Guest post: "White stems can't jump" (Is it possible that George W. Bush is just a wee bit of a, you know, racist? Shhh!)

How did Larry Bird get dragged into the contorted mental gymnastics of George W. Bush's, er, "thinking" on the subject of stem cell research? Are you sitting down?

To outsiders, the Republican Party's response to its collapse under the catastrophic "leadership" of George W. Bush seemed counterintuitive: ruthless self-shrinkage into a party of the old white Dixiecrat South and the survivalist West. Stranger still is the incredibly prickly response of those Tiny Tenters -- and their pop-eyed puppeteer, Rush -- to being called (gasp!) racists. Oh, they don't seem to mind being racists; it remains the tie that binds, the party's fundamental organizing principle. They just go crazy when they're called racists. Go figure!

It seems to surprise them that the question of who's a racist isn't always resolved with scientific precision by asking, "Are you a racist?" It's entirely possible that there are people like, for example, poor old Chimpy the Ex-Prez who actually don't know that they are (and sure as shootin' aren't interested in finding out). When cogboy sent us this "book observation," we were eager to share it as a guest post for this fascinating example of how a mind like Chimpy's works, or doesn't. We should probably add the obvious caveat in dealing with "Chimpy's book": that not only didn't he write it, but it seems even more probable that he hasn't read it. Still, there doesn't seem much question that the bit of blatantly racist gibberish that popped out at cogboy came from "the author." Who would, or could, possibly have made it up? -- Ken

Guest post: A book observation from cogboy (Juan Adams)

So I was reading a few random pages in Bush's re-overestimation of his residency (Decision Points) because, well... I'm an out of work musician and I waste a lot time reading at the local mega bookstore. It was out of a true sense of patriotism and a curiosity about the impact of hindsight that I picked up his unlikely tome. Brian Eno claims to not be a musician yet he has repeatedly produced masterpieces (Devo, U2, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Bowie . . .). Could a literary treasure be locked inside the brains of this former "most powerful man on earth"
who could not be bothered with reading? A Hemingway armed with crayons and a Big Chief pad...

It was page 112. The decider was in deep decidification mode over government funding of embryonic stem cell research. He had sent "a lively lawyer from New York with a serious commitment to his Jewish faith" (?, ! & wtf...) to gather materials for him to look over (Katrina helicopter style, I'm sure). Bush, after all, didn't want to join the Flat Earth Society -- how could those dummies explain Capital Hill, hello?! He knew he was going to have to hunker down and experiment with thinking because all this stem-craft seemed mysterious
and very scary.

But even as a Reagan fellow at the Ronald Reagan Association for renaming everything after Ronald Reagan, Bush managed to do the unthinkable (no suprise, that). He actually rebuffed the widow Reagan! He ignored her pleas and opted out of granting government support for stem cell research. He hit stem and he hit it hard.

He was the decider and I cannot argue his right, as an elected official (he elected to steal The Whitehouse), to do as such. But what of his moral compass? How had he arrived at this conclusion?

Well........ (sorry, Ron . . . ), Dubya imagined that dread slippery slope (which, by the way, can't exist on flat earths!). Designer babies, organ harvesting, boy-clones bringing boy-abortions to the senior prom . . . His last stop before realization of the full-on horror? The letting of Jack out of the Pandora's Box of bagged cats, as it were? Let me quote:

I could foresee the temptation of designer babies that enabled parents to engineer their very own blonde haired basketball player. Not far beyond that lies the nightmare of full-scale human cloning.*

[*p. eleventy-two, Decision Points : George Double "U" Bush's memo to the IRS as told to George Bush, 2010 Big Chief Publishing]

Of thee, I shit not! It's right there on page eleventy-two! Blonde haired frickin' basketball players!

Now I'm a black gay guy and I'm hypersensitive to accusations of playing the race card (really, I do leave home without it) but this struck me as some kind of veiled racist comment or perhaps hatespeak. But I couldn't put my finger on it. Was he really worried about another Larry Byrd? Could some madman of no morals and no regard for consequences possibly create two, count 'em , two people with identical DNAs?!? Was the thought of ElIen surrogating for RuPaul and the other "Little Ricky" enough to make him rechewdiate his lunch? I mean what
was the real underlying (and Bush certainly isn't above lying) fear factor?

