Rated "G" For Godly?

I love so many things about the movement formerly-known-as-feminsim. Not just the bawdy side liberated good girls could finally express and still be "good", but the thoroughly uninhibited (and yes, dangerous) female point of view. From Feministing-- a site of such subversiveness--

First, it's the work. Then, it's crotchless pantaloons. Next, a Godly spankin'?:

This is billed as completely consensual, with it made clear that "the husband has authority to spank the wife. The wife does not have authority to spank her husband." The site was created by wife-spankers who were sick of stumbling upon porn when they searched for other like-minded folks online. Lest you become confused that the CDD site is a BDSM site with a Christian spin, they're sure to reiterate that this is about adhering to Biblical gender roles -- not about sexual pleasure. Unless you get off on asserting your patriarchy by slapping your property wife. Not an unheard-of phenomenon, as the site acknowledges:

"Though we recognize by its very nature this subject can be erotic, we will keep this website as clean and wholesome as possible. However, we will not seek to deny the erotic nature of some CDD marriages as we believe it is a natural consequence of following God's plan. After all, He created eroticism to be enjoyed inside a Christian marriage."

But what if sometimes your wife doesn't want to be spanked? Well, let's not use an inconvenient phrase like "domestic violence" or "spousal abuse." Nah, "non-consensual CDD" would be more appropriate, really. And the site basically says that it's a man's god-given right to hit his wife, even if those pesky laws against domestic violence get in the way.

Next stop, leather "hajib"?

Hat-tip Alternet. Cross-posted on Voice of North America.

Action Point with Cynthia Black 8-26-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• From The “Oh, My God!!” File: Romney campaign hires Blackwater leader: An executive with North Carolina-based private security contractor Blackwater USA has joined Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a senior adviser, the campaign said Thursday.

• What Are They Thinking?!: Stop Experiment Near Galapagos Islands! a company called Planktos plans to seed the ocean with iron dust to spur the growth of plankton and absorb carbon from the air - but leading scientists warn "iron fertilization" won't work. Even worse, scientists caution that Planktos' plans had the potential to damage the ocean (damn those scientists; if they just had some FAITH)!!!

• Fools Gone Wild!!: Ted Nugent: foe of “...rising rates of divorce, high school drop-outs, drug use, abortion, sexual diseases and crime, not to mention the exponential expansion of government and taxes,” challenges Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinsten to “suck on this!” I presume he meant the machine guns he was brandishing in front of a rock audience. Ever notice how this guy just can NOT seem to get long hard objects out of his hands?

• AAARRGGHHHH!!!: Attacking the Fairness Doctrine: This links to winger site Townhall.com, owned by one of the top five megamedia broadcasters-- purely Christian SALEM Broadcasting-- and purveyor of hundreds and hundreds of winger radio outlets carrying all-conservative programming-- all the time.
  

NOTE: Months ago I discussed both by blog and broadcast that a bill was being pushed that would lower mail rates for some very large magazine publishers at the expense of the smallest. I requested we all comment. Our voices did not prevail. This is just one outcome (via Alternet):

Half a million dollars. In postage.

That's the bill that legendary magazine The Nation has been hit with, thanks to a postage scheme designed in part by Time Warner lobbyists. Mailing costs for mega-magazines are going up much less or in some cases decreasing, while smaller publications like The Nation face an enormous increase. Help The Nation pay the bill, and continue to be a voice of truth, free speech and democracy:

DONATE NOW

I did.

INCOMING: California RNC 2008 "Dirty Tricks" Already Afoot!

Excellent post warning of California RNC attempt to steal 20 electoral votes for Republicans PERMANENTLY!

NY Times: Republicans Will Use "Elaborate Dirty Trick" to steal White House:
Every so often, political hacks join high-minded commissions and say things that sound downright statesman-like. But then, with the passage of time, when dollar signs dance in their heads, they forget that they have a conscience and go back to prostitution. That appears to be the case here in California, where lawyers for the Republican Party have put forward an initiative so cynical and embarrassingly partisan, that Fidel Castro would blush. The New York Times put it succinctly in a scathingly powerful editorial yesterday: this initiative is an "elaborate dirty trick" by a "shadowy group" of California Republicans will "do serious damage to our democracy."

