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    Joshua Angell, also known as Josh Angell (born June 3, 1979), is an outspoken Liberal activist who has run a news blog since 2004, entitled "Voice Of The Majority" Angell, a frequent caller to radio shows such as Lynn Samuels, is often outspoken on what he calls "the lies of the Bush Crime Family". Known locally in Austin, Texas to appear at rallies and anti-war demonstrations, Angell is self described as "The most famous gay activist in Austin that everybody knows OF but nobody KNOWS".


    Tuesday, November 30, 2004


     
    Hastert Launches a Partisan Policy
    By Charles BabingtonWashington Post Staff Writer
    In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them. Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert -- with Reps. Thomas Reynolds, left, and Christopher Cox -- has said he is working for "the majority of the majority." (Gerald Herbert -- AP) Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party. That is what Democrats did in 1993, when most House Democrats opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Bill Clinton backed NAFTA, and leaders of the Democratic-controlled House allowed it to come to a vote. The trade pact passed because of heavy GOP support, with 102 Democrats voting for it and 156 voting against. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House GOP leader at the time, declared: "This is a vote for history, larger than politics . . . larger than personal ego." Such bipartisan spirit in the Capitol now seems a faint echo. Citing the increased marginalization of Democrats as House bills are drafted and brought to the floor, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) said, "It's a set of rules and practices which the Republicans have taken to new extremes." Price, a former Duke University political scientist and the author of "The Congressional Experience," acknowledged that past congressional leaders, including Democrats, had sometimes scuttled measures opposed by most of their party's colleagues. But he said the practice should not apply to far-reaching, high-stakes legislation such as NAFTA and the intelligence package, which were backed by the White House and most of Congress's 535 members. Other House Democrats agree. Republicans "like to talk about bipartisanship," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "But when the opportunity came to pass a truly bipartisan bill -- one that would have passed both the House and Senate overwhelmingly and would have made the American people safer -- they failed to do it." Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a White House aide when NAFTA passed, said this week, "What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?" Some scholars say Hastert's decision should not come as a surprise. In a little-noticed speech in the Capitol a year ago, Hastert said one of his principles as speaker is "to please the majority of the majority." "On occasion, a particular issue might excite a majority made up mostly of the minority," he continued. "Campaign finance is a particularly good example of this phenomenon. The job of speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs counter to the wishes of the majority of his majority." Hastert put his principle into practice one week ago today. In a closed meeting in the Capitol basement, he urged his GOP colleagues to back the intelligence bill that had emerged from long House-Senate negotiations and had President Bush's support. When a surprising number refused, Hastert elected to keep it from reaching a vote, even though his aides said it could have passed with a minority of GOP members and strong support from the chamber's 206 Democrats. Hastert spokesman John Feehery defended the decision in a recent interview. "He wants to pass bills with his majority," Feehery said. "That's the hallmark of this [Republican] majority. . . . If you pass major bills without the majority of the majority, then you tend not to be a long-term speaker. . . . I think he was prudent to listen to his members." Some congressional scholars say Hastert is emphasizing one element of his job to the detriment of another. As speaker, said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, "you are the party leader, but you are ratified by the whole House. You are a constitutional officer," in line for the presidency after the vice president. At crucial times, he said, a speaker must put the House ahead of his party. If Congress eventually enacted an intelligence bill similar to the one rejected last Saturday, Ornstein said, "then it would be unfair to rip Hastert to shreds. But if this either kills the bill or turns it from what would have been" a measure with considerable bipartisan support, he said, "then I think he should be condemned roundly." Some groups representing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are already criticizing Hastert. "The failure in leadership of the speaker to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote is particularly troubling because we believe the bill would have passed by a wide majority in the House," the Family Steering Committee said. In the new Congress that convenes in January, Hastert's strategy may prove sufficient for GOP victories on issues that sharply divide the two parties, such as tax cuts, several analysts said. But on trade issues and other matters that are more divisive within the parties -- and thus require bipartisan coalitions to pass -- he could face serious problems. Hastert's "majority of the majority" maxim, Ornstein said, "is a disastrous recipe for tackling domestic issues such as entitlement programs, the deficit and things like that."




     
    Hastert Launches a Partisan Policy
    By Charles BabingtonWashington Post Staff Writer
    In scuttling major intelligence legislation that he, the president and most lawmakers supported, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them. Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert -- with Reps. Thomas Reynolds, left, and Christopher Cox -- has said he is working for "the majority of the majority." (Gerald Herbert -- AP) Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party. That is what Democrats did in 1993, when most House Democrats opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement. President Bill Clinton backed NAFTA, and leaders of the Democratic-controlled House allowed it to come to a vote. The trade pact passed because of heavy GOP support, with 102 Democrats voting for it and 156 voting against. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the House GOP leader at the time, declared: "This is a vote for history, larger than politics . . . larger than personal ego." Such bipartisan spirit in the Capitol now seems a faint echo. Citing the increased marginalization of Democrats as House bills are drafted and brought to the floor, Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.) said, "It's a set of rules and practices which the Republicans have taken to new extremes." Price, a former Duke University political scientist and the author of "The Congressional Experience," acknowledged that past congressional leaders, including Democrats, had sometimes scuttled measures opposed by most of their party's colleagues. But he said the practice should not apply to far-reaching, high-stakes legislation such as NAFTA and the intelligence package, which were backed by the White House and most of Congress's 535 members. Other House Democrats agree. Republicans "like to talk about bipartisanship," said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "But when the opportunity came to pass a truly bipartisan bill -- one that would have passed both the House and Senate overwhelmingly and would have made the American people safer -- they failed to do it." Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), a White House aide when NAFTA passed, said this week, "What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked 'a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?" Some scholars say Hastert's decision should not come as a surprise. In a little-noticed speech in the Capitol a year ago, Hastert said one of his principles as speaker is "to please the majority of the majority." "On occasion, a particular issue might excite a majority made up mostly of the minority," he continued. "Campaign finance is a particularly good example of this phenomenon. The job of speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs counter to the wishes of the majority of his majority." Hastert put his principle into practice one week ago today. In a closed meeting in the Capitol basement, he urged his GOP colleagues to back the intelligence bill that had emerged from long House-Senate negotiations and had President Bush's support. When a surprising number refused, Hastert elected to keep it from reaching a vote, even though his aides said it could have passed with a minority of GOP members and strong support from the chamber's 206 Democrats. Hastert spokesman John Feehery defended the decision in a recent interview. "He wants to pass bills with his majority," Feehery said. "That's the hallmark of this [Republican] majority. . . . If you pass major bills without the majority of the majority, then you tend not to be a long-term speaker. . . . I think he was prudent to listen to his members." Some congressional scholars say Hastert is emphasizing one element of his job to the detriment of another. As speaker, said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, "you are the party leader, but you are ratified by the whole House. You are a constitutional officer," in line for the presidency after the vice president. At crucial times, he said, a speaker must put the House ahead of his party. If Congress eventually enacted an intelligence bill similar to the one rejected last Saturday, Ornstein said, "then it would be unfair to rip Hastert to shreds. But if this either kills the bill or turns it from what would have been" a measure with considerable bipartisan support, he said, "then I think he should be condemned roundly." Some groups representing families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are already criticizing Hastert. "The failure in leadership of the speaker to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote is particularly troubling because we believe the bill would have passed by a wide majority in the House," the Family Steering Committee said. In the new Congress that convenes in January, Hastert's strategy may prove sufficient for GOP victories on issues that sharply divide the two parties, such as tax cuts, several analysts said. But on trade issues and other matters that are more divisive within the parties -- and thus require bipartisan coalitions to pass -- he could face serious problems. Hastert's "majority of the majority" maxim, Ornstein said, "is a disastrous recipe for tackling domestic issues such as entitlement programs, the deficit and things like that."



