J's Cafe Nette

Archive for August 19th, 2007

Can Democrats handle power better than Republicans? They didn’t the last time they held the administration and the majority in Congress.

Karl Rove dreamed of creating a “permanent Republican majority.” But as President Bush’s longtime adviser exits the Washington scene, the political landscape he helped chart is already shifting beneath his feet: The era of conservative values — a tight-fisted approach toward government aid to the poor, traditional positions on social issues and a belief in a muscular foreign policy — that emerged in the 1990s is coming to a close.

Disenchanted by the failures of the Bush administration, the public is moving away from its policies, values and ideology. This shift is an echo of the late 1960s, when weariness with the Vietnam War and discord at home resulted in a backlash against Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society, and the late 1970s, when growing discontent over the stumbling performance of Jimmy Carter’s administration opened the door to the Reagan revolution.

This time, though, it appears to be the Democrats’ turn to reap the benefits.

Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center released the results of our comprehensive study of the public’s political and social values, the most recent in a series of reports dating to 1987. We found that many of the trends that had fueled the Republicans’ rise to political dominance over the past decade-plus have weakened — and in some cases even reversed.

Consider this: In 2002, the country was evenly divided along partisan lines — 43 percent of the public identified with the Republican Party or leaned toward it, while the same number said they were Democrats. That shift in affiliation was a historic change from most of the 20th century, when Democrats usually held sizable advantages over Republicans.

But if Rove hoped for a permanent majority, his hopes may have been dashed. Today, half the public — 50 percent — lines up with the Democratic Party, compared with 35 percent who align with the GOP. Even more striking is the public’s disenchantment with military muscle, a traditional GOP bailiwick. Today 49 percent think that military strength is the best way to ensure peace, the lowest level recorded for this question in the two decades that Pew has been conducting political values studies.

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What can I say? Someone needs to topple the barbaric bast***s.

Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month amid a clampdown prompted by alleged US-backed plots to topple the regime, The Observer can reveal.
Many executions have been carried out in public in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West. Opposition sources say at least three of the dead were political activists, contradicting government insistence that it is targeting ‘thugs’ and dangerous criminals. The executions have coincided with a crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a ’soft revolution’ with US support.

The most high-profile recent executions involved Majid Kavousifar, 28, and his nephew, Hossein Kavousifar, 24, hanged for the murder of a hardline judge, Hassan Moghaddas, a man notorious for jailing political dissidents. They were hanged from cranes and hoisted high above one of Tehran’s busiest thoroughfares.
The spectacle, the first public executions in Tehran for five years, took place outside the judiciary department headquarters where Moghaddas was murdered. But the location, near many office blocks and the Australian and Japanese embassies, meant they were seen by many middle-class Iranians who would not normally witness such events.

The previous day seven men were publicly executed in the north-eastern city of Masshad, including five said to be guilty of ‘rape, kidnapping, theft and committing indecent acts’. Another two were hanged separately for raping and robbing a young woman. The executions were also shown live on state television.

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Sick a monster on them.

Author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal when he started signing books during an unannounced visit to a shop in Australia, according to local media.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said staff at the Alice Springs book store did not initially realise the writer was autographing his own novels.

Bookshop manager Bev Ellis said: “When you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey [nervous].

“We immediately ran to the books and lo and behold, there was the signature.”

Ms Ellis later approached the author at a nearby supermarket and said he was “very nice, charming”.

“Well, if we knew you were coming we would have baked you a cake,” she told the writer.

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This seems to be an issue that just won’t go away. Even churches are finding themselves dealing with it.
Maybe it’s time that we start treating everyone the same and maybe it isn’t. I don’t have the answer.

Never in a “million years” did Robert Renix think he would find a Baptist church that would accept someone like him: a black Baptist gay man. Never mind one that would allow what happened one Saturday last month, when a tuxedo-clad Renix stood in front of the pulpit at Covenant Baptist Church in Anacostia, exchanging vows with his partner, Antonio Long.

It didn’t turn out to be that simple, though.

About 140 members jammed into the fellowship hall a few weeks later for a tense meeting about the recent decision of Covenant co-pastors Dennis and Christine Wiley to conduct same-sex union ceremonies. Some expressed their opposition through Bible verses, saying they were worried that Covenant was getting a reputation as a “gay church.” Others wept as they defended the Wileys, said people who were there.

“I don’t care who does it in their bedroom with whom,” said Yvonne Moore, a longtime member who left the church over the same-sex ceremonies. “But don’t bring that foolishness into my church.”

Other heterosexual church members defend the Wileys and their actions. “It’s never been a traditional church,” said Jeffrey Canady, a lifetime member who lives in Takoma Park. “That’s the beauty of the church. It has always been at the forefront of change.”

