it’s endless « Marisacat

it’s endless 1 July 2009

Posted by marisacat in Brazil - Lula, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Italy, WAR!.
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Original Caption: Anaheim — Catholic School Day at Disneyland and Sisters Mary William and Mary Alfred take the first elephant as Sisters Mary Yvonne and Mary Joachin follow close behind as they join the children in a ride on “Dumbo” the flying elephant at Disneyland. (1962)

Someone just happened to send me this photo a few days ago… because of a wrinkle in the information about the nuns depicted, despite its light hearted appearance, it fits in with the NYT story…

The Vatican is quietly conducting two sweeping investigations of American nuns, a development that has startled and dismayed nuns who fear they are the targets of a doctrinal inquisition. …

What the/some nuns think:

[S]ome sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.

“They think of us as an ecclesiastical work force,” said Sister Sandra M. Schneiders, professor emerita of New Testament and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, in California. “Whereas we are religious, we’re living the life of total dedication to Christ, and out of that flows a profound concern for the good of all humanity. So our vision of our lives, and their vision of us as a work force, are just not on the same planet.” …

The official story…

The more extensive of the two investigations is called an Apostolic Visitation, and the Vatican has provided only a vague rationale for it: to “look into the quality of the life” of women’s religious institutes. The visitation is being conducted by Mother Mary Clare Millea, an apple-cheeked American with a black habit and smiling eyes, who is the superior general of her order, the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and lives in Rome.

In an interview in a formal sitting room at her order’s United States headquarters in Hamden, Conn., Mother Clare said she had already met one-on-one with 127 superiors general of women’s orders [...] The visitation focuses only on nuns actively engaged in working in society and the church, not cloistered, contemplative nuns.

The official story on the second investigation:

The second investigation of nuns is a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization that claims 1,500 members from about 95 percent of women’s religious orders. This investigation was ordered by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is headed by an American, Cardinal William Levada.

Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the Leadership Conference saying an investigation was warranted because it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to “promote” the church’s teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.

The NYT adds a tidbit or two about when an “Apostolic Visitation” is invoked by Rome:

Church historians said that the Vatican usually ordered an apostolic visitation when a particular institution had gone seriously astray. In the wake of the priest sexual-abuse scandal, the Vatican ordered a visitation of American seminaries. It is now conducting a visitation of the Legionaries of Christ, a men’s order whose founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, sexually abused young seminarians, fathered a child and was accused of financial improprieties. He died in 2008.

But the investigation of American nuns surprised many because there was no obvious precipitating cause.

Oh I can guess why: OFF THE REZ.

Apparently, according to the article, a US discipline came down from the US Bishops this past March: cut out that dangerous Reiki that some nuns have embraced for use in hospitals and at retreats.

Save us Lord! The Church says Reiki is … UNSCIENTIFIC and Un-Christian.

***
Here is the background on one of the nuns (Sr Mary Joachim, misspelled as “Joachin” in the legend) pictured out in the world, riding Dumbo on Catholic Day at Disneyland… She lost her life, shot to death in Brazil, working with the poor and rural peasants fighting to save their land from loggers….

Basically the Church wants her back, on Dumbo.

Comments

1. marisacat - 2 July 2009: hmm ClusterStock has a slideshow of charts of 20 cities, RE values, peak to trough. The strange thing, and it may be ephemeral based on sales earlier in the year that may not hold up (as we move to ”unemployment” foreclosures), but LAX, SDiego and SF all show a start to rise.

fwiw…
2. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Surprised it has nto happened more often:

A US soldier has been captured in eastern Afghanistan, according to the US military, which says “all resources” are being used to find him.

For more details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
3. marisacat - 2 July 2009: HA!

First in line for Cali IOUs?

Those waiting for a tax refund.
4. marisacat - 2 July 2009: hmm wrt to the Reiki ban (or whatever it is!) from US Bishops… someone emailed to say the Church’s actual issue with Reiki is that they consider it Pagan.

gah. It never ends.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Reiki is pagan, huh? So’s your mama.

In the only church-approved depiction of La Virgen de Guadalupe — the incarnation employed to bring the Aztecs to heel, and that still serves as foundation for the Catholicism of Mexico — she’s surrounded by more symbolic Aztec paganism than you can shake a ceremonial obsidian blade at.

She’s standing on a crescent moon, domain of the moon goddess in many cultures, but in Mexico the territory of Quetzalcoatl, the god also known as the Feathered Serpent. Some say that the moon is not black, and that those are actually horns that she’s balancing herself on, and of course we know what horns always symbolize, but never mind … it’s probably just a moon.

The same way her lovely pink robe just happens to be cinched with an Aztec maternity belt.

She is held aloft by a red-robed winged angel with a receding hairline. The angel’s wings look a lot like the wings of the Aztecs’ eagle god. The angel has a baby face, but its receding hairline, that of an older man, evokes yet another Aztec god.