    Monday, November 29, 2004


     
    Subject: California's Secession Letter to Bush
    Dear President Bush:Congratulations on your victory over all usnon-evangelicals. Actually, we're a bit ticked offhere in California, so we're leaving you.California will now be its own country. And we'retaking all the Blue States with us. In case you arenot aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington,Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of theNorth East States, and the urban half of Ohio.We spoke to God, and she agrees that this split willbe beneficial to almost everybody, and especially tous in the new country of California. In fact, God isso excited about it, she's going to shiftthe whole country at 4:30 pm EST this Friday.Therefore, please let everyone know they need to beback in their states by then. God is going to give usthe Pacific Ocean and Hollywood. In addition, we'regetting San Diego. (Sorry, that's just how it goes.)But God is letting you have the KKK and country music(except the Dixie Chicks).Just so we're clear, the country of California will bepro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-war. Speakingof war, we're going to need all Blue States citizensback from Iraq. If you need people to fight inFallujah, just ask your evangelical voters. They havetons of kids they're willing to send to their deathsfor absolutely no purpose. And they don't care if youdon't show pictures of their kids' caskets cominghome.So, you get Texas and all the former slave states, andwe get the Governator and stem cell research. (Wewould love you to take Britney Spears off our hands,though. She IS from the south, right?)Since we get New York, you'll have to come up withyour own late night TV shows because we get MTV,Letterman, the Daily Show, and Conan O'Brien. Youget... well, why don't you ask your people at Fox Newsto come up with something entertaining? (Maybe youshould just watch Crossfire. That's a really funnyshow.)We wish you all the best in the next four years and wehope, really hope, you find those missing weapons ofmass destruction. Seriously.Soon.Sincerely,California




     
    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Nearly a month after John Kerry conceded Ohio to President Bush, complaints and challenges about the balloting are mounting as activists including the Rev. Jesse Jackson demand closer scrutiny to ensure the votes are being counted on the up-and-up.
    Jackson has been holding rallies in Ohio in recent days to draw attention to the vote, and another critic plans to ask the state Supreme Court this week to decide the validity of the election.
    Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.
    Since then, there have been demands for a recount and complaints about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots and a ballot-machine error that gave hundreds of extra votes to Bush.
    Jackson said too many questions have been raised to let the vote stand without closer examination.
    "We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing," Jackson said Sunday at Mount Hermon Baptist Church.
    An attorney for a political advocacy group on Wednesday plans to file a "contest of election." The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out. The loser can appeal to the full seven-member court, which is dominated by Republicans 5-2.
    Jackson said he agreed with the court filing planned by lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, who has represented the Boston-based Alliance for Democracy in other cases.
    "The integrity of our election process is on trial," Jackson said Monday in Cincinnati.
    Elections officials concede some mistakes were made but no more than most elections.
    "There are no signs of widespread irregularities," said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
    Blackwell, a Republican, has until December 6 to certify the vote. The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for a recount that would be held once the results are certified.
    Other critics have seized on an error in an electronic voting system that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct where only 638 people voted. The extra votes are part of the current unofficial tally, but they will not be included in the official count that will be certified by the secretary of state.
    Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not counted because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.
    Jackson said Blackwell, who along with other statewide GOP leaders was a co-chairman of Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio, should step down from overseeing the election process.
    "You can't be chairman of the Bush campaign and then be the chief umpire in the seventh game of the World Series," Jackson said.
    Blackwell's office responded by saying the state has a "bipartisan and transparent system that provides valuable checks and balances."
    "The problem seems to be that Rev. Jackson's candidate didn't win," said Carlo LoParo, a Blackwell spokesman.



    Sunday, November 28, 2004


     
    Democrats Score in the Rockies
    by John Nichols
    Imagine a parallel universe where, instead of crying in their beer as the election results rolled in on November 2, Democrats were raising microbrews in toasts to their unprecedented success. Now, stop imagining and focus on the Rocky Mountain West, a region that trended so Republican in the 1990s that a popular joke suggested gays and lesbians were afraid to come out of the closet for fear of being thought to be Democrats. This year the Democrats got the last laugh. While those so-simplistic-as-to-be-useless maps of partisan breakdowns in the presidential race paint the region as hopelessly Republican--feeding the sense that wide expanses of America are lost forever to the Democratic Party--Dan Petegorsky of the Western States Center invites a closer look, which reveals that "the 'red' label on the presidential map contrasts sharply with the state-level results." On the same day that George W. Bush was winning nationally and Republicans were increasing their majorities in Congress, Democrats in the eight states of the Rocky Mountain West were winning state and local contests at a rate not seen in decades and offering valuable lessons for the national Democratic Party, organized labor and progressive activist groups that are sorely in need of new models for campaigning. "Before the pundits write this off as the year when nothing seemed to work right for the Democrats," says Montana Democratic Party executive director Brad Martin, "there is a Western story that needs to be told." Actually, there are several stories. Shifting demographics, local issues and the extent to which the presidential contest was fought out on the ground had varying influences on state results. But there were some constants: Western Democrats tended to abandon the national party's template and focus on local issues, they relied far more heavily on volunteers than paid staff and they worked much, much harder--and with considerable success--to attract rural voters. The one other constant was good news. Here's just a little of what happened in the Rocky Mountain West on November 2: § Montana elected its first Democratic governor in twenty years. The new governor, rancher Brian Schweitzer, joins Democratic chief executives in Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming. Montana Democrats also took back the offices of state attorney general, auditor and superintendent of public instruction. A victory in a key state Public Service Commission race gave Democrats control of Montana's chief regulatory body. They shifted control of the State Senate from 29-21 Republican to 27-23 Democrat. And they came within one vote of taking control of the Montana House. The Democratic delegation includes eight Native Americans, several of whom were set to assume leadership positions in their respective legislative chambers. § Colorado Democrats won both a US Senate seat and a US House seat that had been held by Republicans. They also reversed Republican majorities in the state House and Senate to take control of both chambers for the first time in forty-four years, and installed the state's first female State Senate president, a female majority leader in the state House and an African-American Senate president pro tem. The newly empowered Democrats immediately signaled to conservative Republican Governor Bill Owens that he had better select a moderate to replace outgoing Attorney General Ken Salazar--the Democrat who won the state's US Senate seat. The new Democratic Senate majority leader, Ken Gordon, said that to win legislative approval for his nominee, Owens would have to appoint someone with "mainstream values." Asked to define that term, Gordon said, "Not John Ashcroft." § Even in the states with the heaviest patterns of Republican voting in the region--and, as it happens, the nation--Democrats scored both symbolic victories and sweet successes. In Wyoming, US House candidate Ted Ladd, whose name never appeared on lists of targeted Democratic challengers, took 42 percent of the vote, the best percentage for a Democratic Congressional candidate in fourteen years. Idaho elected its first openly lesbian legislator, Nicole LeFavour, an environmental activist who easily claimed a Boise seat in the State House. And the Salt Lake Tribune declared on the day after the election, "While the nation and most of Utah tilt further to the right, Salt Lake County is solidifying as a bastion for the left." The new county mayor and the three at-large county council members are all Democrats. The local government wins are part of a trend throughout the region, where Democrats in recent years have taken charge of mayoral posts in Billings, Boise, Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and Santa Fe. § Voters in Western states cast their ballots on the green side of a number of environmental referendums, with Montanans refusing by a 58-42 margin to reverse a six-year-old ban on dangerous cyanide leach mining, and Coloradans passing a Renewable Energy Amendment, which requires major public utilities to get 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Nevada voters approved a state minimum-wage hike, Montana voters backed medical marijuana and Colorado voters endorsed a tobacco tax that proponents hope will free substantial new money for healthcare and children's programs. § Though John Kerry was dismissed as a "Massachusetts liberal," a phrase that ought to be the kiss of political death in a region where the word "Eastern" can be taken as an insult, the Democrat came close to winning two states that went easily for George Bush in 2000--Colorado and Nevada--and improved the Democratic percentage of the presidential vote in seven of the region's eight states. Even in states where Kerry took a drubbing, the Democratic campaign showed strength--moving up five points in Montana, a state where he never campaigned. In Wyoming one county backed the Democratic presidential ticket. And it turned out to be Teton County, the home of Vice President Dick Cheney, whose neighbors picked the Democratic ticket by a healthy 53-45 margin. Surveying the results from his office in Missoula, former US Representative Pat Williams said, "When you look at what happened in the West on November 2, it's wildly encouraging. It's a Democratic sweep in Montana, big advances in Colorado, pick-ups everywhere--Democrats winning in places where they haven't won in decades." Williams, a Democrat who left the House eight years ago, has a new catchphrase, "Montana? A Red State? Take Another Look." He's not alone. Democrats in a number of Western states are trying, with somewhat limited success, to call attention to the fact that their region is not nearly as red as the red/blue maps and the pundits would suggest. There is no one explanation for the improvement of Democratic fortunes in this region. Like any set of election results, those coming out of states like Montana and Colorado are complicated by factors ranging from population shifts to local issues to the relative appeal of particular candidates. But there are signals that can be taken away from the region's results. For Democrats, they may be some of the most instructive lessons to come out of the November 2 voting. For instance, while many pundits saw in the national election results a signal that Democrats were out of touch with "moral values"--the hot code phrase for opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights--Western Democrats found that one of their big advantages was a growing sense among voters that Republicans had gotten a little too in touch--or, to be more precise, obsessed--with that theme. "The Republican far right has overplayed its hand in the West for more than a decade," says Williams. "I heard a lot of people say that the Republican Party seemed to be more concerned about legislating mores than creating jobs. In Western states, where wages are low, that doesn't make sense." Across the West, Democrats explained their advances at least in part by suggesting that voters had gotten sick and tired of moralizing Republicans. "The Republicans' obsession with narrow cultural issues while the state's looming fiscal crisis was ignored drove a deep wedge between fiscally conservative live-and-let-live Republicans and the neo-conservative extremists with an agenda," explains Denver Post columnist Diane Carman. Before the election, Susan Good, who in the 1990s served as chair of the Montana Republican Party, told radio listeners in that state to vote for Democratic legislative candidates because the Republican Party had been hijacked by ideologues, who had made it "stagnant." Another Montana Republican, State Senator John Bohlinger, declaring that "somehow we lost our way," jumped party lines to run for lieutenant governor on the Democratic ticket. Charles Johnson, a Statehouse reporter for the Montana Standard newspaper, said, "By most accounts, Montanans loved the bipartisan approach in the ad run by the Democratic team running for governor and lieutenant governor. 'I'm John Bohlinger, I'm a Republican businessman from Billings. And I'm Brian Schweitzer, a Democratic farmer from Whitefish.'" Johnson said it was the most effective ad of the campaign. The embrace of bipartisanship by Democrats running in a number of Western states played well with voters. But it did not involve an abandonment of principles. Rather, Democrats found old-school Republicans like Bohlinger, whom one Montana newspaper described as "a popular state senator known for his moderate--some would say liberal--views on education and health care," and offered them an opportunity to join in a broad fight against the extreme right-wing forces that have taken charge of most Western Republican parties. There is a huge lesson here for national Democrats and their allies, who failed in the 2004 campaign to make effective use of the many prominent Republicans--and traditionally Republican-leaning newspapers--who said they could not back Bush. Another huge lesson for the 527 groups that assisted the Kerry campaign and national Democrats has to do with the identification of issues. Democrats in Western states, most of which were not targeted by national campaigns, developed their own sets of issues. In a number of states they emphasized the need for openness in government, which had become a concern during years of wall-to-wall Republican rule that often saw important decisions made in closed caucuses. Western Democrats also focused a great deal of attention on the threat to water quality posed by environmentally insensitive practices such as coal-bed methane extraction [see Eyal Press, "Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch," October 11]. And they spent a lot of time explaining their positions, developing detailed accounts of why such practices--which were backed by energy-industry lobbyists and their Republican allies--pose a threat to the livelihoods of farmers and ranchers in states like Montana. In Colorado, Democrats pushed renewable energy and water rights initiatives. In states across the region, they embraced the concerns of Native Americans, who have emerged as a powerful and, in many states, reliably Democratic voting bloc. Along with their own issues, they developed their own kinds of campaigns. A new group, Democrats for the West, served as something of a clearinghouse for ideas and cooperative initiatives--for instance, the Democratic governors of Wyoming and Arizona traveled to Montana to aid Schweitzer's gubernatorial campaign. Campaign techniques varied from state to state but they usually placed a huge emphasis on using volunteers rather than the paid staffers favored by some party and 527 groups that worked the national campaign for the Democrats. In Montana, with a field staff of twenty-one, the state Democratic Party fielded close to 3,000 volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts. "We reached out early to the pro-choice community, the hunting and fishing community and folks from the labor movement, and we said, 'Look, you've got to be a part of this,'" explained Brad Martin of the Montana Democrats, who came to the party from the public interest research group (PIRG) movement. "We have a strong history of the party being an activist organization, and we really emphasized that in this campaign." To be sure, there were some home-grown 527 groups, like Forward Colorado, which was formed by four millionaire environmentalists in that state. But Forward Colorado, which is credited with playing a major role in shifting the balance in that state's legislative races, remained close to the ground. The group didn't impose cookie-cutter approaches developed in Washington; rather, it worked closely with local activists to develop messages and mailings targeted for individual districts. So it was that, on November 2, while national Democrats were wringing their hands after getting wiped out in rural regions of states like Ohio, Democrats in the West were pointing to successes in remote counties. On Colorado's Western Slope, Democrat John Salazar's campaign slogan was "Send a Farmer to Congress." In a district that had elected Republicans in the past, voters followed Salazar's advice. They also backed his brother, Ken Salazar, for the state's US Senate seat. Ken Salazar, who campaigned in his pickup truck and delivered a stump speech that focused on the need to defend the interests of "the forgotten parts of Colorado," ran more than ten points ahead of the national ticket in rural areas. He did so while backing abortion rights and civil unions for gays and lesbians. As Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman, noted after the election, Salazar "pays homage and respect to the beliefs of rural voters, while also staying true to the core Democratic principles." If there is a single lesson that Democrats and their activist allies need to learn after what was for the most part a 2004 electoral debacle, it is that rural America is still winnable. And they can start by looking west.