I decided to do some heavy misdundecidifying of my own, and when I started substituting words, I landed on a curious "what if": What if Bush had said "hockey player with an afro"?

And there it was, tea partyesque enfrightenment. Folksy and humorous. Hiding in plain sight where the literate dare not tread. In a book written by a guy who doesn't read. You won't see it online because it's not for the internetters, no siree Bob! It's for folks who'll go buy the book, make it a best seller, not read it, then vote.

And scarier still, it reaches the folks who've got plenty of time to scan books at Wal*mart or the swap meet but can't afford an ipad on which to download Rachel Maddow podcasts while sipping pumpkin spice lattes. No, it's sunny-D's at Wal*mart and they're reading it right under the big yellow smiley face (hey, if the queers get rainbows, then . . . )

They've learned how to vote, and some of them can read (albeit at the previous-presidential level.) But books? Bush?! In a grand anti-Obama-esque low tech maneuver, Bush slid that shit right past the liberal e-literate!

Bush's logic is so fucked up it would take stem cell research to find a cure for it. On the surface, a nearly harmless quote from a totally useless president. But did I detect Hitlaryan seed-sowing of racist stupidity in hopes of future government takeover? Oh come on! It's not like the guy was the most powerful man on earth, capable of entirely fucking up its most powerful nation!

Only an overly sensitive, gay black guy could imagine some racial drama bullshit like that. I should have probably sat back, relaxed and had Sarah fetch me a cup of tea (or a pumpkin spice latte . . . )

Then it hit me . . . Stem cell research is as much about basketball as war in Iraq is about 9/11. "Aha! euphoria" be thy bitch's name! Bush distracted and obstructed by slowly losing every cloudy, incorrect debate while he swiftly prevailed on every cloudy incorrect course of action. Could he possess a gift? Just when you start wondering if "Dark side of the moon" was a fluke, Bush gives you "The Wall."

#

The administration wins two victories in the federal appeals courts. One is a judicial horror; the other may just be a temporary reprieve

You can relax, George. The guy who succeeded you in the Oval Office doesn't seem to care whether we did or we didn't.

by Ken

Administration apologists register horror anytime we complain how difficult it can be on an alarming range of issues to distinguish this administration from its predecessor. The hotly contested 6-5 ruling yesterday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that a group of former U.S. detainees who say they were victims of rendition-for-torture can't sue a Boeing subsidiary for its claimed complicity is a horror that reminds us of several important areas in which the Obama administration is as bad as, if not worse than, the Bush regime: its adamant refusal to hold American torturers to legal account, an if anything greater insistence on the government's right to secrecy at its own discretion, and an every bit as unchecked resort to "national security" to cover up, well, anything it wishes to cover up.

The case was brought by the ACLU on the plaintiffs' behalf, and the ACLU says it will appeal to the Supreme Court. Yesterday's decision overturns an earlier ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit which would have allowed the suit to proceed. The new legal doctrine takes a breathtaking step beyond previous "national security"-based trial restrictions, which have allowed limitations on kinds of evidence that can be introduced on court on national-security grounds. It's new law that defendants may lose their right to pursue a legal grievance because the case may bump up against national-security concerns.

As the NYT's Charlie Savage reported:

While the alleged abuses occurred during the Bush administration, the ruling added a chapter to the Obama administration’s aggressive national security policies.

Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush’s approach.

Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizen suspected of terrorism ties, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.’s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers — though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated.

MEANWHILE ON THE SCIENTIFIC FRONT . . .

The other major appeals court ruling, the decision today of a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court to lift the temporary injunction that drastically curtailed stem-cell research issued on August 23 by District Judge Royce Lamberth, on appeal by the Obama administration, finds it on happier ground.

True, the Obama administration may have fatally bungled its original reversal of the Bush regime's draconian restrictions on stem-cell research, since the executive order issued by the president does seem to have pretty directly violated a law on the books that barred federal money being used for research that involved the destruction of human embryos. And the administration is a long way from out of the woods on this front. As Rob Stein and Spencer S. Hsu report in the Washington Post:

While the move was praised by advocates for the research, the appeals court made it clear it was not making a final decision about the case, which means the reprieve could be short-lived and the fate of the funding could continue to be whiplashed by seesawing court rulings.

