At this year’s commencement ceremony, my school will be honoring Phyllis Schlafly with an honorary doctorate. Schlafly earned two degrees–a BA and a JD–from Washington University before devoting herself to a life-long career of telling women to stay in the kitchen. Now, she’ll be back at WashU for her third degree.
Chancellor Mark Wrighton defended the decision to reward the “graduate and donor” (donor? Hmm… As it turns out, her family is fairly well-off) by claiming that “her contributions have inspired women.” Really? To do what? Inspired women to stay at home? Giving this woman an honorary degree at the same time as the first female surgeon at the med school (Dr. Jessie Ternberg) is like slapping the latter across the face.
Let’s take a look at some of the positions that Washington University will be endorsing and honoring:
“By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don’t think you can call it rape.” — He wants to have sex but you don’t? Sorry ladies, if you wanted to say “No” you should have done it when he proposed. (Sun Journal, March 29, 2007)
“Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions.” — How many times do we have to tell her that abstinence-only sex ed doesn’t work? (Huffington Post, July 20, 2006)
“Many professors are Marxists or other varieties of radicals who hate America.” — Does that include former chemistry professors who go on to be university chancellors? Does fellow honoree Dr. Ternberg hate America? (Phyllis Schlafly Report, April 2005)
“The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God.” — Thank God for making the world a safer place though nuclear proliferation. (New York Times, Sept. 9, 1982; R. Balmer, Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America, p. 193)
“I suspect that the picture of the woman soldier with a noose around the Iraqi man’s neck will soon show up on the bulletin boards of women’s studies centers and feminist college professors. That picture is the radical feminists’ ultimate fantasy of how they dream of treating men.” — Yes, since a woman tortured a man, feminists be just gushing with joy over the Abu Grahib prison scandal. That’s just the sort of rational thinking that this university encourages. (Human Events, May 18, 2004)
I don’t know about you, but I get sick every time I read just the first quote. I hope that she’s donating a lot of money to the school–I mean a lot of money, like enough to build a campus on the moon–because rewarding a woman who defends men who rape their wives will permanently tarnish this school’s reputation.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
It’s official. George W. Bush has the highest disapproval rating of any U.S. president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll.
In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove. The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.
The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.
What’s also pretty incredible is how far he’s fallen:
Bush also holds the record for the other extreme: the highest approval rating of any president in Gallup’s history. In September 2001, in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s approval spiked to 90%. In another record, the percentage of Americans who say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake reached a new high, 63%, in the latest poll.
Assessments of Bush’s presidency are harsh. By 69%-27%, those polled say Bush’s tenure in general has been a failure, not a success.
From the most popular to the least popular in only eight years. Presided over an economic “slowdown”–seriously, you can’t call it a recession?–that eighty-six percent of Americans think is going to get worse. The majority of people now recognize that his war for oil and profit was a mistake. A full three-quarters of Americans think our nation is headed the wrong direction under his leadership. People don’t trust Republicans on Iraq, health care, social security, the economy, or immigration. Most historians think he’s the worst president ever.
The Bush presidency is a disaster. The Bush legacy will be one of failure.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
So Wednesday night’s debate sucked. It sucked a lot. In fact the only people who liked the debate, other than ABC, were conservative columnist David Brooks and HotAir.com, a right-wing website run by stalker-of-sick-children Michelle Malkin.
Jon Stewart, meanwhile, ripped ABC a new one:
The first hour of last night’s debate was a 60 minute master class in questions that elevate out-of-context remarks and trivial, insipid miscues into subjects of natural discourse…which is my job! Stop doing my job! That’s what I’m here for! I’m the silly man!
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Missouri native, recently endorsed State Rep. Jane Cunningham in her bid for State Senate. Cunningham made big news lately after she threw high school students out of her state capitol office because she didn’t like the way they looked–ironically, the students were lobbying for anti-bullying bill.
But seriously, Ashcroft?? I mean, this guy set the bar for violating civil liberties early in the Bush Administration–take Operation TIPS, for example, the 21st century Red Scare only browner and with turbans–and he has a record of sexism and racism. Why would anyone even want this guy’s endorsement?
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
The newest mini-documentary from Brave New Films shows how then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice lied under oath, telling Congress that the United States did not torture, at the same time that she authorized the CIA to torture detainees.
Sign the petition calling on Rice to resign at condimustgo.com
Poor, poor Alberto Gonzales. Looks like our illustrious ex-AG is having trouble finding work.
Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
Of course, they also don’t typically resign in disgrace amid accusations of perjury, they aren’t typically under investigation by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, and their friends don’t typically set up a legal defense fund for them before they’ve been formally charged with anything. But hey, what do I know? I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons why nobody wants to hire Abu G.
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Oh nevermind, I guess it is that whole perjury investigation thing. Fortunately, my school and others have been keeping him out of the unemployment line:
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000. Places like Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State University and the University of Florida have paid him about $30,000 plus expenses for appearances, and the business groups pay a bit more, said sources at the schools and elsewhere who are familiar with the arrangements. Pomona College debated inviting him and decided he was not worth the money, the college newspaper reported.