And when was the last time a baby-faced Catholic angel wore a red robe? But it’s probably just a coincidence that red was a color exclusive to Huitzilopochtli, the preeminent Aztec god of the sun … and of war.

Huitzilopochtli was the most important god in the Aztec pantheon, as their culture and economy both depended on maintaining a semi-permanent state of war. War captives whose bodies ended up rolling down the steps of the pyramids at Teotihuacan had had their hearts cut out as sacrifices of thanksgiving in honor of Huitzilopochtli.

So Ratzi’s little nun-focused inquisition needs to STFU about pagans. He’s only holding on to Mexico because of a female pagan of his own.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: Hey hey moiv… (and thanks for the photo of the nuns… )

So Ratzi’s little nun-focused inquisition needs to STFU about pagans. He’s only holding on to Mexico because of a female pagan of his own.

that is true… those depictions of the Virgin… LOL… are the strongest manifestation of Catholicism there…
moiv - 2 July 2009: And here, too.

The Dallas bishop’s crew never hang out in alleys behind clinics without her.

They swear that, if you put your ear to her pasteboard belly, you can hear the fetal heartbeat of the Christ child.

Really.
5. NYCO - 2 July 2009: Nuns on the run!

Religious ladies, don’t congregate in groups where you can be controlled. It sounds to me that, within the context of the Catholic Church, the only women religious who truly have any liberty are these free-range creatures.

Whenever I hear news from Afghanistan I feel worse now, because my cousin’s son is over there now. He’s 21.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: I loved the email that the NYT said one nun, an academic quoted in the article, sent to other sisters and orders.. to keep the investigators in the parlor, so to speak, as uninvited guests.
catnip - 2 July 2009: Operation Enduring Obama has begun in earnest. Things are going to get much worse before they get better – if they ever do.
6. NYCO - 2 July 2009: Unemployment rate is 9.6%.

Let me guess. Televised presser for POTUS today @ 10:30 a.m.
catnip - 2 July 2009: Televised presser for POTUS today @ 10:30 a.m.

NOOOO!!! Argh!!!!!

Doesn’t he have brush to clear or something?
marisacat - 2 July 2009: Actually….

At 2:20 p.m. ET, he will deliver public remarks about innovation and jobs.
BooHooHooMan - 2 July 2009: Oblama set to “campaign for Corzine” July 16 in NJ.

This should be good.
What’s Obama got to lose? They’ll have the patronage hacks with a job- LOL- – in all-but-mandatory attendance. – While faking it , the political ops will gather the just barely pre-orgasmic middle class groupies in close -A whole Lotta WHITE faces for this shared intimacy meant for ANYone who’ll buy it…Standing next to Corzine, Obama gets to look {stare off into some imaginary spot beyond the horizon} …Well, Grrrreat! , uh, but hilarious really – when you consider they’re using Corzine as Ricky the Retard Boy for the photo op amidst the cops firefighters and of courseour brave Jersey Warriors back from The Crusade.

I guess you could say I’m a little unconflicted.
7. catnip - 2 July 2009: Props a GoGo:

In the stage-managed event, questions for Obama came from a live audience selected by the White House and the college, and from Internet questions chosen by the administration’s new-media team. Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for “tweets.”

The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.

The most dramatic moment came from Debby Smith, 53, of Appalachia, Va., who was near tears as she described for Obama her fragile health, including a recently discovered tumor for which she cannot get treatment.

Obama waved her over and hugged her, saying, “I don’t want you to feel like you’re all alone.” He promised to “find out what we can do within existing law” and called Smith the “perfect example” of the kind of person his health plan is intended to help.

Afterward, Smith seemed less than satisfied with Obama’s reassurances, telling reporters that it was still unclear how she would get the treatment she needs before she becomes eligible for government aid in nine years.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: But Gawd touched her. She should be cured.
catnip - 2 July 2009: Pre-packaged WH answer: Gawd works in mysterious ways.
8. NYCO - 2 July 2009: Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Diaz Sr. To Paterson: Come And Get Me

Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., the gift that keeps on giving as far as this coup-weary reporter are concerned, reiterated that plans to be in church in the Bronx on Sunday and all-but dared Gov. David Paterson to send the State Police in to drag him back to Albany.

Could be getting closer to Trooper Time…
catnip - 2 July 2009: Maybe they’ll leave the state like those Texas congresscritters did a few years ago. That was fun.
9. catnip - 2 July 2009: Related blowback:

(CNSNews.com) – Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.

“I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well–for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”
Go Helen!

During today’s briefing, Thomas interrupted a back-and-forth between Gibbs and Chip Reid, the White House correspondent for CBS News, when Reid was questioning Gibbs about who was going to decide what questions would be asked of President Obama in a townhall meeting that was scheduled to take place in Annandale, Va., today.

Gibbs then had an exchange involving Reid and Thomas that went as follows:

Gibbs: “… But, again, let’s–How about we do this? I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I will let you [Chip Reid] ask me a question tomorrow as to whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted in Annandale—“

Chip Reid: “I’m perfectly happy to—”

Helen Thomas: “That’s not his point. The point is the control–”

Reid: “Exactly.”

