Senate Majority Leader Frist backs stem research

I had to take a moment to give credit to Senate Majority leader Bill Frist for supporting stem cell research funding, and breaking away from Bush and the religious conservatives views.

“It’s not just a matter of faith, it’s a matter of science,” Frist said on the floor of the Senate.
“While human embryonic stem cell research is still at a very early stage, the limitation put into place in 2001 will, over time, slow our ability to bring potential new treatments for certain diseases,” the Tennessee lawmaker said in his speech.

“Therefore, I believe the president’s policy should be modified. We should expand federal funding ... and current guidelines governing stem cell research, carefully and thoughtfully, staying within ethical bounds,” he said.

John Bolton's inaccurate info

From The N.Y. Times and Progressreport.org

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Bolton's Inaccurate Info

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be ambassador to the U.N., provided inaccurate information to Congress during his confirmation hearing. In a form submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations committee, Bolton said "he had not been interviewed or asked for information in connection with any administrative investigation, including that of an inspector general, during the last five years." That wasn't true. Bolton "had been interviewed by the State Department's inspector general looking into how American intelligence agencies came to rely on fabricated reports that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa." He only admitted it after being caught red-handed. Yesterday, Sen. Joe Biden sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informing her that "John Bolton was interviewed on July 18, 2003 by the State Department Office of the Inspector General." Hours later, through a State Department spokesperson, Bolton conceded that the form, "as submitted, was inaccurate." The revelation only adds to concerns that have prevent Bolton from being confirmed by the Senate. Nevertheless, the administration hinted they would circumvent the democratic process and install John Bolton as a recess appointment.

CREDIBILITY OF ADMINISTRATION SPOKESPEOPLE RAPIDLY DECLINING: Word to the wise: don't believe everything you hear at an administration press briefing. First, we learned that White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan made inaccurate statements about the Valerie Plame leak. Now, State Department Spokesman Scott McCormack's credibility is taking a nosedive. Yesterday at around 12:45 PM, McCormack said "They'd asked whether or not the nominee [John Bolton] has been interviewed or asked to supply any information in connection with any administrative, including an Inspector General, congressional or grand jury investigation within the past five years, except routine Congressional testimony. Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say no. And that answer was truthful then and it remains the case now." By the evening, McCormack had completely changed his story. McCormack told Reuters that Bolton's "form as submitted was inaccurate in this regard and he will correct the form."

ADMINISTRATION STILL THREATENING RECESS APPOINTMENT: The administration has been dropping unsubtle hints about the possibility of installing John Bolton with a recess appointment when Congress adjourns for August. On Monday, McClellan said "there are important priorities we're working to advance, and it's important to have people in certain positions. And if the Senate fails to act and move forward on those nominees, then sometimes there comes a point where the President has needed to fill that in a timely manner by recessing those nominees." Rice, appearing on PBS's NewsHour last night, said "What we can't be is without leadership at the United Nations." Apparently, the administration doesn't care that much about being truthful with Congress. An anonymous administration official told the AP that "the new information does not change the Bush administration's commitment to Bolton's nomination."

WHY A BOLTON RECESS APPOINTMENT IS BAD FOR AMERICA: If President Bush decides to make a recess appointment of John Bolton he "would be the first U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to hold office without Senate confirmation." A U.N. ambassador can be effective only if other nations believe he has the trust and confidence of the country he represents and Bolton would "bear the stigma of not having the Senate's backing." Many conservatives agree. Sen Pat Roberts (R-KS) "said a recess appointment 'would weaken not only Mr. Bolton but also the United States' because the international community would see the new ambassador as lacking bipartisan support." Even the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page thinks a recess appointment is a bad idea. 

Are Stupid White Men Really Stupid?

“We have been children long enough. We must now unshackle our minds and begin acting as independent beings.” – Noah Webster, First American Dictionary

By Dom Stasi

07/27/05 "ICH" - - Two framed pictures hang on my office wall. Each is accompanied by a timely message.

The frame atop holds a portrait of colonial patriot Samuel Adams. (Yes, the beer guy. My hero on so many levels.) Below the picture are his words, written at America’s birth: “The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

When I look at the framed document and I see the idealized portrait - Sam Adams of the set jaw and steely eyes - I feel as though he is reaching across the centuries and speaking directly to me, admonishing me to beware the artifices of designing men.

Then I lower my eyes. What I see lowers my spirits as well. For immediately below the Sam Adams quote hangs another frame. This one contains a front page from the London Daily Mirror. Above the newspaper’s headline floats another picture, this one of a befuddled-looking, newly “reelected” George W. Bush. The headline reads: “HOW CAN 59,054,087 PEOPLE BE SO DUMB?”

Now, while I’ve asked myself the same question innumerable times since November 4th, I’m not so sure the answer is as simple as the British tabloid would have us think. But think we must. So it is this lower frame, and the many messages and subtexts its simple words convey, on which I cannot help but concentrate my attention and this article.

If we’re not dumb, then how can 59,054,087 people – Americans all - appear so dumb?
(more at link on top)

Club G'itmo Paraphenalia

I was shocked and angered when I received an e-mail from a friend of mine showing me the incredible ignorance and arrogance displayed by the extreme radio arm of the right-wing, Rush Limbaugh.
I would normally never mention someone so full of shit as Rush Limbaugh, but he and his followers have gone too far this time.
The EIB (Excellence in Broadcasting) and Rush are now selling products making fun of prison abuses and inhumane treatment of prisoners at Gauntanimo Detention Facility in Cuba. Both the Red Cross and Amnesty International have made formal complaints about prisoner abuses at Gauntanimo and Abu Garab prisons.
Rush likened the abuses as that of a "Fraternity prank" by US soldiers and interrogaters on his radio program shortly after the abuse photos and information became public.


Now Rush is continuing to promote ignorance and intolerance by selling car flags, coffee mugs and tee shirts poking fun of our governments breaking of the Geneva Conventions. The "war on Terror" has been used to extract information by torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners by our military and intelligence communities, many who have not even been charged with a crime.
I'd like to send Rush on a Club G'itmo vacation package because I think he would soon have a change of heart once the Oxycontin wore off.
What a sick son of a bitch!!