7th Circuit Court of Appeals rules atheism a religion
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: LAW OF THE LAND
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

SEPERATION BETWEEN ATHEISM AND STATE !

Court rules atheism a religion

Decides 1st Amendment protects prison inmate's right to start study group

A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a religion.

"Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being," the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said.

The court decided the inmate's First Amendment rights were violated because the prison refused to allow him to create a study group for atheists.

Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, called the court's ruling "a sort of Alice in Wonderland jurisprudence."

"Up is down, and atheism, the antithesis of religion, is religion," said Fahling.

The Supreme Court has said a religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, the court described "secular humanism" as a religion.

Fahling said today's ruling was "further evidence of the incoherence of Establishment Clause jurisprudence."

"It is difficult not to be somewhat jaundiced about our courts when they take clauses especially designed to protect religion from the state and turn them on their head by giving protective cover to a belief system, that, by every known definition other than the courts' is not a religion, while simultaneously declaring public expressions of true religious faith to be prohibited," Fahling said.

World Net Daily ** Court rules atheism a religion

San Francisco City Council Bans WWII Battleship over 'Iraq War'
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

San Francisco Shuns Retired USS Iowa

San Francisco - The USS Iowa joined in battles from World War II to Korea to the Persian Gulf. It carried President Franklin Roosevelt home from the Teheran conference of allied leaders, and four decades later, suffered one of the nation's most deadly military accidents.

Veterans groups and history buffs had hoped that tourists in San Francisco could walk the same teak decks where sailors dodged Japanese machine-gun fire and fired 16-inch guns that helped win battles across the South Pacific.

Instead, it appears that the retired battleship is headed about 80 miles inland, to Stockton, a gritty agricultural port town on the San Joaquin River and home of California's annual asparagus festival.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a former San Francisco mayor, helped secure $3 million to tow the Iowa from Rhode Island to the Bay Area in 2001 in hopes of making touristy Fisherman's Wharf its new home.

But city supervisors voted 8-3 last month to oppose taking in the ship, citing local opposition to the Iraq war and the military's stance on gays, among other things.

"If I was going to commit any kind of money in recognition of war, then it should be toward peace, given what our war is in Iraq right now," Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said.

Feinstein called it a "very petty decision."

"This isn't the San Francisco that I've known and loved and grew up in and was born in," Feinstein said.

San Francisco's maritime museum already has one military vessel _ the USS Pampanito, an attack submarine that sank six Japanese ships during World War II and has about 110,000 visitors a year.

Officials in Stockton couldn't be happier. They've offered a dock on the river, a 90,000-square-foot waterfront building and a parking area, and hope to attract at least 125,000 annual visitors.

After the Korean war, the Iowa was decommissioned and placed in reserve in a Philadelphia shipyard for three decades. In 1988, it was recalled to duty escorting oil supply ships safely in and out danger in the Persian Gulf. In 1989, 47 sailors were killed in an explosion that tore through a gun turret during a training exercise.

The warship, decommissioned by the Navy in 1990, is currently anchored with a mothballed fleet in Suisun Bay, near the mouth of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta.

San Francisco's rejection of such a storied battleship is a slap in the nation's face, said Douglass Wilhoit, head of Stockton's Chamber of Commerce.

"We're lucky our men and women have sacrificed their lives ... to protect our freedom," Wilhoit said. "Wherever you stand on the war in Iraq ... you shouldn't make a decision based on philosophy."

Rep. Richard W. Pombo, R-Calif., has sponsored legislation authorizing the ship's permanent move to Stockton. Feinstein has countered with a bill to open bidding to any California city.

The two versions will have to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee considering the Pentagon spending bill.

Breitbart.com ~ Associated Press - Brian Skoloff ** San Francisco Shuns Retired USS Iowa

GOP launches new strategy to win over black voters
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Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Ken Mehlman stands in sharp contrast to Howard Dean as an example of a great political party chair. He is launching new initiatives to build upon GOP progress among black voters. The Dems continue to take black voters for granted, focusing on liberal issues and treating black Americans like a group with a single set of values and priorities.

GOP Changes Tack on Black Voter Appeal

WASHINGTON — Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has launched a new and focused push to reach out to African-American voters that could not only benefit the GOP but could send a wakeup call to Democrats who have been accused of taking the black vote for granted.

That's the perspective of Ron Walters, a longtime Democratic activist who listened to the RNC chairman speak at the National Association of Black Journalists' 30th Anniversary Convention and Career Fair in Atlanta, Ga., last week.

"I think he said a lot of the right things. [Republicans are] putting money behind this outreach and he ran down a number of things that the administration should be doing that would be attractive to African-Americans," said Walters, who is director of the African-American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland.

"Some of this stuff is really very serious," Walters said. "It's not like before when the Republicans sort of said that the party was reaching out to the black vote when they really weren't."

Mehlman has recently embarked on the GOP's latest, and some say most ambitious, attempt to woo black voters, who overwhelming vote Democrat at every level of government. Mehlman's strategy includes an effort to remind black voters of the historical ties between them — for example, the GOP began in part as a successful anti-slavery effort and unanimously backed the constitutional amendment to end slavery in 1865.

