Could this be the port deal that wakes the rest of America up?

Well, I, myself have sat by and watched Bush commit one morally unspeakable atrocity after another and consider myself beyond shock. And so it was last week when Bush's decision to sell our ports to the United Arab Emirates first came to public notice.

But it seems that now many Bush supporters are hopping mad over the deal and Bush's stubborn insistence on defending it. He claims he will veto any bill Congress passes to stop the deal. I watched CNN's Cafferty Files yesterday and many Bush voters were calling for impeachment!

First off, Bush is going to lose this one and he needs his head examined for even suggesting that he'd veto any steps to cancel the port deal. No one takes his threat seriously. Everyone knows that a president who has NEVER used his power to veto in 6 years in office is NOT going to use it now to preserve a port deal that benefits the United Arab Emirates.

Then there are those who claim that questioning this deal is racist. I do not agree. After all, several of the 9-11 hijackers were from the United Arab Emirates and this country has a history of laundering terrorist money. Although I do not deny that most Americans stereotype Arabs as terrorists, in this case the fact surrounding this deal give great credence to those questioning the deal. And it appears that liberals, independents and conservatives are all questioning the deal.

Jimmy Carter made a colollosal error in judgement by backing Bush on this deal. Carter is making people question his national security judgement. I think he's probably trying to show people he's not biased against the Bush administration, but Carter should've had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. Let Bush ride this one to the bitter end.

Finally, the rest of the country sees the poor judgement of the administration currently occupying the White House.

U.S. Churches Speak Out Against Bush's War, Poverty & Anti-Environmentalism

Yeah! I've been waiting for an organization of U.S. Christian churches to speak out against Bush's madness, inhumanity and greed. What took them so long??? And it is a powerful statement indeed. Here's an AP article on their stand which was made yesterday:

U.S. Church Alliance Denounces Iraq War

By BRIAN MURPHY, AP Religion WriterSat Feb 18, 1:05 PM ET

A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the U.S.-led war in Iraq on Saturday, accusing Washington of "raining down terror" and apologizing to other nations for "the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown."

The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the United States was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a "culture of consumption" and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.

"We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights," said the statement from representatives of the 34 U.S. members of World Council of Churches. "We mourn all who have died or been injured in this war. We acknowledge with shame abuses carried out in our name."

The World Council of Churches includes more than 350 mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches; the Roman Catholic Church is not a member. The U.S. groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox churches and Baptist denominations, among others.

The statement is part of widening religious pressure on the Bush administration, which still counts on the support of evangelical churches and other conservative denominations but is widely unpopular with liberal-minded Protestant congregations.

The Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, the moderator for the U.S. group of WCC members, said the letter was backed by the leaders of the churches but was not cleared by lower-level bodies. He predicted friction within congregations about the tone of the message.

"There is much internal anguish and there is division," said Kishkovsky, ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church of America. "I believe church leaders and communities are wrestling with the moral questions that this letter is addressing."

On Friday, the U.S. National Council of Churches — which includes many WCC members — released a letter appealing to Washington to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and saying reports of alleged torture violated "the fundamental Christian belief in the dignity of the human person."

The two-page statement from the WCC group came at the midpoint of a 10-day meeting of more than 4,000 religious leaders, scholars and activists discussing trends and goals for major Christian denominations for the coming decades. The WCC's last global assembly was in 1998 in Zimbabwe — just four months after al-Qaida staged twin bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"Our country responded (to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks) by seeking to reclaim a privileged and secure place in the world, raining down terror on the truly vulnerable among our global neighbors ... entering into imperial projects that seek to dominate and control for the sake of national interests," said the statement. "Nations have been demonized and God has been enlisted in national agendas that are nothing short of idolatrous."

The Rev. Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), worried that some may interpret the statement as undermining U.S. troops in Iraq.
"We honor their courage and sense of duty, but ... we, as people of faith, have to say to our brothers and sisters, `We are so profoundly sorry,'" Watkins said.

The message also accused U.S. officials of ignoring warnings about climate change and treating the world's "finite resources as if they are private possessions." It went on to criticize U.S. domestic policies for refusing to confront racism and poverty.

"Hurricane Katrina revealed to the world those left behind in our own nation by the rupture of our social contract," said the statement.

The churches said they had "grown heavy with guilt" for not doing enough to speak out against the Iraq war and other issues. The statement asked forgiveness for a world that's "grown weary from the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown."