     
    Funding law may help bid Pending bill would let money go to Hutchison's possible run for governor
    By CLAY ROBISON Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
    AUSTIN - U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who has been considering a challenge to Gov. Rick Perry in 2006, will get a $6.7 million campaign boost if a little-noticed provision tucked into a mammoth spending bill by congressional negotiators becomes law. The provision, added to a section funding the Federal Election Commission, would reverse an FEC interpretation that barred members of Congress from transferring federal campaign funds to a state race. The new language, expected to remain intact after Congress completes work on the bill, would allow Hutchison to spend $6.7 million she has raised for a possible Senate re-election campaign on a gubernatorial race instead. Hutchison serves on a Senate appropriations subcommittee with oversight of the FEC, but her spokesman Dave Beckwith said she wasn't involved in negotiations over the spending measure. "No one in our office knew anything about it," he said Wednesday. Beckwith said Hutchison hasn't decided yet on her 2006 plans. Her Senate term expires that year, and she is being encouraged by some Texas Republicans to challenge Perry in the GOP primary. "She has not decided what she's going to do. She hasn't ruled anything out," Beckwith said. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn also is believed to be considering a primary race against Perry. Beckwith said about a dozen members of Congress who are eyeing races for state offices could benefit from the change in the law, which restores what was allowed before a campaign finance overhaul in 2002. According to the BNA Report, a newsletter that tracks regulatory issues in Washington, the change was recommended by the FEC. A call to the FEC's information division Wednesday afternoon was answered by a recording that said the office was closed, apparently for the Thanksgiving holiday. "We're not worried about what other people may or may not be doing. We'll deal with politics in the future," said Luis Saenz, director of Perry's political committee. But Saenz called the change a closed-door effort by members of both major parties to "undermine" campaign finance reforms for their own benefit. As of July 1, the governor reported raising about $5 million for his re-election campaign. Perry will be unable to raise money while the Legislature is in session during the first five months of next year because of a restriction in state law. That restriction doesn't apply to Hutchison, a federal officeholder. The Federal Election Commission had ruled that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, enacted by Congress in 2002, prohibited retiring members of Congress from transferring leftover federal campaign funds to a state campaign. The new provision, approved by House and Senate negotiators, would allow those funds to be used in state and local races, subject to provisions in state law. Texas law would allow Hutchison to use the money to run for governor. The new language in the federal appropriations bill also would restore the pre-2002 allowance for federal campaign dollars to be used for any other "lawful purpose," subject to restrictions on the conversion of campaign funds to personal use. Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan organization that follows campaign finance issues, said he was concerned that the law was changed without any public notice. "This is not the way to legislate campaign finance changes," he said. Final approval of the $388 billion domestic spending bill was delayed after senators discovered a provision that would have let congressional appropriators examine Americans' income tax returns. House leaders said the income tax provision had been added by mistake, and the Senate removed it. Final House action on the bill has been delayed until Dec. 6. When Hutchison was state treasurer, she used state campaign funds to help finance her first election to the U.S. Senate in 1993. Later that year, the FEC banned the transfer of money from state campaigns to races for the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House. Then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn couldn't use leftover state political funds to directly finance his successful race for the U.S. Senate in 2002. But he donated $3.1 million from his state campaign fund to a national Republican committee. Democratic opponent Ron Kirk claimed the money was later used by the GOP to finance attack ads against him.




     
    Holiday Shopping?
    CHOOSE BLUE!
    Before your next shopping trip, take a look at this and see where the major companies in this country put their money in the recent election. I don't know about you, but I like to reward my friends...and screw my enemies and this certainly gives you the resources to know which is which. http://www.choosetheblue.com/main.php




     
    Hi, my name's Leighton, and I'm the director of DrivingVotes.org.

    I wanted to let you all know that Driving Votes just kicked off an
    online petition to convince Howard Dean to run for Chairman of the
    Democratic National Committee. If we want to turn the Democratic
    Party around so that we can start winning national elections again, we
    need a bold leader like Dean at its helm. If you agree, please sign
    our petition, and then send it out to all your email contacts:

    http://www.drivingvotes.org/action/deanfordnc.php

    Howard is considering taking a bid to run for DNC Chair, but he's
    gauging how much support he'll have from us, his grassroots
    supporters, before committing himself to the race. Let's tell him
    we're behind him! If he decides to run for the position, Driving
    Votes will lobby DNC members to support his candidacy in early
    February when they vote on the new chairman.

    This is a separate petition from DraftHoward.com and DeanForDNC.org.
    The more the better, because even if there's some degree of overlap
    between them, the message to Dean will be that there are a number of
    organizations out there that are capable of reaching different groups
    of people and are behind him and his call to reform the party.

