State v. Church (Trib-Style)

From today's Tribune-Review:

It's shaping up as the most important church-state battle of our time. And should the state prevail, the Constitution will be pushed further down the slippery slope of becoming a dead letter.

The issue is birth control and whether the federal government can force religious organizations (that, as a matter of doctrine, oppose artificial birth control) to include, with limited exemptions, free contraception and related services in the private health-insurance plans they offer their employees.

For the record, the Tribune-Review is in favor of both birth control and Planned Parenthood. The problem they say is:

The issue is whether the government, in pursuit of a state-determined "greater good," can truncate, if not traduce, constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Simply put, it cannot. But if the government prevails, where does it end?

After setting up a strawman argument, they dance with The Supremes:

Unless the Obama administration rescinds this clearly illegal rule, it should be prepared to be spanked by a Supreme Court that's already affirmed (in its recent "ministerial exemption" ruling) that the church-state line is neither gray nor sloped.

Let's start at that last part first.  The Supreme Court's decision, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, was about

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that federal discrimination laws do not protect church employees who perform religious duties, a major church-state decision that recognizes religious groups’ constitutionally protected right to select their own leaders.

The justices ruled unanimously that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion means that even neutral laws intent on banning workplace discrimination may not be applied to a religious institution choosing “those who will guide it on its way.”

And while Scaife's braintrust says that this HHS decision will be invalidated by the "ministerial exemption" of this Supreme Court decision, the decision itself includes this sentence:

We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct.

So...maybe not.

Anyway, from the HHS statement, we learn that:

Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, it is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.

This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services. The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good. And this final rule will have no impact on the protections that existing conscience laws and regulations give to health care providers.

So the braintrust's use of ironical quotation marks ("greater good" instead of greater good) is actually wrong.  One the one hand there's "significant health benefits for women" and on the other there's an organization that's sheltered pedophiles looking to make it harder for women to access those benefits.

Yea, this is a First Amendment issue.

Senator Toomey Responds

Remember this blogpost from this weekend?

It was the one where Grover Norquist threatened that if the Bush tax cuts aren't extended and if the Ryan Plan for restructuring Medicare wasn't implemented, the GOP would Impeach President Obama.  At the end of it, I asked Senator Toomey (since he'd signed one of Norquist's tax-pledges) whether he'd be in favor of impeachment if those criteria weren't met.

Here's his response (or at least his office's response) via email:

Dear David,

Thank you for contacting me about taxes. I appreciate hearing from you.

Last year, the people of Pennsylvania sent Congress a clear message that the time has come for government to live within its means. Total federal spending has doubled since 2000, while the debt has already doubled in just four years and is expected to triple in eleven years. America cannot sustain its current fiscal path without devastating our economy and crippling future generations with a crushing debt burden.

It is for this reason that I have introduced a ten-year budget plan (S. Con. Res. 21) that would balance the federal budget by making crucial reductions in spending while also simplifying the tax code. As we can both agree, our current tax code is unnecessarily complicated, which is why my budget plan would consolidate the current six income tax brackets to three. By also eliminating special-interest tax benefits and deductions, we can lower America's corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, encourage growth, and incentivize job creation in the private sector. On May 25, 2011, my budget plan was unfortunately defeated by a vote margin of 42-55 in the Senate.

In addition, you may be interested to know that I have supported efforts to eliminate wasteful tax benefits. For instance, in June, I voted in favor of amendments offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would eliminate certain tax breaks for ethanol.

That said, I understand your views on taxes and value the input. Please be assured that I will keep your concerns in mind as I remain committed to advancing common-sense fiscal reform in Washington.

Thank you again for your correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.

I'll leave it up to you as to whether he (or at least his office) answered the question about impeachment.

More On Republicans' Respect For The Constitution

From yesterday's National Journal.  Grover Norquist, good shepherd of our Congress' anti-tax Republicans was asked about two separate scenarios for Congress post-2012.  The first - the GOP controls everything:

I think when we get through this election cycle, we’ll have a Republican majority, [though] not necessarily a strong majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House. The majority in the House will continue to be a Reagan majority, a conservative majority. Boehner never has to talk his delegation going further to the right.