Thomas: “We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some, but not– This White House.”

Gibbs: “Yes, I was going to say, I’ll let you amend her question.”

Thomas: “I’m amazed. I’m amazed at you people who call for openness and transparency and—”

Gibbs: “Helen, you haven’t even heard the questions.”

Reid: “It doesn’t matter. It’s the process.”

Thomas: “You have left open—”

Reid: “Even if there’s a tough question, it’s a question coming from somebody who was invited or was screened, or the question was screened.”

Thomas: “It’s shocking. It’s really shocking.”

Gibbs: “Chip, let’s have this discussion at the conclusion of the town hall meeting. How about that?”

Reid: “Okay.”

Gibbs: “I think—“

Thomas: “No, no, no, we’re having it now–”

Gibbs: “Well, I’d be happy to have it now.”

Thomas: “It’s a pattern.”

Gibbs: “Which question did you object to at the town hall meeting, Helen?”

Thomas: “It’s a pattern. It isn’t the question—”

Gibbs: “What’s a pattern?”

Thomas: “It’s a pattern of controlling the press.”

Gibbs: “How so? Is there any evidence currently going on that I’m controlling the press–poorly, I might add.”

Thomas: “Your formal engagements are pre-packaged.”

Gibbs: “How so?”

Reid: “Well, and controlling the public—”

Thomas: “How so? By calling reporters the night before to tell them they’re going to be called on. That is shocking.”

Gibbs: “We had this discussion ad nauseam and—”

Thomas: “Of course you would, because you don’t have any answers.”

Gibbs: “Well, because I didn’t know you were going to ask a question, Helen.
Go ahead.”

Thomas: “Well, you should have.”

Reporter: Thank you for your support.

Gibbs: “That’s good. Have you e-mailed your question today?”

Thomas: “I don’t have to e-mail it. I can tell you right now what I want to ask.”

Gibbs: “I don’t doubt that at all, Helen. I don’t doubt that at all.”
marisacat - 2 July 2009: ooo thanks for posting that… Madman had emailed that Joe Scarborough had the vid on this am, but I had nto started to hunt for the transcript yet… thanks!
catnip - 2 July 2009: lol…worse than Nixon. Ouch.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: go Helen!!
BooHooHooMan - 2 July 2009: Oh goody! Everybody gets to pick a favorite –

Priceless:

Gibbs: “We had this discussion ad nauseam and—”

Thomas: “Of course you would, because you don’t have any answers.”

< —– Gibbs

LOL.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: I noticed a couple blogs highlighted Chip Read with NO MENTION of Helen. PlumLine was one.

Here she was a hero when it was Bushiter. Now that it is ObBush… Helen? Helen who?
ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: Same thing happened to Palast, I think. Poor pwogs. He embarrassed them by pointing out that President Hope plays footsie with predatory lenders, so now they’re ready to fit him with a tinfoil hat.
10. catnip - 2 July 2009: This is hilarious. From June 18th:

White House (CNSNews.com) – Two days after President Barack Obama told the American Medical Association that in some countries a single-payer health care system “works pretty well,” the White House reaffirmed that people in those countries liked their health care, but also said it did not know to which countries the president was referring.

“I don’t know exactly the countries. I think if you talk to the people in the countries that have that system, they think their health care is pretty good,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told CNSNews.com Wednesday during the daily press briefing.

Asked again if he knew specifically which countries, Gibbs replied: “I assume Canada, Britain, maybe France. I don’t know the exact countries, but again, I don’t think the president is going way out on a limb that some people in other countries have a health care system that they like. Just as some Americans like the health care system that they have.”
11. catnip - 2 July 2009: The WaPo – busted.

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

“Absolutely, I’m disappointed,” Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. “This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren’t vetted. They didn’t represent at all what we were attempting to do. We’re not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom.”

haha
moiv - 2 July 2009: Here, for your delectation, is the flyer in question.

It’s not an invitation to a bribefest at all. No, no, no — it’s an “underwriting opportunity.”

As someone used to say … “Heh.”
12. catnip - 2 July 2009: This is just freakish.
NYCO - 2 July 2009: Why not make ‘em even bigger?

(This isn’t Photoshopped; it’s a real sculpture by artist Ron Mueck.)
catnip - 2 July 2009: Wow.
13. marisacat - 2 July 2009: From Politico’s Whiteboard. He best find new words.

ON JOBS: Flanked by executives, Obama speaks from the Rose Garden about job creation.

“Obviously, this is a timely discussion on a day of sobering news…It took us years for us to get into this mess, and it will take more than a few months for us to turn it around.” (2:38 p.m.)

I gather Gibbs was defensive today on the Stumble Bill working.
14. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Someone find the DJI a compass? Doesn’t that fool know N from S?

