Exciting news – a new documentary by a friend of mine, Cynthia Wade, who made the amazing HBO doc Shelter Dogs (which I talked about here on TCS back in January 2004 ) has been selected to be shown at the 2007 Sundance film festival!

The movie is Freeheld – and trust me you will be hearing a lot more about it in 2007:

From the Freeheld site:

Lieutenant Laurel Hester is dying.

All she wants to do is leave her pension benefits to her life partner - Stacie, so Stacie can afford to keep their house. Laurel is told no; they are not husband and wife.

After spending a lifetime fighting for justice for other people, Laurel - a veteran New Jersey detective - launches a final battle for justice. Knuckle-biting, dramatic Freeheld chronicles a dying policewoman's bitter fight to provide for the love of her life.

Here’s even more scoop on the film from Cynthia:

The story that I have been following is one of Laurel Hester, the NJ Lieutenant who was denied passing on her EARNED pension benefits to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree, because they weren't legally married.

Without the pension, Stacie was going to lose their 2-bedroom ranch house in Point Pleasant, which they renovated together (Laurel was the designer and Stacie the builder). Stacie is an auto mechanic. Laurel spent 27 years putting her life on the line for the citizens of New Jersey -- 25 of them for Ocean County, where she solved double homicide and also put a murderer/rapist behind bars.

The 5 Republican Freeholders denied her repeated requests ... but 3 weeks before Laurel died, she won the right to transfer her benefits to Stacie, and thus started a domino effect across NJ and the nation.

During filming Cynthia had consistent, exclusive access with Laurel and Stacie - she was at all the meetings, slept in their home, and lived with them.

This film is going to be a big deal in 2007 – and the Sundance folks know it.

Here is info about Freeheld being chosen for Sundance:

• The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT will beFreeheld's WORLD PREMIERE.
• 7,732 In total, feature length & short films were submitted for consideration (4,445 were short films).
• FREEHELD was only one of 8 American short documentaries to be selected, and only one of 12 short documentaries in total.
• Freeheld will screen FIVE times between Friday, January 19th and Saturday, January 27th.
• Below are the 5 times & locations for FREEHELD screenings(they aren't set in stone yet, but will be soon).
  • Fri. Jan 19, 8:30 am, Library (448 SEATS)
  • Sat. Jan 20, 12:45 pm, Broadway 5, Salt Lake City (238 SEATS)
  • Sun. Jan 21, 8:30 pm, Prospector (352 SEATS)
  • Tue. Jan 23, 8:30 pm, Holiday II (156 SEATS)
  • Sat. Jan 27, 4:00 pm, Holiday IV (164 SEATS)

So a big Congratulations to Cynthia (and co-producer Matt)! – and everyone make sure you keep an eye out for the film.

I've been wanting to talk about this film on TCS for months! Its wonderful to finally mention the film along with such exciting news.

- rob 11:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

But...but... Fox News and Rush told us the press work make Iraq sound worse then it was. They told us that Bush was right - that schools were being painted and IEDs stood for Improvised Educational Displays. They wouldn't lie to us would they?

Panel: U.S. underreported Iraq violence

WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.
...
The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.

"The standard for recording attacks acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases." It said, for example, that a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack, and a roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count, either. Also, if the source of a sectarian attack is not determined, that assault is not added to the database of violence incidents.

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report said.

Bush not only didn't want us to know the truth - he didn't want to know it either.

- rob 4:52 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Spoiled Rich Whiners

They think they were America's representatives?

Lame-Duck Congress May Run Out the Clock

Congress will convene on Tuesday for what some fear will be the lamest of lame-duck sessions, and GOP leaders have decided to take a minimalist approach before turning over the reins of power to the Democrats. Rather than a final surge of legislative activity, Congress will probably wrap up things after a single, short week of work. They have even decided to punt decisions on annual government spending measures to the Democrats next year.

"There is a lot of battle fatigue among members, probably on both sides of the aisle," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), usually a reliable conservative firebrand. "Contrary to popular belief, members of Congress are human beings. They have a certain shelf life and a certain amount of energy to be drawn on. We're tired."

