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From the monthly archives:
June 2007
These guys don’t give up, do they?
President Bush threatened Tuesday to veto the D.C. budget bill unless it barred the District from using federal funds to register domestic partnerships.
In a memo to Congress, Bush said he opposed House efforts to strike that longstanding stipulation.
“Under federal law, legal marriage is the union between a man and a woman,” the memo says. “Federal tax dollars are not used to extend employment benefits to domestic partners of federal employees and D.C. should not enjoy an exception to this rule.”
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Three Libertarian candidates (Steve Kubby, George Phillies, Wayne Allyn Root) and one Green candidate (Alan Augustson) participated in the ‘Third Party Candidate Debate’ last night- broadcast live on internet radio and moderated by ‘young online radio guru’ Koko.
Despite the name, there was actually very little debate. The four candidates actually seemed to agree on most of the issues.
Much of the discussion was about the viability of a third-party candidate and the funding needed to run a campaign. On this topic, Wayne Allyn Root, self-proclaimed “television pitchman” and “infomercial expert”, was the only candidate who seemed to have a plan.
He admits he doesn’t think he can win the election- not this year, anyway. Instead, Root wants to use the 2008 election to build the “Libertarian Brand” – especially among his target audience: online poker players.
According to Root, there are “…up to thirty million people who love online poker and online gaming and I think I’m finally going to make a difference for that group. I can get them to come to the polls. I can get them to contribute money. I can get them excited. I can get their support.”
Ha! Online Poker Players? Certainly not a perfect solution, I’ll agree. But then again- Root has his own star on Las Vegas Walk of Stars- so he may know a little more about building brands and target audiences than I do.
Crazy or not, Root’s plan is a hell of a lot better than Alan Augustson’s- which he summarizes as: you can say “No, Unless” or you can say “Yes, If.” I choose the latter. I choose to hope.
Anyway- I would have written Root off as a wacko- except that I liked his answer to the Iraq question as well:
First of all, there is a way to leave there tomorrow. We went there to institute democracy. My plan, which I’ve talked about on many different radio and TV shows in the last month, the very first thing I would do is prove that it is all about democracy. I would have a vote, tomorrow! Let the Iraqi people vote: should we stay or should we go? If the Iraqi people don’t appreciate what we’ve done … then I say we leave tomorrow.
Let the Iraqi people vote. Best answer I’ve heard yet.
You can listen to the archived audio here and read the transcript here.
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So, we here at PB have taken some heat for attacking Matt Naugle for his falsehoods and irrelevant personal attacks. I understand that some people think we are wasting our time, and to a certain extent, I understand that view.
But I also understand that the “most prominent right-wing blog in Ohio” has a responsibility – be a good citizen in the blogging community. Lying about the facts is not a part of good citizenship. Neither is attacking family members of politicians or bloggers. I think ignoring these attacks is a mistake. I believe that this kind of ugliness must be confronted to be defeated.
As Jerid points out, this stuff has absolutely nothing to do with anything other than trying to embarrass and attack uninvolved third parties. The Ohio GOP has attacked Jerid’s mom. RABid has attacked Jerid’s dad. RABid has attacked Jennifer Brunner’s son. This stuff is pandemic. And I can’t wrap my head around the idea that anyone would think this relevant or even ethical.
This pretty much confirms my earlier decision to never ever link to RABid again. I’d ignore them entirely, if there wasn’t significant evidence that Naugle is running an astroturf blog over there, and thus is doing this at the behest of the Ohio GOP.
UPDATE: I should add – I have never, not once ever, been even remotely curious in digging for skeletons amongst Naugle’s family and friends. His mother, or father, aren’t out there blogging, carrying water, and as such aren’t even relevant. For that matter, I’m not terribly interested in Naugle’s skeletons. Unless he’s practicing one thing and preaching another, I don’t much care about his private life.