In July, he apologized to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual convention for the Republicans' so-called "Southern strategy," which used race as a wedge issue to bolster support among white voters in the Democratic South, beginning with Richard Nixon's successful 1968 presidential campaign.

"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," he told his audience. "I am here today as a Republican to tell you we were wrong."

Mehlman has peppered his remarks with references to the GOP as the party of "Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglas" as well as his late grandfather, Joseph Mehlman, who was a member of the NAACP. He also has picked up the discussion with black voters on education, voting rights and job training.

Supporters are calling it the best strategy Republicans have ever offered for healing the rift and getting black voters to start listening to the GOP.

"It's a brilliant [strategy], long overdue, and I think Ken Mehlman gets it," said Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C. He said Mehlman, who became chairman of the RNC after leading President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, has been frequently traveling to black colleges and universities to make his pitch. "That's a lot different, I say, from pre-2000," he said.

Republican Party officials say Bush received 11 percent of the African-American vote in the 2004 election, compared to 8 percent in 2000. Black votes for Bush also reached double-digit figures in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida where he previously had failed to crack 10 percent.

"When you start making incremental changes like that with double digits … then that starts chipping away at their base," said RNC communications director Tara Wall. "We can't truly call ourselves a majority unless we take back the black vote as the party of Lincoln. We are going to reclaim that."

But critics say that if they want to do that, they had better offer something more than historical rhetoric.

"I would say the proof is in the results that follow, not necessarily in the speeches — and [African-Americans] have heard the speeches over and over again," said Paul Brathwaite, spokesman for the Congressional Black Caucus.

Brathwaite said blacks still lag behind whites in key quality-of-life issues, including 10 percent unemployment, compared to 4 percent for whites. Only 48 percent of blacks own homes, compared to more than 70 percent of whites.

He said the question black voters have for Republicans is, "You are in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, is it really having an impact on my life and making it better?"

Walters added that historical allusions "don't wash" with blacks, who know that many of yesterday's Southern white Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 have taken refuge in today's Republican Party. They know that conservatives in the GOP advocate a more limited role of the federal government in civil rights and oppose most affirmative action polices currently in effect, he said.

"While it sounds good rhetorically … most blacks know better," he said. Mehlman may underscore the correct issues of concern, he added, but "the Republican formulation in these areas is conservative and that's the difficulty."

Walters does not deny that Democrats have been remiss in strengthening their own ties with the black community and failed to put the resources into 2004 voter turnout. He added that Republicans encouraged conservative support among black churchgoers in battleground states by talking about social issues like gay marriage.

"It was the Democrats' fault for not investing in the black church structure and putting more resources in," he said.

New Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who raised plenty of eyebrows in June when he called the Republican Party the party of "white, Christian males," has committed himself to shoring up predominantly black pockets of the South as part of his party's overall strategy to gain a better foothold in the Southern states.

"We're doing the work, we're not just talking about it," said DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney.

"The truth of the matter is that Bush policies hurt African-Americans," Finney added, pointing to everything from Bush's plan for personal retirement accounts to what she said were cuts in funding for HIV/AIDS prevention programs and grants for small businesses.

But Alvin Williams, head of Black America's Political Action Committee said he believes that conservative solutions to these issues are the new model for change, and he is hoping to convince black voters by helping to elect more conservative African-Americans from the local level on up.

He said he hopes this is part of Mehlman's strategy, too.

"We should encourage the party to go much further, into the recruitment and support of these [black candidates]," he said. "That's where the rubber hits the road."

Fox News ~ Kelley Beaucar Vlahos ** GOP Changes Tack on Black Voter Appeal

Lurch Heinz Kerry: America doesn't need a 2nd Republican Party
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Kerry: America doesn't need 'second Republican Party'

SEATTLE, Washington - Sen. John F. Kerry told state legislators Friday the Democratic Party doesn't need to undergo an extreme makeover, saying "the last thing America needs is a second Republican Party."

After blistering Republicans on everything from Iraq to health care, Kerry said Democrats have an opportunity to rebuild nationally by simply addressing the concerns that affect people's daily lives -- energy, transportation, health care and security.

"We have to go out and fight for the real issues that make a difference in the lives of the American people and we don't need some great lurch to the right or lurch to the left or redefinition of the Democratic Party," the Massachusetts Democrat said. "The last thing America needs is a second Republican Party."

Kerry spoke to 750 Democratic state legislators who were attending the National Conference of State Legislatures. He announced plans to campaign and raise money for Democratic legislative candidates across America.

His ill-fated 2004 presidential campaign was still clearly on Kerry's mind, with an analysis and a broadside against President Bush and congressional Republicans taking up the lion's share of his 35-minute speech to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee's luncheon.

Kerry said Bush and the Republicans have used the terrorism issue to divert attention from issues that favored the Democrats.

