A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

We have been slacking off on this feature for the past weeks due to our workload. Unlike many other political blogs this is a part time gig for us. Sometimes we struggle to get out more than a couple stories a day. For that reason we are looking for contributers. No matter if it is one story or a daily feature, if you have something to say we welcome your input. Of course it goes without saying that there are rules and restrictions (not many) but if you are interested check out this page.

The Saintly Seven

1. I learned today from Think Progress today that our “do nothing” 110th congress has now reached the 1,000 mark on votes, extending their record over the previous 942 set way back in 1978. By Contrast the GOP controlled 109th managed a whopping 543 votes.
2. Chris Dodd has been written about a couple times this week for standing up against retroactive telecom immunity. Read them here and here. Well, he makes the list this week for continuing that fight and for fighting to restore our Constitution. “The rule of law is not the province of any political party, or any one candidate. It is the province of the American people…We must act today and stand up for the Constitution and the rule of law.” - Chris Dodd via firedoglake.com
3. Valarie Plame Wilson is making the news again which is a good thing. The more often we can remind the American people how corrupt our government is, and how they are willing to sacrifice national security for cheap political points, the better. There are way more stories out there on this right now than anyone could ever read, but I highly suggest looking at Paul Abrams piece. I also highly recommend picking up her book as there is so much more to this story than the so called liberal media is telling everyone.
4. Well, I have finally found the answer to all those annoying Right Wing Propaganda Emails I receive from well intentioned, yet horribly misguided, family members. This Article from The Nation explains a bit about how they work to promote lies and misinformation.
5. Math has never been sexier! Natalie Portman is guest editing Scholastic Math. Maybe this will help get more dads involved in their kids’ school.
6. John McCain gets praised this week for calling out Rudy Giuliani’s crazy assumption that waterboarding may or may not be torture (see below). McCain said clearly “…It is not a complicated procedure. It is torture“. Way to go McCain, for a complete sell out you’re not half bad.
7. Finally “Several human rights organizations based in the United States and Europe have filed a complaint in a Paris court accusing the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for torture.” Read the complete story here. I think they left out a couple guys, but it’s a good start.

The Sinning Seven

1. Governor George Ryan (R), who was found guilty by a jury of his peers for 18 federal public corruption convictions, was ordered to begin serving his 6 1/2 year sentence. Ryan, or Stroker per prisonbitchname.com, is still trying to avoid prison time but it looks like yet another Republican will be doing hard time before the end of the year.
2. Presidential hopeful, and all around sleezeball, Rudy Giuliani makes this list three times. The first is for the investigation into friend, business partner, ex-police commissioner, and 2004 appointee for homeland security officer Bernie Kerik for multiple federal felonies. They say you can really tell someone’s character by the people he surrounds himself with.
3. Strike two for Rudy this week is the revelation that he protected and employed a defrocked Catholic priest who stands accused of molesting an alter boy and two students. Due to the statue of limitations unfortunately there will not be a trial to determine guilt; however, the fact that there was enough evidence to convince the Catholic church to show him the door is enough.
4. And Strike three for Rudy is the revelation that he thinks waterboarding may not be torture and that “It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.” Of course this is such a crazy assertion that even John McCain, who knows better than anyone, attacked him on it.
5. This one is for Faux News in general for their propaganda filled “reporting” and Brian Kimeade in particular for just making crap up. I don’t know which is worse; that Faux News will let people come on and tell outright lies, or that there are sheeple out there who will believe it. P.S. If you’re wondering what happens at real news outlets when someone makes up crap, they get fired!
6. Rev. Ron Barker makes this weeks list for removing all the Harry Potter books at St. Joseph’s school in Wakefield, Mass. The three people who read our Take Action Story on Banned Books Week will recall that Harry Potter was already a top target for those who wish to censor any thoughts they disagree with, and that was before the outing of Albus Dumbledore.
7. Lastly, straight from the what the fuck files, a mother was acquitted on charges of abuse for piercing her 13 year old daughters genitalia and shaving her head to keep her from having sex (with the moms boyfriend). Apparently that kind of abuse is tolerated here in America. Sick.

As always think of these RSS Roundups as an open thread. So feel free to comment away on whatever topic is on the top of your heads. Of course regular restrictions apply, but other than that go crazy and comment away.

Erinys, a British security company similar to Blackwater, has been sued in court over the death of Army Spc. Christopher Monroe according to a fresh story from Reuters. Spc. Monroe was killed on October 25, 2005 after being struck by a Erinys vehicle which was traveling past a U.S. Convoy at a high rate of speed. While officially ruled an accident, the reckless behavior that led to the death of Spc. Monroe is inexcusable and demands justice.

The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and traveling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on, leading to an accident in which Monroe was hit, suffering severe injuries that led to his death.

Even though warned that the remainder of the U.S. convoy was ahead, the Erinys PSD team employee with reckless disregard accelerated to a high rate of speed and struck Christopher with his armored Suburban, tearing off his right leg.

This case marks the first time a private security company has been charged for the death of a U.S. Soldier according to lawyers. This makes the case very important as recently there has been considerable discussion over who exactly these companies are responsible to. After the recent shooting of Iraqi civilians by Blackwater we have learned that not only is there a loophole in U.S. Law that makes them immune to prosecution here, but that Blackwater would actually prevent themselves from being held accountable in Iraq. While there are no details on how they would prevent this, the recent reports of them pulling weapons on U.S. soldiers makes it pretty clear what they mean.

I wish the family of Spc. Christopher Monroe the best. As a father I cannot imagine the grief and anger that must be a daily part of their lives. This needless war has destroyed the lives of too many, but our thoughts are with the families, friends, and loved ones of all the fallen soldiers. I hope that with this lawsuit it will bring some small relief and closure. More importantly I hope that this lawsuit will open the doors to many more and maybe we can make Iraq safer for our troops there by getting these cowboys out.

