Progressive News Digest - Nov 5, 2007
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Date: Mon, November 5, 2007
PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
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Volume IV, Issue #22 Monday, Nov. 5, 2007
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year without an appreciable pause. If the impulse strikes you,
we could still use donations, both here and at our parent-site:
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* * * * * * *
This week, I've again shifted to posting the contents list, without attempting a
summary of the highlights. It still takes a little time to prepare this, and
then let
you do the browsing. This may pertain for the foreseeable future, due to your
editor's full-time day-job and his return to having a more successful life
otherwise.
Here you go ... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
=====
Steve Trinward, Editor
TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEWS
01 - Hollywood writers strike sends Leno, Letterman, others to reruns
02 - AZ: Border crossers now risk jail
03 - CA: School district to vote about “In God We Trust”
04 - Why the ‘08 race could break the mold
05 - Ron Paul’s record online haul
06 - Violent crime up in some small cities
07 - Kucinich says he’ll force House vote on Cheney impeachment
08 - Mondale endorses Clinton
09 - Know-Nothings: Police should ignore crime, hassle immigrants
10 - Why states are resisting plan for REAL ID
11 - In NH, a change in political dialogue
12 - SC: Democrats bar Colbert from primary
13 - Japanese fishermen clash with anti-whaling surfers, celebrities
14 - Analyst: Bin Laden video doctored to seem new?
15 - Edwards’ “bumper sticker” charge vindicated
16 - More equity in cocaine sentencing
17 - Heating oil users face costly winter
18 - Billionaire Buffett: “My taxes are too low”
19 - Fred Thompson: Civil unions “not a good idea”
20 - TN: DA defends “sweet deal” for former employee who embezzled
21 - Jury hits “God hates fags” church (sic) for funeral protest
22 - MA: Few minority police supervisors
23 - Clinton draws fire in Dem debate
24 - Israel steps up threats to invade Gaza Strip
25 - MD: Wiccan lottery winner plans to open witch school
COMMENTARY
26 - The American idea, as if you asked
27 - Mukasey is (much) worse than Gonzales
28 - Schwarzenegger vetoes justice
29 - Musharraf fears democracy, not extremism
30 - The affirmative action provocateur
31 - Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
32 - Dixie Chicking: Post 9-11 blacklisting
33 - Vets make waterboarding appeal
34 - A paper coup
35 - Yo! What happened to peace?
36 - Sham of a war
37 - Remember, Remember This Fifth of November
38 - Stop lying to yourself: You love Dennis Kucinich
39 - Not all it’s cracked up to be
40 - Postal service says killing small periodicals is a “win-win”
41 - 18 years and Exxon still won’t pay for Valdez spill
42 - Freedom works
43 - When waterboarding was a crime
44 - Why financial CEOs earn more than real-economy ones
45 - A hero in Castro’s gulag
46 - The great debate of 2008
47 - Hillary: Under attack as a winner, not as a woman
48 - If you give separatists an inch …
49 - Warning, this film could make you very angry
50 - Raw data
51 - You’re not the regulator of me
52 - What it will take to build a sustainable US
53 - Low country
54 - What Hillary won’t say about torture
55 - Heck of a job, Hughsie
NEWS
01 - Hollywood writers strike sends Leno, Letterman, others to reruns
San Francisco Chronicle
“Americans may be getting more sleep after Hollywood writers went on strike Monday and forced the nation’s late-night talk shows to start airing reruns. NBC said the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will immediately air repeats. Still, Leno made an appearance at the Burbank studio, arriving on a motorcycle to visit strikers walking a picket line. CBS said The Late Show with David Letterman will also offer repeats all week. The list of casualties included every other major late-night show.” (11/05/07)
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02 - AZ: Border crossers now risk jail
Arizona Republic
“Arizona could become the first state to prosecute every adult caught at the border crossing illegally from Mexico. Authorities in the Yuma sector, in the western part of the state, have been prosecuting people caught at the border since December. The Del Rio sector of Texas introduced the policy a year earlier. Both areas phased in the crackdown over six months and saw dramatic drops in the number of border arrests. Now, federal agencies are discussing expanding the policy, known as Operation Streamline, in January to include the Tucson area, the busiest human-smuggling route in the country. Last week, the Laredo sector in Texas introduced the policy.” (11/05/07)
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03 - CA: School district to vote about “In God We Trust”
Fox News
“Trustees of a school district in Bakersfield, Calif., will decide Monday night whether to allow posters bearing the nation’s motto — ‘In God We Trust’ — and other historical documents to be displayed in classrooms. The display of posters of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights will also be voted on Monday night. Kern County High School District trustee Chad Vegas initially proposed the measure as a way of promoting patriotism. But the idea has sparked a contentious debate. Board President Bob Hampton, a former teacher in the district, told The L.A. Times that he’ll vote against the posters because they reflect a ’spiritual agenda…. The spiritual side of students belongs at home and at church, not in the educational system,’ Hampton said.” (11/05/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308317,00.html
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04 - Why the ‘08 race could break the mold
Christian Science Monitor
“A year before Election Day, Americans may be heading toward the most unorthodox US presidential race in a generation. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) of New York appears well positioned to become the first woman nominee of a major party. But it is Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who would represent the greater departure for his party, if he were to win the Republican nomination. Mr. Giuliani’s liberal positions on social issues — foremost, abortion and gay rights — put him at odds with the large social conservative wing of the Republican Party…. Senator Clinton, in contrast, represents mainstream Democratic thought in her policy positions, even if the liberal wing of her party is skeptical of her centrist take on foreign policy — most recent, her vote for a resolution on Iran that opponents say could pave the way for war.” [editor’s note: The supreme irony in this analysis is what these two really have in common — a hard-liner authoritarianism about ALL issues, and