In an arch comment about the president's recent statement in favor of teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to the theory of evolution, Kerry said, "I think we ought to be getting some intelligent design in our policy in Iraq."

That drew a standing ovation and whoops of delight from the audience.

Kerry told his audience that while Republicans dither and practice politics of "nastiness and partisanship," Democratic legislators are showing the right stuff, connecting with people on their front porches and then going to the capitals to fix their problems.

"The states are now the laboratories, much more than before, because of the refusal of Washington to do what's important and necessary. You're forced to spend too much time cleaning up what Washington either messes up or leaves undone altogether."

CNN.com ~ Associated Press ** Kerry: America doesn't need 'second Republican Party'

The Left's War Contract
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Funny Stuff

The Left's War Contract

To be antiwar can mean one of two things: you may be opposed to all war or you might just be opposed to a war in particular. A Democratic party fitting the first definition would never win another national election in this country again. Ever.

Thus many on the left who make up the base of the Democratic party have gone to great lengths to say they support the use of U.S. military force under appropriate circumstances (like, say, Afghanistan) and that their objections are confined to this president and the war in Iraq.

But if you take some of the arguments this group (which spans the "netroots" crowd at Daily Kos all the way to the New York Times op-ed page) has marshalled against President Bush and recast them in generic terms, you'll see they read like a list of "out clauses" tucked inside a "We Support the Use of U.S. Military Force" contract:

The Chickenhawk Clause: No administration official may be involved in planning or supporting a war effort unless they have served in the military. (This clause applies to members of the public as well).

The Shared Sacrifice Clause: Wars may not be conducted unless a vast majority of the public share in some sort of common sacrifice which will most likely take the form of increasing the tax burden on the public.

The Elite Sacrifice Clause: Wars may not be conducted unless 1) all military age children among the highest ranking civilian and military officials in the country are forced to serve and 2) a certain (but as yet undefined) percentage of combat deaths must come from soldiers with "privileged" backgrounds.

The Grieving Parent Clause: Mothers and fathers of soldiers killed in action are given "absolute" moral authority. Therefore wars may be fought only until the mother or father of a soldier killed in action objects to either the policy or the leadership of the administration.

The Presidential Vacation Clause: During the course of any conflict where U.S. soldiers are in harm's way, presidents are not allowed to take vacation but instead must remain at the White House "burning the midnight oil" to demonstrate military personnel are a priority.

The War Profiteering Clause: The Pentagon is allowed to hire private contractors to assist in military logistics and reconstruction projects provided that 1) no member of the administration has ever had any contact with the company and 2) the company is not allowed to make a profit.

Of course, one of the primary requirements for the left to support U.S. military force is winning the approval of the UN Security Council. Taken together these requirements would seem to make it almost impossible for the left to support U.S. military action under any circumstance. Or will all these rules not apply when Hillary or some other Democrat is sitting in the White House?

Real Clear Politics.com ~ Tom Bevan ** The Left's War Contract

Libtards prod Dems to get nasty on Roberts confirmation
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Dismayed at a well-reported sense among Dems that Roberts is going to be confirmed, liberal groups are demanding that lackey Dems put up a good fight. First out of the gate are Ted Kennedy and Pat Leahy who feed off liberal special interest money and influence like Dracula drinks plasma. This could turn into a litmus test for Dems who have to prove their loyalty to those that got them there, even if it means embarrasing themselves in the process.

Liberal groups push Democrats to fight Roberts

Kennedy, Leahy blast nominee as radical

WASHINGTON - Major liberal groups accused Democratic senators yesterday of showing too little stomach for opposing John Roberts's Supreme Court nomination, saying newly released documents indicate he is much more conservative than many people first thought.

The response was quick and pointed, as two senators unleashed their sharpest criticisms yet of Roberts and sought to assure activists that the battle is far from over.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement: "Those papers that we have received paint a picture of John Roberts as an eager and aggressive advocate of policies that are deeply tinged with the ideology of the far right wing of his party then, and now. In influential White House and Department of Justice positions, John Roberts expressed views that were among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, privacy, and access to justice."

Leahy, who had previously tread more softly on the Roberts matter, said the White House's refusal to release other documents being sought leaves Roberts "with a heavier burden to carry during his upcoming hearings."

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, the committee's most senior member, also took his criticisms of Roberts to new heights yesterday in a letter to colleagues.

In a further bid to dispel an air of inevitability that liberals feel too many Democrats have embraced, several organizations told allies that they will call for Roberts's rejection this month rather than wait for the Senate hearings to start on Sept. 6, as some members of the anti-Roberts coalition have urged.

The senators and liberal groups were reacting in part to a Washington Post article noting that many Democratic lawmakers have expressed little interest in mounting a strong fight against Roberts, barring unexpected disclosures. The senators' tepid stance has frustrated the organizations, which are important to the party, because they feel the information being gleaned from thousands of documents is starting to portray the nominee as someone considerably more conservative than the justice he would replace, Sandra Day O'Connor.

