Democracy for New Mexico

Check Out Latest Hard-Hitting Billboard from MergingLeft

Here are a couple shots of the lastest Albuquerque billboard created by the progressive grassroots activists at MergingLeft. You can see it for yourself on University just North of Indian School, next to United Blood Services on the West side of the street.

MergingLeft is an all-volunteer organization that produces billboards, bus ads and bumperstickers that express the positions and values of progressives, and raises funds to pay for their production and distribution. Click so see some of their other projects. If you like what you see, think about tossing a few bucks their way so they can keep up the messaging. In this climate of mainstream media bias, MergingLeft provides an opportunity to get our message out directly to the people. Small donations can produce powerful communications! (Click on images for larger versions.)

Happy Mothers' Peace Day

From this weekend's Code Pink Mothers' Day Peace Demonstration

Mother's Day was created after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. The first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration in the United States was , who had nursed wounded soldiers during the Civil War. You may be more familiar with her as the writer of the lyrics of the Civil War song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Howe was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement and the women's suffrage movement.

In 1870 she penned the Mother's Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers' Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday. The Mothers' Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers' Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May.

The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears little resemblance to Howe's original idea. Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States:

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Sunday Wild Bird Garden Blogging

A bunch of dianthus and our resident fake flamingo
surrounded by pecan shell mulch.

We've been out back working on our garden for several weekends now. We're not completely finished, but it's nice enough already to be a place of respite, relaxation and natural pleasures. It's the perfect place to savor something cool to drink and take in the antics of the wild birds that hang out in or pass through the neighborhood, many of which visit our feeders. It's true: we have both inside and outside birds to feed! The seed sellers love us.

House finches at one of our backyard feeding stations.

You've seen many photos of our seven parakeets, our peach-faced lovebird and our sun conure parrot. We haven't managed to catch many wild birds with our camera out back, except for house sparrows, finches and white-winged doves. But here are a couple of generic photos that show two of the more dramatic avians we've seen over the past week or so in our garden.

We have a black-chinned hummingbird couple that visits our hummer feeder all day long. The female is a rather drab tan. The showy male looks like this:

As it gets closer to summer, we'll have a couple more varieties of hummers sipping. For about a week, we had a red-headed acorn woodpecker feasting on our suet and making insect runs in the trees around us before it continued on its migration to somewhere:

Snazzy, isn't he? That stand-up cap of red makes all the difference.

BREAKING: Rove Indicted?

OMG, could it be true? According to Jason Leopold at Truthout, Karl Rove was indicted on Friday! Excerpt:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

Even better, Last Hurrah claims it's becoming clear that prosecutor Fitzgerald is also going after Cheney.

This Makes Me Sick

This week we had Hillary being supported by Rupert Murdock, who owns Fox News, and making a slew of complimentary statements about how "charming" Bush is. We had Dems like Harman and Feinstein kissing up on the Hayden nomination to head the CIA, and the continuing fade routine by a vast majority of Dems too afraid to say anything of substance about Iraq, Iran or the NSA lawbreaking. I'm sure you have your own particular favorite on Dems acting like fading violets and appeasers.

But this one was the topper for me: Howard Dean being interviewed on Pat Robertson's '700 Club' via CBN and claiming that the national Democratic platform limited marriage to "one man and one woman." First of all, it isn't true. Second of all, does ANY real Democrat or thinking person for that matter want someone like Dean on that dispicable hatemonger's TV show at all, let alone pandering on the gay marriage issue? As is obvious, I've strongly backed Dean since the beginning and our DFA Meetup continues. This, however, may be the straw that breaks the camels back on Democratic Party horrors. If even Dean has drunk the Kool-Aid of the DLC apologists, what possible future can this Party or its candidates have?

Read it and weep. (And here's the unedited video of the interview.) This, after so many GLBT people, including myself, have worked so hard for Dean and Democrats for years. Can you imagine how many votes he won over for Dems from the right-wingnut followers of Pat Robertson? I would guess zero. But by saying what he did in that sick setting, I can guarantee you he lost hundreds of thousands of GLBT people and others who support equal civil rights for all. Sickening.

And I cannot believe -- at all -- that he "mis-spoke" as he claims. You don't get up on a lunatic fringe TV show like that and err on something this basic. I really think even Dean has absorbed the idiotic conventional wisdom that gay people are causing Dems to lose. When we all know that it's the cowardice, disorganization, wrong-headedness and distortions like this one that are doing the trick all on their own. Congratulations Democrats. You lost hundreds of thousands of your voters in the span of a day....

Friday For the Eyes

©Ed Larson

Local blog m-pyre has a post today about Santa Fe artist Ed Larson, along with many entertaining photos of his work. Larson has a funky studio and shop on Canyon Road in Santa Fe -- a rarity in this era of high-priced and often snooty galleries there. Take a break and go gaze at his quirky stuff.

IMPORTANT HEARING 5/17 on Saving Otero Mesa

From the Wilderness Society:
Do you care about preserving the grand landscape and wildlife habitat that characterizes Otero Mesa? If so, please attend the US District Courts evidentiary hearing on May 17th in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Perhaps you've never attended a hearing of this nature before. Don't worry. You will not be asked to speak, but rather, simply show your support by attending.

