Powerful Democrats rarely agree on much, but I’ve discovered a glaring exception: they all believe Democrats can either work for impeachment or we can work to elect Democrats in November, but we absolutely cannot do both, according to Bob Fertik at Democrats.Com.
He says it is possible to do both, and makes an argument for how and why here.
The death of Caspar Weinberger is prompting warm eulogies for Ronald Reagan’s former Defense Secretary. But more significant to U.S. history was the lost opportunity to learn the secrets of Reagan-Bush arms shipments to Iran and Iraq in the 1980s that might have been revealed if Weinberger had faced trial for Iran-Contra crimes in 1993. But George H.W. Bush blocked those disclosures - and potentially spared his family political damage - by pardoning Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas Eve 1992.
Read the full story about the secrets that George Bush Sr. protected at ConsortiumNews.Com
Almost two months ago, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about President Bush’s authorization of illegal domestic spying by the National Security Agency. The Judiciary Committee learned very little from the Attorney General, who stonewalled and evaded questions, frustrating senators’ attempts to perform their oversight obligations, according to the People for the American Way.
The Judiciary Committee is holding a follow-up hearing today, and has scheduled hearings on Senator Feingold’s resolution to censure the President for this coming Friday.
The President’s illegal wiretapping program is just the tip of the iceberg - the Bush administration has placed itself above the law time and time again. PFAW continues to call for the Bush administration to be held accountable for wrongdoing in the NSA case and has started a new Web site:
Also, the group supports the immigration bill moving to the U.S. Senate floor.
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Goes to Senate Floor
After a remarkable marathon session, the Senate Judiciary Committee came to an agreement on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes a path to earned citizenship, an accelerated family reunification program, and a guest worker program. This bill complicates Senator Frist’s attempts to ram through an enforcement-only measure intended to bolster his 2008 presidential bid.
The Judiciary Committee’s action comes after an incredible groundswell of grassroots support for fair and realistic immigration reform, including the almost 30,000 messages sent by PFAW activists. Yesterday, students walked out of classes in states from Michigan to Texas to Virginia in protest of Senator Frist’s approach. Massive protests have erupted from coast to coast in recent days: Over 500,000 people surrounded Los Angeles’ City Hall this weekend; 100,000 marched in Denver; and more than 50,000 turned out for a rally last weekend in Chicago. Milwaukee, Phoenix, Trenton, and many other cities have seen some of the largest rallies in recent memory.
The group says to support this historic movement, call your senators today to tell them to support the Judiciary Committee’s bill. Comprehensive immigration reform will help control our borders while honoring American traditions as a nation of immigrants that value hard work and fairness.
In Alabama, that would be:
Sen. Richard Shelby
Phone: (202) 224-5744
Sen. Jeff Sessions
Phone: (202) 224-4124
Budget Process Begins in the House
Having just rammed through $40 billion in cuts to student loan programs, Medicaid, and other programs for America’s families to give more tax breaks to the wealthy, members of the House of Representatives are licking their chops over the prospect of more program cuts, the group says.
This week, the House begins preparing the Budget Resolution, the blueprint for the budget in the coming year. The Senate already passed its Resolution, which, while forcing deep cuts to programs for low-income and middle-class families, is not as severe as some right-wing House members would like. They’ll propose even more severe cuts this week and attempt to get their colleagues to sign on when it comes to the floor next week.
To call on your representative to oppose cuts to programs in order to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy, use this toll-free number:
Budget Hotline: 1-800-459-1887
Election Protection Katrina
As Louisiana legislators came back into session this week, they still appeared unlikely to postpone the New Orleans municipal elections until satellite voting centers can be set up in the cities outside Louisiana with large numbers of Katrina evacuees. As many as 195,000 of New Orleans’ 300,000 registered voters are estimated to be unable to return to their hurricane-ravaged city.
As People For continues to work with its coalition allies to convince legislators to reconsider their decision to go ahead with elections in which a majority of the city’s voters could have trouble participating, the PFAW Foundation is working with the NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) to facilitate absentee voting and has set up a toll-free Voters’ Hotline and 15 NAACP Voter Assistance Centers in the cities with the largest numbers of Katrina evacuees, and providing the materials, training, and person-power necessary to educate Katrina survivors about their voting rights and options for casting a ballot in the upcoming elections. The Voter Assistance Centers have absentee ballot request forms on hand and fax machines for sending them in.
“We hope that this direct assistance to voters, along with a publicity campaign to educate evacuees about their rights, will maximize participation in these elections,” the group says in a press release. “The city leaders elected this spring will chart the course for New Orleans’ reconstruction.”
There’s not much in the way of network television programming worth catching on a regular basis these days, what with all the cheap reality TV and all. But lately, I’ve come to really like Boston Legal, recently moved to Tuesday nights on ABC.
Last week, the arrogant liberal lawyer Alan Shore played by James Spader, delivered a brilliant closing argument and won the case of a woman who had protested the Iraq War and the Bush administration by refusing to pay her taxes. On a sticky note attached to her tax form, she wrote “stick it.”
If you have a new computer with all the latest software you can watch the closing arguments here.
Here’s the text:
Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn’t.
Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute.
Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it’s been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven’t.
In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we’re okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial - or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.
There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there’s no clear indication that young people seem to notice.
Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we’ve lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest.
Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you are wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.
This, in the United States of America. This in the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?
*Alan sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge*
Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That’s a chair for witnesses only.
Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.
Judge Sanders: Please get out of the chair.
Alan: Actually, I’m sick and tired.
Judge Sanders: Get out of the chair!
Alan: And what I’m most sick and tired of is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled unAmerican.
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentally, it’s speech time.
Alan: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa Hughes to stand up to her government and say “Stick it”!
U.S. Attorney Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!
Alan: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it. They’re smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!
Judge Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down. You’ve breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.
Alan: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, “The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism.”
Today, it’s the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, “It’s far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”
I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights - we have to live up to that. We simply must. That’s all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her.
Several Locust Fork readers have pointed out an interesting irony by e-mail over the past few days. Why is it that illegal immigrants can raise a half a million people to march for their rights, and the French as well. Yet the protest marches so far by Americans agains the Iraq War and the Bush administration seem to be small, happy affairs? Isn’t it about time citizens in the U.S. get pissed off and take to the streets? Non-violence is obviously a good thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to smile for the cameras. A protest should be a protest, not a party…
Protests Over Immigration Bills Continue
French Protesters Pour Into the Streets
Southeast Peace Groups Plan Anti-Iraq War Protest April 1
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
Designed, directed by Locust Fork Publishing
Hosted by
1and1.com