By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor

Two New York newspapers received calls from the Bush-Cheney campaign during the Republican National Convention urging them not to run a story suggesting that the campaign manager and public face of the campaign was gay, RAW STORY has learned.

Bush-Cheney campaign manager Ken Mehlman, who is now in the running to be chairman of the Republican Party, has repeatedly refused to answer questions about his sexuality in both public and private settings.

Steve Schmidt, deputy communications director for the Bush-Cheney campaign, also refused to deny that Mehlman was gay on the record in a telephone call with the activist weblog, blogACTIVE, which has been outing homophobic public officials, including California Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) and former Rep. Ed Schrock (R-Va.). Schmidt did not return to a call seeking comment today.

RAW STORY was party to an investigation of claims Mehlman was gay in the run-up to the election but no one was willing to go on the record.

Two of the sources told blogACTIVE, that they had been pressured by the Republican Party to remain silent. The site adds that two New York City newspapers “were called by press folks at the Bush campaign attempting to kill the Mehlman story.” So as to protect the reporters involved, this site cannot post the papers’ names online.

Mehlman, 37, who is single, spearheaded the Bush re-election campaign. The campaign used aggressively anti-gay tactics, including the mailing of a flyer in some states which suggested liberals would allow gay marriage and ban bibles. Many analysts believe Bush’s support for anti-gay marriage measures carried him to victory.

The Washington Blade asked Mehlman about openly gay staff in an interview in May.

“I’m not going to comment or provide information on the private activities of campaign staff,” he said, when asked if there were out gays among the president’s campaign advisers. “The president is leading based on principle. His principles are reflective of his values and his values are compassionate and conservative.”

RAW STORY revealed last month that both the Chief Financial Officer and the number two political adviser to the Republican National Committee are openly gay.

Neither would answer questions relating to the party’s policies, which many see as homophobic.

Asked about his sexuality Wednesday, Mehlman hung up the phone.

The 2004 Republican Party platform, approved in August, denounces prejudice and trumpets equality.

It begins, “Ronald Reagan believed that people were basically good, and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst thing a person could be guilty of.”

The platform includes a bolded section titled, “Ensuring Equal Opportunities.” The section leads with the sentence, “Our nation is a land of opportunity for all, and our communities must represent the idea of equality for every citizen.”

Such equality and freedom from prejudice, apparently, doesn’t apply to gay Americans.

“We believe that neither federal nor state judges nor bureaucrats should force states to recognize other living arrangements as equivalent to marriage.”

“After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence, and millenia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization, the union of a man and a woman in marriage.”

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From http://arachnae.blogspot.com/ the website that goes by the name Prairie Angel.

Brad DeLong points to a pattern:

In 1972, we reelected an incumbent. In 1976, we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1980, we elected an unknown governor--a southerner, if Orange County is "southern"--who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1984 we reelected an incumbent president. In 1988 we elected an incumbent vice president. In 1992 we elected an unknown southern governor who had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record. In 1996 we reelected an incumbent. In 2000 we elected an unknown southern governor had not spent a day in Washington D.C. and had no national political record.

The pattern is clear: when there isn't an unknown southern governor running, an incumbent president can win reelection or an incumbent vice president can win election; but the unknown southern governor without a national political record wins the presidency--always.

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We think this letter is for real since it came from the website for Bob Jones University. We have added the italics to underscore how God is watching and approves.

http://www.bju.edu/letter

Congratulatory letter to President George W. Bush from Dr. Bob Jones III

November 3, 2004

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America's history. Congratulations!

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America—though she doesn't deserve it—a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don't equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years—a brief time only—to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.

Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).

The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you—that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn't care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right.

Best wishes.

Sincerely your friend,

Bob Jones III
President

BJIII:lw

PS: A few moments ago I read this letter to the students in Chapel. They applauded loudly their approval.

When I told them that Tom Daschle was no longer the minority leader of the Senate, they cheered again.

On occasion, Christians have not agreed with things you said during your first term. Nonetheless, we could not be more thankful that God has given you four more years to serve Him in the White House, never taking off your Christian faith and laying it aside as a man takes off a jacket, but living, speaking, and making decisions as one who knows the Bible to be eternally true.

Far Out, as we used to say.

*****

More on Alberto Gonzales:

Here is Alberto Gonzales' much critized memo to President Bush (pdf)

Here is Colin Powell's response to the memo. (pdf)

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Josh Marshall has an interesting comment on the incestuous relationship between folks who have been big deals in the American Iraq ruling junta and then have quit taking jobs with a Washington lobbying firm whose main business is to help (?)American companies develop business ties to Iraq at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ .

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The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

BuzzFlash was forwarded a copy of a new research paper (271k PDF) on the exit polls from the 2004 election.

In "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy," Dr. Steven F. Freeman says:

"As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."

