Eideard

Pau Babeu at his coming out press conference
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A local sheriff resigned as a co-chair of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s campaign in Arizona on Saturday after he was accused of threatening a former male lover with deportation to Mexico if he talked about their relationship.

In an embarrassing incident for Romney’s struggling campaign, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu denied that he or his lawyer made the deportation threat but stepped down from helping the former Massachusetts governor in the border state.

Babeu acknowledged at a press conference on Saturday that he is gay and that he had a personal relationship with the man making the allegations, whom he identified only as “Jose…”

The Phoenix New Times alternative newspaper reported on Friday that Babeu’s lawyer had asked Jose to sign a legal agreement that would require him to keep quiet about his involvement with the sheriff. According to the newspaper, the lawyer also warned Jose that any talk about their relationship could imperil his immigration status.

“All of these allegations that were in one of these newspapers were absolutely false, except for the issue that referred to me as being gay, and that is the truth. I am gay,” Babeu said at the news conference.

Babeu first came to statewide prominence in 2010 when he appeared in a campaign ad for U.S. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee two years earlier, calling for tough immigration measures.

The sheriff, who is a tough law-and-order advocate, was considered a rising star in state Republican politics and a strong candidate to win the Republican nomination for a congressional seat in Arizona this year.

“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” — might be the first response among the religious who wander through here. It worked for Woody Guthrie as well.

So, Paul Babeu – I wish you well in your new life in the open. Please reflect on your former buddies, political supporters, allies in fighting for the sort of society you thought worthwhile. A lot of them are going to be the first to turn their backs on you.

Even pigs wear boots to a Gingrich press conference

Newt Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million in consulting fees from two contracts with mortgage company Freddie Mac, according to two people familiar with the arrangement.

The total amount is significantly larger than the $300,000 payment from Freddie Mac that Gingrich was asked about during a Republican presidential debate on Nov. 9 sponsored by CNBC, and more than was disclosed in the middle of congressional investigations into the housing industry collapse.

Gingrich’s business relationship with Freddie Mac spanned a period of eight years. When asked at the debate what he did to earn a $300,000 payment in 2006…the former speaker lied and said he offered lessons from history.

Gingrich said this morning that the payments were for “strategic advice over a long period of time.” His fees were sent to his consulting firm, The Gingrich Group, not to him personally…well, that’s a big difference, eh?

Gingrich’s first contract with the mortgage lender was in 1999, five months after he resigned from Congress and as House speaker…His primary contact inside the organization was Mitchell Delk, Freddie Mac’s chief lobbyist, and he was paid a self- renewing, monthly retainer of $25,000 to $30,000 between May 1999 until 2002, according to three people familiar with aspects of the business agreement.

During that period, Gingrich consulted with Freddie Mac executives on a program to expand home ownership, an idea Delk said he pitched to President George W. Bush’s White House.

“I spent about three hours with him talking about the substance of the issues and the politics of the issues, and he really got it,” said Delk, adding that the two discussed “what the benefits are to communities, what the benefits could be for Republicans and particularly their relationship with Hispanics…”

While campaigning in Iowa this week, Gingrich, 68, was asked about his relationship with Freddie Mac. He said he did no lobbying “of any kind…”

RTFA if you can stand the stink of Gingrich’s lies. I’d recommend wearing rubber boots, as well.

More Gingrich lies, of course. As more comes out into the light of day, Newt has to rearrange his lies to suit the occasion. A reflection of the cesspool that is Congressional ethics.

What real crop circles look like

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he will step up efforts to supply energy to Asia after Washington delayed a decision on whether to approve a new oil pipeline from Canada to the United States.

In a subtle warning to Washington, Harper told Chinese President Hu Jintao that providing energy to Asia was an important priority for Canada.

“This does underscore the necessity of Canada making sure that we are able to access Asia markets for our energy products,” Harper told reporters on Sunday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting in Hawaii. “That will be an important priority of our government going forward and I indicated that yesterday to the president of China.”