But then again, I have facts, truth, justice, and ethical behavior on my side. When you are losing the fight, I guess you might feel the need to steep to some pretty ugly behavior.
UPDATE 2: the offending post has suddenly disappeared from RABid. *POOF* – just like an “enemy combatant”. Somebody – probably one of Matty’s “handlers” from the Ohio GOP – must have decided that was in poor taste (and it was). Matty didn’t even have the nerve to leave a placeholder post apologizing for posting something so completely out of line to begin with. Well, this post isn’t going away – Matty may have retracted the post, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of the “top” conservative blogs in Ohio thought it appropriate, even fleetingly, to put something like that out there. This post will remain on the internet forever, a testament to what vicious scumbags wingnuts are. Coultergeist is cut from the same cloth.
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The group Columbus 9/11 Truth is bringing their Truth Film Festival to my neighborhood theatre this weekend.
According to The Other Paper, the Truth Film Festival is:
a slate of five muckraking documentaries that attempt to expose various shady dealings within the highest reaches of media and government, including a couple of films that radically question the accepted explanation for 9-11.
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William M. Todd, Republican candidate for Columbus Mayor, and dirt-bag republican lawyer, is again attacking Columbus Public Schools.
This time it is their building program. According to Todd: This is one of the biggest public-works projects we’ve ever seen in the history of Columbus, and local small businesses have been excluded.
Which is not only untrue- since school officials have exceeded their goal to steer 20 percent of the construction dollars to local and economically disadvantaged enterprises- but also irrelavent since the Mayor doesn’t control the School Board.
Antoinette Wilson, Coleman’s campaign director, points this out in her humorous quote from the Dispatch Article:
He’s basically trying to say the mayor should be accountable for a program that’s driven by Columbus Public Schools… Maybe he needs to run for school board.
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I couldn’t make up something this funny. I’m including all the text because it’s JUST THAT HILARIOUS.
The Sacred Secrets of Saddam’s Super Secret WMDs
26 June 2007
Why do people still believe Saddam had WMDs? Because Jesus tells them so. Well, not Jesus, but his modern disciples.
Rod Parsley, a rising star of charismatic fundamentalism who’s had a heavy impact on national politics, features on his “Breakthrough” program tonight Dr. Perry Stone, an apocalypse scholar who claims top national security sources and Israelis assure him that inspectors discovered enough WMDs in Saddam’s bunkers before the war to destroy the world three times over. Why didn’t he? Because he wanted to give them to his mortal enemy of Iran, using special airplanes — with the seats torn out to make room for more nukes!
It’d be easy to dismiss this kookiness as just that were it not for Parsley’s flock — they’re ordinary Ohioans. His megachurch is one of the most racially-integrated in the country. His followers aren’t classic fundamentalists, but in large part people who might have been liberals once — before Pastor Parsley delivered them the news.
HAHAHAHAA! (PLEASE tell me someone’s TiVo accidentally recorded this show! We need to get it up on YouTube ASAP.)
That airplane bit is hillarious. And the part about destroying the world three times over. But hell, what else would you expect from an “apocalypse scholar”?
We all need to thank Jesus for giving George Bush the strength to save the world from blowing up three times over.
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Last year Deb Pryce (R) almost lost her job as the rep from Ohio’s 15th district. The close election (she won by only about 1,000 out of 220,000 votes) was, in large part, due to TV ads run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that accused her of voting to increasing her own pay.
She was recently quoted in Congressional Quartly saying: “It was one of the most effective ads against me, and it ran constantly.”
The CQ article described the results:
As Ohio Republican Deborah Pryce campaigned for re-election at parades and other public appearances last year, constituents greeted her with sarcastic catcalls such as, “Give yourself another pay raise.”
Hey! I was at that parade. I’m glad to know she heard me yelling. 
Anyway, looking ahead to the next election, Pryce voted against a salary increase yesterday- as did a lot of other Ohio Republicans who will be involved in tough campaigns next year including Steve Chabot, Jean Schmidt, Jim Jordan, Pat Tiberi and Steve LaTourette- as well as some Democrats like Space and Kucinich.
