George Washington vs. Virgil Goode
Fri Dec 22, 2006 at 08:46:33 AM PDT
[I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
Virgil Goode, my Congressional representative, yesterday defended the letter he sent constituents concerning Rep. Keith Ellison by suggesting that it represented core American values (quoting feedback from a supporter during his Fox News interview). Well, you can't get any more American than apple pie and George Washington. We don't have apple pie on record concerning religious belief and public office, but we do have George Washington's words. Some of them follow.
Sidarth speaks on "Macaca" experience [updated]
Wed Nov 15, 2006 at 08:19:37 AM PDT
"Virgil Goode, This is Your Bill, Will You Pay It"?
Thu Aug 03, 2006 at 08:19:34 PM PDT
"You supported [Mitchell Wade's] lies when you claimed this was about jobs. This is, and always was, about money. ... Mr. Goode, this is your bill, will you pay it? You owe it to the people you claim to serve."
It looks like no one here has yet diaried a report of VA-5 Democratic congressional candidate Al Weed's fiery challenge to incumbent Virgil Goode today, as reported in detail on Raising Kaine and more briefly in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. If any Democratic campaigners around the country are wondering about the appropriate tone to take in confronting Republican venality, Al's got a rhetoric lesson for them.
Why haven't we kidnapped Patty Hearst?
Wed Mar 08, 2006 at 09:53:51 PM PDT
This is a query, not an attempt to incite anything. But I'd like to hear how the Kos community answers this question. Namely: Why hasn't there been more violent political protest in the last couple of years in the United States? Why, compared with the situation during the Vietnam War, or with the brief frenzy of right-wing militias during the 1990s, has this been a period of largely subdued protest, verbal and symbolic? [Updated to supply a more provocative title. Gotta compete with them alpha diarists. --DS]
CNN no longer double-plus ungood
Sat Mar 04, 2006 at 08:59:07 AM PDT
CNN Defies the Ministry of Truth:
All morning today, readers of CNN.com have seen a front-page story on Bush's visit to Pakistan whose accompanying picture has varied but whose caption has (so far) invariably contained the phrase, "the so-called war on terror". To paraphrase Neil Armstrong, that's one small step for a news organization, a giant leap for truth in the mainstream media.
Wes Clark, Christmas Warrior
Thu Dec 22, 2005 at 11:04:31 AM PDT
Wes Clark sent out a holiday email to his WesPAC list today, subject line
Happy holidays! (Take that, right-wing fanatics!) But the body of the letter showed what the theocrats are missing in this whole trumped-up "war"...
VA GOV: new dirty-tricks phone campaign [updated]
Sun Nov 06, 2005 at 02:02:08 PM PDT
[This was originally posted as a comment to the
VA Gov Dirty Tricks story; I'm creating a separate diary entry for visibility to VA Kos readers. --DS]
I just answered the phone to a recording that went something like this: "I'm Tim Kaine and I want you to know where I stand on the issues. I'm a Christian and my faith is important to me. I oppose abortion, and I oppose gay marriage." [both of these points expanded; I can't recall the wording]. I realized as the call went on that there was something fishy about it--it reminded me of the pseudo-Potts flyer discussed in VA-Gov: GOP dirty tricks. So I wrote down the last words: "Paid for by Honest Leadership for Virginia PAC".
Help open-source the Miers questionnaire.
Wed Oct 19, 2005 at 08:12:56 PM PDT
While skimming over Harriet Miers's submitted
job application questionnaire (PDF) for the Senate Judiciary committee, I was perplexed by the following incomplete entry under Category 12, "Memberships":
1983-Present: Board of Consultants Member (1983-1987 Board of Directors, 1987-1989 Associate Board Member, 1993-Present, Board of Consultants Member), an organization that works to translate the Bible into languages into which it has not yet been translated. Contact: Randal Smith, (972) 708-7460.
That's it. No title. Apparently Miers has been a member since 1983 of a Bible translation organization whose name she can't recall.
Could I possibly help her out here?
"Lord of the Flies" and Bush's America
Sat Sep 10, 2005 at 06:36:31 PM PDT
Almost as soon as the first reports of looting and violence came out of post-Katrina New Orleans, people were citing William Golding's novel
Lord of the Flies as an analogue. On Democratic Underground,
"It is like something out of 'The Lord of the Flies'" was one of at least a half dozen posts to draw the parallel. The Diane Rehm show will devote its September 21
"Reader's Review" segment to the book. Vail, Colorado, booksellers have picked the novel as this month's
Valley Read and will donate one dollar to hurricane relief for each copy purchased. As one of the booksellers explains, he "thought it could be used as an educational tool to explain how society breaks down when they don't have food, water or basic necessities."
Like most Americans, I suppose, I hadn't read Lord of the Flies since high school, so I reread it this week to see if it does in fact illuminate what happened after the hurricane. But what I found isn't what I expected. The novel is not a prefigurement of those few horrific days in New Orleans; instead, it is uncannily close to an allegory of the United States under the leadership of George W. Bush.
WSJ and toadyism
Thu Jul 14, 2005 at 12:15:46 PM PDT
I sent the
Wall Street Journal feedback on their infamous
Karl Rove, Whistleblower op-ed. Chances are they won't put it up, and in any case I thought I'd share it.
If I knew a more forceful way to say "shame on you" I'd do it, but this was my best effort.
Democratic Stop Signs: My letter to GWB
Wed Jun 15, 2005 at 02:09:06 PM PDT
I sent off the following email today to president@whitehouse.gov.
I hope the underling who actually reads it is capable of appreciating satire.
==
Whitehouse.gov teaches Kremlin a propaganda lesson
Thu Oct 07, 2004 at 10:11:00 AM PDT
George W. Bush is not the first president to turn the official White House website, www.whitehouse.gov, into a public-relations vehicle; toward the end of Bill Clinton's second term, the site was used to
trumpet the record of his administration. But the Bush Administration has turned a site financed by tax dollars into something increasingly hard to distinguish from www.rnc.org, a site far more shamelessly self-promoting than, say, that of Bush's good friend Vladimir Putin.
That is my Kerry sign. This is my rifle.
Sat Sep 25, 2004 at 05:23:22 PM PDT
Just had my second campaign sign stolen today. I have two signs at the bottom of my driveway, a Kerry/Edwards and an Al Weed (VA-5 Congress candidate). The first time, only the Weed sign was taken, which I thought was kind of odd, because your typical Democrat-hater is going to go after the Kerry sign or both. But they tell me at Weed HQ that there is speculation some of the Weed sign theft may be apolitical, the result of college kiddies who think it is somehow humorous to have a big sign saying "WEED" on their dorm wall.