If the Republicans have the House, Senate, and the presidency, I’m told that they could do an early budget vote—a reconciliation vote where you extend the Bush tax cuts out for a decade or five years. You take all of those issues off the table, and then say, “What do you want to do for tax reform?”

Then, the question is: “OK, what do we do about repatriation and all of the interesting stuff?” And, if you have a Republican president to go with a Republican House and Senate, then they pass the [Paul] Ryan plan [on Medicare].

The Ryan Medicare Plan is the one that would, according to the CBO:

Among other changes, the proposal would convert the current Medicare program to a system under which beneficiaries received premium support payments—payments that would be used to help pay the premiums for a private health insurance policy and would grow over time with overall consumer prices.

And:

Federal payments for Medicaid under the proposal would be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts. States would have additional flexibility to design and manage their Medicaid programs, and they might achieve greater efficiencies in the delivery of care than under current law. Even with additional flexibility, however, the large projected reduction in payments would probably require states to decrease payments to Medicaid providers, reduce eligibility for Medicaid, provide less extensive coverage to beneficiaries, or pay more themselves than would be the case under current law.

And finally:

Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.

So of course Norquist's anti-tax team is just chomping at the bit to vote for it.

But I fear we're getting somewhat off topic.  What was that OTHER scenario Norquist was asked about - the one where the Democrats "still have control"?

Ah...let's take a look:

Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.

There's Norquist's choice; extend the Bush tax cuts and shred Medicare OR Impeach Barack Obama.

Article 2 Section 4 of the Constitution says:

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

So what's the charge?  Is it treason for allowing a tax cut to expire?  For not favoring a wholesale dismantling of Medicare?  Or are those merely "high Crimes and Misdemeanors"?

Can someone explain it to me?

Senator Toomey?  You're one of my two Senators here in Pennsylvania and  you signed a Norquist anti-tax pledge.  Would YOU be in favor of impeaching President Obama if the Bush tax cuts expire?  Or if Representative Ryan's plan isn't implemented?

More On Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth

An astute reader drew my attention this morning to some recently introduced business of super-duper-uber imporance to the Commonwealth, a Resolution declaring 2012 as the "Year of the Bible" in Pennsylvania.

This hypocritical and unconstitutional resolution is from the legislative desk of State Representative Rick Saccone (R-Elizabeth).  Who's a very interesting fellow, indeed.

More On Rick Santorum's Birther Flirtations

In case you missed it, here's Lil Ricky at a recent event in Florida:



The woman's voice in the clip says a number of things, among them:

I never refer to Obama as President Obama, because, legally, he is not.

And:

And my question is: why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.

Two obvious birther references.  Neither of which Rick refutes.

Obama Admin: Immunity for Torturers, Prosecution for Torture Whistleblowers

As I've written elsewhere, my profoundest disappointment with the Obama Administration revolves around its refusal to prosecute the war crimes of the Bush Administration.

Two days after his inauguration, the President signed Executive Order 13491 - ordering the US back into compliance with US and International Law regarding the use of torture - and that's a good thing, of course.

Torture is bad.  Torture is illegal.  The torture should be prosecuted.

But the Obama administration isn't prosecuting the torturers.

Instead:

The Justice Department on Monday charged a former Central Intelligence Agency officer with disclosing classified information to journalists about the capture and brutal interrogation of a suspected member of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah — adding another chapter to the Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks.

In a criminal complaint filed on Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused John Kiriakou, the former C.I.A. officer, of disclosing the identity of a C.I.A. analyst who worked on a 2002 operation that located and interrogated Abu Zubaydah. The journalists included a New York Times reporter, it alleged.

“Safeguarding classified information, including the identities of C.I.A. officers involved in sensitive operations, is critical to keeping our intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in a statement.

Now, don't get me wrong. Leaking the name of a CIA operative is a very serious charge - one that should be investigated and, if necessary prosecuted.

Although I doubt my Bush Administration admiring friends would agree completely with that last bit (cough Valerie Plame cough).

But letting the CIA (current or retired) torturers go unpunished while prosecuting a retired CIA officer for bringing the story to the public?