"The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the merits of the emergency motion for stay and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion," the appeals court wrote in its decision.

Opponents of stem cell funding have until Sept. 14 to file a response, and the government must submit its response by Sept. 20.

Elsewhere on the scientific front, the prestigious magazine Nature today released a stinging editorial on the right-wing assault on science called "Science scorned," with the subhead: "The anti-science strain pervading the right wing in the United States is the last thing the country needs in a time of economic challenge."

This is an important statement, which we'll talk about a little tomorrow.

#

Obama Puts U.S. Back Into The Scientific Community-- Reactionaries Like Eric Cantor Bray In Horror

Bush couldn't-- quite literally-- watch TV and chew a pretzel at the same time. But he isn't living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue any longer. And the mess he and his foul regime left behind may take as long to clean up as it took to create. Fortunately we have an elected president-- responsible to the American people who elected him, not the special interests-- living at that address now, one who can do many things at the same time. And his team is made up of public servants not of self-servers operating at the expense of the public. Clearly, President Obama's #1 priority-- as he's always said it would be and as his actions have shown it is-- is the economy, the area Bush and hypocritical Republican rubber stamps like Eric Cantor, did the most damage.

At the same time his administration is working to unfoul the foreign relations messes Bush created in every corner of the globe. And the hash Bush made of the U.S. Justice system isn't something that can exactly be left on the back burner either. Obama is determined to move fast and to move NOW on a wide variety of problems left by years of Bush-Republican misrule. Republican obstructionists are determined to block him from accomplishing his agenda, the one that got him elected just a 3 months ago. Today President Obama is lifting the ban on stem cell research that the medieval minds who had been formulating the Bush Regime's policies towards all things science-based had put in place.

When the president signs the executive order reversing the Republican right's position, which has endangered America's standing in the international research and development community, he is expected to make an announcement about a broader initiative to restore scientific integrity to government processes.

Critics of the Bush administration accused it of inserting ideology into the scientific process -- from the stem cell issue to climate change and even contraception. The Obama administration has been working to overturn these policies.

Count on Virginia's most reactionary congressman, Eric Cantor, to run to the media and squeal like a stuck pig on behalf of his obstructionist caucus. Yesterday on CNN he called the executive order "a distraction." I think to the thousands and thousands of families who have been hopeful that cures to serious diseases, from Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease, and diabetes to spinal-chord injuries, heart disease and cancer, would be in the works for the last 8 dark years, it's anything but a distraction. Although if the Eric Cantors of the world want to squabble about science and stop obstructing the president's plans to revitalize the middle class, that would be no one's loss.

Obama will leave the thorny issue of whether or not to allow federal dollars to be used in stem cell research to Congress.

The order will allow research on countless stem-cell lines already in existence, as well as ones yet to be created, typically from embryos left over from fertility treatments that would otherwise be discarded.

The order comes just in time for researchers to take advantage of money in Mr. Obama’s economic recovery package and use it for stem cell studies. But because of the Dickey-Wicker amendment, federal researchers would still be unable to create their own stem cell lines.

Mr. Obama has no power to overturn the Dickey-Wicker ban. Only Congress, which attaches the ban to appropriations bills, can overturn it. Mr. Obama has not taken a position on the ban and does not intend to, Melody C. Barnes, his chief domestic policy adviser, said Sunday. The president believes stem-cell research “should be done in compliance with federal law,” she said.

PAWLENTY VETOES POPULAR FORECLOSURE AND STEM CELL RESEARCH BILLS... FALLING IN LINE WITH EXTREME RIGHT NATIONAL GOP

A couple of serial flip-floppers

While Bush and Rove are trying to shove Mitt Romney down McCain's throat, McCain is hoping that he'll at least be allowed to pick someone he can stand being in the same room with-- like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Last week Pawlenty probably killed his chances to ever be elected to anything in Minnesota again but he may have had a different audience in mind. And it goes beyond just the fact that in 2006 his biggest campaign contributors were from the real estate industry. He vetoed the Foreclosure Deferment Bill-- something sure to endear him to fat cat GOP donors... and John McCain. He didn't seem to care that "the measure would’ve kept nearly 15,000 Minnesotans from losing their homes by giving them the time and authority to renegotiate their loan terms while they make a required good-faith effort to pay."

