Appetizers, then dinner.

First course is the bio from the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) web site of their president, a pastor from Colorado who just resigned, surprise surprise, for having sex with a gay prostitute.   Dig the last line about his political power.

"Pastor Ted Haggard is the president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the largest evangelical group in America. He is also founder and senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He formed and serves as the president of both the Association of Life-Giving Churches, a network of local churches, and worldprayerteam.org, the only real-time global prayer network.

Pastor Ted has been interviewed by Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, and more. Time included Pastor Ted in their list of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America. Harper's says, "No pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism than does Pastor Ted."

Open AD:

Ominous music. Grainy photo of Maryland Republican candidate Michael Steele handling a puppy, from his television ad, "Puppies".

Voice:  "Michael Steele is always talking about how much he loves puppies.

Now some people are wondering - does he "love" dogs a LITTLE TOO MUCH?

After 4 years as Maryland Lt. Governor, Michael Steele has gone out of his way NEVER TO CONDEMN MAN-ON-DOG SEX.

And he's NEVER ONCE supported a bill to make sex with dogs a federal crime. Now, some Marylanders are starting to ask why.

On November 7, you have a choice.   Will you support someone who may LITERALLY BE SCREWING THE POOCH?  Is that what Maryland needs for its kids, Senator Humps-a-Dog?  On November 7, you'll get to tell Lt. Gov. Rover what you think of his "dog-loving".   So don't forget to vote."

END AD

Many promiment liberal bloggers have been expressing the view that nothing will change the level of political engagement of the Christian Right.  I disagree with this point of view - if you start to look, there are plenty of signs the movement - as a political force - is starting to fracture.  It's a philosophically incoherent movement, and while the appearance of internal contradictions doesn't necessarily cause movements to implode immediately, when you combine contradictions with rapidly shifting political winds and the needs and temptations of power politics, changes are inevitable. It seems that we're starting to see some signs of these changes now.  Examples under the fold:

If Ned Lamont wins tonight, it'll feel really good.  For about 5 minutes - and then the media will start spinning it according to the narrative they're setting up for this election season.   "Radical" Democrats who happen to represent about 60% of the country, including obviously the middle, against "conservative" Republicans.

Notwithstanding that a majority of the country is strongly with Lamont and the Dems on the war(s).

Dan and I first became friends back in Indian Guides (a non-PC version of the Cub Scouts for first and second graders) back in 1975 when I we were 6 years old or thereabouts.   We remained friends after that for more than 25 years.    Because of our friendship, Dan's family and my family also became good friends, and I attended countless family events for not only Dan but for his sisters and other family members.  I attended his and his sisters' graduation parties from high school and college, and vice versa.  I went to his grandmother's funeral, he he came to those for my grandmothers.  One college summer, Dan got me a job working in an office where he worked, where we had fun making fun of our managers and blowing off steam with our co-workers at the local pub after work.   When I got married in 1998, Dan was my best man; when he got married in 2001, I was his.

Americans should be shocked by the testimony of Alberto Gonzales today.   If they aren't wearing Fox News glasses, they can see an Attorney General of the United States (a nonentity courtier of the regent) waving the bloody shirt of 9/11, having his lapdog Republican pals excuse him from having to testify under oath, and refusing to answer whether a President has the Constitutional authority to break a Congressionally-mandated law.  Essentially, a man who puts his loyalty to his don above his loyalty to the Constitution.   And this is the chief law-enforcement officer of the land.

But who could not have seen this coming?   Why did Dems keep their powder dry on this guy, and then on Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owens, and then Roberts, and then Alito ?   See what you get? . . . .  This.

It's here:

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

My internet access goes straight into a Comcast News page.   I know that I can easily change it, but I kind of like seeing what the tapioca news is like first off.  

Today - a criticism of Bush - if tepid on the summary page, but much more direct if you click on the story - and this is the No. 1 story for them:

I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just curious.

Kos seems to have pissed off a number of his readers in the past few months with battles over feminism, pacifism, abortion-rights, and now Garrison Keillor (!?!)

