Republicans!

They're Ugly and Mean and Nobody Likes Them

Bound to Be Full of Pop-Up Books
So the GW Bush Library site has been selected.

Over the objections of much of the faculty of the university that will host it. Also, religious leaders. And, err, just about everyone really.

Southern Methodist University will be home to George W. Bush's presidential library, officials formally announced Friday after a yearlong approval process that some faculty and religious opponents failed to derail.

...

Some Methodist ministers also joined the fray, launching an online petition drive that garnered about 11,000 signatures from those opposed to SMU hosting the library, museum and institute. The group said some Bush administration policies — going to war with Iraq, torturing foreign prisoners — conflict with church teachings.

Despite Friday's announcement, one of the petition organizers said the fight is not over.

The Rev. Andrew Weaver said that although a Methodist mission council gave SMU permission last year to lease land for the project, delegates from a larger church body must vote on that decision. There also could be a lawsuit, he said.

"It's David vs. Goliath, but the first time that fight went on, David did win," said Weaver, a New York research psychologist who graduated from SMU's Perkins School of Theology.

Haha... hilarious.

Mr. 19% strikes again!

Source: Raw Story

More Broken Promises
El Presidente strikes again.

Despite a 2002 promise from President Bush to put citizenship applications for immigrant members of the military on a fast track, some are finding themselves waiting months, or even years, because of bureaucratic backlogs. One, Sgt. Kendell K. Frederick of the Army, who had tried three times to file for citizenship, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq as he returned from submitting fingerprints for his application.

...

The long waits are part of a broader problem plaguing the immigration service, which was flooded with 2.5 million applications for citizenship and visas last summer — twice as many as the previous year — in the face of 66 percent fee increases that took effect July 30. Officials have estimated that it will take an average of 18 months to process citizenship applications from legal immigrants through 2010, up from seven months last year.

But service members and veterans are supposed to go to the head of the line. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President Bush signed an executive order allowing noncitizens on active duty to file for citizenship right away, instead of having to first complete three years in the military. The federal government has since taken several steps to speed up the process, including training military officers to help service members fill out forms, assigning special teams to handle the paperwork, and allowing citizenship tests, interviews and ceremonies to take place overseas.

At the same time, post-9/11 security measures, including tougher guidelines for background checks that are part of the naturalization process, have slowed things down.

Of course, being an El Presidente patented promise, it came with no follow-through and no money.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which checks the names of citizenship applicants against those in its more than 86 million investigative files, has been overwhelmed, handling an average of 90,000 name-check requests a week. In the fiscal year that ended in September, the F.B.I. was asked to check 4.1 million names, at least half of them for citizenship and green card applicants, a spokesman said.

So of course, in the end, the solution is to actually weaken our security.

Over all, 312,000 citizenship or green card applications are pending name checks, including 140,000 that have been waiting more than six months, immigration officials said. This month, immigration authorities eased background-check requirements for green cards, saying that if applicants had been waiting more than six months, they could be approved without an F.B.I. check, and approvals could be revoked later “in the unlikely event” that troubling information was found.

Thus making the entire background check/naturalization process, err, pointless.

Gah. Or we could, you know, HIRE PEOPLE AND FIX THE PROBLEM.

Source: The New York Times

A Very Creepy Cult
I already wrote about the head of HUD, who has a creepy photo shrine to himself and El Presidente in the lobby of his buildings.

Then there's this, from a bio of Josh Bolten.

Bolten may be polite but he isn't by any stretch buttoned down. He's a big music buff, including country music, and plays guitar. He recites poetry, sometimes at great length. He keeps a copy of the best-selling children's book Walter the Farting Dog on his office's coffee table. His wall collection of Bush photos, typical throughout the White House complex, is unique. The pictures focus exclusively on Bush's hands at key moments in his presidency. Not a single photo of Bush's face can be found. "Josh is extremely eclectic," explained Card. "His knowledge base is much, much broader than just policy or budget numbers."

Eclectic doesn't begin to describe this. This is idolatry.

Isn't that a sin for Christians and Jews? (Bolten is Jewish, GW is supposedly a Christian.)

Source: Stanford

Lawrence v. Texas
So the homophobic D.A. in Texas who fought all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to burst into your home in the dead of night and see if you were having state unapproved sex has turned out, in fact, to be a sleazy, racist ass in addition to a homophobic bigot.

Last December, as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit into how justice is meted out in the county, he turned over the (partial) contents of his government e-mail account. And what a batch of e-mails it was. Black ministers called for the Republican to resign because of racist material, including a cartoon depicting an African-American suffering from a “fatal overdose” of watermelon and fried chicken. There were adult video clips and love notes from Rosenthal to his secretary, his mistress during a previous marriage. “I love you so much,” Rosenthal says in one. “I want to kiss you behind your right ear,” he says in another. “Go spend time with your family,” she admonishes him back.

It hardly needs to be said that he's a Republican.

In the wake of the e-mail revelations, local GOP leaders forced him to abort his re-election bid. Then, on Feb. 15, after Lloyd Kelley, the attorney in the civil rights case, brought a lawsuit accusing him of drinking on the job and “incompetence, or official misconduct,” Rosenthal resigned. But his problems may not be over. As eye-opening as his e-mails were, it’s the ones that disappeared that might cause him more trouble yet. Rosenthal deleted thousands of e-mails (even going so far as to delete them from the trash folder) that investigators in the civil rights case wanted; his actions could lead to obstruction of justice charges (the messages were destroyed after he had received a subpoena for them, he admitted in court). And during a contempt of court hearing earlier this month, Rosenthal appeared to contradict his sworn statements about the e-mails, leaving him open to perjury charges. The hearing was abruptly adjourned at the request of his lawyer and is scheduled to resume March 14. If found in contempt, the former top prosecutor could wind up in jail.

He's now blaming much of his erratic behavior on pill popping.

Ahh, the Limbaugh defense.

Source: Pandagon

Dollar Collapse
Thanks to our Republican overlords and El Presidente, the dollar has fallen to another all-time low against the Euro, and will no doubt fall further.

Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar traded near a record low against the euro after the yield advantage on two-year German government debt over Treasuries widened to the most in more than five years.

The U.S. currency headed for a second monthly loss versus the euro and reached a 24-year low against the Australian dollar on speculation Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will elaborate on plans to cut interest rates in testimony to the Senate today. The yield premium on two-year German bunds over similar-maturity U.S. debt widened to 1.41 percentage points today, the most since October 2002.

``I am super-bearish on the dollar,'' said Masanobu Ishikawa, general manager of foreign exchange at Tokyo Forex & Ueda Harlow Ltd., Japan's largest currency broker. ``The yield differential is buffeting the dollar and favoring the euro.''

The U.S. currency traded at $1.5103 per euro at 6:40 a.m. in London, after touching $1.5144 in New York yesterday, the weakest since the euro's debut in 1999. The dollar dropped to 106.32 yen from 106.49 yen yesterday, when it fell to 105.96, the lowest since Feb. 7. It may decline to $1.52 a euro and 105.80 yen today, Ishikawa forecast.

Oh well. It was a nice civilization while it lasted.

I for one want to be the first to welcome our new Sino-European Financial Overlords!

Source: Bloomberg