sarah palin channels cheney (10 mins)

Earlier this week, Palin sat down for an interview with KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. As ThinkProgress first reported, in response to a question about “what does the Vice President do,” Palin replied, “They’re in charge of the US Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes.” (She’s wrong.) Today on MSNBC, Chris Matthews challenged McCain campaign spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer to defend Palin’s comments, saying that in all his time in Washington, he has “never heard anybody” give an answer like Palin did. “Where does she get her civics?” asked Matthews. Pfotenhauer became visibly angry by the questioning and tried to change the subject. Matthews, however, refused to let her get away:

I don’t know why Randy Scheunemann or one of the smart people around her — I don’t know who else, Nicolle Wallace, somebody — ought to go to the candidate for the Vice President and give them a copy of the Constitution to read. That’s all it takes. It doesn’t take a lot of penetrating thought. Read the job description […] Somehow, in all these trips to Washington — through Neiman’s, and through Saks, and through everywhere else she stopped off, she never picked up a copy of the Constitution. It is a problem. It is a problem, Nancy, and you know it.

from ThinkProgress

sudan weapons ship was israeli

Russia wants freedom to tackle Somali pirates
MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti)

Russia has asked Somalia for freedom to tackle the country’s pirate problem amid growing concern for the fate of a captured ship’s crew, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday. A Russian naval vessel is en route to east African waters to join an international naval group, which has surrounded a Ukrainian ship, the MV Faina, after it was seized by Somali pirates on Sep 25. The Faina, which was carrying tanks and heavy weapons, has a crew of 17 Ukrainian nationals, two Russians, and one Lithuanian on board. “To ensure freedom of action in the fight against piracy directly in Somali territorial waters, the Russian Foreign Ministry has asked for consent from the Somali Republic’s Transitional Federal Government to grant the Russian Federation the status of a ‘cooperating state,'” the ministry said. The Faina‘s Russian captain died of a heart attack after the vessel was seized. The pirates holding the ship have demanded an $8m ransom, and have threatened to kill the hostages if a military operation is launched against them. The Neustrashimy (Fearless) missile frigate is tasked with protecting Russian vessels, and foreign ships with Russian crew members, from potential pirate attacks. Pirates are increasingly active in the waters off Somalia, which has no effective government and no navy to police its coastline. Somali pirates have seized around 30 ships so far this year off the coast of the east African nation. The Yemeni president said on Thursday that countries affected by piracy will gather for a conference on maritime security in the region.

The mystery of MV Faina hijacked in Somalia unveiled by BBC
Israeli Revealed as owner of South Sudan bound weapons ship
Shuun Ishaq, PR Inside, Oct 8 2008

Registration documents gathered by BBC included the confirmation that the ship hijacked by Somalia pirates belonged to a Jewish investor residing in the self proclaimed state of Israel, and not a Ukrainian ship. More information reveal the reported Ukrainian owner company by the name of Tomax Team as nothing but a mere operator based in the Ukraine, employing crews from Ukraine and Latvia. The crisis surrounding the destination of its cargo were further resolved when transportation codes with “GOSS” (an acronym for Government of South Sudan) were found amongst the documentations to solve the deepening mystery. The Israel based owner Vadim Alperin was further investigated to have acquired this ship from a Russian state auction during the era of Boris Yeltsin. The ship was refurbished and later conveniently registered to fly the Belize flag. Other ships by the same owner where found to be operating as casinos including one based in the Gulf to entertain rich Arab clients. Vadim Alperin was once quoted to be a “Mossad brother” running a number of clandestine front companies including one Kenyan Meat export company enjoying “good trade” with middle eastern countries covertly used for gathering intelligence from countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Kenya maintains weapons were legally purchased by its army, although its own government is now mired in a web of embarrassments as weapons procurement of this size has not been declared despite being a member of United Nations weapons transparency programme UNROCA. For many years, the Khartoum based Sudan government accused Israel of supplying arms and providing training to South Sudan rebels. Kenya is now proofed to be providing the logistical support for arms shipment to South Sudan, a role similar to Chad’s support given to Darfur rebels which has caused the two countries to be in a state of war against each other. Israel once supplied illicit weapons to South Sudan from within Ethiopia’s territory, but had lost influence since the Eritrean independence. As relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia had soured, it became impossible to continue this route and sought other alternative routes to get to its Uganda weapons storage for South Sudan militias through Kenyan territories. It is extremely rare for ships to be registered to indivitual investors such as Mr Alperin.

