Doctor Robert, he's a man you must believe

Dr. Preston Burke isn't the only doc with an employment problem these days. Much has already been written about GWBush's seemingly tone-deaf nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger, Jr., for Surgeon General. From Think Progress:

But as BarbinMD points out, Holsinger’s nomination to be “America’s doctor” is troubling. He has a long history of prejudice toward gays and lesbians. Some examples:

– Holsinger founded Hope Springs Community Church, which “ministers to people who no longer wish to be gay or lesbian.” Holsinger said that he sees homosexuality as “an issue not of orientation but of lifestyle.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

– In serving on the United Methodist Judicial Council — the “court” that resolves “disputes involving church doctrine and policies in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination” — Holsinger “opposed a decision to allow a practicing lesbian to be an associate pastor, and he supported a pastor who would not permit an openly gay man to join the church.” [Lexington Herald-Leader, 6/1/07]

And Steve Benen writing at Crooks and Liars has this:

Following up on an item from last week, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., Bush’s nominee for Surgeon General, has a record of activism that suggests a strong anti-gay bias. Opposition to his nomination has been growing, but it’s been unclear whether there was enough information available to sink his chances.

Maybe this will do the trick. Holsinger wrote a paper in 1991 arguing that, from a medical perspective, homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy, a position rejected by professionals as prioritizing political ideology over science.

Holsinger, 68, presented “The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality” in January 1991 to a United Methodist Church’s committee to study homosexuality. (Read the .pdf paper here.) The church was then considering changing its view that homosexuality violates Christian teaching, though it ultimately did not do so. Relying on footnotes from mainstream medical publications, Holsinger argued that homosexuality isn’t natural or healthy.

“A confirmation fight is exactly what the administration does not need,” said David Gergen, a former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, who predicted the paper would cause a “minor storm” among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“You have to wonder given the quality of some of the nominations that have gone forward recently, whether the selection group in the White House has gone on vacation,” Gergen said. “There has been a growing criticism the administration favoring ideology over competence, and this nomination smacks of that.”

Sorry, David, you're wrong. Karl Rove thinks a confirmation fight is exactly what the Far-right wing of the Republican Party needs right now, and here's why:

The nomination, which requires the approval of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, has raised questions in the Senate. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts who is chairman of the health committee, released a statement saying he was “disappointed” that the administration had chosen a doctor “whose record appears to guarantee a polarizing and divisive nomination process.” Senator Barack Obama, a committee member and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement that he had “serious reservations” about the nomination.

Get it yet? Maybe this membership list of the Committee will help:

Edward Kennedy (MA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Hillary Rodham Clinton(NY)
Barack Obama (IL)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Sherrod Brown (OH)

Now does it make sense? Rove would like nothing more than to stage an event where 3 of the Democratic candidates for President ask his nominee why he hates Teh Gay. He can spin that back to energize the religious Right, wary because of Romney's cult, Giuliani's divorces, and McCain's . . . well, lunacy.

This gives James Dobson more ammunition, heck, it gives Fred Phelps a wink and a nod. This is a master-stroke from a political Ninja who, while on his way out, still has the power to Screw Things Up™. Rove knows Holsinger is a fringe wacko, yet hopes to parlay opposition to him as support for forced abortions, needle exchanges, and Halloween Parades in the Castro in San Francisco.

It's up to the Committee to spin this right back into Rove's face, by discussing medical issues and not moral ones, to show Holsinger as truly outside the mainstream in America.

Good luck, kids.

I am Amicus (Curiae)

I'm about as much a friend to the court as the court has been a friend to me, but ya gotta love Judge Walton's rebuke footnote in granting the nation's top illegal minds leave to file their wadded briefs supporting Scooter.(Click on the link for a larger more legible version)
Ahh, beware the snark with the razor wit, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch ... and incarcerate felons who commit perjury and obstruct justice!

(h/t to TalkLeft.)