the belief that they know best what others should do with their own lives - SAT] (11/06/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1106/p02s01-usgn.html
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05 - Ron Paul’s record online haul
Washington Post Blog
“Sen. Barack Obama has Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Hillary Clinton has Magic Johnson and Rep. Ron Paul, the online star of the primary race, has Sean Morley, aka Val Venis, the popular adult film star-turned-WWE pro wrestler. And like many of the Paulites, the Texas congressman’s loyal, Web-savvy supporters, Morley is blogging about Paul on his own site. ‘I can’t really say what my support means. But, you know, I first heard about him two years ago, and I’ve studied his voting record and I’m convinced that more than any candidate, Republican or Democrat, he’s the most principled candidate out there,’ Morley, a libertarian, told The Trail this afternoon. ‘By the way, I’m at Denny’s outside LAX. Here for a fight later tonight. I’m wearing a Ron Paul T-shirt. It’s a great day for Ron Paul, you know.’ Indeed. Today, Nov. 5, marks not only Paul’s best fundraising haul in a single day — more than $2.5 million by 6 p.m. EST — but online observers say it’s also the most money raised by a candidate
on the Web in a single day. And the day’s not over yet.” (11/05/07)
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/11/05/post_179.html
=====
06 - Violent crime up in some small cities
Boston Globe
“As rates of violent crime fall in Boston, New Bedford, and Brockton, smaller cities and towns such as Arlington and Haverhill have seen aggravated assaults and robberies increase, according to figures compiled by police chiefs in 25 of the state’s largest law enforcement agencies. While the reasons for the fluctuations are not clear, some police chiefs and analysts suggest that criminals and gang members are migrating to smaller, quieter municipalities on the outskirts as bigger cities effectively clamp down on violent felons. Others suggest that heroin use is fueling more robberies by addicts trying to feed their habit. ‘We can’t stick our heads in the sand and not recognize that there has been an increase in crime,’ said Arlington Police Chief Fred Ryan.” (11/05/07)
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07 - Kucinich says he’ll force House vote on Cheney impeachment
Raw Story
“Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) announced he would move to force a vote next week on his resolution calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. ‘The momentum is building for impeachment,’ Kucinich said in a statement on his website. ‘Millions of citizens across the nation are demanding Congress rein in the Vice President’s abuse of power.’ Kucinich said he plans to introduce a privileged resolution, which would have priority for a House floor vote, on Nov. 6. A vote on the measure would be required within two days.” (11/02/07)
=====
08 - Mondale endorses Clinton
Baltimore Sun
“Walter Mondale, the former vice president and onetime Democratic nominee for president, has endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for the White House, the Clinton camp announced today. ‘America is ready for change, and Hillary Clinton has the strength and experience to deliver it,’ Mondale said in a statement released by the Clinton campaign. ‘Hillary is uniquely qualified to rebuild America’s standing in the world and lead this nation from her first day in the White House.’” (11/04/07)
=====
09 - Know-Nothings: Police should ignore crime, hassle immigrants
Arizona Republic
“Opponents of illegal immigration have cried for — and won — tougher security at the nation’s borders. They have successfully pressed for stepped-up deportations of those in the country illegally. Now they are setting their sights on controversial police policies that instruct officers in cities nationwide to refrain from reporting non-criminal undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. Reacting to anti-immigrant public sentiment in many parts of the country, the illegal-immigration foes are championing ballot measures and legislation to overturn the policies. he policies, which amount to ‘don’t ask’ provisions when dealing with undocumented residents who haven’t committed crimes other than being in the country illegally, are hailed by police as an effective crime-fighting tool because they encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes without fear of deportation.” (11/04/07)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1104sanctuarycities1104.html
=====
10 - Why states are resisting plan for REAL ID
Christian Science Monitor
“The federal government’s efforts to create a standardized, secure driver’s license that would also serve as a national ID card have hit some significant stumbling blocks. Chief among them: Eight states have voted in the past year not to participate in the program. Nine others are on the record opposing the proposal. In total, legislation opposing the plan has been introduced in 38 states. Behind much of the state legislative opposition to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plan is Missouri state Rep. Jim Guest, a conservative Republican. His primary concern: REAL ID, as DHS has dubbed the initiative, would not deter terrorists. Instead, he believes, it would be an unprecedented invasion of individual privacy, creating a databank of personal information to which officials on the local, state, and federal levels would have access. ‘I love my freedom, I love my country, and we’re heading down a road here that would take away many of the things we take for granted,’ says Repres
entative Guest. ‘If we had to start carrying a card around –- if we lost our freedom not to -– I don’t think we could ever get that back.’” (11/05/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1105/p02s01-usgn.html
=====
11 - In NH, a change in political dialogue
Boston Globe
“The African Market, selling cola beans and Nigerian rice, sits just a few blocks from the usual stops on the presidential campaign trail, but no candidate has come to deliver a sound bite. Two blocks away, the Beech Street Elementary School, where half of the students are immigrants, is waiting to hear from a White House contender. Yet the stories told in these places are unlike any the candidates may hear in the Granite State’s made-for-television settings such as the local diner, country store, or hotel ballroom. At the Beech Street school, Abidkarim Mallo, 10, whose family fled Nigeria, spoke eloquently for generations of immigrants as he explained softly from behind his small desk: ‘I like it here because you stay safe and your Mom and Dad work and you go to school.’” (11/04/07)
