I don't think I've made clear why the Frist/HCA/abortion issue is, well, an issue.

First, it's clear that Frist is no ideological anti-choicer, he's an opportunistic one. This is another way of saying he lies about it. Fair enough. As a pro-choice person that could be a good thing, but it also mean he's willing to play politics with women's health issues which is rather repugnant.

Second, to the extent that he's advocated for government restrictions on abortion (and he has adopted the morally unsound position that it's only okay in case of rape, incest, or the when the life of the mother is in danger), this is another example of public morality differing from private morality. It frankly isn't much different than advocating a legal anti-choice position, then driving your wife to the abortion clinic. For the First family business to be, partially, an abortion provider without him taking a public stand on the issue implies he puts profits over his morality. While I am glad that Columbia hospitals will do abortion procedures unlike, say, Catholic hospitals, this doesn't change the inherent moral cowardice, from Frist's supposed perspective.

On balance, I'd rather have a fake pro-life senate majority leader than a real one, but the anti-choice movement has had much success in recent years. In some states there are only one or two abortion providers - which means it is almost impossible for most women to obtain real health care. The rhetorical legitimization of this position, especially from someone who is essentially lying about their moral stance, is in itself damaging.

I notice many of you have been doing your holiday shopping at the last minute...naughty naughty... but, thanks for throwing a few nickles my way by using the amazon link.

Lovely.

There's no place on earth that Amina Budri would rather be than America.

Against the altered political landscapes of her Afghan homeland and that of her chosen land – and despite the uniform welcome that the rest of her family received here – federal immigration authorities in North Texas are poised to banish the 29-year-old to a nation long foreign to her and a culture hostile to solitary women.

Ms. Budri, alone among nine siblings in failing to secure political asylum in the United States or Canada, was granted a temporary delay Thursday from immediate deportation.

She remains under order to return to Afghanistan, however, unless she wins a new review of her case, including evidence of her family's Afghan political ties that apparently was never considered by an immigration court.

If someone sees the follow up to this, make sure you bring it to my attention please.

(via Alas, a Blog)

Where I used to live there were a large number of immigrants - legal - from Cape Verde. A problem was that some of the younger ones - who had been in the U.S. since they were small children and were now young adults - were being deported back to Cape Verde after committing minor crimes. Many of them spoke no Portugese.

Wartime speech codes have apparently been instituted by decree from Tennessee.

Whistleblowers "Man"of the Year

NEW YORK (AP) - The FBI agent who wrote a scathing memo on FBI intelligence failures and women who blew the whistle on corruption at corporate giants Enron and WorldCom were named Sunday as Time magazine's Persons of the Year.

The magazine's editors chose Coleen Rowley, Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins "for believing - really believing - that the truth is one thing that must not be moved off the books, and for stepping in to make sure that it wasn't.

Time says:

Senator Bill Frist, M.D.— the only surgeon in the Senate — is about as far from pro-choice as you can get. That distinction added striking power to his announcement this week that he supports embryonic stem cell research, albeit within a strictly regulated framework.

Ailes notes that Peeger Nooner is speaking in code when she refers cryptically to the "school liberation movement."

I just want to say again that, snark aside, the fact that the Frist Family Business makes money providing abortions is no small bit of hypocrisy given his stated position and voting record on the subject. There is something truly odious about having the *private* power to affect something but abandoning that avenue, for money, and instead trying to implement your agenda with policy. Or, in reality, not trying to implement it but posturing about it.

And, yes, blahblah it's his brother's company not his, but he's made a lot of money off of it and as far as I know hasn't taken a stand on the company's policy.

This is BIG hypocrisy of the most disgusting kind.


more on this later...(time allowing)

To the Barricades has another post worth reading.


Just remember: It ain't just the South. It's in the mountains of Oregon and Idaho; it's in the sandhills of Nebraska; it's in the central valley of California. It's everywhere that change comes and frightens people and makes them yearn for days that never happened.


UPDATE: David Neiwert adds:

To the Barricades, who writes from Nebraska, certainly knows whereof he speaks.

