Palm Sunday two years ago was a glorious day for Christian conservatives.
A president who’d proclaimed Jesus his favorite philosopher was racing back from vacation to sign a bill rushed through a compliant Congress at their bidding — a last-minute gamble to keep alive a severely brain-damaged woman in Florida.
That, however, was the peak of the Christian conservatives’ political power.
Today, their nearly three-decade-long ascendance in the Republican Party is over. Their loyalties and priorities are in flux, the organizations that gave them political muscle are in disarray, the high-profile preachers who led them to influence through the 1980s and 1990s are being replaced by a new generation that’s less interested in their agenda and their hold on politics and the 2008 Republican presidential nomination is in doubt.
“Less than four years after declarations that the Religious Right had taken over the Republican Party, these social conservatives seem almost powerless to influence its nomination process,” said W. James Antle III, an editor at the American Spectator magazine who’s written extensively about religious conservatives.
“They have the numbers. They have the capability. What they don’t have is unity or any institutional leverage.”
I don’t think I’d count them out so quickly, would you? Look at how successful the anti-choicers have been in keeping that Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, IL closed…
Congress again has extended funding for a core abstinence-education program, sparking protests from sex-education advocates who want Democrats to pull the plug on such programs. [snip]
Rep. James P. Moran, Virginia Democrat, said he supported “with frustration” the second three-month extension of the $50 million Title V abstinence-education program and several health programs that serve low-income families.
The health programs are effective, but unfortunately they are “held hostage” to the abstinence program, “which prizes ideology over science and … harms our children through the provision of medically inaccurate information,” Mr. Moran said Wednesday. The Senate passed its extension of Title V and other health programs on Thursday.
Why is it that this Democratic congress keeps on passing Republican, as opposed to Democratic, bills???
I think this is great news, and I hope they do it: NYT
Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.
The threat emerged from a group that broke away for separate discussions at a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City of the Council for National Policy, a secretive conservative networking group. Participants said the smaller group included James C. Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps its most influential member; Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council; Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail pioneer; and dozens of other politically oriented conservative Christians.
Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said.
I think a third-party rightwinger candidate would be enough to split the GOP vote and elect the non-GOP candidate. Can we please have Edwards?
as water becomes less and less available, as the depletion of other limited natural resources, the country is rapidly approaching the point where it’s increasingly strained environment will not be able to sustain life:
Another disaster brews in Darfur
As the Darfur conflict approaches its fifth year, the environmental strain of the world’s largest displacement crisis is quickly depleting western Sudan’s already-scarce natural resources. And experts say that is exacerbating chronic shortages of land and water that contributed to the fighting in the first place.
“There is a massive resource problem in Darfur,” said environmentalist Muawia Shaddad, head of the Sudanese Environment Conservation Society. “We’ve been shouting about this for years, but no one listened.”
In the struggle to bring peace to Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million more have been displaced, questions about dwindling natural resources have largely been brushed aside as the emergency effort focused on saving lives and feeding the hungry.
But with reports bubbling up from Darfur camps about water shortages, over-stressed land and increasing deforestation, aid workers and Sudanese activists say finding long-term solutions to the region’s environmental woes is just as crucial as restoring security and reaching a political compromise.
“The clashes could all stop tomorrow and we won’t have moved any closer to solving the real problems of Darfur, which I think come down to the environment,” said Cate Steains, acting head of U.N. humanitarian operations in El Fasher, capital of the region’s northern province.
ims, deforestation, climate change, and the decline in other resources as a result, was one of the primary factors posited in the demise of the anasazi in the sw us.
I’m one of those people Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says don’t exist. I’m a 25-year-old Iranian, and I’m gay.
Published anonymously by the Washington Post this morning, a letter from a young gay Iranian living in Tehran.
I’ve heard the occasional reports of gay men being executed in Iran — I’ve also heard statements from activist groups within Iran that dispute some of those reports, but also say that the current political tensions between Iran and the US is not helping their attempts to change public opinion (let alone their nation’s fundamentalist Islamic laws). This letter describes a slowly changing culture, but it seems to correspond with other accounts I’ve heard from people who’ve actually visited Iran — there’s a very large population of young people who want a more modern, open society than their current government allows.
This is why the anti-Iran rhetoric coming from both parties and assorted presidential candidates is so frustrating to me — because the potential within Iran for change is so great, if given time to proceed at its own pace. But that change must come from within, and threatening sanctions or military action (or worse, going beyond threats to bloody reality) will stifle those voices — just as the US invasion did in Baghdad, which used to be one of the most secular cities in the Arab world, where Sunni and Shi’a families not only lived in the same neighborhoods, but even intermarried.
Young gay Iranians who have the courage to come out can change their society over time — just as the courage of gay men and lesbians to do so here is slowly changing US public opinion every day. But a nation feeling threatened tends to go more conservative (you can see it even here in the US). That’s how people like Bush and Ahmadinejad get elected.
