How to Get Your Faith Lifted

A Bush/Republican doctrine is thus: The government shouldn't be in the business of helping people, unless they are quite rich or mega-rich.

All other people should be helped by "faith-based" institutions, such as churches or other religious organizations. In fact, this is such an important part of Bush/Republican doctrine that during the past seven years the Bush administration has thrown millions of dollars at the sticky fingers of faith-based operators. How has that worked out?

Well, there may be some faith-based operations that operate in an unbiased manner to provide important services to needy people, but they seem hard to find.

The problem is that almost without exception, faith-based organizations have the over-riding goal of converting the world to their version of whatever religion they're pushing. Thus their "help" usually comes with strings attached. Like the soup kitchens of yore down in the bowery. If you wanted to eat, you had to sit through an hour or more of awful hymn singing, mournful prayer and hellfire and brimstone sermons. Not a bad deal for many people, but it still reeked of extortion.

The following story comes from Talk to Action. About 7 years ago, in Michigan, Joseph R. Hanas got nabbed for possession of maryjane. Pleading guilty he was informed that if he entered a drug rehab program, he wouldn't have to go to the clink.

Hanas found his way to Inner City Christian Outreach, an outfit sponsored by a Pentecostal church. When Hanas, a Roman Catholic, arrived at ICCO, his rosary and prayer book were taken from him; he was informed that Catholicism is a form of witchcraft and he could not see a priest.

When a relative of Hanas learned of his plight, she complained but was told that Hanas had given up his religious freedom when he signed up for the program.

Hanas reports that he was battered with the Pentecostal message. Forced to attend worship services, he also had to read the Bible several hours a day and was denied access to his attorney.

He also learned--surprise, surprise--that ICCO did not offer drug rehabilitation but referred their "clients" to another provider.

Hanas eventually sued and a federal court ruled in his favor, and an appeals court upheld the ruling. The court said that the violation of Hanas' rights was "flagrant" in that Hanas was facing jail if he was tossed from the program for disobeying the pastor's orders regarding worship.

It turns out that the court was well aware the ICCO was nothing more than a "Christ-centered Bible teaching program." There seems to be a sneaky connection between the court and ICCO.

Hmm. Let's see, Hanas rights were violated, he was denied access to legal representation, he lived in fear for his freedom, and he received no rehabilitation!

I am led to believe by sources in a position to know that this is par for the course in the world of Bush's "faith-based" fantasies.

Hoppin' Down the Bunny Trail - to Church

Easter is the major Christian festival. People flock to churches clad in the colors of Spring to hear the story of Jesus' resurrection one more time. And amid the crowded pews are numerous folks who haven't been in church since the previous Easter. Easter beckons and the more or less faithful respond.

Or do they? An AOL poll consisting of 5,019 respondents showed that 45% planned to attend Easter services. Forty three percent said they did not plan to attend Easter services. Twelve percent said they don't celebrate Easter. [That's about what I would expect, as over the years I've found that AOL attracts a more conservative following than other agencies.]

Our local Central Florida paper showed a dramatically different picture; a very surprising picture when you consider we have a church on every corner and on a few blocks there are several in between.

This poll of 356 respondents indicated that only 36.8% planned to attend Easter services, while 63.2% said they did not plan to attend.

I have no clue as to the validity or reliability of either of these polls. But they are interesting. In what the Christian Right likes to call a "Christian" country, not even half of the population can be bothered to celebrate their god's resurrection and promise of salvation.

Pope Baptizes Non-Practicing Muslim

It seems that if you're a non-practicing Muslim poohbah, and you want to exchange one set of superstitions for another, you can get the Pope to baptize you into the Roman Catholic Church.

Magdi Allam, the deputy editor of the Corriere della Sera newspaper, is a non-practicing Muslim. He was baptized by Pope Benedict XIV at an Easter vigil.

You could say that he's leaving behind superstitions he doesn't practice for new superstitions. Will he be a practicing Catholic?

Mr. Allam, is well-known as a writer on Islamic and Arab matters. He rejects extremism and urges tolerance.

Let's hope his writings have done some good because converting to Catholicism could bring him some extremist violence! Muslims cannot convert to another religion. And I think it fair to say that in many parts of the Muslim world, folks believe Islamic law says that converting to another religion is apostasy and is punishable by death.

Isn't religion fun? Happy belated Easter!

A Cornflake and a Plain Flake

Some guy bought a cornflake on eBay. He buys lots of "special" stuff. He's collecting "special" stuff.

The cornflake in question appears to maybe, perhaps, look kinda like an outline of the state of Illinois.

The flake paid $1,350 for said cornflake, the cornflake being put up for sale by two sisters living in Virginia.

You have to wonder what it would have sold for if they said it also contained an image of the Virgin Mary - $13,500?

What if they could have made the Virgin Mary weep? $130,500?

Once again we are reminded there is no limit to human stupidity and culpability!

Cheney's Easter Sunday Quotes

Vice President Dick Cheney is on a fast trip around the Middle East. Easter Sunday morning found him in a "tiny chapel in Jerusalem." There he participated in prayer, and sang "Amazing Grace."

Cheney then met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President. It went splendidly. Here are a few of the things Cheney said:

Israelis and Palestinians must make "painful concessions" to defeat those committed to violence.

The U.S. is committed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Such a state is "long overdue."

Cheney's advice to Israel: "Achieving that vision [an independent Palestinian state] will require a determination to keep those who are committed to violence and who refuse to accept the basic right of the other side to exist." That's a confusing sentence, but I think he means that Israel should turn the other cheek and work with people [Hamas] who hate Israel, strive to destroy Israel with violence, and refuse to accept Israel's right to exist.

"Terror and violence do not merely kill innocent civilians, they also kill the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people." What the hell does that mean? Is he talking about Israel or Hamas?

[Abbas, of course, wants "Cheney to help stop Israeli settlement expansion and military operations targeting militants."] Abbas did not offer to help stop the daily rockets launched against Israel by the Palestinians.

"...the future belongs to the advocates of peace and reconciliation." With regard to establishing a Palestinian state, Cheney claimed the Bush administration would "commit resources to help the Palestinians build the infrastructure necessary to prosper."

What a pile of crap. We can't even keep our own infrastructure in repair much less build new infrastructures. The Iraq infrastructure has been lying smoldering in ruins for 5 years and we can't seem to get that rebuilt either.

Then an ominous note: The Bush administration is "actively involved in dealing with the threats that we see emerging in the region _ not only threats to Israel, but threats to the United States as well."

Does that sound familiar - sort of like the bullshit Bushite buildup to war with Iraq? It is pretty much the same thing, but here the VP is beating the drum for war with Iran.

Now the real questions are these: Is there anyone left in the world who believes anything Cheney says? Did Cheney say anything new or anything of substance?

