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02.22 Report: Climate Denier to Lead White House Climate Panel [“Stupid is as stupid does.” –Forrest Gump] 02.22 The Uninhabitable Earth [Lots more important than all other problems put together] 02.22 Europe faces 'biodiversity oblivion' after collapse in French birds, experts warn 02.22 World's food supply under 'severe threat' from loss of biodiversity 02.22 Venezuela crisis threatens disease epidemic across continent - experts 02.21 'Moment of reckoning': US cities burn recyclables after China bans imports 02.20 Young climate strikers can win their fight. We must all help 02.20 Voyage to the Garbage Patch: the female sailors taking on plastic 02.19 Bees brought Bavarians together. And they have a lesson for us all 02.19 Florida is drowning. Condos are still being built. Can't humans see the writing on the wall? [Fear that Trump & Fox News incite makes us avoid unpleasant information we need to know] 02.18 Tesla big battery is holding its own in a burgeoning energy storage market 02.18 Trump administration condemned over delaying action on toxic drinking water 02.16 New experimental drug rapidly repairs age-related memory loss and improves mood 02.16 Toxic black snow covers Siberian coalmining region [0:49 video; If its killing us, stop doing it] 02.16 Renewable energy will be world's main power source by 2040, says BP [But in America's capitalistic bubble, bribed-to-be-biased media and government defy reality] 02.16 My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back 02.16 US coastal businesses hit by everyday impact of climate change, study shows 02.16 What the pesticides in our urine tell us about organic food [What does inaction tell us about capitalism and our government?] 02.14 Exposure to Glyphosate-Based Herbicides and Risk for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma: A Meta-Analysis and Supporting Evidence [If its killing us, make it illegal] 02.14 To avoid environmental catastrophe, everything must change [Consider why this headline is laughable or confusing to many, if not most, Americans...]02.13 Study Shows Toxic Pesticide Levels in Families Dropped by 60% After One-Week Organic Diet [2:10 video; Produce and canned vegetables laced with toxic chemicals—from fertilizers and herbicides, too—must be quickly phased out to use safe organic alternatives] 02.12 Biggest offshore windfarm to start UK supply this week 02.12 Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition 02.12 Politicians are complicit in the killing of our insects – we will be next News Media Matters
Daily: FAIR Blog US Politics, Policy & 'Culture'
02.22 So How's Your Tax Refund? Thanks to GOP Tax Scam, Big Banks Made Extra $28 Billion Last Year 02.21 Why Bernie Sanders Matters More Than People Think 02.21 Bezos Says Amazon Drones Ready to Deliver Mueller Report to Every American Household 02.21 Devin Nunes Was Trump’s Mole Inside the Gang of Eight 02.21 Alec Baldwin fears for family's safety after Trump 'retribution' threats [0:40 video] 02.20 ‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates [If you can sense them, block them!] 02.20 The 2020 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet 02.20 Why Bernie Sanders' radicalism can take out Trump 02.20 Why vote for Sanders when you can have Elizabeth Warren instead? Justice Matters
02.19 California Leads 16 States Suing to Block Trump Border Plan 02.19 Fighting pollution: Toledo residents want personhood status for Lake Erie [Hurrah!] High Crimes?