The odds of those exit poll statistical anomalies occurring by chance are, according to Freeman, "250,000,000 to one." That's 250 MILLION to ONE.

He concludes the paper with this:

"Systematic fraud or mistabulation is a premature conclusion, but the election's unexplained exit poll discrepancies make it an unavoidable hypothesis, one that is the responsibility of the media, academia, polling agencies, and the public to investigate."

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More on Gonzales from www.atrios.blogspot.com

I've been thinking a lot today about what the Democrats can do about the Gonzales nomination. I do think it would be a mistake to filibuster, or at least signal intent to filibuster, this nomination. He's a bad guy for all the reasons we know, and his nomination proves that George Bush doesn't actually give a shit about the lives of our soldiers in Iraq. But, there is no shortage of bad guys Bush can put in charge of the JD and so filibustering him will have little actual positive impact. Winning a battle is always nice, but in this case winning achieves little.

The thing is, if the Dems start talking filibuster it will instantly become a process story to the media. They love those, because they're easy, and it will allow them to ignore the substance.

The nomination presents the Dems with a great opportunity. They can use the hearings to shine as much light as they can on what has been transpiring. But, also, they can use them to make the moral case against Gonzales and the man who appointed them. This will take great skill, but it may be possible to demonstrate how inept, morally bankrupt, and corrupt these people really are.

There's little value in filibustering Gonzales, but there is great value in demonstrating just how inappropriate this nomination is.

-Atrios 9:58 PM

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We still have seen no mention in the mainstream press or on TV of the Battle of Los Angeles. The General has pictures of the tanks approaching the protestors and a comment. Follow the General he leads to truth. http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/

 

What Pogo said:

We must not forget the second front in our Great War to Bring Freedom to Everyone. While the media has taken a few seconds here and there to interrupt it's important Peterson Trial coverage with breathless stories about our imminent victory against the brown people of Fallujah, they've ignored Tuesday's Battle for Los Angeles.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 2:05 AM   
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The General is always on duty, the following information was posted at 1:56am. We have also added at the bottom of the General’s message the information about marquette which may lead the University to change its name.

 

Advice for the Democrats  

It seems like everywhere I turn, people are offering advice to the Democrats. The General thinks some of it is very good, like the barely-French Matt's suggestion that they support efforts to deny women in red states sovereignty over their own bodies. I think I'll chip in with my own advice as well.

Philip Klinkner tells us that it wasn't Christian conservatives who put Our Leader over the top; it was the wealthy . Using a metric called "performance" which multiplies a demographic group's share of the electorate by it's support for a candidate, Klinkner calculates that Our Leader's performance with those making over 100K a year grew by 2 points since the last election while His performance with Christian conservatives stayed the same.

Obviously, Democrats need to do more to appeal to the wealthy. That's going to be very difficult for them to do because they can't beat us Republicans when it comes to coddling corporate criminals, looting the treasury to line the pockets of the power elite, or cutting taxes for the rich.

However, if they act quickly, they can enact a law to bring back a traditional value that even the most secular mogul would embrace. I'm talking about the feudal custom of marquette, the right of a feudal lord to "give his love" to a serf's wife on her wedding night.

Like I said, they'll have to act fast. With Godly men like Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint joining their philosophical soulmates, Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum, in the Senate, laws are certain to be passed which will once again give ladies the right to be treated as chattel. Marquette cannot be far behind.

Of course we don't have feudal lords and serfs anymore, but we do have employers and employees. Thankfully, our successes in glorious war against unions and so-called workers rights has resulted in a social structure in which the differences between serfs and employees are shrinking.

I think a law allowing employers to bed their employees' wives on their wedding night would play very well in the employing classes. They'd obviously love it. The party that first embraces this idea will expand it's support in that group dramatically.

There would also be a great secondary benefit to bringing back marquette. Think of all the businesses that would be created as people scramble to become employers. It would also bring down Our Leader's unemployment numbers as more people decide to stop looking for employment.

The more I think about this, the more I hope the Democrats will reject my advice. It's a no-brainer for Republicans--it fits well into our current philosophies in regard to class and status. We should adopt it immediately.

posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 1:55 AM   

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marquette: And this is only a small sample: go to http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/wcs/wcs06.htm for a whole book of stuff.

CHAPTER IV.

MARQUETTE.