=====
12 - SC: Democrats bar Colbert from primary
Arizona Daily Star
“Comedian Stephen Colbert’s short-lived presidential campaign has collided with reality. Colbert was blocked Thursday from appearing on the Democratic presidential primary ballot in South Carolina and didn’t file for the Republican primary. He has said his native South Carolina is the only state in which he planned to compete. The state Democratic Party’s executive committee voted 13-3 against allowing Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s ‘Colbert Report,’ on the ballot after he filed papers this morning, said Joe Werner, executive director of the state Democratic Party. Carol Fowler, chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said the party’s executive council determined that he did not meet two basic requirements: that he be generally acknowledged as a viable nationwide candidate and be actively campaigning for the South Carolina primary.” (11/02/07)
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/209453
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13 - Japanese fishermen clash with anti-whaling surfers, celebrities
Environmental News Service
“More than 30 peaceful anti-whaling protesters were attacked by Japanese fishermen off the country’s southern coast this week as they tried to stop the slaughter of thousands of pilot whales. On Saturday, professional surfer Dave Rastovich led an international group of activists, surfers, celebrities, and musicians on a paddle-out ceremony to honor the more than 25,000 dolphins killed each year in Japan. … The six paddlers, including Rastovich, his wife and mermaid model Hannah Fraser, Heroes TV star Hayden Panettiere, Australian actress Isabel Lucas, author Peter Heller, and professional surfer Karina Petroni, formed a traditional surfers’ memorial circle between the whales and the shallow water where the killing was to take place. Fishermen converged in their boats, threatening the paddlers with their propeller blades and yelling, ‘Why are you here? Go Home!’ They used a long wooden pole to attack the surfers.” (11/01/07)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2007/2007-11-01-03.asp
=====
14 - Analyst: Bin Laden video doctored to seem new?
Raw Story
“The Osama bin Laden video released this past September 7, just prior to the sixth anniversary of 9/11, has provoked widespread suspicions of fraud. In particular, bin Laden’s beard — which was grey and ragged in the video released just before the 2004 election — is thick, black, and neatly trimmed in the new footage. The video aroused widespread suspicions that bin Laden’s beard had been faked in some way, with former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke even speculating that bin Laden had shaved in order to hide out in a country like Indonesia, where Muslim men do not wear beards, and had then pasted on a false beard for the video.” (11/01/07)
=====
15 - Edwards’ “bumper sticker” charge vindicated
Fox News
“John Edwards took heavy flak when he said in May the War on Terror was nothing more than a ’slogan’ and ‘a bumper sticker.’ But the former North Carolina senator and current Democratic presidential challenger may have gotten his vindication on Thursday. It turns out that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used nearly identicallanguage — ‘bumper sticker statements’ — to describe ways the war should be billed to the American public, according to memos uncovered by the Washington Post.” (11/01/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307457,00.html
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16 - More equity in cocaine sentencing
Christian Science Monitor
“A change in federal sentencing guidelines has quietly narrowed the huge discrepancy in prison time for convictions involving powder versus crack cocaine, after a 20-year battle over the issue. Since 1988, possession of five grams of crack cocaine — an amount equal to five packets of sugar substitute — landed a person in jail for five years. But people caught with cocaine powder would have to possess 100 times that amount, or 500 grams, to get the same five-year stint behind bars. It’s known as the 100-to-1 ratio. And because most people convicted of crack offenses are black and most convicted of powder cocaine offenses are white, critics have long argued that the disparity represents an egregious racial inequity in America’s criminal-justice system.” (11/02/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1102/p01s02-usju.html
=====
17 - Heating oil users face costly winter
Boston Globe
“As the price of crude oil approaches $100 a barrel, New Englanders are bracing for their most expensive winter ever. One of every two homes in New England burns heating oil, compared with just one in 20 in the rest of the country, where most homes use natural gas, according to the Energy Department. Now, as heating oil follows crude to record prices — the state this week reported the average cost of heating oil was $2.91 a gallon, up 24 percent from a year ago — the impact will fall most heavily on New England, economists said. ‘Prices are crazy,’ said Patrick Melia, owner of Melia Fuel in Marshfield. ‘People are scared, and they should be.’” (11/01/07)
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18 - Billionaire Buffett: “My taxes are too low”
Raw Story
“Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett has been complaining for years that his taxes are too low. Last June, he said at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that he was taxed at only 17.7% last year on his $46 million in income, while his secretary paid 30% of her $60,000. NBC’s Tom Brokaw recently interviewed Buffett, ‘whose approach doesn’t make him very popular with his fellow billionaires. … ‘The taxation system has tilted toward the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years,’ Buffett, the nation’s third richest man, told Brokaw. Buffett said he did an informal survey of federal taxes paid by his own office staff, and the average was 32.9%, compared to his 17.7%. ‘There wasn’t anybody in the office, from the receptionists on, that paid as low a tax rate,’ Buffett stated, noting that ‘I have no tax planning, I don’t have an accountant, I don’t have tax shelters.’” (10/31/07)
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19 - Fred Thompson: Civil unions “not a good idea”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson — in a city that tried to sanction same-sex marriages — said today he is personally opposed to civil unions and domestic partnerships, although he’d leave those issues up to states to decide. Thompson, during his first public visit to the Bay Area, also spoke on the volatile issue of whether the use of waterboarding to gain information from terrorists amounted to torture. The former Tennessee senator didn’t support the practice outright, instead, he said he would ‘do what I think is in the best interest of my country’ regarding approving waterboarding as commander in chief. Thompson made the statements at a half hour news conference sandwiched between three California fundraisers Wednesday in Los Gatos, Carmichael and San Francisco.” (10/31/07)
