Did someone ask for a plumber?

Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, better known as "Joe the Plumber,"

had his fifteen minutes of fame during the 2008 election and was widely expected (we hoped) to disappear when the candidate who brought him into the spotlight lost.

BUT he's still a star in conservative circles -- and still saying some odd, hostile things. At an event Thursday for the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (one of the lead organizations behind the Tax Day Tea Parties), Wurzelbacher suggested Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) should be lynched.

Wurzelbacher has a reputation for being a blunt, politically incorrect speaker. Referring to Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., more than once, Wurzelbacher asked, "Why hasn't he been strung up?"

Wurzelbacher appeared at a Tea Party in Michigan on April 15, where he claimed that he and other protesters were wrong labeled as extremists.

"I'm here for one reason and one reason only: It's 'I love America,'" Wurzelbacher told the crowd. "Mainstream media wants to paint us as a bunch of extremists, right? We're in search of liberty and our freedoms. What's so extreme about that?" [...]

"Let me give you another extremist view, 'In God We Trust,'" he said to wild applause. "Say that too loud in some parts of America and you will be shot. It's terrible." "'In God We Trust' ... too loud in some parts of America and you will be shot."

I'm sorry it's usually not those of us that approve of separation of church and state that tend to be "packing heat" or SHOOTING PEOPLE.

What a day. RIP Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson 8. 29. 1958 – 6. 25. 2009

Tsk

Read it and weep

It's in South Carolina's Code of Laws, Title 16--Crimes and Offenses, Chapter 15 "Offenses Against Morality and Decency"

SECTION 16-15-60. Adultery or fornication.

Any man or woman who shall be guilty of the crime of adultery or fornication shall be liable to indictment and, on conviction, shall be severally punished by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than five hundred dollars or imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than one year or by both fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the court.

SECTION 16-15-70. "Adultery" defined.

"Adultery" is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman when either is lawfully married to some other person.

(thanks for the definition - we need to be clear)

from Daily Kos

Letter to Robert Byrd

The following is a letter from Bo Webb, of Peachtree, West Virginia, to Sen. Robert Byrd. Mr. Webb is a Vietnam veteran who now lives below a mountaintop removal coal mine, which uses huge explosives to blast away the tops of mountains.

Dear Sen. Byrd,

I write you today as a grandfather, and as a deep admirer of your inimitable contribution to our beloved state of West Virginia. As the son of a coal miner, I will always value your work to ensure economic investment and proper safety in our coalfields.

Soon, as you know, as the colorful peepers of red bush and wake robins pull from the clinch of winter, I will take my granddaughter's hand and roam our Clay Branch hollows in search of ramps. This has been a 150-year tradition in my family in the Coal River mountain range, as I am sure it was for your family along Wolf Creek.

This year, though, instead of that pungent smell of wild ramps and the blossoms of spring, my granddaughter will be exposed to the sickening haze of ammonium nitrate and diesel oil, and the after shower of silica dust that blankets our hollow like a plague. Our ancestral mountain in the Peachtree community is being destroyed for a mountaintop removal operation.

In your wonderful book last year, Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader, you wrote that we should never turn our backs on the lessons of our coal-mining fathers. My father, like others in my family, first started working in the mines at age 11. But it is the grave of my Uncle Clyde Williams, who died in the mine at Leevale here on Coal River Mountain at age 17, that also hovers in my mind as I walk these hills, gather herbs and berries, and hunt and fish with my grandchildren.

I want my children and grandchildren to have the right to dream and flourish as great contributors to our state in West Virginia. I don't want them to feel compelled to leave our state to look for employment or to realize their dreams. I want them to know that the rule of law protects them, their families and our mountains.

You, more than any other person in our state, understand this. When you went to Washington, D.C., for the first time to represent West Virginia, more than 130,000 union coal miners proudly toted their lunch pails and went to their jobs in the underground mines in our state. And you, as our voice in Washington, proudly made sure their safety and security were priorities to the rest of the country.

Today, only 20,000 West Virginia coal miners make up those ranks.

