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DefCon launches!

DefCon, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, has officially launched. My journalist and friend Frederick Clarkson summarizes:

The campaign promises to aggressively challenge the religious right on the facts, the law and the Constitution. One defining characteristic of DefCon's approach -- is that it has apparently made a clean break with the dubious Inside-the-Beltway driven tactic of name-calling that has hobbled Democratic and liberal responses to the religious right for a generation. Instead of relying on focus-group derived labels such as "radical religious extremists," DefCon is choosing to focus on delivering clear, forceful arguments and messages. This is very good news and offers hope of the development of a far more productive strategy to persuade the American people that theocracy is not the direction we want to go.

Duke University Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky writing at the DefCon Blog says its "Time To Fight the Religious Right."

"I believe, Chemerinsky declared, "that the greatest threat to liberty in the United States is posed by the religious right, largely comprised of Christian fundamentalists. Across a broad spectrum of issues they want to move the law in a radically more conservative direction, ultimately threatening our freedom."

DefCon also released a report today titled Islands of Ignorance, describing the threat to American science education in ten states and localities where "intelligent design" is being promoted by the religious right as an alternative to evolution.

DefCon also released a letter, signed by leading scientists, clergy, Nobel Laureates and others, urging the governors of all 50 states to work to stop the erosion of American science education.

Specifically, we are concerned about efforts to supplement or replace the teaching of evolution in our public schools with religious dogma or unscientific speculation. Science classes should help provide our children with the tools and scientific literacy they need to succeed in a 21st century economy.

We are well aware of studies showing American children falling behind those of other nations in their knowledge and understanding of science. We certainly will not be able to close this gap if we substitute ideology for fact in our science classrooms – limiting students' understanding of a scientific concept as critical as evolution for ideological reasons.

We do not oppose exposing our children to philosophical and spiritual discussion around the origin and meaning of life. There are appropriate venues for such discussion -- but not in the context of teaching science in a public school science classroom.

We have come together -- people of science and people of faith – for the sake of our children and the competitiveness of our country, to urge you to ensure that:

-- Science curricula, state science standards, and teachers emphasize evolution in a manner commensurate with its importance as a unifying concept in science and its overall explanatory power.

-- Science teachers in your state are not advocating any religious interpretations of nature and are nonjudgmental about the personal beliefs of students.

-- There are no requirements to teach "creation science" or related concepts such as "intelligent design," or to "teach the controversy" -- implying that there is legitimate scientific debate about evolution when there is not. Teachers should not be pressured to promote nonscientific views or to diminish or eliminate the study of evolution.

-- Publishers of science textbooks should not be required or volunteer to include disclaimers in textbooks that distort or misrepresent the methodology of science and the current body of knowledge concerning the nature and study of evolution.

Our nation's future rests, as always, in the hands of our children. We hope to have your commitment to ensure that our schools teach science, not ignorance, to our children as they prepare the next generation for the challenges of a new century.

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The emergence of DefCon brings to the fore yet another champion among organizations aiming to counter the Religious and Christian Right threat, including the NCSE, Americans United, the Christian Alliance for Progress, and Political Research Associates, as well as online communities such as Talk 2 Action (beta site), Street Prophets, and Theocracy Watch.

Our Big, Fat Geek Army...

From DefenceTech.org: "It's official: After $450 billion, the Army's quick-moving force of the future will be just about as slow as the one that's around right now."

Bloated budgets for high-tech, gargantuan vehicles that don't fit into current transports. How's that, again, Mr. Rumsfeld, that we're getting a new leaner, fast-responding military?

Commentary.

Stress-relief Monday: Free-falling Bush

Here it is! Pass it along to your friends: http://www.planetdan.net/pics/misc/georgie.htm.

If he gets stuck, move him with your mouse. Move him with your mouse anyway: you can fling him around all over.

(There's something Dante-esque about this inventive free-fall torture, despite the happy bubbles and bright backdrop.)