"What we've seen is breathtaking in his approach to weakening the enforcement of civil rights laws," said Nancy Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "A picture is emerging that Roberts was there every step of the way taking the far right position. . . He is no Sandra Day O'Connor."

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, said Democrats who support Roberts could face a voter backlash, particularly if he turns out to be as conservative as the groups contend. "History shows us that voters turned on (then-Illinois Democratic Sen.) Alan Dixon for his vote on Clarence Thomas and voters gave (GOP Sen.) Arlen Specter the toughest re-election of his life," Aron said. If grass-roots voters "are where we expect they'll be around the time of the vote (on Roberts), they'll remember long and hard."

Several liberal activists said they have been told that People For the American Way, the Alliance for Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and other major organizations plan, before Labor Day, to urge Roberts's rejection.

The groups are now highlighting several items found in documents from Roberts's days as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and Justice Department. They include his calling a memorial service for aborted fetuses "an entirely appropriate means of calling attention to the abortion tragedy," and his reference to the legal underpinnings of the right to an abortion as the "so-called 'right to privacy.'" The groups note that Roberts once wrote that a Supreme Court case on prohibiting silent prayer in public schools "seems indefensible." Roberts, they say, had also called a federal court decision that sought to guarantee women equal pay to men "a radical redistributive concept."

In his letter to colleagues, Kennedy said that recently released evidence "shows that he was on or beyond the outer fringe of that extreme group eager to take our law and society back in time on a wide range of issues of individual rights and liberties, and on broad issues of government responsiveness to public needs." For instance, Kennedy said, Roberts "opposed effective voting rights legislation, and wanted to restrict laws vital to battling discrimination by recipients of federal funds."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, said in a statement: "All this talk about whether Democrats will support the Roberts nomination is laughably premature. ... The White House has so far refused to produce relevant documents, and the documents we have seen raise questions about the nominee's commitment to progress on civil rights."

Responding to Leahy and Kennedy, White House spokesman Steve Schmidt said: "It is disturbing to see the ease with which some senior Democrats are willing to distort Judge Roberts' record and writings as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration."

"Hopefully, these letters do not signal the abandonment of a dignified process by the Democrats," Schmidt added.

Some activists would prefer that liberal organizations withhold judgment until the Senate Judiciary Committee holds its hearings to avoid being labeled as knee-jerk obstructionists. But others worry that the nomination process is starting to look like a coronation just as records from the 1980s are beginning to provide grounds for the tough questioning of Roberts and possibly for votes against his confirmation.

Leahy asked the Reagan library Yesterday to release 478 pages of Roberts-related documents that were withheld this week, noting that portions could be blacked out for privacy reasons if necessary.

With Democrats holding 44 of the Senate's 100 seats, liberal activists concede that it would be extremely difficult to block Roberts' confirmation. But they urged those senators Yesterday to show more openness to the possibility if more documents and the hearings suggest that Roberts is in the mold of conservatives such as Justice Antonin Scalia.

Concord Monitor ~ Washington Post - Charles Babington and Dan Balz ** Liberal groups push Democrats to fight Roberts

A Year Before 9/11, Diplomat Said U.S. 'not Out to Destroy the Taliban'
Mood:  loud
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

A Year Before 9/11, Diplomat Said U.S. 'not Out to Destroy the Taliban'

WASHINGTON - A year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S. diplomat assured a top official of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime that international sanctions on that country would be lifted if it expelled Osama bin Laden, newly declassified documents show.

A State Department memo dated September 2000 also said the United States did not seek to topple the Taliban despite its record of human rights abuses.

The memo was among documents obtained by the National Security Archive, a private research group based at George Washington University, under a Freedom of Information Act request. The group posted the documents on its Web site Thursday.

"The ambassador added that the U.S. was not against the Taliban, per se," and "was not out to destroy the Taliban," Ambassador William B. Milam wrote in the secret cable to Washington. Milam told the Taliban official, whose name is excised from the declassified document, that bin Laden was the main impediment to better relations between the Taliban and the United States.

"If the U.S. and the Taliban could get past bin Laden, we would have a different kind of relationship," Milam said he told the official.

At the time, Washington had no formal diplomatic relations with Afghanistan because concerns over human rights and other abuses by the militant Islamist Taliban regime.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Bush administration has no comment on the meeting, which took place before President Bush took office.

In his 2000 diplomatic cable, Milam told his bosses that the Taliban official had adopted a "far less obstreperous" tone than usually heard from the Taliban and suggested that the United States do some small favor for Afghanistan to show good will.

The meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, produced no promise from the Taliban to turn over bin Laden, and it is not clear from the material released Thursday what the Clinton administration did next.

Other documents released by the National Security Archive on Thursday chart several years of unsuccessful U.S. attempts to drive bin Laden out of Afghanistan.

At the time of Milam's cable, the United States knew that bin Laden was living under Taliban protection along the Afghan-Pakistani border and running his al-Qaida terror network from Afghanistan. U.S. diplomats had periodic contact with the Taliban to urge his ouster.

