U.S. Attorney firings exposes rough justice “voter fraud” prevention equals voter suppression

There’s a new clue to the motivation behind the recent firing of federal prosecutors. Reporters Gordon, Talev and Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers established a likely relationship between the post 2000 hard right turn in civil rights policies at the Department of Justice and the promotion of the new cadre of right wing U.S. Attorneys who support restricting voter eligibility. Karl Rove’s own words on the subject indicate a further connection between recent appointments in nine states where very tight Congressional races were anticipated

The Bush Justice Department is imploding after years of consistently undermining the rights and freedoms of those citizens it claims to serve. From the Patriot Act to the unfettered sadism endorsed at White House inspired and sponsored torture centers around the world, the Justice Department stands with the White House. It provides a fig leaf of legal justification for the various adventures which involve war, death a suffering.

John and Elizabeth

There's only one reason a man with a wife with incurable breast cancer and two small children at home should be running off to run for president.

         Not because he wants the job, or even because she wants it for him.

         Because she wants it for them.

         Of course, the obvious explanation for why a man whose wife's cancer recurs would keep running is that he's too ambitious to give it up. After all, presidential candidates never see their wives anyway. Why let it interfere with a campaign that is going well enough? We're used to political marriages that put family second to ambition.

         But I don't think that's it in John Edwards' case. First of all, it's not true. He was willing to give it up. Second of all, he didn't have to give it up forever, just for this time, against two very strong contenders no less.

Surviving at the pleasure of the president

"You is feeling like you was lost in the bush, boy? You says: It is a puling sample jungle of woods. You most shouts out: Bethicket me for a stump of beech if I have the poultriest notions what the farest  he all means."~~James Joyce, Finnegans Wake (1939)

My friend Bernie says ever since the Bush gang stormed the White House in 2000, then stormed the World Trade Center in 2001, we've done nothing but run in circles like a bunch of terrified chickens with our heads chopped off. "We have no sense of direction," Bernie said, "we're staggering around in a jungle of lies, deceit, and scandal with no way out -- and that's the way they planned it."

"You're kidding!" I exclaimed, astonished. "You mean they planned this mess? It's nothing but bloody chaos out there --"

Will Al Gore get us to Solartopia?

Al Gore has leapt to center stage with well-founded concerns about global warming. He has been gratefully successful in publicizing the fact that there is a virtual library of irrefutable evidence that carbon dioxide levels are rapidly rising in our atmosphere, that this is being caused by human beings, and that the potential impacts are catastrophic.

What's not being said is that the solution to the problem---the necessary transition to Solartopia, a world based on renewable energy---is also the key to the future of our economic well-being, and would be whether global warming was a problem or not.

In short: even without the dire disaster of climate change, a transitioning to green power is the only hope our global economy has for future prosperity.

Indeed, moving to an industrial system that runs on wind, solar, bio-fuels and other renewable sources, along with increased efficiency, including a revival of mass transit, can and will do for the global economy in the next 25 years what the computer/internet revolution has done for the last.

My Fellow Concerned Citizens

To My Fellow Concerned Citizens:

I am writing with an urgent appeal to join a group of prominent Americans who will appear on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on Thursday March 29 to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.  The appearance of this distinguished group can be a galvanizing catalyst.

There is a moment now when impeachment can begin.   

The millions of people who thought they were repudiating the war when they voted out the Republicans this past November increasingly feel betrayed and angry. Far from deterred, Bush is moving forward with new war plans.  He faces almost no opposition to a strike against Iran. 

The more public pressure for impeachment builds, the more Bush's war options will become limited. The more his war crimes are exposed and opposed, the greater the impetus for his removal and repudiation. 

The Bush Administration has promoted the end of habeas corpus, officially sanctioned torture, and declared the possibility of war without end.  From Katrina to the latest purging of Federal Prosecutors their disdain for law has no bounds, and continues.

Take action online to save polar bear: polar bear survival speaking tour

You can take action now to support the US Fish and Wildlife Service's proposal to list the polar bear as threatened at www.arcticrefuge.org.  With the Arctic Ocean expected to be ice-free in the summer as early as 2040, the polar bear is the canary in the coal mine for climate change.  Comments must be received by April 7.

Then you can bring the Arctic to your home town or campus by scheduling a stop in my upcoming tour by train around the continent.  Trains get up to 40 times better fuel efficiency per passenger mile and are a great solution to climate change.

I am launching a polar bear survival tour April –May to support mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reductions to protect the polar bear and so much more.  The tour will promote the permanent protection Of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain as wilderness.  That area has more polar bear dens than anywhere in the United States by far.  The tour will also support the effort to list the polar bear as threatened, and for the USFWS to take strong action to protect the polar bear by requiring greenhouse gas reductions.

Sudan

http://mattbors.com

Hollywood's latest hit: 300, a militarist fantasy

Hollywood has recently released a popular film that, once again, reveals much about the film industry. While Hollywood is not monolithic institution – the same entity is capable of producing some noteworthy works from time to time – it is still composed of conglomerates occupied by a large number of artistically ignorant executives, careerist filmmakers and actors concerned only with profit and careers. Typically, the "blockbuster" film brings out the worst of the film establishment. These movies often operate on a visceral level and whether the creators do so consciously or not, endorse the status quo by upholding the establishment's outlook on society. The film reviewed here is an example of this.

A measure of morality in Congress

If you could secretly tell a magic genie "Yes" and receive a million dollars but cause the deaths of a million people you've never met in China, would you say No?  This is no longer just a philosophical brain teaser.  The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Friday morning on funding for a war that has already caused the deaths of possibly as many as a million Iraqis.  Some of the money might very well go to funding an attack on another nation (Iran).  Many members of Congress are expected to vote Yes in order to keep their committee chairmanships, or in order to receive funding for projects in their districts, or in order to receive assistance or not face opposition in their next reelection campaigns.  Among the most principled few who are holding out and voting No, some of them are encouraging others to vote Yes.

Iraq @ 4: It's Not About the Troops - Either Way

Perhaps the most unremarked-upon aspect of the much-noted fourth anniversary of the Iraq debacle is the deeply confused way Americans talk about it.

Most egregious is the constant refrain from all sides that whatever they want is first and foremost about 'supporting the troops' - whether keeping them there forever, or bringing them home immediately.

While concern for American forces serving in Iraq is certainly well-intentioned, the rhetorical focus on 'the troops' is not just irrelevant, but dangerously misleading.

The most significant reason 'the troops' are not the central issue in Iraq is that they're all volunteers.

This is radically different from Vietnam, where almost all the soldiers, and certainly the grunts, were there because of a socio-economically unjust draft that allowed Bush and Cheney, for example, to avoid serving in a war they 'supported.'

As a result, the demand at that time to 'bring the troops home' had substance in both foreign and domestic realms, since the vast majority had not signed up for the armed forces, let alone guerrilla war in a tropical jungle.

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