It seems that Cheney's trip was mainly to pressure the Israelis and the Palestinians to put down their weapons long enough so that Bush can declare peace, and add that "victory" to his legacy.

Bush has said several times that he want a peace agreement before he leaves office in January 2009. Maybe, because he's such a good ol' boy, the Israelis and the Palestinians will give it to him. Don't bet the farm on it, though.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1944 (III)

The concentration camp at Terezin, Czechoslovakia was built to fool the world. Known as Theresienstadt, it was "temporarily beautified" by the Nazis in mid-1944 to fool Red Cross representatives and to make a propaganda film showing the ghetto as "Hitler's gift to the Jews."

In fact, Theresienstadt was always a concentration camp and a transit camp for German and Western European Jews who ended up being deported to Auschwitz. All told, 140,000 Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. More than 33,000 died in camp and approximately 88,000 were deported and murdered. Only 20,000 survived.

Fifteen thousand children were interned at Theresienstadt. One hundred survived the war.

In July 1944, partisan activity increases. Jewish-Polish groups work behind the lines in several areas as the Russian Army approaches from the East. The U.S. Army assigns a Jewish-American, Lt. Col. Murray C. Bernays, to collect evidence of war crimes against American servicemen. Bernays begins to put together a concept of Nazism as a criminal conspiracy which will become a basic strategy for the Nuremberg Trials in 1945-46. Switzerland finally opens its doors to all Jewish refugees who wish to enter the country and are able to do so.

* July 3 - Minsk, Belorussia is captured by the Soviet Army. In England, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann asks the British War Cabinet to form a Jewish Brigade to fight in the British Army. They would carry a flag with the Star of David.

* July 7 - British PM Winston Churchill says he favors bombing Auschwitz. Between July 7, 1944 to January 19, 1945, the Allies bomb industrial areas near Auschwitz four times. The Auschwitz camp is bombed once, accidentally.

* July 8 - In Hungary, the government informs Berlin it will deport no more Jews from within its borders.

* July 8-13 - About 8000 German soldiers are killed by Soviet troops and Jewish partisans at Vilna.

* July 9 - Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat arranges for Swedish visas for hundreds of Jews. Before it's over, Wallenberg will save many thousands of Jewish lives.

* July 19 - Angelo Roncalli, (later Pope John XXIII) petitions Admiral Horthy for the lives of 5000 Hungarian Jews with Palestinian visas. Later he will provide baptismal certificates for Jews in hiding.

* July 20 - The infamous plot to kill Hitler. While Hitler is injured when the bomb explodes, he is not killed and exacts a horrible revenge. The plotters themselves are hung by wire, a very painful way to die. Another 200 people are executed.

* July 23 - The first death camp is liberated - Majdanek. About 500 inmates are alive. The Nazis abandon the camp with some 1,000 prisoners and attempt to destroy the camp but leave behind many cadavers and standing gas chambers.

* July 25 - Three tankers with over 1600 Jews arrive at Rhodes where 94 more Jews are forced aboard the overloaded ships. Lord Walter Moyne, the British official in the Middle East, finally approves British military training for Jews who are being sent on suicide missions in Occupied Europe. His purpose is thus: "The scheme would remove from Palestine a number of active and resourceful Jews....The chances of many of them returning in the future to give trouble in Palestine seem slight."

* July 30 - The three tankers mentioned above arrive at Piraeus, Greece where the Jews are forced into trucks and driven to the Haidar detention camp near Athens.

During WWII, British policy in Palestine was outlined in the White Paper, published in 1939. This reversed England's support for a Jewish state, set up rigid regulations on land transfers in Palestine, and placed a limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants over a 5-year period.

British policy was essentially anti-Semitic. During the first two years of the war, Britain blocked escape routes for Jewish refugees. Boats filled with Jews fleeing the Nazis were refused entry into Palestine and returned to their point of origin. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden absolutely refused to use Palestine as a refuge for Jews.

England must claim responsibility (indirectly) for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews.

To be continued...

Terrorism and the American Gestapo

Some think the terrorists have won.

If, as most assume, the point of driving those planes into the twin towers was to create chaos in the United States, they made their point.

If, as some suspect, the point of driving those planes into the twin towers was to cause a melt-down of lawful, constitutional government, they made their point.

If, as a few are certain, the point of driving those planes into the twin towers was to instigate a civil rights crisis, they made their point.

As a bonus, with Bush using 9/11 to justify his unjustifiable invasion of Iraq, the terrorists also had a hand in bringing the country to its knees financially and morally.

But that's not all. The terrorists also handed Bush the key to unlock the constitutional door barring a president from being a dictator; and that key was fear. For seven years, the Bush administration has made 9/11 the symbol of unrelenting terrorism. For seven years we have had 9/11 held over our heads - it could happen again - anytime, anywhere.

"Be afraid," said the Bushites, "Be very afraid."

And then, "But we'll take care of you. Just give us the power we seek, and you need fear no more."


Dictatorships or totalitarian governments almost always germinate and grow from fear and insecurity. Today, when asked, a majority of people in the United States express their willingness to trade freedom for security.

9/11 was exactly what Bush and company needed.

The Bush administration, which has been mostly about assuming, increasing, using and abusing power, has unleashed a wave of fear in this country for no other purpose than to undermine the people's confidence in their safety. As Hitler and other dictatorial types knew, that's the first step toward taking control.

Another step in the process is to establish a governmental entity and give it the power to investigate and interfere in the private lives of the citizens - to make sure that security hasn't been compromised, you understand. This organization collects data, enforces a variety of new regulations and acts very much like a special police unit, outside of the purview of other law enforcement organizations. In World War II, in Germany, the entity was known as the SS or Gestapo.

In the United States today, it has been given the ominous-sounding name of the Department of Homeland Security. It could just as well have been called "The Department for the Security of the Fatherland."

This is the group that is bullying private citizens and cities along our southern border in its attempt to build the border fence, which in the minds of many people is another representation of the colossal stupidity endemic in the Bush administration.

The DHS is also the governmental unit that is trying to enforce a proposal which would require employers to check that their employees' names match their Social Security numbers, and if they do not match up, to fire said employees.

In San Francisco, a federal judge has blocked this proposal. According to U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, the DHS proposal would create a hardship on employers and employees; it would cost employers in order to comply with the program; the government hasn't evaluated the program - it's fresh from the oven and no one has a clue how it will work (sounds a lot like FEMA, doesn't it? Oh, that's right. FEMA is part of DHS and Michael Chertoff runs the DHS!); and employers who are innocent may not be able to correct their records and they will lose their jobs.

The DHS/Gestapo isn't really concerned about all that. The DHS/Gestapo insists that the law does not create any real problems. The DHS intends to go ahead with the same set of rules the judge blocked. The DHS is serious about immigration enforcement, according to Mr. Chertoff. Notice, please, the casual disregard for the legal order of the judge.

The following oppose the DHS proposal: The AFL-CIO, the ACLU, and the United States Chamber of Commerce. It will, they say, cause discrimination in the workplace, cause legal employees to lose their jobs, and cause businesses to be exposed to greater costs and the fear of prosecution.


Then there's the business of a national ID card, aka Real ID, which is another matter for the DHS to enforce. This law requires states to issue new driver's licenses. At first the DHS said it would cost the states about $14.6 billion, but has now reduced that to $3.9 billion. How did they do that?

With regard to these new licenses:

1. A person's photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application rather than the end. Ah, the Gestapo is so very efficient. If, perchance the applicant is rejected for failing to prove identity and/or citizenship, the photo will be kept on file in this huge governmental database to catch the rascal if he/she tries to apply for a license again!

2. Three levels of security measures will be available. States can choose which one they want. Microchips are not involved. Not yet, anyway.

3. The states will have to do Social Security and immigration status checks. Before long, states are also going to have to verify birth certificates; contact other states to ensure that a person does not have more than one license; and if the applicant presents a passport as ID, the state will have to check with the State Department to verify the passport.

Why do we need this Real ID, this new system which is, in reality, nothing more than a national ID card, which the American people have said over and over again they do not want?

A national ID card is one more step on the road to dictatorship!!!!

Remember the Bush administration has never cared what the people want. And read this carefully: "The Bush administration says the law, passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, will hinder terrorists, con artists and illegal immigrants."

Of course they do and of course it won't. Terrorists, con artists and illegal immigrants will soon figure out a way to get around this law, just like any other law.

But what Bush says is seldom what Bush means. The reality is this gives the government just that much more control and power over the peoples' lives. It's always about power, never about the people!

Some states are balking. Montana, for example, says it will not obey the law. Maine and South Carolina have yet to begin preparing for this new law. New Hampshire has asked to be exempted but the Gestapo/DHS says their letter has not been found to be "legally acceptable."
(Legally acceptable, of course, is whatever DHS says is "legally acceptable.")


The fear-inducing mantra parroted over and over by the Bushites, "The terrorists are coming; be very afraid," has been quite effective, allowing them to use fear to further entrench their power and dictate how life shall be lived in this country.

But that mantra is false.

The real mantra is "Be very afraid, the Bushites are coming for you!"

An American Anti-Israel Campaign

An outfit called the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is striving hard to shut down Israel's means of self-defense. Their latest demand is that Motorola stop selling products to Israel's army and settlements.

The USCEIO demands Motorola cease and desist from selling fuses for air-launched bombs, communication devices for the army, and radar devices used to secure Israel's security barrier and settlements."

The USCEIO believes that Israel is dominating the Palestinian people and denying them their human rights. They want Israel to "end ... the occupation of Palestinian land in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees."

They believe a lot of other stuff, too. But what they never seem to mention, at least on their web site, are the Palestinian bombers, the 4,000 rockets fired into S'Derot, the fact that Gaza is ruled by the extremist terrorist gang called Hamas dedicated to driving Israel into the sea.

The USCEIO also never gets around to mentioning that the Palestinians and the Arab countries deny that Israel has a right to exist, and make no moves toward peace, only toward war. They conveniently forget that the Palestinians turned down their chance to have their own country 60 years ago because they would not accept Israel's right of statehood.

Over the years, as Israel has defended itself and built a working democratic civilization with one of the highest standards of living on the planet and some of the finest universities and hospitals and corporate entities, the Palestinians have spent their time obtaining weapons and making war on Israel.

Here are a few of the members of USCEIO's Steering Committee:

Omar Baddar (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee)
Adam Horowitz (American Friends Service Committee)
Diane Ford Jones (Every Church a Peace Church)
Zaha Hassan (Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights)
Nitin Sawhney (Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights)
David Wilman and Ashley Wilkinson-Meyer (General Board of Global Ministries - the United Methodist Church)

Anti-Semitism never dies; it just raises its ugly head in new and nastier forms!

P.S. So far, Motorola has told them to "go jump!"

The U.S. Anti-Israel State Department

If you have followed along in the "Holocaust Journal," you know that during WWII, the U.S. State Department was noted for its anti-Semitic attitudes and its constant attempts to make life difficult for Jews fleeing the Holocaust.

Things haven't changed much.

The U.S. State Department is now urging "Americans of Arab origin to report difficulties encountered entering Israel."

"The United States Government seeks equal treatment for all American citizens regardless of national origin or ethnicity" ... this according to a travel warning issued a few days ago. It also suggested that if Arab Americans have a problem they should call the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv or the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem.

What happened is that some Arab Americans have had to spend a bit of extra time being questioned by Israeli immigration and border authorities upon trying to gain entry to Israel. Arab American groups complained to Condi Rice and thus the warning.

At the same time, the State Department warned Americans not to travel to the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

What hypocrisy! Israel is not only under constant threat of attack, but is attacked daily! You can be damn sure if they spot a suspicious person, American or no, they are going to verify that he/she is who he/she says he/she is and if that takes a little bit more time, well tough cookies!

Furthermore, have you seen any warnings from our State Department about American Jews entering Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia or Jordan? Of course not! Jews are not welcome in those countries and travel to those countries at their own risk, which is considerable. So why isn't our State Department telling American Jews to contact the Embassy in Saudi Arabia if they have trouble entering that country?

Maybe it has, and I haven't heard about it.

I doubt it, though.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1944 (II)

[Photo shows Jewish children used in medical experiments]

[Material for the Holocaust Journal comes mostly from The Holocaust Chronicle, Publications International, Ltd., 2003. It is available from Amazon.com, $24.95. Barnes & Noble usually has copies available for $19.98].

“I saw many internees cling to their human dignity to the very end. The Nazis succeeding in degrading them physically, but they could not debase them morally. Because of these few, I have not entirely lost my faith in mankind. If, even in the jungle of Birkenau, all were not necessarily inhuman to their fellowman, then there is hope indeed.” - Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz

Germany 1944 (II)

By 1944, Hermann Goring, at one time a very important Nazi, had become addicted to heroin. He had also grown very fat – over 300 pounds. His influence diminished as his addiction and weight grew. Toward the end of the war, Hitler refused to even meet with him.

* April 4 – The U.S. takes photos of Auschwitz from the air.

* April 8 – This was the first night of Passover. A Polish rabbi who has just arrived at Auschwitz grabs a SS trooper and excoriates him for his crimes. The rabbi says the Jews will live eternally while the Nazis will be destroyed.

* April 10 – Alfred Wetzler, 26, and Rudolf Vrba, 19, Jews from Slovakia, escape from Auschwitz. Later they give the Allies the first eyewitness accounts of the “Final Solution,” and they warn the Nazis intend to kill all Hungarian Jews. Also on this date, the Russian Army takes Odessa in the Ukraine.