    In case you're unfamiliar with us, Driving Votes was founded to
    mobilize people in non-swing states to take road trips to the swings
    to get out the Democratic vote in this year's presidential election.
    Tens of thousands of people traveled to the swings using our website
    and our volunteer organization. We were an "unofficial member" (their
    words) of the America Votes coalition. Tracy Chapman did a benefit
    tour for Driving Votes, Michael Moore endorsed our organization, and
    we partnered with MoveOn PAC for the GOTV phase of their ground
    operation.

    We believe that we have a choice to make: more of the same, or reform
    of the party. More of the same means more national defeats. Howard
    Dean is our best shot at reshaping the party and letting the
    grassroots have a seat at the table. If you agree, please add your
    signature to our growing list, and tell Howard we want him to run for
    DNC Chair:

    http://www.drivingvotes.org/action/deanfordnc.php

    Thanks a lot!

    --
    Leighton Akio Woodhouse
    Executive Director
    Driving Votes

    Help America Change Gears.
    http://www.drivingvotes.org/
    leighton@drivingvotes.org




     
    Shame on ABC
    Gay Anti-Violence Programs Decry ABC News Segment on Shepard Murder
    The following is a release from our allies at the National Association of Anti-Violence Programs. We are forwarding it to you due the seriousness of ABC TV's transgression. We urge you to contact your local ABC affiliate to register your disgust. Direct action would also be an entirely appropriate response.
    Matt ForemanExecutive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
    Contact: Clarence Patton (212) 714-1184 or (347) 683-0020 Jeffrey Montgomery (313) 537-3323 or (313) 506-1847
    Gay Anti-Violence Programs Decry ABC News Segment on Shepard Murder
    Say 20/20 Segments Intent is To Malign Victim and Cause Pain for Family and Community
    New York - November 26, 2004 - Responding to the airing of an ABC News 20/20 segment on the murder of Matthew Shepard, representatives of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) called the segment irresponsible, biased, shameful, and destructive.
    The gist of the segment, which purports to uncover evidence and details not raised or discussed in the 1999 trial of Aaron McKinney, one of the two men accused of murdering Shepard, is that the murder was not hate-motivated, but instead motivated by drug use.
    "The fact is that there is nothing significant in the 20/20 program that wasn't raised during the trial," said Clarence Patton, NCAVPs Acting Executive Director. "One has to question the motivation of the show's producers in not only attempting to engage in revisionist history, but in doing so at this point in time, as our nation's lesbian and gay community is fighting for its life to an extent not seen in years."
    According to data gathered by NCAVP, anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender violence increased 26% nationally at the end of 2003, and has continued to rise throughout 2004.
    "I was in Laramie after Matthew's murder, and at the trial his murderers acknowledged that they killed him because of his sexual orientation, and they in fact offered a homosexual panic defense," said Jeff Montgomery, NCAVPs Board Co-Chair.
    The 20/20 segment focus is on the role the methamphetamine "Crystal Meth" played in the behavior of McKinney and Russell Henderson, Shepard's killers.
    "That drugs may have played a role in a violent crime and in this murder is not news," said Patton. He continued, "Everyone knows that drugs and alcohol often play a part in hate crimes and bias-related incidents, as they do with most forms of violent crime - from domestic violence to rape and sexual assault to murder. Drug and alcohol use by perpetrators can fuel the intensity of the violence in an any one incident, increase the willingness of perpetrators to act out hateful impulses, or be used as a intentional motivator to carry out a planned attack."
    "However, such brutal and severe violence and leaving someone to die tied to a fence is not a marker of drug-fueled violence; it is a marker of hate violence," added Montgomery.
    "Had 20/20 actually wanted to do a fair and balanced story on this or any other anti-gay hate murder, they would have reached out to experts on anti-gay hate violence - they didnt; had they wanted to examine the impact or prevalence of drug use in violent crime or hate crimes, they would have reached out to criminal justice officials or hate violence victim advocates with expertise in those areas - they didn't; and those are only two among many factors in determining that the real goal of this story wasn't to unearth new information or even report additional context, but to malign the victim, mortify his family and inflict pain on the larger LGBT community that came to identify with Matthew, his life, and the fear that we all live with as a community under attack," concluded Patton.
    The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs addresses the pervasive problem of violence committed against and within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive communities. NCAVP is a coalition of programs that document and advocate for victims of anti-LGBT and anti-HIV/AIDS violence/harassment, domestic violence, sexual assault, police misconduct and other forms of victimization. Further, NCAVP supports existing anti-violence organizations and emerging local programs in their efforts to document and prevent such violence.
    PDF versions of the NCAVP's Report on Anti-LGBT Violence in 2003 are available at http://www.ncavp.org.
    Tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend!




     
    The election. We all thought it would be resolved over the issue of the war.
    And it was. But not simply by the war against terror. By the war against gay couples. Karl Rove stealthily sowed fear and paranoia among rural, evangelical voters in states like Ohio and put his man over the top.In eight more states now, gay couples have no relationship rights at all. If you are a gay or lesbian couple living in Utah, you know one thing: Your family has no standing under the law. It can and will be violated by strangers.None of us should be too surprised by this. When you put a tiny minority up for a popular vote, the minority usually loses. But it is deeply dispiriting nonetheless. With the religious right ascendant and new senators like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, two of the most antigay politicians in America, we can only brace ourselves for what is now coming.Anger is a legitimate response. Even more urgent is dialogue. Gay people who think they can look the other way or duck this struggle are deluding themselves. Too many of us for too long have sat these battles out, preferring a quiet private life to engaging everyone we know with the truth about ourselves and the importance of our equality. But we are all on the line now. And the biggest battle—to defeat a federal version of the noxious amendments that have succeeded on state levels—is still ahead.But equally, despair is completely unwarranted. In the broad view, we are still winning. The fact of gay couples and families is now central to American discourse. Around the civilized world, marriage advances. In the week before the election, even George W. Bush came out in favor of civil unions. The national exit polls showed that 25% of voters support marriage rights, 35% support civil unions, and only 37% want to keep gay couples from having any rights at all. There are still many states where gay relationships are protected and valued. We have the right to marry in one state, and in that state pro-equality legislators were all reelected handily. In California we are on the brink of having almost-equality under the law. We must not tar all straight people with the religious right brush. That would only empower the bigots.By any rational measure, the passage of so many antigay amendments in so many states, paradoxically, reduces the need for a federal amendment that would scar the Constitution with discrimination. We need therefore to be even more emphatic about the need for a federalist response to an issue best left to the states. If we can avoid the Federal Marriage Amendment, we can live to fight another day.But one more thing is important. We must never forget that the dignity of our lives and our relationships is not dependent on heterosexual approval or tolerance. Our dignity exists regardless of their fear and always has. We have something invaluable in this struggle: the knowledge that we are in the right; that our loves are as deep as others’ loves; that our relationships truly are bonds of faith and hope that are worthy, in our God’s eyes and our own, of equal respect.We should continue to get married to the person we love—in religious services, in commitment ceremonies, in private life. We can use the language some want to deny us, citing our husbands and our wives in public discourse. And we must protect those marriages with every legal means available. We can be the change we want to see in the world. They cannot stop us from doing that. And love, in the long run, can outrun fear.Being gay, after all, is a great blessing. The minute we let some people’s prejudice and panic enter into our own souls, we lose. We have gained too much and come through too much to let ourselves be defined by others. And we have many, many straight allies as well. We must turn deep hurt back into invincible pride. Others’ cheap, easy victories based on untruth and fear and cynicism are Pyrrhic ones. In time, they will fall. So hold your heads up high. Do not give in to despair. Do not let anyone else rob you of your hopes. This is America. Equality will win in the end.