In many respects, strip mining and mountaintop removal operations have robbed my generation and my children of a chance to maintain our great Appalachian heritage, our beloved mountains and vibrant streams, and above all, any diverse economic development in our community.

In responding to the recent EPA decision to scrutinize mountaintop removal permits more closely last week, you wrote: "Every job in West Virginia matters. Everyone involved must act swiftly in concert and cooperation to remedy any problems that threaten coal jobs and the people who live in the local communities where coal is mined."

Sen. Byrd, as a grandfather, I write to you: If our grandchildren are going to have any jobs and future at all in West Virginia, we must get beyond the stranglehold of mountaintop removal coal operations and find a way to bring new jobs and life to our mountain communities.

This could be your greatest legacy, among many, Sen. Byrd. Your public role in co-sponsoring the Appalachian Mountain Restoration Act (S.696) to defend the health and safety of our communities and putting an end to mountaintop removal and its destruction of our local economies, would place our state back on track for responsible mining, more coal mining employment, and a step toward a diversified economy that includes loans and investment in manufacturing of renewable energy products, such as wind turbine and solar panels, and high-technology operations.

In your powerful Letter to a New President, you wrote: "What determines the quality of American democracy is the use we make of our power. We have institutions in place to help this country avoid the misuse of our power. Those institutions are Congress, the courts and public opinion. The more we cut off true debate and the exchange of ideas, and let those in power use emotion, misdirection and the manipulation of truth to whip the nation into action, the more likely we are to make dangerous mistakes in how we use our power. A representative democracy only works when the people are involved. We need them."

We need you now more than ever, Sen. Byrd, to bring new jobs, and restore a new sense of democracy to the coalfields of West Virginia.

as seen on the internets

is there any control at all over who gets to speak for the conservatives in this country ?

























I think it is who ever is holding The Conch.

Update

The novelist Paulo Coelho has just posted on his blog that the doctor who tried to save Neda Agha Soltan is his best friend, “who showed me [Iran's] beautiful culture when I visited Teheran in 2000, who fought a war in the name of the Islamic Republic (against Iraq), who took care of wounded soldiers in the frontline, who always stood by real human values”.

Drawn from this profile and from correspondents:

On Saturday, a woman was watching demonstrations on Karegar Avenue in Tehran when she was shot in the chest by a paramilitary Basiji. A 40-second video captured the killing; within hours, “Neda” became an icon — witting or unwitting — for the political movement in Iran.

Yesterday, the person behind the image emerged. She was Neda Agha Soltan, a philosophy student who was standing beside her professor (initial sources said her father).

Neda Agha Soltan was buried on Sunday. Her memorial service was scheduled for late afternoon in a mosque but was cancelled on orders from Iranian authorities.

Neda, "The voice"

A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face — swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.

An email explaining the incident:

"At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart.

I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

Neda Agha Soltan was born 1982 , She was studying Philosophy in university

Neda's death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.)

The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces — and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.

The same cycle has already become an undercurrent in Iran's current crisis. The largest demonstration, on Thursday of last week, was called by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to commemorate the deaths of protesters three days after they were killed.

Shiite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for "Neda" and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th day events are usually the largest and most important.

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. (See the Top Ten Players in Iran's Power Struggle.)

The belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shiite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It too helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when over 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a Martyrs' Museum or a Martyrs' cemetery.

The first Shiite martyr was Hussein, the prophet Mohammed's grandson. He believed it was better to die fighting injustice than to live with injustice under what he believed was illegitimate rule.

In the seventh century, Hussein and a band of fewer than 100 people, including women and children, took on the mighty Umayyad dynasty in Karbala, an ancient city in Mesopotamia now in modern-day Iraq. They knew they would be massacred.

Fourteen centuries later, Hussein's tomb in Karbala is one of the two holiest Shiite shrines — and millions of Iranians still make pilgrimages there every year. Just as Christians reenact Jesus' procession bearing the cross past the fourteen stops to Calvary before his crucifixion, so too do Shiites every year reenact Hussein's martyrdom in an Islamic passion play during the holy period of Ashura.