It is becoming increasingly clear that among the voters to whom George W. Bush and the GOP make appeals are right-wing extremists. There have been a number of instances well outside the South (where the neo-Confederate appeal has been clear) in which leaders of various extreme right-wing factions, from militiamen to neo-Nazis, have indicated a clear identification with Bush.

This of course is not to say that Bush sympathizes with their philosophies. Rather it is simply clear that certain gestures and appeals that he makes are enough to persuade these voters that he is their kind of president.

The mass of these votes used to go to the Reform Party, until Pat Buchanan took over and ran with a black woman for a running mate. That, combined with the "dire threat" posed by Gore's selection of a Jew as a running mate, drove many of these voters to the GOP in 2000. Witness, for instance, the presence of Don Black's Stormfront folks protesting on Bush's behalf at the Florida recount fiascoes.

The significance of this is the way the increased traffic between the extremist and mainstream right wings is transforming each faction. And since the mainstream is by far the larger faction, one has to be concerned about the amount that the poisonous ideologies of the extreme right are seeping into the mainstream.

This trend began to emerge in the 1990s on two fronts: first, the white-supremacist movement was remaking itself as the "militia" movement as a way of gaining entree into the mainstream; and the mainstream right's excessive attacks on Bill Clinton, which often emerged from a radical-right echo chamber. The Bush-identification phenomenon means that the mainstream and extremist right have become even tighter in their associations.

This will become an important factor, I fear, if the Democrats pose any kind of serious threat to the Bush regime in 2004.

Note how Bush distances himself from the Anti-lott contigent:

No bigotry. Lott's withdrawal as Senate leader gives the president the opportunity to renew his campaign to prove he is a different kind of Republican, without the complication of working with a man tainted as a sometime defender of segregation. In the interview, Bush was eager, for the first time, to detail his views on America's continuing racial divide. But just 48 hours before Lott stepped down, Bush said Lott "shouldn't leave his position." The president did not want to give Lott the final public shove, even while his allies were working behind the scenes to force Lott out. "My attitude about race is that we ought to confront bigotry, all forms of bigotry," Bush said, "and I believe the American–I know the American people are good, honorable, decent people. And occasionally the bigot has his day. I don't think Trent Lott is a bigot. I find him to be a, you know, he's a friend. . . . My job is to continue to work for an America that welcomes all and that is nondiscriminatory, and I will do that."

A bit of justice perhaps...

Awhile back a Mississippi judge wrote this letter to the editor:


Dear Editor:

I got sick on my stomach today as I read the (AP) news story on the Dog attack on the front page of THE MISSISSIPPI PRESS and had to respond! AMERICA IS IN TROUBLE!

I never thought that we would see the day when such would be here in AMERICA.

The last verse of chapter one of the book of Romans in our HOLY BIBLE is my reason for responding and sounding the alarm to this. You need to know as I know that God in Heaven is not pleased with this, and I am sounding the alarm that I, for one, am against it and want our LORD to see and hear me say I am against it.

I am sorry that the California Legislature enacted a law granting gay partners the same right to sue as spouses or family members. Also, that Hawaii and Vermont have enacted such a law, too. In my opinion, gays and lesbians should be put in some type of a mental institute instead of having a law like this passed for them.

I don't know, but I believe if we vote for folks that are for this we have to stand in the judgment of GOD the same as them. I am thankful for our Legislators and pray for wisdom for them, on such unbelievable legislation as this. May GOD bless each one of them in JESUS CHRIST's name I pray!

Thank you for printing this.

Connie Glenn Wilkerson


Now that the country has purged itself of its last racist by deposing Trent Lott, perhaps we can move on to anti-gay bigotry. This bastard is a judge, you see - using his religion to justify his bigotry. Anyone wanna bet how much "justice" a gay man might actually get in his court?

There is at least this outcome:

(Atlanta, Friday, December 20, 2002) — A state commission on judicial conduct today recommended that the Mississippi Supreme Court penalize a local judge who publicly advocated that gays and lesbians should be institutionalized. The recommendation is in response to an ethics complaint Lambda Legal filed with the commission earlier this year, saying that the judge's comments clearly violated the state's Code of Judicial Conduct and indicated that he would not decide cases involving gays and lesbians fairly and impartially.