Dow
-223.32 at 8280.74

Nasdaq
-49.20 at 1796.52
15. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Angry Arab … his emailer links to Nacion (at “country”):

Convenient violation of constitutional rights: where is the outrage?

An expert on Latin America that I respect sent me this:

“This link is in Spanish, but the short version is that the Honduran Congress just approved a decree that suspends 5 constitutionally
provided individual rights. These include freedom of association, the right to peaceful protest, the “inviolability” of the home (that your house can’t be raided), the right not to be detained for more than 24 hours, and the freedom to enter and leave the country.”

Posted by As’ad at 8:45 AM
16. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Here are the 5… and i think reading the article (rather, reading words here and there) the state is declaring the need to suspend them as under a state of emergency.

Los artículos afectados son:

Artículo 69.- La libertad personal es inviolable y sólo con arreglo a las leyes podrá ser restringida o suspendida temporalmente.

Artículo 71.- Ninguna persona puede ser detenida ni incomunicada por más de veinticuatro horas, sin ser puesta a la orden de autoridad competente para su juzgamiento.

La detención judicial para inquirir no podrá exceder de seis días contados desde el momento en que se produzca la misma.

Artículo 78.- Se garantizan las libertades de asociación y de reunión siempre que no sean contrarias al orden público y a las buenas costumbres.

Artículo 81.- Toda persona tiene derecho a circular libremente, salir, entrar y permanecer en el territorio nacional.

Artículo 99.- El domicilio es inviolable. Ningún ingreso o registro podrá verificarse sin consentimiento de la persona que lo habita o resolución de autoridad competente. No obstante, puede ser allanado, en caso de urgencia, para impedir la comisión o impunidad de delitos o evitar daños graves a la persona o a la propiedad.
17. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Laugh some more… AA quotes a Spanish Language paper stating Taiwan and Israel have recognised Micheletti.
18. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Hack of hacks.

“We have 60 votes on paper,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said Wednesday in an interview. “But we cannot bulldoze anybody; it doesn’t work that way. My caucus doesn’t allow it. And we have a very diverse group of senators philosophically. I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.”…

“One or two could peel off on any issue,” said Mr. Reid, who has seen the ranks of his party swell by 15 in the past two elections.

Here is to higher numbers in 2010 and 2012. They need help! Help! Help!
catnip - 2 July 2009: I am not this morning suddenly flexing my muscles.”…

Spit out my Coke when I read that.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: ”flexing” the man tits over the pink Everlasts. (Its a ghastly image! I do apologise!)
moiv - 2 July 2009: No need to apologize. All of us who can’t get that image out of our heads know that it’s all Madman’s fault.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: why anybody (who isn’t a multinational corp) contributes money to that party I cannot understand.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: But… Plumline says Kos will be staying ”on” Reid. Pushing him… you know.

LOL

Can this routine get funnier?
ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: Let’s have them rap a few bars of Salt ‘N Pepa’s “Push It” and see.
19. ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: I had to shut off the classical music station today because of Prez. Hope’s nattering about how things have totally “bottomed out.”

If BHHM were here, I know he could run with the “bottom” and plenty of mileage from it. Me? I ain’t got the stomach no more. Listening to Neo-Clinton’s (Neo-Neo-Reagan’s) nattering for more than 30 seconds is impossible without anti-nausea meds.

12% Unemployment here. 12 fucking percent.

So when do we get our first “Obamaville,” since even the Atlantic or one of those rags likened Prez Hopey to Prez Hoover at least once. (Except I’m pretty sure that Hopey isn’t as smart as Hoover was.)
marisacat - 2 July 2009: updates today are saying nationally it is 10%… which of course is just the “official” number.. I assume we are higher than the 11.5 of a couple of months ago. Again, “official”….

I heard today that a whopping 2.5 million have applied for Social Sec Disability Benefits… and those who are awarded benefits will never be listed as “unemployed” either.
ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: On the plus side, Craig’s List is still robust with economical decorating options for that first carboard-box condo. I’m thinking that something in a flocked wallpaper would be nice. It can double as a scratchable surface for the cats.
20. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Via David Mixner:

[H]ere is the First Lady’s logic:

“Of course I’m not saying that Mark is gay,” Sanford said, “but he may as well be. The moral decay in this country has claimed another victim and this time it was my family. Our marriage was perfect until these laws started passing around the country. Clearly the slow dissolution of the sanctity of marriage in America seeped into Mark’s psyche until he no longer felt compelled to abide by our vows.”

I think commentator Keith Olberman might have had the best response when he said, “Unless he was flying to Vermont with Lindsey Graham, gay marriage had nothing to do with this,” Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, is a confirmed bachelor. Of course, maybe it is a plot by Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, age 40 (photograph above!), who also hasn’t yet found the right woman. There seems to some sort of great gay conspiracy developing in South Carolina that forced poor old Governor Sanford to go nuts.
21. ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: Professor Higgins was also a “confirmed bachelor.” Which makes me wonder whether this whole thing will be spun into a musical or, better yet, an opera. I hear there’s one already in production based on Cronenberg’s version of The Fly.