Administration priority: Porn Squad

The Washington Post reveals that Bush and Dick indeed do govern our nation's intelligence services after all. The FBI's new priorities prove it. We couldn't find terrorists taking one-way flight training, but, by God, we'll find pornography! (Look, here's some now!)

There's an al-Quada threat, the Katrina clean-up, the groteseque and growing wealth disperaty in America, the economic instability of the middle class, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the destruction of the separation of Church and State, but what Bush and Dick want, aptly enough, is A WAR ON PORN! (Cue "Sabbath Night's Dream" from Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique...)

By Barton Gellman

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

Among friends and trusted colleagues, an experienced national security analyst said, "it's a running joke for us."

A few of the printable samples:

"Things I Don't Want On My Résumé, Volume Four."

"I already gave at home."

"Honestly, most of the guys would have to recuse themselves."

Federal obscenity prosecutions, which have been out of style since Attorney General Edwin Meese III in the Reagan administration made pornography a signature issue in the 1980s, do "encounter many legal issues, including First Amendment claims," the FBI headquarters memo noted.

Applicants for the porn squad should therefore have a stomach for the kind of material that tends to be most offensive to local juries. Community standards -- along with a prurient purpose and absence of artistic merit -- define criminal obscenity under current Supreme Court doctrine.

"Based on a review of past successful cases in a variety of jurisdictions," the memo said, the best odds of conviction come with pornography that "includes bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior." No word on the universe of other kinks that helps make porn a multibillion-dollar industry.

Popular acceptance of hard-core pornography has come a long way, with some of its stars becoming mainstream celebrities and their products -- once confined to seedy shops and theaters -- being "purveyed" by upscale hotels and most home cable and satellite television systems. Explicit sexual entertainment is a profit center for companies including General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (the two major owners of DirecTV), Time Warner Inc. and the Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotel chains.

But Gonzales endorses the rationale of predecessor Meese: that adult pornography is a threat to families and children. Christian conservatives, long skeptical of Gonzales, greeted the pornography initiative with what the Family Research Council called "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."

Congress began funding the obscenity initiative in fiscal 2005 and specified that the FBI must devote 10 agents to adult pornography. The bureau decided to create a dedicated squad only in the Washington Field Office. "All other field offices may investigate obscenity cases pursuant to this initiative if resources are available," the directive from headquarters said. "Field offices should not, however, divert resources from higher priority matters, such as public corruption."

Public corruption, officially, is fourth on the FBI's priority list, after protecting the United States from terrorist attack, foreign espionage and cyber-based attacks. Just below those priorities are civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime and "significant violent crime." The guidance from headquarters does not mention where pornography fits in.

"The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's top priority remains fighting the war on terrorism," said Justice Department press secretary Brian Roehrkasse. "However, it is not our sole priority. In fact, Congress has directed the department to focus on other priorities, such as obscenity."

At the FBI's field office, spokeswoman Debra Weierman expressed disappointment that some of her colleagues find grist for humor in the new campaign. "The adult obscenity squad . . . stems from an attorney general mandate, funded by Congress," she said. "The personnel assigned to this initiative take the responsibility of this assignment very seriously and are dedicated to the success of this program."

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Dallas Bodybuilder Sues TV's Pat Robertson for Unauthorized Use of Weight-Loss Photographs

DALLAS, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The following press release was issued
today by Davis Munck, P.C.:

    A professional bodybuilder is suing television evangelist Pat Robertson
and others over Robertson's improper use of photographs showing the
bodybuilder's dramatic weight loss.
    Through diet and exercise, including the use of a diet shake recipe
promoted on Robertson's TV program, "The 700 Club," bodybuilder Phil Busch
lost 200 pounds in 15 months.  Busch is a natural bodybuilder who lost the
weight and gained muscle without using drugs or steroids.  He sent pictures
showing his body's transformation to the show's producers and agreed they
could be televised because he hoped to inspire others.  He also allowed "The
700 Club" to use the photographs to promote Robertson's "Weight Loss
Challenge."
    Weeks later, Busch discovered Robertson was selling "Pat's Diet Shake" for
profit through General Nutrition Center stores (GNC).  When Busch realized his
images had been used to promote a commercial product, rather than to inspire
people to lose weight, he approached Robertson's Christian Broadcasting
Network (CBN) and asked for compensation, but was turned down flat.
    "This was never about weight loss; it was all about money," Busch says.
"They only had my photographs because I thought 'The 700 Club' was trying to
help others and because I knew CBN was a non-profit.  Had I known Robertson
and his corporate buddies were making money using my pictures, I would have
handled everything differently."
    Attorney Jim Davis of Davis Munck, P.C., in Dallas, represents Busch in
his claims against Robertson, CBN and GNC.  Davis says he wants to know why a
non-profit such as CBN would promote Robertson's commercial product.
    "Pat Robertson should not have used Phil's photographs to make money for
himself and GNC without offering some compensation," Davis says.  "In
addition, if I were someone who had sent money to Pat Robertson, I'd be very
concerned about the blurring of the lines between CBN's charitable mission as
a non-profit corporation and a Robertson commercial venture with GNC.  It
seems pretty clear to me that Robertson and his commercial partners, GNC and
Basic Organics, have received private benefit from the ongoing promotion of
Robertson's diet shake on 'The 700 Club.'"
    The suit was filed in the 95th Judicial District Court in Dallas County,
Texas.
    Davis Munck, P.C., is a Dallas-based law firm that represents clients from
start-ups to Fortune 100 companies in high-stakes commercial litigation,
corporate transactions and business formation, employment and intellectual
property law.

Primative views of the elite (Science based on Homer Simpson "Doh!" moments)

A revisitation of an Aaron Kinney post on Tim Grieve's War Room:

With the Kansas State Department of Education considering changes to science instruction that would cast some doubt on the theory of evolution,* the New Republic decided to contact leading conservatives and ask for their thoughts on evolution and the competing theory of intelligent design. The results betray a perspective that's less highly evolved than you might expect from such an erudite group.

Of the 15 high-profile commentators contacted by the magazine, eight were willing to state unequivocally that they believe in evolution: George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum; William F. Buckley, Richard Brookhiser, Ramesh Ponnuru and Jonah Goldberg of the National Review; Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post; James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal; and David Brooks of the New York Times.

Of the remaining seven conservatives, some expressed doubts about evolution, while others declined to give a definitive answer. Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, withheld his "personal opinion," but he did offer this eye-opener: "I managed to have my children go through the Fairfax, Va., schools without ever looking at one of their science textbooks." (Are congratulations in order?)

Tax-cut zealot Grover Norquist responded, "I've never understood how an eye evolves." But don't bother suggesting that Norquist cruise down to the research library; he made it clear that his day planner is completely filled. "Given that we have to spend all our time crushing the capital gains tax," he said, "I don't have much time for this issue."

Pat Buchanan brushed the idea of Darwinian evolution aside, claiming it cannot "explain the creation of matter" -- though we're not sure the creation of matter, as opposed to the development of living matter, is what evolution attempts to explain. Buchanan also insisted that evolution has been a "malevolent force" in Western history, used by non-Christians to justify "horrendous" policies. Were we the only ones expecting Buchanan to cite religion, and not evolution, as a historically malevolent force?

Tucker Carlson, liberals' favorite box-tied chatterbox, said he would not "discount" the idea that God "created man in his present form."

Predictably, some of those who lined up behind mainstream science nevertheless kept their politics to the far right. "I don't believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools," said Frum, putting his logic and math skills on display. "Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public ... I don't believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle."

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life puts the number of Americans who are Christian at roughly 75 percent, not 90 percent, while a Gallup poll from 2004 indicated that not every Christian is offended by evolution. According to the poll, about one-third of Americans believe in evolution, while 45 percent believe God created humans 10,000 years ago.