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20 - TN: DA defends “sweet deal” for former employee who embezzled
Tennessean
‘”Williamson County District Attorney General Ron Davis held a press conference today to say he had nothing to do with what a judge called a ’sweet deal’ for a former employee. Stuart B. Lowery, 26, worked for Davis as an administrative assistant until an office manager discovered he’d been forging travel claims to embezzle money from the county. Lowry stole more than $3,600 between Feb. 15 and July 5, according to a warrant written by TBI agent Wayne Wesson. Lowery was originally charged with two felonies — tampering with or fabrication of evidence and theft over $1,000 — and could have served up to six years in prison if convicted. Because he worked for the DA’s office, a special prosecutor was called in to handle the case. That prosecutor, Glen Funk, arranged a deal that allowed Lowery to enter a plea of guilty to two misdemeanor charges and serve only a year of probation. Lowery has paid the county back the full amount he stole.” [editor’s note: It sounds a little like the kind
of “victim restitution” idea we libertarians have been pushing for years - SAT] (10/31/07)
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21 - Jury hits “God hates fags” church (sic) for funeral protest
Fox News
“The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family’s privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine’s funeral. The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine’s father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa. Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. … Church members believe that U.S. deaths in the war in Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.” (10/31/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307058,00.html
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22 - MA: Few minority police supervisors
Boston Globe
“In Brockton, a city dotted with ethnic restaurants, neighborhoods where Cape Verdean Creole or Spanish is widely spoken, and where blacks constitute roughly one-third of the population, there are no minority police supervisors. And there probably will not be one any time soon, according to the chief. The numbers are no better in Lynn and Quincy. In Worcester, police have just three minority supervisors on a department with 462 officers. In fact, in the largest cities across Massachusetts, minority supervisors are significantly underrepresented, according to a Globe review.” (10/31/07)
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23 - Clinton draws fire in Dem debate
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Her Democratic rivals criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton Tuesday as a political opportunist on issues ranging from Iran to Social Security, seeking to slow her momentum in the final two months before voting starts for the Democratic presidential nomination. Standing at center stage, Clinton at times almost appeared to enjoy the attention as confirming her status as the front-runner for the nomination; at other times she glared at her attackers. She sometimes avoided a direct response, sometimes denied the accusations, and throughout kept her comments focused on President George W. Bush rather than engaging in direct debate with her rivals.” (10/31/07)
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24 - Israel steps up threats to invade Gaza Strip
Reuters
“Israel escalated its threats on Tuesday to invade the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian rocket fire after a plan to withhold key utilities drew objections from legal experts and foreign powers. Since quitting Gaza in 2005, Israel has mounted regular commando raids and air strikes on rocket crews but the salvoes have not ceased. Two such operations on Tuesday killed at least four Hamas policemen and wounded six Palestinian civilians. Islamist Hamas’s takeover of the territory in June stoked calls in the Jewish state for a big military sweep.” (10/30/07)
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL3071336320071030
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25 - MD: Wiccan lottery winner plans to open witch school
Raw Story
“Wiccan high priest Elwood ‘Bunky’ Bartlett, who won an estimated $49 million in the Maryland lottery last month, intends to use his money to set up a school for witches — a real-life Hogwarts. Bartlett, who formerly operated a bookkeeping service, says the winning ticket came to him after he promised ‘the powers that be’ that he would use his winnings to quit his job and teach full-time. He told the Associated Press that his school will teach not just about Wicca but also about multiple spiritual traditions, as well as offering training in practical skills like financial management.” (10/30/07)
COMMENTARY
26 - The American idea, as if you asked
The American Prospect
Courtney E. Martin
“The Atlantic celebrated its 150th anniversary this month by asking intellectuals and artists to write 300 words or create an image on ‘the future of the idea of America.’ The print edition featured, to my count, 47 such short essays and images, with just eight of them written by women. Most contributors, too boot, are hovering around AARP membership age. Ah, America, land of equality and equal representation. Though I wasn’t asked, and James Bennett probably doesn’t give a you-know-what about my thoughts, I’ve decided to tell him (and you) anyway. Tom Wolfe didn’t stick to 300 words (shocker), so I’m not either. Defying the rules is certainly one kind of American idea, after all.” (11/05/07)
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27 - Mukasey is (much) worse than Gonzales
The Nation
John Nichols
“George Bush’s nominee to replace disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, retired Federal Judge Michael B. Mukasey, must be rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee for the same reason that Gonzales should have been rejected in 2005. Like Gonzales, Mukasey refuses to accept that the president of the United States must abide by the laws of the land, beginning with the Constitution. In fact, the nominee to replace the worst Attorney General since Calvin Coolidge forced Harry Micajah Daugherty to quit rather than face impeachment is actually takes a more extreme position in defense of an imperial presidency than did Gonzales.” [editor’s note: So this job has now gone from Reno to Ashcroft to Gonzalez and now Mukasey … and each time gotten WORSE? - SAT] (11/05/07)