    The minds of people having been corrupted through centuries by the doctrines of the Church in regard to woman, it became an easy step for the State to aid in her degradation. The system of feudalism arising from the theory that warfare was the normal condition of man, still oppressed woman by bringing into power a class of men accustomed to deeds of violence, who found their chief pleasure in the sufferings of others. To be a woman appealed to no instinct of tenderness in this class. To be a woman was not to be protected unless such woman held power in her own right, or acted in place of some feudal lord. The whole body of villeins, and serfs were under absolute dominion of the feudal lords. They were regarded as possessing no rights of their own; the priests had control of their souls, the lord, of their bodies. But it was not upon the male serfs that the greatest oppression fell. Although the tillage of the soil, the care of swine and cattle was theirs, the masters claiming half or more of everything, even to one-half of the wool shorn from the flock,1 and all exactions upon them were great while their sense of security was slight, it was upon their wives and daughters that the p. 153 greatest outrages were inflicted. It was a pastime of the castle retainers to fall upon peaceful villages, to the consternation of the women, who were struck, tortured, and made the sport of ribald soldiers.2 "Serfs of the body," they had no protection. The vilest outrages were perpetrated by the feudal lords under the name of "rights." Women were taught by church and state alike that the feudal lord or seigneur had a right to them not only as against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. The custom known by a variety of names, but more modernly as "marchetta," or "marquette," compelled newly married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the feudal lord for from one to three days after their marriage,3 and from this custom, the oldest son of the serf was held as the son of the lord, "as perchance it was he who begot him."

    From this nefarious degradation of woman the custom of Borough-English arose, the youngest son becoming the heir4: The original signification of the word borough, being to make secure, the peasant through Borough-English made secure the right of his own son to what inheritance he might leave, thus cuttingp. 154 off his property from the possible son of his hated lord. France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, and all christian countries in which feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of marquette, The lord deemed this right his, as fully as be did his claim to half the crops of the land, or half the wool shorn from the sheep. More than one reign of terror arose in France from the enforcement of this law, and the uprisings of the peasants over Europe during the twelfth century and the fierce Jacquerie, or Peasants War, of the fourteenth century in France, owed their origin among other causes to the enforcement of these claims by the lords upon the newly married wife. The Edicts of Marley securing the seigneural tenure in Lower Canada transplanted that claim to America when Canada was under the control of France.5

    During the feudal period when chivalry held highest rank in the duties of the knight, women of the lower classes were absolutely unprotected. Both Church and State were their most bitter enemies; the lords even if in holy orders did not lessen their claims upon the bride. Most of the bishops and chanonies were also temporal lords. The Bishop of Amiens possessed this right against the women of his vassals and the peasants of his fiefs, of which he was dispossessed at the commencement of the fifteenth century, by an arreet, rendered at the solicitation of husbands.6 Although the clergy, largely drawn from the nobility,23 whose portionless younger sons were thus easily provided for, sustained the corruptions of the lords temporalp. 155 yet having connected themselves with the church, they did not fall to preserve their own power even over the nobility.

    The canons of the Cathedral of Lyons, bore title of Counts of Lyons; sixteen quarters of nobility, eight on side of the father; eight on side of the mother. The marchetta or cuissage was still practiced by them in the fourteenth century at the time Lyons was reunited to the crown of France. It was but slowly, after a great number of complaints and arrests of judgment that the canons of Lyons consented to forego this custom. In several cantons of Piccardy, the cures imitated the bishops and anciently took the right of cuissage, but ultimately the peasants of this region refused to marry, and the priests gave up this practice which they had usurped when the bishop had become too old to take his right.7 The resolution not to marry, surprised and confounded the lord "suzerains," who perceived it would cause the depopulation of their feifs. During the feudal period, bearing children was the duty pre-eminently taught women. Serf children increased the power and possessions of the lord, they also added to the power of the church, and the strangest sermons in regard to woman's duty in this respect fell from the lips if celibate monks and priests. She was taught that sensual submission to man, and the bearing of children, were the two reasons for her having been created, and that the woman who failed in either had no excuse for longer encumbering the earth. The language used from the Pulpit for the enforcement of these duties, will not bear reproduction.8 The villeins were not entirelyp. 156 submissive under such great wrongs, frequently protesting against this right of their suzerains. At one time a number of Piedmont villages rose in united revolt, compelling the lords to relinquish some of their powers. Although9 the concessions gained were but small, not putting an end to the lord's claim to the bride but merely lessening the time of his spoliation, the results were great in establishing the principle of serf rights.

    Marquette began to be abolished in France towards the end of the sixteenth century.10 But an authority upon this question says that without doubt the usage still continued in certain countries, farther asserting that even in this century it existed in the county of Auvergene, and several vassals plead to their lords against the continuance of this custom because of the great unhappiness it caused them. The lower orders of the clergy were very unwilling to relinquish this usage, vigorously protesting to their archbishops against the deprivation of the right, declaring they could not be dispossessed.11 Bœms states that he was present at a spiritual council of the metropolitane of Bourges, and heard a priest claim the right upon ground of immemorial usage.12

