The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. Having organized protests against the Republican Convention, I found I had a core of activists who were looking to me for support after Bush "won" re-"election". My carefully thought out suggestions as to where we could go from that defeat led to this more-or-less weekly newsletter. EVERYONE REMEMBER: TUESDAY IS ELECTION DAY IN MANY STATES. VOTE!

This week I discuss the declining Republican Party, Ann Coulter's Extremist Intolerance, Child Soldiers in Burma, Rudy Giuliani's screwing of New York's firefighters, and rape and women's rights in Indian Country. I also focus on local actions and events in New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Virginia, California, Iowa and Mississippi. Don't forget to visit an advertiser or two and if you want more, please visit Culture Kitchen.

When Ann Coulter appeared on Chris Matthews's "Hardball" and unleashed more of her diseased venom against John Edwards, statements so scurrilous, dishonest and thoroughly pathetic that they need not be repeated here, it was easy to see a familiar pattern.

Matthews is on MSNBC, the same network that brought Phil Donahue's show to a quick halt for allegedly "bad ratings" that were better than Matthews's.  The difference was that while Matthews fawns over figures such as Coulter, Dick Cheney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Donahue had the true audacity to present speakers with differing viewpoints to the Cheney-Bush full speed ahead Iraq invasion.

One of the most candidly memorable interviews in an ever nose-diving mainstream media occurred when Donahue interviewed former Desert Storm commander General Norman Schwarzkopf, who explained that a decision was made not to invade Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War for reasons that have been confirmed in tragic detail.

Schwarzkopf asserted that with the major religious and ideological split dividing Iraq consisting of Shiites and Sunnis that if America invaded turmoil would result in a nation that would be soon enveloped in bloody civil war.  Has anyone seen any recent repeats of this interview?

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. After much pressure from readers, this email newsletter is now going the blog route. I update the blog once a week focusing on both national issues and issues of interest to particular regions or states. In general, NYC, California, New Jersey, Virginia and the Midwest get special attention simply because those are the areas where I seem to have the most readers.

This week I discuss the consequences of Republican Domestic policy, more on Republican corruption, and revisit the Ann Coulter boycott. If you visit my blog, don't forget to click on an advertiser or two since that helps me keep the blog going. As usual I also highlight local events and organizations for several states. And, if you want more political and social discussions, please check out our offerings on Culture Kitchen.

This week I discuss the debates (briefly), Bush's veto, Ann Coulter, and the terrible malaise Bush has placed over the Republican Party. If you visit my blog, don't forget to click on an advertiser or two since that helps me keep the blog going. As usual I also highlight local events and organizations for several states. And, if you want more political and social discussions, please check out our offerings on Culture Kitchen.

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. After much pressure from readers, this email newsletter is now going the blog route. I update the blog once a week focusing on both national issues and issues of interest to particular regions or states. In general, NYC, California, New Jersey, Virginia and the Midwest get special attention simply because those are the areas where I seem to have the most readers.

This week I discuss the Democratic approach to getting out of Iraq, targeting Ann Coulter, reform in NY State, recycled paper, Barack Obama's response to Democracy for America and some strategy for 2008 based on Rove's strategy. If you visit my blog, don't forget to click on an advertiser or two. As usual I also highlight local events and organizations for several states. And, if you want more political and social discussions, please check out our offerings on Culture Kitchen.

The Progressive Democrat Newsletter grew out of the frustration of the 2004 election. After much pressure from readers, this email newsletter is now going the blog route. I update the blog once a week focusing on both national issues and issues of interest to particular regions or states. In general, NYC, California, New Jersey, Virginia and the Midwest get special attention simply because those are the areas where I seem to have the most readers.

This week I discuss how Republicans hurt our troops, Rudy Giuliani's flip flops, Democratic Presidential hopefuls going to Indian Country, and LOTS of stuff about Ann Coulter. If you visit my blog, don't forget to click on an advertiser or two. As usual I also highlight local events and organizations for several states, including some real disgusting stuff about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in NYC. And, if you want more political and social discussions, please check out our offerings on Culture Kitchen.

Better late than never, this week's posts about the religious right from The Greater Blogosphere are as concerning, thought provoking and even inspiring as ever. This week there are notable posts on taking action on a number of fronts: including how better contend with aspects of the politics of the religious right in the GOP; refuting the revisionist history in a highly touted Bible study program marketed to schools; debunking a religious right talking point on stem cell research --  and a hair-raising expose of the unholy alliance between Christian rightists and Democrats against medical privacy in Texas.

Speaking at the recent Reclaiming America for Christ conference, (televangelist D. James Kennedy's annual political rally), Ann Coulter not only repeated her now infamous anti-gay slur to the Christian group, but she declared that she can "understand" the assassination of doctors who perform legal abortions.

In demagogic fashion, Coulter first presented the shocking view -- and then wink, wink -- said she didn't really mean it; but in doing so, still held fast to the argument that leaders of the underground Army of God have used for years to justify the murder of abortion providers -- which she calls "a procedure with a rifle."  

Rush Limbaugh as a vessel of hate is a reliable barometer of where the Republican right that preaches about Christian virtue and compassionate conservatism really stands.  Limbaugh seemingly cannot go long without making tasteless comments laced with venom, a pattern as habitual as a duck taking to water.

