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Catherina's Journal
The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.
- Frank Kent
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If "Yes we can" is to remain believable, then I'm not shutting up.
Surveillance Bill: The Worst of All Worlds by Aziz Huq Months of troubled negotiations over new surveillance legislation ended in the House of Representatives today, with the approval of the so-called FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Hailed in some quarters as a “compromise” after the capitulation of the Protect America Act of 2006, the new surveillance bill is nothing of the kind: on core issues of privacy and accountability, there is no compromise, since little in the measure honors those two values. ... At first blush, the new bill seems to be a fair compromise. Under Section 802, pending lawsuits are not automatically dismissed. They are not even moved to the secretive FISA court, as an earlier proposal would have done. Rather, the district court in each case is required to dismiss a case provided that a defendant telecom can show that it acted with the “authorization” of the President and also with a certain kind of “written request or directive.” The bill then provides an elaborate description of that directive: it can be from the Attorney General, or the head of “an element of the intelligence community” (or from their deputy), and must say simply that the surveillance was determined to be lawful. The bill does not say who must have made this determination. According to the a report in the Washington Post, this provision would give courts “the chance to evaluate whether telecommunications companies deserve retroactive protection from lawsuits.” But the provision does nothing of the kind. Rather, the court can only look to see if the defendant has the piece of paper described in the law, and if it does, the court must dismiss the case. By interposing a certification requirement, and directing judicial attention to a piece of paper, the bill fends off judicial scrutiny of what in fact occurred. And there is every reason to believe that the telecom defendants will have the necessary piece of paper. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the bill has been carefully written to track the precise piece of paper the telecoms have–otherwise, why list both the Attorney General and the heads of intelligence community elements? And why include the weird codicil about the deputies of one but not the other? House minority whip Roy Blunt of Missouri has all but confirmed that the law was drafted to give the pretense of judicial review without the substance: “The lawsuits will be dismissed,” Blunt explained, “and we feel comfortable that the standard of evidence that the law requires will be easily met.”The bill, in short, is worse than granting absolute immunity: it is an effort to suborn the legitimacy of the federal courts by having a judge rubber-stamp the dismissal of cases against the telecoms without looking at the substance of what, in fact, was done. It reduces the separation of powers to a check-the-box exercise. The bill does no better on privacy matters–the question of new surveillance power. Title I of the measure grants the executive branch new surveillance powers for collecting the communications of persons overseas. Although it contains several provisions that purport to shelter Americans’ privacy both at home and overseas, these parts of the bill are rendered irrelevant by the grant of sweeping collection authorization. ... Specifically, the role of judges is limited to ascertaining whether the Attorney General has completed a certification promising that either he has followed the law, or that he will follow the law soon. If the Attorney General cannot meet even this spectacularly low bar, the bill gives the government time to amend and to re-file the certificate. Something even Alberto Gonzales could manage.This is a radical break from the FISA regime created in 1978, and risks severe harm to Americans’ privacy interests. The most important break with FISA is the absence of any individualized warrant requirement: it is now whole collection programs that are authorized and reviewed. And the abandonment of discrete, individualized legislative authorization and judicial review is only the first of the bill’s troubling features. ... Aziz Huq directs the liberty and national security project at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. He is co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror (New Press, 2007) http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/0... / Call your Representatives NOW!
That was a superb, beautifully delivered speech! I hope Hillary supporters won't take this as an insult because it's MOST certainly not meant that way. I would really like to see Obama create a special, TRAIL-BLAZING position for Hillary where she's in charge of Women's and Children's Affairs. She brought huge tears to my eyes and I'm proud of her as a woman. That speech was a keeper and, in this rotten world of impure politics, so is Hillary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFycTqrsymk
I am reposting this because in our justified disgust with Koryne Horbal, many people may miss that the very important response of the President of the DFL Feminist Caucus Here is the initial screwball nastiness from Koryne Horbal Feminist leader says no to Obama  ... "I don't care," Horbal said of the possibility that the move might cost Obama votes. She said she also would not be bothered if the write-in campaign indirectly helped elect John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. "Let McCain clean it up for four years, and then we can have Hillary run again," she said. ... She also said, however, that Clinton remains the better candidate: "This woman is ready, and Obama is not ready." "You have to do what you have to do," she added. Koryne Horbal, the 71-year-old founder of the DFL Feminist Caucus, doesn't care whether her idea costs Democrats the White House. http://www.startribune.com/politics/nation... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... And here is the firm, clear reply from the President of the DFL Feminist Caucus http://www.dflfc.org / Greeting everyone, The DFL Feminist Caucus took no part in the recent StarTribune article or other similar efforts regarding any type of protesting the Democratic candidate. It was as much of a surprise to us as it was to you.
