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Karl Rove has been subpoenaed AGAIN by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), who hopes to question the former Bush Administration official about his role in the firing of U.S. Attorneys, among other issues.
I was stunned and disgusted to read this statement by Clair Allen, director of the Utah Agriculture Department's plant industry division: "If all farmers went back to organic farming, we'd be starving by now, and that's the reality" ("State eliminates organic certification," Tribune , Jan 28). What research does Allen use to substantiate this statement?
Many studies have been researched comparing organic yields versus conventional yields, and they show little difference. In many instances organic production outperforms conventional agriculture, especially when the costs of the products necessary for conventional production and its impacts on the environment are taken into consideration.
Has Allen given any thought to the real value of the family farm and the valuable part it plays in homeland security? When fuel prices are high, when regional weather conditions are uncooperative, when agribusiness or transportation industries are unable or unwilling to provide food for a community, where is the food going to come from? The diversity accomplished through family farms, including organic farms, helps ensure the food security of our communities.
Organic family farms should be supported, not degraded.
Randy Ramsley, Caineville
Positive comments regarding organic farmers would be appreciated and can be sent to
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Blackwater, in an effort to get people to forget the massacres of innocent Iraqis, is changing their name to Xe - h/t Dick: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2009-02-13-blackwater_N.htm?csp=34
A Focus on the Family official added that the "religious right" label might generate negative impressions: "Terms like 'Religious Right' have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism. The phrase 'socially conservative evangelicals' is not very exciting, but that's certainly the way to do it."
This is pretty silly. The religious right is an established political movement, and the phrase has been common for decades. I can appreciate the fact that people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and their followers would blanch at labels like "American Taliban," but "religious right" is clearly (and deliberately) bland.
If the movement's leaders believe "religious right" has become synonymous with extremism and hatred, perhaps the movement should be less extreme and hateful. As Kyle explained yesterday:
If the phrase "Religious Right" has negative connotations, it probably stems primarily from the fact that the people who have traditionally represented the Religious Right have caused it to, you know, have negative connotations.
When people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson go on television and blame the 9/11 attacks on "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, [and] all of them who have tried to secularize America," that is the sort of thing that tends to create negative impressions about the Religious Right.
And even if they were called "socially conservative evangelicals," this type of rhetoric would still create negative impressions about the term "socially conservative evangelicals" ... and then "socially conservative evangelicals" would be telling everyone to stop calling them "socially conservative evangelicals."
Exactly. We're not talking about a branding problem here. These clowns have become publicly reviled because they embrace a radical worldview, starkly at odd with American traditions, laws, and culture.
The innocuous label isn't the problem. The dangerous and divisive agenda is.
They cannot wash their hands of this; people have died because of the bigotry fomented and justified for years by Perkins, Falwell, Dobson, Sheldon and the rest of the professional "Christian" set. It could be argued that they need to retire the word Christian when referring to themselves because they have destroyed the word's meaning.
Roman Catholic priests and institutions linked to the Redemptorist society in the U.S. and Italy appear on a 162-page client list of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on Feb. 4. The religious order follows the teachings of Saint Alphonsus Liguori who preached about ethical behavior.
How does that work, exactly? "Brother, this was a really good idea, even if I voted against it, because I am a member of the Party of Crazy People".... is that how it works for them?
Look at all these tax cuts credits available for ordinary folk: http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/02/yessir-thats-a-big-help.html
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Via Desert Beacon, what might just be the most ridiculous vote ever for a bunch of Republicans.
The House took up H.R. 448, the Elder Abuse Protection Act, which would establish specialized elder abuse prosecution and research programs to aid victims, and would provide training to prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel related to elder abuse prevention and protection, and establish programs to provide for emergency crisis response teams to combat elder abuse. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), passed on a 397-25 vote. Congressman Flake (R-AZ) and Congressman Franks (R-AZ) were among the lonely 25 voting in opposition. Have elderly people stopped moving to Arizona for their retirement?
The 2010 campaign ads are just writing themselves.
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The ACLU has released previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously unreported pages detail repeated use of "abusive" behavior, even to the point of prisoner deaths: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Unredacted_documents_reve...
Funny how no religious leaders ever speak out against such atrocities.
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And it is just getting worse.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/28/cable-news-stimulus /
And you thought there might be some experts on the air?
Think again.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200902110027?f=h_top
Thanks, media! No wonder most people have turned to the internets for their news.
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What if Bush was the peanut guy? http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-if-bush-was-peanut-guy.html
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Every man's battle for purity: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2009/02/every-mans-battle-for-purity.html
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Tear Down Wallstreet
The survivors who appeared before Congress are 'too big to fail.' But guess what: They're failing. http://www.newsweek.com/id/184437
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Funny how no one thought of this while they were sweeping up everyone's internet activity and stuffing their pockets on the way out the door
Remember back in the early years of the Bush Administration, when Americans believed that massive surveillance of all activities of everyone in the country was perfectly OK because it "made us safer"? Remember how Americans thought that taking off their shoes at airports, and invading countries that didn't attack us would "make us safer"? Remember when people thought pumping as much gasoline made from Saudi oil into a Hummer to take their kids to McDonald's was somehow patriotic? Those who felt we had to give up our freedom to protect us against people they told us hated our freedom never even thought of this:
The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday.
"Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," the report said.
Until January 20, when we had a president who was on the record as saying he'd rather be a dictator, a report like this which cited government protests in OTHER countries as a threat to our security would have had my Constitutional Spidey-Sense all a-tingle. But while it doesn't appear that Barack Obama has the same lust for absolute power as his predecessor, don't think that a breakdown of order can't happen here if economic conditions get bad enough. It's worth noting that if and when the Republic is destroyed, it won't have been the 9/11 terrorists who did it, or even entirely that of the Bush Administration which did whatever it could to eviscerate the Constitution and create the conditions under which our current economic meltdown took place. The blame will be shared by guys like the ones we saw on Capitol Hill the other day, still bewildered about why eight-figure compensation packages should make ordinary Americans who are losing their jobs so angry.
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Fox news unable to separate fact from fiction: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/14/fox-mouse-fact-check/
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Watch out, America, because David Brooks has written another one of his famous "theme" columns, in which he takes on a gimmick
Today he pretends to be a historian, or maybe just a Wikipedia writer, composing a brief summary of how during the Obama years, the majority party took a so-so economy, ran up the budget and made so many bad decisions that the American people started distrusting the government and other institutions of power completely. Just to repeat, he says this is what the future will look like.
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Wingnut pens Obama-era equivalent to 'civil disobedience'
You know what's a good way to be an asshole? Here's a good way to be an asshole: "Today at tennis, after I made a hard point, my partner offered the Obama fist bump. 'I don't do that,' I said, and I gave her a stern look." How else does this rebel from the popular conservative American Thinker website suggest we be assholes to each other because of Obama?
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The economists who missed the housing bubble are coming after your social security http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/3646
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Porn star Stormy Daniels wants Larry Flynt to run her campaign against Senator David Vitter (who appeared on the D.C. Madam's list):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/09/porn-star-may-challene-vi_n_165161.html
This is what has become of politics in America, folks.
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