Citing health, safety and environmental concerns, President Barack Obama’s administration said it would now study a possible new route for TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline. The delay could end up killing the $7 billion project altogether if supporters back out or the administration is unable to chart a new route.

Health, safety and environment are the concerns voiced. Most are wholly illegitimate. I’d gladly discuss any real issues here – but, decades of experience as environment activist requires cutting through the political crap.

Canada is already the largest foreign supplier of oil, natural gas, electricity and uranium to the United States. The proposed pipeline has the capacity to move 700,000 barrels of crude produced from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in Texas…

Harper’s conservative government has repeatedly voiced disappointment at the delay and some big businesses say the move by the Obama administration was purely political to push the decision out past the November 2012 election.

Certainly, the issues are being discussed. I started to watch a presentation on CNN, yesterday; but, the sophistry, lies and hypocrisy were at the level of a Republican “debate” on commerce with China. As soon as the so-called environmentalist said the oil was being transported to the Gulf of Mexico to be transshipped to our “arch enemy, China” – I changed the channel back to an FA Cup match.

As it stands, Canadians still must commit one way or the other on the much more critical ecological decision ranging from nuclear power generation to landscape regeneration before any expansion of oil sands production.

While the Bible Belt is known for its devotion to traditional values, Southerners don’t do so well on one key family value: They are more likely to get divorced than people living in the Northeast.

Southern men and women had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than their counterparts in other parts of the country: 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

By comparison, men and women in the Northeast had the lowest rates of divorce, 7.2 and 7.5 per 1,000, which is also lower than the national divorce rate of 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women…

Youth and lack of education can lead to higher divorce rates, said D’Vera Cohn, a senior writer with the Pew Research Center..”There tend to be higher divorce rates in states where women marry young,” Cohn said. “Education also may play a role. In general, less educated women marry at younger ages than college-educated women, and less educated couples have higher divorce rates.”

Values about premarital sex associated with the Bible Belt and rural America may be encouraging people to marry early, at ages when they are likely to have less education and less income to support a long-lasting marriage, according to Naomi Cahn, law professor at The George Washington University Law School…”There’s a moral crisis in red states that’s produced by higher divorce rates and the disparity between parental values and behavior of young adults,” said Cahn. “There is enormous tension between moral values and actual practices…”

“The very fact that people feel less pressure to get married (in the Northeast) means they can be more selective about who they marry and take their time, ” Coontz said. “They don’t have to rush into it to please parents or avoid stigma of premarital sex…”

Meanwhile, divorce still pushes more women into poverty than men and affects their children, since children are still more likely to live with their mothers than their fathers, according to the same U.S. Census report.

Bible Belt and fundamentalist Christians have a built-in acceptance for hypocrisy. Lying about ethical standards – building rationales acceptable to your peers to justify just about anything is part of the whole equation of being “forgiven”. You can build your life on superstition and guesswork – and watch it fall apart – because you have someone waiting for you, next Sunday, who will tell you, “It’s OK. You gave it a try. God loves you anyway.”

Even if you don’t make your child support payments.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

When it comes to jobs, the hypocrisy of Republicans is working overtime.

They don’t think Barack Obama deserves any credit for creating even a sliver of new jobs, arguing that it’s the private sector, not the president, who has power of the nation’s economy.

But boy, are they giddy over Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who they say deserves all the credit in the world for singlehandedly creating new jobs in the Lone Star State. So, we are told, presidents don’t create jobs but governors do — especially if they’re in your party and thinking about running for president…

First, I should say that despite my better judgment, I like Rick Perry. I disagree with some of his politics, and I think a lot of what he says and does is just political theater designed to sell his favorite product: Rick Perry…

Up close, his secret weapon is that quality that Bill Clinton possessed — the ability to lock in on someone and make him feel as if he is the only person in the room. It’s one of the reasons that I’d like to see Perry run for president…

But none of that seems to matter much to his Republican supporters around the country. For them, Perry’s major selling points are jobs, jobs and more jobs. Many of those who are pushing Perry to enter the presidential race are fiscal conservatives who think his No. 1 asset is that Texas has been on a rampage for the past 10 years creating jobs and luring companies away from states such as New York and California.