The United States had accused bin Laden of orchestrating two embassy bombings that killed Americans in East Africa, but neither he nor his terror network were the household names they became after the jetliner attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

Shortly after the attacks, U.S. forces helped the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban government and hunt down its leaders. The Bush administration's goal was twofold: Rout bin Laden's protectors and capture bin Laden himself.

Nearly four years after the invasion, a 21,000-member U.S.-led coalition force remains to fight Taliban remnants and keep order despite the emergence of a new U.S.-allied government. Bin Laden is still presumed to be hiding in the same border region.

A surge of violence since winter has killed about 1,000 people - 59 American soldiers among them. Militants have stepped up assaults in the south and east trying to sabotage the country's U.S.-backed recovery.

On the Net: National Security Archive

Tampa Bay Online ~ Anne Gearan - Associated Press ** A Year Before 9/11, Diplomat Said U.S. 'not Out to Destroy the Taliban'

Fun Facts - Fewer Americans visiting Canada
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Yahoo Chat Stuff

Stats Can: Fewer Americans visiting Canada

OTTAWA - Travel to Canada fell to its lowest level in nearly a year in June, mainly because fewer Americans were making same-day car trips north of the border, Statistics Canada reports.

A slight drop in the number of American visitors more than offset a gain in travel from overseas countries, which rose for a seventh consecutive month.

A total of 3.1 million people visited Canada in June, down 0.1 per cent from May.

Just over 2.7 million Americans visited, down 0.4 per cent from a month earlier.

There were 398,000 overseas visitors, up 1.6 per cent from May.

Canoe - CNews ** Stats Can: Fewer Americans visiting Canada

Oregon?s pro-life Democrats using charmed moment to try to change party... good luck !
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Small numbers of pariahs, pro-life Dems loyal to a party obsessed with abortion, are emboldened. One pro-life group of Oregon Dems thinks they can make a change. Best of luck.

Oregon's pro-life Democrats using charmed moment to try to change party
By Ed Langlois

Their political party aims to stand up for the little guy, and it only seems natural to them that unborn children are included.

Pro-life Democrats, long seen as gadflies by party leaders, have gained more respect since the 2004 presidential election. Large numbers of voters said that moral issues, abortion high among them, drew their allegiance to Republicans. That has caused the likes of Howard Dean and Sen. Hilary Clinton to utter welcome where before there was silence. Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, who supported the partial-birth-abortion ban, unborn crime victims' legislation, and banning abortions at overseas military facilities, was even chosen this year as U.S. Senate majority leader.

The founder of Democrats for Life was in Oregon last week trying to organize and energize members, about half of whom are Catholic. Meetings took place in Portland, Salem and Eugene.

"People know the abortion issue is sinking the party," says Carol Crossed, a longtime peace-and-justice activist who helped revitalize Democrats for Life two years ago. "I was going into the voting booth and having trouble voting for Democrats. I asked myself, 'What is wrong with this picture?'"

A member of Queen of Peace Parish in Rochester, N.Y., Crossed says she agrees with the Democrats on almost everything except life issues and disagrees with Republicans on almost everything except life issues.

She has no comfortable political home.

As the 2004 elections neared, she and others feared and predicted just what happened. The Democrats would lose, in large part because of the loss of pro-lifers whose consciences were on alert.

Crossed and many other longtime Democrats say their party has been "bought out" by the pro-choice lobby over the past 30 years.

"I think we are the Democratic party's best friend," Crossed said last week, just after arriving in Portland by train. "Our message is going to help the party recover."

The group opposes capital punishment, assisted suicide, euthanasia and abortion — the last being the most politically charged.

"It’s not a religious issue, it's a moral issue religious people care about," Crossed says.

The aim, says Democrats for Life literature, is to "reverse the party's intensely pro-abortion position."

The group's polls say 47 percent of Democrats believe there should be restrictions on abortion. With that critical mass, a team of eight congressional Democrats have proposed legislation for reducing the number of abortions by 95 percent in 10 years.

The package includes family planning, regulating abortion, economic security, child care and adoption support.

Democrats for Life of America is one of more than 200 member organizations of Consistent Life, an international network promoting peace, justice and life.

There are only about 20,000 registered members of Democrats for Life, but they say they represent 47 percent of the party. Forty-one states have formed organizations of pro-life Democrats.

"I am one of the few pro-life people I know who refuses to leave the Democratic Party," says Ward Ricker of Eugene, president of the Oregon chapter's board of directors. "This hemorrhaging from the party can only be plugged by demanding that our pro-life views are heard."

Ricker says that current goals for the Oregon group include outreach and organizing. Members have also contacted state lawmakers to support pro-life legislation.

Jackie Pynes, a 68-year-old member of St. Mary Parish in Eugene, says she has long been tempted to leave the party she has belonged to since the 1950s. Abortion was not a political issue when she cast her first presidential vote for John F. Kennedy.

Now she sometimes votes Republican, but remains a Democrat because of the party's allegiance to workers.

"The Democrats caved in on some principles," she says. "And that needs to change. But I have the feeling we are the party that can work best for the common good."