(Cross posted at Vidiotspeak)

Use the Power of the Purse

For my first political post at SteveAudio, I'll recycle one that is still very relevant that Steve liked on The Daily Docket:

U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid is mad now but maybe not quite mad enough.

In his remarks, Reid criticized Bush and called Vice President Dick Cheney the president's "chief attack dog," lacking in credibility.

I hope he is madder than the reporter who wrote this thinks:

There is far less certainty about the next steps in the historic wartime confrontation between Congress and commander in chief. Reid and other Democrats have said repeatedly they will not leave the troops without the funds they need, but they have not said whether they will first force Bush to veto at least one more bill before sending him legislation he finds acceptable.

To hell with sending the most stupidly stubborn President I've ever seen "legislation he finds acceptable."

Congress, use the power of the purse granted you in the U.S. Constitution to safeguard against continuing executive branch follies. Further food for thought:

Democratic aides said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reid hope to clear the measure through both houses by Friday and send it to Bush by early next week for his expected veto. The Democratic leaders have not said whether they will attempt to override the veto in what would be a largely symbolic act given the number of Republicans who have said they will back the president.

Here's the skinny. It's not necessary to override Bush's veto to get the job done that the American people changed control of Congress to the Democrats to achieve: ending this idiotic war ASAP. All that's necessary is for the House and/or Senate to refuse to fund the war at all, if Bush rejects Congress' ultimate control under the Constitution of whether war is to be waged or not and for how long.

The numbers game here is that a resolution declaring war or authorizing the use of force is treated the same as a "bill" in Constitutional terms, and a resolution repealing or modifying same is also treated the same as a "bill." And either kind of resolution is subject to Presidential veto. From Article I of our federal Constitution:

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.

Thus we find ourselves recurrently in the situation where it only requires a majority in both houses of Congress to get us into war (presuming no Presidential veto of the resolution) but it requires a two-thirds majority in both houses to end or modify a war if the President vetoes same. Future generations would be well-advised to insist on an automatic expiration of such declarations and authorizations, a "sunset" provision, under which continuing a war would become illegal and unauthorized (and possibly criminalized) unless Congress renews the declaration or authorization.

The silver lining in this cloud is that either house of Congress can end or seriously curtail a war in progress simply by refusing to fund it any longer. And it only requires a majority in either house to defeat passage of a bill continuing funding for a war.

Lest you knee-jerk that this is an un-American thing to do, ask yourself why the Founding Fathers wrote this provision into the Constitution:

Section 8

The Congress shall have Power ...

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; ...

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces....

Now let's deconstruct another of our dunce President's propaganda statements:

I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job[.]

OK, what makes a Congressional timetable "artificial"? Now isn't Bush a Washington politician too, if any of the members of Congress are? Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution expressly commands civilian power over the military. Ergo, the President is a civilian as well as a "Washington politician." And how can the United States Congress ever end a war, which is its Constitutional prerogative, when a President is unwilling to disengage, unless Congress provides a definite or even conditional time for withdrawal that is binding?

I have little hope that the two U.S. Senators from Tennessee, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, will help get our soldiers out of the Iraq morass.

But I hope and trust that the new Congressman from the Ninth District of Tennessee will take the principled stand he voiced during his campaign and not sully his hands with this crazy war. Make Georgie Porgie blink first, Steve Cohen.

If George Bush rejects Congressional authority to end the war while funding the troops' safe exit, then any future deaths of American soldiers in Iraq will be solely George Bush's doing.

Congress, if Bush vetoes your end-the-war bill, please, for the sake of our republic, do not continue funding this slaughter. Force Bush to withdraw our soldiers, because that would be truly supporting the troops while refusing to continue to support this great mistake of a war. And it would be supporting the Constitutional principles upon which our nation was founded.

A Pattern of Corruption

EPA Makes It Harder to Protect Wetlands

The Bush administration made it harder Tuesday for non- permanent streams and nearby wetlands to be protected under the federal Clean Water Act.