    Although feudalism is generally considered the parent of this most infamous custom, some writers attribute its origin to an evangelical council, or to precepts directly inculcated by the church," whosep. 157 very highest dignitaries did not hesitate to avail themselves of the usage. In 1471, quite the latter part of the fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV14 sought admission to the very illustrious Piedmont family, Della Rovere, which possessed the right of cuissage, allowing the lord absolute control of his vassals newly wedded bride for three days and nights; a cardinal of the family having secured the patent by which this outrageous and abominable right was granted them. The rights of the Lords spiritual in the jus prima noctis , at first, perchance, confined to those temporal lords who holding this right entered the church, at last extended to the common priesthood, and the confessional became the great fount of debauchery. Woman herself was powerless; the church, the state, the family, all possessed authority over her as against herself. Although eventually redemption through the payment of money, or property, was possible, yet a husband too poor or penurious to save her, aided in this debasement of his wife.15 This inexpressible abuse and degradation of woman went under the name of pastime, nor were the courts to be depended upon for defense.16 Their sympathies and decisions were with the lord. Few except manorial courts existed. Even when freedom had been purchased for the bride, all feudal customs rendered it imperative upon her to bear the "wedding dish" to the castle. Accompanied by her husband, this ceremony everp. 158 drew upon the newly married couple a profusion of jeers and ribald jests from which they were powerless to protect themselves. While in ancient Babylon woman secured immunity by one service and payment to the temple, the claim of the lord to the peasant wife was not always confined to the marriage day, and refusal of the loan of his wife at later date brought most severe punishment upon the husband.17

    Blessing the nuptial bed by the priest, often late at night, was also common, and accompanied by many abuses, until advancing civilization overpowered the darkness of the church and brought it to an end. When too poor to purchase the freedom of his bride, the husband was in one breath assailed by the most opprobrious names,18 and in the next he was congratulated upon the honor to be done him in that perchance his oldest child would be the son of a baron.19 So great finally became the reproach and infamy connected with the droit de cuissage, as this right was generally called in France20 and so recalcitrant became the peasants over its nefarious exactions, that ultimately both lords spiritual and lords temporal fearing for their own safety, commenced to lessen their demands.21 This custom had its origin at the time thep. 159 great body of the people were slaves bound either to the person or land of some lord. At this period personal rights no more existed for the lower classes than for the blacks of our own country during the time of slavery. Under feudalism, the property, family ties, and even the lives of the serfs were under control of the suzerain, It was a system of slavery without the name; the right of the lord to all first fruits was universally admitted;22 the best in possession of the serf, by feudal custom belonged to the lord. The feudal period was especially notable for the wrongs of women. War, the pastime of nobles and kings, brought an immense number of men into enforced idleness. Its rapine and carnage were regarded as occupations superior to the tillage of the soil or the arts of peace. Large numbers of men, retainers of every kind, hung about the castle dependent upon its lord, obedient to his commands.23 At an age when books were few and reading an accomplishment of still greater rarity, these men, apart from their families, or totally unbound by marriage, were in readiness for the grossestp. 160 amusement. At an age when human life was value, less, and suffering of every kind was disregarded, We call readily surmise the fate likely to overtake unprotected peasant women. They were constantly ridiculed and insulted; deeds of violence were common and passed unreproved. For a woman of this class to be self-respecting was to become a target for the vilest abuse. Morality was scoffed at; to drag the wives and daughters of villeins and serfs into the mire of lechery was deemed a proper retribution for their attempted pure lives; they possessed no rights of person or morality against the feudal lord and his wild retainers. All christian Europe was plunged into the grossest immorality.24 A mistress was looked upon as a necessary part of a monarch's state.25 Popes, cardinals, and priests of lesser degrees, down to the present century, still continued the unsavory reputation of their predecessors;"26 "nephews," "nieces," and "sacrilegious" children are yet supported by the revenues of the Church, or left to poverty, starvation and crime. It was long the custom of christian municipalities to welcome visiting kings by deputations of naked women,27 and as late as the eighteenth century, a mistress whosep. 161 support was drawn from the revenues of the kingdom, was recognized as part of the pageantry of the kingdom.

    The heads of the Greek and Protestant Churches, no less than of the Catholic, appear before the world as men of scandalous lives. The history of the popes is familiar to all students. No less is that of the English Eighth Henry, the real father of the Reformation, in England, and founder of the Anglican Church, whose adulteries and murders make him a historic Blue Beard. The heads of the Greek Church figure in a double sense as fathers of their people. The renowned Peter the Great amused himself by numberless liaisons, filling Russia with descendants whose inherited tendencies are those of discontent and turmoil. When he visited the Court of Prussia, 1717, he was accompanied by his czarina, son, daughter, and four hundred ladies in waiting, women of low condition, each of whom carried an elegantly dressed infant upon her arms. If asked in regard to the paternity of the child they invariably replied "my lord has done me the honor to make me its mother."28

