If You Do Something Stupid, Double Down

In this instance, speaking of Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, who, as you will remember, fired the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt for trying to take care of his crew. Well, he outdid himself this morning:

The Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly blasted the now ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as "stupid" in an address to the ship's crew Monday morning, in remarks obtained by CNN.

Modly told the crew that their former commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, was either "too naive or too stupid" to be in command or that he intentionally leaked to the media a memo in which he warned about coronavirus spreading aboard the aircraft carrier and urged action to save his sailors.

The acting secretary accused Crozier of committing a "betrayal" and creating a "big controversy" in Washington by disseminating the warning so widely.

The only betrayal is that Trump didn't look good. (t'[s still unconfirmed, but the word is that the firing originated with Trump.)

This is the crew that cheered Capt. Crozier as he left the ship. Modly must have a death wish -- except that those who are really serving have too much respect for the service.

And what are the odds that this is another distraction to throw into the mix. There is, after all, an election coming up, and you can bet Trump is shitting bricks over his chances of winning another term.

If you're still wondering what kind of human being -- and I use the term in its biological sense -- Modly is, note this from arch-conservative Bill Kristol:

Perhaps worth remembering that Modly is Acting Secretary because he, unlike his predecessor, had no problem acquiescing to Trump's pardoning war criminals.https://t.co/gq25wnggn3

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 6, 2020

Via Joe,.My.God.,

Well, Who Would Have Guessed?

Well, I guess that settles that:

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a statement Thursday claiming the FBI’s report on SCOTUS justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh found “no hint of misconduct.”

Why do I think that was the instruction given to the FBI? Maybe because of this:

Grassley added that the report contained nothing that “we didn’t already know.”

And it looks as though at least one Democrat agrees with me:

Just read the FBI report on Kavanaugh - if that’s an investigation, it’s a bullshit investigation. pic.twitter.com/9D8oeVMEoU

— Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) October 4, 2018

The link in the first post from Joe.My.God. cited above does not lead to the CNN report, as it claims, but to this, which is another confirmation of what I expected:

Two key Republican senators who have been undecided on whether to vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh described the FBI's findings of an investigation into President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee as a thorough report, contrasting with Democrats' objections that the inquiry was rushed and incomplete.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Thursday that the FBI probe into allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual behavior against Kavanaugh seems to be "very thorough" and said she would read the findings in full later in the day.

"It appears to be a very thorough investigation," Collins, who has not yet indicated how she plans to vote on the nomination, told reporters in the Capitol.

Collins is among a handful of senators whose votes could decide the fate of the nomination. The Maine Republican -- along with Republican Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democratic Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota -- are under intense scrutiny for clues as to how they may vote on the nomination as Senate Republicans push for a final vote, which could happen as early as Saturday.

So they've got the cover they need to vote "yes". How nice for them.

How awful for the rest of us.

If anyone thought this "investigation" was going to produce anything substantive, or anything that in any way jeopardized Kavanaugh's confirmation, they've been living in an alternate reality.

And this in itself should disqualify him:

SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh took the unusual step of publishing a Wall Street Journal op-ed claiming he’s been a victim in the process.Wrote the candidate, who ran to the totally non-partisan FOX News for an interview when he felt his nomination was in trouble:

“As I explained that night, a good judge must be an umpire—a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no political party, litigant or policy. As Justice Kennedy has stated, judges do not make decisions to reach a preferred result. Judges make decisions because the law and the Constitution compel the result. Over the past 12 years, I have ruled sometimes for the prosecution and sometimes for criminal defendants, sometimes for workers and sometimes for businesses, sometimes for environmentalists and sometimes for coal miners. In each case, I have followed the law. I do not decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

Based on his record, horsepucky.

Footnote: Here's one take on why the "investigation" was a sham.

Joke du Jour (Update, Update II)

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, as quoted at Joe.My.God.:

"We've been caricatured as being anti-gay," Dolan said in an interview airing Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "And as much as we'd say, 'Wait a minute, we're pro marriage, we're pro traditional marriage, we're not anti anybody,' I don't know. "When you have forces like Hollywood, when you have forces like politicians, when you have forces like some opinion-molders that are behind it, it's a tough battle," he said. The legal battle over same-sex marriage has moved to states, following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down a tenet of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. "I think I'd be a Pollyanna to say that there doesn't seem to be kind of a stampede to do this," Dolan told David Gregory of Meet the Press. "I regret that. I wish that were not the case for the states."