U of M professor Prentiss Cox, a former assistant attorney general who helped create the bill with Sen. Ellen Anderson (DFL-St. Paul), says Pawlenty’s reasons for killing the bill are short-sighted. “This is a false allegation in this context, in my opinion,” Cox says. “There is no substantial subprime or negative amortization mortgage credit being issued to homeowners right now. A law can’t have an impact on credit that doesn’t exist.”

The bill would’ve required homeowners with a subprime or negative amortization loan originated before August 1, 2007 to pay either 65 percent of the payments due when the loan defaulted, or the minimum monthly payment when the mortgage was first created, whichever is less, for a one-year foreclosure-deferment period.

The bill’s originators created the plan as a stop-gap to state foreclosures before the federal government implements a solution to the growing crisis. It would’ve been the only law in a series of subrpime-crisis legislation that would provide relief to homeowners in the foreclosure process. So far, Minnesota has been at the forefront of creating anti-predatory-lending laws that make certain types of mortgages illegal and require tougher standards for mortgage brokers.

“This notion that lenders will refuse to make financially sensible mortgage loans of a different character in the future based on Minnesota helping subprime borrowers now can accurately be described as a threat of class warfare,” Cox says. “It may make good, if divisive, politics-- inciting fear in the affluent against homeowners in need-- but it doesn’t make sense from a market perspective. And such threats, which are consistently made against any proposed laws designed to help consumers in the financial services area, have a track record of being wrong.”

Another way Pawlenty decided to burnish his v.p. credentials was to flip flop on (as in against) stem cell research. He went from encouraging the legislature to support research because it "offers tremendous opportunities to improve human health and well-being by addressing serious diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's" to vetoing the bill on Friday. Sounds like a perfect match for McCain.

GOP crackpots can say any loony thing and be treated like statesmen while Dems taking aim at the chaos are ridiculed. So what else is new?

Chimpy has the gall to say, "All human life is
sacred," and doesn't get pelted with rotten fruit?

"All human life is sacred."
--Chimpy the Prez, vetoing his second stem-cell bill yesterday in the East Room of the White House

"I'm sure you've already noticed that the media has decided that the next president looks like Mitt Romney, sounds like Fred Thompson, is a strong leader like Rudy Giuliani and is fiercely independent like John McCain. On the progressive side, I guess, we've got a bunch of inexperienced, inauthentic, lightweight, shrill, cold, calculating hypocrites."
--David Brock, president of Media Matters for America, in a speech yesterday at the Take Back America conference

I don't know about this here 2008 presidential campaign. Even listening to the candidates, I don't get the feeling that I'm learning much about who they are or what they would do as president--and naturally, the closer each comes to "serious candidate" status, the more you get the feeling that the tone and content have been consultant-processed to sound like what the consultant thinks voters want to hear.

Oh wait, did I mention that I'm only talking about the Democratic candidates? I'm confident that I know all I need to know about the Republican horrors. My goodness, what a bunch! In greater or lesser degree I admire all the Democratic hopefuls; I just despair of crystal-balling what sort of presidency each might shape. Where the Republicans are concerned, the only question is, in what way(s) exactly would this thug's administration differ from the nightmare we've lived through these last seven years?

It's useful to be reminded, however, that this isn't at all the image that's being conveyed to the country at large. Maybe this has been obvious to all of you out there, who have probably been paying closer attention than I have, but I was really struck by this chunk from David Brock's speech at Talk Back America which was highlighted in the release sent out by his estimable organization, MediaMatters:

We're going to have a big challenge in the next 18 months. I'm sure you've already noticed that the media has decided that the next president looks like Mitt Romney, sounds like Fred Thompson, is a strong leader like Rudy Giuliani and is fiercely independent like John McCain. On the progressive side, I guess, we've got a bunch of inexperienced, inauthentic, lightweight, shrill, cold, calculating hypocrites. So we've made a commitment that we are not going to go through another election cycle accepting those caricatures, and today you make that commitment with us.

Of course, as soon as I read it, I realized that he's exactly right, as he usually is.