What: U.S District Court for the District of New Mexico evidentiary hearing on the Bureau of Land Management public land known as Otero Mesa.

When: Wednesday, May 17, 2006, 9:00 AM

Where: The Honorable Bruce D. Black's Chambers
United States District Court
333 Lomas Blvd. N.W., Ste 640
Albuquerque, NM 87102

What's At Stake
Otero Mesa is home to the Chihuahuan Desert, which extends southward from New Mexico, Texas and Arizona into the Mexican Plateau and covers an area of 250,000 square miles and is considered to be among the most biologically rich and diverse desert eco-regions in the world. This vast and complex grassland is home to many species of wildlife, native plants and independent cattle ranches that have been in operation for generations. Otero Mesa is also a recreationist's dream. Hiking, camping, birding, hunting, rock climbing, photography and horseback riding are a few popular activities.

Otero Mesa is not currently designated as Wilderness. However, the NM Wilderness Alliance has surveyed the Greater Otero Mesa Area and identified over 520,000 acres suitable for Wilderness designation. But if it is turned into a full-scale oil and gas field, Wilderness and much of the wildlife that live there will be lost forever.

The Wilderness Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving American wilderness. Our mission is to ensure that future generations will enjoy the clean air and water, wildlife, beauty, and opportunity for recreation and renewal provided by pristine forests, rivers, deserts, and mountains. As a subscriber to WildAlert, you join more than 300,000 Wilderness Society members and supporters in our efforts to protect and restore America's wild places.

Act Now to Save Internet As We Know It

From SavetheInternet.com:
Trust AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth? AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth want us to trust that they’ll be good stewards of Internet freedom. Meanwhile, they’re selling out ordinary Americans to the National Security Agency. A report in Thursday’s USA Today tells how these three carriers secretly provided to the NSA the phone call records of tens of millions of people — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. These companies apparently have no qualms about betraying customer trust — or breaking federal law.

Now they are asking Congress to strip away Net Neutrality protections so they can become benevolent overlords of the World Wide Web.

According to the report, Section 222 of the Communications Act, prohibits companies from giving out information regarding their customers’ calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination, and who calls in to the number. When asked about their potentially illegal handover of this personal information, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth declined to comment, citing “national security matters.” (You can sign an ACLU petition to demand that these companies stop participating in the NSA spying program.)

Would you trust these corporations with your Internet?

Tom Tauke, Verizon executive vice president of public affairs, thinks you should. Earlier this week, he swore up and down that the telephone giant would never deny consumers access to what they want on the Internet. Tauke said that doing so would be “akin to Starbucks hatching a plan to secretly serve customers Folgers crystals.”

We’re not talking about coffee, Tom. Internet freedom is not a commodity for Verizon’s to sell off to the highest bidder. The only thing that Verizon is “secretly serving customers” is a lie about improved choices and innovation. And they’re asking Congress to pass a law that allows them to become gatekeepers to the information superhighway.

Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth maintain networks that reach into the homes and businesses of tens of millions of Americans. These companies built this access to our private lives — and the billions in revenues that come with it — on a “bedrock principle” of consumer protection.

Now, that they’ve sold out this trust to help the government monitor ordinary Americans, how credible are their claims that no Net Neutrality safeguards are necessary?

The New York Times wrote:

'Net neutrality' is a concept that is still unfamiliar to most Americans, but it keeps the Internet democratic. ... One of the Internet's great strengths is that a single blogger or a small political group can inexpensively create a Web page that is just as accessible to the world as Microsoft's home page. But this democratic Internet would be in danger if the companies that deliver Internet service changed the rules so that Web sites that pay them money would be easily accessible, while little-guy sites would be harder to access and slower to navigate. Providers could also block access to sites they do not like.

This provided a powerful boost to Net Neutrality advocates, who are up against a multimillion dollar lobbying campaign by Internet operators like AT&T, who want more control over what Web sites people see and use online. A House committee has already voted to gut Net Neutrality, but the full House and Senate have yet to weigh in. Votes are expected in upcoming weeks.

Adding to that momentum, the SavetheInternet.com Coalition announced that in less than a week, its petition signatures to preserve Net Neutrality jumped from 250,000 to 500,000. The number of organizations participating in the coalition jumped from 50 to 400.

"The fight for Internet freedom is gaining big momentum," said Timothy Karr, campaign director of Free Press, a national, nonpartisan media reform and Internet policy group. "Every day, companies like AT&T and Comcast lose ground in their fight to end the free and open Internet that has revolutionized democratic participation and economic innovation."

The SavetheInternet.com coalition includes: Gun Owners of America, MoveOn.org, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, Glenn Reynolds (aka libertarian blogger Instapundit), Parents Television Council, American Library Association, United Church of Christ, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Public Knowledge, and other major public interest groups. The coalition is spearheaded by Free Press.