    In no country has a temporal monarch under guise of a spiritual ruler been more revered than in Russia. Even amidst nihilism a belief that the czar can do no wrong is the prevailing conviction among the Slavic peoples. This is both a great cause of, and a result of Russian degradation, If we except the proportionately few liberal thinkers, that conviction is as strong as it was in the time of Ivan the Terrible. In no civilized or half-civilized nation is ignorance as dense as among the peasantry of that vast empire embracing one-sixth of the habitable globe. Nor to thep. 162 czar alone was such disregard of woman's right of person confined. The system of serfdom which existed until within the last half of the present century, was a system of feudalism in its oppression of women, although if possible even more gross. The sale of young peasant girls regularly took place, and the blood of the nobility of that country runs in the veins of its most degraded and ignorant population.29 Although Italy the seat of the papal power is noted for the ignorance, squalor, and superstition of its people, we no less find such a condition of affairs existing in Russia. Amid the starvation of its people, accompanied by "hunger-typhus" that form of disease which in the Irish famine of 1848 was known as "ship-fever," the peasants will not accept aid from Count Tolstoi, whom they have been taught to regard as Anti-Christ, fearing that by so doing they will condemn themselves to eternal torment.30 While the peasantry are thus suffering wrongs of every nature, the priesthood and churches are as thriving as before.

    Having shown the results of power in the hands of a controlling class, upon women of low degree in both the Catholic and Greek divisions of christendom, we have but to look at our own country to find like conditionp. 163 under Protestantism. The state of the slave women of the South was that of serfs of the body under feudalism, or of the serf peasant women of Russia. Nor is other proof of this statement required than the hue of this race, no longer spoken of as the blacks, but as colored people. Let the condition of woman as to her rights of person, under the three great divisions of Christianity, be answer to all who without examination of history, or the customs of ancient and modern times, and with eyes closed to these most patent facts, so falsely assert that woman has been elevated by christianity, and is now holding a position never before in the world accorded her. But what has already been shown of her degradation under christian teachings and laws is but a small portion of the wrongs woman has suffered during the christian centuries.

    Under theory of the divine rights of man, society has everywhere been permeated with disregard for woman's rights of person. Monarchs not posing as spiritual heads of their people have yet equally made use of their place and power for woman's degradation, and an indefinite fatherhood outside of marriage. Augustus of Saxony, King of Poland, is chiefly renowned in history as the father of three hundred illegitimate children.31 Of Charles II. not alone King of England, but also head of the Anglican Church, one of his subjects declared him to be the father of many of his people in the literal as well as in the spiritual sense. Four English dukes of the present day trace their lineage to this monarch., who left no legitimate descendants.32p. 164     H. R. H. the present heir-apparent to the English throne bears an equally unsavory record.33 To him and his aristocratic companions in guilt is due the support and protection of England's notorious and infamous purchase and sale, outrage, and exploitation of helpless young girls. An English clergyman writing the "New York Sun," at the time of the disclosures made by the "Pall Mall Gazette," declared he had in his possession a list of the names of the royal princes, dukes, nobles, and leading men who had been the principal patrons and supporters of the "gilded hells" devoted to the ruin of the merest children, girls from the ages of nine to thirteen.34 The reputation of the male members of the Hanoverian dynasty has ever been bad. Trace as you will the path of either ecclesiastical or temporal rulers claiming authority by "divine right," and you will find the way marked with the remains of women and children whose life has been wrecked by man under plea of created superiority. While Italy within the last forty years has escaped from the temporal control of the pope, its kings have no less copied the immorality of the "Vicar of God"; the predecessor of the late king of Italy having left thirty-three illegitimate children. An instance of the survival of the feudal idea as to the right of the lord to the person of his vassal women occurred in Ireland within the past few years, graphically described in a letter upon landlords, from Mr. D. R. Locke (Nasby), December, 1891, in which he says;

    One was shot a few years ago and a great ado was made about it. In this case as in most of the others it was not a question of rent. My Lord had visitedp. 165 his estates to see how much more money could be taken out of his tenants and his lecherous eye happened to rest upon a very beautiful girl, the eldest daughter of a widow with seven children. Now this beautiful girl was betrothed to a nice sort of a boy, who, having been in America, knew a thing or two. My Lord, through his agent, who is always a pimp as well as a brigand, ordered Kitty to come to the castle. Kitty knowing very well what that meant, refused.

    "Very well," says the agent, "yer mother is in arrears for rent, and you had better see My Lord, or I shall be compelled to evict her."

    Kitty knew what that meant also. It meant that her gray haired mother, her six helpless brothers and sisters would be pitched out by the roadside to die of starvation and exposure, and so Kitty without saying a word to her mother or any one else, went to the castle and was kept there three days, till My Lord was tired of her, when she was permitted to go.