Even though his speech “was not profound,” as our student government president wrote, Gonzales will never have to worry about money. I wish I could say the same for the hard-working Americans who lost their homes to subprime mortgage foreclosures or the increasing number of unemployed Americans who can’t get paid to run their mouths.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
A recent Gallup poll concluded that 28% of Hillary Clinton supporters and 19% of Barack Obama supporters would vote for John McCain if their candidate is not the Democratic nominee. From MoveOn via email, ten things that all of those people should know:
I don’t care what you think about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, either of them would be thousands of times better than John McCain.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
Last week, government contractors broke into the presidential candidates’ passport records. Before that, Social Security numbers of visitors to federal nuclear weapons labs were stolen. A year and a half ago, the VA lost insurance data on millions of veterans and active service members. You would think that after so many incidents, the government would get better at securing personal information, right?
Wrong. They did it again.
A government laptop computer containing sensitive medical information on 2,500 patients enrolled in a National Institutes of Health study was stolen in February, potentially exposing seven years’ worth of clinical trial data, including names, medical diagnoses and details of the patients’ heart scans. The information was not encrypted, in violation of the government’s data-security policy.
NIH officials made no public comment about the theft and did not send letters notifying the affected patients of the breach until last Thursday — almost a month later. They said they hesitated because of concerns that they would provoke undue alarm.
…
“The shocking part here is we now have personally identifiable information — name and age — linked to clinical data,” said Leslie Harris, executive director of the Center for Democracy & Technology. “If somebody does not want to share the fact that they’re in a clinical trial or the fact they’ve got a heart disease, this is very, very serious. The risk of identity theft and of revealing highly personal information about your health are closely linked here.”
The laptop contained patients’ names, dates of birth, and medical records, so nobody thought the situation warranted an immediate response:
According to a chronology provided by Dambrauskas, three offices that focus on information security within NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services were contacted within three days of the theft.
But officials did not report it to the NHLBI Institutional Review Board — whose job is to protect the well-being of patients in research — until Feb. 29, six days after the theft. That put the matter on the board’s agenda for its next meeting, on March 4, according to the board’s chairman, Alison Wichman.
“We didn’t feel that subjects were at immediate risk,” she said. “We felt that we had some time to be thorough in our evaluation. In the end, that may or may not have been appropriate.”
NIH spokesman John T. Burklow said that during the meeting, the board had “long and intense” discussions about what to do, as “there were concerns about not causing patients undue alarm.” The board nonetheless voted unanimously to ask Arai to draft a notification letter, Wichman said.
At its next meeting, on March 18, the board reviewed the letter. Two days later, it gave final approval.
Glad to see that the internal bureaucracy of NIH wasn’t disrupted by this breach of patient privacy. The one good thing that’s coming about as a result of this theft is that NIH is going to start implementing data security measures… that were issued by OMB in 2006 (PDF). Better late than never, I suppose. I wonder how many other federal agencies are noncompliant?
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
What do Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have in common, other than that they’re all running for president? All three have had unauthorized breaches by State Department contractors in their personal passport files.
What’s in a “passport record,” you ask? It’s just a record of where that person traveled, right? Apparently not.
What exactly is a passport record? A passport record typically consists of applications made by a person for a U.S. passport, together with supporting evidence of U.S. citizenship. The records include details such as date and place of birth, naturalization details, family status, occupation and physical characteristics. Passport records do not include evidence of travel, such as exit and entrance stamps, visas or residence permits. Passport records are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974.
…
In addition to passport applications and the related material, the system stores investigative reports that might have been compiled in connection with granting or denying a passport, or in connection with any violation of passport criminal statutes. It also stores court documents and administrative determinations related to passports and citizenship, as well as copies of birth and baptismal certificates, medical, personal and financial reports and details on arrest warrants of the person applying for, extending or renewing a passport and a person’s Social Security number.
…
Apart from helping to determine citizenship and eligibility for a passport, the information can be used for employment applications and estate settlements, and to determine Social Security benefits. It can also be used for federal and state law enforcement investigations. Records are retrieved using an individual’s name or passport number.
This is more than just “imprudent curiosity.” This is a serious breach of all three candidates’ personal privacy. Secretary Rice has already apologized to Sen. Obama (and I’m sure apologies to Clinton and McCain are forthcoming), but that isn’t enough. This is hardly the first time that the Bush Administration has lost private personal data. All three candidates should be calling for full-scale investigations.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
The five year American occupation of Iraq has been a glorious success… according to Dick Cheney.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a “successful endeavor”, pointing to security and political progress on a visit ahead of the fifth anniversary of the war.
“If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavor … and it has been well worth the effort,” he told a news conference in Baghdad after meeting Iraqi leaders.
