Contrition, Republican style

Here's a star of the Republican party, showing proper remorse:

“I really don’t want to dwell on that,” Stern said of his 1996 felony theft convictions.

“I’m trying to make a better life for myself, and put the past in the past,” Stern said, adding later, “I paid a price that I shouldn’t have paid. It’s over and done with, and I want to go on with my life.”

(from the Nashua Telegraph, via BuzzFlash, emphasis mine).

Mr. Sterm was, according to the story (link above):

A man convicted of stealing more than $600,000 in a business loan scam received an award from the National Republican Congressional Committee honoring his business leadership and party support.

Ira Stern, 56, of Milford was among hundreds of people nationally to receive the 2004 Ronald Reagan Republican Gold Medal award, Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Alex Burgos said Wednesday.

Recipients were invited to be recognized at a dinner and tax reform workshop in Washington, D.C., on March 15, at which President Bush was the keynote speaker, Burgos said.

The awards were given by NRCC, and announced by House Majority Leader Tom Delay and NRCC Chairman Rep. Tom Reynolds of New York, to honor business leaders who support the party, and honor President Reagan’s “vision for an entrepreneurial America.”

“Mr. Stern has served as Honorary Chairman of the Business Advisory Council and has provided much needed support. This award could not have gone to a more deserving candidate,” Reynolds was quoted as saying in the Amherst Citizen newspaper.

Gotta love those "Republican family values"...

What's the matter with a little coup or two?

Courtesy of the bright minds and sharp eyes at Rising Hegemon, we have this Yahoo news story:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States is considering a long-term strategy that could deal more harshly with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, after concluding that a reasonable relationship was practically impossible, The New York Times said.

"We offered them a more pragmatic relationship, but obviously if they do not want it, we can move to a more confrontational approach," a high-ranking Republican congressional aide who works on Latin America policy told the daily.

Hell, all we did was support a military coup against the democratically elected president, and then, when that didn't pan out, tried to meddle in their internal affairs, pushing for Chavez's ouster in the subsequent referendum (as we're continuing to do). Don't those ingrates know that this is about as "reasonable" as Rice, Bolton, Reich, Negroponte, et.al. get? ... compared to, say, e.g., Iraq....

Finding the cornerposts of liberty ...

... and then scrupulously driving around them:

Evangelical Christian leaders, who have been working closely with senior Republican lawmakers to place conservative judges in the federal courts, have also been exploring ways to punish sitting jurists and even entire courts viewed as hostile to their cause.

An audio recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times features two of the nation's most influential evangelical leaders, at a private conference with supporters, laying out strategies to rein in judges, such as stripping funding from their courts in an effort to hinder their work.

(from the L.A. Times, courtesy of Oliver Willis)

RW conservatives generally treat the Constitution as a roadmap ... of the places to find bypasses around, like that railroad track or river that keeps you from getting to wherever you're hell-bent to go. So they make sure to not notice this little part of the Constitution:

Article. III.

Section. 1.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

U.S. Constitution, Article III (emphasis added).

The Founders were quite prescient in a number of ways, and anticipated the attacks that numbnuts like today's ERW might mount on the judiciary. So they put that little bit in there. The RW Republicans, ever eager to find a semi-plausible loophole, seem to be of the considered opinion that as long as the judge's salary is not diminished, such attacks on the independence of the judiciary, even as obvious and outright as this one is, are perfectly permissible. Like it was the salaries of individual judges not yet a gleam in their great-grandmothers' eyes that was what so concerned the Founders so as to put in this little clause. . . .

Let's face it, folks. The RW has nothing but contempt for the Founders' wisdom, and would use the Constitution for toilet paper if it served their purposes of jamming a RW agenda down the throats of everyone else that gets in their way.

Saturday clamblogging

"Your social security check? It's in here...."
-- Dubya

(for reference, giant tridacna clam, Palau,
January 2004, Nikon N80/28-80mm/Ikelite
housing with Ikelite DS-125 strobe [click to
enlarge]).

Signs of hope!

From FreeperCentral:

To: Pukin Dog

I just give the hell up.

We'll never get another judge or a SCJ through.

Once they do this, they have their "template" how to get it done.

NO MORE MONEY TO THE GOP!!!

Yep. Let's let the bastard ERW go hang themselves.... Sounds good to me.

Talk about meddling in affairs of state...

Seems that Pope Benedict XVI thinks that the Catholic Church should be in the business of deciding who wins elections here. Sounds to me like we shouldn't just start taxing all the income property (such as apartments, etc.) that the Catholic Church owns (and doesn't pay property taxes on, causing some real problems in the tax base for more run-down areas), but we should also yank the tax exemption for the Catholic church proper, and make them register as political organisations....

If the "voter guides" given out by Robertson et.al. are enough to cause raised eyebrows, this admonishment to the "faithful" to vote against a certain candidate (or risk a "sin") really goes over the line.

To be sure, I never understood why churches should ever be tax-exempt.....

The Freepers just can't help themselves...

From FreeperLand (in a thread on Marla Ruzicka):

Her exit from the scene is a blessing for those of us who have loved ones in Iraq who are doing the real humanitarian work - soldiering.

Yep. "Soldiering", that is, killing people and locking up and torturing others, is no doubt "humanitarian" ... in BizarroWorld.

*sheesh*

We have a nation stocked to the gills with blood-thirsty ignorant morons....