I don't suppose I really imagined that campaign coverage was going to give me a clearer picture of the substance of the candidates' projected administrations. But I don't think it occurred to me that, while some inescapable truths (McCain's casual dishonesty, Mitt's total lack of belief in anything except self-promotion, Rudy's sleight-of-hand about what he has claimed to believe in the past, not to mention the skeletons in his historical closet, etc.) may not be escaped for the duration of the campaign, the images are likely to become even more grotesquely phantasmagoric.

But then, isn't this the country where a lying sack of shit can proclaim, "All human life is sacred," without being pelted with catcalls and rotten tomatoes, if not actual thunderbolts? And then it gets reported in the media as if it weren't as great an affront to truth and decency as the human mouth is capable of delivering.

Sigh.

BUSH ADDS ANOTHER DRIP TO THE DRIP, DRIP, DRIP OF REPUBLICAN POLITICAL SUICIDE

An editorial in today's NY Times points out that the babies Bush is charging Congress with wanting to kill in his narrowly partisan veto of the broadly popular stem cell research bill "is smaller than the period at the end of this sentence." They don't mention that the entity may be small but it has the same brain power as the president.

Instead Bush says that he supports research, just not the research that the scientific community wants to do. You see, aside from being a brilliant military leader, a celebrated religious and spiritual leader and renowned ethicist, a sublime diplomat and an economist without peer, Bush is also a medical scientist and researcher with great vision. Didn't North Korea have a leader just like him once?

Mr. Bush knows that most Americans support embryonic stem cell research-- while his political base does not-- so yesterday he sought to at least blunt their dismay by touting new scientific studies focused on deriving potent stem cells from amniotic fluid, placentas and the skin of laboratory mice. Some of the alternative work is indeed promising. But almost all scientists in the field consider embryonic stem cell research the most promising. It is foolish to crimp that research by withholding federal funds to placate a minority of religious and social conservatives, including Mr. Bush, who deem the work unethical.

The Times urges Congress to override Bush's veto. It won't be easy. "The Senate, which has the best shot at overriding the veto, will vote first, in hopes that a victory there will inspire the House to follow. Americans will need to keep a close eye on which legislators favor the most promising stem cell research and which try to impede scientific progress." That is probably not terribly difficult, since it is safe to assume that almost all members with a "D" after their name favor stem cell research and that almost all with an "R" after their name do not. Two important "almosts" there. There were 16 Congressional Democrats-from-The-Dark-Ages cheering Bush's veto and each merits a serious primary based solely on this issue, almost the vast majority of them deserve primaries because they are reactionary assholes who don't support Democratic Party values and principles and don't belong in the Democratic Party at all, at least not as leaders.Although 37 Republicans shunned their idiotic leaders to vote with the Democrats and the American people in favor of the bill Bush vetoed yesterday, the disgraced Democrats should not be forgotten:

Jerry Costello (IL),
Lincoln Davis (TN),
Joe Donnelly (IN),
Brad Ellsworth (IN),
Marcy Kaptur (OH),
Daniel Lipinski (IL),
Jim Marshall (GA),
Mike McIntyre (NC),
Alan Mollohan (WV),
James Oberstar (MN),
Collin Peterson (MN),
Nick Rahall (WV),
Rahm Emanuel's Heath Shuler (NC),
Bart Stupak (MI),
Gene Taylor (MS),
Charles Wilson (OH)

The only genuine Democrat in the whole is Marcy Kaptur; most of the others might as well be Republicans when it comes to crucial issues.

What Bush has done, in reality, is hand the Democrats a potent campaign issue. The next president will decide whether or not stem cell research will go forward. All the Democrats favor it. Each Republican either hysterically opposes it-- at least during primary season when they're courting that 28% of Bush supporters-- or is confused and muddled about it (McCain and Giuliani, the strong leader guys). In fact one of the Republicans who is in sync with most Americans on this issue and who does support stem cell research, Mike Castle of Delaware, told the Times that it is unlikely that progress will be made on the issue until the American people elect a new president. "We’re going to have to wait either for a change of mind at the White House, which seems unlikely unless there are some major medical breakthroughs, or the next president."