The new guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers requires that for such waters to be protected there must be a "significant nexus" shown between the intermittent stream or wetland and a traditional waterway.
[...]
Assistant EPA Administrator Benjamin Grumbles said [...] "maintains ... the Bush administration's strong commitment to wetlands conservation."
[...]
"This policy does nothing to clarify what waters should be protected. It muddies the water," said environmental advocate Christy Leavitt of U.S. PIRG.

US regulator tried to smear scientist in fight for Glaxo drug

The head of the US food and drug administration has admitted his staff attempted to smear a scientist who raised doubts about Avandia - the GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug that has been linked with a high incidence of heart attacks.
[...]
The FDA's commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, came under particular pressure over his organisation's treatment of Steven Nissen - a respected cardiologist who raised the alarm last month about the risks of Avandia.

Under questioning by a Maryland congressman, Elijah Cummings, the FDA boss admitted his staff had attacked Dr Nissen's motives by sending emails to reporters containing links to a website, hot.org, and to a blog containing baseless allegations that the cardiologist was biased against companies that did not fund his clinic.

Bush Administration Ruling Throws Cold Water on Environmental Whistleblowers

The sentence was in a footnote at the end of a ruling against a federal whistleblower. It said the Labor Department recognized only the protections written into the clean air and solid waste-disposal acts, not laws governing clean water, drinking water, toxic substances and hazardous waste.
[...]
The Labor Department has jurisdiction over environmental whistleblower cases. Steven Mandel, an associate solicitor for the agency, said it took those complaints "very seriously."
[...]
In 2005, the Justice Department said the Clean Water Act's whistleblower protections were invalid.

The Environmental Protection Agency has said in court papers involving another case that it doesn't recognize the protections in any of the six major environmental laws.
[...]
The list of environmental concerns that whistleblowers have exposed is long. It includes pesticide testing on infants, leaking underground storage tanks, arsenic in drinking water and the threat of mercury contamination in food.
[...]
"There's no teeth in what's on the books now," said Cohen, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative research center. "It looks as if whistleblowers are protected. They are not. Again and again they have to go seek legal protection. This problem is not just at EPA, but across the board."

Image from www.adrants.com

(Cross posted at Vidiotspeak)

A Blast from the Past

U.S. Seen Giving Control to Iraq in 2007

U.S. Official Says Military Expects Iraq to Be Under Control of Its Own Forces by Mid-2007

BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 5, 2006 - The U.S. military expects all of Iraq to be under the control of Iraqi forces by mid-2007, the top American military spokesman in the country said Tuesday.

"We would expect to see the entire country having reached provincial Iraqi control by early fall of next year," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news conference. "We should see the complete transfer of command and control of all Iraqi army divisions by late spring, early summer."

He said this is part of an accelerated timetable discussed by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki during their summit in Jordan last week.

Al-Maliki, in an interview with ABC the day of the summit, said Iraqi forces would be ready.

"I can tell you that by next June, our forces will take over the security of the country," he said.

(Cross posted at Vidiotspeak)

Moloch Album Re-released!

Doing a little fair use of Mark Jordan's special to the Memphis Commercial Appeal for you Los Angelinos:

Los Angeles-based Concord Music Group, owners of the Memphis Stax Records archive, has embarked on a yearlong series of reissues celebrating the soul label's 50th anniversary. But a pair of new English re-releases put the spotlight on Stax's lesser known but still influential rock subsidiary, Enterprise Records.

Home Sweet Home (Sunbeam Records, ) is the one and only solo album by legendary Stax and Ardent studios engineer Terry Manning. The record features the first recording appearance of Memphis guitarist Chris Bell. A few years later Bell would form Big Star, a band whose fate would follow that Manning record. Critically well-received upon its release, Home Sweet Home's sales suffered from the endemic distribution problems that ultimately led to Stax's demise (ironic in a city that would become the distribution capital of the world).
. . . .
Manning [is] currently manager of Chris Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas[.]
. . . .
Also originally released on Enterprise, Memphis blues rock band Moloch's eponymous LP (Fallout Records, ), released here with a pair of bonus tracks, is today revered as one of the most complete documents of the guitar prowess of the late Lee Baker.