www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=248702
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28 - Schwarzenegger vetoes justice
Fox News
Radley Balko
“In 2004, the California state senate created the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, a panel of current and former judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and police officials. The legislators were concerned about the recent spate of DNA exonerations and death row releases, including at least six cases in California since 1989 in which someone had been sentenced to death then exonerated or acquitted in a new trial. A 2004 report in San Francisco magazine identified 200 cases over 15 years in which someone in California had been unjustly convicted, then freed—more than the number of exonerations in the next two states combined. The magazine estimated somewhere between 150 and 1,500 innocent people may still be sitting in the state’s prisons. The state senate charged the commission with recommending reasonable reforms to guard against wrongful convictions.” (11/05/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308357,00.html
=====
29 - Musharraf fears democracy, not extremism
Christian Science Monitor
Vali Nasr
“On Nov. 3, Gen. Pervez Musharraf put Pakistan effectively under martial law. He suspended the Constitution; sacked judges; imposed restrictions on the press; and put hundreds of politicians, lawyers, and civil society activists in jail or under house arrest. This was a military coup, President Musharraf’s second in less than a decade. In 1999, his target was the elected government; this time it is the judiciary, the obstacle to his indefinite rule over Pakistan. Musharraf justified his actions by warning that Pakistan’s sovereignty was in danger and that he would not allow the country ‘to commit suicide.’ One would assume he was referring to foreign invasion or civil war, but it was Pakistan’s independent-minded judges and secular lawyers that he was accusing of sedition, for standing up to him and holding his government accountable before the law.” [editor’s note: If only this writer knew that the concept for which he’s searching is “liberty” not “demoncrazy” - SAT] (11/06/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1106/p09s02-coop.html
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30 - The affirmative action provocateur
Boston Globe
Anita F. Hill
“Given an increasing minority population and key locations where minorities are actually the majority, neither Republicans nor Democrats can risk alienating voters by being insensitive to gender or racial concerns. For that reason, both parties should be concerned about how Ward Connerly’s ‘Super Tuesday for Equal Rights’ campaign against affirmative action will affect the November 2008 election.” (11/05/07)
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31 - Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
In These Times
Lindsay Beyerstein
“The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a vote of 404-6. The wide margin is indicative of a growing concern among U.S. authorities about the potential for so-called ‘homegrown terrorism’ in the United States. ‘The impetus is that homegrown terror is something that we now see in Western Europe. It’s by far the number one threat to security in Britain,’ Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who introduced the bill, told In These Times. Some of the most infamous terrorist attacks in U.S. history have been carried out by citizens, including the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Harman doesn’t believe homegrown terrorism is a major threat to U.S. security today, but she says that it is important to learn from experiences in other countries like Britain and Canada, where citizens have been inspired to commit terrorism at home by Islamic propagandists reaching out over the Internet
.” (11/01/07)
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32 - Dixie Chicking: Post 9-11 blacklisting
TruthDig
Ed Rampell
“The HUAC/McCarthy era and Hollywood blacklist may be over, but the not-so-grand inquisitors are still among us. On March 31, 2007, activist/actor Mike Farrell, who co-starred in TV’s M*A*S*H and co-founded Artists United to Win Without War, told Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting’s CounterSpin radio program, ‘There’s a price to be paid for speaking out, and some have paid a fairly serious price.’ Around that same time, at a March 24, 2007, anti-war Oakland town meeting called by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, actor Sean Penn stated: ‘we are encouraged to self-censor any words that might be perceived as inflammatory — if our belief is that this war should stop today. We cower as you point fingers telling us to “support our troops”.’” (10/25/07)
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33 - Vets make waterboarding appeal
Consortium News
Twenty-four Former U.S. Intelligence Officers
“Michael Mukasey refuses to acknowledge that ‘waterboarding’ — a simulated drowning technique that dates back to the Inquisition — constitutes torture. Nevertheless, the Democratic-controlled Senate is on course to confirm him as Attorney General. In this memo, 24 U.S. intelligence veterans appeal to the Senate Judiciary Committee to insist on a straight answer from Mukasey.” (11/05/07)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/110507a.html
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34 - A paper coup
Huffington Post
Naomi Wolf
“fA riend emails me a story from USA Today about a 24-year-old college graduate who testified before Congress about her family of immigrants and the difficulties they face; shortly afterward, the entire family was arrested by immigration agents. Another online piece reports that Blackwater is setting up operations along the US/Mexico border and an insightful post on Daily Kos describes how the TSA list will revert from the airlines to the management of the Department of Homeland Security shortly and that by February we may well face the need to apply to the State for permission to travel. If this proposed regulation goes through, we will move from 1931 to about 1934–when the borders started to close– with the stroke of a pen. Jews in America have hardwired into their DNA a sense of the distinction between those who got out before the borders closed and those who waited a moment too long.” [editor’s note: Without a shot fired-MLS](11/05/07)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/a-paper-coup-and-black_b_71067.html
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35 - Yo! What happened to peace?