* April 13 – Fifteen hundred Jews are deported from Drancy, France, to Auschwitz. One survivor of this group is Simone Jacob, 16. As an adult he will become France’s minister of health and later, in 1979, the president of the European Parliament.

* May 1944 – Mass deportations of Jews from Hungary begins. Between May 15 – July 9, 1944, over 430,000 Jews are deported to Auschwitz. Sometimes over 100 people are crammed into one boxcar, with one water bucket for drinking and one water bucket for waste. Many people go insane and many others commit suicide as the trains travel through the countryside.

* May 19 – Joel Brand, a Hungarian Jew, is sent to Turkey with a proposal from Adolf Eichmann for the Allies. Eichmann suggests a trade: 10,000 trucks for 1 million Eastern European Jews. Brand is arrested by the British and taken to see Lord Moyne, the resident minister of state in the Middle East, who asks, “What shall I do with those million Jews.”

* Late May 1944 – An SS trooper who has fallen in love with a Jewish girl, hides her from the gas chambers. They are discovered and both are executed.

* May 31 – SS Brigadier General Edmund Veesenmayer reports to Berlin that 204,312 Jews have been deported from Hungary.

* June 1 – Although the US has 55,000 unused slots from Occupied Europe, FDR decides that only 1,000 Jews may enter the country.

* June 2 – Itzhak Gruenbaum, president of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency asks that the Allies bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz. Although Allied bombers fly over these rail lines, the rail lines that carry Jews are never bombed.

* June 4 – Rome is liberated by the Allies.

* June 6 – DDay. The Allies land on the beaches of Normandy, France as the liberation of Europe begins.

* June 10 – Germans kill 642 residents of Oradour-sur-Glane, a French village in retaliation for the murder of an SS officer by a resistance fighter. The men are machine-gunned and the women and children are burned alive in a church.

* June 24 – The US Military Air Operations says it is not practical to bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz because that would divert men and supplies from “decisive operations” currently underway elsewhere.

* June 14 – Pope Pius XII, via telegram, asks the regent of Hungary to stop the deportations. He doesn’t mention the word, Jew.

* June 28 – The Russian army approaches a concentration camp at near Minsk, Belorussia. SS troops take over as guards and all surviving prisoners—Jews and non-Jewish Russians—are put into a barracks which is then set on fire. Some prisoners exit the building but are shot.


“Around us, everyone was weeping. Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I do not know if it has ever happened before, in the long history of the Jews, that people have ever recited the prayer for the dead for themselves.” -- Elie Wiesel, writing of what he experienced as a young man leaving the transport train at Auschwitz.

To be continued…

One More Downhill Step for John McCain

This has mostly missed the national media. John McCain, about two weeks ago, headed to New Orleans to make a major speech behind closed doors to an ultra-secret, ultra-conservative, ultra-just about everything organization known as the Council for National Policy.

Normally, no one gets into their meetings. Even the mice have to check out. But McCain got in! And the press, which normally receives no word of this club's goings-on, somehow heard about the meeting with McCain. The CNP, displeased, finally agreed that the press could sit in a separate room and listen to the speech. Big whoop!

Have you heard anything about this event, or did it get sucked down that black hole of "important news that needs not be reported to the people"?

The Council for National Policy was founded by Tim Lahaye, the ultra-right fundy end-times scribbler, author of the "Left Behind" novels, along with other ultra-right nuts like Paul Weyrich, who helped to put together the Heritage Foundation.

The CNP is "a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives" in the country. They meet three times a year. No one knows where. A copy of the rules obtained by the New York Times says "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting..."

Power is what this little club is all about. They are power seekers, power builders, power users. They want power because their reason for existence is to recreate the United States into a right-wing theocratic state under the rule of their god!

Although the membership list is supposed to be a closely-guarded secret, it does include James Dobson, Paul Weyrich, Holland H. Coors (the beer magnate), Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, among others.

What the hell was McCain doing in the courtyard of the CNP? Well, he was courting their favor, and pandering for their votes. It's rather interesting, that, according to People for the American Way, back in 1987, LaHaye was the national co-chair for Republican presidential candidate, Jack Kemp. LaHaye had to resign, however, when it was revealed that he had written a number of anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish sentiments. He called Catholicism a "false religion" and said the Jews "brought the judgment of God upon themselves and their land" by rejecting Jesus.

Why would McCain want the support of such people?

He wants to get elected, dummy, and he'll do whatever it takes. Again!

Sam Harris, Barack Obama & Religion

Sam Harris, erstwhile non-believer, in a recent essay praised Barack Obama for his very spiffy speech. Harris used words like "truly brilliant," and "inspiring." I agree.

The point of this brief essay by Mr. Harris, however, was to note that the mess Obama finds himself in relative to the Rev. Wright "has as much to do with religion as racism--and, indeed, religion is the reason why our political discourse in this country is so scandalously stupid."

A question many are asking: Why didn't Obama get out of Wright's church?

Well, he couldn't, says Sam. Someone might question his faith in Jesus. Suspicions could arise, such as: "Might the Senator from Illinois be unsure whether the Creator of the universe brought forth his only Son from the womb of a Galilean virgin, taught him the carpenter's trade, and then had him crucified for our benefit?

"Few suspicions could be more damaging in American politics today."

Harris has more to say, referring in particular to Christianity's role in enabling slavery in this country, as well as uniting Whites after Reconstruction "in their racist hatred and the black community in its squalor..."

You can read the entire article here.

Wright and Wrong and John McCain

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is wrong, almost everyone agrees.

How could he say all those bad things about our beloved country? How could he imply that maybe the United States has not always given black people a fair shake? How could he possible think that maybe our foreign policy in some perverse way played a part in the 9/11 attacks?

No question, the Rev. Wright was wrong about some things. But perhaps he was right about other things, too.

This essay, however, is not about Wright and wrong per se. Rather it asks the question whether Barack Obama is being held to a higher or different standard by the media and by the voters, than is, say John McCain.

We all know what Wright said, or supposedly said.

However...

Rudy Giuliani is no longer running for president. But is everyone aware that Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of child molestation, as well as hiding the molestation of other people?

Giuliani did not renounce him when he was campaigning for president and this priest is still on Giuliani's staff.

Is everyone aware that the late Jerry Falwell said 9/11 was America's fault because America allowed gay people to have rights as well as liberals and feminists?

That didn't stop John McCain from proudly accepting Falwell's support, nor did it stop McCain from speaking at Falwell's university's commencement.

Is everyone aware that John Hagee has called the Roman Church the "Great Whore," that he claims the anti-Christ will be a Jewish man from the European Union, that all Muslims are trained to kill and will serve as part of Satan's army at Armageddon? Do people know Hagee said that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for the sins of the people of New Orleans?