Oh really? Let’s take a look at some recent developments in our “successful endeavor,” shall we?
Not counting the just shy of 4000 soldiers who have died there, the War in Iraq is doing wonders for American military morale:
Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the US military is flagging under long and repeated deployments that have taken a toll on troops and hurt its readiness to deal with other crises.
“People are tired,” is the way Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summed it up at a congressional hearing last month.
…
Shot through it all is the human fallout from combat and the stress of repeated deployments: record suicide rates, rising divorces and mental health problems, according to army health reports.Some troops are in their third and fourth combat deployments.
“What it means is that the army coming out of Iraq will be a shadow of its former self,” said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official and senior analyst at the Center for American Progress.
…
“Our soldiers are deploying too frequently. We can’t sustain that,” General George Casey, the army’s chief of staff told Congress recently. “It’s impacting on their families, it’s impacting on their mental health. We just can’t keep going at the rate that we’re going.”
Oh, I guess that’s not it. Well, we have drastically improved Iraqi living conditions, right?
Five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the humanitarian situation there is still among the most critical in the world, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.
Because of the conflict, millions of Iraqis now still have insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health care, the Geneva-based agency said in a report.
“Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices,” said Beatrice Megevand Roggo, the ICRC’s head of operations for the Middle East and North Africa.
…
Health care, water and sanitation services and electricity supplies remain largely inadequate. Hospitals lack qualified staff and basic drugs, and therefore struggle to provide suitable care for the injured.The water supply has continued to deteriorate over the past year. Millions of Iraqis have been forced to rely on insufficient supplies of poor-quality water and sewage systems suffer from a lack of maintenance and a shortage of engineers.
“To avert an even worse crisis, more attention must be paid to the everyday needs of Iraqis,” said Roggo.
Ok, so that’s not it. How about political reconciliation? That’s still working out great:
Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.
Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that “no one” in the U.S. and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation,” or in the provision of basic public services.
Well, then, you can’t question General Petraeus. So much for progress within Iraq. Maybe the “success” of the Iraq invasion is coming in the form of support from other countries:
America’s image has perhaps suffered the most in the Arab world, according to Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa.
“The situation is going from bad to worse when it comes to the image of the U.S. The feelings, the friendly feelings that prevailed for so many years in the Arab world vis-à-vis America and vice-versa — but the recent developments in fact have derailed those relations and those feelings,” Moussa said.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, the documented abuse of Iraqi prisoners, and the emergence of a Shi’ite-dominated government alongside Shi’ite-led Iran have made Arab allies uneasy about U.S. policies in the region. By all accounts, America’s image as a champion of the rule of law and human rights has suffered as a result.
But the damage extends well beyond the Middle East. Mamadi Kaba is a human rights activist in Guinea.
“The reputation of the United States of America has been affected by the war in Iraq, [and especially] because of Abu Ghraib [prison abuses],” Kaba said.
…
The Washington-based Pew Research Center monitors global perceptions of the United States through surveys conducted in dozens of countries. Pew President Andrew Kohut summed up the Iraq war’s impact. “It has been one of the, if not the principle reasons behind the worldwide rise in anti-Americanism since 2001,” Kohut said.
At least we know that the Brits will always stand by us:
Gordon Brown has promised that the Government will hold a full-scale inquiry into the mistakes made in Iraq before and since the invasion five years ago.
His concession marks a significant break from his predecessor, Tony Blair, who steadfastly refused to hold a wide-ranging inquiry into the war.
Mr Brown, however, insists it is not the right time for an immediate investigation as the situation in Iraq remains “fragile” and British troops are still trying to bring stability to the country. The Prime Minister said: “There is a need to learn all possible lessons from the military action in Iraq and its aftermath.”
Fine, but I’m sure that we can still count on religious support for our Holy Crusade against Islam:
[Pope] Benedict [XVI] said [murdered Iraqi Archbishop Paulos Faraj] Rahho’s dedication to the Catholic Church and his death compelled him to “raise a strong and sorrowful cry” to denounce the violence in Iraq spawned by the war that began five years ago this week.
“At the same time, I make an appeal to the Iraqi people, who for the past five years have borne the consequences of a war that provoked the breakup of their civil and social life,” Benedict said.
He urged them to raise their heads and reconstruct their life through “reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and coexistence among tribal, ethnic and religious groups.”
The Vatican strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. In its aftermath, Benedict has frequently criticized attacks against Iraqi Christians by Islamic extremists. Last year, he urged President Bush to keep the safety of Iraqi Christians in mind.
So this is what a “successful endeavor” in Iraq looks like. The soldiers who aren’t coming home in pine boxes are tired of fighting. We’ve failed in our humanitarian obligations to the Iraqi people. The Iraqi government refuses to put aside its internal divisions and work for progress. America’s credibility is shot, even among our allies, and is possibly beyond repair.
This nation can barely withstand one more year in Iraq, let alone one hundred.
(Cross-posted at CrazyDrumGuy)
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