Because of Hussein, revolt against tyranny became part of Shiite tradition. Indeed, protest and martyrdom are widely considered duties to God. And nowhere is the practice more honored than in Iran, the world's largest Shiite country.

The revolutionaries exploited the deep passion about martyrdom as well as the timetable of Shiite mourning in whipping up greater opposition to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. With the deaths of "Neda" and others, they may now find the same phenomena used against them.

Still a "House of War"

In a historic vote, only 30 of 256 Democrats stood against $100 billion for more war.


Urging their colleagues to oppose funding the war and the International Monetary Fund, Dennis Kucinich and California's Bob Filner sent a Dear Colleague letter, which stated:
"The IMF has a long history of placing economic conditions on countries receiving loans that have actually damaged, rather than stimulated, those economies, and its policies have not changed enough to warrant support." They charged that the IMF funding "would be used to bail out private European banks with U.S. taxpayer money." In addition to the military and IMF funding, the bill also provides $10.4 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and $7.7 billion for "Pandemic Flu Response."

Under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Democratic-controlled Congress has been a house of war. Unfortunately, it is not a house where the war is one of noble Democrats fighting for peace, freedom and democracy against the evil, belligerent Republicans as they advocate and implement policies of preemptive war, torture and the violation of civil liberties. Instead, it is a house void of substantive opposition to the ever-expanding war begun under Bush and escalating under Obama.

Tuesday's vote was another one of those moments in Congress where heroes are made, like the day when Sen. Russ Feingold stood alone as the sole Senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act. To paraphrase Bush, it was one of those days when we truly discover who is for war and who is against it.

Below are the Democrats who stood against Obama's expanding war the day their votes mattered (See where your Representative stood here):

Tammy Baldwin, Michael Capuano, John Conyers, Lloyd Doggett, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, Michael Honda, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Eric Massa, Jim McGovern, Michael Michaud, Donald Payne, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, Jose Serrano, Carol Shea-Porter, Jackie Speier, John Tierney, Nikki Tsongas, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, Peter Welch, and Lynn Woolsey.

"New York Democrat Anthony Weiner, who voted against the war funding in May—when it didn’t matter—only to vote Tuesday with the pro-war Dems, sounded like an imbecile when he made this statement after the vote: “We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support.”

What planet is Weiner living on? “Wrapping up the wars?” Last time I checked, there are 21,000 more US troops heading to Afghanistan alongside a surge in contractors there, including a 29% increase in armed contractors. Does Weiner think the $106 billion in war funding he voted for is going to pay for one way tickets home for the troops? What he voted for was certainly not the “Demolition of the 80 Football-field-size US Embassy in Baghdad Act of 2009.” To cap off this idiocy, Weiner basically admitted he is a fraud when he said the bill he voted in favor of “still sucks.”" - Sean McBride

Respect

“I use this chance to honor the emotions of the nation of Iran and remind them that Iran, this sacred being, belongs to them and not to the fraudulent.” ~ Mir Hossein Mousavi

I think the people of Iran could teach us

a thing or two about courage...

Y'all must be very proud

State GOP staffer sends racist image of Obama.

Over the weekend, a GOP official in South Carolina TREY WALKER, an advisor to S.C. Attorney General HENRY McMASTER, posted an innocuous Facebook update about this morning’s escape of a Western Lowlands Gorilla from Columbia’s Riverbanks Zoo.

Walker’s update, however was followed by a highly-questionable comment from longtime SCGOP activist and former State Senate candidate, RUSTY DePASS.

“I’m sure it’s just one of Michelle’s ancestors — probably harmless,” RUSTY DePASS wrote.

(this moron suddenly believes in evolution?!)

Now, in a second instance of Republicans playing the race card against the Obamas, Wonkette notes that a racist e-mail was sent out by a legislative staffer for Tennessee GOP state senator Diane Black.