Pynes has joined Democrats for Life as a way to educate the public about the problems with abortion.

Garth Bachman, a Scappoose electrician and a longtime member of Holy Cross Parish, says he is pro-labor, pro-social programs and pro-life.

"I don’t like to vote for pro-choice candidates," says the Columbia County Democratic precinct committee chairman.

"First, we want to reduce the number of abortions in Oregon," Bachman says. "We'll work to find and elect pro-life Democrats for public office."

Bachman is glad that some Democratic leaders are opening the door to pro-lifers.

"Before, they didn't even acknowledge us," he says. "There are people in their own party who think this has gone way too far. The Democratic party in general has cared about common people. The abortion thing has taken over so much that people don't see the good things the Democratic party still does."

Susan Swander of Waldport wants to work for change in the party from the inside. A novice to party politics, she is appealing to bravery.

"A lot of those folks — the Clintons and Kerry and I'm sure others — are really pro-life, but it's political suicide. They are chicken," says the self-described former hippie.

Swander, a member of St. Anthony Parish and Sacred Heart in Newport, feels embarrassed when people assume she is pro-choice because she's a Democrat.

"My party is supposed to care about the weak and the oppressed," she says. "You can't get more weak and oppressed than a vulnerable human being in the womb."

Leaders among the Democrats aren't sure what to make of their pro-life peers. Kelly Steele, spokesman for the Oregon Democratic Party, had not heard of the group before. After doing some research, Steele said, "The Democratic party is a big tent party. There is room for other voices."

Pressed on whether the party would support a pro-life candidate in Oregon, Steele said the discussion would be welcome, but Democratic leaders will "continue to support a woman's right to make her own reproductive health decisions." People in line with the Bush administration on abortion would not be likely to get support from the Oregon Democratic Party, Steele said.

Steele made the claim that Republicans have used abortion as a "wedge issue" to draw off voters.

"Democrats are interested in discussing ways to reduce abortion," Steele says.

Steele calls the Catholic vote "critically important" and says that Democrats can rightfully make a claim for it.

"Inasmuch as Catholics stand for social justice and in helping folks in poverty and living by the teachings of the Bible, the Democratic Party is the one that stands for that," he says.

The pro-life wing of the Democratic party made an attempt at national leadership earlier this year. Tim Roemer, former congressman from Indiana, campaigned for the chairmanship.

"We have made more progress in the Democratic Party on the abortion issue in the last six months than we have in the past 30 years," Roemer said at a Democrats for Life dinner this summer.

The former 9-11 panel commissioner told the audience that society "can no longer tolerate a situation where we have as many abortions in this country a year as people dying due to terrorism and war in the world."

Portland, Oregon - Catholic Sentinel ~ Ed Langlois ** Oregon’s pro-life Democrats using charmed moment to try to change party

She's a uniter! Cindy Sheehan brings together Israel haters from all over, including neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and racist extremists
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

The left, especially the 'peace' movement, shares something important with populist scumbags claiming to be conservatives. Both are deeply anti-Israel and many are anti-Semitic. Here is some advice, if you wonder if your positions are right then look at your bedfellows. The Dem party is chock-full of bad allies: crooked unions, felons, busy-bodies, child perverts and dead voters. This article tells you about their newest friends.

American Nazi Idol

By Ben Johnson

LAST NIGHT THERE WERE 1,500 CANDLELIGHT VIGILS FOR CINDY SHEEHAN AND ONE BURNING CROSS. Sheehan has become the poster girl for the antiwar Left, because her status as a grieving mother renders the 48-year-old Vacaville, California, native more sympathetic than Medea Benjamin, Ramsey Clark, or Michael Moore (whose website hosts Sheehan’s blog). However, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and racist extremists have also begun gathering around the Gold Star Families for Peace founder.

Leading the parade is none other than "former" Klansman David Duke. Duke recently authored the article, "Why Cindy Sheehan is Right!" in which the "fiery" politician criticizes an article written by little ol' me. The convicted fraud writes, "A recent article on David Horowitz's FrontPage [Magazine] and repeated by many pro-Israel zealots dares to compare her with that incorrigible American, me." It is true in my article I stated Sheehan's over-the-top rhetoric "echoes the line being taken by David Duke and his ilk at their most recent recruiting website, NoWarForIsrael.com" - a point Duke concedes. On his August 14 web broadcast, the alleged plastic surgery aficionado read an e-mail Cindy Sheehan sent to the producer of Ted Koppel?s "Nightline," in which she wrote:

my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for a New American Century] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel.

After reading these words, Duke exclaimed, "Boy, it sounds exactly like the things I've been writing, doesn?t it?" Other commentators agreed.