SNIP--

Tom DeLay, who as the House majority leader put up with the inconvenience of having to achieve Congressional majorities to pass legislation, simply stole five new congressional seats in 2003 by using corporate money to bribe members of the Texas legislature to invent new Republican seats where formerly Democrats had been electable. Remember when the minority Democratic members of the Texas legislature fled the state so that there could be no vote on this literally corrupt power grab? Eventually, DeLay won and Democrats did not win back the House, by about five seats. DeLay's gone, but at what price?

Dirty tricks, paid for illegally by corporate funds, kept the House in Bush's hands for another two years.

Now a lawyer named Tom Hiltachk, who works for the California Republican Party and until a few months ago worked for Governor Schwarzenegger, has filed an initiative that would steal 20 or so Electoral College votes from California's 55, making it damn near impossible for a Democrat to win back the White House.

SNIP--

There's one simple way to put this behind us. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in this country signed a petition to say "no more dirty tricks." And then every day, for as long as it takes, we force those who have the temerity to support this dirty trick to explain themselves.

Action Point with Cynthia Black 8-19-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• I Know You've Already Heard This, But: Erin Burnett (CNBC) discusses the benefits for our economy of lead-based toys and poisoned food from China: Would someone check and make sure it wasn't CNBC'S owner GE that Murdoch bought?

• MEDIA CIRCUS 2007: For those who simply must honor bad-boy Elvis Presley this week: context is everything.

• PUSHBACK: First in the "Fooled Again" Series: Interview with Nancy Tobi: What a great way to use a book! Citizen Joan Brunwasser uses Mark Crispin Miller's book Fooled Again as a jumping-off point for discussion on the state of our elections on OpEdNews.
  

• Clean Elections: Public Campaign Election Fund learn more about Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) Fair Elections Now Act that would bring Clean Elections to the U.S. Senate.
  

• Local to National: FT. HUACHUCA'S LINK TO TORTURE OF DETAINEES DETAILED IN FEDERAL COURT; JUDGE CONSIDERING PRETRIAL MOTIONS, WILL SET TRIAL DATE LATER: At a pretrial hearing Monday in federal court in Tucson, Arizona, the attorney for two Catholic priests arrested last November outlined why their opposition to torture brought them to Ft. Huachuca, the U.S. Army's military intelligence and interrogation training center in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
  

• More Local to (Scandalous) National: Porn Cop vs. US Attorney In September 2006 opened a preliminary investigation into Rick Renzi, the Republican Congressman representing Arizona's 1st Congressional District, for an alleged pattern of corruption involving influence peddling and land deals. In his previously safe GOP district, Renzi barely held on in the election. On December 7 the White House demanded Charlton's resignation without offering him any explanation.
  
  

Rove Resigning is Good News? Because Why?

Oh come on...

The guy lives for politics and anyway, he's not yet rich enough. This is such a strategic move. Who's taking bets on the campaign he'll be running?

Action Point with Cynthia Black 8-12-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• IMPEACHMENT: Whose Legacy Is It, Anyway?: By yours truly, on why it matters NOW.

• They'll Call Us Crazy: The Downside of Diversity: A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth? Be prepared. This is bound to be the Hot Topick on hawk radio and 'round a few water-coolers.

• From the Silver Lining File: All Rupert, All The Time: Could “5%'ers” eating their own, work this time for us?

• Economy: Why Economists Are Jittery about the Stock Market: On the other hand Wingers will tell you it is going to be fine. And there are WMD in Iraq.

• Local Election Protection: Radical leftist group AZ Advocacy Network stirring up trouble with voter registration: RedState is to conservative blogs what Daily Kos or MyDD is to liberal blogs. Their local wing-nuttiest off-shoot writes in part:

“...Network's goal is to register as many people to vote as possible, in fact they'd love to make voting a requirement, because it would benefit liberals. Since conservatives are more likely than Dems to make the effort to vote on their own initiative, groups like this know the surefire way to pick up more liberal votes is to practically require people to vote, because that drags in the people who don't care - who will vote liberal. "If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul.”