From a book about Germany's descent into Nazism.  Please read it and see if it doesn't ring a familiar bell, especially after the break.   The forms remain the same, but the world is slowly transformed by ideology - chilling.

"What no one seemed to notice...was the ever widening gap...between the government and the people...And it became always wider...the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway... Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about...and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated... by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us..."

I give blood to the Red Cross every six months, but usually I call them.   Today, they called me.  Between Hurricane Katrina and the upcoming holiday weekend (which places demands on blood supplies) they are in need.

Here's the link to find a place to donate:

https://www.givelife.org/index_flash.cfm?thisHB=09/01/2005%2012:38:48

Or call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE (488-3543).

I just watched an MSNBC reporter saying that he saw two babies dead from dehydration at the NO Convention Center.   Babies dying from dehydration in the middle of a city FOUR DAYS after the storm passed through.  Our government doesn't even have the most rudimentary plans to respond to a flood in NO - and doesn't much care about saving the most defenseless citizens.  I'm so angry, I could scream.

Please, Democratic leaders - we need you.   Lead us.  Now is the time to attack those Republicans who love to spend billions on killing people but balk at spending millions to protect them.   Yes, we must pull together to get through this awful tragedy.   But our current Republican-run government is standing in the way of that.   Almost literally fiddling while our country burns.  

The Washington Post reported today that the Poverty Rate rose again in 2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001727.html

"The poverty rate climbed in 2004 to 12.7 percent, from 12.5 percent in 2003 -- the fourth year in a row that poverty has risen. The increase was borne completely by non-Hispanic whites, the only ethnic group that saw its poverty rate rise. The percentage of whites in poverty rose from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 8.6 percent. African Americans saw no change in their poverty rate, which remained at 24.7 percent. The poverty rate for Hispanics remained at 21.9 percent, while Asian Americans' poverty levels dropped by two percentage points, to 9.8 percent.

The Washington Post and NYT are reporting that the Capitol and White House were evacuated minutes ago.  I work about 3 blocks from Capitol Hill and I've seen war planes flying overhead, seemingly increased police activity.  

You can post breaking news in this diary if you want - I suspect it's just Bushco trying to keep everyone jittery, but it's hard not to get a little nervous when you're so close to the "action".

One of the more interesting things about the new pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is his early history.   Apparently, at the age of 14 in 1941 Germany, he was a member of the Hitler Youth.   He later served in the German Army as an anti-aircraft gunner and a guard at a factory using slave labor.

Some on threads here and elsewhere have called him the "Nazi Pope."   Others have responded by asking them to tone it down or turn it off.  My question:  is his past a valid thing to criticize him for?

Progressives have a real hard time with believers.   To a large degree, a lot of the Left distrusts religion -- for entirely valid reasons -- and that distrust seems all too apparent to the people we're trying to win over.  I'm a case in point - I've united with some very progressive and very Christian people in my neighborhood in anti-War activities.   I can see that these peoples' faith empowers them and inspires them to work for social justice.   I respect it tremendously, but if I'm honest I must say that I'm also baffled by it and I just instinctively look down on it in some way.
I can't understand how someone intelligent can take a leap into faith.

After a long wait, things are turning out exactly as I hoped they wouldn't.   My wife gets induced for labor this afternoon - on Election Day.   We're hoping our new baby daughter is born just as we find out that Kerry won the election.   We are going to name her Sophia for wisdom and Eleanor for Eleanor Roosevelt.   Please, Kossaks, work a little harder today knowing that my wife and I can't be out there with you, but that all three of us will be counting on you and with you in spirit.   Help give my daughter and countless other peoples' children the country they deserve to grow up in!

Go Kerry!   Go Sophie!  And thank you all!

A friend of mine overheard this comment in Mackey's Bar in Youngstown, Ohio this weekend, after putting in a day's work on the Kerry campaign.   It should be our response (minus obcenity) to the Rovian talking points regarding OBL, which the Repugs seem to think is his "small gift" to Bush.

"I don't give a shit what OBL thinks.  Why is he still alive?"

Perfect!