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Michael Yon has posted a Public Affairs Release which describes the situation in the town of Baqubah and it sounds promising. This is just one small accomplishment in the vast country of Iraq, but taken with our other victories as of late, could be a stepping stone for things to come.

After the fight to retake an Iraqi city is over, the struggle to reconstruct a functioning government is the fist order of business.

That’s why U.S. and Iraqi forces were excited recently to witness local trucks arrive, accompanied by the Iraqi Army, at a Baqubah flour mill with 560 tons of imported wheat to feed the people of Diyala province.

Some things speak volumes when you consider all the obstacles both our military and the citizens of Iraq face and this statement by the Assistant Governor of the Diyala Province certainly fits in that category. Speaking of Baqubah he states:

“This city is making the transition from a ghost town to what it is today. What’s been done is phenomenal,” Amed said.

Thanks again Michael for keeping us updated.

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Have you ever looked at someone and thought this guy isn’t on the level? John Edwards is one of these people. At least that’s the way he strikes me. He may be one of the nicest people in the world but I just don’t trust him.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Once again, John Edwards’ money is getting in the way of his message.

His Democratic presidential campaign spent yesterday responding to a front-page Wall Street Journal report showing that a company Edwards worked for and has invested $16 million in, Fortress Investment Group, owns mortgage companies that have moved to foreclose on homeowners in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. The newspaper identified 34 homes in foreclosure suits.

Edwards, who made a fortune as a trial lawyer, worked for Fortress from late 2005 through 2006. Campaign finance reports show its employees and family members have contributed heavily to his campaign.

Edwards, a former U.S. senator who makes his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., told the Wall Street Journal that he would personally provide financial help to New Orleans residents who have lost their homes to Fortress-affiliated businesses. He also said he would pull out any investments he had that profited from their losses.

“I will not have my family’s money invested in these firms,” Edwards said. His staff said he was on the campaign trail in Iowa yesterday and unavailable for further comment.

A campaign spokesman, Eric Schultz, released a statement saying Edwards would take responsibility for those hit with foreclosures, but it provided no details as to what he would do.

Edwards has sought to be identified as a champion of the poor and the working class. At many campaign stops, including New Orleans, he has criticized predatory lenders for taking advantage of people.

It’s that contrast between his public message and his financial dealings that continues to dog his campaign. Over the past several months, he has had to respond to reports about $400 haircuts, a $6 million estate he built last year and a nonprofit he created and pitched as an anti-poverty organization that benefited his campaign.

His attacks on conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch led to the disclosure this month in one of Murdoch’s newspapers of a $900,000 book deal Edwards struck with a Murdoch-owned publisher.

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I could see myself voting for Huckabee.

No one is happier with the results of the Iowa Straw Poll than charismatic evangelical Christians, who recently declared former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee “one of our own.”

Just a few weeks before the Iowa straw poll, a prominent evangelical publication identified the Republican presidential candidate whom it thought most resembled Ronald Reagan and deserved the support of evangelical voters. That candidate was not the actor turned politician Fred Thompson, but rather the Baptist minister turned governor, and now presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee.
The endorsement came from New Man, one of eight magazines published by Strang Communications, whose founder and president, Stephen Strang, is a highly influential voice among charismatics — evangelicals who attend non-denominational churches such as those of John Hagee or Rod Parsley, as well as denominational Pentecostals. New Man, which started out as the magazine of the Bible-macho Promise Keepers movement, today reaches 100,000 subscribers with its advice on questions such as whether masturbation is an acceptable way to preserve one’s virginity before marriage (no) or whether the Bible dictates that men exercise authority over their wives (yes). Huckabee graced the cover of the July/August issue of New Man, which declared him “one of our own.”

Strang is no newcomer to Republican politics. He helped George H.W. Bush in his 1988 campaign, and after being an early supporter of John Ashcroft in the 2000 race, later became an avid George W. Bush backer. His own imprint published Stephen Mansfield’s glowing campaign biography, The Faith of George W. Bush, and he has continued to be a cheerleader for Bush and the Iraq War, even as the public’s support for both has hit rock bottom.

While Strang shares fellow conservative evangelicals’ reactionary views on abortion and homosexuality, he also has been at the forefront of pushing for apocalyptic war in the Middle East, which he, like his friend Hagee, cloaks in supposed “support” for Jews and Israel. His publishing house is responsible for many of the leading books, including Hagee’s, about the alleged Biblical imperative for Christians to “support” Israel in the form of world-ending wars and the Second Coming of Christ, and he serves as a regional director for Hagee’s Christians United for Israel (CUFI).

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A smart man who may have done stupid things.