Just for fun, someone should point out their summarizing quote is attributed to the infamous Irish literary elitist, homosexual Oscar Wilde!

Whose Legacy Is It, Anyway?

Thanks to my modest week-end radio show and my near obsessive interest in having control over my own future, every day I think about politics and the effect it has in everyday life.

Certainly I wold prefer to be obsessed with more entertaining interests; movies, reading for pleasure, maybe even learning to cook (I can dream can't I?). But no! FISA acts, trade agreements, the Christian mafia and “hawk” show hosts; international policy, Chinese imports, election reform and impeachment; these are the story lines of the books I read, the movies I see, my dreams at night. And why?

Because on November 2, 2000 America's character was wrenched so far to the political right that today nearly 40% of the voting public is registered Independent. It is evidence of two political parties locked in a power struggle so arcane and intractable that truly average Americans are disgusted with them both. Worse, most Americans, voting or otherwise, believe it is the elected of the parties, not themselves, who are to blame.

John Nichols recent Nation editorial “Impeachable Offenses” ends with this thought:

“George Bush, it is said, has begun to worry about his legacy. The rest of us should, too. No matter how unsuccessful we may think his tenure has been, it will leave a mark on the Republic. If that mark is of a presidency without limit or accountability, Bush and Cheney will have changed the country far more fundamentally than any of their predecessors. “

But what about us, the People-- our responsibility --to “mark” history?

For thirty years we elected representatives that we entrusted with our responsibility to run our country and when they failed we did nothing more then complain at best and turn our backs on them at worst. Presidency after presidency went by with laws affecting our daily lives-- the quality of our food, the safety of our products and resources, the protection of our health, the defense of our country-- being written and enacted by people increasingly beholden not to us, the millions who cast a single ballot, but those who paid thousands to keep them employed.

What do we fear, that we do nothing now? The NSA? Wiretapping? Search and seizure? Disappearing into an American gulag? The outcome of governments we let come and go-- from Nixon through Reagan, Bush I and Clinton? Look what we have now and understand, we did this to ourselves!

If it is true that ours is a country of laws, and our political parties represent our interests in fashioning those laws, then it is true that we must change the laws by changing the party make-ups. We must skeptically criticize, scrutinize, debate and investigate all politicians and when they are found wanting they must simply be removed. A third party will not create the answer. If we have failed to provide the best government that we owe each other then it becomes our duty to step up and fearlessly use the legal means left to us—in this case impeachment-- to get the job done.

What will history think of us, if we let the summation of our misdeeds "...a presidency without limit or accountability, “ pass unmarked by our hands, our voices, our responsible action. Whose legacy is it, anyway?

Crossposted on Voice of Arizona.com

Wanted: a Constitutional Democrat

From HuffPo David Bromwich writes, in the context of the recent gift of wiretapping to Bush, on the real cost to us all:

Wanted: a Constitutional Democrat:

By what force was the Democratic majority effectively split? The answer lies in part in the nature of President Bush's appeal to fear. He has frightened many people into believing that if America is ever hit by another attack, the blame should fall on every lawmaker who ever opposed his will on national security. The Cheney-Bush campaign of fear is relentless, but not entirely disingenuous. President Bush is frightened, and the public has seen it; Vice President Cheney is frightened, and his bunker shows it.

Intimidation apart, a cynical prudence clearly drove some of the crossover votes. Many Democrats believe the party's best strategy is to run out the clock. Let the president have everything he wants between now and November 2008; watch politely, and show a seemly disappointment; and count the profits at election time. The same goes for the president's men, from Petraeus down to Gonzales: give them all they want for the next fifteen months and see where it lands us. That is one reason why impeachment has been taken "off the table."

Of course, impeachment was put into the Constitution partly as a remedy against the rashness and ambition of just such an administration as this; the shadow of impeachment, it was supposed, might curb the desperate attempts of bad men to shore up their power by fresh adventures. But here once more the Democratic calculation appears to be: the worse it gets, the better for us in the end.