What could be more soothingly hetero-trad.-family-values than opera?
marisacat - 2 July 2009: The best operas have murders. Or … the most fun ones, I should say………………………….
22. ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: My opera’s gonna’ star time-tossed Medieval princesses and good-looking but tastelessly dressed shape-shifting aliens. (That’s “alien” in the old-school sense, for any INS officials who might be kibbitzing this space.)

Forgive me if I’ve shared this before. My memory isn’t what it used to be. :/ Also I apologize in advance for traumatizing Catnip. Again.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: not like the aliens in this?
ms_xeno - 2 July 2009: Oh, cut that out. Enough with the Eighties already. We’ve already given you Reagan II, but we have to draw the line somewhere…
23. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: Fort Worth Police Chief: That Faggot Had It Coming

Allow me to translate the chief’s comments: “Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they’re complainin’ about some rough stuff and one little ol’ faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they’re alive.”

This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, “He made a pass at me!”, and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn’t fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence—to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts—and let his officers off.

And you’ll never guess who the police are accusing of being the groper: Chad Gibson, the one man arrested at the Rainbow Lounge who can’t defend himself and may never be able to give his side of the story.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: Gay panic. Mrs Sanford commiserates. Big bad cop panicked.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: I’m always amazed how fragile heavily armed men can be … poor dears.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Ah see Savage cain’t spell pree-vert.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Coverage from Dallas Voice:

Here are a few of the eyewitness reports of the incident, as reported to Dallas Voice.

Todd Camp

Todd Camp, founder of Fort Worth’s LGBT film festival Q Cinema, had gone to Rainbow Lounge Saturday night with friends to celebrate his birthday. He said he was standing in line at the bar when “seven or eight cops,” some wearing Fort Worth Police uniforms, others wearing clothing identifying them as “state police.”

Camp said an officer “shoved me out of the way to grab the guy in front of me” in line at the bar. The officer “told the man, ‘You’re drunk,’” and took him out of the bar, Camp said.

He said there were “about six police cars” and a “paddy wagon” waiting outside the bar, and that officers had several people in zip-tie handcuffs lined up on the sidewalk.

“No one I saw appeared to be highly intoxicated, and the way they were choosing people just appeared to be random harassment,” Camp said. “They were pretty violent in grabbing people, and one guy was shoved to the ground and handcuffed.

“I was absolutely stunned. They are saying this was a routine check by TABC. I have been in plenty of bars before when TABC checks happened, and this was not like anything I have ever seen before,” Camp added. “People were just grabbed randomly, told they were drunk, spun around, put in handcuffs and taken out.”

Camp said straight friends who were there with him were frightened to the point of tears by what they saw.

Justin McCarty

Justin McCarty said he was working security for the Rainbow Lounge at the time of the raid early Sunday morning. He said an officer approached him and asked how much he had had to drink.

“I told him I was working and hadn’t had anything to drink, and that’s when he told me, ‘Then you need to make yourself scarce.’ So I did. I went to the back out of the way. I took that as a threat that if I didn’t, I would be arrested, too,” McCarty said.

McCarty said that he saw officers throw Chad Gibson to the floor, adding that, “There were people standing there watching it happen and crying. They were scared. It was just brutal.”

Brandon Addicks

Brandon Addicks said he had brought his girlfriend and “some of her friends” to the Rainbow Lounge on Saturday night to dance. At first, he said, they noticed “a small trickling of cops” coming into the bar, one of which “was wearing a shirt that said ‘Vice’ on it.” Then the trickle grew.

“I saw a cop walk up behind a guy who was sitting at a table. The cop told him to stand up, and when the guy asked what for, the cop said, ‘You’re intoxicated,’ Addicks said. “Then there was that guy getting the crap beat out of him there in the back.

“I have been in bars before when police have come in, and I have never seen anything like this,” he added. “It all just had a really nasty vibe to it. They seemed to be specifically singling out certain people to arrest. It was really unnerving.”

Alison Egert

Alison Egert said several members of her family have been in law enforcement, and that she has learned over the years that if you treat a police officer with respect, that officer will treat you with the same respect in return. But that’s not what she saw Sunday morning at Rainbow Lounge.

Egert said when she first noticed an officer in the club she “made a point of going up to him to tell thanks for coming out to make sure we’re safe. ‘This is kind of a rough neighborhood, and we appreciate you.’ But he told me, ‘That’s not why we’re here.’”

When Egert asked why the officers were in the club, she said he told her they had received a tip from “a disgruntled former employee” who claimed the club’s bartenders were over-serving customers.

At that point, Egert said, she told the officer that she had had several drinks herself, but that she had a designated driver. The officer, in return, told her she had nothing to worry about.

It was shortly after that conversation, Egert said, that she saw a patron in the bar “thrown against the wall” and then pushed to the floor. (That man was later identified as Chad Gibson.)