Hagee thunders that if the U.S. does not pass a constitutional amendment recognizing marriage as only between a man and a woman, all kinds of evils will befall us -- incest, polygamy, "and every conceivable marriage arrangement demented minds can possibly conceive. If God does not then punish America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah."

Is all of this too much for John McCain? Not in the least. He solicited Hagee's endorsement and when he got it he said he was glad to have it!

Does anyone even know the fruitcake from Ohio, Rod Parsley? Does anyone know that Parsley believes that the United States was formed, in part, in order to destroy Islam? Islam, says Parsley, is a really bad religion with a "demon spirit," and is anti-Christ. According to Parsley, we are already involved in a war against all Muslims. And Parsley, who claims the mind of god, wishes to set up god's government right here in the United States; a theocracy. That would mean, for one thing, that adulterers would be prosecuted.

Not long ago Parsley likened Planned Parenthood to the Nazis. Parsley has also implied that the U.S. government "was complicit in facilitating black genocide."

Now, what kind of outrage would that have prompted if spoken by the Rev. Wright?

McCain, however, calls Parsley his "spiritual guide."

Why, you wonder, is Barack Obama required to fall all over himself over and over again to deny, renounce, recant, dispute, and disparage the remarks of Rev. Wright and John McCain gets a free pass with regard to all the religious hate-mongers that have gone to bat on his side?

Could it be as simple as racism? Or could it be that our media is so frightened of the power of the religious right, they're cowed into silence?

Whatever, it sure as hell ain't Right!

Puryear - Prison Profiteer to Federal Judge

His name is Gustavus Adolphus Puryear (no, I'm not kidding)!

He has almost no courtroom experience. In fact, in his whole life he has tried the grand total of two cases. According to an excellent article by Stephanie Mencimer at Mother Jones, "The last time he litigated a case in federal court was more than a decade ago."

What he does have is experience as a Republican hack. He was on Cheney's 2000 debate-preparation team and returned to Cheney's side in 2004 to help the shot-gunner get ready to debate John Edwards.

In the mid-90s, Puryear was counsel to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. At the time, the committee was investigating the Clintons regarding their fund-raising. Fred Thompson, erstwhile 2008 presidential candidate, was the Chairman.

While Puryear's courtroom experience is pretty much non-existent, he has been involved with the criminal justice system. For the past seven years, he's been the general counsel for the Corrections Corporation of America, a Tennessee company. He's made millions of buckaroos.

CCA gets sued on a regular basis. Puryear is in charge of those in charge of defending CCA against inmate litigation. CCA has lost on a few occasions; in 2000, in South Carolina, the company got slapped with a $3 million fine for abusing juvenile offenders.

According to one judicial watch organization, Puryear has a reputation for not liking civil lawsuits, especially those filed by felons.


Would you appoint this man to be a federal trial court judge? Would you apppoint this man to be a federal trial court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee?

Probably not. Would the Bush administration appoint this man to be a federal trial court judge for the Middle District of Tennessee? You bet your ass!

Why? Well, sheesh, he's done lot's of good work for the Republican Party. He belongs to the really fancy, discriminating Belle Meade Country Club and he's the director of the Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville. No, he probably couldn't tell you what the inside of a courtroom looks like, but, hey, so what?

Heck, another year or so of really good work as a federal trial court judge and he'll be ready to head to the Supremes. He can sit on the opposite end of the bench from Clarence Thomas.

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1944 (I)

[Photo: Brutalizing a Polish Jew - Just for fun.]


Germany 1944 (I)

Auschwitz. May 24, 1944: Two thousand Jews arrived at this death camp from Hungary. One of those Jews, a young boy, had the number A-7713, tattooed on his left arm. He was from Sighet, a Romanian town, under Hungarian control. His name was Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel survived Auschwitz and went on to become one of the world's great writers. "At Auschwitz," said Wiesel, "not only man died, but also the idea of man....It was its own heart the world incinerated at Auschwitz."

In 1986, Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize.

August 4, 1944: Anne Frank and her family were betrayed and arrested by the SD (Security Police). One month later, on September 4, the Franks, along with over 1,000 other prisoners, were forced to board the last Auschwitz-bound train from Westerbork.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, 549 of the Jews were gassed immediately. Anne Frank was somehow spared and sent to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp inside Germany. She died from typhus in March of 1945.

While the Allied forces advanced upon the Germans during 1944, and gassing operations at Auschwitz were slowing down, over 600,000 European Jews were murdered because they were Jews!

Other highlights from 1944: At the I.G. Farben synthetic-rubber and oil plant at Auschwitz, a worker could expect to live 3-4 months. In the coal mines, life expectancy was one month.

King Gustav of Sweden and Pope Pius XII pressure Hungary to stop deporting Jews.

A judge, Raphael Lemkin, writes a book called Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, where he tells of how the Nazis ruled and termed in barbarism. He is the one who coined the word, genocide, from the Greek "genos," which means nation or people, and cide, which means to kill.

* January 10 - Professor Victor Basch and his wife are murdered near Lyons, France, in retaliation for the killing of a French collaborator by the French resistance.

* January 12 - The Gestapo arrest Frau Hanna Solf, the widow of the former German ambassador to Tokyo, and her daughter four months after attending a resistance tea party. Both Frau Solf and her daughter were part of the anti-Nazi German resistance. The tea party had included a Gestapo spy.

* January 22 - President Roosevelt is pressured to create the War Refugee Board.

* January 25 - The governor-general of Occupied Poland, Hans Frank, writes in his diary that out of 3,400,000 Jews in 1941, only some 100,000 remain under his control.

* February 20-25 - U.S. air forces battle German flyers and the U.S. establishes air superiority over Western Europe.

* March 1944 - The Nazis move into Hungary. Oskar Schindler's kitchen-untensil factory is near by and Schindler works constantly to keep his employees from being arrested and deported.

* March 5 - Max Jacob, 60, a Catholic is made to wear the Yellow Star. He dies of pneumonia at Drancy, France. Jacob was a godson of Pablo Picasso.

* March 6 - Emanuel Ringelblum, a historian and Warsaw Ghetto archivist, is captured by the Gestapo in the "Aryan" part of Warsaw. He and his family are tortured and killed.

* March 7 - Anne Frank notes that "he who has courage and faith will never perish in misery!" She was so very, very wrong!

* March 14-April 2 - the Nazis sweep Greece for Jews hiding on the mainland to deport them to Auschwitz.

* March 19 - Hungary cedes to German authority. 725,000 Jews in jeapordy. The SS begins the deportation process.

* March 22 - About 100 Jews escape a camp in Belorussia and leave behind an explosive charge that kills 10 SS guards. Most of these Jews avoid capture and join a resistance group.