     
    Matthew Shepard Parents Accuse ABC Of 'Selective Editing'
    by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
    (New York City) The parents of Matthew Shepard have accused ABC news of sacrificing "years of professional journalistic ethics and values for a stab at revisionist history ... and ratings." Judy and Dennis Shepard say that the 20/20 documentary on the Murder of Matthew Shepard was purposely distorted and twisted the facts. The program, which aired Friday night, featured prison interviews with the two men sentenced to two life terms each for the killing. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson pleaded guilty in 1998 in a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, claiming at the time that they killed Shepard because he was gay. The pair now say they were addicted to methamphetamines and targeted the college student because they thought he had money they could use to buy drugs. Both men denied to 20/20 that the killing was a hate crime. "[We] were dismayed and saddened by the tabloid nature of the show, its lack of serious reporting of facts in evidence, and the amateurish nature of asking leading questions to the people who were interviewed," said Judy Shepard in a statement. "I, too, was asked by 20/20 for an interview and agreed to do so to ensure that all of the facts were correctly stated. My only stipulation was that our legal advisor Sean Maloney, Matthew Shepard Foundation Board member and former senior White House staffer, had to be included in the interview to share his legal knowledge and expertise regarding Matthew's murder. "He was quite eloquent in stating the facts pertaining to Matt's case, his knowledge of hate crimes in general, and in debunking 20/20's attempt to rewrite history. Sean was deleted from the interview entirely. "The editing by 20/20 of my interview seems to leave out all of my relevant comments regarding the potential bias of the show and my deliberate restating of the facts of the case clearly ended up on the cutting room floor. "My remarks were reduced to a few very personal maternal comments taken out of context to make it appear as if I agreed with 20/20's theories. That couldn't be farther from the truth." Judy Shepard also accuses the program of "subjective editing" in an interview with Dave O'Malley, a Captain with the City of Laramie police force at the time, and the lead investigator in the case working in tandem with Rob DeBree, the lead investigator for the Albany County Sheriff's Department, to bring the case to trial and to provide the evidence necessary to convict both Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. Shepard said in her statement that O'Malley gave ABC a detailed account of the case, describing the elements of hate and gay bias that were found during the investigation. "Dave's comments were severely edited," Shepard's statement said. "Perhaps they were left out because he did not give Ms. Vargas the answer(s) she needed to maintain her 'new' theory concerning the murder. One of the most glaring omissions in the piece was the transcript of Aaron McKinney's in-custody interview which took place a few days after the murder. This occurred before any 'line of defense' had been established by legal counsel for the two defendants. Had that document been included, it would have shown an un-rehearsed and unemotional anti-gay account of the events before, during, and after leaving Matt tied to the fence."



    Tuesday, November 23, 2004


     
    A lot of truth here.
    WHAT IS A DEMOCRAT?
    By Robert G. Kaiser The Washington Post
    Today's Quiz: What is a Democrat? A) Heir to and defender of the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier and Great Society, and all they encompass -- from Social Security and Medicare to the progressive income tax, racial justice and civil rights, federal aid to education, relative fiscal sanity, strong international alliances and institutions, etc. B) A "progressive" in the culture wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, supportive of minorities, tolerant of homosexuals, in favor of gun control and abortion rights, on the side of stronger environmental controls, opposed to the posting of the Ten Commandments in U.S. government buildings and courthouses, etc. C) A believer in the use of government to make society more just and to give more Americans more opportunities to advance themselves. D) A pragmatist who believes in trial and error, experiment and discovery, but usually not in ideological certainties. E) A largely irrelevant voice whistling in an unfamiliar wind. You've probably figured out the correct answer: All of the above. And therein lies the Democrats' real problem. We've already had at least two rounds of glib explanations from the punditocracy for the Nov. 2 results. In the first wave, the Democrats were done in by "moral values" -- or by evangelical Christians, or by their own selection of a Massachusetts liberal as their presidential candidate. In the second wave, you heard a lot of "not-so-fast" sound bites: Hey, John Kerry did fine -- he got millions more votes than any previous Democratic candidate; 70,000 changed minds in Ohio would have made him president; religious people voted for Kerry, too; Democrats actually made gains around the country in state legislatures. These one-liners have the usual value of sound bites: not much. In the long run, "All of the above" remains the Democrats' biggest problem. Today's Democrats know what they aren't; voters know, too. The Kerry campaign was constructed almost entirely around this knowledge: "We are not Bush" or "We are the anti-Bush." Wasn't that really the Kerry team's message? The campaign's slogan was "We can do better." But the country -- 51 percent of its voters, that is -- wasn't convinced and decided that it preferred to stick with what it had and knew. Is the Democrats' cause now hopeless? Think how Republicans felt 40 years ago. Lyndon B. Johnson had just given Barry Goldwater a drubbing for the ages, winning 61 percent of the vote (as compared with George W. Bush's 51 percent) and 486 electoral votes (Bush won 286). After that election, the Democrats held the Senate by a 68-32 margin and the House by 295-140. Talk about hopeless! Yet four years later, a Republican named Richard M. Nixon was elected president. Twelve years after that, Ronald Reagan brought a brand-new and more conservative Republican Party into power, where it has now won five of the last seven presidential elections and, in 1994, took control of Congress. In politics, as in life, stuff happens. In those cases, the stuff involved both fortuitous circumstances (Nixon's election) and careful planning plus tireless work (leading to Reagan's and subsequent Republican successes). Before they quaff the hemlock, Democrats might want to study this history. New versions of all the strategies and devices that made those Republican victories possible are available to the Democrats now. But they'll be useful only if Democrats confront the fact that very few Americans who are not Democrats today know what the label "Democrat" might mean to them -- or worse, they assume it would mean something unwelcome. There ain't no future in the past Democrats older than 55 or so think it's easy to explain who they are. But their litany of heroes and accomplishments, from FDR and Social Security to Bill Clinton's balanced budgets, consists of things that must look to younger voters like history, or ancient history. Next August, the Social Security program will celebrate its 70th birthday! When conservatives reconstructed the Republican Party from the '60s through the '90s, they never invoked the achievements of earlier GOP presidents. By the time of the Republican National Convention of 1980, held in Detroit, the Moral Majority and its allies were much more important influences in the party than old-line Republicans whose heroes had been relative moderates, such as Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois (Senate Republican leader from 1959 to 1969) or virtual liberals, like Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York and briefly Gerald Ford's vice president, or Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton,. The GOP of the 1970s provided a comfortable home to an ideologically diverse coalition; today it has become a staunchly conservative party. When Reagan became the first new Republican to win the White House in 1980, he ignored his predecessors. Dwight D. Eisenhower had left office 20 years before, and Nixon was still treated like a pariah, but this didn't matter. Reagan was a new voice for a new America -- an America that had become, in the 1970s, a country dominated not by the working class but by the beneficiaries of the post-World War II boom, the great new middle class. Somehow Reagan felt relevant to a majority of voters who liked him and his straightforward views. Traditional Democrats resist the suggestion that the country needs a "new" Democratic Party for a new age. Indeed, many traditionalists regard the New Democrats as closet conservatives who want to move the party to the center. But Democrats looking for a way forward might want to take a look back at the gradual and complete restructuring of the Republican Party in the aftermath of the Goldwater debacle. Democrats won't -- and shouldn't -- turn on their history in the same way, but it is instructive to note that the GOP of Reagan and afterward was constructed independently by people with no great regard for their party's traditions and history, but rather a determination to march it forcefully in a new direction. They did this by dint of patient, expensive effort. They created think tanks to cultivate conservative thought, from the Heritage Foundation to the American Enterprise Institute and many more. They created law firms to sue governments in pursuit of conservative aims, and a Federalist Society to cultivate young lawyers. They created campus-based institutions to reach the young and harness their energies. They mastered the art of direct mail to raise money for their many enterprises and campaigns. They created organizations to nurture and support like-minded politicians at the state and local levels. They created publications, sponsored books, exploited the growth of talk radio, learned to use the Internet, harassed traditional media and ultimately found a home base on television in the Fox cable news network. In parallel efforts, religious and socially conservative groups with political agendas sprang into existence and also developed influence. From the gloomy days after Goldwater's 1964 humiliation to the exhilaration of this month's electoral sweep, several billion dollars have been donated to conservative causes and institutions. All this was successful for many reasons, but one important one is too little discussed. The new conservatives were tapping into a demographic shift that obliterated the America that gave rise to the Democratic Party. By early 1973, the postwar economic boom that transformed America was coming to an end, but not before it had created, for the first time, a middle-class majority. From FDR to LBJ, Democratic liberalism had been sustained by a working-class America that all but disappeared in the 1970s. The passion for tax-cutting that caught on in the second half of that decade (California's Proposition 13, curtailing property taxes, ignited it in 1978) was the first political signal that times had changed. Reagan was elected president two years later, and the era of the new conservatism was under way. Beginning, arguably, with Proposition 13, the new conservatism has evoked grassroots enthusiasm that Democrats can only envy. Bush's victory this month was made possible by the Republicans' ability to identify, register and turn out more new or sporadic voters than the Democrats did. The Republicans did this with hundreds of thousands of volunteers who worked in their own churches and neighborhoods to cajole like-minded citizens to the polls. Democrats, too, benefited from a concerted get-out-the-vote effort employing large numbers of volunteers, but theirs also depended on new, generously financed groups such as Americans Coming Together, union employees and others. There is a lesson in this distinction. Reagan offered America a simple-sounding alternative approach to a new era. He promised to be strong on defense, low on taxes and tough on soft-headed liberals. Helped by his own genial personality, he created a winning combination that is still the essence of modern Republicanism. This fact was obscured by his politically inept successor, George H.W. Bush, who muddied the message and alienated the new conservative faithful. But his son has revived the Reagan message and the Reagan aura with great success -- a deliberate strategy devised by his principal associate, Karl Rove. They set out in 2001 to distinguish their administration from the first Bush's by deliberately aligning it with Reagan's legacy whenever they could. Finding a way to move forward It's the Reagan party that Democrats confront now. But that party is vastly stronger than the one that took over Congress in 1994. After adding to its margins in the House and Senate this month, the GOP has put the Democrats in their weakest position in Washington since the 1920s. Republicans have successfully ridiculed and demonized Democrats as the party of gay marriage, or the party of unilateral disarmament, or the party of dirty songs and violent movies, or the party of divorce, abortion, free birth control for teen-agers and the banning of school prayer. They've succeeded because all these labels contain an iota of truth and -- much more important -- because the Democrats have no coherent view of themselves that could displace them. "You always know where I stand," Bush said throughout this campaign. The 51 percent who voted for the president in this election knew what he meant, and they liked the sound of it. But no Democrat could credibly say anything like that today, because, on the party and individual levels, the Democrats' belief systems are muddled and do not resonate with many millions of Americans. There are certainly openings that Democrats could exploit. Yes, America is a conservative society. It always has been. But it is a particular and mostly good-hearted brand of conservatism. We believe in God, revere family, love hometowns and see ourselves as gentle and benevolent folk who care for one another -- and for foreigners in need, too. Even the newest immigrants appreciate the most fundamental conservative attributes of American life, beginning with the reliable rule of law. But we are also, polls make clear, a tolerant and moderate people. Democrats could become the party of tolerance, meaning tolerance for everyone: Bible readers, gay couples and Bible-reading gay couples alike. There is a strain of intolerance in today's conservative Republicanism, and that's an opportunity for the Democrats as they try to bring new people into their tent. Americans also believe in economic fairness. Most Americans say the Bush administration's policies principally help the wealthy. Most Americans aren't wealthy. This is a potential political opening, but only if the Democrats can offer a plausible path to a fairer society. Just bashing Republicans won't do it. And a neoconservative foreign policy is hardly a popular platform -- couldn't Democrats come up with a believable approach to national security that actually makes sense? What won't work is some evocation of the past. Yesterday is not America's thing -- tomorrow is. Republicans have found a voice for the 21st century -- not one that swept the nation, just 51 percent of it. Can the Democrats find a way to match it? Or will they just keep on whistling?