~ William ~

Although the revised bill costs the same, 35million dollars over 5 years, Democratic leaders say that they have addressed the concerns brought up by the President who vetoed the original bill and the members of the House who voted no on overriding his veto.

Namely it will not allow coverage to families who make more than 3 times the federal poverty line, it would phase out coverage to young childless couples over a one year period (some states offer this, not all), and require stricter checking of applicant’s social security numbers.

“This is a clarification of the legislation” stated Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi denied requests from moderate Republicans for more time before the vote, which is scheduled for today, in order to try and get more supporters from their conservative partners.

The bill will almost certainly pass a majority vote before going on to get vetoed by our obstinate president. The changes made to the bill address his concerns except that the money is still coming from a cigarette tax which he opposes. Let’s hope that this time our Representatives will be able to override the veto and get the protection in place that our children deserve.

Mike Viqueira, NBC News’ reporter, has seen a lot of anger in the House Republicans who feel that these changes might just cause enough Republicans to deflect and actually support America’s children. The changes are specifically targeted to 38 Republicans who supported the veto and then wrote a letter detailing their concerns. The bill’s supporters are certain that these concerns are addressed now in the new legislation.

This just may mean success, now that their “legitimate” concerns have been addressed it will be harder for them to refuse to listen to a majority of American citizens, their constituents, without seriously damaging their opportunity for reelection. My fingers are crossed.

I just read a story on CNN where Giuliani is claiming the ability to completely end Illegal Immigration within three years. This is the kind of claim you get used to hearing during an election cycle and never really take seriously. However, after yesterdays vow from Fred Thompson to crack down on sanctuary cities it seems that the next target of pandering for GOP hopefuls is the bigotry and intolerance crowd. This seems redundant to me after spending the past few weeks going for the radical right Christian vote but maybe there is less overlap there than I thought.

Any sane person would realize that completely ending illegal immigration is impossible. The US Mexican border is just shy of 2,000 miles long. Our northern Canada border is just shy of 4,000 miles long. Don’t forget the border between Canada and Alaska which is over 1,500 miles long. So without including any of our coastlines we would have to fence and/or patrol 7,500 miles of border without allowing even one person to slip through for Giuliani to back up this claim. So absolutely 100% impossible no matter what grand plan Giuliani has.

But that is thinking like a liberal, see when a conservative says illegal immigrant they mean only one thing, Mexicans. No other types of illegal immigrants carry the weight of conservatives’ bigotry as much as Mexicans do. Now any self respecting conservative will say that they hate all criminals equally, and there just happens to be more illegal Mexicans than anyone else. This sounds nice and all and I’m sure they can find someplace in their bible to justify this position. I can’t but I lack the creative Bible reading skills that Christians have developed.

There are many recent examples of cases where the conservative community has protested the punishment of real criminals. Scooter Libby is one recent and well published example. He was convicted of multiple felonies and the conservatives supported his commutation. Never mind that his felonies prevented an investigation into the leaking of a secret agent in charge of preventing Iran from getting nukes. That’s a big fucking deal and a major national security breach and the conservatives could care less.

Another example currently in the news is the ongoing debate over retroactive telecom immunity in the FISA bill which I have recently praised Chris Dodd for opposing. Again, we have a case where conservatives are protecting criminals from being prosecuted. In this instance big companies not only broke the law but they violated the constitutional rights of American citizens when doing so. So where is the outrage from these supposedly criminal hating conservatives? No where to be seen because they are supporting the immunity. It seems obvious in the match up between big business and the Constitution which is more important to conservatives.

I could go on but these examples clearly show that even in cases of treason or the violation of constitutional rights the conservatives have no problem with criminals. So we are just supposed to believe them when they say that the reason they hate illegal aliens Mexicans is because they committed a misdemeanor crime by being in the country illegally. Excuse me while I call BULLSHIT.

The reason these conservatives hate illegal alien Mexicans so much is because they look, speak, dress, and act differently than they do. Since they can’t hate the African-Americans openly anymore, fewer and fewer women are willing to put up with their abuse, and even homosexuals are getting the rights and protections they deserve the conservatives are simply moving on to whatever group they can get away with hating openly.

Aside from being bullies who like to pick on those weaker than them, conservatives have another reason to want to keep illegal immigrants ostracized from society and in near slavery conditions. Money. You won’t see this make the news very often but there is a lot of money being made by large businesses by maintaining the status quo. There are many large companies making huge profits by paying sub-standard wages to illegal immigrants. They know that Americans simply refuse to work in those conditions for the pay that illegal immigrants will accept. They also know that illegal immigrants wont complain about unpaid overtime, unsafe work conditions, or abuse because they will be deported.

This is one of the main reasons that the Presidents immigration reform push was defeated. The big businesses knew that if it went through they would loose millions a year in profits. As we all know anything that lowers the profits of big businesses and rich people is going to be strongly opposed by conservatives. If you add to that the opportunity to openly show their hatred for a minority group you will have a winning combination for conservatives every time.

This is the reason that I get riled up whenever I hear some right wing fanatic like Tancredo or Thompson and now Giuliani start talking about ending illegal immigration. They have no intention of ending it even if they could. Their big business buddies would lose too much money, which in turn means less donations to their pet politicians. They just like to sound tough on any Mexicans who would dare come to America to make a better life for their families because that is what their conservative constituents get off on.

~ William ~

This gem just showed up in my RSS reader from Seeing the Forest and I thought I would pass it along to all of you. Pretty good stuff from Leah Kauffman, you may recognize her from “I Got a Crush on Obama”. If you haven’t seen that one yet, or you want to see more like this check out BarelyPolitical.com