The Daily Outrage by Ari Berman

Big media blowout: Radio behemoth Clear Channel has just chosen Fox News as the primary news provider for its news and talk radio stations. Fox will replace ABC Radio on more than 300 of Clear Channel’s 1,200 stations, boosting Fox’s radio presence and upping profits by several million dollars. The news company that consistently misinforms its viewers and listeners with pro-war propaganda will join forces with a radio giant who organized pro-war rallies across the country. Congratulate Clear Channel’s PR director Lisa Dollinger at lisacdollinger@clearchannel.com.

Yahoo! News – Top Stories Photos – Reuters

Workbench: Tuesday, December 07, 2004

President Eisenhower, who as an Army general had led four million troops in the invasion of France during World War II, was concerned that such attire would be contrary to the constitutional principle of civilian control of the military.

[mjh: Hitler and Hussein both dressed in bogus military garb — it’s a long-standing favorite habit of dictators.]

KRT Wire | 12/03/2004 | Bush’s 2nd-term agenda: Set Jeb up BY ZEV CHAFETS

[L]ast week, in a meeting with The Washington Times editorial board, Ken Mehlman, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, put Jeb back in the race.

Responding to a question, Mehlman mentioned eight potential candidates for 2008: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Virginia Sen. George Allen, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani – and Jeb Bush. …

Four years is a long way off. But if Jeb does run, he has a real shot at the nomination. Pataki and Giuliani may be too liberal on “values” issues to win red-state primaries. Romney’s from Massachusetts. Owens and Allen are unknowns. McCain, the media’s candidate, is a cancer survivor who will be 72 in 2008. Frist has a golden resume, but he’s a snooze.

Jeb is head and shoulders above this field. … That’s why it would be a mistake to view the next four years as a terminal presidency.

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Maureen Farrell > “God Is With Us”: Hitler’s Rhetoric and the Lure of “Moral Values”” href=”http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/12/far04041.html”>BuzzFlash > Maureen Farrell > “God Is With Us”: Hitler’s Rhetoric and the Lure of “Moral Values”

If photographic evidence of the Third Reich’s Christian leanings were not enough, Hitler’s own speeches and writings prove, at the very least, that he presented many of the same faith-based arguments heard in America today. Religion in the schools? Hitler was for it. Intellectuals who practiced “anti-Christian, smug individualism”? According to Hitler, their days were numbered. Divine Providence’s role in shaping Germany’s ultimate victory? Who could argue? In other words, there is enough historical evidence to color Scalia deluded. Writing for Free Inquiry, John Patrick Michael Murphy explained:

“Hitler’s Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: “Gott mit uns” (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church and blindly followed all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.

Hitler, like some of the today’s politicians and preachers, politicized “family values.” He liked corporeal punishment in home and school. Jesus prayers became mandatory in all schools under his administration. While abortion was illegal in pre-Hitler Germany, he took it to new depths of enforcement, requiring all doctors to report to the government the circumstances of all miscarriages. He openly despised homosexuality and criminalized it.”

For anyone wanting even more proof, Mein Kampf is chock full of the Fuhrer’s musings on God. …

“When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side? If you answered Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, you’re correct,” Bob Fitrakis wrote.
Continue reading the Lure of “Moral Values” →

Future at risk: U.S. is fast letting its tech edge slip away By DAVID BALTIMORE

Where does all this leave the United States, a nation with so many who are poorly educated and whose educational system does a particularly ineffective job with math and science? We have more people who believe in the devil than who believe in evolution. Why? …

So the cascade could begin: If America becomes a less affluent society, we will see a diminution in support for the research that is critical to our future. There are already clouds on the horizon: because of the deficit, federal budgets will get tighter and science funding is likely to suffer. The economic recovery is generating too few jobs. Silicon Valley still has lots of vacant space. The venture-capital industry is scared and conservative.

These trends are real. We cannot afford to ignore them. We must think deeply about the realities we face. We need to respond to the newest challenges of globalism. A fortress-America approach will get us nowhere.

The Washington Monthly

Bush, sensibly, gave Kerik a pre-hire tryout in the summer of 2002 in a gig that his experience prepped him much better for, training Iraqi police. So how’d Kerik do? Pretty poorly. …

For liberals, there’s a lot of other stuff to raise eyebrows about Bernie Kerik. He once worked as a security chief for the Saudi royal family’s hospital system. He was one of the Bush campaign’s most aggressive and irresponsible attack dogs, telling the press that if John Kerry were President, the U.S. would see another 9/11. And his nomination reeks of an attempt by the administration to permanently associate the GOP’s connection with 9/11. But even for conservatives, it seems hard to understand what professional qualifications this man has for leading the nation’s homeland defense. The President didn’t mention Kerik’s experience much yesterday in the short speech presenting him, choosing instead to focus on his “leadership” qualities. But the record doesn’t give much evidence of leadership: he’s prematurely quit the two biggest jobs he’s ever been handed, just when they got difficult. …

I hope the press and Senate put his record to some rigorous, tough-minded scrutiny as the confirmation process unfolds.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells