. It seems to have come straight from her Washington DC House of Representative office. Below are just a few of the places I found that are being hit with her damage control comment.
Examiner.com
US Message Board
FriendFeed
True North
MNCD4 Needs Change (I highly recommend that you read this guys letter to the editor of the St Paul Pioneer Press about McCollum.)
When I first attempted to check out the damage control site that was posted with her comment, I was first unable to get. Then I decided to drop the word "pledge" from the end of the URL they are passing out and I was able to get in to McCollum's official government financed web site. It's my guess they were attempting to throw me off with the wrong URL in hopes that I would just shrug my shoulders and forget about it. It is the same URL they have been using on all sites they are spamming with the message.
Classy, huh? Now, it's possible that MN04 did these things on his/her own time, which wouldn't run afoul of the Hatch Act. Out of an abundance of caution, we'll assume that to be the case. It certainly would have been a lot better if they'd done this "work" outside of the office, though. And it would have been a lot smarter for McCollum to have ignored the video entirely. She didn't though. So it's a story now. And we'll keep following this story all the way to election day.
Cross-posted at True North
There's been some outrage about the 8-year old video circulating on the web that features Betty McCollum purposely leaving out the words "under God" when she led a reading of the Pledge of Allegiance in Congress. I can think of a dozen reasons why Betty should be retired, but this isn't one of them. What is valuable about this kerfuffle is this: Betty has largely been invisible during her decade in Washington -- she's a one-woman echo chamber for Nancy Pelosi -- but the rest of the world now understands what a dunderhead we have representing us the 4th District.In other words, I didn't think the Pledge thing was that big a deal. Someone named MN04 then pointed out this link, which appears on Congresswoman McCollum's official website. Feel the love, y'all:
Conservatives are using an eight year old video clip to incite hate, racism, and intolerance among Tea Party Republicans. This right-wing effort to call into question Congresswoman McCollum's Christian faith, her belief in God, and her patriotism is blatantly anti-American and all too similar to the extremists who earlier this year mailed a soiled American flag to her Congressional office and threatened the Congresswoman with violence.Oy. A few comments:
Congresswoman McCollum rejects this radical agenda and condemns the extremist tactics behind this poisonous political exploitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The 4th CD can do better, much better, than Betty McCollum. Vote for Teresa Collett.
“I understand that some Republican bloggers have taken one image from the first piece, and claimed that the mail is somehow anti-Catholic. But the text explicitly criticizes Preacher Hall for distancing himself from policy views that have been taken by the Catholic Archdiocese, by the Lutheran Synod, and other leaders in Minnesota’s faith community.
“Dan Hall is willing to enlist God and religion in his campaign when it helps him — but in fact, his views hurt the poorest and sickest among us, and this mailing holds him accountable for those views."
In an interview with EWTN, Hall said: “I’ve never worn a collar. It’s a slam on me, but they’re using you guys and it’s sad.”
More soon.
This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order. Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling.
On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr.
O’Reilly.
He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.
WILLIAMS: But, Bill, here's a caution point. The other day in New York, some guy cuts a Muslim cabby's neck and says he's attacking him or you think about the protest at the mosque near Ground Zero --
[...]
WILLIAMS: I don't know what is in that guy's head. But I'm saying, we don't want in America, people to have their rights violated to be attacked on the street because they heard a rhetoric from Bill O'Reilly and they act crazy. We've got to say to people as Bill was saying tonight, that guy is a nut.
O'REILLY: He is a nut. And I said that about the guy in Florida -- who wanted to burn the Koran. I came down on him like crazy.
WILLIAMS: Correct. There you go.
Fired NPR news analyst Juan Williams should have kept his feeling about Muslims between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist,"the network's CEO told an audience at the Atlanta Press Club earlier today.
NPR CEO Vivian Schiller just released this statement:
"I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark."
“"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved."
Jesse Jackson”
Kind of like when someone is listening to NPR while driving their BMW, and discreetly making sure their doors are locked when they spy a homeless man moving too close to their car. That’s revealing doubt. And it’s human. It may not be the best part of being human, but it is a common thing. Or it is common to people who are honest. There are a lot of people who would prefer to pretend they’re ‘way too evolved to think as Williams admits he does.
It comes down to prudence, which is–or was, last I checked–a Virtue. It is inarguably bigoted to see every Muslim as a terrorist, but I frankly don’t think there are many people like that in America.
But it is prudent to at least be aware of one’s surroundings, and to make note of one’s fellow-travelers, in all circumstances, whether one is on a plane, or going to the movies, or playing in the park with one’s children. We are not meant to traipse through life like naive bumpkins, with our eyes paradoxically shut as we wander about wide-eyed saying “golly, I and my children are perfectly safe because the authorities are regulating and overseeing my air travel, my movie-going and our park safety and therefore I don’t have to think about it!”
Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.
A woman pronounced "very certainly clinically dead" at a French hospital woke up hours later after her sons refused to turn off her life-support system, medics and the woman said.
Doctors were preparing cancer patient Lydie Paillard, 60, for a chemotherapy session when she passed out, the director of the Bordeaux Rive Droite private hospital Yves Noel told AFP on Wednesday.
A doctor managed to resuscitate her and put her on a ventilator but then, having consulted other doctors, called Paillard's sons to break the news that their mother was "very certainly clinically dead."
So it’s not like – a lot of people are mistaken in thinking that “I don’t want to starve, I don’t want to be thirsty.” But that’s not the situation when you’re in critical condition, your body is shutting down. When you give or force feed a body that is shutting down, that can be extremely painful.
Because the body, it’s uh, it’s a quieter way of the body dying.
"My sons, whom I saw yesterday, explained to me that the hospital wanted to turn off the life support system because it was over and as they refused, I was taken to the university hospital," Paillard explained. "I haven't really realized what's happened but I think my three sons are the most shocked."
The hospital's management said it would suggest the family meet the medical team responsible for Paillard to discuss the "communication problem."
Now let’s look at what led us to the political situation we’re in. During the second term of the Bush presidency people just got fed up with Republicans. They were idiots, they were no good at the whole fiscal conservatism thing (which is sort of the whole point of them), we had these wars that seemed to be going nowhere, and the economy was beginning to fail. They sucked, and people were sick and tired of them.
Thus people turned to the Democrats. And Obama.
Let’s just say they also sucked.
AMERICANS: “So, the economy is pretty bad and there’s high employment. You think you can do something about that?”
DEMOCRATS AND OBAMA: “We can spend a trillion dollars we don’t have on pork and stuff.”
AMERICANS: “No … that’s not what we want. We’d really like you not to do that.”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re stupid. We’re doing it anyway.”
AMERICANS: “That’s not going to help us get jobs!”
DEMOCRATS: “Sure it will; millions of them … though they may be invisible. You’ll have to trust us they exist. And guess what else we’ll do: We’ll create a giant new government program to take over health care.”
AMERICANS: “That has nothing to do with jobs!”
DEMOCRATS: “We don’t care about that anymore. We really want a giant new health care program. We’re sure you’ll love it.”
AMERICANS: “Don’t pass that bill. You hear me? Absolutely do not pass that bill.”
DEMOCRATS: “Believe me; you’ll love it. It has … well, I don’t know what exactly is in the bill, but we’re sure it’s great.”
AMERICANS: “Listen to me: DO. NOT. PASS. THAT. BILL.”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re not the boss of me! We’re doing it anyway!”
AMERICANS: “Look what you did! Now the economy is way worse, we’re even deeper in debt, and we have a bunch of new laws we don’t want!”
DEMOCRATS: “You’re racist.”
AMERICANS: “Wha … How is that racist?”
DEMOCRATS: “Now you’re getting violent! Stop being violent and racist, you ignorant hillbillies! And remember to vote Democrat in November.”
So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analogue in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.
Castle: We could go in for, uh Catholic hospitals too, where they deny uh, certain services to people because it has to conform to uh, Catholic doctrine, and that includes the end of life care, and uh, there’s a lot of that where they just think uh, they have this theological position where they just think that suffering is good for your soul. Well, if you don’t believe you’ve got a soul, or if you don’t believe it’s supposed to suffer, why should you suffer because of somebody else’s religious beliefs?
But they have this thing about, uh the meritorious nature of suffering, and that only God can decide when you’re going to die. And uh, well, then, medical care just keeps you alive – you shouldn’t have medical care? So uh, there’s all that and uh, it really conflicts with reality, that the reality is that people suffer and we have to stop people from suffering and that we have to relieve it and we don’t make it worse.
Goodwin: Right, exactly —
Castle: And they’re making it worse.
Goodwin: They’re making it worse.
Goodwin: They’re making it worse. Because on the same token, last year they tried to cut 40,000 people off health care – Minnesotans – this uh, uh, isn’t an immigrant population, this is uh, working Minnesotans who have Minnesota Care and pay a premium to have that – they’re not getting it for free. It’s not government sponsored, it’s sponsored by a provider tax and it’s sponsored by their own premiums, their own premiums. They tried to cut 30, uh, they tried to cut 40,000 off last year – they managed to cut 38,000 off the year before, so that’s almost 80,000 people that would lose health care entirely. And we managed to fight off – Democrats managed to fight off the cuts last year and now we have work through to try and reinstate some of the cuts because we’re finding out that it costs a lot more to eliminate that, uh that, because then you end up with a lot more people in the emergency room, you end up with more uncompensated care in the hospital, Hennepin County, I don’t want to, but I think Hennepin County Hospital had something in the neighborhood of $20 million in uncompensated care. That just gets passed down to the people that do have insurance – nobody’s eating those costs except the public. The public is eating those costs. And so you’ve got people without health care, and you’ve got the rest of us, who, our health care has become so expensive that a lot of people can’t afford to pay the premiums.