* March23 - A Jewish partisan in Poland blows up a German military train carrying armored cars.

* March 24 - President Roosevelt sends a warning that all those guilty of war crimes will be punished.

* April 1944 - The German priest, Max Josef Metzger, who had pled for a new German government in 1942, is executed at Brandenburg, Germany.

To be continued...

Freedom in Saudi Arabia

Freedom in Saudi Arabia means you're free to do what the government tells you to do.

Some find that out the hard way. Fouad Al Farhan is/was a Saudi Internet blogger. At the top of his blog appeared these words: "Searching for freedom, dignity, justice and equality."

Al Farhan is now in jail. Al Farhan, 32, was arrested on December 10 of last year, charged with "violating nonsecurity regulations." The last I heard, he was being held for interrogation in Jeddah. So much for "freedom, dignity, justice and equality!"

Interestingly, his blog continues with posts by his friends. One of these posts says Al Farhan was picked up because he "wrote about political prisoners in Saudi Arabia" and would not apologize. But his writings also encompassed the desire for political freedom and he criticised government officials and government institutions.

According to Rasha Abdulla, an assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, the Internet has been available to the public in Saudi only since 1999. "Saudi Arabia is one of the strictest Arab countries," said Abdulla. The Saudi authorities want to "protect the Saudi citizens from the inappropriate material on the Internet."

Bullpoop! Like all dictatorships, they claim to be "protecting the people," in this case, by blocking pornography and violence. The reality is they block what they perceive as errant political views, and other news that would counter the reality existing within the country of Saudi Arabia!

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy. Its legal system is beholden to Sharia (Islamic law.) Thus, all citizens must be Muslims. People of some other religions may live in Saudi, but they cannot be citizens of the country. If you are Jewish, you don't even want to try to move to Saudi! There is no freedom of religion. Islam is the only allowable religion.

Saudi Arabia is of the Sunni persuasion. Muslims that question the Sunni interpretation of things can find themselves in very serious trouble.

Saudi Arabia is strongly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

The laws are based upon an especially strict version of Sunni Islam, called the Hanbali school. This is a problem for the country's approximately 2 million Shi'a Muslims.

A Muslim cannot convert to another religion and one may not try to make a convert. Conversion is considered apostasy and is punishable by death if the person does not recant. A schoolteacher was tried for apostasy in 2004. The charge was reduced to blasphemy. He got three years in prison and 300 lashes!

Shi'a Muslims are subjected to various levels of discrimination. They have little political or religious freedom and are often harassed by government officials.

Mail and other shipments to Saudi are routinely opened and inspected.

Religious education in all schools is mandatory. Strict standards of social behavior are rigorously enforced. Businesses must close during the five daily prayer observances. The clothing a person wears must meet specific guidelines. Men and women not married to one another may not socialize. No Christmas gifts of New Year's gifts are allowed. Valentine's Day is considered a "pagan Christian holiday."

Rules are enforced by the official Mutawwa'in and by vigilantes. They have authority to detain a person for 24 hours for violation of proper dress and behavior standards.

It is not unusual for Muslim preachers, paid by the government to use violent anti-Jewish and anti-Christian language in the sermons. In a number of instances, Mosque speakers prayed for the death of Jews and Christians.

The law reads that all children of male citizens are Muslim, regardless of the country or the religious tradition in which they were raised. The government also applies this law to non-Muslim, non-citizen mothers and denies their children the right to choose their religion.

In light of all of the above, you will be glad to know that the rite of marriage is available in Saudi to very young children. According to the March 19 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, "An 11-year old boy has married his 10-year old cousin in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

The boy, Mohammed al-Rashidi and his cousin will "seal" the marriage they contracted under sharia law and move in together after a ceremony this summer.

Mohammed, says "I am ready for this marriage. It will help me study better."

Well, of course it will. And why didn't we think of that? Maybe, from here on out, in the United States, we should require all 11-year old boys and 10-year old girls to be married. Children of that age often have a hard time studying. What a boon it would be to be married!


A final note. Iran is Shia. Iraq is under the control of the Shia Muslims. In the past, Iran and Iraq have been bitter enemies, their mutual rancor culminating in a 10-year long war. During that war, the U.S. armed and supported Saddam Hussein. Now, Iran is making overtures of friendship to Iraq. Iraq is responding in kind.

The Sunni insurgents are most unhappy with the way things are going and seem to be intent on blowing up the country. They have been armed by the United States!

Al-Qaeda is Sunni. Saudi Arabia is Sunni. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden is from a huge Saudi Arabian family. Some say Bin Laden and his group have received funds and support from the Saudi poohbahs. The 9/11 hijackers were trained in Saudi.

But figure this one out: al-Qaeda is blamed for a number of terrorist attacks within Saudi Arabia.

Whatever. It would appear that one of the last countries to be a close ally of the United States would be Saudi Arabia.

Except for the fact that there is still a ton of oil buried beneath the Saudi Arabian sands!

It's all very confusing.

It's so confusing that only a total idiot would consider invading and trying to occupy one of these countries!

What's Happened to the Terrorist Alerts?

Before 2004, we were innundated with terrorist alerts - those color-coded thingys from the Department of Homeland Security.

It's seems they've vanished into thin air, although you can, if you wish have the DHS send you an email when there is a terrorist alert. If it wasn't too late, I suppose you could then hoist your own color-coded flag in front of your house.

The alerts haven't disappeared altogether, though. I have discovered that the U.S. was on a high level of alert in both June and September of last year. Maybe I was sleeping, but I can't recall anybody waving colored flags around warning us of impending danger.

Not that I want them. The color-coded flags symbolize the gross stupidity that is endemic to the Bush administration. Why would you want to advertise to the world's terrorists whether our guardians are awake or asleep at the wheel?

Greg Palast notes that when we show the whole world a yellow flag it tells the whole world we think the threat is minimal and that there are no special inspections of passengers of cargo traveling by air. "Isn't it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off?"

Guess what? Israel doesn't use color-coded warnings.

Palast says that "America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and other berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored.

"You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team."

Then he suggests there are only "three possible explanations for the Administration's publishing a good-day-for-bombing color guidebook.

1. God is on Osama's side.
2. George is on Osama's side.
3. Fear sells better than sex."

The Bush, Rove & Schwarzenegger Nazi Connection

[Photo is of Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush]

You may have known this and forgotten it, or you may have never heard about it: the past ties that link Bush, Rove and Schwarzenegger to the Nazis.

What you read here is not meant to imply that the trio of Bush, Rove and Schwarzenegger should be held responsible for the sins of the fathers, or their grandfathers, but the connections are interesting.

And, who knows, those connections might explain a few things.