"Caricatured"? Is he serious? This from one of the most stridently anti-gay voices in the public sphere -- who, incidentally, did his share to cover up child sexual abuse by Catholic priests and to shield the Church's money from the victims' awards for reparations.

If the hierarchy really wonders why the Church is losing adherents, they need look no farther than Cardinal Timothy Dolan, whose moral compass seems to be pointing due South.

Update: And if the good Cardinal wants to know why the Church is seen as homophobic, he might want to consult with one of his colleagues from Malta:

Malta’s Auxiliary Bishop has spoken out to express his displeasure at the lack of a clear difference between marriage and civil partnerships in the debate around civil partnerships for same-sex couples in Malta, saying that gay people do “not produce offspring” so do “not have a role in society”.

Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna made the comments on PBS’s Dissett, during an interview with the PBS Head of News Reno Bugeja.

“While the sexual activity of heterosexual couples has a fundamental role in producing future members of the society, that of same-sex couples does not have a role in society as it does not produce offspring,” he said.

The more I look at that statement, the more mind-numbingly stupid it appears. What ever gave the bishop that anyone's sex life has anything to do with "society"? I'll continue to keep mine private, thank you.

(Update II:) A number of the commenters on this story have pointed out that, if he's following the rules, the bishop has not procreated either, and thus has no place in society.

The Mess at Penn State

Here's a very good post from Pam Spaulding that summarizes everything I know about the Sandusky/pedophilia nightmare at Penn State, and adds a few items I wasn't aware of.

I've read all sorts of reporting and commentary on this, and in most cases the commentary is pretty solid -- Paterno and Spanier should certainly have been fired, and a few others -- Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, at least -- should go, as well.

Mike McQueary is a more difficult question. I've read opinions that he should have directly intervened when he witness Sandusky assaulting a 10-year-old in the showers, and he probably should have, but how many of us would? Consider that the man witnessed something shocking being done by someone that, in theory at least, had been held up as someone to be admired. He was, the report says, distraught, and probably was not thinking too clearly. He did report it, and I think, given the normal patterns of human behavior, at that point he considered that he'd done what he could do.

That bothers me the most is that, as of the latest reports I've read, nothing has been done on behalf of the victims. Maybe that will come, if there's the investigation that has to happen. What concerns me is that there's enough in the way of "special interests" in this case that any further investigation will be quashed. I mean, look how long it took for anyone to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse against the Catholic Church.

These Guys Just Don't Get It

The moral outrage of the true Catholics is up in full force. This is from Georg Neumayr, and earned Sullivan's Malkin Award, for good reason:

Since when have secularists and dissenting Catholics been experts on the protection of children? These self-appointed reformers of the Catholic Church preside over a debased culture that abuses, aborts and corrupts children. That a reckless and depraved liberal elite would set itself up as moral tutor to Pope Benedict XVI is beyond satire. Here we had on display during Holy Week the spectacle of the Vicar of Christ receiving moral instruction from Barabbas. Who turns orphans over to homosexual couples at adoption agencies? Who sends Planned Parenthood propagandists into schools? Who clears the streets of major cities for "gay-pride" parades with the North American Man/Boy Love Association in tow? It is the liberal elite who champion these child-corrupting practices. . . .

Can't forget NAMBLA, now, can we? Especially considering the nature of the crisis the Church is facing. Got to drag them into the picture, except that their agenda and the Church's seem more in tune than either is with anyone else's.

The Vatican has apparently decided that the best defense is a strong offense -- you see, it's a conspiracy against the Church:

The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.

"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.

Meanwhile, in Maine, the hierarchy's compassion is sticking out all over the place:

Two weeks ago, we learned that the Bishop of Maine, Richard Malone, stopped funding Homeless Voices for Justice, because the group's parent organization, Preble Street, opposed the repeal of Maine's same-sex marriage law. Bishop Malone led the repeal campaign, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on it while simultaneously shutting down parishes in the state. Like most Catholic leaders, Malone is driven by homophobia.

There's been an outpouring of support for Preble Street since the Bishop's announcement. Today, my sister, Karen, informed me that the Governor, John Baldacci, is hosting a fundraiser for Preble Street. Karen told me it was the Governor's idea to host the fundraiser. He wanted to do it. The Governor, who is Catholic, signed the marriage equality legislation last year -- and campaigned hard to prevent its repeal.