The staffer, SHERRI GOFORTH, e-mailed this composite picture of the country’s 44 presidents, which represents President Obama with only a set of eyes:

"Nashville Is Talking" asked SHERRI GOFORTH about the e-mail:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, SHERRI GOFORTH would only say she, SHERRI GOFORTH, felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she, SHERRI GOFORTH, only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

“I went on the wrong email and I inadvertently hit the wrong button,” SHERRI GOFORTH told NIT.

“I’m very sick about it, and it’s one of those things I can’t change or take back.”

very sick, indeed.

Update: Sherri Goforth won't be fired.

Consider who she works for.

They love Jesus, but they've tried to kill prenatal care, women's health clinics, and pre-kindergarten funding. They've attempted to reject federal stimulus money for the unemployed.

But they have tried to put a gun in every bar, park and playground.

Jesus would have liked that.

Is it any wonder she believes what she does? To fire her would only pick off a middle-aged lady. It does nothing to heal the greater wound, which is composed by the creeps, racists, half-wits and professional victims who make up the Tennessee legislature.

They're the real affront here,

the wound that will become terminal if left unchecked.

Any "change" yet??

FireDogLake founder Jane Hamsher is doing heroic work to persuade 39 progressive Democrats to oppose the $106 billion Supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak and to bailout European banks through the IMF.
She has 32 votes so we only need 7 more!

So if your Representative is on this list,

please help Jane by calling your Rep to urge a NO vote.

"Forget about the future...

let's get on with the past"

The old Wild West is part of our rich heritage and history books are filled with fascinating stories of gun-slinging outlaws and the tough guys who hunted them down.





Unbeknownst to most Americans, some form of open carry is legal in approximately 43 states and the gun lobby wants you to know it.
Hence, there are a growing number of public events across the country to get the gun crowd to come out of the closet (!) in the hopes of intimidating the public into accepting their dangerous worldview.

The real world implications of the open carry crusade is chilling.

Consider:

• Sipping hot chocolate with your toddler at Starbucks while a fellow patron openly displays a gun at the table next to you;
• Attending a church service with your entire family knowing that the fellow parishioner sitting next to you has a handgun tucked in his belt; or
• Boarding a crowded bus with your newborn child with upwards of 5 other passengers openly carrying weapons.

Unless this is the kind of world you want for you and your children, Americans’ need to pick up the phone to call state and federal lawmakers to voice outrage over the gun lobby’s extremist agenda.

It's ironic that today's parents are hyper-vigilant about what their children eat, whom they hang out with and whether they have sunscreen on.

Yet, in sharp contrast, there is remarkably little awareness or concern about the 280 million guns in civilian hands in our country—many of which are carried into countless public places each day where families frequent.

Next time you take your child on an outing with you, think about how many people within earshot may soon be openly carrying a gun as you wait in line at the aquarium, shop at the local grocery store, or sit in a theater watching a movie.

Unless American's wake up to this crisis and demand that guns laws effectively address the inherent dangers associated with carrying guns in public places, the seemingly far-fetched examples of every day outings turned into repeated encounters with armed citizens will become all to real.

After all, allowing a small group of armed gun owners -- versus trained law enforcement officers -- to make potentially life and death decisions about public safety in restaurants, churches, theaters and parks is a frightening prospect.

America is being held hostage by the gun lobby's extremist agenda to flood our country with firearms as evidenced by the recent passage of legislation allowing loaded guns in National Parks. It's time we turned back the clock on this deadly trend before America's children are sitting in school with armed teachers and the gun lobby's abnormal behavior becomes the new norm.

Meanwhile, there have been eight episodes of right-wing extremist violence in four and a half months.

We haven't gone four weeks since February without some poor guy -- always with a long history of mental illness, usually with a record of military service and/or domestic violence, and invariably jacked up on a toxic cocktail of white male privilege; us-versus-them enemy seeking; fury at women, blacks and/or Jews; and a belief that the world as he knew it was ending unless he took up arms -- taking out his gun and offing innocent Americans in a suicidal bid for glory.

thanks to:
gunguys
Orcinus

"Piece" be with you?

Dylan T. Lovan

Thursday, June 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP)

A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.