The jobs are real enough. The Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas recently estimated that, since June 2009, Texas has produced about 37% of the new jobs in the country. Perry claims the figure is closer to 48%. Either way, it’s impressive.

It is no wonder that, according to data recently released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Texas has now become the second-largest economy in the United States. It displaced New York, and it seems to be closing in on California. Texas now represents 8.3% of the entire U.S. economy…

But, as long we’re being honest, we ought to acknowledge that there is another, not often talked about, dimension to the Texas Economic Miracle…

Read the rest of this entry »

In a step few politicians would take, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle…declared the nation’s decades-old war on drugs a failure…

“Rather than invest in detaining people in the Cook County Jail at almost $150 a day . . . we need to invest in treatment, education and job-skills training. That’s the only way . . . we are going to reduce crime and stabilize our communities,” she said…

“We all know that the war on drugs has failed to end drug use. Instead, it’s resulted in the incarceration of millions of people around the country, and 100,000 here in Cook County on an annual basis,” she said. “Drugs and the failed war on the drugs have devastated lives, families and communities. For too long we’ve treated drug use as a criminal justice issue, rather than a public issue, which is what it is.”

Academics, religious leaders and social-service providers spoke out, but Preckwinkle was the sole politician to address the crowd, which cheered her on.

Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, kicked off the rally by citing recent statistics indicating Illinois leads the nation when it comes to putting far greater percentages of African Americans behind bars for drug crimes than whites.

“The sad thing about the war on the drugs is that most people know it has failed,” added Rev. Alexander Sharp of Protestants for the Common Good. “They just don’t have the courage to say so…”

Preckwinkle’s call for more treatment and less punishment was in keeping with her statements on the campaign trail, when she often talked about diverting drug users into treatment programs. She said she now is working with the courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the sheriff’s office to find ways to do that.

“If 70 percent of the people in the jail are there for non-violent offenses, and 83 percent of the people who walk through the door have illicit drugs in their system, clearly the issue we’ve got is around addiction as much as it is around criminal justice,” she said after making her speech. “It is a public health issue.”

American politicians lead the Western World in hypocrisy. Moralizing based upon myth, laws carrying sanctions better suited to the Dark Ages, characterize the unproductive foolishness that our jurisprudence and book of laws has become.

Most drug use should be decriminalized. Take crime and drug cartels out of the equation altogether – and treat simple addictions for what they are. A product of many causes from genetic sensitivity to social and economic despair.

He is an idle, pea-brained glutton with a permanent craving for doughnuts and Duff beer, but Homer Simpson has been declared a true Catholic by the Vatican’s official newspaper.

The long-running cartoon series explores issues such as family, community, education and religion in a way that few other popular television programmes can match, according to L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s daily broadsheet.

The newspaper acknowledged that Homer snores through the sermons of the Reverend Lovejoy and inflicts “never-ending humiliation” on his evangelical neighbour, Ned Flanders. But in an article headlined “Homer and Bart are Catholics”, the newspaper said: “The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes…”

The level of hypocrisy exposed often in the characters may certainly approach Catholic ethics. But, I think the Pope’s newspaper got some bad translations.

It quoted an analysis by a Jesuit priest, Father Francesco Occhetta, of a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, The Father, the Son and the Holy Guest Star, which revolved around Catholicism and was aired a few weeks after the death of Pope John Paul II…The episode touches on issues such as religious conflict, interfaith dialogue, homosexuality and stem cell research.

“Few people know it, and he does everything he can to hide it, but it is true: Homer J Simpson is a Catholic,” insists L’Osservatore Romano.

Har!