CounterPunch
Michael Simmons
“A powerful contemporary group show that exemplifies the art community’s pacifistic impulse is YO! WHAT HAPPENED TO PEACE? Curated by artist John Carr, YO! is the work of over 200 visual artists responding to the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and can be viewed in both a catalogue for purchase and a traveling exhibition. Carr began collecting anti-war prints in 2002 while the Bush Administration was lying through its teeth about Weapons of Mass Destruction.” (11/05/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/simmons11052007.htm
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36 - Sham of a war
Strike the Root
Retta Fontana
“I know what you’re asking yourself. “To what particular sham does she refer?” I realize I will have to narrow it down for thinking people. I am referring, dear reader, to the particular sham of the War on Drugs.” (11/05/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/fontana/fontana6.html
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37 - Remember, Remember This Fifth of November
Strike the Root
Glen Allport
“Yet something must be done to advance the cause of love and freedom – something with a real chance of success, and of at least partial success in the near term. The exponential growth of technological power, combined with our traditional plagues of widespread emotional damage and systematic use of coercion by the State, could lead to conditions of greatly enhanced tyranny (or something worse, including extinction) that cannot be undone.” (11/05/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/allport/allport17.html
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38 - Stop lying to yourself: You love Dennis Kucinich
Salon
Rebecca Traister
“Dear Democrats: It has recently come to my attention that you (and by ‘you’ I also mean ‘I’) are in the grip of mass self-delusion. It’s long entrenched, and reinforced every night as many of you swig your beers or glasses of wine, lean over your keyboards and earnestly debate the merits of John Edwards and Barack Obama, fret over Hillary Clinton’s authenticity and calculate the chances of Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd. You are lying to yourselves. In a quest for an ‘electable,’ ‘not insane’ presidential candidate, you are willfully overlooking the candidate who actually comes closest to representing the things in which you really believe: justice and peace and the basic freedoms that should be afforded to every American, regardless of race, class, religion, gender, sexual orientation or galactic origin.” (11/05/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/11/05/kucinich/
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39 - Not all it’s cracked up to be
Slate
David Sessions
“As a politically interested evangelical, I’m constantly surprised to find that newspapers know more about my political feelings than I do. I haven’t even picked my presidential candidate yet, but, it turns out, I’m supposed to be frustrated and dissatisfied with my options — and my peers. To hear the press tell it, the so-called values voter is disenchanted with the Republican Party and will stay home and pray for our country on Election Day ‘08 if the GOP nominee ends up being a cross-dressing home wrecker — or, God forbid, a Mormon.” (11/02/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2177388/
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40 - Postal service says killing small periodicals is a “win-win”
Mother Jones
Jonathan Stein
“The founding fathers saw the press as the lifeblood of democracy — only informed voters could compose a true democracy, they believed — and thus created a postal system that gave favorable rates to small periodicals. (George Washington actually supported mailing newspapers for free.) For 200 years, small periodicals and journals of opinion were given special treatment. The 2007 rate hikes, which went into effect this summer, changed that. Now, periodicals are still expected to cover attributable costs and pay no overhead, but because the cost of delivering mail has gone up, rates within the class have gone up as well. In advance of the rate hike, the Postal Service submitted a proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission that would have raised the rates in the class more or less evenly. The PRC rejected the proposal in favor of a rate package put forward by Time Warner that, unsurprisingly, hands small periodicals much steeper rate hikes than their large counterparts.” (11/03/07)
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41 - 18 years and Exxon still won’t pay for Valdez spill
AlterNet
Riki Ott
“The Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear ExxonMobil’s reasons to void the $2.5 billion punitive award in the Exxon Valdez case hit the town of Cordova, Alaska, hard. This small coastal fishing community — my hometown — along with the Alaska Native villages in Prince William Sound have borne the brunt of the largest crude oil spill in America’s waters; a spill that took place more than 18 years ago, but one that continues to hold the region hostage. The second painful blow was the high court’s decision to not even hear our reasons why the award should be restored to the full $5 billion that a jury of peers decided was necessary to punish the corporate giant back in 1994.” (11/05/07)
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/66647/
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42 - Freedom works
Orange County Register
Alan W. Bock
“Our company’s founder, and the descendants who continue to lead Freedom Communications Inc., come at the world with an idea: to advance human liberty. For libertarian R.C. Hoiles, who bought the Santa Ana Register in 1935, that meant limited government, respect for the individual, free markets, free trade and progress through voluntary relationships. How would R.C., whose birthday we mark later this month, grapple with today’s seemingly intractable problems? In the short essays below and on page 5, we make proposals with little or no consideration for political feasibility. We suggest policy goals consistent with concern for personal liberty as the ultimate political good. We believe that ‘freedom works’ because it is the natural state of human beings. Social arrangements that corrupt this state, that force individuals to behave against their own best instincts, cannot work in the long run.” (11/04/07)