02.20 Despite the slaughter in Yemen, Britain is still chasing arms sales [and the Great-Again-America is too...Capitalism without morality is horrible] 02.16 Elliott Abrams Defends War Crimes As Happening Back In The ’80s When Everyone Was Doing It Economics & Corrupting-Capitalism
02.21 Historian who confronted Davos billionaires leaks Tucker Carlson rant 02.20 A Centuries-Old Idea Could Revolutionize Climate Policy International & Futurism
Sanders Has an Advantage, and It’s Not [Just] About Economics02.22 When multilateralism crumbles, so does our rules-based order [this enables easier corruption by banks and oligarchs and may result in complete societal breakdown, chaos and war] 02.22 Trump has turned foreign aid into shabby political theatre [Psychopaths are a sub-human species without empathy or morals.] 02.21 John Oliver Compares Brexit ‘Disaster’ to Will Smith’s Genie in Live-Action ‘Aladdin’ (Video) [21:26 video; we’re approaching an Idiocracy-type of society, where stupidity is “normal”] 02.20 House report lays bare White House feud over Saudi nuclear push [Its hard to keep up with all the criminal crap going on...] 02.20 My grandfather was a Nazi. I’ve seen why we need the EU 02.19 Centrism isn’t the solution to the mess we’re in 02.19 Renewables need urgent investment to ease Australia's transmission bottlenecks, experts warn We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival. You can also mail a check to: Baltimore News Network, Inc.
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COMMENTARY:Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican LeadershipFriday, 26 June 2009
Gov. Sanford isn't the only "family values" philanderer and hypocrite. Some columns are easier to write than others. This is one of them. Providing all of my research were the "family values" Republicans. This week, second term Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina disappeared for six days, leaving the state without a chief executive who could make decisions in an emergency. His Republican lieutenant governor didn't know where he was, and had not been given any authority to make decisions in his absence. The state police said they had not been informed. His wife told the Associated Press she didn't know where he was, wasn't worried about him, and thought he was "writing something and wanted some space to get away from the kids" over the Father's Day weekend. His senior aides said he was walking along the Appalachian Trail to "clear his head." But it wasn't his head that he was clearing. When he returned, after first lying to a reporter for the Columbia State who caught up with him on his return to the Atlanta airport, he finally admitted he went to Argentina to meet with a long-time lover. His wife, who was not by his side when he held an early afternoon press conference, later said she and the governor had separated two weeks earlier. The State later produced e-mail love letters between Sanford and his lover that it had been keeping since December. The rising young star of the Republican party who was seen as a presidential contender in 2012, the man who was head of the Republican Governors Association until the day after he acknowledged his extramarital affair, the man who had wanted to deprive his state of $700 million in federal stimulus funds as a political message to President Obama, the man who had established himself as a beacon for the sanctity of marriage and the values of the oh-so-pure Religious right, was not only an adulterer, but for at least the second time had left his state at risk, since there were no contingency plans of how to reach him in an emergency. Alas, Gov. Sanford isn't the only "family values" philanderer. Slightly more than a week earlier, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted he had a nine-month extramarital affair with one of his campaign staff. Ensign, who was contemplating a run for president in 2012, had been chair of the Republican Policy Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Like Gov. Sanford, Sen. Ensign only admitted to the affair after information had been leaked to the media. This is the same John Ensign who, as a congressman, had curled his lips in revulsion at Bill Clinton's affair, and demanded he either resign or be impeached. "He has no credibility," Ensign told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1998. Six years later, now a senator, Ensign supported a federal ban on same sex marriages by declaring, "Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded....[M]arriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation." Ironically, Ensign is active in Promise Keepers, an evangelical group. Also vigorously calling for President Clinton's impeachment, while having had their own extramarital affairs and covering them up or lying about them, were:
Add to the list of morally bankrupt Republicans:
Republican leaders aren’t the only ones who commit adultery, nor are conservatives or members of the Religious Right, including preachers, solely the ones to have violated the seventh and tenth Commandments. But, it is the "family values" Republican leaders, who have led the party of right-wing moral indignation; it is the Religious Right that has overtaken the party and wears the now-tarnished shield of righteousness to protect itself against anyone who doesn't share their own views of the world, including moderate and liberal Republicans, and anyone belonging to another political party. The hypocrisy and moral turpitude of the party's leaders is just one reason why only 21 percent of Americans identify themselves as Republicans. Walter M. Brasch is a university professor of journalism, social issues columnist, and the author of 17 books. His current book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, available from amazon.com, bn.com, and other stores. You may contact him through his website, www.walterbrasch.com Copyright © 2009 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on June 26, 2009. |
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