A couple of the conservatives ultimately allowed reason to prevail. Goldberg dismissed intelligent design as "God-in-the-gaps theorizing," while Krauthammer said the proposal to teach intelligent design as a "competing theory to evolution is ridiculous." But on the whole, we'd suggest that these well-heeled members of the commentariat hit the books, beginning with the "The Origin of Species."

###

(*Editor's note: since the original publication of this article on Salon.com, the chorus of commonsensical public opponents to the KS board of ed.'s plans has grown significantly; it now includes number Nobel laureates. See this AP story.)

Pick your team to run the world

Go to this BBC website page to assemble your "team to run the world." It's an interactive feature on the site through Oct. 2. On Oct. 3, the results of all the voting will be announced.

Here's my team   

THE GALLOWY-HITCHENS IRAQ DEBATE

THE BRITISH IRAQ DEBATE...in New York. Here is a report (click on "Listen to Today's report on the debate" link located mid-page; the "Listen to this edition" button seems not to be working) on an entertaining yet [thus?] vicious debate between two of Britain's most outspoken and controversial public figures demagogues. The debate, held in New York City, concerned whether or not the invasion of Iraq was right. Gallowy, an anti-war activist and British Member of Parliament ousted from the Labour Party--and derided by even many liberals and anti-war voters in Britain, became known to most Americans only earlier this year when he appeared before the U.S. Senate. Hitchens is a journalist once closely allied with the British political left.

Cindy Sheehan became a subject in the debate as well.

Some highlights of the ad hominems include:

Mr. Hitchens on Mr. Galloway: "The man’s hunt for a tyrannical fatherland never ends.... The Soviet Union let him down, Albania’s gone ... Saddam’s been overthrown... But on to the next, in Damascus!"

Mr. Galloway on Mr. Hitchens, who months ago he labeled a "drink-soaked, former-Trotskyist popinjay": "What you have witnessed is something unique in natural history - the first ever metamorphosis of a butterfly back into a slug.... I do not know what it was. I do not know if it was Vanity Fair or the lucrative contracts you have landed since. Maybe it was the whisky. Somehow, you decided in 2002, 2003 to take a line that was in complete opposition to the line you [took against the 1991 Gulf War]. Were you wrong in ‘91 or are you wrong now?"

Gallowy made one statement that ellicited boos from the NYC audience, and then in response to Hitchens' defence of the Bush administration's handling of Katrina's aftermath, he launched an attack on Hitchens that ellicited cheers and applause.

Gallowy's unwelcome remark: "Some believe that those aeroplanes on September 11 came out of a clear blue sky. I believe they came out of a swamp of hatred created by us.... I believe that [9/11 was] because [of] the total, complete unending and bottomless support for General Sharon’s crimes against the Palestinian people."

Gallowy's lauded response to Hitchen's defence of the Bush administration's handling of Katrina: "You start off being the liberal mouthpiece for one of the most reactionary governments this country has ever known and you end up a mouthpiece and apologist for these miserable malevolent incompetents who cannot even pick up the bodies of their own citizens in New Orleans. You know,  Mr. Hitchens, you are a court jester--not in Camelot like other miserable liberals before you, but in the court of the Bourbon Bushes."

The judge strutted his stuff--goose-step style

It's been two weeks since Chief Justice William Rehnquist died. Especially in light of the real prospect of the fairly balanced but slightly conservative court becoming starkly rightwing under the influence of two new Bush-appointed Justices, it's a good time to revisit Alan Dershowitz's summary of Rehnquist's legacey.

-----

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history.

So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanford’s history: “When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews.” Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.

As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear[] the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.

The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (“Operation Eagle Eye”). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, “[H]e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.” In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.

Rehnquist later bought a home in Vermont with a restrictive covenant that barred sale of the property to ''any member of the Hebrew race.”

Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.
Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.

Within moments of Rehnquist’s death, Fox News called and asked for my comments, presumably aware that I was a longtime critic of the late Chief Justice. After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didn’t like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview. Only after I was off the air and could not respond did the attack against me begin, which is typical of Hannity’s bullying ambush style. He is afraid to attack when there’s someone there to respond. Since the interview, I’ve received dozens of e-mail hate messages, some of which are overtly anti-Semitic. One writer called me “a jew prick that takes it in the a** from ruth ginzburg [sic].” Another said I am “an ignorant socialist left-wing political hack …. You’re like a little Heinrich Himmler! (even the resemblance is uncanny!).” Yet another informed me that I “personally make us all lament the defeat of the Nazis!” A more restrained viewer found me to be “a disgrace to the Law, to Harvard, and to humanity.”

All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.

My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.

###

Gov. Dean on John Roberts

THE VERDICT ON JOHN ROBERTS

John Roberts is a decent family man and a bright, articulate, thoughtful judge. He has a quality absent in previous right wing candidates like Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork, namely a judicial temperament that makes litigants feel that they have been respectfully heard whether they are on the winning or losing side of a verdict.

But John Roberts is the wrong man for the job. Despite the fact that the White House has withheld key documents either out of incompetence or a fear that those documents might prove embarrassing, we have learned enough from the files on Roberts at the Reagan Library to make it clear that he should be rejected.

This conclusion has only been solidified by Roberts' testimony during this week's hearings. He has been a polished performer, but in failing to present clear answers to straightforward questions, Roberts missed a crucial opportunity to answer legitimate concerns about his record and show compassion for those who have been excluded from the American Dream. The consistent mark of Roberts' career is a lack of commitment to making the Constitution's promise of equal protection a reality for all Americans, particularly the most vulnerable in our society.

He has opposed laws protecting the rights of girls and young women to have the same opportunities in sports as boys and young men.

He has argued that politicians, not individual women themselves, ought to control women's reproductive health care.

He has opposed various remedies for the racial injustices which have occurred in America since slavery and which persist today.

He has consistently joined the radical right in seeking to weaken voting rights protections, in essence attacking the rights of black and Hispanic voters to cast their ballot without paying poll taxes or being subjected to intimidation or gerrymandering.

He fought against protecting all Americans from workplace discrimination.

Most worrisome, he refused to answer questions on his limited view of the right to personal privacy that most Americans take for granted.

Over the last half century, we have made great progress in promoting equal opportunity for all Americans, but there is still much work to be done. Hurricane Katrina was more than the most catastrophic natural disaster in American history. Those who have in so many ways been denied the opportunity for full participation in our society once again suffered disproportionately in this tragedy -- seniors, African-Americans and those burdened by poverty.

Now is not the time for a Chief Justice who is bent on turning back the progress we have made in moving America forward.

Judge Roberts is said to love the law, but loving the law without loving the American people enough to protect their individual rights and freedoms will make our American community weaker. And the exercise of the law without compassion -- something that Judge Roberts and so many on the far right have consistently been guilty of -- undermines the grace and wisdom of the founders whose sense of balance and fairness made this country great.

In the past few weeks we have seen what happens when politics and indifference supersede compassion and organization. The enduring lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that there still are too many Americans who are disproportionately vulnerable. Despite the fact that they worked hard and played by the rules, their luck ran out. Americans are a compassionate, fair-minded people. Our nation is great and strong because of that compassion, not just because we have a strong military. We also have strong moral values which include an innate sense of justice often absent in many other parts of the world.

Our Government today shrinks from compassion. In doing so they have first diminished America in the eyes of the rest of the world, and now they have diminished America in the eyes of our own people. This is a time for justice tempered with mercy and understanding. There is no evidence of either in Judge Roberts's career. The President should be denied this confirmation.

(Editor's note: emphases mine. - Scott)