"Without statutory network neutrality, there is nothing to prevent big telecom companies from injecting political bias into the very skeleton of modern communications," said Craig Fields, director of Internet operations for Gun Owners of America. "Whenever you see people on the left and right joining together about something Congress is getting ready to do, it's been my experience that what Congress is getting ready to do is basically un-American."

Actions that members of the public are being urged to take include:

Call Congress
Write a letter to Congress
MySpace: Add "Save the Internet" as a friend Blog on this issue
For more information

This post on Daily Kos describes what is at stake and what would happen should the telecoms win their battle to control the free internet, its content and what kind of access individual users can have. Democracy for New Mexico has signed up as a supporter of the Save the Internet effort. You can do the same as an individual, blogger or organization.

Kerry Says: When Is Enough Really Enough?

Why didn't John Kerry talk like this when he was running for President? Did he really not get that the Bush Bunch had no intention to comply with mere nuisances like the Constitution or the law? I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that virtually every progressive or core Dem in the land had a clear view of the legal and illegal horrors we could expect from four more years of the Bush abomination. It was all there for anyone to see, if they cared to look and confront it.

Still, I guess I'm pleased to see Kerry calling a spade a spade, even at this late date. But think what could have been achieved if he had risked doing so BEFORE Bush snagged a second term. What I wanna know is -- Is that a filibuster of General Hayden' CIA appointment in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

If you haven't already read it, here's the original USA Today story on the NSA creating a database of millions of Americans' domestic phone call records in cahoots with AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. (Only Quest refused to cooperate with the NSA.) This was a last straw of sorts that caused Kerry to speak out on the Hayden nomination on Daily Kos and in a speech today. The lingering question, of course, is what other secret NSA spying programs are operating that haven't (yet) been leaked to the media? Is this only the tip of the iceberg?

Heather Wilson Caught in the Act

As most people know by now, Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM1) has being trying to create a false perception of herself as an "independent" and "moderate" as the 2006 election draws near. Despite being a consistent rubberstamp for Bush's radical neocon agenda, she's now trying to distance herself from the administration's failures and misdeeds in order to gain votes. In the process, she's talking out of both sides of her mouth on a variety of issues, including the NSA domestic spying program and the credibility of its creator, General Michael Haden.

One example of Heather's less than honest political calculations was her much hyped call for an "inquiry" into the secret NSA domestic surveillance program. Even though she serves on the House Intelligence Committee, she had raised no questions or concerns about the program previously. This move got her national headlines, even though it clearly was a coldly calculated bid for attention by someone who has gone along to get along with Bush and the gang.

Now, she's been caught in the act of deception with her strong support for Bush's nominee to head the CIA. General Michael Hayden was instrumental in creating the NSA domestic spying program about which Wilson supposedly has serious concerns, and he has consistently either denied or defended the eavesdropping as the Bush administration's point man on the issue.

Media Matters has an enlightening piece on what they call Wilson's "misleading assertions" about General Hayden's handling of questions on the illegal domestic surveillance program, which she made during a recent interview. Excerpt:

During an interview with Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) on the May 8 edition of PBS' The NewsHour, host Jim Lehrer failed to challenge Wilson's claim that Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, President Bush's nominee to be CIA director, had been "very, very candid about the [Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance] program, its authorities, how it operates, and so forth." In fact, Hayden has defended the program with shifting and contradictory explanations and failed to answer questions regarding whether it has been used to spy on U.S. residents with no ties to terrorism. Moreover, in 2002 testimony, Hayden misled Congress about the existence of the warrantless eavesdropping program.

... Throughout the segment, Wilson extolled Hayden's abilities, calling him a "great leader," "a good leader of the people," and "a people-oriented leader." When questioned about his involvement in the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program, Wilson said: "[W]hen he was given the green light, Mike Hayden came up and was very, very candid about the program, its authorities, how it operates, and so forth. And in my book, he gets some credit for that."

As detailed in another piece by Media Matters, Hayden testified to Congress in 2002 that the National Security Agency complies with the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in its surveillance programs. He also denied the domestic spy program's existence.

When trying to make points with moderate voters, Wilson expresses grave concerns about the illegal spying that violates the FISA law. However, when push comes to shove and Bush and company want to install the creator and main defender of the spying as CIA Director, Heather spins and spins to justify another rubberstamp of the Bush agenda. Does this mean that she was against the program before she was for it? Inquiring minds want to know.

Meanwhile, Patricia Madrid, Wilson's Democratic challenger in the NM CD1 race, had this to say about Heather's flip flop on this issue and the nomination of Hayden to head the CIA:

After the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 and the intelligence failures that led us into the disastrous war in Iraq, we must have a strong CIA director who can restore the American people’s confidence in our intelligence system. Instead, George Bush has decided to nominate one of the very people who undermined the system in the first place. Meanwhile, Heather Wilson, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and is in the position to ask the tough questions about Hayden and his role at NSA, is simply rubberstamping yet another flawed Bush decision. Heather Wilson and other leaders in Washington need to stand up for what is best for the country and say no to Gen. Hayden’s nomination. The CIA and the American people deserve a director who will move the agency forward.