     
    "love the sinner, hate the sin."
    http://rawstory.com/images/pdfs/BothSidesSmall.pdf
    Apparently the Washington Post distributed this supplement to selected zip codes in Washington DC and Northern Virginia last Friday where the residents are predominantly African American. The content seeks to winAfrican American support for the President's proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit same-gender marriages. The name "Both Sides" is typical of the religious right. Actually it's quite true: they are talking out of both sides of their mouth -- as is "love the sinner, hate the sin".




     
    AHA Passes Resolutions;Humanists Geared Up for Struggle on Same-Sex Marriage
    (Washington, DC) The Religious Right, bolstered by the bans on same-sexmarriage that passed in eleven states, plan to push the debate furtherin the next Congress. "Despite these setbacks in the struggle, now isnot the time to tolerate the withholding of equal rights on the basis ofsexual orientation," states Fred Edwords, editorial director of theAmerican Humanist Association. "It's deplorable that the Religious Right uses discrimination against601,209 same-sex families as a political weapon. It's simply inexcusableto hurt families in an effort to put one narrow religious issue in theConstitution," he adds. Karl Rove told journalists this week, when asked if politicians shouldvote against same-sex marriage bans at their own risk, "I think peoplewould be well-advised to pay attention to what the American people aresaying. This is an issue on which there is a broad consensus." Yet sixtypercent of Americans favor legalizing same-sex marriage or support civilunions. "For over six years the AHA has been pushing for equal marriage laws inall fifty states and the District of Columbia, and we won't stop untilevery state respects the rights of all Americans. As most of us knowinstinctively, sexual orientation has no bearing on depth of commitment,ability to raise children, or overall family stability. Lesbian and gaycouples deserve equal rights-not unenlightened legislation that tries totie our society to blind tradition," adds Tony Hileman, executivedirector of the AHA. The AHA passed a resolution over the weekend on sexual equality andsupport of same-sex marriage. The resolution affirms, "Intolerantattitudes, often cultivated by fundamentalist religions and puritanicalcultures, unduly repress the right of the individual to freely andunreservedly express her/his sexuality," and "prohibiting committedsame-sex partners from legal recognition of marriage infringes on humanfreedom." Please see the resolution below: AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION ON SEXUAL EQUALITY AND SUPPORT OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE November 2004 ~ Albuquerque, NM Humanists are committed to values of social systems that promoteliberty, maximize individual autonomy, and ensure such rights as theright to marriage and divorce, to alternate family structures, and theright to birth control and abortion. In the area of sexuality, webelieve that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by fundamentalistreligions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct.Without countenancing mindless permissiveness, a civilized societyshould be a tolerant one. WHEREAS Humanists believe in the right of the individual to freely andunreservedly express her/his sexuality; WHEREAS Humanists recognize the right of human beings to express theirsexual desires and enter into sexual relationships as they see fitregardless of sexual orientation; WHEREAS laws prohibiting committed same-sex partners from legalrecognition of marriage infringes on human freedom; WHEREAS marriage is a civil rather than a religious institution, neitherstate nor federal governments should exclude a group of people fromreceiving certain benefits, like those marriage confers, on religiousgrounds; WHEREAS a civil union does not provide the legal benefits or recognitionequivalent to marriage; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATIONrecognizes that a civil union does not guarantee sexual equality orfreedom from discrimination;WHEREAS the financial, mental, emotional, and legal security thatresults from having legally recognized parents and spouses shall beafforded regardless of sexual orientation; WHEREAS marriage has historically been a dynamic institution-racerestrictions on marital choice have been eliminated, divorce regulationshave been equalized to protect both parties, and government can nolonger intrude on sexual intimacy-affording gays and lesbians the rightwould be the next logical change;BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION reaffirmsthe validity of sexual equality and supports local, state, and federalaction to legalize same-sex marriage. ---http://www.americanhumanist.org/



    Sunday, November 21, 2004


     
    this is an audio post - click to play




     
    Click On The Link Above For VOICE OF THE AUSTIN MAJORITY AUDIOBLOG RADIO...
    TODAY'S AUDIOBLOG:
    REPUBLICANS STINK.




     

    Thank You Hicks and Rednecks- You have elected this man. Posted by Hello




     
    "DEAN DOZEN" SUCCESS STORIES
    At the local and state level, Democracy for America and Gov. Howard Dean have reason to celebrate this year's election results. Many DFA-endorsed Dean Dozen and DFA-supported candidates won elections at all levels of government, throughout the country.
    • One of the two new Democratic United States senators was a "Dean Dozen" candidate--Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Obama and the other new Democratic senator, Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), received contributions from DFA.
    • One "Dean Dozen" candidate won her race for Congress, Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) and DFA contributed to five of the fourteen incoming freshman Democratic Members of Congress.
    • Some of the notable non-federal success stories include:
    • Both of the new Democratic governors are "Dean Dozen" candidates: John Lynch (D-NH) and Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.)
    • Two "Dean Dozen" candidates won their mayoral race: Peter Corroon was elected as mayor of Salt Lake County, Utah and Tom Potter was elected as mayor of Portland, Ore.
    • Democracy for America contributed more than $600,000 to 634 candidates for non-federal office. 319 of those candidates won--a 50% win-loss record.
    • "Dean Dozen" candidates were elected to state legislatures in 16 states. Candidates for legislature who received Democracy for America contributions, but were not part of the "Dean Dozen," were elected in an additional 12 states.
    • Democracy for America played a large role in regaining several legislative chambers for the Democrats, including: the Colorado House and Senate, the North Carolina House, the Oregon Senate, the Vermont House and the Washington Senate. DFA also helped secure a tie in the Iowa Senate.
    • "Dean Dozen" candidates were elected to the bench in Alabama and Georgia.
    • "Dean Dozen" candidates also won races for soil & water commission, supervisor of elections, township clerk, county commission and constable.
    Governor Dean commented on the election results:
    "The Dean Dozen candidates and the hundreds of other candidates that Democracy for America supported are the future of the Democratic Party. Win or lose, these fiscally responsible, socially progressive citizens fought to take our country back and helped spread the message that to change America, Democrats must compete everywhere, including the red states."
    Throughout the months leading up to the election, Governor Dean attended press conferences, fundraisers and campaign rallies, to help spread the DFA message and raise campaign funds for 50 candidates in 26 states. Many of you--our supporters--volunteered and financially supported these candidates as well and your actions were invaluable.
    DFA has raised over $5 million since we became an organization in March 2004. We have donated money to 748 candidates throughout the country--in 46 states and at every level of government. We believe that Democrats will return to national prominence very soon. DFA will continue to endorse and support candidates and train campaign workers and volunteers in 2005 and beyond.





     
    Rewriting Ethics History ,
    Mr. Tom "my way or the highway" Delay
    IN THE PAST few months, the previously somnolent House ethics committee has
    roused itself to admonish Majority Leader Tom DeLay (D-Tex.) for various ethical
    missteps. "Beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct," the committee's Republican
    chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (Colo.), and Democratic vice chairman, Alan B.
    Mollohan (W.Va.), summed it up in a letter to the leader.