This is from the thank-you that Joe Sudbay got for his contribution:

"Poor and vulnerable people have a special place in Catholic social teaching. A basic moral test of a society is how its most vulnerable members are faring...Our tradition calls us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first."

One of my buttons, and the one sure to send me into a towering rage, is the idea of the misuse of power over those who can't defend themselves. That applies to institutions no less than individuals, and the Church has taken first place on that list.

It's Not Either/Or

OK -- we all know about Dan Choi and Jim Pietrangelo and their very dramatic demonstration last weekend. (Although Choi maintains his position as poster child.) This is rebounding very badly against HRC, which committed a grave tactical error in not joining Choi and Peitrangelo at the White House. In fact, it's close to being a direct confrontation between Choi and HRC.

Andrew Sullivan quotes Choi:

"When I get messages from people who want to be a part of this I ask back: what are you willing to sacrifice? ... I'm giving up my military rank, my unit—which to me is a family—my veterans' benefits, my HRC health care, so what are you willing to sacrifice? They say freedom is not free, but it doesn't have to cost anything either. Jesus up on the cross did not have a party with all his major donors to raise money for his cause, his cross was free. Ghandi did not need three-course dinners and a cocktail party to get his message out. These are people who sacrificed their lives. For them it was hemlock, a cross, the bullet that shot Harvey Milk … it was not the size of their distribution list, but their message that endured...

When I heard Kathy Griffin was going to be a spokeswoman for Don't Ask, Don't Tell, I wondered about that. I have great respect for her as an advocate. But if [the Human Rights Campaign] thinks that having a rally at Freedom Plaza with a comedienne is the right approach, I have to wonder. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not a joking matter to me. To be at Freedom Plaza and not at the White House or Congress? Who are they trying to influence? I felt like they were just trying to speak to themselves. If that's the best the lobbying groups and HRC can do, then I don't know how these powerful groups are supposed to represent our community."

One of Sullivan's readers reacts:

I read your quote for the day and agree with Dan Choi. I also agree with you on all things HRC. However, I don't think Dan Choi is the right poster child for the DADT repeal movement either. I met many people at the SLDN [Servicemembers Legal Defense Network] dinner that told me something along the lines of, "Dan Choi does not represent the LGBT military." Chaining himself to the White House fence was an attention grab, just like Kathy Griffin marching in Freedom Plaza was an attention grab. Neither action invited the opposition into real discussion, and neither action provided much sympathy from the opposition. Over-activism usually works against a worthy cause, and chaining yourself to a fence and making a spectacle makes it easy to dismiss the seriousness of DADT. This kind of behavior makes us look like the radical fringe that the right wing wants us to be. Most gays in the military are neither radical, nor fringe.

I want to point out, both to Sullivan's reader and those at SLDN, that this is not an either/or choice. Yes, chaining himself to the White House fence was an attention grab, and there you have, in a nutshell, the whole problem with the establishment gays: they don't want the attention. I'm not going to impute motivations for that stance, but you can see how effective it's been -- HRC has been working on DADT repeal, DOMA repeal, ENDA, and hate crimes for well over a decade and we finally have hate crimes legislation on the books. And all HRC can think to do is say "we're working on it" and lock down the building when some real activists hit down. Dan Choi may not "represent" the LGBT military, but he is the public face, by default -- and that is SLDN's doing.

Pam Spaulding published the results of a reader poll that bears me out:



Spaulding has a good, succinct post that lays it out:

As you can see, putting more LGBTs into office is a great way to change the landscape, and more notably, direct action is effectively tied with letting the professional gays and grassroots activists do the heavy lifting. The element of surprise and action does have a positive impact and breaks movement inertia.

We have an arsenal of effective ways to effect change. Each of us can and must find and use the avenue that is most effective to help the equality effort -- just do something.

We cannot rely on someone else to move Congress or the White House; the reality is that we have more freedom to act because we don't have relationships to maintain with the White House or elected officials on the Hill.

They work for us and it's time to treat them that way. If they don't listen, then it's time to ratchet up the pressure. We, as peons without access, don't have to worry whether we are going to be invited to the next tea or cocktail party at the White House. We're not on the invite list anyway so there aren't any social or political bridges to burn.

It's not about being liked, it's about obtaining our equal rights denied us by our government -- progress blocked by purported allies who are paralyzed by political homophobia and CYA mentality.