In addition to ingrained hypocrisy, it looks like opportunism is becoming recognized as an invaluable tactic by the Vatican. Let’s go ahead and claim that someone or something that’s popular – is actually a Catholic invention.

Whale meat has been slowly put back on school lunch menus since around 2005…as the meat is being made available at low prices in a bid to expand consumption.

The so-called Institute of Cetacean Research, which carries out the government’s whaling, provided whale meat to local municipalities for school lunches at one-third of the market price…

Japan, which aims to resume commercial whaling, is hoping to increase consumption of whale meat as meat stocks of whales captured by the institute have piled up to around 4,000 tons…

In 2005, Japan increased the whale catch to 1,200 from 750 citing a rise in the populations of the species it hunts, pushing up the supply amount to 5,487 tons in 2006 and driving down the price to half the peak level. However, consumption remained sluggish.

Against this backdrop, the institute and the Fisheries Agency have promoted the sale of whale meat to schools and medical institutions for their lunches at a bargain price.

Japan ceased commercial whaling in 1987, but continues its annual culling of whales under the guise of scientific research. Consequently, the meat is now marketed as a “byproduct” of whaling and the proceeds are used to cover the government’s expenses. Taxpayers’ money is also spent to cover shortfalls.

“Tradition” feeds the hypocrisy of the Japanese government, liberal or conservative. It’s a sizable clutch of votes.

But, tradition doesn’t mean more than crap if it isn’t supportive of a fuller, richer, better life for all. The Japanese are using their “tradition” the way so many lazy, reactionary politicians do. As a crutch, a stonewall against positive change.

The Department of Defense has no written policy on how detainees convicted in military commissions should be housed after they are sentenced despite a 2008 Pentagon directive to create a plan for such prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a military judge said Wednesday.

“This is troubling,” said Judge Nancy J. Paul, an Air Force Lt. Col., noting that two commissions are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay which could lead to the sentencing of two detainees this month. She said “no written plan, no written policy, or directive exists” about where to put convicted war criminals here.

The issue arose this week in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year old Sudanese who cooked for al-Qaeda’s inner circle in Afghanistan, and who pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism…

Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which runs the detention facilities here, objected to the agreement reached by military prosecutors to keep Qosi in Camp 4. That part of the plea deal was also backed by an order from the judge.

The task force, whose officials were not made aware of the agreement before military prosecutors signed it, was unwilling to implement it because the commander and others here believe the Geneva Conventions and military regulations prevent the co-mingling of convicted prisoners and the general detainee population.

And didn’t our president swear – while campaigning and after assuming office – that our nation and his adminstration would live up to the Geneva Convention and the U.S. Military Code of Conduct?

Or so I thought I heard.

Jurors were not made aware of the fact that there is a plea bargain, and that their finding could be moot…

Military officials said Qosi’s actual sentence may not be revealed for several months. They — and defense counsel — refused to discuss the plea, or its terms.

“It’s a charade,” said Jennifer Turner, of the ACLU, who said the administration wanted the appearance of a harsh sentence while avoiding criticism that it sanctioned something much less.

Rand Paul – or Protagoras – take your pick!

U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul says he is a “board-certified” ophthalmologist — even though the national clearinghouse for such certifications says he hasn’t been for the past five years.

Rand Paul, who practices in Bowling Green, says he is certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology, a group that he incorporated in 1999 and that he heads.

But that entity is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, which works with the American Medical Association to approve such specialty boards.

Lori Boukas, a spokeswoman for the American Board of Medical Specialties, said her organization considers certifications to be valid only if they are done by the 24 groups that have its approval and that of the AMA…

The American Board of Medical Specialties said board certification is important because it enables “patients to determine whether their physicians were appropriately trained and knowledgeable in their specialties.”

Regular readers know I often credit the Republican Party with the capacity to have invented hypocrisy if only Christians hadn’t beaten them to it. I think there’s a corollary that Libertarians would have invented sophistry if Protagoras hadn’t beaten them to it.