    The committee found that Mr. DeLay's holding a golf fundraiser for energy
    companies just as the House was to consider energy legislation was
    "objectionable . . . because, at a minimum, [it] created an appearance that
    donors were being provided special access to you regarding the then-pending
    energy legislation." It also concluded that Mr. DeLay's drafting of Federal
    Aviation Administration officials to hunt down fleeing Democratic Texas state
    legislators who were foiling the leader's redistricting plans "raises serious
    concerns" about misusing government resources for partisan purposes. It said
    that Mr. DeLay improperly offered to endorse the son of retiring Rep. Nick Smith
    (R-Mich.) in exchange for Mr. Smith's vote on the Medicare prescription drug
    bill. And it cautioned the majority leader, "In view of the number of instances
    to date in which the Committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in
    which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future
    actions. . . . "

    Mr. DeLay responded with his customary sensitivity to ethical concerns,
    crowing that -- despite the tough language -- he had been cleared because the
    committee had not found a specific violation of House rules. Yesterday, though,
    Mr. DeLay and his allies held a triumphal news conference that made his previous
    statements look like a model of contrition. The occasion was the ethics
    committee's finding that Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.), the lame-duck lawmaker who
    summoned up the courage to file a complaint against the majority leader, had
    himself violated ethics rules because of the document's "excessive" and
    "inflammatory" charges. "I am grateful today that we finally have vindication of
    Mr. DeLay, and we have placed the blame where it properly belongs," said Rep.
    John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.). Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the
    Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House
    of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found
    grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay. Mr. DeLay himself insisted that he had simply
    been given a routine "mild warning" from the ethics committee. This transparent
    effort to rewrite history doesn't withstand scrutiny.

    In truth, the ethics committee had grounds to criticize both Mr. DeLay and Mr.
    Bell. The Bell complaint was replete with hyperbolic language and extreme
    accusations. But it also prodded the ethics committee finally to conduct the
    investigation of Mr. DeLay that it should have been doing on its own.. The
    committee has closed its doors to complaints filed by outside groups, meaning
    that only a brave lawmaker can file a complaint. Now its action against Mr.
    Bell, with its explicit and chilling warning to lawmakers that they risk being
    disciplined themselves for filing such complaints, means that only the bravest
    of lawmakers will dare. The committee added that it didn't intend "to inhibit
    any member from filing a complaint that he or she believes in good faith
    warrants consideration," but it's hard to see how it could avoid having such an
    effect. Meantime, the rules for the 109th Congress may be rewritten to make it
    even harder or riskier to bring ethics complaints. The last thing the House
    ethics process needs is less vigor.





    Saturday, November 20, 2004


     

    In Memory Of Gwen Araujo.
    Intolerance, Bigotry, And Hate Stole Her Life.
    May She Rest In Peace. Posted by Hello




     
    Transgender Day of Remembrance Honored by the National Gay
    and Lesbian Task Force
    Events to Remember Transgender People Killed in the Last Year
    November 20, 2004 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day when people gather to remember those who have been killed as a result of anti-transgender hate or prejudice. This annual event is organized by Gender Advocacy and Education, and this year there will be events in more than 150 cities specifically remembering the 21 transgender people known to have murdered in the last year.
    "On November 20, we will all hold in our hearts and in our thoughts our brothers and sisters who have fallen victim to anti-transgender hate," said Matt Foreman, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director. "We know that discrimination and violence against transgender people is pervasive. We know that law enforcement routinely ignores and fails to investigate and prosecute anti-transgender crime, including murder. We know that for every victim whose name we know there are dozens of others who will never be known or acknowledged. Let us all use this day to not only remember, but to rededicate ourselves to bringing and end to discrimination and violence against transgender people."
    The Task Force Transgender Civil Rights Project said it was aware of only one anti-transgender murder that was prosecuted as a hate crime and went to trial in the last year. That prosecution in California, of those accused of the brutal 2002 murder of Gwen Araujo, ended in a mistrial after the jury found itself irrevocably deadlocked. The case will be tried again in May of 2005.
    The Task Force's Civil Rights Project provides technical assistance, including evaluation of legislative and policy language, to organizations, advocates, legislators, and others who areworking to establish policies and laws to create equality for transgender people.
    A list of the locations and times of the Day of Remembrance events can be found at: http://www.gender.org/remember/day/where.html. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a project of Gender Education and Advocacy.
    Note: The Task Force reminds editors and reporters that transgender people are to be referred in the pronoun appropriate to the gender a person lives his or her life as. More information on how to appropriately refer to transgender people can be found in Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's "Suggestions for Fair, Accurate & Inclusive Coverage" available at http://www.glaad.org/media/resource_kit_detail.php?id=3061 or from the National Center for Transgender Equality, "Basic Tips for Journalists" at http://www.nctequality.org/media.asp.



    Thursday, November 18, 2004


     
    Pictures from Fallujah that won't be right there on your TV
    Go to this link. We'd like to warn you of the graphic nature of these photos. Please be at least 18 years old to view. ... more




     
    Dear World: Sorry About Bush
    No, seriously. Very, very sorry.
    How sorry?
    Well, let America show you
    . . . in pictures
    By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

    San Francisco Chronicle
    http://sfgate.com/chronicle/

    Wednesday, November 17, 2004
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/11/17/notes111704.DTL

    It's a movement. It's a phenomenon. It's a Web site. Or maybe it's far more
    than that. No one can really be sure. No matter what it is, it's called
    sorryeverybody.com http://www.sorryeverybody.com and it expresses, better than any outpouring so far, a sentiment
    that's omnipresent and palpable and still going strong, and every single
    Democrat and every single Kerry supporter and every single liberal of any stripe
    whatsoever probably felt it like a white-hot stab in the heart the minute Kerry's
    concession speech hit the airwaves and it undoubtedly went something like
    this:

    Dear world: We are so very, very sorry. For Bush. For our bitterly divided
    and confused nation. For what's to come. Please know that tens of millions of us
    did not vote for him. Please do not hate us. Not all of us, anyway. OK, maybe
    Utah. Do you know where Utah is? Never mind.

    See, not only is half of America still deeply dejected about the onslaught of
    Dubya Dubya II, but much of that half wants the world to know just how
    crestfallen we are, and just how awful we feel for inflicting Bush and his
    middle-finger foreign policy on them like a virus, a toxin, a nasty STD, yet again.

    After all, we knew this wasn't no ordinary election. We knew how much was at
    stake, how this one represented a sea change in global attitudes, a dramatic
    upheaval and reversal of long-standing American ideas of cooperation and
    defense and restraint, ideas that BushCo has now mutated into a hollow, kill-'em-all
    faux-cowboy maverick attitude, an almost irreversible shift, mostly backward.
    Or downward.

    But here's the genius part. Beyond e-mail, beyond blogs or radio shows or
    despondent letters to the editor or overly verbose progressively insulated Left
    Coast columnists who avoid excessive punctuation as they type because it might
    spill their scotch, sorryeverybody.com nails the sentiment in a way no one
    could have imagined: in photographs.

    Or, rather, thousands of photographs. Of people. Ordinary people, grainy and
    crooked and funny and amateurish and honest and full of pathos and raw emotion
    and wry humor and surprising beauty and you want that connecting thread? That
    thing that unifies and makes you feel less alone and that helps you locate
    yourself in a country gone mad and lost and regressive? You can do no better
    than this.

    And so far the site carries nearly 5,000 photos, with an apparent backlog of
    over 1,000 more ready to be uploaded and new ones coming in faster than the
    site's diverse gaggle of stunned creators -- namely, a sly neuroscience student
    from USC named James and his ragtag team of webmasters and designers from
    across the country -- ever dreamed. And the reaction has been, to put it mildly,
    overwhelming: a whopping 50 million hits to the site so far, moving nearly two
    terabytes of information. And growing fast.

    And if a picture's worth a thousand words, then sorryeverybody.com is
    exploding with a few million very ardent expressions indeed, all echoing the same
    simple but heartbreaking sentiment and all, presumably, posted in the hope that
    the message will be somehow reach the eyeballs of the world, the countries so
    very and rightfully appalled and revolted by our apparent lack of vision.

    It seems to be working. Pictures are apparently flooding into the site from
    around the world, full of messages of "It's OK" and "Thanks for trying" and
    "Just don't let it happen again" and it's even spawned a European response page
    called apologiesaccepted.com http://www.apologiesaccepted.com and this is when it hits you: this little gag
    site, unexpectedly, wonderfully, with its beautifully simple concept, might have
    actually stumbled on a way to do the impossible: it might just help heal our
    decimated international relationships and, quite possibly, do more for world
    diplomacy that Bush ever could, or ever will.