New Bethel Church is welcoming "responsible handgun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a Saturday. An ad says there will be a handgun raffle, patriotic music and information on gun safety.

"We're just going to celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation," said pastor Ken Pagano. "And we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms - without that this country wouldn't be here."

The guns must be unloaded and private security will check visitors at the door, Pagano said.

He said recent church shootings, including the killing Sunday of a late-term abortion provider in Kansas, which he condemned, highlight the need to promote safe gun ownership. The New Bethel Church event was planned months before Dr. George Tiller was shot to death in a Wichita church.

Kentucky allows residents to openly carry guns in public with some restrictions. Gun owners carrying concealed weapons must have state-issued permits and can't take them to schools, jails or bars, among other exceptions.

Pagano's Protestant church, which attracts up to 150 people to Sunday services, is a member of the Assemblies of God. The former Marine and handgun instructor said he expected some backlash, but has heard only a "little bit" of criticism of the gun event.

John Phillips, an Arkansas pastor who was shot twice while leading a service at his former church in 1986, said a house of worship is no place for firearms.

"A church is designated as a safe haven, it's a place of worship," said Phillips, who was shot by a church member's relative for an unknown reason and still has a bullet lodged in his spine. "It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."

Phillips spoke out against a bill before the Arkansas General Assembly that would have permitted the carrying of guns in that state's churches. The bill failed in February.

Pagano, 50, said some members of his church were concerned that President Obama's administration could restrict gun ownership, and they supported the plan for the event when Pagano asked their opinion.

Marian McClure Taylor, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, an umbrella organization for 11 Christian denominations in Kentucky, said Christian churches are promoters of peace, but "most allow for arms to be taken up under certain conditions."

Taylor said Pagano assured her the event would focus on promoting responsible gun ownership and any proceeds would go to charity.

"Those two commitments are consistent with the high value the Assemblies of God churches place on human life," she said in an e-mail message.

Pagano is encouraging church members to bring a canned good and a friend to the event. He said guns must be unloaded for insurance purposes and safety reasons.

He said the point was not to mix worship with guns, though he may reference some passages from the Bible.

"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," he said. "We're just trying to promote responsible gun ownership and gun safety."

taking responsibility, how rare.

They call themselves "pro-life,"
as they incite, commit & defend acts of violence
like that which ended the life of Dr. Tiller in Kansas.

They call themselves pro-life, but they're anti-health,
first fighting child coverage, and now public options
that would actually make Americans healthier.

They call themselves pro-life, but what kind of life
is pro-torture, pro-war, pro-guns,
anti-safety regulations, anti-sex-education?

If they call themselves pro-life,
why are they so often against the living?




many thanks to the folks at Drinking Liberally NYC

Big Hate

While no one can argue that Bill O'Reilly
and his ilk are directly responsible
for the murder of Dr. George Tiller,
they certainly are responsible
for hanging a target on his back
and engaging in frighteningly
inflammatory rhetoric year after year,
arguably creating an environment where it is okay to demonize a medical professional performing a legally guaranteed and necessary medical procedure.

Not only did they make it okay for American citizens to demonize George Tiller, the result of their rhetoric is seen on message boards around the country where you can find Tiller's murder being justified and even praised.

According to Salon.com and ThinkProgress, O'Reilly began discussing Tiller on Febuary 25, 2005, and mentioned Tiller in 28 more episodes--frequently referring to him as "Dr. Tiller the Baby Killer."



To deny that electing a black man president hasn't aggravated this situation would be incredibly naive.

The owner of an Alabama abortion clinic that was once hit by a deadly bombing says protests at the clinic have increased since President Barack Obama's election.

Diane Derzis said Monday the fatal shooting of Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller appears to be part of a pattern that's taken hold since the vote last year. Derzis said she has been seeing more protesters outside her clinic in Birmingham, and their rhetoric is getting tougher.

Derzis believes some abortion opponents have gotten desperate since the election of Obama, who supports abortion rights.

Derzis owns New Woman All Women Health Care. It's the clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph in 1998, killing an off-duty police officer and critically injuring a nurse.



www.care2.com