Russian warship may free Somali pirates’ hostages by force
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti)

The Russian warship Neustrashimy may use force against pirates who seized a Ukrainian ship off the Somali coast in September, a senior Navy official said Wednesday. Earlier Wednesday, Somali Ambassador to Russia Mohamed Handule said his country’s President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed had authorized Russia’s military to fight pirates off Somalia’s coast and on land. “This permission allows the warship to use the whole range of the weapons on board,” the Navy official said. “We are not excluding a takeover of the vessel by force to free the crew, which includes Russian citizens.” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry earlier cited the Faina‘s owner, Tomax Team Inc., as saying there were three Russians, 17 Ukrainians and one Latvian on board the ship when it was seized. However, Nyna Karpachyova, the Ukrainian parliament’s human rights ombudsman, said that the real owner of the ship, which was carrying 33 T-72 tanks and other military equipment, was an Israeli citizen, Vadim Alperin. Karpachyova also said that relatives of the hostages on board the ship would ask the Ukrainian government to prevent the liberation of the Faina by force. The pirates said earlier that they would kill a hostage if an attempt was made to free the hostages by force. The ship’s captain, Russian Vladimir Kolobkov, earlier died of a heart attack. Russia’s Navy sent the Neustrashimy missile frigate to waters off the Somali coast to fight piracy and protect Russian vessels in the region on September 24. The ship’s armament includes SS-N-25 Switchblade anti-ship missiles, SA-N-9 Gauntlet SAM, a 100-mm gun, torpedoes and depth charges. The frigate also carries a Ka-27 ASW helicopter. Pirates are increasingly active in the waters off Somalia, which has no effective government and no navy to police its coastline. The International Maritime Bureau said more than 30 incidents of piracy were registered in the region in 2007. More than 30 attacks have been committed so far this year off the coast of the East African nation.

rush limbaugh self destructs (85 secs)

sarah posner : fundamentalist # 54

– American Prospect, Oct 22 2008

1. Daughters of the Religious Right Revolution.
Some elite Republicans are shocked, shocked, to discover the ugliness lurking in their party. Figures from Peggy Noonan to Colin Powell cannot believe it! The party of the shining city on the hill is turning vulgar! The feigned surprise is laughable. After all, the only card left in the Republican deck is straight out of the religious right’s 30 year-old battle plan, which the GOP has warmly embraced since Reagan. Since the mid-1970s, the Republican Party has validated the religious right’s mythology of America’s Christian nationhood, cowed to its authoritarian litmus tests, and made demagoguery not only fashionable but heroic. Michele Bachmann’s call for witch hunts and Sarah Palin’s accusations of socialism may be anachronistic, but if you are familiar with the ideological underpinnings of the religious right, you recognize them as carefully calibrated to appeal to loyalists who have been schooled in the evils of “statism” — the elevation of government over God. When Bachmann talks about Obama or other Democrats being “anti-American,” it’s a dog whistle to the base: It must be Satan trying to bring down America. When Palin calls Obama a socialist, she’s really calling him godless, and therefore a danger to God’s plan for America. Elite Republicans’ sudden hostility to that kind of slime, however, shows just how much they have turned a blind eye to the animating principle of the religious right, which is not at its core opposition to abortion or gay rights, but support for instituting an authoritarian, supposedly “biblical” law. The Council for National Policy — the secretive brain trust of the conservative movement that meets quarterly to map out conservative movement (and GOP) strategy — was based on this very idea. Since its founding in 1981, the CNP vets Republican candidates each election cycle, and, although the group never much cared for McCain, it very much approved of Palin.

One of CNP’s founders, Conservative Caucus and Conservative Party founder Howard Phillips, is a protegé of R.J. Rushdoony, the architect of the Christian Reconstructionism that is the cornerstone of the religious right. Rushdoony summed up his view of “statism” when he said, “The historic Christian concept of government is the self-government of the Christian man under God and in terms of His law. This is set over against the top-heavy centralization of post-Enlightenment statism. The only cure for totalitarianism is the restoration of Christian government.” Before the 2000 election, another CNP founder, Tim LaHaye — who in 2005 was named one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America by Time — laid out the Palin-Bachmann mindset:

All thinking people in America realize an anti-Christian, anti-moral, and anti-American philosophy permeates this country and the world … This alien philosophy does not come from the Bible, but is antithetical to it. In this country it flies under the banner of “liberalism,” but in reality it is atheistic socialism at best and Marxism at worst. If those who hold this philosophy were honest and admitted publicly they were hostile to God, His Son Jesus Christ, moral values and true freedom for all individuals, they would be voted out of office in three quarters of the congressional districts and states in our country. Instead, they use the title “liberal” to define themselves … [and intend] to destroy the Biblical principles this country was founded on and replace them with freedom from responsibility.

Reap what you sow. Palin and Bachmann are the products of this kind of mindless demagoguery, and of the Republican Party’s love affair with the religious right.