    She went to her lover, like an honest girl as she was, and told him she would not marry him, but refused to give any reason.

    Finally the truth was wrenched out of her, and Mike went and found a shot gun that had escaped the eye of the royal constabulary, and he got powder and shot and old nails, and he lay behind a hedge under a tree for several days. Finally one day My Lord came riding by all so gay and that gun went off, and 'subsequent proceedings interested him no more.' There was a hole, a blessed hole, clear through him, and he never was so good a man as before because there was less of him.

    Then Mike went and told Kitty to be of good cheer and not be cast down, that the little difference between him and My Lord had been happily settled, and that they would be married as soon as possible. And they were married, and I had the pleasure of taking in my hand the very hand that fired the blessed shot and of seeing the wife, to avenge whose cruel wrongs the shot was fired.

    Nor is this the only instance in modern Ireland. Ap. 166 certain lord Leitram was noted a few years since for his attempts to dishonor the wives and daughters of the peasantry upon his vast estate comprising 90,000 acres. His character was that of the worst feudal barons, and like those he used his power as magistrate and noble, in addition to that of landlord, to accomplish his purpose. After an assault upon a beautiful and intelligent girl, by a brutal retainer of his lordship, her character assailed, his tenantry finally declared it necessary to resort to the last means in their power to preserve the honor of their wives and daughters. Six men were chosen as the instruments of their rude justice, and among them the brother of this girl, upon whom the leadership fell. They took oath to be true to the end, in life or death, raised a sum of money, purchased arms, and seeking a convenient opportunity shot him to death. Nor were the perpetrators ever discovered; yet it is now known that two of them died in Australia, two in the Boer war in South Africa, and the leader who came to the United States, changing his name, passed away in the summer of 1892 in the State of Pennsylvania.

    Under head of "A Story of to-day," another tale is related of woman's oppression in Ireland aided by the Petty Sessions Bench in 1880.

    Recently, a young girl named Catherine Cafferby, of Belmullet, in County Mayo--the pink of her father's family--fled from the "domestic service" of a landlord as absolute as Lord Leitrim, the moment the poor creature discovered what that "service" customarily involved. The great man had the audacity to invoke the law to compel her to return, as she had not given statutable notice of her flight. She clung to the door-post of her father's cabin; shep. 167 told aloud the story of her terror, and called on God and man to save her. Her tears, her shrieks, her piteous pleadings were all in vain. The Petty Sessions Bench ordered her back to the landlord's "service," or else to pay five pounds, or two weeks in jail. This is not a story of Bulgaria under Murad IV. but of Ireland in the reign of the present sovereign. That peasant girl went to jail to save her chastity. If she did not spend a fortnight in the cells, it was only because friends of outraged virtue, justice, and humanity paid the fine when the story reached the outer world.

    These iniquities have taken place in Christian lands35 and these nefarious outrages upon women have been enforced by the Christian laws of both church and state. The degradation and unhappiness of the husband at the infringement of the lord's spiritual and temporal upon his marital rights, has been depicted by many writers but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame of the wife.36 No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church which should have been the great conserver of morals dragged her to the lowest depths through the vileness of its teachings and its priestly customs. The State which should have defended her civil rights followed the example of the church in crushing her to the earth. Christian laws were detrimental to woman in every relation of life.p. 168     The brilliant French author, Legouvé, gives from among the popular songs of Brittany during the fourteenth century, a pathetic ballad, "The baron of Jauioz," which vividly depicts the condition of the peasant women of France at that date. In the power of the male members of her family over her, we also find an exact parallel in the condition of English women of the same era. The moral disease thus represented being due to the same religious teaching, the change of country and language but more fully serves to depict the condition of woman every where in christendom at this period.

*****

 

12 November 2004

They deployed two TANKS to counter an anti-war protest in LA
by John in DC - 11/10/2004 10:49:42 PM
 

http://americablog.blogspot.com/ 
FURTHER UPDATE: This is for real. I just called the protesters out in LA and confirmed it by phone. And I also just read a NEW excuse the military is now offering. The tanks "got stuck at a traffic light," and that's why they just happened to stop in front of an anti-war protest in the middle of a major US city. Uh huh.

UPDATE: I've just read in the comments to the IndyMedia site that someone spoke to some military folks who claim the tanks were "lost" and simply stopping in front of the anti-war protesters to "ask directions." Yeah, right. They were intentionally using deadly force to intimidate peaceful protesters in violation of their First Amendment rights. This is a big story.

Thanks to MyDD for finding this. This is beyond outrageous. A tank (two in fact). Sent to disrupt an anti-war protest in LA, which by all accounts was acting quite peaceably. You can watch the video , a handful of people chanting, big deal. But then what happens next? Two big fat tank - TANKS people - confront the protesters. They're sending God damn tanks into the streets of Los Angeles. Anyone has a problem with that? What is this, fucking Tiananmen Square?