This is related to comments I left at PHB at this post:

Solmonese, et al. made a huge blunder by not marching with Choi. Every officer and staffer of HRC should have been there. You can't get anything from people who take you for granted. In my heyday I had the reputation of being a nice, easygoing, patient guy who was very reasonable and realistic and who would eat your liver if you crossed him. Nobody's afraid of Solmonese or HRC because they won't, and now can't, call down thunder and lightning. If you expect to get anything from anyone you're negotiating with, you have to make them a little nervous. Otherwise they'll just nod and do what they were going to do anyway.

I guess my bottom line here is that HRC has no credibility with anyone, that I can see. That doesn't make for effective advocacy.

There's a synergy that develops when you have more than one prong to your attack. We need HRC to be our reasonable face. We need Dan Choi to be our confrontational face. And, I might point out, HRC needs Dan Choi to put some teeth behind its smile. The ufortunate part is that we out here in the boondocks see that, as witnessed by the response's to Spaulding's poll. HRC doesn't get it.

I realize this is kind of scattered -- as usual, I'm trying to do two or three things at once while pulling together threads from the past few days, so be patient. I think I've hit all the major points, though, so -- well, connect the dots.

Update: Here's another dot. Dr. Jillian T. Weiss makes a point I missed: people blogging on our civil rights are necessary, too.

Plausible Deniability

It seems that wherever there's a Catholic church, there's a child sexual abuse scandal. Now it's Germany, and it's at the pope's door -- but of course, he didn't know about it.

The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment beyond the statement by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he said showed the “nonresponsibility” of the pope in the matter.

Even some within the Church are not buying that line:

The former vicar general took full responsibility for the decision to reinstate the priest to pastoral work. “I deeply regret that this decision resulted in offenses against youths and apologize to all who were harmed by it,” he said, according to a statement posted on the archdiocese’s Web site.

There was immediate skepticism that Benedict, as archbishop, would not have known of the details of the case.

The Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, who once worked at the Vatican Embassy in Washington and became an early and well-known whistle-blower on sexual abuse in the church, said the vicar general’s claim was not credible.

“Nonsense,” said Father Doyle, who has served as an expert witness in sexual abuse lawsuits. “Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He’s the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he’s trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope.”

And the Church has the nerve to claim that I'm "intrinsically disordered"?

Update:

HuffPo also has a write-up, which notes this little detail:

The pope, meanwhile, continues to be under fire for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has cited the document as evidence that the Vatican created a "wall of silence" around abuse cases that prevented prosecution. Irish bishops have said the document had been "widely misunderstood" by the bishops themselves to mean they shouldn't go to police. And lawyers for abuse victims in the United States have cited the document in arguing that the Catholic Church tried to obstruct justice.

But canon lawyers insisted Friday that there was nothing in the document that would preclude bishops from fulfilling their moral and civic duties of going to police when confronted with a case of child abuse.

They stressed that the document merely concerned procedures for handling the church trial of an accused priest, and that the secrecy required by Rome for that hearing by no means extended to a ban on reporting such crimes to civil authorities.

"Canon law concerning grave crimes ... doesn't in any way interfere with or diminish the obligations of the faithful to civil laws," said Monsignor Davide Cito, a professor of canon law at Rome's Santa Croce University.

The letter doesn't tell bishops to also report the crimes to police.

Or you can just threaten the victims with excommunication if they complain to anyone.

Just WhenI Thought It Was Safe to Surf

I run across this post by Timothy Kincaid about the latest damage control from the Catholic hierarchy.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, has issued A pastoral message to homosexual Catholics in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles assuring gay Catholics that they “are cherished members of the Catholic Church, and that we value you as equal and active members of the Body of Christ”.

I know what the Cardinal is trying to say. He just wants gay Catholics to know that this very personal action that he encouraged to harm their life wasn’t personal. It’s not out of some desire to hurt them, you see, it’s just out of Mahony’s absolute certainty about how things should be.

And that while he actively seeks to eliminate any measure of equality for same-sex attracted persons either in society or in the Church, he values them as equal members of the Body of Christ. You’re equal in the eyes of God, you see, but dogma and doctrine require that you be treated as intrinsically disordered, not to be protected from death sentences, and psychologically suspect due to your “deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

Read Kincaid's post -- I can't do any better.

Yeah, Right.

A rather dubious "resolution" to the Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair.

I mean, really -- The Weekly Standard?

Let's All Welcome the New War Czar

From Earthlink e-news:

Ewing could only watch as his Chevy Impala sank into the river. No dummy, Charlie jumped out of the window as the car went downhill.