(note: the measure was approved 272-155)
I guess the DCCC is going to need another issue for the next election. The war maybe? Immigration? Oh, there are so many to choose from. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
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The Plain Dealer has a funny story today about another labor dispute between the Federal Aviation Administration and the Air-Traffic Controllers Union.
But this one isn’t over money or overtime- this one is about pants.
Specifically, an FAA-imposed dress code for controllers.
The part that caught my eye was the controller in Oberlin who was reprimanded because his aquamarine pants were “not gender appropriate.”
The union spokewoman (Melissa Ott) called the policy silly and, in defense of the bright-blue pants guy, added: “He was angry. He said they were questioning his sexuality because of his pants. And aren’t there laws against discriminating against someone because of sexual orientation anyway?”
Actually, Ms. Ott, there aren’t any laws like this. Not in Ohio anyway.
But there should be.
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While Ken Blackwell whines and warns us about Democratic plans for “big government takeover” of our health care system – our Democratic Governor is actually doing something good to help Ohio’s children.
The legislature passed Ted Strickland’s budget yesterday and, as promised, the budget includes:
Healthcare Access for All Ohio’s Children
* All children up to 300 percent of the federal poverty line will have access to healthcare through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
* Families at incomes above 300 percent of poverty will be able to buy health coverage from the state for children with special needs that prevent them from qualifying for private insurance.
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CNN has a good piece about aboption by same-sex couples online today.
The article discusses, among other things, the legal hurdles to adoption faced in some states that deny same-sex couples the right to adopt (e.g. Mississippi, Utah) and, of course, in Florida- the only state that specifically bans “homosexual” individuals from adopting.
Though our state is not specifically mentioned, it’s important to remember that in Ohio, same-sex partners are barred from joint adoption. And only last year, a bill was introduced into the Ohio Legislature that would bar all adoptions and foster care by gays and lesbians.
Unfortunately, we can expect this gay-hating agenda in Ohio to continue as long as we have people like Rev. Russell Johnson (Ohio Restoration Project) spewing crap like: Marriage or any civil union has been declared unconstitutional (in Ohio), so why would they be able to adopt children? These people cannot reproduce. … Experimenting on children through gay adoption is a problem.
I fully expect more of this type of crap from our Republican-led Legislature when they return in September. And Plunderbund will be watching.
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Do climate change skeptics ever say anything that sounds plausible? Like that other planets in the solar system are warming (Mars and Pluto, specifically), and thus the earth’s warming is due to solar radiation? Don’t let ‘em fool you. Check out New Scientists’ Climate Change: A guide for the perplexed, which sets out to debunk some of the myths out there about climate change.
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A rather curious poll came to light yesterday; amongst the current field of Democratic presidential candidates, Clinton has a large lead with 37% to Obama’s 19%, with no one else north of 10%.
However, if you throw Al Gore’s name into the mix, the situation shifts dramatically.
Al Gore, however, could enter the race as the leader. When his name is added, Clinton loses more than a quarter of her support, while Gore is backed by 32 percent.
As much as it hurts Clinton if Gore enters the race, it appears it must hurt the other candidates even more – Clinton holds nearly 40% of the votes now, yet only provides about 33% of Gore’s support. Somebody else is getting squeezed harder. Obama? Unfortunately, the article doesn’t provide enough information.
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In his latest Townhall.com article, Ken Blackwell blasts Michael Moore’s Movie ‘Sicko’ and all of the Democratic presidential candidates in a rant that shows his complete lack of understanding about universal healthcare. It goes something like this:
Think of the hassles you face at the department of motor vehicles. Now picture dealing with those hassles when you take a child to the doctor: Take a number to wait in line for countless hours, or days, for the wrong test, or to correct a prescription for the wrong medicine. Stand in one line for x-rays, then another for medication.
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