BOEHNER AND REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTIONISTS PROMISE TO SUSTAIN BUSH'S VETO OF STEM CELL RESEARCH BILL; FOR GOP IT'S LIKE THE DARK AGES

The House overwhelmingly passed a final stem cell bill today-- but not overwhelmingly enough to overcome Bush's promised veto, not with 176 Republican House members promising to vote against an override attempt that will follow the veto.

For the third time, the House easily passed legislation today that would loosen President Bush's six-year-old restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.

The bill, which matches language approved by the Senate in April, now heads to the president, who immediately renewed his promise to veto it, as he did a similar bill last July.

Boehner said Democrats shouldn't bring up legislation that they know Bush will veto and he doesn't care that the majority of Congress or that the majority of the American people favor it. There's only one way legislation like this will become law: a Democratic poresident and a lot fewer Republicans in Congress. May I suggest you think about that and do a little Blue America action today? Any bucket on that page will be a vote to override Republican obstructionism.

The Senate passed this bill in April with a huge margin: 63-34, although still four votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority. A similar bill that passed last year also was vetoed and that veto was sustained by Bush's rubber stamps in Congress.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) a leading advocate for stem cell research, said during today's debate that Congress must pass the bill "to send a message to the president and the country that America wants stem cell research. There's a strong consensus in the House and the Senate and there's one thing stopping that and that's a stubborn president." 

16 Democrats disgraced themselves by voting with the Repugs today : Jerry Costello (IL), Lincoln Davis (TN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Daniel Lipinski (IL), Jim Marshall (GA), Mike McIntyre (NC), Alan Mollohan (WV), James Oberstar (MN), Collin Peterson (MN), Nick Rahall (WV), Rahm Emanuel's Heath Shuler (NC), Bart Stupak (MI), Gene Taylor (MS), and Charles Wilson (OH). The 37 Republicans who abandoned their reactionary leaders were mostly ones who have been caught doing something illegal and are already afraid of the voters' wrath next year, like this year's runner-up with Jerry Lewis for most corrupt member of Congress Don Young (AK), Young's earmark partner Connie Mack (FL), lobbyist/xenophobe Brian Bilbray (CA), Heather Wilson (NM), earmark crook/sex deviant Ken Calvert (CA), closet queen David Dreier (CA), Ralph Regula (OH), student loan grafter Buck McKeon (CA), and, of course, the most corrupt Republican since Tom DeLay was indicted-- Jerry Lewis (CA), to name a few.

Rep. James Langevin, (D-R.I.), who was paralyzed by a gunshot injury to his spinal cord years ago, reiterated his hope that stem cells may someday free him of his wheelchair.

"I'm opposed to abortion . . . but I'm committed to protection of life at all stages," Langevin said. "I believe that this legislation is vitally important."

Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a physician, saw things differently.
"I don't believe, given that millions of Americans believe in the sanctity of life, that we should be funding research that destroys human life," Weldon said. Citing the advances in mice announced Wednesday , he predicted that embryonic stem cells would before long be seen as an antiquated means of developing cures. "Science," he said, "is going to move beyond this discussion."

Congressmen like Weldon, as well as the Boehners and Blunts, Pencii, and the Democratic traitors like Taylor, Marshall, Shuler, McIntyre, etc, show sign a pledge vowing that they and their family members will forego the medical benefits of stem cell research they are working so hard to deny the rest of us. These people are like from the Dark Ages where anything that sought to increase knowledge or technology was seen through a narrow prism of superstition and fear. These are sick people and they shouldn't be in positions of responsibility by any stretch of the imagination.


UPDATE: WINGNUTS FURIOUS THAT GIULIANI'S FIRM LOBBIED IN FAVOR OF STEM CELL RESEARCH

Earlier today we tried to emphasize what a total whore Fred Thompson has always been-- selling his ass to the highest bidder. His spokesperson claimed that being a lobbyist is an honorable profession and that many other candidates are as well. Many? No. Giuliani? Yes. And he's in trouble too-- at least with the most extreme right members of his dysfunctional party.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, has lobbied Congress on stem cell research for Johns Hopkins Institutions, according to its public filing.

This has drawn fire from social conservatives because Johns Hopkins’s stance on stem cell research appears to conflict with Giuliani’s stated position.

“We believe Giuliani’s firm may be lobbying in favor of H.R. 2560, a bill that would allow the creation and destruction of human embryos for research purposes,” said Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis America, a conservative Catholic organization, who yesterday raised concerns over the lobbying records.