Castle: And then they were, then they were trying to, I think there’s a bill somewhere in the Legislature to stop, to rescind the state law that the state has to pay for abortions as well as child care, uh child birth, that if they have to pay for child birth they have to pay for abortion care, so they’re trying to change that.
Goodwin: Well uh, that—
Castle: So what that does is that it increases the number of births and then that increases the number of welfare cases – they don’t want anybody on welfare, but they’re guaranteed to have that.
Goodwin: But they don’t want to provide anything for those in the most need if they do carry their child—
Castle: Oh, they’ll give them some diapers.
Goodwin: (Laughter)
Castle: They’ll give them some formula, too—
Goodwin: If they do, I don’t even know where they do that.
Castle: I mean, you talk about, for 18 years you’re raising a child.
Goodwin: Right.
Castle: At least 18.
Goodwin: Well, and uh, the problem with that bill is uh, that already was tried in Minnesota and was uh, the courts ruled it unconstitutional. So they couldn’t do that and yet uh, they’re trying it again and they know they’re facing another court challenge. And so they’re putting this like uh, South Dakota, did with their uh, basically no choice bill that they had and, uh, now they’re putting it up and uh, the people of South Dakota are going to have to pay for it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the people of Minnesota are going to have to pay for these bad decisions when they know that once again, it’s going to be ruled unconstitutional. The constitution hasn’t changed.
Castle: And, uh, the people when they go and vote think that, well, uh, I’m never going to have an abortion or I don’t have this problem and this or that, and so it doesn’t affect them directly or personally. And uh, I’ve got a living will and all that, so they don’t consider that when they vote. They don’t realize that they have to pick up the costs of all that.
Goodwin: Absolutely. And the same is true of the starvation and dehydration bill. If you’re going to make people have feeding tubes and hydration way past the point where their body will, uh, easily accept it, you’re going to again cause huge costs to the system and again, you’re trying to take away basic health care. Some of those same people that you want to keep on a feeding tube, and hydration, long past the time when their body is uh, willing to accept it. So, uh, so it’s so convoluted that it doesn’t, that there’s no, there’s no ideology there that’s constant, that’s connected.
Castle: However, there is a theology. It all goes back to their basic religious beliefs that they don’t talk about publicly because, frankly, I think they’d be laughed at, about the ensoulment, and about the merits of suffering and a few things like that, and their views about sex and who can have it and when and under what conditions and all that, so there’s a whole theological justification for that.
Goodwin: That’s true.
Castle: And so that’s why they need their so-called secular justifications to get it past the public.
Goodwin: You’re right.
Castle: And so it doesn’t work. But so, and, well,thanks for being with us and talking about this, a really important subject.
Goodwin: It is—
Castle: And I hope that the general public pays a little more attention to what their legislators are doing, because whether it affects you personally, it’s going to affect you financially for sure.
Goodwin: Well, just recently in the House we heard a bill in the Health Care Committee, which I’m on, that would require that a person get feeding tubes and hydration, whether or not they wanted it, if they didn’t have it specifically written in a health care directive that they didn’t want it. So that is a result of the Terry Schiavo case. It was brought to the House, the bill was, it was introduced by Representative Tim Wilkin, and he was, he is part of the right-wing extremists that are part of the Minnesota legislature and unfortunately the leading part of the Minnesota House of Representatives. They are in control right now and their health care legislation over the past few years have qualified for what you’ve termed, anti-human health care.
Castle: Yeah, it hurts people. Everything they suggest doesn’t help people, it hurts people, it causes pain and suffering, like it’s like the Schiavo bill, the families have no say in anything.
Goodwin: Yeah, yeah.
Goodwin: So it’s not like – a lot of people are mistaken in thinking that “I don’t want to starve, I don’t want to be thirsty.” But that’s not the situation when you’re in critical condition, your body is shutting down. When you give or force feed a body that is shutting down, that can be extremely painful.
Goodwin: Because the body, it’s uh, it’s a quieter way of the body dying.
Castle: This is their loved one and it doesn’t allow them to uh. . . . You know, they lie a lot, because you know I heard some of this testimony they had at the state legislature and they talk about this starvation and they say, “you know, they’re dying of thirst and they’re starving to death.” These people, they’re pretty much in a coma and they can’t feel anything and they don’t starve to death, they actually die of dehydration and it’s a slow wasting away and they don’t feel pain.
Castle: Well, they know better than the family.
