The New Pope...

Looks like his 'intervention' in the election last year was trumped up by the SCLM.

Anyways, Musing's Musings had a great post about it, go check it out.

Or, if you prefer, just go to the US Conference of Catholic Bishop's statement

I hate it when I buy what the media tells me without first doing my own fact checks.

Torture and "National Security"

A high-level Army investigation has cleared four of the five top Army officers overseeing prison policies and operations in Iraq of responsibility for the abuse of detainees there, Congressional and administration officials said Friday.

I listened to the transcripts of the testimony in this trial and it was amazing. They just lined up one CIA officer after another who had been there to order and administer torture and all of them were able to claim secrecy due to "national security" concerns. This is undemocratic a possible. Yet againa a reminder that "national security" has nothing to do with what is best for the people, for whom which the government is here to PROTECT our rights. "National Security" is a meaningless term thrown around by neoconservative government elites while they advance their corporatist agenda. Rulers are here for our benefit, we are not simply here for theirs. The constitution makes that very clear.

Filibuster

Congress is so weak right now. If the Republicans pull off the "nuclear option" and repeal the filibuster, the only power Congressional Democrats will have is to request for the President not to donkey-punk them while he is ass-raping them.

Because the Democrats are acting like an opposition party, as mostof you all know, the Republicans want to eliminate the filibuster so that our democracy can further degernerate into a one party fascist state. They are hiding behind religious freedom to push through judges. See, this is exactly how it works. Pro-corporate, corrupt, cheating, lying, and yes EVIL (I said it) politicians like House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX). They manipulate people of faith, and then spend millions running ads trying to hide behind other people's God. Grrrr... Well,here are some decent links

Video about Republicans attacking religious people

Humorous video about saving the filibuster

Guantanamo Bay

This is a post to mourn for our oppressed brothers and sisters stuck in Guamtanomo Bay. Camp X-ray has two interesting signs on the chain link fence: one about how we are fighting for freedom, and another warning 'No Pictures Allowed'. Hmmm, what does freedom mean at the point we are fighting to destroy what freedom should or actually does mean?
The kind of torture happening down there is the kind 90% of Americans would be abhorred by. That is why we don't get to hear or see any of it. There have been court cases saying that U.S. citizens do not get the protection of the Constituion. In every time of war, our rights have been taken away by powerful elites who want to further their business agenda under the banner of "national security" (a phrase that means absolutely nothing). A peice of paper means absolutely nothing because whoever has the power makes the rules unless we stop them.
One of the biggest story everyday should be that we have torture camps holding people who know have no links to Al-Qaeda but we know releasing them would be terrible because they would tell others what is going on. The news media should run a sotry on this every day.

Ultra-Conservative Pope elected

It really isn't much of a news story when a top church hierarchy elects a conservative. The structure is based on confromity to doctrine and that's how you move up. So the people at the top naturally are the ones that best adhere to doctrine of 1800-200 years ago. Even when 53% of Catholics support women priests, my prediction is that we won't see that soon.

In case you did not already know, the Rule of Law is not objective or perfect, suck it Plato

POLICE PERJURERS

Tue Apr 19, 7:58 PM ET

Op/Ed - Ted Rall

By Ted Rall

Throw Lying Cops Off the Force

Ted Rall Related Links • Ted Rall's Editorial Cartoons

NEW YORK--Cops lie. Not all of them, but so many lie about their arrests, tickets and interactions with the public that it's a miracle anyone still respects the law.

Corrupt cops were around long before Serpico, but the problem appears to be getting worse. After the dust settled from the recent Rampart Division scandal, Los Angeles prosecutors were forced to drop hundreds of charges against innocent people sitting in jail, who'd been convicted of crimes invented from thin air by police officers willing to lie in order to embellish their arrest record. Now courts have found that New York City police, already facing multi-million-dollar lawsuits filed by demonstrators who were held in horrifying "Little Gitmo" conditions at the 2004 Republican National Convention, fabricated charges against nearly all of those they arrested.

The NYPD arrested 1,806 people during the RNC. "Of the 1,670 cases that have run their full coarse," The New York Times reported April 12, "ninety-one percent ended with the charges dismissed or a verdict of not guilty after trial."

Ninety-one percent!

Using a new tactic, protesters hired hundreds of anti-RNC cameramen to videotape their arrests. Their evidence proved that cops trumped up nearly every charge. Some of those arrested, it turns out, were passersby who didn't participate in the protests at all. The videos, reported the Times in its usual understated style, offered "little support [for police] or actually undercut the prosecution of most of the people arrested." After viewing the evidence, Manhattan's district attorney dropped the charges.

The newspaper cited the case of Dennis Kyne, the first RNC arrestee. At Kyne's trial for "inciting a riot and resisting arrest," NYPD officer Matthew Wohl testified that he had been forced to pick up the defendant "while he squirmed and screamed," grabbing "one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."

The videotape, unlike P.O. Wohl, doesn't lie.

The tape "showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints."

The prosecutor "abruptly dropped all charges."

In an Orwellian twist, the authorities even censored their own tapes to delete evidence of police lies. Alexander Dunlop, charged with pushing his bicycle into a line of police officers and resisting arrest, was seen on a police tape before the incident in question and sitting in handcuffs after his arrest. The D.A.'s office erased "parts of the tape that show him calmly approaching the police line, and later submitting to arrest without apparent incident."