None of this is new, but it has received very little play in the mainstream media. A few years ago, The Guardian (U.K.) did a comprehensive story based on information taken from the National Archives which showed that the grandfather of George W. Bush, a Republican senator from Connecticut, was nothing more than "a creepy front man for industrialists who bankrolled and built the Nazi war machine." [My emphasis]

Prescott along with Averill Harriman set up the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) back in the 1930s. "Bush was a founder and director and owned one share, valued at $125." But the UBC was not what it appeared - it was a shell, owned by a Netherlands bank, with anonymous real owners who turned out to be a German family by name of Thyssen.

"The Thyssens were a preeminent German business family that dominated the nation's iron and steel and coal businesses and were crucial to bankrolling and building the Nazi war machine." It started with "Young Fritz Thyssen ... infatuated with Hitler, ... joined the Nazi party in 1931." Young Fritz was a great find. When the Nazis got into financial trouble, Fritz came to the rescue.

"By the late '30s, along with Harriman's Brown Brothers Harriman, which claimed to be the world's largest investment bank, Bush had bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, fuel, steel, coal, and U.S. treasury bonds to Germany."

Now, before war broke out, this was not illegal. But it sure as hell didn't look good from a moral or ethical perspective. As John Loftus, a former U.S. attorney has said, "This (UBC) was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defense industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted."

Also of interest is the fact that on October 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi Germany's banking operations in New York City, which were under the direction of Prescott Bush. The government used the "Trading with the Enemy Act of gain control of the UBC.

Loftus further notes that the Bush family tried to "spin" their involvement in various ways by saying UBC was owned by a Dutch bank and it wasn't until the Nazis conquered Holland that they became aware of Nazi control of the company. Bush supporters use that same "spin" to justify the fact that the Bushes got their money back after the war.

Loftus says, that is "absolute horseshit." They always knew...they were a crucial part of it from the onset...


Karl Rove, who served as George W. Bush's mastermind for many years, has similar ties to the Nazis.

Rove's grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. He was also the Reich-Staffhalter--Nazi State Party Chairman--for his region.

In addition, he was a partner and senior engineer witht eh Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenierurburo A. G. engineering company, which built the Birkenau death camp "at which tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, dissidents and other (sic) were slaughtered en masse."


On to Schwarzenegger. One year after the Nazis seized Austria, Schwarzenegger's father, Gustav, volunteered for Hitler's infamous Strumabteilung (SA) -- the brown shirts - stormtroopers. This was six months after the brown shirts were instrumental in the Kristallnacht attacks throughout the German Jewish community.

According to the Vienna daily Der Standard, "Gustav, a high-ranking Nazi, brought up the bespectacled, rather frail boy [Arnold] with an iron fist and quite a few slaps in the face." It is said that Arnold's father wore the same type of moustache as did Adolf Hitler.

Some of us recall when ABC News told of a 1977 interview with Schwarzenegger in which, when asked whom he admired, said "I admire Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

Obviously this was a major mistake for Schwarzenegger. To try to atone, he gave a goodly amount of money to the Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles. And he renounced Hitler. But we all know that frequently when we blurt out something, that is exactly what we mean.

Finally, Schwarzenegger was also a close friend to the Austrian Karl Waldheim, at one time the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Even after Waldheim was excoriated for his Nazi associations, and for the fact he had taken part in Nazi atrocities, Schwarzenegger refused to renounce the friendship. He is quoted as saying, "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controvery, but I love him and Maria does to, (sic) and so thank you, Kurt." (from "Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography")


It is easier now to understand why Bush would say he would like to be a dictator, and why he likes to call himself "the decider." Rove's callous, devious, underhanded political shenanigans are also better understood in the context of his background. And Arnold, well, maybe he just doesn't know any better. He's an actor, for god's sake!

The Holocaust Journal (Lest We Forget) - Germany 1943 (IV)

Germany 1943 (IV)

Throughout Europe Jews tried to hide from the Nazis. They hid in basements, in attics, in cupboards, in secret nooks and crannies. They were sometimes assisted by Gentile friends and occasionally by complete strangers.

Most people are familiar with the story of Anne Frank, who, with her family were secreted away in Amsterdam, and supplied with enough essentials to survive by a Gentile, Miep Gies.

Some convents and monasteries hid Jewish children. In the north of Italy, a Father Niccacci assisted Jews with forged identity papers and helped them find work and a place to live. The entire village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France, led by its pastor, Andre Trocme, worked at protecting and hiding Jews.

It was more difficult for Jews to find hiding places in Eastern Europe. The Poles tended toward anti-Semitism and often turned Jews in to the Nazis by revealing their hiding places. Some did help the Jews, however, including Irene Gut Oppyke who hid 12 Jews in the home of a German officer for whom she worked as a maid.

And in Wlodawa, Poland, a Jewish man by name of Yankel, lived for one year in a hole in the floor of a barn while the barn itself was home to German soldiers.


* October 2 - The Danes save about 7,000 Jews from Nazi arrest. The first Jewish paratroopers land in the Balkans. These Jewish paratroopers are ordered to first help organize non-Jewish underground units for the British. When that's complete, they can help other Jews, but without any support.

* October 4 - SS chief Heinrich Himmler, in an address to senior SS officers, says that killing is hard but necessary. However, they should never talk publicly of the killing of Jews.

* October 6 - Helen Manaster is a Jew but posing as a Catholic. She is pregnant and having labor pains when two Gestapo agents get her out of bed for questioning. She remains calm and they tell her to go back to bed.

* October 13 - Italy declares war on Germany. Various weapons--knives and hatchets--as well as warm clothing, are handed out secretly at the Sobibor death camp.

* October 14 - The inmates at Sobibor start a revolt and try to escape. Of the 600 Jews in the camp, 200 are killed by gunfire and exploding mines; 300 escape; 100 are recaptured; 200 flee to join Soviet partisans. The Jews kill 11 SS guards as well as a couple of Ukrainian SS guards.

* October 16 - The Nazis search house-to-house for Jews in Rome. 477 Jews hide in the Vatican. Another 4238 are hidden in convents and monasteries throughout the city.

The German ambassador to the Vatican praises the Holy See for "perfect evenhandedness" in its treatment of Germany and the Allies. He asks what the Pope will do if the Germans continue to deport Jews from Italy. The Vatican Secretary of State says "the Holy See would not want to be put in the position of having to utter a word of disapproval." The Pope would not want the German people to think he had "done or wished to do even the smallest thing against Germany during this terrible war."

* October 20 - The UN War Crimes Commission is established.

* October 25 - Himmler orders the destruction of the Jewish skulls and skeleton collection at Strasbourg.

November 1943 - The anti-Semitic U.S. State Department official, Breckenridge Long, continues his campaign against the Jews by lying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He tells the committee that the U.S. has admitted 580,000 refugees since 1933. He implies most of these are Jews and remain in the U.S. Actually, less than 200,000 remain in the U.S. and many of the refugees were not Jewish!

