Drinking Liberally

A chapter of Drinking Liberally has started up here in Cincinnati. 7:30 PM every Tuesday starting tomorrow night at the Comet in Northside.

What is Drinking Liberally?

An informal, inclusive weekly Democratic drinking club. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don't need to be a policy expert and this isn't a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it's not taboo to talk politics.

Bars are democratic spaces - you talk to strangers, you share booths, you feel the bond of common ground. Bring democratic discourse to your local democratic space - build Democracy one drink at a time.

If you go let me know how it was. I will try and get out to it at somepoint, but not for a while.

Iraqi Mosque Shooting

Kevin Sites, the cameraman who caught the shooting of the Iraqi by the U.S. Marine gives a description of the event in detail on his blog.

[Via Kos]

UPDATE: I wonder if Steve Fritch has read this. If he has I wonder what his knee-jerk reaction was to it.

Christian Vocalist?

In a letter to the editor in the Enquirer Laurie Flanigan refers to Nicole C. Mullen as a "Christian vocalist." What makes her different from any other vocalist and why doesn't she use the term Christian Music vocalist instead? That I think was most likely what she meant, but her use of the term sounds like this women is somehow a better singer because she is a Christian. She may be a great singer, but to listen to her sing a ballad over another singer just because she is a Christian is a sad way to go about things. To listen to her because she sings a type of music you like better than others is fine and understandable.

Religious labels have crept into the culture at an alarming rate. We have Christian Business directories out there with Christian Mechanics. I guess Christians are supposed to keep to their own kind or something.

Is the term "Christian" being co-opted by fundamentalists? I would say yes. I would hope mainstream or liberal Christians take back the name and don't make it some kind of label of superiority, which holds an ominous tone of past troubles.

Cleanliness Run Amuck

Street cleaners clean up evidence after shooting.

Hypocrite Chabot

Where was Steve Chabot when Jesse Helms was keeping 100+ Clinton Judicial nominees from the courts? Nowhere I would surmise. Whining about a general comment by Specter is grandstanding for the reactionaries he champions. This is yet another example of Chabot just ignoring the fact that a significant number of his constituents believe in the choice. He would say most certainly that even before he got one letter or phone call from one of his constituents with a pro-choice viewpoint, that he would vote for what ever law the anti-abortion groups tell him to vote for. That surely things fair and honest consideration.

Specter has voted for openly anti-abortion justices before. He will likely do it again. He was stating the obvious point that the Dems, if they have any spine, will filibuster any extreme right justices, and make it impossible to approve them. The right will bitch and moan about it, but the Dems should push Bush for another Sandra Day O’Connor to be appointed, not another Scalia. It does depend on who is the first to step down. If Rehnquist goes, the Dems will likely not go nuclear on a far right winger. Who they would may chief would be a battle, but not as big one. If O’Connor or one of the liberals step down, then yes, there will be a battle royal in the Senate.

Chabot frankly should worry more about idiots like Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Oklahoma) who wants to read everyone's tax return and worry about passing intelligence reform. Also, did Chabot vote to for the Delay Rule? It was a behind closed doors voice vote, but does he have the courage and honesty to come right out and say if he was in favor of accountability for GOP House leadership, or if he was willing to change the rules in midstream just because they need the “Hammer” to wield his dirty dealings in the future?

Onward Christian Airman?

Thank Zeus for a military academy with a little bit of sense. I wonder how the sheltered Larry Redwine, baseball coach at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, would react to this? I guess having a Christian Air Force might be his idea of good Christian government, which reflects the "political philosophy" he votes for. It is odd that he thinks people are out to get him and other conservative Christians, when he and his gang won the White House. I guess the FBI is raiding Churches left and right. Preachers are being pulled from the pulpit. Bibles are being burned. Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ must have been banned from every theater.

No, none of those things are happening. Freedom to practice Christianity is as free as it ever was, if not more. The Freedom to not practice Christianity is not fairing so well. We have a football coach pushing his religion on his military wards. That is theocracy in action. The military has a serious problem of pushing Christianity and general monotheism on service members. That is a tool of the radicals in the Christian right. They are becoming what internationally has been a common description of foreign military forces. We have a hardline religious movement infesting itself in our military. Our military is no different than Pakistan's military which has a huge faction of Islamic extremists believed to be the source of power and money for the Taliban and in turn Al Qaeda.

Sure, people like Larry and the Air Force coach see their religion as benevolent. Well, I'm sure Vladimir Putin thinks he is doing what is best for his people by taking away the freedom of the press in Russia. Here in Ohio, I would bet in Phil Burress's warped Fundamentalist mind he thinks he is helping out homosexuals by denying them civil rights. The problem Mr. Redwine misses is that if is going to judge "Liberals" in a generality, then we can judge his "Christianity" in a generality and illustrates the hate of homosexuals, of women, of Muslims, of Jews, of Blacks, of Catholics, of Asians, of Atheists, that his religion has. Now, of course "his religion" is not all of Christianity. Christianity, which includes Mormons and Catholics, is a wide variety of sects with various views on everything. Many of the Christians in Hollywood, and yes a majority would consider themselves Christian, would agree that the Jesus Character does offer "love, forgiveness, salvation, caring and giving." What they disagree with is that Jesus would want a government that forces anyone to worship in a way they might disagree with. Jesus was written after all as a Liberal.

Wes Flinn takes Larry to task as well.

I can’t wait for someone to call me anti-Christian for this post. Any takers?

One Party Rule

Kevin Drum lists out the "accomplishments" of the Republicans since they won their "huge mandate."

They really voted to give Bush a Yacht. Yes, a freakin Yacht. We have people who can't afford college, but yes, Bush gets a Yacht. Did he ask for one or is someone in Congress trying to bring Business to a company in their district? I would not be surprised about both being true. Why haven't the Dems hit on this yet? They had all day today to nail then on both the Yacht and the idiot from Oklahoma who wants to read everyone's tax returns. It is time to stop being cordial and take out the knives. Draw a little blood. Make every step the GOP takes to destroy credibility of the country and of our money painful. We instead get bland outrage. I want someone on CNN screaming. Let some low level Congressman earn his pay and bite off some heads.

Will this accomplish much? Nothing in the short run. It will give the GOP a talking point, but it puts them on the defense and on notice that they don't have a mandate. They won a slight majority of the popular vote, that does give them the right to do as they please. Someone must keep them honest. When I say honest I fully understand that no politician is honest, but the expression still fits. Someone has to prevent the right-wing from going insane, or rather allow them to act out their insanity in the form of legislation. So far the Dems haven't been much more than commentators analyzing the fight at the Pistons-Pacers game.