Thirteen months before President Bush was reelected, chief strategist Karl Rove summoned political appointees from around the government to the Old Executive Office Building. The subject of the Oct. 1, 2003, meeting was “asset deployment,” and the message was clear:

The staging of official announcements, high-visibility trips and declarations of federal grants had to be carefully coordinated with the White House political affairs office to ensure the maximum promotion of Bush’s reelection agenda and the Republicans in Congress who supported him, according to documents and some of those involved in the effort.

“The White House determines which members need visits,” said an internal e-mail about the previously undisclosed Rove “deployment” team, “and where we need to be strategically placing our assets.”

Many administrations have sought to maximize their control of the machinery of government for political gain, dispatching Cabinet secretaries bearing government largess to battleground states in the days before elections. The Clinton White House routinely rewarded big donors with stays in the Lincoln Bedroom and private coffees with senior federal officials, and held some political briefings for top Cabinet officials during the 1996 election.

But Rove, who announced last week that he is resigning from the White House at the end of August, pursued the goal far more systematically than his predecessors, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance.

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Love this man and wish him well.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) – Evangelist Billy Graham was in fair condition Saturday and resting comfortably in a hospital near his home after he was admitted for evaluation and treatment of an intestinal bleed, hospital officials said.

Graham, 88, was fully alert, and his doctors don’t think his condition is life-threatening, said his spokesman, Larry Ross.

“The priority right now is rest,” Ross said.

Graham’s blood pressure was good and there were no signs of new bleeding Saturday night, according to a statement released by Mission Health & Hospitals in Asheville.

He was expected to sleep well overnight, the hospital said.

The hospital said in a statement that Graham’s condition had stabilized following his admission, and an initial endoscopy and a bleeding scan found no areas of bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract.

“It stopped as quickly as it began,” Ross said.

Ross estimated the ailing preacher could be released from the hospital in a couple of days.

The hospital said the initial bleeding may have been caused by diverticuli, or small pouches that can form in the lower intestine. A diverticular bleed often begins suddenly and may stop on its own, the hospital said.

Ross said Graham experienced a similar intestinal bleed during in 1995 crusade in Toronto.

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It is seldom that I find myself posting on an opinion piece from any publication but this particular one from the Washington Post caught my attention and read in its entirety, offers a view of newspaper journalism which I found quite interesting.

Newspaper journalism is different these days: Suddenly everyone is obsessed with eyeballs, page views, “stickiness,” “click-through rates,” and so on. No one shouts “Stop the presses!” anymore, but they do whimper “Why aren’t I on the home page?” The noble product that we manufacture and distribute throughout the metropolis — the physical thing so carefully designed, folded and bagged — is now generally referred to in our business as the “dead-tree edition.” It gets little respect.

And indeed, so often the print version of the news is Old on Arrival. (By the time Karl Rove’s resignation made the front page last Tuesday, the only people who didn’t already know about it were the ones who didn’t care anyway.) The motto in the corner should be What Happened Yesterday or Maybe the Day Before.

Our future is on the Web. This is the mantra in newsrooms. And the Web lets us discover how many readers each article attracts. The data can be scrutinized in real time, moment to moment. Inevitably, this is going to change the way we do business — excuse me, I mean the way we do journalism.

Interesting isn’t it, how the author feels the future of news delivery is on the web. I for one agree and believe we will continue to see actual subscriptions for major publications decline. With the 24/7 news cycle on cable television, talk radio, and the many on line avenues available for readers to secure their information, many are no longer finding the need for that paper to be delivered to their doorstep.

If you have a few minutes on a lazy Sunday morning, this is a read you might enjoy.

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I read this story and it tickles the heck out of me. Amazing.

CRAWFORD, Texas – President Bush, who was criticized for a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, took a pre-emptive strike Saturday against Hurricane Dean blowing through the Caribbean and threatening the Texas coast.

Bush, who received two hurricane briefings at his ranch, signed a pre-landfall disaster declaration, allowing the federal government to move in people, equipment and supplies immediately in case Hurricane Dean hits the state.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that after Katrina, the federal government began reaching out to states facing a disaster and suggesting they request the declaration sooner rather than later. Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked FEMA for the declaration late Saturday morning and Bush approved it hours later.

“We are working closely with the state of Texas to address the special-needs populations along the south Texas border, which is the current, projected path of the storm,” Johndroe said.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison have been in radio contact with Perry and Texas state officials to make sure the federal government is supplying needed support, he said.

Dean, which forecasters said could threaten the United States by Wednesday, moved through the Caribbean with wind speeds up to 150 mph. It was expected to steer next week into the Gulf of Mexico, with its 4,000 oil and gas platforms. Perry has initiated full-scale preparations. Fuel trucks were dispatched to coastal communities, storm-response task forces were put on alert and supply trucks and other resources were pre-positioned along evacuation routes.