Still hoping for sanity here…. but it was good to see the Post print this.
Mario Teran is the Bolivian military officer who in 1967 killed Che Guevara. Ironically, Teran went blind due to Cataracts, and it was no other than the Cuban doctors in Bolivia who operated on him giving him back his sight. Talk about those evil Cubans :o)
While waiting to be confirmed by the White House for a top civilian post at the Air Force last year, Charles D. Riechers was out of work and wanted a paycheck. So the Air Force helped arrange a job through an intelligence contractor that required him to do no work for the company, according to documents and interviews.
For two months, Riechers held the title of senior technical adviser and received about $13,400 a month at Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, a nonprofit firm in Johnstown, Pa., according to his r[e]sum[e]. But during that time he actually worked for Sue C. Payton, assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, on projects that had nothing to do with CRI, he said.
Riechers said in an interview that his interactions with Commonwealth Research were limited largely to a Christmas party, where he said he met company officials for the first time.
“I really didn’t do anything for CRI,” said Riechers, now principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. “I got a paycheck from them.”
[…]
Charles Riechers, [now] an Air Force procurement official, says he had no problem with his interim contract…
l wouldn’t have a problem with it either. no office hours to keep, go to the annual christmas party and collect $160,000 a year…just cash the checks…what’s not to like?…sweet!
…Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) — who voted to criticize MoveOn.org — has decided to commend Limbaugh. Today at 3:16 PM, Kingston introduced a resolution “[c]ommending Rush Hudson Limbaugh III for his ongoing public support of American troops serving both here and abroad.”…
losing their ‘edge’? McClatchy
I don’t think I’d count them out so quickly, would you? Look at how successful the anti-choicers have been in keeping that Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, IL closed…
Congress Again Extends Abstinence-Only Funding
Why is it that this Democratic congress keeps on passing Republican, as opposed to Democratic, bills???
Good question. Why does it seem that the only bipartisan support we ever see passes GOP legislation, and not the other way around?
I think this is great news, and I hope they do it: NYT
I think a third-party rightwinger candidate would be enough to split the GOP vote and elect the non-GOP candidate. Can we please have Edwards?
Erm, by non-GOP candidate, I meant the Dem candidate, not the winger…need more coffee.
as water becomes less and less available, as the depletion of other limited natural resources, the country is rapidly approaching the point where it’s increasingly strained environment will not be able to sustain life:
ims, deforestation, climate change, and the decline in other resources as a result, was one of the primary factors posited in the demise of the anasazi in the sw us.
lTMF’sA
I’m Here, President Ahmadinejad
Published anonymously by the Washington Post this morning, a letter from a young gay Iranian living in Tehran.
I’ve heard the occasional reports of gay men being executed in Iran — I’ve also heard statements from activist groups within Iran that dispute some of those reports, but also say that the current political tensions between Iran and the US is not helping their attempts to change public opinion (let alone their nation’s fundamentalist Islamic laws). This letter describes a slowly changing culture, but it seems to correspond with other accounts I’ve heard from people who’ve actually visited Iran — there’s a very large population of young people who want a more modern, open society than their current government allows.
This is why the anti-Iran rhetoric coming from both parties and assorted presidential candidates is so frustrating to me — because the potential within Iran for change is so great, if given time to proceed at its own pace. But that change must come from within, and threatening sanctions or military action (or worse, going beyond threats to bloody reality) will stifle those voices — just as the US invasion did in Baghdad, which used to be one of the most secular cities in the Arab world, where Sunni and Shi’a families not only lived in the same neighborhoods, but even intermarried.
Young gay Iranians who have the courage to come out can change their society over time — just as the courage of gay men and lesbians to do so here is slowly changing US public opinion every day. But a nation feeling threatened tends to go more conservative (you can see it even here in the US). That’s how people like Bush and Ahmadinejad get elected.
Still hoping for sanity here…. but it was good to see the Post print this.
Mario Teran is the Bolivian military officer who in 1967 killed Che Guevara. Ironically, Teran went blind due to Cataracts, and it was no other than the Cuban doctors in Bolivia who operated on him giving him back his sight. Talk about those evil Cubans :o)
l want a job like this:
l wouldn’t have a problem with it either. no office hours to keep, go to the annual christmas party and collect $160,000 a year…just cash the checks…what’s not to like?…sweet!
this CRI outfit seems a tad shady though.
lTMF’sA
That’s exactly the job I’ve been looking for…excellent pay with two 6-month vacations a year.
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4636
And it’s just in time for winter. Freeze in the dark, how nice.
Not saying yes, not saying no.
But the Israelis are pumping for this war 25 hours a day.
So they might be supplying “deep background” disinformation.
It would be nice if we had some Arab sources on this.
looney tunes comes to mind: that’s all folks!
lTMF’sA
Only question is how many D’s will vote “aye”.