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43 - When waterboarding was a crime
Salon
Joan Walsh
“Ever get the feeling the debate about waterboarding is surreal, that most people have to realize that it’s torture, and that it’s illegal? So does Evan Wallach, a former judge advocate general in the Nevada National Guard, who has a must-read Op-Ed in the Washington Post Sunday. Wallach recalls a time when U.S. military leaders knew waterboarding was torture — when they prosecuted and convicted Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war after World War II, during the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials.” (11/04/07)
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44 - Why financial CEOs earn more than real-economy ones
The American Prospect
Robert B. Reich
“Look at the highest paid one half of one percent of Americans, and who do you find? According to a study by University of Chicago professors Steven Kaplan and Joshua Rauh, more than twice as many Wall Street financiers as corporate executives. Why do you imagine there’s such a huge disparity between executives in the financial economy and those in the real economy? If you believe pay is a measure of someone’s economic value, you might think that Wall Street’s top brass is just plain smarter. … Well, you might want to think again. Last week, Merrill Lynch stunned investors by announcing a $7.9 billion write-down of bonds backed by sub-prime mortgages — billions more than the company had forecast earlier this month. Then earlier this week, Merrill’s top gun, Stanley O’Neill, was sacked. But don’t cry for him. He’ll get a $140 million good-bye gift. … Even when it comes to being fired, it seems Wall Street’s top brass do better than regular CEOs.” (11/02/07)
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45 - A hero in Castro’s gulag
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“At a White House ceremony tomorrow President Bush will honor eight distinguished men and women with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civil award. Among the recipients will be the longtime civil rights activist Benjamin Hooks; Harper Lee, author of the much-loved novel, To Kill a Mockingbird; and C-SPAN’s founder and president, Brian Lamb. One of the honorees, however, will not be there. Instead of joining the president amid the pomp and finery of the White House, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet will spend the day locked in a fetid cell in the Combinado del Este prison in Havana, where he is serving a 25-year prison sentence for speaking out against Fidel Castro’s dictatorship.” (11/04/07
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46 - The great debate of 2008
The Nation
Jerry W. Sanders
“If ever the time was right for a Great Debate on America’s purpose and place in the world, that time is now. But if early auditions leading up to primary season are any indication, the top contenders are either not up to the task or unwilling to take on the challenge of correcting the current course of failure in US foreign policy. Despite America’s dire standing in the world and the President’s record low approval ratings at home, leading Republican candidates have made it clear that they will deviate little from the geopolitics of fear and fantasy that have marked the Bush years. And while Democratic front-runners are quick to denounce the folly of the war in Iraq — at least in its execution — they appear reluctant to take on the worldview and logic from which it was manufactured and continues to be sold in anticipation of yet new adventures.” (11/02/07)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/sanders
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47 - Hillary: Under attack as a winner, not as a woman
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“I’ve got a great idea. Let’s pile on Hillary. Let’s jump all over her, claim she stumbled horribly at the debate, that her chances of winning have taken a huge hit, that she’s whining like a girl about it. Newt’s in: He says Hillary’s chances of winning the nomination have dropped from 80 percent to 50 percent, or something like that, even though no poll supports him on that. Obama’s in: He’s all over the place intimating that Hillary should stop behaving like a little girl, that he didn’t complain when everybody jumped all over him (I don’t remember, when was that?) or say they did it because he was black.” (11/04/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307964,00.html
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48 - If you give separatists an inch …
Christian Science Monitor
David Young
“The NATO intervention in the Serbian province of Kosovo in 1999, the UN protectorate that followed, and the symbiotic push for Kosovo’s development and independence have left many analysts and politicians scrambling either to bemoan or trivialize the impact that Kosovo’s final status could have on the global order. With the looming Dec. 10 deadline for the latest round of negotiations, it seems exceedingly unlikely that Washington will be able to persuade Moscow to endorse Kosovo’s independence at the UN Security Council. Yet Kosovo’s frustrated Albanians, who make up more than 90 percent of the province’s population, have hinted that they are on the brink of declaring independence unilaterally, even if it means renewed conflict with Belgrade. Ultimately, in our international system, a nation’s ‘independence’ is little more than the rest of the world’s willingness to recognize it as independent.” (11/05/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1105/p09s02-coop.html
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49 - Warning, this film could make you very angry
Independent [UK]
Robert Fisk
