For Hillary a Proposal...

Anna Quindlen thinks that Hillary should have "a sense of history, a sense that this election is bigger than just one woman's ambitions" and make it her "business to persuade Barack Obama to be her running mate".

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19762038/site/newsweek/

It is an interestingly bold idea but I dont see it happening. HRC has lived in the shadow of a charismatic "black" man for the last four decades and I just dont see her making the same mistake twice. She will choose Richardson me thinks....

Hindu Prayer in the Senate...

A Hindu priest opened the Senate session this week with a Hindu prayer. Three protesters from the gallery shouted him down and had to be forcefully removed by the Sergeant at Arms. This was the prayer...not very threatening imho.

"We meditate on the transcendental glory of the Deity Supreme, who is inside the heart of the Earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of the heaven. May He stimulate and illuminate our minds."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19729245/

Benedict makes a point

Pope Benedict has reasserted the primacy of the Catholic Church as the only true Church of Jesus Christ on earth. He uses the logic of tracing Bishop succession all the way back to Peter the head apostle upon whom Jesus conferred his earthly mantle in the Gospels when he said "Thou Art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my church" - (of course Jesus or the writers of the Gospels were being tongue in cheek....Peter means stone or rock in Hebrew), as the source for the Roman churchs legitimacy over all others.

When Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger and headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (an organization formerly known as the Inquisition office) he published this original document. This reassertion is a republishing of the original document. Clearly since the original document was published under John Paul II leadership we can assume that it had the sainted mans tacit if not explicit sanction.

Either way in this age of increased ecumenism this is a very bold statement but not surprising. The Pope is very conservative. He takes the Protestant schism although 500 years old very seriously. He is more lenient with the Orthodox schism however just calling them defective (rather than false) because they fail to recognize the primacy of the Roman prelate.

I am just stunned that in this mordern day and age any global religious leader can make such an unequivocal statement that they have the monopoly on truth. He still encourages inter faith dialog but it is clear that he not only views other interpretations of Christianity to be untrue but also harmful to the doing of Christs work on earth.

Why the Democrats must resist the urge to impeach Bush or Cheney

The impeach Bush and Cheney bandwagon is gathering steam. This week the latest poll numbers (http://www.americanresearchgroup.com/) show about 45% of Americans in favor of impeaching the President and about 55% in favor of impeaching the Vice President.

The Democrats should not make a move to impeach the President and the Vice President unless a clear crime that meets the "high crimes and misdemeanors" standard is discovered.

The GOP of course had no such qualms about moving to impeach Clinton for the fairly harmless crime of lying under oath about a personal sexual relationship. Clinton's crime certainly did not pass the high crimes and misdemeanors standard. While it is true that the Presidents Iraq policy has caused the death and injury of over 30,000 Americans, Congress should not seek to criminalize the President over his bad (make that disastrous) management of a war. Bush and the GOP should pay a price at the ballot box for that

The founders allowed for impeachment only when the very fabric of the country's democracy is under threat due to corruption in the executive office. It is NOT to be used to get rid of an unpopular chief executive. Although this Administration trumped up the reasons for war, instituted torture, lied to the American people and used the biggest tragedy in American history for political gain, democracy is still thriving in this country. Just look at the election results of last November.

I predict that the election results of November 2008 will not only serve the same result as impeaching the President and the Vice President but will also cause the GOP numbers to shrink even further in Congress. So the Democrats should be patient. Revenge after all is a dish best eaten cold.....

China executes, Bush commutes....

China executed the former head of its Food and Drug Administration agency, Zheng Xiaoyu, for taking bribes and gifts valued at $832,000 USD. Some of the drugs that the Chinese FDA fradulently approved during Mr. Zhengs tenure caused the deaths of about 10 Chinese citizens.

While the sentence seems abnormally harsh even by the low human rights standards of the Peoples Republic, it seems ironic that while China executes officials for dereliction of duty, the President of the United States has commuted the prison term of a man who not only revealed the identity of an active CIA agent but also perjured himself to a grand jury while trying to cover up that leak.

Of course this man is no ordinary man. He is part of a cabal of Washington insiders who have for the last six years set this country on a disastorous foreign policy course. Their policies have mired the United States in a desert hell hole in a war that it cannot win and have caused the deaths of at least 3500 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis.

He, the cabal and its leader (aka the US Vice-President) continue to thumb their noses at both the legislative and judicial branches of the United States as they go about their business unapolgetically, shamelessly conducting their phony, ill thought out and horribly executed war.

Bush commutes Libbys sentence

Bush has balls....and nothing really to lose. At 27% in the polls he really has no where to go but up. So he commuted Scooters 30 month prison sentence.....wow!! Scooter will still have to pay his $250 K fine and serve two years of probation but thats it.

So now we know the price for Libbys silence to protect Cheney from going to prison. 231 years ago the US overthrew an English king named George....I think next year the American voter will have to do the same.

Chai Party in Boston coming right up...

A real gem

“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

The late senior Senator from New York - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

And to think Hillary Clinton is now filling this great mans seat...