Goodwin: Absolutely.
Castle: What the person wants.
Goodwin: Yes.
Castle: Oh, they’re much more caring than the family.
Goodwin: Exactly.
Castle: Yeah, sure they are.
Goodwin: And they know better than the doctors. They know better than anybody what we all need at the end or what we all need at the beginning of our lives. I just um, I’ve really been uncomfortable with what’s been happening at the House of Representatives because it seems to me that this party, that sold themselves as the party of individual rights and freedoms –
Castle: Oh, yeah!
Goodwin: Are getting into the most private and personal parts of our life. And I said uh, I don’t want government in my marriage.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: I don’t want government in my uh, reproductive choices and I certainly don’t want Republicans in my death bed with me.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. So it doesn’t make sense and, in fact the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life – I’m sure you’re familiar with that group —
Castle: Oh, yes, in fact those initials spell out a year in the Middle Ages.
Goodwin (laughing): Yes, they do! That’s delightful.
Castle: In fact my friend the late Sue Rockne used to say that it spells out a year in the Middle Ages.
Goodwin: Well you know, what’s interesting is that the people who contribute to that group need to be careful about what they’re contributing to because I don’t think they know for sure, uh the MCCL took a neutral stand on that bill.
Castle: Ohh.
Goodwin: And I said uh, I said that I always was concerned about MCCL anyway, because my motto for them was, “life until birth.”
Castle: Yeah—
Goodwin: But, uh- [CROSSTALK]
Castle: Yeah I know because they don’t want to uh, fund welfare programs.
Goodwin: Yeah, but it’s – right. But it’s not only “life until birth,” it’s not even “life until birth” in this case because they didn’t even support allowing people to get prenatal care so they have healthy babies, which then society doesn’t end up having to take care of. So, it’s like what I’m saying, it’s a real conflict in thought, it’s not a clear and concise position that they have.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: It’s situational ethics.
Castle: It is clear when you consider that it comes from their religious beliefs, their doctrine.
Goodwin: Right.
Castle: Which says, you don’t have sex unless you intend to have babies and, it’s like the whole thing with same-sex marriage, you know, they’re working that one over, and so it’s only sex between one man and one woman and only when they’re married and if you can’t or don’t or – MCCL is against any program for Planned Parenthood—
Goodwin: Yes they are.
Castle: To prevent unplanned pregnancy. If you try to, say, let’s try to prevent this, they will not support a program that actually, uh, prevents pregnancies.
Goodwin: Absolutely.
Goodwin: That’s a conflict. I would have actually more respect for them, in the 20 years I’ve been around the legislative process, because I worked at the House for several years and I’ve been in office for six. When uh, I never once, once not once, seen them come to the Legislature in support [of] child care, support anti-abuse, domestic abuse issues, support um, education, support health care for children. Not one time in 20 years. It’s all about abortion. And I would have respect for them if I could see some consistency in their thought, but I don’t see any consistency in their thought. In fact, they have fought against things that will uh, help people.
Castle: Well, even the “morning after” pill, you know, I don’t even know if they’re doing much at the state level but even at the federal level they’re trying to prevent that from being an over-the-counter, uh, prescription.
Goodwin: Well absolutely, and that’s another health care issue that you’ve brought up – that’s a good one that’s also in the Minnesota Legislature this year and that is uh, whether or not pharmacists should be required to dispense medications that
physicians—
Castle: They got that one in the legislature, too?
Goodwin: Yes. What happened is that Representative Tom Emmer introduced a bill that would say that pharmacists can deny, they can, not sell prescriptions for any moral, ethical—
Castle: Ohhh!
Goodwin: And a whole slew of reasons. I had the opposite bill. I had a bill that said pharmacists, uh, pharmacies, I didn’t put it on the pharmacists, I said pharmacies, so if there was one pharmacist in there that had an objection, they could get some other pharmacist to fill the prescription, that they would have to fill the prescription.
Castle: Well, who’s gonna ring up these things? What if you come up to the cash register and you’ve got a package of condoms or something and then that person uh, doesn’t believe in that? “I refuse to ring that up”—
Goodwin: Exactly – where does it stop.
Castle: Oh, let’s bring another cashier up and – this is ridiculous. You’re hired to do a job and you go and do the job or else you go and—
Goodwin: Well right.
Castle: You go and find a job where it doesn’t conflict with your beliefs.
Castle: No, Yeah, you know that people, they have their religious beliefs and when I say you have a right to your beliefs, but you have no right to force them on other people.
Goodwin: Absolutely not.
Castle: And if you’re at a job that requires you to serve the public and you have to do things that you don’t believe in, then find a different job.
Goodwin: Yes.
Castle: Or uh, just work in a Catholic hospital or something like that.
Goodwin: Exactly.
