I saw this referenced last night in numerous “Tweets”, and it slipped my mind until Lowell posted this today on Blue Virginia:

From Salon.com:

Yes, Muslims have infiltrated the Pentagon for their nefarious, prayerful purposes — daring to practice their religion inside the building where 184 people died on Sept. 11, 2001. They haven’t even had the sensitivity to move two blocks, let alone a mile, away from that sacred site.

The “desecration” began shockingly soon after the attacks. Cox reported in October 2001:

“Army Chaplain Abdul-Rasheed Muhammad, the first Muslim chaplain to serve in the military, read a verse from the Koran at the memorial service at the Pentagon on Thursday, exactly one month after the attack. Muhammad, who became a chaplain eight years ago and works at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, ministered to rescuers in front of the smoldering Pentagon after the attack.”

Any guesses as to why no one has ever heard about Muslims praying at the Pentagon — let alone cared? It’s almost as if the entire “ground zero mosque” controversy was whipped up out of nothing by a right-wing tabloid and politicians in search of a wedge issue …

Naw, the righties wouldn’t do that, would they?This mosque has been inside The Pentagon since before the September 11th attacks, and not a peep from the wingnuts, yet a mosque being built near Ground Zero has them frothing at the mouth. Nah, not political at all.

And what better place for political theater than near the lights of Broadway.

What a bunch of two-faced hypocrites.  

I am currently reading the official one volume history of Virginia: Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia 1607-2007. It was written as part of the Quatricentennial Books initiative in 2007. What is striking to me is how much of our current politics are simply echoes of what has gone before here in our Virginia.

Take transportation, for example, where the saga of roads in Northern Virginia has occupied the entirety of my political experience. In reading about the political debates of the mid 1800s, it is striking how much ink was spilled over whether to build and fund a canal from Richmond to the Ohio river. And the three attempts to do so were stymied by a lack of funding and opposition from traditionalists who did not like the idea of paying money to fund transportation for the dynamic regions of the economy. Eventually, the whole effort went belly up.

Personally surveyed and planned by George Washington  himself, the canal was begun in 1785 under the James River Company, and later restarted under the James River and Kanawha Canal Company. It was only half completed by 1851. It was an expensive project which failed several times financially and was frequently damaged by floods. By the time it was halted, it had only reached Buchanan, in Botetourt County, Virginia, even though it was largely financed by the Commonwealth of Virginia through the Virginia Board of Public Works. When work to extend the canal further west stopped permanently, railroads were overtaking the canal as a far more productive mode of transportation. – Wikipedia

In the 1830s and 1840s many in Richmond did not want to build roads, canals, and bridges for the benefit of dynamic local economies brought about by waves of people new to the Old Dominion. And when they eventually did try to build something it was a failed financial boondoggle. Funny, that sounds familiar.  

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

This may well be premature, but the award for Best Subject Line in the category Histrionic Email Blast in the wake of the grand-slam Prop 8 victory (ruling here) goes to Brian S. Brown of NOM:

“Federal Judge Rules Marriage Unconstitutional!”

I say this as kindly as is humanly possible: Brian, you idiot. Marriage is not unconstitutional. What is unconstitutional is your demand that our civil government define marriage in the same strained, narrow, unrealistic, exclusionary way that you do.  This trial represented an open invitation and opportunity for your side to demonstrate before the world why your demand should be met. Your side failed to do that – because the evidence in support of your position simply doesn’t exist. You did your best, but you fell short. That is not anyone’s fault, because not even the best lawyer, or the best witness, can present evidence that isn’t there. As Judge Walker puts it with regard to the absolute best expert witness your side could come up with (in one of those 21-word sentences legal opinions seem to require when a five-word sentence would otherwise suffice) “His opinion lacks reliability, as there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion Blankenhorn proffered.”

Some also-rans (thanks for playing!):

Wendy Wright of “Concerned Women for America” gets it partially right; the ruling does indeed go beyond the issue of marriage equality and pointedly addresses the question of what our Constitution and Judicial branch of government are for. The answer to this question is one that those of a certain authoritarian bent have never been able to accept; in another context, “(w)here the Bill of Rights really has its value is as a check against the tyranny of the majority,” and this applies to the Constitution as a whole. The unintentionally revealing comment from Newt Gingrich is a case in point: “…judges who oppose the American people are a growing threat to our society.” Back to civics class, Mr. Gingrich. Please show us where in the Constitution it says that “the Judicial Branch shall be a rubber stamp for whatever happens to be the current proclivity of ‘the American people.'” What do you imagine the phrase “independent judiciary” to signify, if not independence from some obligation to uphold majority political opinion?

Such faux-conservative outrage over the failure of “unelected judges” to rubberstamp the prejudices of those who didn’t elect them is nothing new. “Movement conservatives” of the Goldwater era wanted to vaporize the Warren court and “restore constitutional government” in part because the freedom of white people to engage in racial discrimination was being abridged. Today’s faux-conservatives can bray all they like that this is completely different, but their objection is exactly the same: Having their demand for special rights rejected by “judges who oppose the American people.” And we cannot find a stronger illustration of their intention than that provided by Chuck Colson of the Loudoun-headquarted Prison Fellowship Ministries. His response is a fundamental rejection of our form of government, which includes three independent branches. It is, frankly, a call to sedition.

The end-unit house in my row is in foreclosure, again. This is the third time owners have moved out of that house since I moved into the neighborhood a little more than four years ago. This time, however, it’s a little bit different if not downright ironic.