* November 1 - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill sign the Moscow Declaration. There's no mention of Jews or gas chambers.

* November 9 - Guy Gillette, a U.S. senator, along with representatives Will Rogers and Joseph Baldwin introduce a resolution calling upon the president to set up a commission to devise a plan to save the Jews still alive in Europe.

* November 28-December 1 - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill meet at Tehran to begin planning a British/American invasion from the west.

* December 23 - U.S. Secretary Henry Morgenthau's staff tells him that the U.S. State Department's attitude is "no different from Hitler's attitude."

Late 1943 - Himmler orders the Belzec camp be destroyed. Sobibor and Treblinka had been destroyed. At all three camps, the land is plowed under and settled by Ukranians.

"Winning is everything!" - John McCain

This is not a "Dear John" letter. I'm not leaving John McCain. I didn't plan to vote for him in the first place.

His latest misstatements, however, would have certainly unsealed the deal if I had planned to cast a ballot his way!


A couple of days ago:

In Amman, Jordan, Joe Lieberman steps up close to McCain and whispers in his ear, "'Extremists,' dummy, not al-Qaeda!"

Joe had to do something as McCain had blundered badly! Trying to promote his faux foreign policy expertise, McCain several times said that Iran (which is a Shiite country) was assisting al-Qaeda in Iraq. That statement was incorrect every time he made it.

Al-Qaeda, you see, is of the Sunni persuasion. The Shiites and the Sunnis don't sit down at the same table. They like to kill each other, though. A Shiite would never assist a Sunni. Thus, a major problem in Iraq is that the government is run by Shiites, supported by a Shiite military. The Sunnis are unhappy about that and they tend to blow things up when they're unhappy. Boom! And then the Shiites, mightily pissed, blow up some Sunnis. Boom!

[Someone might mention to our prezident that is called a "civil war!"]

McCain said he was "concerned" about the fact that Iranian "operatives" were "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

The press pressed him to expand on that. He did, much to his embarrassment: It was "common knowledge," insisted John, "and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Lieberman corrected him. John was all wrong, again!

Unfortunately, McCain doesn't know what he's talking about. He should have realized that the reason Iran and Iraq have been making "nicey-nice" of late is because they are both of the Shiite persuasion, and believe that together they may be able to shut out the Sunnis [and the Kurds] altogether.

McCain doesn't have a clue. So much for foreign policy experience!


Let's return, momentarily, to the days of 2000 when McCain was fighting Bush for the Republican nomination. Way back then, McCain didn't have much use for the paragons of the Christian Right.

You may recall that Bush, utilizing below-the-belt politics, crushed McCain in the South Carolina and Virginia primaries. Bush had all the fanatics below the Mason-Dixon line in his pocket: Bob Jones III, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. To ensure that they stayed there, Bush even went so far as to hold a rally with the extremist, Bob Jones, in Greenville, South Carolina.

McCain was so angry at Bush and at these Christian Rightists that he attacked both Robertson and Falwell, calling them "agents of intolerance." Bush, said McCain, was nothing more than a "Pat Robertson Republican."

Ouch! McCain's anger grew and his temper flared. In fact, in 2001, he was approached by Democrats who tried to persuade him to switch parties. In 2004, there were feelers out wondering if he'd consider becoming Kerry's vice presidential running mate. McCain declined both times.

In 2008, however, McCain has, in Christian religious terminology, backslid bigtime!

Being the ultimate opportunist, essentially amoral when it comes to politics, McCain has been all over the map, and on his knees begging for the support of crackpot Christian Rightists who have shown little enthusiasm for his presidential bid.

He has pandered to Dobson, to Hagee, to Parsley, to Robertson...some of which he called "agents of intolerance" not so long ago. Now their intolerance has been forgiven and forgotten. "Please give me your support," McCain pleaded. And most did.


An even more telling and appalling situation has been McCain's flip-flop with regard to the way the U.S. treats its prisoners, and the use of torture.

About two and a half years ago, Nat Hentoff wrote an article called "A definition of patriotism," in which he praises McCain for his stand against the mistreatment of terrorist suspects, and specifically his stand against torture.

On July 20, 2005, McCain introduced several amendments to the $42 billion Pentagon bill for 2006. His amendments were designed to halt the abuse of detainees held by the U.S. government.

Hentoff writes, "Affirming American values, McCain's first amendment would have established 'the Army Field manual as the standard for interrogation of all detainees held in the Department of Defense (DOD) custody.'"

McCain directly addressed the issue of prisoner abuse in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan.

McCain also offered an amendment that would require every foreign national, detained in a DOD facility, be registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross. "This will help us," said McCain, "eliminate the problem of ghost detainees we faced in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in which other government agencies held unregistered detainees in a facility operated by our military."

McCain went on, eloquently: "I believe this provision to be just basic common sense, and I can hardly see how anyone could object ..."

Alas, the White House did object! Frist was ordered to pull the entire Pentagon spending bill off the floor immediately in case the Senate go crazy and pass the bill with the amendments.

But McCain had a third amendment up his sleeve. This would have banned the "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of anyone in American custody." As Hentoff points out, this is "the very language of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which this country has ratified."

Then John, again eloquently, spoke to his amendment on the floor of the Senate:

"We are Americans and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be ... President Bush understands that the war on terror is ultimately a battle of ideas, a battle we will win by spreading and standing firmly for the values of decency, democracy and the rule of law. I stand with him in this commitment."


Well, that comment was very calculating! John knew full well that Bush understood no such thing, that for Bush the so-called war on terror was nothing more than an excuse to try to grab Iraq's oil, and that Bush knew from nothing about "a battle of ideas."

Nor did Bush intend on "standing firmly for the values of decency, democracy and the rule of law." He intended, right along, to do just the opposite.

Why, then, would McCain offer those amendments, knowing the Bush administration did whatever the hell it wanted to when it came to detainees and torture?

Was he trying to embarrass Bush, knowing that Bush would never sign a bill with those amendments included? Was this "pay-back time?"


But the really big question, the ultimate question, the question that raises questions about McCain's fundamental character is why did he change his mind and become an advocate of torture?

How could McCain make such grand and moving statements about how the United States lives by certain humane values and then turn around two and a half years later and urge President Bush to veto a law that forces the government to use the Army field manual (as per his first amendment in 2005) and forbids the use of torture such as waterboarding on detainees held by the government?

The answer is predictably simple. McCain is running for president. As I've said before, McCain will do almost anything to become president. If it means to support George Bush, a man he despises, in Bush's campaign to allow the torture of prisoners in American custody, so be it.

That's very, very sad. Unfortunately, it is also consistent, historically, with how McCain has climbed the political ladder.

To put it another way, for John, winning is everything!