Amy Goodman - Arrested for being Amy Goodman
Democracy in America seems to be taking a holiday in Minnesota. It completely sickens me. I thought we had a constitution to protect us from stuff like this? Maybe I was wrong.
Entries Tagged as 'Civil Liberty'
Massive Intimidation in Minneapolis
From Glenn Greenwald:
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff’s department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than “fire code violations,” and early this morning, the Sheriff’s department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.
Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning — one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a “hippie house,” where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with “peaceful kids” who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here. (more… )
Obama and McCain on Abortion
There are some topics that we can argue over until the sun runs out of hydrogen and never make any headway. Abortion is one of these topics. There is no use debating this topic, people have already made up their minds. The problem with Senator John McCain’s position is that he would try to force all women to conform to his viewpoint. Women should be given the support and information necessary to make abortions truly a rare event as Senator Barack Obama said.
McCain Can’t Answer Birth Control Question
Now, I don’t want to judge Senator John McCain’s motivations, but how can you not support legislation that requires an insurance who covers Viagra to also cover birth control pills? Can some one explain this to me? The best part of this was John McCain’s response to a reporter’s question.
Update: Obama Moving to the Center
Progressives, including myself, have become somewhat disillusioned over the last couple of days as we watched our candidate seem to drop some of his core beliefs and move towards the center. I have no problem with a politician changing their mind. Heck, if President Bush would have changed his mind, we could have had our troops home four years ago. So, changing one’s mind is not necessarily a bad thing. What made Senator Barack Obama different was that he offered a new kind of politics, one that was not about political calculation but instead was about doing the right thing. Over the last seven days, it seems that we are seeing political calculation more than anything else.
The FISA bill may pose a conundrum for some politicians. Some may believe that they will be portrayed as weak and “supporting the terrorists” if they oppose this piece of legislation. I believe that there are two principles at stake with this legislation. First, all spying on Americans with regards to national intelligence should go through the FISA courts. Remember that during Alberto Gonzales’s tenure, the Bush White House decided that the FISA courts were too slow and too cumbersome. Therefore, they bypassed the court. This piece of legislation will prevent that bypass (in theory). Secondly, this piece of legislation offers immunity to the telecoms. I think the telecoms you get immunity if I can also get immunity from not paying my taxes for the next five years. I’m just saying…
So in this legislation there is a small sliver of good and a larger slice of bad.
Faith-based initiatives were a cornerstone of President Bush’s 2000 campaign. Unfortunately, as we have now found out, they were more about funneling money into the pockets of people that Bush liked. The program was less about helping the poor or decreasing inner-city violence. As a matter of fact, it had nothing to do with those kind of charitable issues. The program was about keeping the religious evangelicals in support of the Bush administration. Therefore, programs like intelligent design, abstinence-only, and similar programs were pushed by this faith-based initiative.
Obama’s proposal is not an update on Bush’s program, but instead it’s a complete reform or overhaul on this program. Anyone who has read his book The Audacity of Hope, understands that Obama is a man of faith. They should also understand that faith plays an important part in his life. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this. I’ll wait and see how things shake out.
Now Obama’s recent stance on NAFTA is a little bit more confusing. During the primaries, it appeared that Obama wanted to take a hard look at this treaty and possibly renegotiate some of aspects. Recent statements seem to contradict this. For the last eight years, “free trade” has meant more profits for companies and more layoffs of American workers. This trend must stop if we are going to restore the middle class.
As a matter of fact, I’m surprised that Mexico hasn’t tried to renegotiate this deal. Jobs that originally went to Mexico have now gone to China, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Why? Mexico was too expensive so it is now left with empty factories. Relatedly, the U.S. has unemployed workers, idle factories, and larger mansions.
I have not seen any convincing evidence to show that NAFTA has helped the American worker. If I am shown convincing evidence, I’ll rethink my position but currently I will support most measures that will strengthen unions and help the American worker. So I don’t think I can agree with Obama in this situation. [Read more →]
Joint statement Dodd, Feingold - FISA
Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) released the following statement today in response to the announcement that the Senate this week will consider the compromise legislation that would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) this week.
“This is a deeply flawed bill, which does nothing more than offer retroactive immunity by another name. We strongly urge our colleagues to reject this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation and oppose any efforts to consider this bill in its current form. We will oppose efforts to end debate on this bill as long as it provides retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that may have participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program, and as long as it fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans.
“If the Senate does proceed to this legislation, our immediate response will be to offer an amendment that strips the retroactive immunity provision out of the bill. We hope our colleagues will join us in supporting Americans’ civil liberties by opposing retroactive immunity and rejecting this so-called ‘compromise’ legislation.”
What’s Going On: News Roundup (Late Edition)
I know my news update is late but, I’m going to use the excuse I always use… I’m a trauma surgeon.
- Dell computers has been found guilty of fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices, and abusive debt collection practices. The lawsuit was brought by the New York Attorney General. It appears that several customers bought on-site service and never got that on-site service. On a personal note, this is just extremely sad. Over 10 years ago, I switched from Gateway computers to Dell computers because of service. I remember having to wake up and call Gateway at two or three in the morning in order to get somebody on the phone. For over five or six years there was no problem getting anyone on the phone at Dell and they were always happy to help. I guess Dell is following a trend that we’ve seen all over the country where service is a four letter word.
- Eugene Robinson, from the Washington Post, has a few words to say about Senator Hillary Clinton’s assassination reference. He believes that this maybe an ugly window into her soul. I hope not. Let’s use the sleep deprivation argument again. I would like to say that he has the last word, but I’m sure more people will write about this incident. I guess, in final analysis, Clinton has become a caricature of the Democratic party. She is still in a race that was over two months ago when everybody knew the math was not in her favor. Yet she still soldiered on, like Don Quixote. Why? To what end? Rachel Maddow, from Air America, had an interesting article in the Huffington Post. She argues that Clinton should take her case through the Rules and Regulations Committee, then the Credentials Committee, and then to the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Another article in the Washington Post suggests that Clinton doesn’t really have a path to victory.
- The Supreme Court upheld workers rights! Surprise! This decision involved two cases about workplace retaliation. The ridiculously conservative Supreme Court ruled in favor of workers. I’m pleased, but flabbergasted.
- Is tagging the same thing as vandalism? One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the damage isn’t tagging, its vandalism. I’m glad they caught this guy. The joke was over $149,000 ago.
- The suffering in China continues. Huge aftershocks reportedly destroyed over 400 thousand houses. Was that an aftershock or a separate quake? Are we seeing some new type of seismic activity in China that we haven’t seen recently? It appears that this earthquake has this been going on and on and on for weeks. Death tolls is well over 60 thousand!
100% conviction rate
I think that whoever is the Democratic nominee for President will need to have the smartest team of political advisers ever assembled. The Republican political machine will not go into the sweet night quietly. They have far too much to lose. Let’s think about this - in the next 4 - 8 years, there are going to be at least 3 and maybe 5 Supreme Court judges who will retire. With a Democratic lead House and Senate and a Democratic White House, could Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales be hauled before a court and found guilty of crimes against humanity? Could a former President and Vice President have to sit trial for outing a CIA agent? Would companies that have raped the American people, by pocketing millions and millions of dollars by being contractors in Iraq, have to re-pay moneys that were stolen or poorly accounted for? Did you see that a defense contractor has placed a $3 billion bid for Diebold.
I’m just asking because we have been holding Khalid Shaikh Mohammed for at least 5 years. Now, just before the 2008 election, there is going to be a trial. I wouldn’t be surprised if other things pop up to galvanize the base and distract from the Presidential race.
The Nation has a great article on this trail. Former chief prosecutor Col. Morris Davis says that the trials are rigged. Who’s surprised? After Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift (I thought that I posted his story but I haven’t. I’ll do that tomorrow.) resigned after he was passed over for promotion, he told his story of a rigged process.
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From The Nation:
Secret evidence. Denial of habeas corpus. Evidence obtained by waterboarding. Indefinite detention. The litany of complaints about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay is long, disturbing and by now familiar. Nonetheless, a new wave of shock and criticism greeted the Pentagon’s announcement on February 11 that it was charging six Guantánamo detainees, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, with war crimes–and seeking the death penalty for all of them.
Now, as the murky, quasi-legal staging of the Bush Administration’s military commissions unfolds, a key official has told The Nation that the trials have been rigged from the start. According to Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for Guantánamo’s military commissions, the process has been manipulated by Administration appointees to foreclose the possibility of acquittal. (more…)
Democracy?
KC (a frequent commentor to my blog, I appreciate it) wrote an interesting comment the other day. He stated that democracy leads to socialism which leads to communism. I asked him to elaborate. He said an incredibly interesting response. I’m posting a portion of it here –
Just take a look at the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto:
The 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto (USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YrRTWsKDtE
Communism in the United States
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb9ZBsvpxn0
Ask yourself this:
Why would the U.N., give China more accolades and praise than other country for its model of government?
Why should the playing field be level?
Why should we have shared responsibility?
Have you heard these terms and sayings?
Why should I pay for my neighbors health care, when I can barely afford my own?
I bet you have.
First of all, again thank you for your comments, I really appreciated. Secondly, I think is important for us to focus on what we know. We know that over the last 200 years that we basically we go to the polls and we elect people for the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President. As a whole, I believe that everyone could agree on this.
Is this a democracy? I guess it depends on your definition. Excluding irregularities in Ohio and Florida, the House of Representatives is elected through a democratic process and the president is elected through a democratic process. The Senate, because the representation is not proportional to population, can be argued is not a democratic body. We also have the Electoral College. This is clearly not a democratic process. If you go back and read what James Madison wrote, our founding fathers understood that this was a compromise. [Read more →]
Don Siegelman’s story
I think that 60 minutes did a good job telling this part of the Don Siegelman’s story.
Here’s my question for you, if they can do this to an ex-governor what chance do you and I have?
Countdown - Too many secrets
The Senate is working on a bill to compel judges to evaluate the governments claims of national security. Keith Olbermann has an excellent discussion with Jonathan Turley.
Leahy and Spector
Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Spector join Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room. Will they confirm the Bush Administration’s nominee for Attorney General? What questions will they ask him? This is a good conversation. Remember that although Senator Spector talks a tough game he has bent over backwards for the president on a number of occasions.
Mychal Bell back to jail
This case is just getting more complex. There were rumors about Mychal Bell being not the most clean cut High School student in the world. Well, it appears that he wasn’t even close to being clean cut. I tried to find out more information about Mychal Bell a couple of months ago. Didn’t find squat.
So, what happens now?
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From CNN.com:
A black Louisiana teenager at the center of the racially charged “Jena 6″ case was ordered Thursday to spend 18 months in a juvenile facility, after a judge ruled he had violated his probation for earlier juvenile convictions, a source with knowledge of the court proceedings said.
Mychal Bell, 17, who was freed two weeks ago after his adult criminal conviction for beating a white classmate was overturned, was sent to the Renaissance Home for Youth in Alexandria, Louisiana, the source said.
The decision came at the end of a two-day juvenile court hearing that was closed to the media and public. (more…)
Douglass/Burma
Burma Blogger Without Borders recently used this quote from Frederick Douglass. It is a great quote in the service of the purpose of political and social freedom in Burma and every place else—
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will.”
The Tory Mind
Here is a description of the mindset of the 18th-century British loyalist —or Tory— in America on the eve of the American Revolution. This excerpt comes from Vernon Parrington’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Colonial Mind 1620-1800.
See how what Parrington describes matches political types we see in America today—
” We must first take into account….Tory philosophy. Compressed into a sentence, it was an expression of the will-to-power of the wealthy. It’s motive was economic class interest, and it’s object the exploitation of society through the instrumentality of the state. Stated thus….it lays itself open to …criticism….In consequence, much ingenuity in tailoring was necessary to provide it with garments to cover its nakedness.
Embroidered with patriotism, loyalty, law and order, it made a very respectable appearance; and when it put on the stately robe of the British Constitution, it was enormously impressive.
It seems that the conservative mind and the conservative approach to politics does not change much with time. (Hence, I suppose, despite the radical nature of some on the right today, the term “conservative”)
As a low-minded bonus to readers, please note the illustration of the man being tarred-and-feathered in Colonial Boston.
In this case, British tax collector John Malcolm is being tarred-and-feathered and forced to drink hot tea as reprisal for the tea tax that spurred the Boston Tea Party.
The image is a British propaganda piece. Though, that said, the noose is an awful image at any time in history.
Tarring-and-feathering was vigilante justice. I’d like to think that even a friend of Samuel Adams such as myself would not have taken part in the practice.
I think that both myself and Errington would have been , like Thomas Paine back then, or a many bloggers today, propagandists for the Revolutionary side.
Free Speech
Congress is wrong to become involved in the free speech rights of either online advocacy group Moveon.org or radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
It is no surprise that my terrible Senator, John Cornyn of Texas, offered the resolution in the Senate to condemn MoveOn.
Both MoveOn and Mr. Limbaugh have made recent statements seen by some as overly harsh or somehow improper about persons involved with the War in Iraq.
Anyone can say anything they want about the war and about people fighting the war.
Congress condemned MoveOn in a formal vote. That was wrong. Now some in Congress want to condemn Mr. Limbaugh. This is wrong as well.
These issues are fine for campaign speeches.
However, when Congress gets into the business of voting on the merits of what should be protected free speech, we all risk losing our most basic freedoms.
Countdown - What’s up with the Dems?
The good news is that a Judge in Oregon seems to be reading the same Constitution that I am. The bad news many in Congress don’t seem to be reading that same document. 2 provisions of the Patriot Act have been struck down by a Federal Judge.
Keith talks with Rachael Maddow of Air America Radio. She may not be the flashiest talk show host on Air America. She does come correct everyday. She knows her stuff. She presents it in a straight forward manner that Thom Hartmann really doesn’t.
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From WaPo:
A federal judge in Oregon ruled yesterday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional, marking the second time in as many weeks that the anti-terrorism law has come under attack in the courts.
In a case brought by a Portland man who was wrongly detained as a terrorism suspect in 2004, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution because it “permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.” (more…)
Sally Field gets censored
I’m sure that everyone has heard this story by now. Sally Field won an Emmy (and let me say that she is really looking very good). She had the nerve to say, “the would be no God Damned wars if the mothers were in charge.” Fox censored the comment. Considering what we hear everyday, it wasn’t that bad, in my opinion. See the previous post for more on Free Speech.
Free Speech
I remember in high school and in college getting into these huge debates on free speech. As a rule, we are able to speech freely in this society but there are problems. Not only yelling, FIRE in a crowded movie theater but how about yelling, Nigger or Honky. What about just saying George Carlin’s seven dirty words? What about that student in Florida, who stood up to ask John Kerry a question, then went into a diatribe, do the rest of the people in the room have the right for that guy to shut up?
Now, before you think that we can look to our founding brothers for answers, I’ll warn you that they didn’t agree on this either. John Adams who was one of the greatest of the founders. He was a deep thinker. He signed the Alien and Sedation Acts which clearly limited speech and the press.
Back to modern times, what about that student in Alaska, with that sign, “Bong hits 4 Jesus“. All of this came up because the Flying Nun, Norma Rae, Sally Field got censored on the Emmy’s. She was speaking out against the war and said God Damned. Now, the Emmy’s were broadcast on Fox. Was she censored because of her words or her anti-war stance?
Electoral College; bye-bye
I don’t usually comment on local politics for a number of reasons including the fact that I just don’t follow it. But a recent Guest Commentary in the Asheville Citizen-Times is worth comment. The commentary is entitled Electoral College Part of Checks, Balances. The author, Dr. Joe Morgan, argues that the Electoral College is a “vital part of the checks and balances that have been written into the Constitution.” All I can say is that was exactly what I was taught in junior high school. Fortunately, I’ve grown up since then and found out the world is much more complicated than it was presented in junior high.
If we go back and look at the Electoral College, we find out something very interesting. We find an election system that was jerryrigged in order to please the South. The North clearly had a larger population of “voting” Americans. These southern states had a large population of “nonvoting” Americans — slaves. James Madison understood exactly what was going on when he said, “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.”
Without the Electoral College there would have been no America. The Framers had to balance liberty with reality. The reality was that Southern slave owners were not going to give up their slaves and they weren’t going to give their slaves the vote. This was the reality. Therefore, the Constitution was a balancing act between the slavery issue with the realities of the Southern slaveholders and the ideals of John Locke. Madison stated that the divisions between the states were not because of size “but by other circumstances; the most material of which resulted partly from climate, but principally from (the effects of) their having or not having slaves.”
With a little research, one can see that the Electoral College was developed in order to appease Southern states. I must question any system that was derived to appease slaveholders. As it turns out, the Electoral College system also discouraged Women’s Suffrage. There was no incentive for a state to give women the vote since more voters did not equal more Electoral College votes. The basic question is do we believe in a system of one man one vote? Do we, as Americans, truly believe in one man, one vote? If we do, then the Electoral College needs to be abolished.
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Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