“Here you had this gay man who looked like he weighed about 100 pounds thrown to the floor with six cops on top of him,” she said. “That’s when I started noticing that they were only arresting men, and they seemed to be targeting the smaller men.”

Egert said her experience that night was proof the officers in the bar were there specifically to harass gay men.

“They said they were arresting people for public intoxication. I told them I was intoxicated, but they left me alone,” she said. “It was disgusting.”

Egert also said she didn’t see anyone make sexual advances toward any of the officers and that she didn’t see anyone grope any of the officers.

“The people in there were scared. They were all getting out of their [police officers’] way,” she said. “No one resisted arrest. They were singling out specific people, the men who seemed more effeminate. It just seems like it was a deliberate jab at the community.”
marisacat - 2 July 2009: From the get go it has sounded planned and targetted. Pair that with the bust (with canine unit and helicopter, geesh) carried out at a Lesbian household, a fundraiser for Busby in S Diego (environs … think she runs in some beach district)… They pepper sprayed about 10 middle aged mostly women. For goodness sakes. For a noise call. yeah right.

Not good.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: as things go south I think state violence is going to escalate, on top of the “lone wolves” who’re gonna keep going off like unstable dynamite … especially after the groups they’re not affiliated with don’t push them to attack someone.
marisacat - 2 July 2009: TABC…?

what si that… ?

Texas Alcohol and Bed Checks LOL
moiv - 2 July 2009: Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission.

They used to simply be called LCB, Liquor Control Board.

But that was before the Yankees started moving down here, and we got all pansified.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: which explains why the cops need to slap some guys around, to avoid going from pansified to queeny.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Damn straight. See? It’s so simple even a Yankee can understand it.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: Texans are simple folk
marisacat - 2 July 2009: I should have guessed… I forget what ours is called. But since I have never in my life been in a bar or place that served hard liquor that was “checked”, meaning the front of the bar, with patrons in place… I am guessing the power is used to roust “elements” the cops and other authorities feel like goosing. Or beating on the head til he is still in ICU.
24. marisacat - 2 July 2009: Gosh… honestly how much time can be left? For America I mean? It’s an honest question:

At the Aspen Ideas Conf … they hve bloggers interviewing bloggers about blogging. Or Blahging.

ANYTHING would be preferable. Anydamnedthing.
25. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: Haven’t seen this in years: LAURIE ANDERSON – LANGUAGE IS A VIRUS
26. marisacat - 2 July 2009: [Y]ou may recall how the Donk protested its innocence back in the bygone days of Total Republican Dominance. Don’t blame us!, the Donkle cried. Not even the traitorous quisling Jeffords in those heady, pre-9/11 times helped much with his defection to the Donk bosom. Then slowly, slowly, like the first mutant fish hauling its bony, wheezing body out of the slime and onto the sand, the Donk slipped back into power. But when it won Congress, it wasn’t enough, and when it won even more Congress and the Presidency, it wasn’t enough, and when at last it achieves sentience and launches Judgment Day on its unsuspecting, soft, human creators . . . still, it will not be enough.

In this regard, Democratic voters are really no different than the Rapture-ready Republican rubes they are ever-willing to mock as credulous fools, worshiping likewise at a church whose eschaton is ever-imminent but never-arriving.

IOZ.

Of course the shorter version is STILL the imagery of Reid and his man tits shaking over the pink Everlasts…
27. Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: Gay sailor found dead on military base in a suspected homicide.
28. moiv - 2 July 2009: Thank god Obama’s making clear that he’ll protect doctors from those crazed hordes of women demanding abortions before he leaves for Rome. Otherwise, one shudders to think of what might have happened to them while he was out of town.

President Barack Obama said today that he still favors a “robust” federal policy protecting health-care workers who have moral objections to performing some procedures even though he plans to roll back a Bush administration rule that expanded such protection.

Speaking to eight religion reporters at the White House before his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI next Friday, Obama sought to reassure Catholic health-care workers that they would not be forced to perform abortions and other procedures that violate the Church’s teachings. Obama said he is a “believer in conscience clauses” and supports a new policy that would “certainly not be weaker” than the rules in place before the expansion late in President George W. Bush’s administration.

Obama’s comments were part of a broad interview that touched on issues including his hopes for his meeting with the pontiff, abortion and his struggle to choose a home church for him and his family.
Madman in the Marketplace - 2 July 2009: his priorities are so fucked.
29. BooHooHooMan - 2 July 2009: Obama Admin protects Cheney in Court.
Yet Again.

New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak
Discussions of CIA Agent Listed in Filing

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 3, 2009

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

The administration’s discussion of Wilson’s link to the CIA was meant to undermine criticism by her husband of administration allegations that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium, a matter that her husband had probed for the CIA, according to testimony presented in a 2007 trial.

A list of at least seven related conversations involving Cheney appears in a new court filing approved by Obama appointees at the Justice Department. In the filing, the officials argue that the substance of what Cheney told special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald in 2004 must remain secret.