Here's why the Cheney Shooting IS a story

I've heard some people wonder why the media is making such a big deal about the Vice President accidentally shooting a man and refusing to address the American people about it for four days.

The New York Times and Washington Post each ran incisive yet properly sarcastic editorials which explore why this is, indeed, a story:

The New York Times
Editorial
Tuesday, February 14, 2006

White House Shoots Foot
Let's see. The vice president of the United States accidentally shot someone while bird-hunting on a Texas ranch. It took the White House nearly 24 hours to share that information with the rest of the nation because Dick Cheney thought it would be better for the ranch's owner to give the story to the local newspaper first. And by the way, it was all the victim's fault.

That's their story, and they're sticking with it.

Mr. Cheney was a weekend guest at a ranch owned by Katharine Armstrong, a lobbyist whose family has longstanding ties with the Texas Republican Party and the Bush White House. Mr. Cheney, who is proud of his reputation as an outdoorsman, was gunning for quail when, according to Ms. Armstrong, a 78-year-old lawyer named Henry Whittington got between the vice president and the bird. Mr. Cheney pulled the trigger, forgetting one of the National Rifle Association's top rules for gun safety: "Be absolutely sure you have identified your target beyond any doubt. Equally important, be aware of the area beyond your target." Mr. Whittington was sprayed with birdshot.

Fortunately, Mr. Cheney travels with his own medical team. (The vice president suffers from heart problems, although the full details of his physical condition are secret.) Nevertheless, according to the White House, Mr. Cheney was so busy attending to Mr. Whittington that he was unable to inform even President Bush about what had happened for a very long time. His retinue - usually bristling with cellphones, pagers, BlackBerries and satellite phones - was also oddly incommunicado.

The rest of the world might have been in the dark forever if Ms. Armstrong had not chosen to share the news with a reporter from the paper in Corpus Christi.

The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, tried to spin this as a communications strategy. The vice president of the United States, he explained, designated a private citizen (who is a lobbyist for a Texas engineering company) "to go out there and provide that information to the public." As a result, what might have been a one-day gag on late-night TV is now a running story, and an excellent reminder that this administration never met a fact that it didn't want to suppress. (The last time Mr. Cheney made news while hunting was when he secretly invited Justice Antonin Scalia to go shooting right after the Supreme Court had agreed to decide whether Mr. Cheney could keep the membership of his energy task force secret.)

The vice president appears to have behaved like a teenager who thinks that if he keeps quiet about the wreck, no one will notice that the family car is missing its right door. The administration's communications department has proved that its skills at actually communicating are so rusty it can't get a minor police-blotter story straight. And the White House, in trying to cover up the cover-up, has once again demonstrated that it would rather look inept than open.

When the Veep Shoots Someone
The Washington Post
Editorial
Tuesday, February 14, 2006; A14


HOW IS IT THAT the vice president of the United States can shoot and wound someone and the American public doesn't learn of it until 18 hours later -- and then only because the owner of the location where the event occurred decided the next day to tell a local reporter? The White House has no satisfactory answer; neither does the vice president's office. But this much is known, following press inquiries: While quail hunting on a privately owned Texas ranch Saturday, Vice President Cheney accidentally sprayed a hunting companion, Harry Whittington, with birdshot from a shotgun about 5:30 p.m. The shooting wasn't disclosed until Sunday morning, when Katharine Armstrong, a member of the family that owns the ranch, called the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and the paper posted the story on its Web site in the afternoon after confirming the account with Mr. Cheney's office. Until then, the White House and the vice president's office were mum. By every standard and by all accounts, the failure to promptly disclose the accident was wrong.

Of course, the first priority when a person is shot and wounded is to make sure the victim receives the necessary medical care. That apparently was done at the scene by medical attendants accompanying Mr. Cheney. And the Secret Service reportedly notified the local sheriff's office of the incident on Saturday, according to the New York Times. The vice president's staff also regarded the matter as serious enough to alert President Bush on Saturday and to give the White House updates on the condition of Mr. Whittington, who was released from intensive care yesterday afternoon but remains at a Corpus Christi hospital with wounds to his upper body.

What makes little sense, however, was the White House's decision, according to press secretary Scott McClellan, to defer disclosure of the shooting incident to the vice president's office, and that office's decision to further defer to the owners of the ranch.