Oh boo hoo Mr. Pence. I wonder how many voters in Indiana can just stop working because "they're tired" and still get paid?

Want more from the party of trust funds?

Culture Shock on Capitol Hill: House to Work 5 Days a Week

Forget the minimum wage. Or outsourcing jobs overseas. The labor issue most on the minds of members of Congress yesterday was their own: They will have to work five days a week starting in January.

The horror.
...
Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
...
"Keeping us up here eats away at families," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. "Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families -- that's what this says."

Oh golly gosh - did he really say that?

Republicans are perfectly happy to cut funding to child care services for the working poor. Perfectly happy to keep minimum wage untouched so that poor families have to work longer hours to keep a roof over the heads of their children. That's pro-family - don't you know.

But Democrats requiring rich (very rich) politicians work 5 (not even full) days means they aren't anti-family.

please.

- rob 4:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

While searching for my old links about Shelter Dogs I found two posts I'd like to share with you.

From January 27, 2004:

Cruel Men

I forgot to add this quote at the bottom of yesterday's Cold Mountain review, but thought it stands well enough alone.

I have argued with people that the lies about why we went to war are important because 500 plus American soldiers are dead, thousands more are missing arms or legs.

And I have received this answer more than once, and it still stuns me:

"But that's what those folks signed up for when they joined the army."

They signed up to die for a war that wasn't about defending America? They signed up to die for the profits of Halliburton and Bechtel?

So you defecate on the subway platform because people are paid to come and clean it up? I mean that's what they signed up for when they took the job to clean subway platforms. The world need not be that cold a place.

It reminds me of a quote from a cruel, cold, insane man:

"But that's what the young men are there for." - Adolf Hitler.

Anyone who tells you "but hey, they joined the army, that's what they signed up for." Tell them they are an idiot, and to think for a second and wonder why they traded a part of their soul so they could still continue to support Bush and sleep at night. Bush isn't worth it.

We're now at close to 3,000 American soldiers dead, and tens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead - and Bush won't listen to anyone and will not change - and will not budge - and like a child is holding his breath until reality alters to the way he sees it.

And from January 6, 2004:

Taking PATH to the new WTC station.

When heading into New York City yesterday for the film screening I left extra time to take the PATH train to the new WTC station that has opened in the whole that is referred to as ground zero.

Though I've been to NYC many times since 9/11, this was my first time back to lower Manhattan. I really wasn't ready until now. In the late eighties/early nineties when I lived in the city, I worked at Banker's Trust for two years, first taking the World Trade Center PATH train to Jersey City every day for a year, and then working at the Banker's Trust tower right across the street from the WTC for a year.

When I moved back to the NYC area in 1999 I would commute into the city everyday, for much of my first year back, to the same WTC PATH station. I remember when I first moved back feeling an eerie nostalgia of being back a decade later taking the same escalator up into the basement of the two towers. Now just a few years after that the experience was just overpowering sadness.

You come out of the tunnel that goes under the Hudson and you are right in the pit, if I had known ahead of time I might have been a bit more prepared. The station itself is stuck onto the church street side of the pit, like a modern cliff side dwelling. Moving up the escalators it became very unnerving as the walls are nothing more than pro-New York slogans on thin plastic sheeting hiding the chain link fencing that separates us from the rest of the hole. The station layout was almost exactly the same as it was before. I was again in the station I had been in over a 1,000 times, but this time, there was nothing above me.

Here is an excellent slide show of the new station and its construction.

Coming out on Church street it was amazing and wonderful to see everything back to normal. The Christmas decorations were up, the model thin millennium Hotel doing business, it looked like Century 21 had expanded (discount department store), and even the goofy Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church Street was doing a brisk business. When it opened in 1990 fast food restaurants were very very rare in Manhattan (I know that is hard to believe now), so to make it more "special" for the first month or so when this Burger King opened it had a person playing music during lunch hour on an organ, and a red carpet that featured two "door women" wearing fishnet stockings who said all day long "welcome to Burger King."