2. More Life and Death Threats.
McCain might have rejected the endorsement of televangelist Rod Parsley, but you won’t hear him turning down the de facto endorsement Parsley made on his television show this week, as he quizzed McCain supporter Gary Bauer about what’s at stake in the election. The election, said Parsley, echoing the apocalyptic themes prevalent as the religious right panics in the home stretch, “could mean the difference between life and death.” He was talking about abortion, but Bauer expanded that theme into far more dire terrain. Listen for the echoes of LaHaye and Rushdoony in his words:

The whole idea of America is built on this idea that liberty comes from God. But it was also built on the idea that only a virtuous people could remain free … I’m really worried … that we’re throwing the idea of virtue out the window … But there are a whole lot of people like us who believe that America ought to be the place of ordered liberty under God. My fear is that if we don’t rediscover that idea, we’re going to be in deep trouble, that at some point God could take his hand of protection off of America, while we’re facing a very evil enemy abroad, while we’re dealing with tremendous problems here at home.

3. More Islamofascism — and Child Sacrifice!
— Coming to a Church or Synagogue Near You.
The incendiary propaganda DVD Obsession, produced by the Clarion Fund, a non-profit organization founded by employees of the Orthodox Jewish group Aish HaTorah, made news last month when Clarion paid to have millions of copies of the DVD inserted in Sunday newspapers in swing states around the country. Now, the DVD is being sent to 325,000 clergy through a new publication called the Judeo-Christian View. The Judeo-Christian View, in addition to advising clergy to preach on the “dangers” of “Islamofascism,” offers a free model sermon for them to use to preach against gay marriage and “child sacrifice” (late-term abortion). The video contrasts the two presidential candidates’ positions on both those issues, and obviously favors McCain. The Judeo-Christian View is run by O’Neal Dozier, a Florida pastor who claimed in 2006 that God revealed to him that Charlie Crist would become that state’s governor. Later that year, Jeb Bush, then Florida’s governor, removed Dozier from a Judicial Nominating Commission to which he had appointed him in 2001, and Crist tossed him from serving on his campaign’s “Strengthening Florida’s Families” advisory group after Dozier called Islam a “cult.” When Dozier served on the judicial commission, he and other members asked prospective nominees if they were God-fearing, their views on the 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down Texas’ anti-sodomy law, and how they would feel about posting the Ten Commandments in their courtroom. “Our nation faces a fork, a divergence between the high road and the low road,” reads the Judeo-Christian View letter to clergy, “and you and your congregation could very well determine the direction we take. The high road upholds America’s peaceful tradition of Judeo-Christian tolerance and morality. The low road marches us toward militant secular-paganism, militant Islam, or both.”

4. More Scare Tactics in California Gay
Marriage Fight; Is the Florida Ban Fizzling?
While advocates for Proposition 8, California’s proposed gay marriage ban, are rolling in cash, they’re stepping up their overheated and absurd claims about what defeat of the ban would mean. The gays and the teachers’ unions, Prop 8’s advocates are shouting, want gay marriage taught in elementary schools. Proponents of the ban are also heavily targeting Latino and African-American voters and the most recent Survey USA poll shows support for the ban running slightly ahead of opposition, 48-45%. In Florida, opponents of gay marriage are having a little more difficulty gaining traction. A recent poll by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel showed the ban falling seven points short of the 60% needed to amend the state’s constitution. And a recent rally hosted by Bishop Harry Jackson, which organizers expected to draw thousands, attracted only 700 people. John Stemberger, the Florida anti-gay activist heading up the campaign for the gay marriage ban, told the Orlando Sentinel that attendance was down because Obama held a rally in the city the same night. You’d think that would tell him something, wouldn’t you?

5. For Televangelists, Financial Crisis
Is Evidence of One World Order.
Internet televangelist Bill Keller — notorious for his excoriation of Mitt Romney for belonging to the satanic religion of Mormonism — now claims that “God is using the economy to judge this nation for its sins … and now America is being insidiously led down the path to a twisted version of Socialism.” And in just a few weeks, we’ll be treated to a book on a similar theme from John Hagee. His publisher, Strang Book Group, promises only the best in conspiracy-laden prophecy. “Drawing from detailed inside information from sources around the world and combined with his knowledge of Bible prophecy and End Times theology, Hagee gives readers a provocative view of the events taking place today, many of which were spelled out in stunning detail by prophetic writings penned more than two thousand years ago.” Wow. I didn’t know default credit swaps were in the Bible.

wedge issues getting blunter

Tough Times for the Catholic Right
Chris Korzen, HuffPost

Right wing Catholic groups celebrated earlier this month when Scranton bishop Joseph Martino ordered his priests to read a letter at Mass tacitly proclaiming that it was immoral for Catholics to vote for Obama. Things have been going south for them ever since. These organizations — groups like Bill Donohue’s Catholic League, Deal Hudson’s InsideCatholic.com, Fidelis, and Catholic Answers — had hoped this year for a reprise of 2004, when independent Catholic voters propelled Bush to victory in Ohio. Once again, they dumped millions into advertising and media campaigns in an attempt to convince Catholics that abortion is the overriding issue at the ballot box. But this time around, the faithful aren’t buying it. According to the polls, Catholics have consistently named the economy as the number one concern affecting their votes this year. As E.J. Dionne wrote in his Washington Post column yesterday, “Catholics, who are quintessential swing voters and gave narrow but crucial support to President Bush in 2004, are drifting toward Barack Obama. And this time, some church leaders are suggesting that single-issue voting is by no means a Catholic commandment.” Indeed, this week both Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Gambino Zavala and Memphis Bishop J. Terry Steib cautioned against approaches to Catholic voting that overlook key social justice concerns.