Mr. Cheney did not check his official title at the Armstrongs' front gate. That was no private citizen who pulled the trigger, sending someone to the hospital. That act, though accidental -- and doubtless both agonizing and embarrassing -- was committed by the country's second-highest public official. Neither Mr. Cheney nor the White House gets to pick and choose when to disclose a shooting. Saturday's incident required immediate public disclosure -- a fact so elementary that the failure to act properly is truly disturbing in its implications.

Full Congressional Probe of Warrantless Wiretapping Appears to Be Dead

A couple of days ago, it seemed like a few republican senators who were appalled by Bush's warrantless wiretapping would force the Republican leadership in the Senate to conduct full hearings into the unconstitutional program, but today it appears these same senators have caved. Instead, it seems like they're going to pass a law to make this illegal program legal.

I'm not surprised. I'd just like to know where are the real conservatives that once stood for privacy rights, fiscal responsibility, states rights, separation between church and state as well as environmental protections? Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan wouldn't recognize the current Republican Party. They are shredding the US Constitution and are traitors to America.

Bush's Trust Gap

Bush is constantly asking Americans to trust him despite the fact that he is constantly lying to us - in front of our very eyes, in many cases! I often shake my head in wonder at the people who still support the Bush Regime. I wonder, how can it be so? Then I remember that the right wing has developed a very powerful media machine with Fox News as the centerpiece. This machine has created a seperate information/reality for liberals and conservatives. Still, one would imagine that even stalwart conservatives must be waking up to the fact that Bush and his administration cannot be trusted.

Anyway, the New York Times Editorial Board courageously (they pick their battles) weighs in on Bush's inability to be trusted. I commend them because this is a subject that most of the corporate media has shied away from addressing. In fact, the corporate media STILL insists on looking to the Bush administration officials as "reliable sources" to quote on stories and rarely challenge their lies. Even though the administration has been caught in lie after lie after lie....

I said goodbye to Mrs. King

I viewed her body yesterday morning. She looked lovely and I was honored to be able to do so. I wasn't able to attend her noon funeral because the church was full and I was turned away. So, I went home and watched the service. It was a wonderfully powerful and appropriate celebration of life for a woman who was civil rights royalty.

You know what though? I wasn't dissatisfied that I didn't get into the church for the funeral because I had gotten the opportunity to view her body. Something I will never forget.

My biggest regret is that I've been living in the metro Atlanta area for about 12 years now and never attended the King Services so I could see her when she was still living. I took her presence for granted. And, now that she is gone, I see how much time I wasted.

Mrs. King was a class act. I feel such sadness because we are rapidly losing our elders. Ossie Davis. Constance Baker Motley. John H. Johnson. Rosa Parks. Hosea Williams. The good news is that we, the younger generation, are now being pressed to accept the torch that Mrs. King carried and take the struggle to another level.

I was blessed. There were SOOOO many black folks as far as my eye could see - of all ages - standing in line patiently and with so much gratitude for Mrs. King's contribution to changing the world. And everyone had wonderful stories to tell.

I was blessed.

A Conservative Christian Against GOP Religious Extremism

Retired Republican Senator and Episcopal priest John Danforth came out against the Republican party becoming the political arm of the Christian right back in March during the Terri Schiavo debacle. I really appreciated reading his column during the Schiavo madness, although I don't agree with most of Danforth's politics.

Today, he came back out on his perch to crow against the religious right's grip on the GOP and how they are tearing America apart.

I wish more moderate Republicans would stand up and take back their political party. Now would be good.

GOP shafts the Elderly, College Students, Working Moms and the Poor Yesterday!

Well, when Bush ran for the presidency he told us he was a "compassionate conservative" who is a born again Christian.

So, what kind of compassion and Christianity is "party of God" practicing? Yesterday they rammed a cold-hearted bill that they call "budget reconciliation" that cuts college students' financial aid, medicare and other social programs. They say they're doing it to get control over our deficit.

Thing is, today the GOP is trying to ram through making the tax cuts for the rich PERMANENT! So, whatever you would've saved by cutting the social programs yesterday is lost by making the tax cuts for the rich permanent.

But the GOP thinks they'll get away with these cuts on election day this year by convincing us that they are better than the Democrats on national security, guns, god and gays. Yep, the old formula.

Bottom line, cutting the elderly, the students, women and the poor is bad politics and immoral. It's a sin, a shame and a disgrace.

America is fast becoming a very mean-spirited society.

We need to wake up.