How does that mesh with claiming the "moral high ground" for reiterating that torture is illegal?

It simply doesn't.

The Trib, ACORN and Reality

Yawn.  The Trib's up in arms about ACORN.  Again.  And they're spinning reality so madly that one fears for their sanity.  Again.

Specifically I want you to look at the end of the second paragraph:

Corrupt ACORN affiliate Project Vote -- former employer of President Obama -- is pulling Justice Department and White House strings to register more voters on public assistance, documents newly obtained by Judicial Watch show.

It's happening despite voter-registration fraud convictions of at least 70 ACORN/Project Vote employees in 12 states since 2006. And even though more than a third of the 1.3 million registrations ACORN/Project Vote submitted during the 2008 election cycle proved invalid, according to a 2009 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report.

Are you sitting down? The spin involved in that last sentence will simply amaze.

Fairness 4 WTAE: Real Life & Virtual Rallies on Thursday

Perhaps you've heard -- there's something ugly going on at Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV. Way back in July of 2010 the on-air staff at WTAE voted to be represented by the AFTRA union. But all this time later, they are still without a contract. In the meantime, according to the Fairness 4 WTAE Facebook page, staff have had long-scheduled, pre-approved vacations denied at the last minute; have had to work two weeks straight without a day off; have been threatened with losing company pensions and retirement benefits for supporting the union -- basically, everything out of the union-busting playbook.

What can you do to help?

1) Add your name to the petition to tell Hearst to "play fair in Pittsburgh." (Hearst already bargins fairly in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Boston, New Orleans, and Omaha -- why not Pittsburgh?)

2) Like their Facebook page here.

3) Attend the Community Labor Support Rally this Thursday:

WHEN: Thursday January 26, 11 a.m.
WHERE: St James Church (marching to WTAE), 718 Franklin Ave, Wilkinsburg, PA
WHAT: Rally to present deliver nearly 2,000 postcards and petition signatures from viewers. Delivered by a delegation including Allegheny County Labor Council President Jack Shea; State Senator Jim Ferlo; State Rep, Joe Preston; Joyce Rothermel, from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (retired): Fr. Jack O’Malley; Marty O’Malley, Mayor of Forest Hills; Fred Redmond, VP of United Steelworkers; and Rev. John Welch from PA Interfaith Impact Network.

or

4) Attend the Virtual Rally for Fairness for WTAE

WHEN: Thursday, from 11am to 1pm.
WHAT: -Call the Station: 412-242-4300. Tell the receptionist you wish to speak with General Manager Mike Hayes. If not available, ask for voice mail. Give your name and phone number and tell him you support Fairness for WTAE On-air Staff.
And/or
-Email the Station: Go to Station Website, www.wtae.com, at the bottom of the home page, under “Station”, choose “Contact Us”. Under “Contact Us”, choose “News Feedback”, then fill out your name and email and write the message: I support Fairness for WTAE On-air Staff.”

Do it for Bob! Do it for Wendy! Do it for Kelly! Do it for Jim! Do it for Demetrius!

Do it for Fairness!

Full Text of President Obama's State of the Union Address

Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery
State of the Union Address
“An America Built to Last”
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
Washington, DC

As Prepared for Delivery –

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought – and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

Why?!?

"Paterno honored with Pa. flags at half-staff"

Rick Santorum and Rape (Again)

When I was younger (so much younger than today), living in Southern Connecticut in the early days of cable TV there, we were able to watch the local evening news from New York City along with the local evening news from New Haven or Hartford.

I got to Roger Grimsby and Bill Buetel do the "Eyewitness" news on Channel 7.  For a while, their weather guy was a man named "Tex" Antoine.  I don't recall much about Antoine nor do I recall seeing his last broadcast but I take it he was a bit of a character and that his last broadcast went something like this:

The colorful Antoine was with WABC for a decade. A diabetic and creature of habit, Antoine would go to the same German restaurant every night.

Primo says his weatherman would have a glass of wine during the dinner break prior to the 11 p.m. newscast. Occasionally, someone would buy him an additional glass.

The diabetes caused his sugar levels to rise, which led Antoine to slur his words on the air “every once in a while.”