Cindy Sheehan now dismisses the e-mail in question, although she does not renounce its contents. In Tuesday?s blog, she wrote, "Another 'big deal' today was the lie that I had said that Casey died for Israel. I never said that, I never wrote that." Instead, she says, the phony e-mail was yet another neo-con conspiracy! Blowing the lid off this cover-up, she writes:

I wrote the letter because I was upset at the way Ted treated me when I appeared at a "Nightline" Town Hall meeting in January right after the inauguration. I felt that Ted had totally disrespected me. I wrote the letter to Ted [sic.; his name is Tom] Bettag and cc'd a copy to the person who gave me Ted's address. I believe he changed the e-mail and sent it out to capitalize on my new found [sic.] notoriety by promoting his own agenda.

Ah yes, that infamous conservative mainstream media bias. Don't hold your breath waiting for Cindy Sheehan to come forward with an exculpatory "original" e-mail, though. As the blog Sweetness and Light pointed out, Sheehan's e-mail to "Nightline" was posted online by a man named Tony Tesh in mid-March, months before anyone had ever heard of her. This was months before she developed her "new found notoriety" among such as Duke.

This would also be in keeping with a long history of her past statements. One person has reported Sheehan thundered during one of her speeches:

Iraq wasn't going to attack America or nuke America. But Iraq was a threat ? to Israel. That was the real threat and had been for 15 years. But for the U.S. government, this was the threat that couldn't speak its name. Europe doesn't care much about that threat. And the U.S. government didn't think they should lean too much on it, because going to war to protect Israel wouldn't be popular.

If accurate, this would be as damning as the "lie" Ted Koppel's producer allegedly interpolated into her e-mail?and it would win her more friends among the racist fringe.

Thanks to the internet, Sheehan's popularity among the armband brigades is spreading like fire creeping up a moonlit cross. On the web's premier hate website, Stormfront.org, Duke supporter James Kelso (whose screen name is "Charles A. Lindbergh") posted a link to a video message from Cindy Sheehan entitled, "Mr. President, you lied to us."

Cindy is also popular at the American Nationalist Union. ANU is run by Don Wassall, former national chairman of the Populist Party, a racist third party organized in 1984 by Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby, in 1988, the party nominated David Duke for president. ANU's Nationalist News section links to four articles supporting Cindy Sheehan, including a delightful link to an article on Justin Raimondo's Hate America Right website Antiwar.com about Christopher Hitchens: "Drink-Soaked Trotskyite Popinjay Slimes Antiwar Mom."

Duke is not the only figure on the White Wing to embrace Sheehan. The explicitly Nazi National Socialist Movement backs her, as well. NSM "Commander" Jeff Schoep entitled one recent radio broadcast "NSM SUPPORTS CINDY SHEEHAN," then devoted a second broadcast to Sheehan the next day.

The racist website Altermedia.info jumped on the bandwagon early, posting multiple articles hailing Cindy Sheehan. One article, written under the pen name "Charles Coughlin," dubbed the menopausal valley girl "The Rosa Parks of the Peace Movement," an awkward metaphor considering the source. Another article, authored by "James Buchanan" (another great Democrat), hinted the "Neo-Cons" had solicited the services of the redneck who fired shots into the air within earshot of Sheehan and her leftist Big Top.

Another article written by the late Fr. Coughlin's acolyte, "Woman Loses Son in Iraq; Neocons Treat her Like Dirt," also made its way on Stormfront.org's discussion forum, inspiring 14 pages of commentary. The very first respondent, neo-Nazi "Reichmann88," [1] wrote:

This lady sounds like a potential WN ["WN" is short for "White Nationalist" ? BJ]. I'll bet she has no clue about Israel's involvement in her sons death. Sad indeed!! May God Bless Her!

Reichmann need not worry; it appears Sheehan "knew."

Another Stormfront contributor commented, "If there are any Texas WN units nearby Mrs. Cindy Sheehan they should reach out to hear [sic.]." When another message claimed Sheehan "probably would spit in your face if you approached her with WN," forum member "Messiah" assured:

I've known Cindy for over a year now, and no, she wouldn't spit in anyone's face for what they said....while she's not a WN, she?s a decent person who resents deeply what Bush has done with his lies in creating this war, and using the US for Israel's interests. I feel like she does about these Neo Con/Israel created wars.

And evidently she reciprocates the sentiments of this racist scumbag.

The racist adulation continues. As of this morning, the Vanguard News Network linked to Sheehan?s "Nightline" e-mail and classified her as someone "putting America before Israel." (This is located above a link to Antiwar.com.) The racist news site Whitewire.com also comments favorably on Sheehan. (The only link on Whitewire.com that is not to a white supremacist website goes to Al-Jazeera.)

National Vanguard, an off-shoot of the recently splintered neo-Nazi organization National Alliance, posted some of Cindy Sheehan's writings on its website, a reality anticipated by a reader of our blog, Moonbat Central. Also noted approvingly the Republican Jewish Coalition opposes Sheehan (which proves she's OK). When one NV reader objected to his fellow white supremacists, the editors wrote:

All of us understand Mrs. Sheehan's limitations. We hope she overcomes them. Whatever mistakes she has made or will make, and whatever defects in her understanding, however, her story is a moving testament to the horrible injustice and irreparable harm done to our people by the Jewish supremacists. And it is also a story of pluck and courage and the great good that one person can do.