No such agreement was reached between Fitzgerald and Cheney at the time of their chat, according to a 2008 Fitzgerald letter to lawmakers. But the Bush administration rejected requests by Congress and a nonprofit group for access to two FBI accounts of the conversation, saying the material was exempt from disclosure under subpoena or the Freedom of Information Act.

The Obama administration has since agreed that the material should not be disclosed.

And so surfaces Robert Rubin’s valet – Fucksteak Lanny Breuer. . Breuer, that courtesan to Clintons , moneychangers, and now, The Black Guy- What’s ‘is name?- Mr. Invisible?
President Who’s-in-Charge?

Breuer, that easy read – the New York cager chosen by
President SUCK to put the DOJ on lockdown….. lest it be revealed that partisan identification is the most trivial of matters w/r/t a terminal “Culture of Corruption” that has rendered Government into a criminal syndicate.
And Crim Div AG Breuer is there for anything BUT prosecuting federal crimes.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed doubt about that argument. To counter Sullivan’s skepticism, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said in a supporting affidavit to the new court filing that the department needs the ability to interview White House officials informally in future law enforcement investigations, and that if the Cheney interview summaries are made public, “there is an increased likelihood that such officials could feel reluctant to participate.” Breuer served as special counsel to President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater probe.

The nonprofit group pushing for disclosure, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, responded yesterday with a statement that the Justice Department has subpoenaed such officials without difficulty in the past. “It is astonishing that a top Department of Justice political appointee is suggesting other high-level appointees are unlikely to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement investigations. What is wrong with this picture?” said Melanie Sloan, head of the group.

So Lanny Breuer, the Clinton Drycleaner, now serves Obama-
the Most Celibated [sic] President. EVAH™.

Perhaps Breuer is just doing his job in this fantastic new Era of Ob,
where War Crimes, national security secrets -
and now I suppose unseemly or seemingly Presidential semen can miraculously evaporate into thin air.
What will they think of next?

Hell they looted this country and a great deal of the rest of the planet so I’m sure they’ll come up with something…….
Insufficient.
30. moiv - 2 July 2009: Bob Casey is talking a good game — just like a good Obama Democrat.

Senator Bob Casey, the self-identified pro-life Democrat from Pennsylvania, is giving pro-life advocates another reason to doubt that claim. In a new interview, Casey says that making sure abortions are not covered or paid for at taxpayer expense shouldn’t stop passage of a health care restructuring bill.

Casey’s comments in the interview with CNS News appear to put him at odds with 19 pro-life Democrats in the House who recently told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi they couldn’t support any health care bill that wasn’t abortion neutral.

Well, that’s one way of putting it. What the 19 House Dems actually said was: “We cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.” Then they cited a Guttmacher Institute survey to back up their point: since poor women have no money, denying them any funding for abortion care is a proven way to make sure they have babies.

But I digress. Back to Senator Bob …..

Casey said he doesn’t know why Congress should debate making sure a health care bill doesn’t mandate abortion coverage.

“It hasn’t been an impediment, and I don’t expect it to be and it shouldn’t be. There is no reason why in a health-care bill we have to have another debate about that issue (abortion),” the senator said.

[:::]

Asked specifically if he agreed with the House Democrats who took a firm pro-life position, Casey would not tell CNS News if he would oppose any pro-abortion health care bill.

“I can’t speak for what the House is doing and what members are doing in the House, but in the Senate, I don’t think that it (the abortion issue) is going to be an impediment to getting this legislation passed,” he said.
catnip - 2 July 2009: Obamalama has proven that even if something isn’t an “issue”, he’ll make one out of it and pre-emptively cave before the scary Republicans come after him. Meet the new definition of “compromise”.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Meet the new definition of “compromise”.

Texans really must be as simple as Madman says, because now I’m confused. I thought that was the new definition of “common ground.”
catnip - 2 July 2009: That too is code for, “I’m a Democrat…please don’t hit me!”
marisacat - 2 July 2009: I think “compromise” is ”roll back”.

A pass word protected dictionary is required….
Madman in the Marketplace - 3 July 2009: of course, all Americans are simple-minded … Texans are just louder about it!

I’m just finishing up Charles Peirce’s “Idiot America”. I want to go hide in a cave now.
31. catnip - 2 July 2009: Speaking of Cheney Ass Covering they are Truly Fucking Confused (TFC) over at the big orange denial hole.

The diary begins…

So, the Obama Administration again is delaying release of the CIA Inspector General’s report that reportedly proves that torture doesn’t work. I’m not going to mince words. The reasons for the delay are obvious.

And ends with…

The corporate media will try to protect him. If the Republicans declared that the Earth is flat, the corporate media would act as if it were legitimately debatable. That’s what the corporate media do: cast all of reality as but a political debate. But this is not debatable. Torture doesn’t work. Even if it did, it is a war crime. Dick Cheney authorized torture. He is a war criminal. Dealing with that fact will be messy and unprecedented. But it must be done. It’s time to hold war criminals accountable. If they aren’t held accountable, all President Obama’s efforts to establish some sense of morality and credibility for the United States will be for naught.