That seemed to be the only thing left in business on Liberty heading east. Here the store fronts were still damaged and still closed and there draped in black was the Banker's Trust building I had worked for a year in over a decade ago. A cloth covered tower with a basically gutted interior. Here's a good video showing the building (warning requires real Video).

Along the fence the surrounds the pit (ground zero) were memorials, the history of lower Manhattan, photos of 9/11, and lists of the dead. On the lists were post it notes from family members: "happy birthday, we miss you" and more. I didn't want to read them, they weren't there for me to read.

People in other parts of America seemed to happily chant "Remember 9/11" as they supported the war in Iraq. A crime on top of a crime. The Bush Administration has turned the nation's anger and outrage not at the enemy (bin Laden and Al Quaeda) but to a 3rd party, an evil and despicable 3rd party without question, but a 3rd party nonetheless. The destruction and deaths were turned into an excuse to finish family business and to reward donors. It is as simple and tragic as that. It wasn't to make America safer. If Bush wanted America safer, first responders would be fully funded, port security would be fully funded, and troops would be scouring the hills of East Pakistan. Instead our troops are getting food poisoning from Halliburton (via KBR) in a destroyed country that doesn't want us there.

In a horrible admission to the Bush Administration's co-opting 9/11 for political purposes, the Republican Party holds their 2004 convention in Manhattan near the anniversary date. This will make Karl Rove's Aircraft Carrier blunder simply disappear, because this is going to pan out to be the biggest political misstep for decades to come. New Yorkers sense the truth about what is being done in the name of their loved ones. The nation is starting to. It'll all become apparent at the end of August.

We'll it looks like their cynicism was more right on than my emotionally charged optimism (such a rare thing) -- The GOP NY 2004 Convention was a roaring success.

But by 2006 everyone learned the truth - and the GOP will need a long time to rebuild. Unfortunately, so will America.

Update - 12/10/06 - I didn't realize when I reposted the above on Friday that Friday was the day they finally started taking down the old Banker's Trust Building (its been called Deutsche Bank for years though):

Ground Zero bank building coming down

NEW YORK -- Workers today will begin removing the facade of a contaminated skyscraper that has loomed vacant above Ground Zero since one of the Twin Towers collapsed into it on Sept. 11, 2001, officials announced yesterday.

The black shroud that has covered the former Deutsche Bank AG building will come down floor by floor as the building is dismantled from the top down, said Charles Maikish, executive director of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.

What's the rush - its only been 5 and a quarter years.

- rob 2:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Because major corporations have really proven in the past few years that they never have any instances of wrongdoing.

Is the GOP 100% against any requirement that people be responsible for their actions if they make over a million dollars?

"Consequences for your actions are like taxes in that they are for the little people"

Senator Calls for an Easing of Corporate-Wrongdoing Rules

The departing chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee proposed legislation yesterday calling for a rollback of the tactics adopted by federal prosecutors to combat corporate wrongdoing after the Enron collapse.

- rob 11:42 AM - [PermaLink] -

----

Even with GOP out of Congress - Bush still seeks to destroy America

Starting with the children: EPA may drop lead air pollution limits

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering doing away with health standards that cut lead from gasoline, widely regarded as one of the nation's biggest clean-air accomplishments.

Battery makers, lead smelters, refiners all have lobbied the administration to do away with the Clean Air Act limits.

Ahh yes the old saying "Get The Lead In!"

What's the problem with lead you say - Emperor Caligula drank water from lead pipes and he seemed fine.

From some commie outfit (FDA) we have some details: Dangers of Lead Still Linger

While adults absorb about 11 percent of lead reaching the digestive tract, children may absorb 30 to 75 percent. When lead is inhaled, up to 50 percent is absorbed, but less than 1 percent of lead is absorbed when it comes in contact with the skin. The body stores lead mainly in bone, where it can accumulate for decades.
...
Bellinger estimates that each 10 mcg/dL increase in blood lead lowers a child's IQ about 1 to 3 points.
...
Studying middle- and upper-middle-class children exposed before birth to mild lead levels, Bellinger and colleagues found delays in early sensory-motor development, such as grasping objects, but did not find such effects by school age.