We have never spoken about this or any other "protest" inside or outside our meetings nor has anyone addressed it with us. As president, I would have aggressively discouraged such an effort. It violates everything we believe as a DFLers.If you have any questions... please contact us. Let people know that we are as offended and shocked as you are!! If we, the people who fight for equality, cannot find it in our own hearts to celebrate the success of our own friends...than "who are we." The Obama Campaign has been contacted to help clarify this situation...! Mari Pokornowski President, Feminist Caucus They have also sent out a press release lest it be assumed that first nutjob was speaking in any official capacity Press Release: Statement of DFL Feminist Caucus President Mari Pokornowski "I want to make it absolutely clear that assertions that the DFL Feminist Caucus is encouraging a "protest" write-in effort for Hillary Clinton in the general election for President of the United States, are absolutely false.In addition, please be advised that neither me, or any official of the Caucus, had any involvement in promoting the Star Tribune article quoting a well known Minnesota feminist saying she personally would write-in Hillary Clinton for president as a "protest" and would encourage others to do the same. ("Feminist leader says no to Obama," Star Tribune, May 30, 2008) The DFL Feminist Caucus has never discussed this "protest" inside or outside our meetings nor has anyone ever address it with us. As president, I would have aggressively discouraged such an effort. Indeed, to promote such an effort would violate the very tenets of our political party. ### http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.... FOR SHAME! Thtanks to Vinca and A-Schwarzenegger for finding Mari's statements.
 Ichingcarpenter posted this photo. It's perfect for today. Just believe.
Primaries are not an election. Get that out of your head.
The Democratic and Republican parties have the right to run whatever candidate it wants without any input from voters. There's NO provision for Primaries or political parties in the Constitution. It used to be Congressmen just nominated whoever they preferred from their respective parties to run for President.
Both parties are well within their right to just TELL us who the candidate is going to be without soliciting our input. That's exactly what the Republicans did last election. They didn't even have primaries, Bush was the appointed nominee.
The sooner people understand that, the better off we'll be. If you don't like the system and want to change it, it usually helps to understand what the facts are.
To address your point about caucuses
In order to find the best possible nominee, the Democratic Party consults a combination of ordinary normally lazy voters who get their news from the MSM AND Activists. Caucuses are their way of telling how the hard-working activists who've been paying attention to the issues and put their energy where their vote is are willing to work hard for.
They have Primary elections and caucuses so they can get a good picture before they invest for the kill.
I'm sure you can fill in all the dots to understand why this system makes the MOST sense for the party.
Why I’m Kinda Fonda Obama (And More So Each Week) by David Michael Green Some of us who like Barack Obama get accused of having drunk the Kool-Aid - or perhaps love-potion would be more accurate - and thus being too smitten by his rhetorical enticements to see him clearly for what he is. Maybe that accurately describes many of his fans, but it’s definitely not me. I warmed up to Obama slowly, and I’m still rather dubious about what he would actually do as president. Moreover, I found his rhetorical gifts to be, if anything, both overstated and simultaneously a bit off-putting. For a long time, I never thought that Obama was quite the magician at the microphone that he was supposed to be. And when he was eloquent, he raised my hard-earned suspicions about those politicians who can make people feel good with words, whilst deftly picking their pockets at the very same time. We had a president like that in the 1980s, and then another one in the 1990s. It didn’t work out so well. (Although it did work out better than the current one, who skipped the rhetorical foreplay altogether and jumped directly to the royal screwing.) I didn’t really start to warm up to Obama until February or so. But I have to say that since then, he seems more impressive to me each week. It’s easy to like this guy a lot in a relative sense - which may be why I or others come off as gaga for ‘Bama when we’re not actually. Anyhow, he’s certainly light-years ahead of either of his competitors for the presidency. But, the more I see him in action, the more I like him in an absolute sense as well. I think perhaps he’s for real, and I think perhaps he could be a great president at a moment of multiple crises in this country. Perhaps not. The real danger is that he would settle for half-measures and replicate the behavior of the Clinton presidency (make that one-tenth-measures). He might even be adored for that, given the public’s disgust with the current government, and given their actual desire to avoid serious amounts of real change, however much they like to mouth the words. Even if that was all he was, that would still be one hell of an improvement. I think he would have little choice but to end the war in Iraq and to move on national healthcare, even if he didn’t want to risk the considerable political capital necessary for pursuing either of these initiatives. Those two changes alone would be worth the price of admission, but you most certainly could also throw in improved relations with the world, a real government in place of rampant cronyism, much improved environmental protection, and at least moderates as choices for the Supreme Court and other federal judgeships. Like I said, that alone - essentially a return to the status quo ante - would represent some very substantial improvement. I’d say the real question is whether Obama would have the courage and skill to tackle other real problems that require Americans to actually make some serious changes and sacrifices, and that would require fighting some very powerful lobbies. Certainly healthcare falls under that category, but I think Obama has promised that enough now that he could not really walk away from it. But what about energy policy? Global warming? Military spending? De-imperializing American foreign policy? Entitlement reform? The deficit and the debt? The economy? Gay rights? Regulation of Wall Street? He can’t try to do all these things at once, and he absolutely shouldn’t. And yet, many of them scream out for solutions yesterday, let alone tomorrow. Obama could probably easily ride out four years, or even eight, and still get away with pretending to address some of these problems, while remaining highly popular. Clinton did it. Indeed, it is quite likely that much of Obama’a popularity would rest on his not seriously addressing these issues. But the mark of greatness in his or any other presidency is the ability to articulate the big issues of our time (and to do so accurately, Mr. Bush), to place them on the national agenda, to sell the issues at home and abroad, to advance