In a recent talk with liberal journalists, Nancy Pelosi offered a second kind of prudential reservation: impeachment or censure, of either Cheney or Bush, would "divide the country." That is the same species of wisdom that prevailed with Al Gore when he withheld his support from the late petitions charging voter fraud in Florida in the election of 2000. He was choosing not to divide the country.

Yesterday I invested two of Action Point's valuable hours discussing the importance and necessity of impeachment with John Nichols (The Genius of Impeachment). When I apologized for coming so late to the "party" John was quick to forgive me pointing out that only on July 13, when Bill Moyer's Journal presented the nation's first in-depth broadcast on the topic, had most of America had an opportunity to similarly understand impeachment's value in these times. Now, having decided that for me beginning impeachment proceedings is as necessary as election integrity (i.e. exercising Americans' civic power) to derail Imperialist tendencies in the current administration and it's crop of "minions", I can barely think of anything else.

What is there for you and I to do but make it our job to educate the politicians whose main job appears to be keeping their careers, or expanding them, at our expense.

Decide for yourself if you are on board with impeachment, and then if so, let me know what you are willing to do to make it happen.

Action Point with Cynthia Black 8-05-2007: The Reference Shelf

Today's article and item links:

• IMPEACHMENT: The Impeachment Imbroglio: Sheehan, Conyers, Pelosi, and Feingold: Did you know; “The notion that John Conyers or Nancy Pelosi can make impeachment happen is mistaken, (John) Nichols says. "The way Jefferson and Madison set it up, it's supposed to be an organic process--it comes from people slowly convincing individual members to step up."

• MORE IMPEACHMENT: Conyers: 3 More Congress Members and I'll Impeach: According to David Swanson "...this target of three more members seems perfectly doable. It's safe to assume, I think, that we're talking about impeaching Cheney first. But, even if Conyers is talking about Bush, the target is perfectly achievable."
  

• Election Protection: State Decides to Secure Electronic Voting Machines: California's Secretary of State Bowen steps up. Get and keep this SOS's back. She'll need it. AND: PAPER BALLOTS FOR CALIFORNIA! - SECRETARY OF STATE ANNOUNCES DE-CERTIFICATION/RE-CERTIFICATION PLANS FOR E-VOTING SYSTEMS : Brad Friedman's BradBlog coverage and analysis of the same.

• They Called Me Crazy: Fight Looms over Construction of Huge Texas-Mexico Freeway: Josh Holland claims there is no NAU. However, during his June 10, 2007 Action Point appearance David Morris of Institute for Local Self-Reliance confirms there is an NAU, under the guise of the SPP. Either way, Rudy Giuliani's law firm (Bracewell-Giuliani) defends a Spanish owner of the road that will cross it all, regardless of what it's named....hey, since we can't afford to pay for American safety on “infrastructure”, maybe after he's appointed King President Rudy can get us some Direct Investment money instead?

• PUSHBACK: Campaign for America's Future: New video ala “Harry Potter” featuring Jason Alexander as “Lord Rovemort”! Titled Caught on Tape! - The Plot to Bury Progress, the video is the first step for the Campaign for America's Future (CAF), to criticize GOP "obstructionism" during August recess.

• Local Stuff I Support: Maricopa County's Election Integrity Committee - and any other Democrat with an interest or inclination - will be meeting, yet again, on Monday August 6 at the Offices of the State Party on the northwest corner of Thomas Road and Central Avenue (Light Rail construction willing) at 7:00 pm.

• MORE Local Stuff I Support: www.azadvocacy.org reports that in their federal lawsuit challenging prop. 200, the court has only given them approximately 10 days to call through the list of people whose voter registration applications have been rejected (about 30%!) to find possible candidates to help with the challenge. Volunteers are needed for 2 hour shifts at 1616 E. Indian School Rd #340. Please feel free to call Eric Pashkin at 602-297-2500 with any further questions you may have!