Moloch -- Baker, drummer Phillip Durham, bassist Steve Spear, organist Fred Nicholson and vocalist Gene Wilkins -- was a lynchpin of the Memphis psychedelic scene of the late '60s, sort of a bluesier Grateful Dead with Midtown substituting for the Haight. Their one and only album was produced by Don Nix (the Mar-Keys, Leon Russell), who also wrote most of the songs on it. Wilkins and Baker are the stars of the effort, however, with the latter giving a pointed schooling in the essentials of blues-rock guitar on tracks such as the original recorded version of the standard "Going Down."

Following the demise of Moloch the following year, Baker would go on to a storied career backing up Furry Lewis and Alex Chilton and forming the groups Mudboy & the Neutrons and the Agitators. Unfortunately, his career was cut short when he was murdered in 1996, but with this first CD reissue of Moloch, his legacy perseveres.

The bonus tracks are both sides of a 45 recorded later. Here's the album cover missing from the article, and the back side too, courtesy of an Amazon.com user:

I think the front cover is from a scan I submitted to allmusic.com some time ago, because you can see the cutout punch in the upper right-hand corner that existed in the promotional copy I had.

I road-managed and lived with these guys for a couple of years circa 1971-72, and played some hand percussion and wrote a couple of songs for them later on. Don Nix produced and wrote all the songs on the album.

Click these links for music samples of: All tracks on the re-released Moloch album; AMG's picks off the album; Lee Baker singing on the original recording of "Going Down" (since covered many times); and drummer Phillip Dale Durham's amazing original vocal on "Same Old Blues" that freaked Freddie King out so badly that he had to record the song himself.

RIP Lee Baker.

(Cross-posted at The Daily Docket.)

If I lost you would I cry

I blogged about this piece of music recently, and I wish to extend and revise my remarks.

First, as often happens, the video disappeared from YouTube, reasons unknown. YouTube has been hit recently with several copyright complaints, perhaps this was one. While I am very sensitive to that issues, making my living in the music business, I'll return to that discussion later.

For now, it's all about the music. This is why Phil Spector was considered a genius. This is why Tina Turner was considered a star. Forget "Private Dancer", forget the murder trial, and remember a slice of time where categories hadn't crippled radio, MTV didn't exist, and musicians, producers, engineers, and the music-loving public were exploring new territory everyday.

"River Deep, Mountain High":



TubeSock: save YouTube videos to your computer.

Scooter Libby: Poor poor pitiful me

(GWBush & his scooter)

Poor Scooter. Maybe he can use the Paris excuse to cut down his jail time. But the often wankerific Orange County Register drifts toward Wingerville with this editorial:

For the crimes of which he was convicted in March, however, it is outrageous that he has been sentenced to 30 months in jail and a fine of $250,000.

We stand behind our position when Mr. Libby was charged and standing trial – that it was an abuse of prosecutorial discretion to charge him with perjury and obstructing justice.

But here's the winner in today's Yellow Journalism contest:

To recap: Robert Novak in summer 2003 published the fact that administration critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. Whether she was an undercover agent, which could have made a knowing revelation of her identity a crime under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, has still not been revealed officially, though it seems to have been informally confirmed that at least she was covert at some time or another.

Kids, it's one thing to be ideologically pure, and another entirely to fall into Wonderland. Obviously the Register's writers don't bother to read:

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald's memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Marcy Wheeler, aka emptywheel, blogger extraordinaire from The Next Hurrah & FireDogLake, posts links to the actual documents referenced above at The Next Hurrah (note: pdf's):

here is the Govt memo on sentencing and related exhibits. You'll notice they say, about 10 different times, that Plame was covert covert covert covert covert.

