Month: October 2005

    I grew up with a different definition of morals. Morals were not conveyed by words, but by actions. How can one say he or she supports the traditional family, and then make it impossible for the traditional family to survive? When we are seeing more and more families with parents who are working two jobs and still not able to afford health care, is the priority really to ensure that credit card companies collect money from those Americans who are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet?   

I grew up with a different definition of morals. Morals were not instilled in what you said, but in what you believed. How can one say they are a Christian when Christ himself said we will be judged by how we treat the least among us? The least among us are struggling. The least among us are not asking for much. They are asking for a chance to guarantee their children can go to the doctor, should they get sick. The least among us are asking that their children have the opportunity to obtain an education, should they want to succeed. The least among us are asking that the leaders of this country listen to them, should they make their voices heard.

I grew up with a different definition of morals. Morals were not something that could be altered, because they were something innate in your heart. Morals were the burning desire to see the world change for the better. Morals were the golden rule. Morals were making decisions that might not make you money. Morals were making decisions that might not make you famous.

Morals were saying you were wrong, but you would try to reconcile it. Morals were doing something you believed would make you a better person. Morals were doing something that you believed would make everyone around you a better person, and make this a better world. Most importantly, morals were the ability to look yourself in the mirror each and every day and say, “I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

They, the “experts,” said the last election was about morals:  “The Republicans won because of their moral clarity.”   “The Republicans won on a moral platform.”   “The Republican Party is a party of morals.”

I look at the leadership in Washington, and I wonder where real morals have gone.   They go out the door the second that the election is over.  I look forward to bringing real morals to the House, and I won’t leave them at the door as the Republicans are so fond of doing.

David Gill

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“Justice Clarence Thomas, acting alone,” granted a temporary stay that blocks the right of a Missouri inmate to have an abortion. (MSNBC).

Lest we jump to conclusions, Judge Thomas handles appeals from “the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Missouri. He could lift the stay over the weekend, after reviewing more legal arguments.” (However, I rather doubt he’ll lift the stay, and may take further action.)

The woman, who has said she will borrow money from family and friends to pay for the abortion, cannot raise enough to pay for transportation to the medical facility. The state of Missouri had balked at providing transportation because state law “forbids spending tax dollars to facilitate an abortion.” However, “U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple ruled Thursday that the prison system was blocking the woman from exercising her right to an abortion and ordered that the woman be taken to the clinic Saturday.” An appeals court Friday upheld Whipple’s ruling.

Judge Thomas’s stay holds, “pending a further decision by himself or the full court [SCOTUS].”

The woman’s attorney, James Felakos of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in court papers that the woman is running out of time because she is 16 weeks to 17 weeks pregnant, and Missouri bars abortions after 22 weeks.

In court papers, the woman said she discovered she was pregnant shortly after being arrested in California in July on a Missouri parole violation. She said she tried to get an abortion in California but was transferred back to Missouri before it could be performed.

I’m curious why it is that Clarence Thomas is in charge of the 8th circuit, and which states are in that circuit. I found a map, and am putting it up shortly. I also want to find a list of which justices cover which circuits — and I further want to know who decides those assignments. Are those assignments political? I.e., was Thomas given the 8th circuit because it’s a conservative area and he’ll back their more conservative rulings? The map is up — below the fold:

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Oh, wow!  The media covered the Bushco 3rd Grade Class Play!   They wrote a story critical of the President!  Let’s hear it for journalistic integrity!

Hold on, but did the media really cover the story fully?  Was there a more important story within the first one?  There surely was…..

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Crossposted at Daily Kos, Booman, My Left Wing, and MyDD.

The Republicans have already done most of the work for us, with their spectacular implosion and criminal corruption. But for us to complete the task of winning in 2006 and 2008, we need to give people vision. To many people, the situation looks hopeless, with the rising war, budget deficits, peak oil, and a lower standard of living in the future.

If we fail to gain any seats, that tells me that many people think the situation is hopeless, that the Democrats are no different than the Republicans, and that politicians are just a bunch of crooks. So, we must do what FDR did in an apparently hopeless situation for our country during the Great Depression — he proposed a bunch of ambitious plans that brought us back to our feet again.

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Ward Harklavy of the Village Voice has revealed that even more about President Bush’s October 13th videoconference with U.S. troops and an Iraqi soldier was staged than was apparent on the television screen.

In an embarrassing episode for the White House, television cameras captured a lengthy rehearsal of the teleconference with deputy assistant defense secretary Allison Barber coaching the soldiers before the arrival of the president.

Despite the captured-on-film moment the Pentagon denies that the event was staged, and Bush’s press secretary Scott McClellan insists that reporters who asked about the apparent staging of the event are getting caught up in “side issues.” “I think what the American people heard was some very important information from our men and women in uniform,”

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