“It is important for the public to know if Giuliani’s firm is lobbying for this, or any other policies, that would promote embryo-destructive research.

“Should this be the case, how can he justify profiting from this lobbying when it would contradict his public position on the issue?”

...When asked if he would expand federal funding of stem cell research, Giuliani replied: “As long as we’re not creating life in order to destroy it, as long as we’re not having human cloning, and we limit it to that, and there is plenty of opportunity to, then use federal funds in those situations where you have limitations.

“So I would support it with those limitations, like Sen. [Norm] Coleman’s (R-Minn.) bill in Congress.”

But the director of the stem cell program at Johns Hopkins, Dr. John Gearhart, has blasted Coleman’s bill as ineffective.

“We find this to be an absolutely bizarre bill because the presumption upon which it is based is flawed."

BUSH PREPARES TO VETO THE STEM CELL BILL-- THANK JOHN SUNUNU

John Sununu isn't the only Republican who voted against the Senate Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (S5). But he's from a state where the bill was overwhelmingly supported and he's from a state where voters will be making an important decision next year whether or not they want a senator who represents New Hampshire or if they're just happy with a senator who has consistently represented the moneyed corporate interests that finance his political party. Sununu has been one of the absolute worst rubber stamps in the entire Senate-- surpassed, though only slightly, by a small handful of mostly southern wingnuts plus Judd Gregg. And yesterday both Gregg and Sununu joined a small band of holdouts and dead-enders still convinced that the world is flat to make sure that the U.S. would not be able to move forward with stem cell research.

The bill passed by 63-34 (with 3 pro-stem cell research Democrats absent but who can be counted on to vote to override Bush's promised veto). That means there are 66 votes to override Bush-- one short of the 67 required: Sununu. Another Republican, Arlen Specter, one of the 19 who joined with all but 2 Democrats to pass the measure, said he hopes the vote will motivate the American people to communicate with their representatives in Washington and tell the to "Get it done!". Ironically, one of the 2 Democrats who deserted the bipartisan coalition to pass this was the social reactionary and religionist nutcase from Specter's own state, Rick Santorum Bob Casey. (The other "Democrat" voting against it, Nebraska's Ben Nelson, votes with the Republicans more frequently with the Democrats on substantive issues, so it is no surprise.)

Neither Casey nor Nelson, who won't have to face the voters for over 5 years, is as appropriate an electoral target as the gaggle of Republican neanderthals who do have to face the voters next year. These are the names of the senators, up for re-election, who are, along with George Bush, preventing the advancement of medical science in order to cater to narrow religionist dictates:

* Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
* Norman Coleman (R-MN)
*John Cornyn (R-TX)
* Larry Craig (R-ID)
* Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)
* Pete "Sneaky Pete" Domenici (R-NM)
* Michael Enzi (R-WY)
* Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
* Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
* Inhofe (R-OK)
* Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
* Pat Roberts (R-KS)
* Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
* John Sununu (R-NH)

STEM CELL BATTLE HEATING UP AGAIN

With the country overwhelmingly behind them, both the House and Senate passed stem cell research bills last year. Bush, catering to his narrow, extremist base, vetoed the bill and the Democrats didn't have the strength to override him. According to today's New York Daily News, Harry Reid's office thinks they're within one or two votes of overriding Bush now. The House passed a bill as soon as they were back in session, 253-174 and the Senate will do likewise tomorrow. "The margin of victory in the House was not enough to beat a Bush veto. But activists and Democratic strategists hope that a Senate override can change the dynamic and raise the pressure on more House Republicans to support a measure that is broadly popular with the public." It looks like it's working because wingnuts are already running around screaming that the sky is falling.

Meanwhile, today's USAToday has graciously afforded uber-reactionary Sam Brownback the opportunity to show readers why he is utterly unfit for public office, at least in the 21st Century. (If not more fit, at least he would have fit in were he campaigning for something in the 11th or 12th Century.) An Opus Dei loon, adamantly opposed to stem cell research, Brownback doesn't care if 99 senators approve it; he's filibusterin'. And this narrow-minded pre-Neanderthal would like to be president.