Finally, Primo scared him straight, bringing Antoine into his office and making him watch one of those slurred weather reports.

An issue of larger magnitude happened in November 1976, when his weather segment followed a horrific rape story of a young girl.

Antoine infamously said, “With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: ‘If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.’”

“[It] was just too much,” Primo admits. “Between those couple of instances and that, we had to let him go.”

Ha.  Funny.  A 5 year old girl should recognize the inevitability of her rape and just "lie back and enjoy it."

Make the best of a horrible situation, in other words.  Which brings me to Rick Santorum.  Recently on CNN he was asked about rape and abortion:

MORGAN: But do you really -- do you really -- let me ask you this. Do you really believe, in every case, it should be totally wrong, in the sense that -- I know that you believe, even in cases of rape and incest -- and you've got two daughters. You know, if you have a daughter that came to you who had been raped.

SANTORUM: Yes.

MORGAN: And was pregnant and was begging you to let her have an abortion, would you really be able to look her in the eye and say, no, as her father?

SANTORUM: I would do what every father must do, is to try to counsel your daughter to do the right thing.

(CROSSTALK)

MORGAN: It's an almost impossibly hypothetical thing to ask you, but there will be people in that position, and they will share your religious values.

SANTORUM: It's not a matter of religious values.

MORGAN: And they are looking at their daughter ,saying, how can I deal with this, because if I make her have this baby, isn't it going to just ruin her life?

SANTORUM: Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn't have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn't, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created -- in the sense of rape -- but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.

As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can't think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

Let me just say that on top of everything else, Rick's wrong in saying that it's not a matter of religious values. Once he asserts that a rape victim "accept what God has given" to her, he's making it about religion.  What if she's not religious?  What if she is, but she's not a theist?  What if she is but she's not a theist within the so-called "Judeo-Christian" tradition?  Why should she be forced to make a decision according to Rick Santorum's faith and not her own?

See?  It is about religious values.

But let's put all that aside and think about what Rick's saying - that his God would allow such a horrible situation to occur in the first place in order for one more baby to be born.  Given all His omnipotence, you'd think He'd have come up with a better way of procreation than allowing all that damage to all those women.

But what do I know?  I'm an agnostic.  I don't believe any of that.

Rape:  Just sit back and enjoy it.
Rape:  Just make the best out of a difficult situation.

Yea, right.

Voter Fraud! Or Maybe Not

Loyal wingnuts that they are, the Tribune-Review's editorial board warns us, yet again, about the rampant voter fraud:

Among the Obama administration's re-election cheerleaders, none is more duplicitous than Attorney General Eric Holder, whose sis-boom-ba on "voter rights" is sorely out of sync with factual accounts of fraud.

Last month the Justice Department blocked a South Carolina photo-identification law, insisting it makes voting more difficult for minorities. At a rally in Columbia, S.C., last week, Mr. Holder said defending that cause is "a moral imperative," The Washington Post reported.

But Holder's presumptuous intervention in South Carolina backfired. In response, that state's attorney general, Alan Wilson, did some digging and found that at least 900 dead people voted in South Carolina's 2010 election, writes Peter Hannaford for The American Spectator. Mr. Wilson is going to court to restore the law.

Here's Hannaford's piece - and it's interesting to note the unquestioned frames: It's voter fraud and if it's voter fraud, then it's voter fraud in favor of the Democrats.

Too bad the data isn't so clear cut.

Salena Zito and The Dixiecrats

Let's start, without comment, with something the Salena Zito of the Tribune-Review wrote.  Give her the first word, as it were, and then fill in the blanks:

Grantham, 47, reflects the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948 during a convention battle between civil-righters and Dixiecrat states'-righters. The Republican Party really didn't capitalize on that until 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower won some Southern states.

Richard Nixon developed the strategy of competing in the Deep South -- then, typically barren land for Republicans. While his results were mixed, his brilliant move marked the start of the South turning on Democrats.

Now, let's take a look at the Dixiecrat's party platform in 1948 - if only to see just what flavor of "states'-rights" it was.  There certainly won't be much controversy with how the platform begins:

- 1 -

We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest charter of human liberty ever conceived by the mind of man.