“At university, we male students used to say that it was impossible to take a beautiful young woman to the cinema and concentrate on the film. But in Canada, I’ve at last proved this to be untrue. Familiar with the Middle East and its abuses — and with the vicious policies of George Bush — we both sat absorbed by Rendition, Gavin Hood’s powerful, appalling testimony of the torture of a ‘terrorist suspect’ in an unidentified Arab capital after he was shipped there by CIA thugs in Washington.” (11/03/07)l
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article3124292.ece
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50 - Raw data
Slate
Phillip Carter
“When Mark Twain lumped statistics together with lies and damned lies, he could have had Mesopotamia in mind. A new set of data from Iraq shows Iraqi civilian deaths on the decline, from 2,800 in January 2007 to about 800 last month. Other reports reveal that tens of thousands of Iraqis have joined local auxiliary forces to secure their neighborhoods and that U.S. forces continue to kill or capture many of the insurgency’s top leaders. Violence is down sharply in most areas. In Baghdad, troops report weeks without a roadside bomb in neighborhoods that used to be hit every day; and in Anbar, things are so good the Marines held a 5K race on the streets of Ramadi two weeks ago. Still, the truth behind these numbers is elusive. It’s near impossible to discern whether they reflect the success of our military operations or some larger, deeper trends in Iraqi society, such as the success of the Shiite campaign to rid Baghdad of its Sunni residents. The situation does present a paradox, ho
wever.” (11/02/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2177250/
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51 - You’re not the regulator of me
Mother Jones
Marla Felcher
“Ever since Illinois-based rc2 Corp. recalled 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine trains in June after they were found to be coated in lead paint, the headlines have been full of reports on the dangers of Chinese imports — lead paint on Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street toys, Barbies with small magnets that came loose, Playskool sippy cups whose spouts broke off, causing toddlers to choke. Most of the stories have focused on the lack of manufacturer oversight in China. But the root of the problem is closer to home: The CPSC, created to prevent hazardous products from winding up in American homes, has been gutted by decades of manufacturer lobbying and White House interference — and the Bush administration has finally paralyzed it to the point that it can barely function.” (11/07)
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52 - What it will take to build a sustainable US
AlterNet
Kenny Ausubel
“Google Earth will leave you google-eyed. An overrun resource base is visibly shrinking at the same time our population keeps growing. Honey, we shrunk the planet. The bottom line, of course, is we’re living beyond our means. Nearly two thirds of the life-support services provided to us by nature are in decline worldwide and the pace is quickening. We can’t count on the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations. This is new territory.” (11/01/07)
http://www.alternet.org/environment/66725/
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53 - Low country
The New Republic
Michael Crowley
“While the Republican field remains focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina has already developed into the sleaziest leg of the presidential race. That comes as no surprise. The Palmetto State has long practiced an unusually grubby brand of politics. Many presidential candidates would probably skip it altogether if they could. (’They play with live ammo down there!’ squawks one campaign aide.) But South Carolina is far too important for that: Not since 1976 has a Republican candidate been nominated without winning the state’s contest, the third of the primary season. (This year, Michigan may vote earlier, and Nevada caucuses on the same day — but it’s South Carolina the GOP candidates are most focused on.) As the 2008 Republicans trudge toward this political Mordor, they do so bracing for what threaten to be new lows of attack politics. John McCain’s reputation was slandered (and his candidacy ruined) here in 2000 — and he was a war hero. By contrast, the current leaders
of the GOP field — Romney, Thompson, and Rudy Giuliani — seem almost tailor-made for the state’s smear machine.” (for publication 11/05/07)
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54 - What Hillary won’t say about torture
Salon
Mark Benjamin
“The first fusillade at Hillary Clinton during the Democrats’ feisty debate on Tuesday night came, as expected, from Barack Obama. But it included an unexpected subject. Obama called Clinton a flip-flopper on torture. ‘She has taken one position on torture several months ago, and then most recently has taken a different position,’ he fired. At first blush it seemed like an odd attack on Clinton, who has emphasized her ‘clear’ opposition to torture. But while Clinton continues to inch closer to the rest of the Democratic pack in her positions on the subject, her stance on torture isn’t as ironclad as it appears.” (11/02/07)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/02/hillary/
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55 - Heck of a job, Hughsie
Slate
Fred Kaplan
“And so Karen Hughes is leaving her post as ‘public diplomat’ in much the same way she assumed it, with an air of farce and mystery. The farcical qualities, in both phases, were up front for all to see. Her entrance two years ago, in a high-profile PR trip to the Middle East, was a jaw-dropping display of ignorance and malapropism that made her the laughing stock of the region. Her announced exit yesterday was marked by tributes to her alleged achievements that were simply surreal. But it is the mysteries that are murkier. Why was Karen Hughes — this hard-headed but provincial Texan with no experience in foreign affairs and only a smattering of irrelevant Spanish — handed the job of repairing America’s image in the Muslim world? And, with just over a year to go in his presidency, why is this avid Bush loyalist leaving now?” (11/01/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2177248/