Compassionate conservatism at its finest

Bush has vetoed SCHIP, though Congress may be able to override it. It passed with enough votes in the Senate, but they were short some in the House. John Kerry had some unkind words to say about this action:

"The President's twisted rationale that he opposes 'federalizing' health care is a hollow excuse for undermining a successful effort to give Governors the control and the tools to deliver health care for kids who desperately need it. President Bush conveniently forgot that he ran for reelection with a promise to give health care to millions more children and now as a lame duck president he is working to take it away. It seems George Bush was for kids' health care before he was against it."

And Atrios dug up a post from a few months ago that highlights Bush's sheer malignant indifference to the lower class:

"The immediate goal is to make sure there are more people on private insurance plans. I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."

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McCain -- still not getting it

In his efforts to quell criticism over his boneheaded remarks, McCain has tried reassuring people that he would, in fact, vote for a Muslim--if said Muslim were the best candidate:

Later, McCain said, "I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values."

But since our political values are Judeo-Christian, it stands to reason that a Muslim would never be the best candidate to defend said values, right? Right.

But even with such a non-apology, McCain still hasn't backed down from his other idiotic statements:

While campaigning in New Hampshire on Sunday, he said that the most qualified person could be president, no matter his or her religion.

"It's almost Talmudic. We are a nation that was based on Judeo-Christian values. That means respect for all of human rights and dignity. That's my principle values and ideas, and that's what I think motivated our founding fathers," McCain said.

"Based on Judeo-Christian values", are we?

It's official. Either McCain is a damned liar, which tells us what his "principle values" are, or he's completely ignorant of the history of the country he wants to lead.

And since when do "Judeo-Christian values" mean "respect for all of human rights and dignity"? Certainly our founding fathers weren't motivated by that--the only people whose rights and dignity they gave a damn about were white, male landowners like themselves.

...wait. Only concerned with rich, white males? Maybe McCain does know what he's talking about.
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Nerts

The Federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would have protected LGBT people from job discrimination, no longer does that. Now it's just LGB people:

The bill was introduced in Congress in April and, in its original form would have made it illegal to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote an employee based on the person's sexual orientation or gender identity.

Late last week all references to transsexuals and gender identity was removed in a backroom deal orchestrated by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.).

Frank, one of only two out members of Congress, is the lead sponsor of ENDA in the House. His decision to split off transgender rights infuriated LGBT activists.

On Sunday he tried to quell the dissent, saying removing trans rights was the only way to get the rest of the measure passed.

"It is never possible for us at any given time to get everything that we would like, and so we have to make difficult choices," said Frank.

...

"Detracting from the sense of celebration many of us feel about that is regret that under the current political situation, we do not have sufficient support in the House to include in that bill explicit protection for people who are transgender."

Frank went on to say that it boils down to "whether we should pass up the chance to adopt a very good bill because it has one major gap."

The move also lost the bill co-sponsor Tammy Baldwin, the only other openly gay member of Congress.
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Separation of church and state? Never heard of it!

John McCain doesn't understand the Constitution:

A recent poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation. What do you think?
I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.

And no, that wasn't a poorly-though statement. He kept repeating it throughout the interview (before it was asked by the interviewer, if this article is written in the order in which it was conducted):

I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'

and

I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles.... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would--I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead.

Yeah, 'cause look where it's gotten us so far.

I mean, consider some other presidents whose Christian faith was important to them. Say, President Bush:

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."

Or President McKinley:

The truth is, I didn't want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them. When the Spanish war broke out, Dewey was in Hong Kong, and I ordered him to go to Manila, and he had to; because, if defeated, he had no place to refit on that side of the globe, and if the Dons (the Spanish) were victorious they would likely cross the Pacific and ravage Oregon and California coasts. And so he had to destroy the Spanish fleet, and he did it! But that was as far as I thought then. When next I realised that the Philippines had dropped into our lap, I confess I did not know what to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides -- Democrats as well as Republicans -- but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then the other islands, perhaps, also. I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed to almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night it came to me this way -- I don't know how it was but it came: (1) That we could not give them back to Spain. That would be cowardly and dishonourable; (2) That we could not turn them over to France or Germany -- our commercial rivals in the Orient -- that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) That we could not leave them to themselves -- they were unfit for self-government -- and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and (4) That there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos; and uplift and civilise and Christianise them, and, by God's grace, do the very best we could by them, as our fellowmen for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the chief engineer of the War Department (our map maker) and told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States; and there they are, and there they will stay while I am president!

Yeah, believing that an invisible sky-fairy impregnated a girl with himself in order to kill himself only not is the most important qualification for the leader of the world's super-power.
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Friday Dead Racist Blogging: "Prove it!" Edition