Today's recommendation marks only the second time that a judicial commission in the South has recommended penalizing a judge for anti-gay bias and is the first such recommendation in Mississippi. Mississippi and a growing number of states explicitly include sexual orientation in their codes of conduct that prohibit judges from demeaning people based on gender, race, religion and other factors.

"This is a significant step forward for Mississippi and for the South," said Greg Nevins, the staff attorney in Lambda Legal's Southern Regional Office handling the ethics complaint on behalf of Equality Mississippi, a statewide gay civil rights group. "Judges are duty-bound to give a fair hearing to everyone, and these kinds of extremely homophobic statements make gays and lesbians, who often face an uphill battle for equality, feel that the justice system is closed off to them."

So, maybe there's some progress...

Nebraska Right to Life Director charged with Felony

good.

Liberal Desert goes for the trifecta on Lott, Noonan, and Kaus.

Get Your War On rocks. So, go buy the book. Not just because it rocks, but because all royalties are going to Mine Detection and Dog Center Team #5. These guys rock too.



Don't wanna buy the book? Go give some money to Adopt-A-Minefield instead.

Guest lineup for the Sunday TV news shows:

ABC's "This Week" -- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Sen. George Allen, R-Va.; Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

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CBS' "Face the Nation" -- Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

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NBC's "Meet the Press" -- First lady Laura Bush; former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington.

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CNN's "Late Edition" -- Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.; Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind.; Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal; former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal.

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"Fox News Sunday" -- Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.; Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind.; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Alas, A Blog has a comprehensive update on the INS roundups including this from the ACLU.

...the agency recently failed to process more than 200,000 change of address forms and then unceremoniously dumped them in the largest underground records facility in the world – an abandoned mine near Kansas City – putting hundreds of thousands at risk of wrongful arrest and deportation for failing to report a change of address.

I know this is hard for many people to understand, but most violations of immigration law are actually no different than violations of traffic law. I don't mean violations of the "sneaking over the border" type, I'm talking about violations of the "line 17 on Form XV3-342-234-vv3-1 was incorrectly filled out" type or of the "the INS didn't send me my goddamn paperwork AGAIN" type. If the government wants to treat those things seriously, they have to first start doing their part.

Look, I've traveled and worked in other countries. And, when I did so at various times I was probably in violation of the equivalent types of things. Frankly, it's almost impossible to *not* be if some bureaucrat decides you are. I'm glad those governments didn't decide to arrest me.

John Pod talks about bloggers (and MEMEME) on On the Media. You can listen here.

and skippy writes a letter to the L.A. Times about Ms. Vincent.

Also, Larry Kestenbaum was on NPR yesterday talking about his website the Political Graveyard. Was a nice interview.

Mark Kleiman wrote a nice long post. And, you should go read it.

But, it's late, I'm grumpy, and frankly tired of this game, so let me sum it up for you: cut the crap, fools. Because, well, most of us aren't..

And, while I'm in this grumpy mode, go read Nathan Newman telling people who think that social security screws blacks to cut the crap, fools. Because, well, most of us aren't.


Then, go read Body and Soul tell us, in many parts, why the self-righteous condemnations of Lott don't mean squat unless you're also calling for Ashcroft's resignation. In other words, cut the crap, fools. Because, well, most of us aren't.

Senator Troll

TNR exposes the Senate's evil little troll. (and, yes, they do call him that up on the Hill...)

(via Josh Marshall)

Hello Guardian Readers. Here's the document the article was referring to. And make sure to check out the thoughts of American ex-pat-in-London Avedon Carol.

Throughout all this Lott mess something's been bothering me. I would say, roughly, that the difference between Left and Right on racial issues in this country isn't as some seem to think a policy difference but rather a difference in perception . Those on the Left generally think that racism is still a problem which adversely effects racial minorities enough that we should formulate a policy response to the problem, while those on the Right don''t. There are enough people on both sides who agree that there is a problem but debate about what should be done about it, but I do think the predominant difference is the perception issue.

However, soon after the Lott thing broke we heard plenty of Republicans screaming "look at all the Democrats who are racists too!"

Fine, fair enough. But if there are all those racists in the top levels of government, don't we have a problem?