- 2 -

We oppose all efforts to invade or destroy the rights guaranteed by it to every citizen of this republic.

- 3 -

We stand for social and economic justice, which, we believe can be guaranteed to all citizens only by a strict adherence to our Constitution and the avoidance of any invasion or destruction of the constitutional rights of the states and individuals. We oppose the totallitaran, centralized bureaucratic government and the police nation called for by the platforms adopted by the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

Ok, maybe that last paragraph has a bit more of an edge to it than we're used to seeing, but on the other hand, who would have been in favor of a "totalitarian, centralized bureaucratic government" then? Or now, for that matter?  I think that's what you'd call a "straw man" argument.

It's in the next three sections where the Dixiecrat reality becomes strikingly obvious:

- 4 -

We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to learn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.

- 5 -

We oppose and condemn the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation, social equality by Federal fiatt, regulations of private employment practices, voting, and local law enforcement.

- 6 -

We affirm that the effective enforcement of such a program would be utterly destructive of the social, economic and political life of the Southern people, and of other localities in which there may be differences in race, creed or national orgin in appreciable numbers.

This is what Salena Zito boiled down into the simple and yet oh so misleading phrase "states'-righters."  Take a look again at what those Dixiecrats were against:

• Desegregation
• Interracial marriage
• Race-neutral employment and voting opportunities

In short, basic civil rights for African-Americans.  That's the tradition of "the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948" to the Republican Party.  And this isn't me saying it, it's an expert Zito herself quotes:

"As a new generation developed, the people who were conservative Democrats and Dixiecrats mostly became Republicans," explained Bert Rockman, Purdue University political science professor.

It wasn't until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the South turned solidly against the Democratic Party - at a moment, as we're told:

When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he told aide Bill Moyers that Democrats would face a backlash from the white Southerners who had been part of the Democratic coalition Franklin Roosevelt forged. "We have lost the South for a generation," he warned.

Now go back to what Zito wrote, think about all that you read above.  Who left the Democratic Party?  And where did they go?  Now imagine what Zito wanted you to think.

Now ask yourself: How different are those two ideas?

Song of the Day

Obama Plays the Apollo

Mitt Romney: Man of the People!

Mitt Romeny is a true "Man of the People." He has not only feared getting a pink slip, he's actually unemployed! Mitt knows that people are people and corporations are people too and that when people get you miffed it's A-OK to enjoy firing them. He's had to admit publicly that his earnings are not very much". In fact, the man is so in need, he only had to pay a 15% tax rate. And, like most hard working Americans, when faced with economic challenges he did the only thing a true American could do: he parked his earnings in the Cayman Islands.

Admit it, folks -- Mitt's just like you and me!


UPDATE: Mitt doubles down! He know that "America's right and you're wrong" and he's the only candidate who's lived on the "real streets of America."

More Anti-Science At The Tribune-Review

From today's Thursday Takes:

The National Center for Science Education says it has begun an effort to defend the teaching of man-made climate change in America's schools. Should any school district allow such blatant propaganda to be introduced into its curriculum -- without balancing it with the ample credible scientific evidence to the contrary -- those responsible should be fired.

On the one hand, Scaife's braintrust is absolutely right. Anyone caught teaching blatant propaganda as science should be fired.

The main problem here is that the Trib, yet again, is on the wrong side of the science.

SOPA and PIPA

If you try to search Wikipedia today, you'll get this:

The text reads:

Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

And that "learn more" link leads to a FAQ of sorts that offers Wikipedia's explanation of the legislation:

SOPA and PIPA represent two bills in the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate respectively. SOPA is short for the "Stop Online Piracy Act," and PIPA is an acronym for the "Protect IP Act." ("IP" stands for "intellectual property.") In short, these bills are efforts to stop copyright infringement committed by foreign web sites, but, in our opinion, they do so in a way that actually infringes free expression while harming the Internet. Detailed information about these bills can be found in the Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act articles on Wikipedia, which are available during the blackout. GovTrack lets you follow both bills through the legislative process: SOPA on this page, and PIPA on this one. The EFF has summarized why these bills are simply unacceptable in a world that values an open, secure, and free Internet.