Like so many things, saying that a candidate’s position on abortion makes him or her unfit for the Catholic vote works better in theory than practice. The Catholic right’s message loses its effectiveness when voters realize it uses the same logic that impelled Catholic voters to re-elect Bush in 2004 — whose presidency turned out to be a disaster for Catholic values and the nation as a whole. Republican apologists like Deal Hudson conveniently avoid this recent history. But as Melinda Henneberger points out on Slate.com, Catholic voters in Pennsylvania remember all-too-well the past eight years. A subtle but key shift in the Democrats’ abortion messaging has played a key role in changing the Catholic political landscape. While continuing to affirm its traditional pro-choice legal stance, under Obama’s leadership the party has embraced abortion reduction measures that provide health care, child care, education, and other essential supports for vulnerable pregnant women. Despite criticism from the right, it’s a message that resonates remarkably well with the swing electorate — Catholic or otherwise. Obama’s independent voter dials hit the roof when he answered the abortion question in the third debate; McCain’s flatlined.

The Catholic right is also flummoxed by a resurgence of Catholic organizing around social justice issues like war, health care, and the economy. Groups such as Pax Christi USA, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and Catholics United have a long way to go before they match the money, members, and infrastructure of the right’s machine. Nonetheless, they have managed to keep up with their competition this year, reaching millions of Catholics through TV and radio ads, direct mail pieces, phone banks, and local press coverage. “Progressive Catholics have finally gotten their act together,” Brian St. Paul, editor of Crisis Magazine and InsideCatholic.com told Religion News Service’s Daniel Burke this month. “They are more organized and effective. Certainly they are a force.” In an outrageous display of just how desperate the right has become, Catholic League president William Donohue seized this week on “shocking” revelations that Catholics in Alliance had received grant money from George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Right wing media organizations like InsideCatholic, Catholic News Agency, and LifeNews.com fell over themselves to report on this “evidence” that the group promotes a left-wing anti-Catholic agenda, only to find, embarrassingly, that OSI supports an agenda often very much in line with Catholic teaching, and has funded programs of Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, and many dioceses of the Catholic Church. It was not one of the right’s finer moments.

The Catholic right isn’t on the ropes quite yet. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported on the movement’s redoubled efforts to sway Pennsylvania Catholic voters over the abortion issue, and it will be back to make a splash in the 2010 and 2012 elections — especially if the economy turns around. Regardless of who wins on November 4th, however, it’s likely the Catholic right won’t be able to claim victory — a remarkable turn of events from four years ago.

troy mcclure

Hi — I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such medical films as “Alice Doesn’t Live Anymore” and “Mommy, What’s Wrong With That Man’s Face?” Covering developments in Pakistan in recent weeks, I’ve been struck by how many Pakistanis blame the US for the disturbing turn their country is taking. Standing inside the gutted Islamabad Marriott late last month, some eyewitnesses saved their most bitter remarks not for the suicide bomber, but for Washington. A few believed the outrageous conspiracy theory that the CIA was behind the bombing — to justify further US raids inside Pakistan, they claimed. Next — why do fat people have fat children? Why do Chinese people have Chinese children? It’s all to do with D, N, A …

what does it all mean…?

from Amanda Terkel, ThinkProgress

On Saturday, Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) said that “liberals hate real Americans that work, and accomplish, and achieve, and believe in God.” The comments first appeared in a report by the New York Observer. Hayes’s spokeswoman told Politico that the congressman “absolutely denies making the comments that appear in the Observer article.” However, Hayes backed down when audio of his comments surfaced:

I genuinely did not recall making the statement and, after reading it, there is no doubt that it came out completely the wrong way. I actually was trying to work to keep the crowd as respectful as possible, so this is definitely not what I intended.

But Hayes is back to his old denial ways. In a debate last night against his opponent Larry Kissell, Hayes denied that he ever denied his comments:

One more time, I did not deny what I said but the context in which it was presented to us, Larry, was that I hated liberals. That is absolutely false and for you to say that it is shows a clear misunderstanding and a lack of a desire to find out what went on.

karl rove on mccain’s underpants (30 secs)