Summer's convention demonstrations were one of last year's biggest stories, taking place in the streets of the nation's largest and most densely populated city--not to mention its media capital. If cops are willing to lie about events witnessed by hundreds of people in broad daylight, while the cameras roll, if they're unafraid to file phony charges against white college kids with rich parents who can afford good lawyers, one can easily imagine what they do to minority teenagers on the desolate streets of the slums. Who can blame urban kids for despising the police?

This clean-cut Ivy-educated white columnist has encountered enough instances of cops lying to reasonably conclude that the socially destructive phenomenon is widespread:

· A couple of years ago a Los Angeles police officer cuffed me while citing me for jaywalking--actually, I was in the crosswalk with the green "walk" signal in my favor--then tossed my ID into the gutter. The LAPD internal affairs division repeatedly ignored my complaints about this unprofessional goon.

· A Nevada state trooper, not content to ticket me for the 80 miles per hour I was actually speeding on a desert stretch of U.S. Route 95, wrote me up for a more ambitious but false 100 in a 70 mph zone. I was so incensed at the level of exaggeration that I later flew back from New York to challenge the ticket. I won.

· I'm currently awaiting the outcome of a ticket I was issued for violating New York's law against talking on a cellphone while driving, a rule with which I agree. First, I always use an ear bud--which is legal. And as my phone bill attests, I wasn't even using the phone at the time in question.

Why do so many cops lie? My pet theory is that, in the same way that Bill Clinton's sex scandals encouraged promiscuity among impressionable young people, George W. Bush's contempt for the truth and the law, including granting permission to torture and jail the innocent, set a tone that emboldens law enforcement officers to feel that they can get away with anything.

Whatever the cause, cops who slander the innocent unravel our respect for the uniformed authority figures who are the most public face of our government. Public contempt undermines the tacit consent of the governed, the vague but essential groupthink that perpetuates political legitimacy in any society. Lying cops imply lying leaders; lying leaders imply illegitimate rule.

Amazingly, police departments rarely impose sanctions against cops whose testimony is repeatedly found to be untrue by judges, prosecutors and juries. The prevailing attitude is: do whatever, say whatever, and see what sticks. But this has got to stop. Criminal policemen ought to face treatment at least as harsh as employees of other, less vital, professions who lie to their boss. When a judge or the prosecutor's office throws out a case because the evidence disproves a police officer's account of the incident, a warning should be placed in his file. The second time he bears false witness, he should be fired and ordered to find another, more appropriate job (political consultant, secretary of state, or CFO for a Fortune 500 company).

Gospel of Prosperity = Heresy.

This Gospel of Wealth/Prosperity that sees wealth as a virtue and says don't worry about the poor because God loves the status quo is flat out heresy and nothing more. Don't let wealthy right-wingers take over and control Christianity. The Bible clearly addresses poverty, land, labor, capital, and explotation in powerful and explicit language. The most known verse about the poor is "the poor will always be with you," (Matthew 26.11, Mark14.7) which has been twisted and manipulated into a bankrupt theological justification for vast inequality. What Jesus meant here is to not worry about the woman who was wasting perfume in an act of love by pouring it on Jesus' feet, because if you are a follower of Christ you will always be among the poor helping them, because that was so basic and central to Jesus' message. Only today would someone would interpret that verse so wrong heretical. Jesus is also attacking the purity system (the woman's public praise of Jesus was very taboo), and instead praising her love as part of his Gospel of Compassion. The Old Testament says Be Holy as God is Holy, while Jesus says Be compassionate as God is compassionate (Luke 6.36).

Here are some good verses amoung literally hundreds of why poverty is the biggest moral issue:

--"He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses." Proverbs 28:27
--"Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" Matthew 19:21
--"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." Luke 14:13
--"When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" Luke 18:22
--"Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, 'Here's a good seat for you,' but say to the poor man, 'You stand there' or 'Sit on the floor by my feet,' have you not discriminated among yourselves and becomes judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?" James 2:2-6
--"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:17-18

With actions. Now go read Jeffrey Sachs' new book 'The End of Poverty' because we now have a unique opportunity to fight global poverty. The U.S. needs to devote .5% of its GDP (.6% was devoted under the Marshall plan and about 2/5 of what is needed is devoted now). Demand you representatives to support this new development model that Britain has recently endorsed.


The Good News is so much better than you think...

Don't buy the Propaganda

The Godless Commie Hellhole know as Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than the USA. (185th and 187th, respectively) This isn't according to some random leftist like me, but the CIA World Factbook. Generally rather reputable, it is. I don't care for Castro's politics one whit, but socialized medicare works. Given that Cuba's per capita GDP is about 1/13 of the USA, that it's medical care is about up with the USA, you have to realize something about how forked up Free-Market Medical Care in the United States is. Need a bit more proof, check out this. Nice liberal European democracies, wipe the floor with us in terms of healthcare. Next time you hear some drone whining on and on about the horrors of Canadian Healthcare, remember that they are the ones foolish enough to have an effective Medical system for anyone who isn't uber-rich (the Canadians, not the Drones). What is really sad is how much the very people who would benefit from a more equitable system are the ones who really accept the brainwashing.