The · Squirrel_tail · Letters

California's Proposition 8 is an object lesson for why civil rights should not be contingent upon a popular vote. Remember that 40 years ago the marriage of Obama's parent would not have been legal.

Consider this from General George Washington:

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

---George Washington’s Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island

I have been too disheartened to post any more about the FISA bill in Congress. Steny Hoyer's disingenuous negotiation and support of a "compromise" bill is no compromise at all. Basically, it puts a thin veneer of "judicial oversight" on granting the Telecommunications Companies immunity from civil prosecution by allowing them to appear before a Federal District Court with a "note" from the President saying he didn't ask them to do anything illegal. There's no checking into the veracity of that statement in any way. It's one venal step away from giving the Co.s the immunity in the bill itself and it is STILL WRONG. It is not even about the prosecution of the TelCos it is about what massive Administration illegalities will be exposed via the discovery process of these lawsuits -- in other words it's about saving Bush, Cheny and Condi, et.al.'s ASSES. The fact that the Democratic "leadership" has heretofore been on board with Hoyer's bad bill is unconscionable. And yes, Obama, despite his statement earlier this year, that he wouldn't support the amnesty and WOULD support Christopher Dodd and Russ Feingold's filibuster of the bill, supports the Hoyer version.

The bright light in this miasma we have for a Congress is Chris Dodd (again). Go hear what HE has to say because he is one of the few Democrats willing to stand up for the rule of law and the Constitution: http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476


And as usual the most trenchant analysis of the issue is at Glenn Grennwald's place: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/25/dodd/index.html

Poll: Obama has clear national lead over Clinton
By The Associated Press Associated Press Writer

May 29th, 2008

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THE RACE: The presidential race for Democrats nationally
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THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 54 percent
Hillary Rodham Clinton, 41 percent
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OF INTEREST:

Obama has developed a clear lead compared to last month, when he and Clinton were about even in the Pew Research Center poll. Three in 10 Democrats think the party will be divided if Obama wins the nomination, up slightly since March, with Clinton supporters twice as likely as Obama's to say so. When matched against Republican John McCain, Obama is now running about even among all voters; he's had a narrow advantage over McCain most of the year. Obama and McCain are about evenly splitting independents, a pivotal group for the general election. Both men are viewed less positively than earlier. Obama is seen as better able to improve the economy and energy problems, he and McCain are seen as about equally likely to make wise decisions on Iraq, and McCain has an advantage for taxes and immigration.

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The Pew Research Center poll was conducted from May 21-25 and involved telephone interviews with 1,242 registered voters, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. It included interviews with 618 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 points.
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COMPLETE RESULTS: http://people-press.org

All over the Internets, Hillary supporters are revolting. She has been the focal point of malicious misogyny and unpresidented unfairness. Therefore, these voices shout, On. On to the convention. Demonstrate like it's Chicago 1968. Tear up your membership cards and mail them to the DNC! Withdraw from the Democratic Party. Vote McCain! We will not be ignored! Obama is unelectable! Nominate Clinton against all odds!

Sexism exists. Racism exists. All the -isms exist and play into the gynormous melange of public opinion and political action.

I am not telling Clinton supporters that they shouldn't be unhappy with the situation or that they shouldn't work to decrease bigotry's effect throughout society.

What I am saying, again and again, on each forum where I find these dicta that the mistreatment of Hillary Clinton in the media necessitates the threat to show the party they mean business, is that politics, realistically, must be practical. Somethings that are of high importance take longer to get done than things that may seem trivial. All of the various possibilities must co-exist and the fact that something very, very important (misogyny in the media, the political process, in society, let's say)is not being taken care of as quickly as we might hope is not reason to stop in our tracks and go no further working to mitigate those things that CAN be addressed.

We have had eight years of the most horrendous, authoritarian, bigoted, oligarchical rule in the history of this country. Our government has been listening in on our conversations without warrant, has created special communications squads of ex-military people to feed government-approved talking points to our hapless news media, they've politicized the Department of Justice to the point that it is unrecognizable and have perpetrated many, many more crimes on the American Citizenry. Democrats can begin the long road to addressing these realities by electing a Democratic candidate as President in November. Focusing in on misogyny or racism to the detriment of this main goal is tragic to see.

I'm a woman, a democrat, a lesbian, and an urbanite, to mention a few salient demographics, and each time I've voted I have satisfied some of my personal constituencies and ignored others. Not only do I acknowledge the despicable treatment of Hillary Clinton during the primary season, I acknowledge the utter debauchery and misogyny of our national media but it is not a new discovery. They were complicit in the Republicans' victories in 2000 and 2004. I don't believe now is the time to elevate their unequal treatment of anyone not white and male to the level of "most important issue overall". This is not the election where we defeat racism, sexism, or misogyny. First and foremost we must defeat the Republicans. Then we can re-group and see if the Democrats can put their money where there mouth is to address society's more pernicious inequities.

I have no doubt we will get a better shake with them than from the Republicans.

CRIMES AGAINST NATURE:

Junk Science/Wolf Slaughter
White House Gives Industry More Influence over Science Process
Green Building: Applause for Seattle's Mayor

RIGHT WING NEWS:

Flat Earth Family
Menage a Trois - A Criminal Act
Rumsfield Propaganda Push Violates Federal Anti Propaganda Statutes
Rumsfeld knew he was breaking the law
More Corporate Contracts, More Incompetence
2008 election likely to go unsupervised
Supreme Court helps to curtail Democrats from voting.
Rush lies again
The New York Times braces for further staff cuts

RIGHT-WING JURISTS:

Scalia Defends Bush v. Gore At Oxford Union
Scalia Blames Gore For Bush v. Gore
Scalia Defends Torture Being Not Cruel And Unusual Punishment And Therefore Not Unconstitutiona


For more information, read the whole thing here (Huffington Post): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-brendan-demelle/unearthed-news-of-the-wee_b_99981.html

1) War Profiteering/War Propaganda
2) Corporate Spies
3) Dead Fish
4) Captured Media
5) Voter Fraud, Right Wing Justice
6) Killing Buffalo
7) Record Oil Profits
8) Screwed Again by the Saudis
9) Corporate Welfare
10) Poisoning Our Water
11) Katrina Refugees
13) More Corporate Welfare
14) Miserable Media
15) Global Warming Lawsuit
16) Protesting Coal Plants

Read the entire article here(it's worth the time):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-brendan-demelle/unearthed-news-of-the-wee_b_98717.html

Thursday, April 10th, 2008 was the first day it reached 70 degrees F in the City of Boston since October 26th, 2007.



Often times when I begin to feel the weight of the long, long winter here in Boston I tell myself that if it were 70 degrees all the time I'd never experience that UTTER JOY one feels on the day it finally turns warm. The picture above is of the Boston Common. You can see exactly what happens. Folks come out of the woodwork, crawl out from under their fleece, pry open their storm doors to go outside and feel at long last the sun on their skin. I don't know if it's worth six months of cold to experience the pleasure, but it IS indeed, a true, unadulterated pleasure.

When asked what he would do in regard to the possiblility of crimes having been perpetrated by the Bush Administration Obama says:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.