However, he adds, "When lead exposure in the uterus is quite high, the impact can be devastating on the fetus, causing serious neurological problems."

High lead exposures can cause a baby to have low birth weight or be born prematurely, or can result in miscarriage or stillbirth.
...
While a child's chronic exposure to relatively low lead levels may result in learning or behavioral problems, Wykoff says that "higher levels of exposure can be associated with anemia and changes in kidney function, as well as significant changes in the nervous system that may, at extreme exposures, include seizures, coma and death."

In adults, lead poisoning can contribute to high blood pressure and damage to the reproductive organs. Severe lead poisoning can cause subtle loss of recently acquired skills, listlessness, bizarre behavior, incoordination, vomiting, altered consciousness, and--as with children--seizures, coma and death. Poisoning without severe brain effects can cause lethargy, appetite loss, sporadic vomiting, abdominal pain, and constipation.

By the time symptoms appear, damage is often already irreversible.

But come on - is it really fair to have gas and battery companies have to have a tighter profit margin just because of the effects of materials in their products? I mean how unfair is it for a company to be responsible for their own output.

- rob 11:37 AM - [PermaLink] -

----

No tears for Rummy

Gates photos begin to appear in Pentagon

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A little more than 12 hours after receiving unanimous approval from the Senate Armed Services Committee to be the new Defense secretary, pictures of Roberts Gates began to appear on the walls inside the Pentagon.

His photos also were put on the Pentagon web site last night.

Gates nomination still must be approved by the full Senate -- a vote likely to occur this week.

Ding Dong the witch is dead was also heard over the intercom.

- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

TPM Muckracker has a handy list of Bush Admin officials who have helped bring "integrity back to the White House"

Our Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials

Go to the site for details (and let them know if they missed anyone). Here's what they have so far:

Indicted / Convicted/ Pled Guilty

• Scooter Libby - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff
• Lester Crawford - Commissioner, FDA
• Brian Doyle - Deputy Press Secretary, DHS
• Claude Allen - Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy
• David Safavian - former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget
• Larry Franklin - intelligence officer, Defense
• Roger Stillwell - desk officer, Interior Department
• Frank Figueroa - senior DHS official
• Darleen Druyun - senior contracting official, U.S. Air Force
• John Korsmo - chairman, Federal Housing Finance Board

Resigned Due to Investigation

• Carl Truscott - Director, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Bureau
• Joseph Schmitz - Inspector General, Defense
• Steven Griles - Deputy Secretary at the Interior Department
• Susan Ralston - assistant, White House
• Dusty Foggo - Executive Director, CIA
• Janet Rehnquist - Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services
• Ken Tomlinson, Board Chairman, Corporation for Public Broadcasting; member, Broadcasting Board of Governors
• George Deutsch - press aide, NASA
• Richard Perle - Chairman, Defense Policy Board
• James Roche - secretary, U.S. Air Force
• Marvin Sambur - top contracting executive, U.S. Air Force
• Philip Cooney - chief of staff, White House Council on Environmental Quality
• Thomas Scully - Administrator, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
• Michelle Larson Korsmo - deputy chief of staff, Department of Labor

Nomination Failed Due to Scandal

• Bernard Kerik - nominated, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
• Timothy Flanigan - nominated, Deputy Attorney General
• Linda Chavez - nominated, Secretary of Labor

You've got to read the details to get the full scope of this list. It has, of course a larger number of scandals that you'd expect from Bush officials: good old piggishness (today's GOP), but some are just pure irony, such as the former head of anti-sex crime "Operation Predator" who exposed himself (and more) to a 16 year-old girl in a Florida mall.

Imagine how long the list would be if the press hadn't been scared of its shadow for the past 6 years.

- rob 11:25 AM - [PermaLink] -

----

The Washington Post seems to still have an unhealthy affinity for all things Bush. I'm not sure if its that they really don't want to miss out on any White House parties, or if they never recovered from High School. They so desperately want to be with the "in ground" that they will sacrifice all dignity to do so, though in the end they're just pathetic hanger ons. Isn't it interesting that the Bush Administration has brought the word sycophant back into relatively popular use. Everyone seems to forget but back in High School the "in ground" and "popular people" were more often then not reviled by the majority of the school population (either through envy derived from poor self worth or with disgust by those with a more clear mind).