I am absolutely speechless. We look like China. We look like the Soviet Union. They just sent two tanks to counter a peaceful protest in the second largest city of America. Good God. And where is the media coverage? They just sent TANKS to counter peaceful protesters. That kind of an outrageous challenge to the protesters could have easily sparked violence.

People, please, contact your local media, call any reporters you know, tell them about this. This is a huge story. This is absolutely scary shit. Sending tanks to confront peaceful protesters in an American city in 2004. Who are we anymore?

|  Permanent Link |  

*****

Mission accomplished. Tell those wolves to scat, and let that eagle soar, baby. Maureen Dowd refers to John Asscroft’s song in a Thursday column that review the reality that we remarked on yesterday that all of a sudden we in the U.S. are safe. Terror levels have been lowered, barricades are coming down and Americas is coming home. And it is all because Georgie Boy won (?) the election. This new found safety reminds of the disappearing WMD and Nuclear programs in Iraq.

She goes on to say: The president is putting his own counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who wrote the famous memo defending torture, in charge of our civil liberties. Torture Guy, who blithely threw off 75 years of international law and set the stage for the grotesque abuses at Abu Ghraib and dubious detentions at Guantánamo, seems to have a good grasp of what's just. No doubt we'll soon learn what other protections, besides the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution, Mr. Gonzales finds "quaint'' and "obsolete.''

With the F.B.I. investigating Halliburton and the second-term scandal curse looming, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney want a dependable ally - and former Enron attorney - at Justice. But since the country is controlled by one party and the press has tended toward the pusillanimous, cowed by the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald as he tries to throw reporters in jail, the White House may be able to suppress any second-term problems.

*****

From http://www.bobharris.com/index.php

Bush announces his choice for Attorney General

Wednesday, 10 November 2004 Ladies and gentlemen... Alberto Gonzales:

The President has known for more than two years that his Administration has been pursuing policies that could qualify as war crimes under federal and international law.

In a January 25, 2002, memo, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality--declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions--which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales went further, telling the President that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners"; he pooh-poohed concerns that abandoning the Geneva standards might endanger US troops.

Let's be clear about what this means: Gonzales was urging--and the President adopted as policy--an end run around federal laws. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress in 1996, allows criminal prosecution of Americans for actions that violate the rights granted prisoners and civilians by the Geneva Conventions and for "outrages upon personal dignity." It is backed by the full range of federal penalties, up to and including the death penalty. And all treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention, are likewise the binding law of the land.

From the Gonzales memo, it is clear that the Administration always envisioned taking coercive interrogation beyond Afghanistan. Gonzales repeatedly refers to the broader "war on terrorism"--the phrase Bush uses to cover the war on Iraq. Gonzales specifically advises the President to hold open "options for future conflicts." Thus the scandal is not what George W. Bush referred to as the "failures of character" of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The scandal is that the White House wanted to torture prisoners and get away with it.

*****

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/arts/14rich.html?oref=login&oref=login&th

 

FRANK RICH

On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

Published: November 14, 2004

FAREWELL to Swift boats and "Shove it!," to Osama's tape and Saddam's missing weapons, to "security moms" and outsourced dads. They've all been sent to history's dustbin faster than Ralph Nader memorabilia was dumped on eBay. In their stead stands a single ambiguous phrase coined by an anonymous exit pollster: "Moral values." By near universal agreement the morning after, these two words tell the entire story of the election: it's the culture, stupid.

"It really is Michael Moore versus Mel Gibson," said Newt Gingrich. To Jon Stewart, Nov. 2 was the red states' revenge on "Will & Grace." William Safire, speaking on "Meet the Press," called the Janet Jackson fracas "the social-political event of the past year." Karl Rove was of the same mind: "I think it's people who are concerned about the coarseness of our culture, about what they see on the television sets, what they see in the movies ..."

And let's not even get started on the two most dreaded words in American comedy, regardless of your party affiliation: Whoopi Goldberg.

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

If anyone is laughing all the way to the bank this election year, it must be the undisputed king of the red cultural elite, Rupert Murdoch. Fox News is a rising profit center within his News Corporation, and each red-state dollar that it makes can be plowed back into the rest of Fox's very blue entertainment portfolio. The Murdoch cultural stable includes recent books like Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and the Vivid Girls' "How to Have a XXX Sex Life," which have both been synergistically, even joyously, promoted on Fox News by willing hosts like Rita Cosby and, needless to say, Mr. O'Reilly. There are "real fun parts and exciting parts," said Ms. Cosby to Ms. Jameson on Fox News's "Big Story Weekend," an encounter broadcast on Saturday at 9 p.m., assuring its maximum exposure to unsupervised kids.