As is so often the case, it's all about The Rule Of Law™, except when it isn't. From Paul Waldman at TomPaine.com:

We’re angry that when some pompous fool who less than a decade ago demanded that Bill Clinton be impeached in order to demonstrate our fealty to the “rule of law” comes on television to explain how I. Scooter Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice mean nothing and he must immediately be pardoned, Wolf Blitzer doesn’t say, “Get out of this studio, you contemptible hypocrite, and don’t ever come back.”

Indeed.

Curses Foiled Again!

Court Rebuffs F.C.C. on Fines for Indecency

If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can blurt out vulgar language, then the government cannot punish broadcast television stations for broadcasting the same words in similarly fleeting contexts.
[...]
Under President Bush, the F.C.C. has expanded its indecency rules, taking a much harder line on obscenities uttered on broadcast television and radio. While the judges sent the case back to the commission to rewrite its indecency policy, it said that it was "doubtful" that the agency would be able to "adequately respond to the constitutional and statutory challenges raised by the networks."
[...]
Mr. Martin, the chairman of the commission, attacked the panel's reasoning [...] "Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want."
[...]
But the judges said vulgar words are just as often used out of frustration or excitement, and not to convey any broader obscene meaning. "In recent times even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced sexual or excretory organs or activities."
[...]
Mr. Bush was caught on videotape last July using a common vulgarity that the commission finds objectionable in a conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Three years ago, Mr. Cheney was widely reported to have muttered an angry obscene version of "get lost" to Senator Patrick Leahy on the floor of the United States Senate.
[...]
The commission has struggled to consistently explain how it applies the rules. In the Bono case involving the Golden Globe awards, the staff initially ruled in favor of the network. After lawmakers began to complain about that decision, the commission, then led by Michael K. Powell, reversed the staff decision.

Gee, would that be the Michael K. Powell, son of Colon Powell!? Yep.

And the current Bush appointee, (Kevin Martin, who previously worked for a lawfirm that represented AT&T, CBS, Viacom, Gannett, Belo, Emmis, Gray Television, and Motorola), was aghast that "Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want."

Dude, it's called Freedom of Speech.

And he thinks nipples are obscene. Me? I like nipples, I like them so much I have a pair. All mammals have at least a pair.

You know what's really obscene, (he asked rhetorically), 3504+ dead Americans in Iraq, a record number of American deaths and a record number of Iraqi civilian deaths since the surge escalation began.



(Cross posted at Vidiotspeak)

And I'm still so afraid

(image borrowed from the heretik)

It takes a real conservative to point out a phony one. Andrew Sullivan points out Giuliani's hysteria and fear-mongering:

Mark Steyn praises Rudy Giuliani for endorsing New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free Or Die." I love the motto too. But isn't it exactly the opposite of what today's GOP stands for? The entire premise of Giuliani's positions is that, after 9/11, we should not live free in case we die. Last night, he spoke of two risible plots by total losers with no capability of doing serious damage as grave threats to America's survival. The Fort Dix goons and the JFK plotters are among the most pathetic, puny enemies this country has ever known. But Giuliani speaks of them as if they were the approach of global catastrophe - and he demands that Americans surrender their most precious liberties in order to remain safe from them. Live free or die? Giuliani's motto is: Live Under My Protection Or Die.

Indeed. And he smacks down the odious Steyn in the process. Andy continues:

The logic of today's GOP in the war on terror, moreover, is the inverse of New Hampshire's. In every choice of liberty versus security, the GOP now prefers security, without even publicly acknowledging the costs. And yet Mark Steyn sees no irony here. Do they really not see that their rhetoric on liberty is utterly hollow?

Here's what someone said about freedom a while ago:

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

. . . Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

I'm pretty sure that Steyn, given the same choice, would opt for a medium-rare steak and a Coors lite. After all, freedom is hard work.