Far from distancing herself from these hatemongers, she has praised some of their work. In a podcast held live from Camp Crawford hosted by Howard Dean's former campaign Joe Trippi, Sheehan praised the work of "journalist" Greg Szymanski, who has covered Sheehan for the UFO website ArcticBeacon.com and the American Free Press. At the time of the call, the Drudge Report had uncovered Sheehan's conflicting statements about her first meeting with President Bush. In the call, Sheehan lauded Szymanski's journalistic integrity, stating, "Your account, that you wrote, is a true one." Szymanski wrote two accounts of her meeting with the president, as well as numerous articles for the American Free Press ? including one questioning whether the Bush administration was involved in 9/11. AFP is the newest incarnation of THE SPOTLIGHT newspaper, which the Anti-Defamation League classifies as "the most widely read publication on the fringe Right." Both were published by Liberty Lobby, an organization with ties to neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism that is "presently the most influential right-wing extremist propaganda organization in the United States." Sheehan is appreciative of at least some of their journalists' "true" work. One must say, at a minimum, her love for radical nutjobs does not discriminate.

Racists and the Left: The Other Unholy Alliance

Cindy Sheehan's newfound, seemingly mutual love for anti-Semitic, racist, and neo-Nazi extremists draws attention to one overlooked fact: the racial extremist movement has been moving steadily Left in recent years. The rhetoric on many of these websites is indistinguishable from that prevalent on leftist anti-Bush websites. For instance, David Duke writes of Cindy Sheehan:

It was criminal to send her son to die for a lie.

There were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear program, no uranium from Niger, no links with Al Qaeda, no imminent threat to the American people. Every reason the American people were given for going to war has turned out to be a lie.

As Bill Clinton might have said, if you didn't know that sentence originated with Duke, "you might think Hillary Clinton was giving that speech." Duke goes further, quoting leftist hero, former Ambassdor Joseph C. Wilson III:

A more cynical reading of the agenda of certain Bush advisers could conclude that the Balkanization of Iraq was always an acceptable outcome, because Israel would then find itself surrounded by small Arab countries worried about each other instead of forming a solid block against Israel.

Thus, it should have surprised no one when Duke endorsed John Kerry for President last fall, yet somehow it did not make national headlines.

Again, the move to the Left is not confined to David Duke. White Aryan Resistance nutcase Tom Metzger portrayed himself as a tendy, California environmentalist, liberal, and atheist years ago. The slick tactics are now trickling down through the racist movement. In one of the laudatory pro-Sheehan pieces on Altermedia, "Charles Coughlin" writes, "It is the job of all patriotic Americans to attack politicians who abuse the military sending soldiers off to fight wars for Israel and Halliburton." (Emphasis added.) National Vanguard has lionized London?s far-Left mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone. National Alliance has suggested soldiers pass out white supremacist literature, an infraction of military rules, in order to get sent home; this echoes the plans of Medea Benjamin and Leslie Cagan's Baghdad-based International Occupation Watch to accomplish the same goal by having soldiers declare themselves conscientious objectors.

Examining the rhetoric of Cindy Sheehan alone would make this anti-Jew/anti-Bush alliance understandable. She has screeched, "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll end terrorism." She challenged President Bush to tell her "the truth": "You tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East." She has also called the Iraq war "blatant genocide." Her "Neo-Con" conspiracy theories perfectly match those of the Nazis; they well understand "neo-con" means Jewish, or as Duke calls them, "Jewish Supremacists."

National Alliance has been the source of similar-sounding rhetoric. NA declared, "That term 'vital U.S. interests' must kill thousands of people every year?our government has such an enormous infection of Jewish influence, that there is virtually no place on the planet safe from 'vital U.S. interests.'" Like the Left, the neo-Nazi group ? whose founder's book The Turner Diaries had inspired Timothy McVeigh - claims America commits "terrorism" all around the world in the form of covert operations.

Why have the Nazis adored and adopted Cindy Sheehan? Ultimately, Cindy Sheehan reminds on, appropriately enough, of a character from "The Twilight Zone." In the memorable episode "He's Alive," Dennis Hopper portrays a young neo-Nazi leader who gets deadly advice from an ominous adviser. When it becomes clear the shadowy figure who has been guiding and supporting his work is the ghost of Adolf Hitler, Hopper asks, "Why me?" Hitler responds that it was Hopper who had chosen him, repeating his rhetoric and slogans. Today, it is Cindy Sheehan and the whole of the Left repeating the Nazis? conspiratorial ravings, as the Democratic Party draws her person and her poisonous rhetoric into an ever-closer embrace.

END NOTES:

1. "88" is a popular shorthand among neo-Nazis. The number "8" corresponds to the letter "H," and "HH" is short for "Heil Hitler." Journalist Andy Oakley produced a book entitled 88. Years before the internet, toothless rednecks were already dumbing down the language.

Front Page Magazine ~ Ben Johnson ** American Nazi Idol