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This just isn’t right. Thank you my fellow dems. for screwing me again.

Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.
Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation.

They also emphasized that there would be strict rules in place to minimize the extent to which Americans would be caught up in the surveillance.

The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.

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If this is true and I don’t know if it is, someone should at least go to jail for breaking the law,Hatch act.

WASHINGTON – Top Commerce and Treasury department officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.

Political appointees in the Treasury Department received at least 10 political briefings from July 2001 to August 2006, officials familiar with the meetings said. Their counterparts at the Commerce Department received at least four briefings – all in the election years of 2002, 2004 and 2006.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating whether the White House’s political briefings to at least 15 agencies, including to the Justice Department, the General Services Administration and the State Department, violated a ban on the use of government resources for campaign activities.

Under the Hatch Act, Cabinet members are permitted to attend political briefings and appear with members of Congress. But Cabinet members and other political appointees aren’t permitted to spend taxpayer money with the aim of benefiting candidates.

During the briefings at Treasury and Commerce, then-Bush administration political director Ken Mehlman and other White House aides detailed competitive congressional districts, battleground election states and key media markets and outlined GOP strategy for getting out the vote.

Commerce and Treasury political appointees later made numerous public appearances and grant announcements that often correlated with GOP interests, according to a review of the events by McClatchy Newspapers. The pattern raises the possibility that the events were arranged with the White House’s political guidance in mind.

The briefings are part of the legacy of White House political adviser Karl Rove, who announced this week that he is stepping down at the end of the month to spend more time with his family. Despite Rove’s departure, investigations into the briefings are expected to continue.

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I am still not at liberty to give you the details for the Anchoress having to go to the ER except to tell you she had more kidney stones and an infection from it.

She’s slowly on the mend now and I wish to thank everyone who took the time to pray for her, as she would for you.

She says she felt the prayers and I’m sure she did. She contacted Captain Ed, me and her brother Thom because she describes us as prayer warriors. I am humbled by that description, and will admit I got my circle of prayer warriors involved in praying for her too.

Again, thank you for praying for her, keep praying and praise God she is on the mend.

I consider the Anchoress to be one of my best friends and she has never been anything but kind to me.

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On the night of June 30 some of our soldiers were on patrol in Ramadi. Some of them had never experienced combat and didn’t expect to that night, but they ran upon some Al Qaeda in the midst of planning a major offensive.

This Washington Post story explains what happened.

Yes, there were American dead that night, and yes, there were Al Qaeda dead that night, along with some civilians who were killed in their tents while sleeping.

I think the following sums it up pretty well. Please read the rest to see what happened that night.

In the end, the battle of Donkey Island left 11 U.S. troops wounded and two dead, while an estimated 32 insurgents were killed. The heavy fighting between the Americans and the al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents had deep repercussions across Ramadi.

Iraqi police officers close to Buchan “lost it” when they heard of his death, Rosa said.

“I love Sergeant Buchan. When he died, all of the police cried,” Col. Jabbar Hamid Ajaj said in his Ramadi office, plastered with posters he had made featuring Buchan.

At his mansion near the main U.S. base in Ramadi, Sattar, the tribal leader, was alarmed to learn that he had been the insurgents’ prime target but took comfort in the U.S. tank stationed outside his home.

“If al-Qaeda gets away from the Awakening, they won’t get away from the American forces,” Sattar said. “We are allies,” he added as he shared a tiny cup of bitter coffee with Lt. Col. Miciotto Johnson, commander of the 1-77. “I defend Col. Johnson, and Col. Johnson defends me.”

U.S. commanders said the battle was a major defeat for al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgents, showing how hard it is for them to operate in Anbar, where they face an increased U.S. troop presence and rejection by the Sunni population.

“Al-Qaeda is on its back foot,” said Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. “They have largely lost Anbar province.”

But U.S. officers in Ramadi say it is only a matter of time before al-Qaeda in Iraq strikes again.

“We’re still expecting attacks similar to this one,” said Maj. Andrew Wortham, the 1st Brigade Combat Team’s intelligence officer in Ramadi.

Soldiers who fought in the battle say they feel extremely lucky to have happened upon the insurgents — and to have survived. They’re concerned that if U.S. forces leave, the insurgents will return and easily kill local police and officials. “I worry about pulling out of this area early. If we do, these guys are dead meat,” Lauer said.

Spannagel, the scout leader, said the fighting revealed “a false sense of security that we’d won the battle in Ramadi.”

In fact, he said, “this shows the enemy is patient. This is his land. He’s got all the time in the world. . . . They’re going to continue to fight in Anbar.”

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