Anyway this Sunday it seems the mountain of Bush errors (like farting at the home coming dance or something) has finally allowed the Washington Post to let some sane opinions be aired.

Move Over, Hoover

When you don't achieve a stealth-like victory in a war of choice, then you're seen as being stuck in a quagmire. Already the United States has fought longer in the Iraq war than in World War II. As the death toll continues to rise, more and more Americans are objecting. The pending Democratic takeover of Congress is only one manifestation of the spiraling disapproval of Bush.

At first, you'd want to compare Bush's Iraq predicament to that of Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War. But LBJ had major domestic accomplishments to boast about when leaving the White House, such as the Civil Rights Act and Medicare/Medicaid. Bush has virtually none. Look at how he dealt with the biggest post-9/11 domestic crisis of his tenure. He didn't rush to help the Gulf region after Hurricane Katrina because the country was overextended in Iraq and had a massive budget deficit. Texas conservatives always say that LBJ's biggest mistake was thinking that he could fund both the Great Society and Vietnam. They believe he had to choose one or the other. They call Johnson fiscally irresponsible. Bush learned this lesson: He chose Iraq over New Orleans.

So Bush's legacy hinges on Iraq, which is an unmitigated disaster. Instead of being forgiven, like Polk and McKinley, for his phony pretext for war (WMD and al-Qaeda operatives in Baghdad), he stands to be lambasted by future scholars. What once were his two best sound bites -- "Wanted dead or alive" and "Mission accomplished" -- will be used like billy clubs to shatter his legacy every time it gets a revisionist lift. The left will keep battering him for warmongering while the right will remember its outrage that he didn't send enough battalions to Iraq.

There isn't much that Bush can do now to salvage his reputation
...
When the stock market collapsed, Hoover, for ideological reasons, did too little. When 9/11 happened, Bush did too much, attacking the wrong country at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. He has joined Hoover as a case study on how not to be president.

and better yet:

He's The Worst Ever

Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from "great" to "failure," such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.
...
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt always figure in the "great" category. Most presidents are ranked "average" or, to put it less charitably, mediocre. Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard M. Nixon occupy the bottom rung, and now President Bush is a leading contender to join them. A look at history, as well as Bush's policies, explains why.
...
Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.

- rob 10:31 AM - [PermaLink] -

----

It's sad when you think of how hard he worked to get the job.

Why just look at him try to change a vote just using the power of his mind:

Yes, that's really John Bolton down there in Forida in 2000

John Bolton Resigns as U.S. Ambassador to U.N.

"It is with deep regret that I accept John Bolton's decision to end his service in the administration as permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations when his commission expires," Bush said in a statement released by the White House.

Yes, it is a pity this angry anti-diplomacy Bush crone is no longer representing us to the world.

- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

----

Subscribe to the TCS Feed

Having trouble with some of the poor English on this site?
Imagine what it looks like when translated by a machine:

Search TCS

Archive

Archive Index Page

What is this?

This is a "team" blog.  We are a bunch of Americans, whose rising distress in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.  As Bush said, he's a "uniter."  Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.

This Century Sucks Store

Buy our cool stuff.
And tell everyone what you feel.  

We have a little Store you can visit.  

Our store's selection of items is constantly growing. Come see what we have.

 

We're also Amazon Associates, so if you want to buy something from Amazon, please search for it below, and we will get a few bucks from the sale.

Search Now:

Sites we often like:

Tin Foil Caps

The Free Speech Zone

The office of the independent blogger

Buzzflash

Tom The Dancing Bug

VerifiedVoting.org

Get Your War On

This Modern World

Eschaton / Atrios

Daily Kos

Contribute to America's Future

It is now more important then ever.

Donate to the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee

Donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Some More Site Mottos

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make fitting response."
 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt



"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson



"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
- James Madison



"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

More Sites we often like:

more coming...

"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.