You can also, if you're so inclined, track the legislation via the Library of Congress:

• SOPA
• PIPA

As a general principle, I'd say that censorship is a bad thing.  Censorship to protect profit, even worse.

Another Reason Torture's Immoral

I start today with the P-G's Tony Norman:

Last week, video footage of four U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of three dead Taliban fighters went viral. With the exception of a handful of morally dead ideologues on the right, the reaction to the video was one of revulsion at home and fury abroad.

As Americans, we were reminded that just because we choose not to pay attention to the war in Afghanistan, we share moral complicity for wars fought in our name. The callousness of the four Marines wasn't unprecedented. Relative to the toll on civilian lives in three countries because of American drone attacks, public urination on enemy corpses pales in comparison as a war crime.

In a widely read essay in The Washington Post, war correspondent Sebastian Junger astutely pointed out that a "19-year-old Marine has a very hard time reconciling the fact that it's OK to waterboard a live Taliban fighter but not OK to urinate on a dead one."

While Tony spends more time pointing out this nation's faith-based hypocrisy:

It is a sign of how decadent much of American Christianity has become: A candidate who enthusiastically condones assassination is the same man who 150 "Christian" leaders have decided best exemplifies the Christian values they want to see at work in the White House. Where does Jesus Christ fit in this scenario?

Sebastian Junger, in that essay Tony referenced, touches more on the sociological impacts of two administrations accommodation of torture:

When the war on terror started, the Marines in that video were probably 9 or 10 years old. As children they heard adults — and political leaders — talk about our enemies in the most inhuman terms. The Internet and the news media are filled with self-important men and women referring to our enemies as animals that deserve little legal or moral consideration. We have sent enemy fighters to countries like Syria and Libya to be tortured by the very regimes that we have recently condemned for engaging in war crimes and torture. They have been tortured into confessing their crimes and then locked up indefinitely without trial because their confessions — achieved through torture — will not stand up in court.

For the past 10 years, American children have absorbed these moral contradictions, and now they are fighting our wars. The video doesn’t surprise me, but it makes me incredibly sad — not just for them, but also for us. We may prosecute these men for desecrating the dead while maintaining that it is okay to torture the living.

From The Geneva Conventions, Chapter 2 Article 15 on the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field:

At all times, and particularly after an engagement, Parties to the conflict shall, without delay, take all possible measures to search for and collect the wounded and sick, to protect them against pillage and ill-treatment, to ensure their adequate care, and to search for the dead and prevent their being despoiled.

I'd say pissing on some dead enemy combatants certainly qualifies as "despoiled."

Legality aside (as if that's possible here) I want to emphasize another downside of allowing the Bush-endorsed waterboarding to go unpunished or even unprosecuted (as the Obama Administration is doing): it desensitizes us to all other "paler" war crimes.  War crimes done in our name.  Some with our grudging acquiescence.

To feel like we're protecting our safety, we despoil ourselves.

No longer the city on the hill.  No longer on the high moral ground.  Look at us.  Look at what they make you give.

Of Course The Trib's Politics NEVER Skews It's Reporting!

Never?  Well, hardly ever.

Take a look at this short blurb from today's Tribune-Review:

Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania are receiving a $3.5 million federal grant to collaborate on transportation research for the U.S. Department of Transportation, school officials said.

The grant will establish CMU and Penn as a University Transportation Center, with its research focusing on identifying ways that technology can improve transportation safety and efficiency. Most of the work will be done on CMU's Oakland campus, school officials said.

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, said CMU, as one of the nation's leading computer science and engineering schools, was "an obvious choice for research on ways to use computers linked to sensors to improve transportation safety, identify infrastructure that needs repairs and reduce congestion."

Looks rather mundane, doesn't it?  No loose ends to the story, right?  Until you Google Doyle's remarks.  Once you do that, you'll see what the news division of the Tribune-Review did.

They left out (omitted, expurgated, skipped over, voided) Congressman Jason Altmire.

VOTERFRAUDVOTERFRAUD!! VOTER FRAUD!

So voter fraud does exist!

James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas proved it.

By committing it.