The owner who was foreclosed upon this time had lost her job about a year ago, not too long after she bought the house. She had worked at Fannie Mae. Her former employer had backed the mortgage on her house, but when she tried to rework her payment terms after going into default (because she lost her job), Fannie Mae refused to work with her. Of course, when Fannie Mae got in trouble the government helped them out, but that principle doesn’t apply to little people.

In a final insult, my former neighbor got a new job not too long after she started missing payments, but that wasn’t enough to let her keep her house. Even with evidence of employment, Fannie Mae foreclosed on her. And now, the house at the end of my row is growing weeds in the flowerbeds and has paint cans in trash bags lined up on the porch. (Update) – As of this afternoon, there was a crew cleaning the house and wedding its yard, hired by the bank’s realtor.What happens in the mortgage business is simply crazy. Remember Wells Fargo suing itself to recover money from itself? This stuff is still happening. In spite of government programs that try to help, people aren’t getting help. Our housing finance system is still a mess, and there is only one candidate for Congress talking about it, Jeff Barnett.

With one of five mortgages “underwater,” tens of thousands of our neighbors live in constant fear of losing everything. They are one bad break — sickness, job loss — away from going bankrupt. They lose their home and their life savings.

I will champion three immediate steps to help homeowners:

• Institutionalize the short-sale process so homeowners can force a short-sale when their bank refuses to modify an underwater mortgage.
• Guarantee an FHA loan two years after the short sale – so homeowners with good credit can recover.
• Give homeowners the same bankruptcy protections we give big corporations.

None of these proposals should cost the federal government a penny. They won’t weaken the financial system – banks have already written off underwater mortgages. Our government must help middle class homeowners caught up in the housing bubble. We cannot forget the Too-Small-To-Save.

This is a problem that isn’t going away. Jeff Barnett knows that there is a lot of work still to be done.  

[Update] Following on Doorbellqueen’s comment, here’s an idea from a couple years ago that would definitely solve these problems, but it got nowhere: Own To Rent.

Here’s how the plan works. Currently, if a homeowner is not able to make their mortgage payments, the holder of the mortgage can go to court to place the house in foreclosure. At that point, if the homeowner is not able to come up with back payments on the mortgage, or work out an acceptable arrangement with the mortgage holder, the bank or financial institution that holds the mortgage retakes ownership of the house and can have the homeowner evicted.

Under this security of housing proposal, the foreclosure process would be changed so that the current homeowner would have the option to remain in their house as a renter paying the fair market rent. If a homeowner chose to go this route, the judge in the foreclosure proceeding would appoint an independent appraiser to determine the fair market rent for the house. This is similar to the process a bank undertakes when it hires an appraiser to determine the value of the house before issuing a mortgage, except the appraiser will be asked to determine the rent rather than the sale price. – Dean Baker, TPM Cafe

Analysis at Prop 8 Trial Tracker

(Here’s a taste of the opinion issued by Judge Walker -P13)

In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents’ case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate.

In June, I suggested two ideas that might help marginally improve Loudoun’s environment. Don’t mow on bad air quality days, and ask employers to provide freedom to work from home on bad air quality days. I even suggested that Loudoun’s government take the lead on these ideas. Well, as it turns out, it already has!

Supervisor Burk responded to my letter about these ideas and let me know that the County already prohibits powered landscaping (mowing, etc.) on Code Orange and Code Red air quality days. And the County has one of the most progressive telework programs of any local government, and has had it for years.

I like being wrong, when it means that good ideas are already in place well before I caught up and thought of them. Kudos to Loudoun!

So back on July 27, Rush Limbaugh said:

It’s left who thinks “America’s chickensssss came home to roost” on 9/11.  It’s the American left that thinks we got what we deserved on 9/11.  

Uh…No. It was Jerry Falwell who said that.

My friend, Michael, pointed out that it was Ward Churchill who wrote an essay on the Justice of Roosting Chickens. However, Falwell did say we got what we deserved. Look at the video after the jump.

Exhuming McCarthy

(part one in a possible series)

Frank Wolf held a jobs fair in Leesburg last week.

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA-10) will be hosting another 10th District job fair this week, this time at Harper Park Middle School in Leesburg.

More than 40 federal agencies and private sector companies are scheduled to exhibit, including Cox Communications, Middleburg Bank, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Prince William County Police and Telos Corporation. – Leesburg Today

Funny thing about that, Supervisor Kelly Burk did that first, back in April.

We have 40 business ready to hire summer high and college kids. Everything from the Washington Airport Authority to retail stores. Please help me spread the word about the Job Fair, April 10, noon to three at 211 Cactoctin Circle. – Kelly Burk

A difference, of course, is the fact that it is young people who are suffering the worst unemployment in this recession. So, Supervisor Burk targeted her job fair to those who need the most help. Kudos to Supervisor Burk for identifying a specific problem, and developing a solution.Frank Wolf’s job fair was simply another in a long line of photo opportunities. How can it be otherwise when Loudoun has a 4.9% unemployment rate, half of almost anywhere else. Of course, even with low unemployment, many of our neighbors are still looking for work. And yet, Frank Wolf is one of the staunchest supporters of expanding the H1B visa program, which is rife with abuse.

It’s not about jobs with Frank Wolf. It’s about appearances.

Vote Jeff Barnett in November!

A couple of months ago, Paradox13 berated me for saying something rotten about myself. “No one talks to my friends that way,” he said.

This link made me think of him.