UPDATE: REMEMBER WHEN PROGRESSIVES FELT LIKE THEY WERE BEING CRUSHED BETWEEN A ROCK AND A SQUISHY PLACE WHEN IT CAME TO THE MONSTROUS SANTORUM AND THE SOMEWHAT LESS MONSTROUS CASEY?

Tony Perkins' extremist Family Research Council sure is grateful to the reactionary Senator Casey today. Funny how Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter is voting with the Democrats on this and Casey has slinked over to Bush. Remember it was Schumer and the DSCC who shoved Casey down our throats. Have they asked you for money lately?

THIRD PELOSI BILL PASSES OVERWHELMINGLY-- LET THERE BE STEM CELL RESEARCH

Speaker Pelosi is on a roll. Her First 100 Hours Agenda is sailing through Congress with wide bipartisan support. Today the House overwhelmingly "approved a bill that would loosen the restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research imposed by President Bush in 2001, inaugurating the second such assault on the administration's stem cell policy in as many years. Thirty-seven Republicans joined 216 Democrats to pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, which would allow federal funding of research on stem cells from embryos slated for destruction at fertility clinics.

George Bipartisan Bush has already declared he will veto the bill, which lacks 37 votes to override a presidential veto. Hopefully the Speaker will make it clear that in the 2008 congressional elections 37 more Republicans (and reactionary Democrats-- 16 joined the GOP for the day) need to be defeated by voters who would like to see cures for dozens of serious diseases and conditions that plague mankind. You know I'm no Rahm Emanuel fan (to put it mildly) but the corrupt and cynical operator came up with a great proposal today: that those voting against the bill "waive their right to access the cures that would come from the work." Unfortunately he was only joking.

The Senate is expected to pass the same bill, possibly with a veto-proof majority. If the Democrats hadn't elected a reactionary to the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat, it would be a veto-proof majority. The 16 Democrats who voted against the bill are mostly right-of-center dogs, like Lincoln Davis (TN), Jim Marshall (GA), Gene Taylor (MS-- who actually votes more frequently with Republicans than with Democrats), Mike McIntyre (NC), Collin Peterson (MN), Alan Mollohan (WV), Bart Stupak (MI), Rahm Emanuel's Heath Shuler (NC), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Nick Rahall (WV), and Jerry Costello (IL). Moderates Marcy Kaptur (OH), Daniel Lipinski (IL), Charles Wilson (OH), and James Oberstar (MN) also voted against the bill.

On the Republican side Boehner, Blunt and Howdy Doody were able to hold most of their primitivist coalition together. 37 Republicans joined with the Democrats today, mostly Californians (although die-hard fanatics and kooks like John Doolittle, Duncan Hunter, Daniel Lungren, Devin Nunes, John Campbell, Wally Herger, Elton Gallegly, Edward Royce and Kevin McCarthy voted no). In the end 158 Republicans voted no. Interestingly 54% of male members voted yes and 80% of female members voted yes. Among the women voting no, are the most extremist and hate-filled Republicans in the country, infamous wingnuts like Mean Jean Schmidt (OH), Barbara Cubin (WY), Marilyn Musgrave (CO), Virginia Foxx (NC), Michele Bachmann (MN), Marsha Blackburn (TN), Sue Myrick (NC), Thelma Drake (VA), and Cathy McMorris (WA).

Tomorrow, Speaker Pelosi will try to overturn Republican legislation that has kept the government from negotiating for fair prices for prescription drugs for the elderly and impoverished. It is also expected to win overwhelmingly-- although not with the help of Republican Jack Kingston (KKK-GA)-- who has his own idea of what poor people need to do to escape poverty. After crying that the Democrats were "hurting" families by forcing congressmen to work 5 days a week ("Keeping us up here eats away at families. Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families"), Kingston suggests that poor people work longer hours and stop trying to get the minimum wage increased. He said if poor people got married and worked longer hours "they would be out of poverty. It's an economic fact." As with almost everything he says, he's wrong about this too. The annual salary for full-time workers earning the federal minimum wage still leaves a family of 3 about $6,000 into the poverty threshold." Kingston is a clown and typical of the kinds of people who make up the disruptive amd obstructionist Republican minority in the House. It's hard to believe that the good folks in Waycross and southeast Georgia want this turd to represent them in Congress.