Almost unnoticed in the final weeks of the campaign was the record government indecency fine levied against another prime-time Fox television product, "Married by America." The $1.2 million bill, a mere bagatelle to Murdoch stockholders, was more than twice the punishment inflicted on Viacom for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction." According to the F.C.C. complaint, one episode in this heterosexual marriage-promoting reality show included scenes in which "partygoers lick whipped cream from strippers' bodies," and two female strippers "playfully spank" a man on all fours in his underwear. "Married by America" is gone now, but Fox remains the go-to network for Paris Hilton ("The Simple Life") and wife-swapping ("Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy").

None of this has prompted an uprising from the red-state Fox News loyalists supposedly so preoccupied with "moral values." They all gladly contribute fungible dollars to Fox culture by boosting their fair-and-balanced channel's rise in the ratings. Some of these red staters may want to make love like porn stars besides. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) An ABC News poll two weeks before the election found that more Republicans than Democrats enjoy sex "a great deal." The Democrats' new hero, Illinois Senator-elect Barack Obama, was assured victory once his original, ostentatiously pious Republican opponent, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race rather than defend his taste for "avant-garde" sex clubs.

The 22 percent of voters who told pollsters that "moral values" were their top election issue - 79 percent of whom voted for Bush-Cheney - corresponds almost exactly to the number of voters (23 percent) who describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. They are entitled to their culture, too, and their own entertainment industry. And their own show-biz scandals. The Los Angeles Times reported this summer that Paul Crouch, the evangelist who founded the largest Christian network, Trinity Broadcasting Network, vehemently denied a former employee's accusation that the two had had a homosexual encounter - though not before paying the employee a $425,000 settlement. Not so incidentally, Trinity joined Gary Bauer and Fox News as prime movers in "Redeem the Vote," the Christian-rock alternative to MTV's "Rock the Vote."

But the distance between this hard-core red culture and the majority blue culture is perhaps best captured by Tom Coburn, the newly elected Republican senator from Oklahoma, lately famous for discovering "rampant" lesbianism in that state's schools. As a congressman in 1997, Mr. Coburn attacked NBC for encouraging "irresponsible sexual behavior" and taking "network TV to an all-time low with full frontal nudity, violence and profanity being shown in our homes." The broadcast that prompted his outrage on behalf of "parents and decent-minded individuals everywhere" was the network's prime-time showing of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List."

It's in the G.O.P.'s interest to pander to this far-right constituency - votes are votes - but you can be certain that a party joined at the hip to much of corporate America, Mr. Murdoch included, will take no action to curtail the blue culture these voters deplore. As Marshall Wittman, an independent-minded former associate of both Ralph Reed and John McCain, wrote before the election, "The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment." That amendment has never had a prayer of rounding up the two-thirds majority needed for passage and still doesn't.

Mr. Wittman echoes Thomas Frank, the author of "What's the Matter With Kansas?," by common consent the year's most prescient political book. "Values," Mr. Frank writes, "always take a backseat to the needs of money once the elections are won." Under this perennial "trick," as he calls it, Republican politicians promise to stop abortion and force the culture industry "to clean up its act" - until the votes are counted. Then they return to their higher priorities, like cutting capital gains and estate taxes. Mr. Murdoch and his fellow cultural barons - from Sumner Redstone, the Bush-endorsing C.E.O. of Viacom, to Richard Parsons, the Republican C.E.O. of Time Warner, to Jeffrey Immelt, the Bush-contributing C.E.O. of G.E. (NBC Universal) - are about to be rewarded not just with more tax breaks but also with deregulatory goodies increasing their power to market salacious entertainment. It's they, not Susan Sarandon and Bruce Springsteen, who actually set the cultural agenda Gary Bauer and company say they despise.

But it's not only the G.O.P.'s fealty to its financial backers that is predictive of how little cultural bang the "values" voters will get for their Bush-Cheney votes. At 78 percent, the nonvalues voters have far more votes than they do, and both parties will cater to that overwhelming majority's blue tastes first and last. Their mandate is clear: The same poll that clocked "moral values" partisans at 22 percent of the electorate found that nearly three times as many Americans approve of some form of legal status for gay couples, whether civil unions (35 percent) or marriage (27 percent). Do the math and you'll find that the poll also shows that for all the G.O.P.'s efforts to court Jews, the total number of Jewish Republican voters in 2004, while up from 2000, was still some 200,000 less than the number of gay Republican voters.

When Robert Novak writes after the election that "the anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, socially conservative agenda is ascendant, and the G.O.P. will not abandon it anytime soon," you have to wonder what drug he is on. The abandonment began at the convention. Sam Brownback, the Kansas senator who champions the religious right, was locked away in an off-camera rally across town from Madison Square Garden. Prime time was bestowed