The Daily Outrage

Last weekend, The Washington Post reported that acute malnutrition among children in Iraq has doubled since before the US invasion in March of 2003. That is just one statistic, out of many, that paints a disturbing picture of the US occupation. After reading press dispatches, think-tank reports and public opinion polling, The Daily Outrage compiled this sampling of the facts on the ground. …

Infrastructure

** Of the $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds allocated last year by Congress, the US has spent only $1.7 billion.

** Nationwide electricity levels are down 25 percent since the prewar days, and 66 percent lower in Baghdad.

** The value of the Iraqi currency–the Dinar–dropped 25 percent compared to the US dollar in the past year (which didn’t have a great year itself!)

Iraqi Public Opinion

** Only 33 percent of Iraqis think they’re better off now than before the war, as a Gallup poll discovered.

** According to military statistics, the number of insurgents has quadrupled since last year, from 5,000 to 20,000. A British general places the insurgency at 40-50,000 fighters.

Honor The Fallen Memorial

The Honor the Fallen memorial is the only one of its kind in America. The memorial features a photograph and short biography of every American who has been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraq Freedom.

Rolling Back Women’s Rights NYTimes Editorial

Tucked into the $388 billion budget measure just approved by the House and Senate is a sweeping provision that has nothing to do with the task Congress had at hand – providing money for the government. In essence, it tells health care companies, hospitals and insurance companies they are free to ignore Roe v. Wade and state and local laws and regulations currently on the books to make certain that women’s access to reproductive health services includes access to abortion. …

This represents a vast expansion of the “conscience protection” that federal law currently gives to individual doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training.

The affront to women’s rights, moreover, should not obscure the serious threat to the First Amendment involved in enacting what is likely to evolve into a domestic “gag rule” as, one by one, health care providers order doctors they employ not to provide patients with information about the abortion option. This echoes the way Mr. Bush reimposed a blanket Reagan-era gag rule for providers of reproductive health services abroad on his first full day in office back in 2001.

Unfortunately, vocal opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republican moderates was not enough to stop the pernicious assault on the rights of millions of women from becoming law in the rush to pass the spending bill. … Americans, and American women in particular, are officially on notice that post-election, the Republican war on reproductive rights has entered an ominous new phase.

Giving the Law a Religious Perspective By ADAM LIPTAK

The class in civil procedure, at the new Liberty School of Law here, began with a prayer.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul,” said Prof. Jeffrey C. Tuomala, quoting Psalm 19. “The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.”

But decisions of the United States Supreme Court, Professor Tuomala went on, are not always trustworthy. “Something that is contrary to the law of nature,” he said, “cannot be law.”

The school, part of Liberty University, whose chancellor is the Rev. Jerry Falwell, is for now a makeshift affair in a vast industrial building that used to be a cellular phone factory. Its students compensate for the surroundings by dressing well – many of the men wore jackets and ties – and by showing attentive enthusiasm, even for a heavy dose of civil procedure at 8 a.m.

The school, which says its mission is to train “ministers of justice,” is part of a movement around the nation that means to bring a religious perspective to the law and a moral component to legal practice.

“People are realizing that some of the biggest issues of the day are being decided in the courts – the 2000 presidential election, the question of what is marriage, abortion, stem-cell research, cloning,” said Jeffrey A. Brauch, the dean of Regent Law School, which was founded in 1986 in Virginia Beach by Pat Robertson, the television evangelist. “And maybe there are eternal principles of justice that will tell us how to approach these questions.” …

[W]here mainstream law professors tend to ask questions about judges’ fidelity to precedent and the Constitution, Liberty professors often analyze decisions in terms of biblical principles.

“If our graduates wind up in the government,” Dr. Falwell said, “they’ll be social and political conservatives. If they wind up as judges, they’ll be presiding under the Bible.”

Many of the dozen students who chatted with a reporter over two days at the school, representing a fifth of the school’s first and only class, said they were drawn to its emphasis on fundamental and enduring truths.

“We study the law that’s written on the heart, the things that no one can deny,” Brian Fraser said.

Amend for Arnold & Jen
[mjh: who the hell is Jen?]

Orrin Hatch introduced the “Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment” into the Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2003. Since then, not much has happened.

We aim to change that.

Thousands of amendments are floated in Congress every year but virtually all of them sink out of sight. The last one ratified was the 27th Amendment in 1992. (It’s about Congressional pay.)

So……

We need 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate to vote for our amendment. Then we need 3/4 of the states to ratify the amendment.

That’s 38 states. That’s a lot.

We’re going to need help in every state…..and that’s where you come in.

As long as we’re shredding the Constitution for Arnold, let’s outlaw choice and gays. Might as well restore the original intent of letting only landowners (ie, Rich White Guys) vote. mjh

NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. November 5, 2004 | PBS

BUSH: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.

MOYERS: The President has the political muscle to back his claim to a mandate — and the enforcers to carry it out. One of them is with me now, Grover Norquist, one of the most prominent and powerful figures in the conservative movement.

From leading college Republicans — he himself has two degrees from Harvard — to running Americans for Tax Reform, which dubbed Senate minority leader Tom Daschle an “enemy of the taxpayer” and helped to defeat him, Grover Norquist is a prime mover on the right. In the words of Newt Gingrich, “the most creative and most effective conservative activist” in the country.

He’s also one tough hombre. This week he told Democrats to get with the program, accept the fact that they are powerless. The WASHINGTON POST quotes him saying after the election:

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’re fixed then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

Grover Norquist assures us he was speaking tongue-in-cheek, but Democrats and liberals are now accustomed to have his thumb in their eye. …

MOYERS: You’ve got the power now, power you could hardly ever dream of. What are you going to do with it in the next four years?

NORQUIST: In the next four years, you’ll see the President had four tax cuts in the first four years. I believe you’ll see four tax cuts in the next four years. We now have the votes to abolish the death tax. We have the votes to go to expensing for business investment, for expanding IRAs and 401Ks so all Americans can save tax free for their retirement. We need to get rid of that three percent federal excise tax which was put in to fund the Spanish-American War 100 years ago and is still there, hitting low income Americans. We will reform Social Security so that every American has the opportunity to save for his own retirement. We’re going to defeat the trial lawyers, these billionaire parasites who’ve been raising the cost of everything Americans buy and do. …

Letter to Bush

Dear Mr. President:

… In your re-election, God has graciously granted America — though she doesn’t deserve it — a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don’t equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). …

Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn’t care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right.

Best wishes.
Sincerely your friend,
Bob Jones III
President
Bob Jones University

PS: … On occasion, Christians have not agreed with things you said during your first term. Nonetheless, we could not be more thankful that God has given you four more years to serve Him in the White House, never taking off your Christian faith and laying it aside as a man takes off a jacket, but living, speaking, and making decisions as one who knows the Bible to be eternally true.