the right solutions, and then to successfully implement those. FDR did it twice, with the New Deal and the World War II. Clinton never did - unless you happen to think the V-Chip was a great leap forward for humankind - though the near-term read on his presidency is that it was still modestly successful. Does Obama have Rooseveltian levels of courage and moxie to be something special? Hard to say so far (and, of course, there’s the minor matter of getting elected still ahead of him), but I like some of the signs I see. I like Obama more each week for a number of reasons. One is certainly the eloquent rhetoric. I think that can be hugely important, as long as it’s real, not empty. I’ll admit that I initially shared the concern of many that Obama was all rhetoric, no substance. And, to a certain extent it’s true, his speeches pretty much contain a lot of lofty notions that are about as objectionable as motherhood and apple pie. But the truth is that he’s actually used some pretty tough language on a number of issues, including the two I care about most - the war and economic justice. When I looked closely at those speeches I realized that he is saying pretty much exactly what I’d want a progressive politician to be saying. And, to the minor extent that he’s not tossing more red meat out in my direction, I have to admire his wisdom in refraining from doing so, even assuming (which I don’t) that he is so inclined. He’s not going to get elected by banging the socialism drum, or the Bush impeachment drum, or the fairness to Palestinians drum, so why should he? Especially as a candidate, I don’t expect him to commit political suicide, nor do I want him to. As they say, sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. A perfect Candidate Obama would surely yield a disastrous President McCain. No thanks to that. ... http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles...
 Change Guam to Puerto Rico
but consider it done. Rec'd
Obama’s Success Reflects America’s Growth  On Aug. 28, 45 years from the day of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s historic speech at the March on Washington, Barack Obama will receive the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in Denver. Obama’s impending victory reflects not simply the triumph of hope or the desire for change. It reveals an America that keeps growing, keeps renewing itself, keeps getting better. Obama has special gifts. He has run a remarkable campaign against the odds. But he has stood on the shoulders of giants. This has been a long campaign, but the journey to this day has been far longer. King’s speech in 1963 was but one step in an ongoing movement. After the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that segregation was illegal, people remained skeptical that anything would change. But many started to move.  Then on Aug. 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered for the “crime” of whistling at the white wife of a shopkeeper in Money, Miss. Till, raised in Chicago, was spending the summer with his uncle. His murderers gouged out his eyes, shot him in the head, used barbed wire to tie a cotton gin around his neck and threw him into the Tallahatchie River. Outraged, his mother, Mamie Till, brought his remains back to Chicago and demanded a funeral with an open casket. It was reported that 50,000 people viewed the body. Jet magazine sold record numbers of magazines. The protest of Mamie Till electrified African Americans, even as the murderers were acquitted by a white jury in Mississippi. Three months later, Rosa Parks refused to get up from that seat on the bus. When I asked her how she dared face the threats that would follow, she said she was thinking about Emmett Till. She had seen a picture of his body and was having trouble sleeping from the pain.  She decided it was time to act. King, a young minister, came to her aid. The Montgomery bus boycott moved the civil rights movement to the nation’s attention. On Aug. 28, 1963, when King delivered his dream, the South was still segregated. Neither the Civil Rights Bill nor the Voting Rights Act had passed. The March on Washington took place at a time of struggle, of beatings and arrests, of innocents sacrificed and heroes struck down. But King chose to look beyond the agony of the moment to envision a new day, the hope of what might be.  Now, 45 years later, Obama’s victory is a testament not simply to his singular skills, but to the struggle and the sacrifice over many decades of many ordinary heroes, too often forgotten. America is not a perfect nation. Race still divides us. The gulf between rich and poor grows wider. We squander our wealth in misbegotten wars and misplaced priorities. But America’s glory is not that it is perfect, but that it continues to grow. This takes courageous leaders and independent struggle, leadership not from the top down, but from the bottom up. King galvanized a nation, but his movement depended on the courage and sacrifice of unsung American citizens, white and black, deciding to stand up against great odds, to remain disciplined in the face of brutal reaction, to keep on keeping on even when the dark seemed to shut out the light. We’ve had a hotly contested primary. We’re headed to what will be a fierce general election, already featuring ugly efforts to divide us. But let us not forget to appreciate just how far we have come. And how many sacrificed to help us get here.  –Jesse Jackson http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/95882... 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBsGQ_c6x7w
"Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago,
When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door.
This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well,
The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till.
Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up.
They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what.
They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat.
There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street.
Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain
And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain.
The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie,
Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die.
And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial,
Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till.
But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime,
And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind.
I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see
The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs.
For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free,
While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea.
If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust,
Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust.
Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow,
For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low!
This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.
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Profile Information Catherina
Catherina Not a DU Donor 4515 posts Member since Mon Mar 3rd 2008 Blogroll DU Journals
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