Exsqueeze me? What “efforts”, exactly? It’s HIS administration protecting Cheney.

I’d ask if they really are that obtuse over there but really…that would be pointless. It’s obviously the “corporate media’s” fault.
moiv - 2 July 2009: They are doing all they can to qualify as Corporate Media, Junior Division. Some of them already have merit badges. Little bitty orange ones.
moiv - 2 July 2009: I went over to look at the diary, and it’s not a total loss. Check out this great cartoon from the thread.
catnip - 2 July 2009: I like the cartoon but the comment is convenient revisionist history – as usual.
moiv - 2 July 2009: Just like buying a 45 RPM single — you gotta take the B side, too, whether you want to listen to it or not.
catnip - 2 July 2009: At least you got your money’s worth when you bought a Beatles’ 45. (Holy crap, I’m old.)
moiv - 2 July 2009: LOL, you’re old if you ever bought anybody’s 45s.

So I guess that makes two of us.
catnip - 2 July 2009: I have to get out of the diary. I’m having too much fun in the comments. Someone’s bound to notice soon…
32. catnip - 2 July 2009: Let’s play What’s Wrong With This Headline?

New dinosaurs found in Australia
33. catnip - 2 July 2009: Tonite’s Fuck the British news item hails from India: Dancing in the streets after gay sex is declared legal in India

Jubilant crowds cheered outside a Delhi court yesterday after judges announced that gay sex was not a crime – a landmark ruling for India that spells the end for a 150-year-old law introduced by the British Raj.
moiv - 2 July 2009: What? Do you mean to say that, up until now, gay sex was only legal in all-male prep schools??
catnip - 2 July 2009: Ssssshhhh! You’ll start a riot…or something…
34. catnip - 2 July 2009: In this episode of Obama’s an Imperialist; Who knew? Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt have a look at the ginormous embassy the hopeychangeyness man has planned for Pakistan.

A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands

Along with postcards of cowboys riding jackalopes and giant berries on flatcars, there’s a brand new entry in the American gigantism sweepstakes: an embassy complex to be built in Islamabad, Pakistan, for — if you assume the normal cost overruns on such projects — what’s likely to be close to a billion dollars. If that doesn’t make the U.S. number one in the imperial hubris footrace for all eternity, what will? The question is: with its projected “large military and intelligence contingent,” and its “surge” of diplomats, will that embassy also issue the largest visas on the planet?

Here’s the strange thing: The embassy story was broken at the end of May by the superb journalists at McClatchy News (in this case, Warren P. Stroebel and Saeed Shah). As part of what Shah, in the Christian Science Monitor, estimates as a staggering “$2-billion-plus price tag on a revamped diplomatic presence for the United States in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” they reported that an appropriation of $736 million for embassy construction had quietly made its way through both houses of Congress without a peep from anyone. This news, however, seemed to plunge off a steep cliff into a deep well of silence. Indicative as the Obama administration’s decision to build such an imperial monstrosity may be of a longer-term commitment to a wider war in the Af-Pak (as in Afghanistan-Pakistan) theater of operations, it evidently proved of no interest to anyone here.

The story was not widely picked up or played up significantly. Despite the fact that major news operations have been bolstering their staffs in Pakistan, there has been no further reporting on the appropriation, the plans for the embassy, or what it all might mean. As far as I can tell, nowhere in the United States did a mainstream editorial page decry, challenge, or even discuss the development. Charlie Rose didn’t gather experts to consider it, nor did the Newshour with Jim Lehrer seem to think it worth exploring. Letters of outrage at the thought of those desperately needed funds heading Islamabad-wards didn’t pour into local newspapers (perhaps because few knew it was happening and those who did saw it as just another humdrum story about making the U.S. safer in a dangerous world). I’ve seen no obvious congressional attempts to oppose the passage of the money. The general attitude is evidently: Been there, done that (in Iraq, as a matter of fact, in the Bush years).

more…
marisacat - 2 July 2009: It’s amazing people cannot figure out we are finished. If not next decade, then the one after. It cannot be sustained. They hve to bleed the nation for the foreign wars. And they are.

Johnson and Englehardt are very right about there being no mainstream interest… I posted the McClatchy article on the planned Embassy when it was written and others posted here when the 5 star hotel that was to be part of our foot print in AfPak was bombed.

And whoever bombed it will be back.
catnip - 3 July 2009: No doubt. And while Obamalama is now surging in Afghanistan, expect more fighters to flee into Pakistan (and vice versa) turning the entire region into an even bigger mess. It’s all completely screwed.
marisacat - 3 July 2009: Regional war… which was always the plan. that and chaos.
catnip - 3 July 2009: As they say, follow the money: There’s gold (and copper) in them there hills. Can’t have a pesky destabilization affect that, now can we?
35. marisacat - 3 July 2009: new thread…

link

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