    Is that taking things a bit far? Not really. Sure the site's cute. Sure it's
    a bit of a novelty. But it's also illuminating and deeply moving and 50
    million hits in under two weeks is nothing short of staggering, and hence the
    creators are receiving reams of hate mail from the BushCo Right of sufficient
    vehemence and vitriol that it's even spawned a creepy 'n' crude "We're Not Sorry"
    countersite, with its handful of disturbing pics of rabid right-wingers
    displaying their, uh, raging pro-Bush myopia. So you know James and Co. are onto
    something.

    After all, sorryeverybody.com has broken the cardinal rule of Bush's bitter
    neocon agenda: no matter what the atrocity, no matter the how grossly botched
    the war or how insidious the WMD lie or how debilitating the world-record
    deficit or how brutal the attack on the environment, if there's one thing the GOP
    simply does not do, it's apologize.

    But this is what makes sorryeverybody.com so incredibly effective. It does
    what no column and no punditry and no news analysis and no Democratic weeping
    can possibly do, what the Kerry campaign failed to do, what no amount of verbal
    raging into the Void can manage: it puts a human face on the sadness.

    A very real face, families and children, teenagers and the elderly, young
    couples and homosexuals and many, many disaffected liberal loners who are stuck
    like sad beacons way out in the middle of the red states and who desperately
    want the world to know they exist, that they're Americans, too, that they did
    their best to get the Smirking One out.

    What's more, the pics, generally speaking, aren't raunchy. They aren't gross
    or hateful or puerile or full of screaming middle fingers or manly gun
    collections or people holding large kitchen knives or butane lighters up to Bush
    dolls in effigy.

    They're just snapshots, candid and intimate and expressive and unretouched
    and often rather beautiful, taken in the living rooms and backyards and bedrooms
    and small towns of the country.

    It's just people. It's just America. "Real" America. An enormous and
    enormously saddened half of this amazing country that's trying to reach out to the
    rest of the world and get the word out and mend its broken heart like at no other
    time in our generation's history. It's an expression of regret for what's
    been lost, for what we once were, for what we had hoped to become again but that
    has now been, well, at best delayed, at worst bludgeoned into a blind stupor.

    The site proves that countless Americans still not only care enough to
    apologize for our country's massive errors of judgment, for our blind mistakes, but
    also are concerned about the effect those mistakes will have on others. As
    such, these pictures are perhaps the finest and most honest expressions of love
    for one's country you can find. And if that's not patriotic, nothing is.
    Thoughts for the author? E-mail him. mmorford@sfgate.com

    Mark's column archives are here http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/a/





     
    The Tele-Pharisees Robertson and Falwell have sacrificed God in the name of Mammon. They are deliberately distorting the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to use it to justify an entirely un-Christian, in fact I would say anti-Christian, economic program. They are no different than the social Darwinist "Christians" of the 19th Century who preached the "Curse of Ham" and other spurious doctrines, including the "wealth gospel" that continues to this very day, the notion that God shows favor by showering His followers with wealth. Ergo, the richer you are, the more God must love you. And, of course, the converse: if you are poor, it is because you are a sinner. There is a special level of hell reserved for these heretics and blasphemers. Can I get an "amen"?!?!



    Wednesday, November 17, 2004


     

    Posted by Hello




     
    GOP Voting fraud is being talked about now quite a bit but that will be very difficult to credibly prove and make stick from what I can see right now. Below is what I would consider to be very credible documentation to prove that Bush was endorsed by and clearly received improper help from tax exempt religious organizations. Bush and Karl Rove also had direct contact with these religious groups which is a violation of campaign finance laws concerning 527 groups.The full articles below credibly documents "Bush Seeks Church Membership Data," "Bishops Opposing Kerry," "Rove Tells Graduates Character Matters (at Jerry Falwell's school)," "Evangelicals Say They Led Charge For the GOP," and "Bush campaign's contempt for 'people of faith' (saying Liberals would ban the Bible from American life)."What I think that we need to find out is what was specifically discussed in the conference calls that Karl Rove had with the religious leaders that he talked with? It would be nice to see Karl Rove and these religious leaders have to testify under oath about this and see Rove have to turn over his tapes of these conference calls!Based on the documentation and evidence below, I think that we clearly have at least two legitimate issues that need to be seriously investigated. Investigations should be conducted to find out if Bush and Karl Rove received improper help from tax exempt religious churches. Did these churches violate campaign finance laws for 527 groups by their direct contacts with Bush and Rove, by their open and direct public support for Bush, and by conducting Republican voter registration drives on tax exempt church property?It would be nice to see the scripts that the GOP gave to the church leaders what to tell to their members and to see exactly what was said and done in these churches that helped Bush when these churches are tax exempt and cannot endorse a candidate by law!These religious leaders promoted a political message from Bush and Rove that was based on outright lies, that appealed to people's fears, and that took advantage of people's emotions. That is NOT "compassionate," that is NOT "conservative," that is NOT "moral," and that is NOT "Christian."Religious people need to see and be aware of that. People need to see that their religious leaders violated their trust and confidence that they had in them, used them for political purposes by doing what they did, and that these religious leaders broke the laws of the land which they are supposed to uphold and respect (and that is clearly taught in the Bible). I have some ideas as to what can be done to unbrainwash these religious people so that they will not always vote Republican going forward. I will be happy to discuss them with anyone who is interested. I do not want to permanently lose these religious voters to the GOP going forward if it can be helped. While an investigation like this probably will not change the election results, it will throw the election results into a state of legitimate controversy and that will lessen the impact of "the mandate" that Bush and the GOP think that they received from this election. That will help to keep Bush and the GOP Congress more in check when they try and implement their policies in Bush's second term! Bush and Cheney do not hold firm convictions in what they sold to so many religious people which is called HYPOCRISY in the Bible! I welcome any comments and feedback to this and to the documentation below!

    Updated: 09:41 PM EDT
    Bush Seeks Church Membership Data
    By David Morgan, Reuters
    WASHINGTON (July 1) - President Bush, seeking to mobilize religious conservatives for his reelection campaign, has asked church-going volunteers to turn over church membership directories, campaign officials said on Thursday. "I would not want my church directories being used that way."-The Rev. Richard Land In a move sharply criticized both by religious leaders and civil libertarians, the Bush-Cheney campaign has issued a guide listing about two-dozen "duties" and a series of deadlines for organizing support among conservative church congregations.A copy of the guide directs religious volunteers to send church directories to state campaign committees, identify new churches that can be organized by the Bush campaign and talk to clergy about holding voter registration drives.The document, distributed to campaign coordinators across the country earlier this year, also recommends that volunteers distribute voter guides in church and use Sunday service programs for get-out-the-vote drives."We expect this election to be potentially as close as 2000, so every vote counts and it's important to reach out to every single supporter of President Bush," campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said. Talk About It · Chat Post Messages Top News Boards But the Rev. Richard Land, who deals with ethics and religious liberty issues for the Southern Baptist Convention, a key Bush constituency, said he was "appalled.""First of all, I would not want my church directories being used that way," he said, predicting failure for the Bush plan.The conservative Protestant denomination, whose 16 million members strongly backed Bush in 2000, held regular drives that encouraged church-goers to "vote their values," said Land."But it's one thing for us to do that. It's a totally different thing for a partisan campaign to come in and try to organize a church. A lot of pastors are going to say: 'Wait a minute, bub'," he added.The guide surfaced as a spate of opinion polls showed Bush's reelection campaign facing a tough battle.A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed Bush running neck-and-neck with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry among registered voters, 47 percent of whom said they now believed the president had misled Americans about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.The Bush campaign has also been spending heavily on television ads, only to see the president's approval ratings slump to new lows.Stanzel said the campaign ended the month of June with $64 million on hand. He had no figures on how much Bush has raised in June. At the end of May, Bush had raised $213.4 million and spent all but $63 million.The latest effort to marshal religious support also drew fire from civil liberties activists concerned about the constitutional separation of church and state."Any coordination between the Bush campaign and church leaders would clearly be illegal," said a statement from the activist group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

    LINKS TO THE TRUTH:
    http://www.axisoflogic.com/cgi-bin/exec/view.pl?archive=43&num=5160 The Despoiling of America: How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State By Katherine Yurica and Laurie Hall*Feb 16, 2004, 13:35http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24634-2004Sep15.htmlOpenly Religious, to a Point; Bush Leaves the Specifics of His Faith to SpeculationBy Alan CoopermanWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01 http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/elections/article.adp?id=20040824180109990003&_ccc=2&cid=946 Updated: 06:15 PM EDT, August 24, 2004Cheney Says He Supports Gay RelationshipsBy TODD DVORAK, APhttp://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20031028131409990025&_mpc=news%2e10%2e2 Updated: 02:00 PM ESTOctober 28, 2003Bush Says U.S. Not Ready for Total Abortion Banhttp://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/06/opinion/06waldman.html On a Word and a PrayerBy STEVEN WALDMANPublished: November 6, 2004http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32630-2004Nov7.html Furor Continues Over Specter Comments on NomineesBy Susan SchmidtWashington Post Staff WriterMonday, November 8, 2004; Page A02



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