Limbaugh's latest disgrace is his verbal attack on Michael J. Fox for having the sheer audacity to make a commercial favoring a Democrat running for political office, as the popular actor did when he endorsed Claire McCaskill for the Senate in Missouri.  

In observing that Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, was noticeably shaking during the commercial message in which he lauded McCaskill for her support of stem cell research, correlating it with efforts to combat diseases such as the one from which he suffers, Limbaugh made one of his sickest comments yet. Considering his extensive track record that encompasses significant ground.

Limbaugh made the observation that Fox in the ad for McCaskill appeared not to have taken his medication.  Later in the week, after being subjected to strong criticism for his tasteless observation, Limbaugh made a conditional apology.  "If I was really wrong then I apologize," Limbaugh responded.

Is author and pundit Ann Coulter on her way to becoming the new leader of the religious right?

Well, maybe not exactly.  Not yet anyway.  But if her new book is any indication, she wants to be a contender. Godless: the Church of Liberalism, is a vintage screed that like many a tome before it, riffs off of the central frame of the religious right for the past generation or so.

Her main argument is that liberalism is a religion. This is, of course, an indefensible conceit. But it  does help her to be able to say that liberals are busy chasing people of faith out of the public square. Her baseless claim is a variant on the frame that "secular humanists" are in a battle against Christianity, and of course, chasing them out of "the public square." This has been The Central Frame of the religious right for a generation. Christian right groups once went so far as to argue in federal court that Alabama school books advanced the alleged religion of "secular humanism" and therefore violated the establishment clause of the constitution.  The courts found that argument silly, and found for Mobile Alabama school board on that one.

Coulter's title also blatantly echoes a refrain from the McCarthy era as rightwing preachers and pols alike railed against "godless communism."

Claiming that liberals are godless is a silly old canard and easily debunked. But fortunately for Coulter, liberals and democrats are not very good at answering the charge. (I have discussed this point, among other places, here and here, so I will not belabor it at the moment.) So let's look for a promising place to start.

If there is one person you can count on for clockwork reliability, it is David Horowitz, the guy who "repented" from his earlier radical left youth phase to find the kind of endruing peace and harmony that only the world of the political right can truly know and experience.

When we last focused on Horowitz in this column he had an ambitious project commensurate with his career fixation of ridding society of those who dare to hold a different view than the Cheney-Bush-Coulter-Fox News Axis of Supreme Wisdom and Grand Patriotism.  In the best tradition of Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, Horowitz is never content unless he is engaged in some form of witch-hunt.

Horowitz's website has been dedicated to the fundamental purpose of exposing any college or university professors who hold a different view from the current Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert, along with their American brethren of the neoconservative movement such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Newt Gingrich, and Tom DeLay.  

Neocons proudly refer to the Likud Party as "the Republican Party of Israel."  

We often talk about the Republican Culture of Corruption, the excessive cronyism that exists between current Halliburton Republicans and the military-industrial complex. In today's Republican party, there is the ultimate fulfillment of what President Eisenhower warned the nation against. But bad though the widespread Republican Culture of Corruption is, there is an even worse side to the modern right wing: the Culture of Intolerance and Violence.

One of the worst examples of this was the Delaware Pogrom.

Hate Crimes have been on the rise in America since 9/11, and, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, hate groups in America have increased by 33% in the past five years. A peak in attacks on Muslims after 9/11 was rapidly followed by an increase in anti-Semitism in the US and worldwide. There was a slight decline in anti-Semetic incidents in 2005, but incidents are still at disturbingly high levels.

Ann Coulter is in trouble. Her long time habit of plagiarizing other writers is finally catching up with her, as not just the bloggers have noticed, but a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the New York Post, has taken a crack at bottom feeding bomb-thrower:

Historian Arnold Toynbee defined the point at which any society becomes decadent.  Toynbee mentioned that this occurs when a society dwells upon its sex organs and displays no respect for the dead.

Tragically, child pornography on the Internet represents dire decadence.  Grave robbers and the Iraq War dead evidence disrespect for the dead.  This disrespect is also evident in Ann Coulter's disrespect for the widows of the 9/11 tragedies.  This fits another decadence definition.

Listening to Ann Coulter being interviewed on Fox New Sunday evening revealed her disrespect for the dead.  Her judgment of the widows of 9/11 definitely reached a decadent low, fitting uniquely in Arnold Toynbee's definition of the pivotal point at which a society is on its last legs.  

The fact that Ann Coulter's books have achieved consistent bestseller status makes one wonder exactly what kind of people would buy a book by such a brazen, heartless, ignorant individual.

cc: of a letter sent to The Tonight Show

Dear Jay,

I caught your show last night.

It's been a long time since I've watched The Tonight Show, but George Carlin was on and who can pass that up?  You know what I'm saying.   We're from the same neighborhood.  He's a bit older than me and we traveled in different circles, but I still feel a sort of misplaced local pride in his success. Besides he's funny as hell.

Listening to him last night was an eye opener for me.  Not the "I'm a modern man..." riff.  That was just a rollercoaster fun ride.  What struck me was how long he's been in the business and how many times he's been on the Tonight Show.  It never occurred to me how much NBC has been a part of my life, especially when I was growing up.