I have an old 'crow to pick with you' about my hero Rajah Brooke; and my spirit is stirred within me this morning by seeing that the press are keeping up the attack on him for the Borneo business. I say at once that I think he was utterly right and righteous. If I had been in his place I would have done the same. If it is to do again, I trust he will have courage to do it again. But, thank God, just because it is done it will not have to be done again. The truest benevolence is occasional severity. It is expedient that one man die for the people. One tribe exterminated, if need be, to save a whole continent. 'Sacrifice of human life?' Prove that it is human life. It is beast-life. These Dyaks have put on the image of the beast, and they must take the consequence. 'Value of life?' Oh, Ludlow, read history; look at the world, and see whether God values mere physical existence. Look at the millions who fall in war; the mere fact that savage races, though they breed like rabbits, never increase in number; and then, beware lest you reproach your Maker. Christ died for them? Yes, and He died for the whole creation as well--the whole world, Ludlow--for the sheep you eat, the million animalcules which the whale swallows at every gape. They shall all be hereafter delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God; but, as yet, just consider the mere fact of beasts of prey, the countless destruction which has been going on for ages and ages, long before Adam's fall, and then consider. Physical death is no evil. It may be a blessing to the survivors. Else, why pestilence, famine, Cromwell and Perrot in Ireland, Charlemagne hanging 4000 Saxons over the Weser Bridge; did not God bless those horrible righteous judgments? Do you believe in the Old Testament? Surely then, say, what does that destruction of the Canaanites mean? If it was right, Rajah Brooke was right. If he be wrong, then Moses, Joshua, David, were wrong. No! I say. Because Christ's kingdom is a kingdom of peace; because the meek alone shall inherit the earth, therefore, you Malays and Dyaks of Sarawak, you are also enemies to peace. 'Your feet swift to shed blood, the poison of asps under your lips;' you who have been warned, reasoned with; who have seen, in the case of the surrounding nations, the strength and happiness which peace gives, and will not repent, but remain still murderers and beasts of prey. You are the enemies of Christ, the Prince of peace; you are beasts, all the more dangerous, because you have a semi-human cunning. I will, like David, 'hate you with a perfect hatred, even as though you were my enemies.' I will blast you out with grape and rockets, 'I will beast you as small as the dust before the wind.' You, 'the strange children that dissemble with me, shall fail,' and be exterminated, and be afraid out of your infernal river-forts, as the old Canaanites were out of their hill-castles. I say, honour to a man, who, amid all the floods of sentimental coward cant, which by some sudden revulsion may, and I fear will, become coward cruelty, dares act manfully on the broad sense of right, as Rajah Brooke is doing. Oh, Ludlow, recollect how before the '89, men were maundering about universal peace and philanthropy, too loving to hate God's enemies, too indulgent to punish sin.

—Charles Kingsley to J. M. Ludlow, December 1849, in Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memoirs of His Life, volume 1, pp. 222-223. Referenced in Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism pp. 76-77
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Today's zombie racist

Michael Medved.
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Homophobes surrender!

I am floored. A "pro-family" group in Canada has given up on the gay marriage fight:

The head of a national pro-family organization says it's time to ditch the fight against gay marriage and push instead for tax breaks and other incentives to make marriage and child rearing more attractive options.

Dave Quist, executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, said yesterday he has become less concerned about same-sex marriage since census figures released earlier this month demonstrated how rare gay marriage is.

The census, which counted same-sex marriages for the first time, reported 7,465 such unions, accounting for about 0.1 per cent of the 6.1 million married couples in Canada.

Quist said the "incredibly low" number of same-sex marriages, combined with a lack of "political will" to restore the traditional definition of marriage, has persuaded him to move on. A possible federal election in the coming months will not change the picture, he predicted.

Translation: the sky really isn't falling now that gays can marry in Canada, and the sanctity of marriage really hasn't been ruined.

Although I do wonder if he'll change his mind once he realizes that his numbers are vastly mistaken.

But this means that it can be done: we can make them give up! O happy day!
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Yeah, they're right up there with the KKK and the CCC

So apparently the NAACP is a hate group:

I also agree that there are hate groups all around the country. There are skinheads, KKK, the NAACP. The NAACP is a hate group as well.

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More good news

The Matthew Shepard Act, which would update the federal hate crimes laws to include acts of violence against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, passed the Senate:

Senators voted Thursday morning to give the federal government more jurisdiction to prosecute hate crimes and included protections for gay, lesbian and transgender victims, attaching the measure to an annual defense policy bill.

Sixty Senators -- just enough to override a Republican filibuster -- voted to attach the Matthew Shepard Act, named for the gay Wyoming college student murdered in 1998, as an amendment to the 2008 Department of Defense authorization bill. The measure was sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Gordon Smith, R-Ore.

...

Thirty-nine Republicans opposed the bill. Sen. John McCain was the only absent senator.

Republicans who supported the amendment were: Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Richard Lugar of Indiana, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, George Voinovich of Ohio and John Warner of Virginia.

The House has passed a similar bill, so differences between the two still need to be reconciled. And Bush has threatened to veto it (I suppose to prove what a compassionate conservative he is), but still. Great news.
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Strike two, Verizon

In addition to their flagrant incompetence, Verizon has also apparently been censoring their text messages:

According to the New York Times, Verizon Wireless has rejected Naral Pro-Choice America efforts to use Verizon's mobile text-message program to communicate to its membership.

Such text messaging is an important new tool for advocacy organizations seeking to educate and alert their members.


Verizon decision to block this new form of political speech interferes with its users' right to get information that they choose to receive.

Well, actually, they reversed course the moment Times published their story:

Saying it had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.

"The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident," Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

"It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy," Mr. Nelson said. "That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children."

...

In reversing course today, Verizon did not disclaim the power to block messages it deemed inappropriate.

Protect people from hate messages and pornography? Really. 'Cause earlier they said they wanted to protect people from controversy:

In initially turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation's two largest wireless carriers, had told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group "that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users." Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New York Times.

...

On Wednesday, Mr. Nelson, the Verizon spokesman, said the initial decision had turned on the subject matter of the messages and not on Naral's position on abortion. "Our internal policy is in fact neutral on the position," Mr. Nelson said. "It is the topic itself" — abortion — "that has been on our list."

Uh-huh, sure. "We reject material on a controversial subject"? I've heard that before.
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