Democracy for New Mexico

Contact Sen. Bingaman: Last Chance to Stop "Divine Strake"

From Friends Committee on National Legislation:
Please disseminate widely! The Defense Department was blocked recently by citizen pressure in Indiana from considering a nuclear program test, called "Divine Strake," in that state. Earlier citizen opposition in Nevada and Utah forced the Pentagon to scrap their plans for conducting the test at the Nevada Test Site. Now the Pentagon is focusing on the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The last remaining legislative opportunity to block the test is this Tuesday, September 5, when the defense appropriations bill, H.R. 5631, will be on the Senate floor.

This test is a rehearsal for a nuclear strike against Iran. The test itself would not involve nuclear material, but would be a simulation of a nuclear strike.

New Mexicans should ask Sen. Jeff Bingaman to offer a floor amendment to block the test. * Given the time constraint, emails to senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov and phone calls to ( 202) 224-5521, his Washington office, are needed.

On August 23, Friends Committee on National Legislation - FCNL - wrote Sens. Bingaman and Domenici and asked them to offer an amendment to block the test.  We wrote:

"The Defense Department wants to collect data on very large explosions in rock to calibrate the effects of using a nuclear 'bunker buster' in Iran or North Korea. The Pentagon’s purpose is to 'develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage.'

"This effort to 'improve' the U.S. nuclear weapons program comes while the administration is asking Iran and North Korea to freeze their nuclear programs. The U.S. government is sending the wrong message to those two countries and the world about nuclear weapons: 'do as the U.S. says, not as it does.'"

Over the last few months, residents in Nevada, Utah, and Indiana have organized enough public opposition to block the Pentagon from conducting the test in their states. *Now we need New Mexicans to use the next few days to block this test--and end the test for good.

Thanks for your help!

David Culp, Legislative Representative   
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)
245 Second Street, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002-5761
Tel.: (202) 547-6000, ext. 2517
Toll-free: (800) 630-1330, ext. 2517
Fax: (202) 547-6019
Web: www.fcnl.org
Email: david@fcnl.org

Additional information at Truthout.

Katrina: What Bush Begat

Mourners embrace today at the repaired levee wall in the Lower Ninth Ward. (Click on images for larger versions.)

“There will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered,” the president said. “Houses will begat jobs, jobs will begat houses.”

-- George W. Bush, speaking in Gulfport, MS, 8.28.06, one year after Hurricane Katrina

Yeah, and extremist conservative ideology begat purposeful neglect of the federal government's core responsibilities, cold-blooded budget cuts to levee and wetland renewal projects and the willful destruction of FEMA's ability to meet the demands of its mission. All courtesy of George Bush and his crusading right-wing Republicans, who set out to defund and destroy the federal government and its most vital agencies that serve the common good.

Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps people, say the corporatists at the American Enterprise Institute and other bastions of the pay-no-taxes crowd, government solutions are passe. Government is the problem, not the solution. And the brutal behavior of Bush's feds on the Gulf Coast is all about that self-fulfilling prophesy. This was no mistake. This was a result of core conservative policies.

When you think about Katrina's victims today, on the first anniversary of the tragedy, think of George one year ago today, playing air guitar at a photo-op, stopping off to present to birthday cake to John McCain and staring blankly out of that airplane window at the destruction far away. Katrina was primarily a man-made disaster in the New Orleans area.

The brunt of the hurricane made landfall East of NOLA. What hit New Orleans was the result of a government's refusal to fund state of the art levee construction, the catastrophic design failures of the Army Corps of Engineers and the refusal of George to put the federal government into high gear for relief efforts. We need accountability, not another "compassionate" photo-op of the man who can't see anything real outside his narcissistic bubble. The places that bore so much suffering a year ago and that are still witness to tragedy and lies today are sacred lands, being trod once more by one not worthy to put a foot on the ground. Go begat yourself, George.

The Times-Picayune at NOLA.com covers the story from many angles, with print and multimedia.

What's Wrong With Diebold: A Video

This 15 minute video provides one of the clearest explanations of why Diebold electronic voting machines are so unreliable and easily gamed. It's best to view it after downloading it to your computer so you can enlarge the viewing screen and see all the details. A recent article on OpEdNews, "The Diebold Bombshell," reveals the company has actually admitted to the severe security flaws in its machines. In fact, they've stated they created the back door entryway into the software on purpose, despite the security vulnerabilities created by doing so.

Of course, here in New Mexico we're supposed to be immune to the dangers of DRE voting machines because of the bill passed at the January Legislative Session that requires a switch to paper ballot voting systems statewide. Election reform activists are still hoping that all our counties will obtain and implement the new system in time for the November election. We've heard that Bernalillo County Clerk Mary Herrera is trying hard to have the new system up and running in the Albuquerque area by election day, but she's also admitted she's not sure that can be accomplished.

Let's hope the powers that be in this state work together to make sure we're all voting with the new system come November. Anything less would once again put the accuracy of election results in jeopardy. We can't afford to let that happen and we need to keep the pressure on at all levels. Every vote must be counted and every vote must be documented by a paper trail. Anything less is completely unacceptable given all we know about the serious security flaws discovered in the electronic machines. Without a paper trail, all electronic machines are suspect, not just those manufactured by Diebold.

As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says in his recent must-read interview on BradBlog,

... our electoral system is broken for three reasons, in three large respects: The first is our campaign finance system, which is a system of legalized bribery, and which has allowed corporations and the very rich to control the results of our electoral process. Number two is the failure of the American press and that is also a function and result of corporate control, as I showed in my book. Number three is the election system itself, which is broken. We've privatized it and allowed four large corporations to count our votes on machines that don't work.

We've got our work cut out for us on all three fronts.

Stay Tuned to WakeUpWalMart for Big Annoucement

From WakeUpWalmart:
We are going to have a big announcement the last week of July which will involve every single one of you. So stay tuned, get excited and continue to build the movement to change Wal-Mart by clicking here to recruit your friends.

In the mean time, I wanted to take a moment and update you on 3 breaking news stories in our campaign to change Wal-Mart into a responsible, moral corporation.

1) Wal-Mart’s response to our crime report
As reported by the New York Times, Wal-Mart has significantly changed its shoplifting policy and abandoned one of Sam Walton’s principles for success. Sam Walton considered shoplifting “one of the biggest enemies of profitability” and even linked employee’s bonuses to reducing the amount of shrinkage in each store. Not surprisingly, Sam Walton insisted that Wal-Mart adopt a zero-tolerance policy for shoplifters.

But, now, under new leadership, Wal-Mart has decided to not stop shoplifters for items under $25. We believe Wal-Mart’s changes are a direct response to our crime report published in May which showed a high number of police calls being generated from Wal-Mart stores. In addition, we believe Wal-Mart’s change in policy is consistent with the company’s efforts to drastically reduce labor costs by cutting workers.

Please click here to read the New York Times article.

2) Wal-Mart - still charging the wrong price?
Last week, the Attorney General in Arizona filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for failing to address scanner error problems which resulted in consumers being charged the wrong price. As you may recall, the investigation in Arizona produced similar results to our own studies conducted by the University of Illinois and the University of California Berkeley. Those studies, done in 4 states, showed Wal-Mart failed to meet the federal standard for charging customers the right price.

Please click here to read the Arizona Republic article.

3) Stop the Wal-Mart bank
Recently, two leading members of the U.S. House (one Democrat and one Republican), introduced a bi-partisan bill to close the loophole which Wal-Mart is trying to use to obtain a bank. In addition, the Federal Reserve testified before Congress in support of closing the loophole. As you know, the bank of Wal-Mart would be a dangerous concentration of capital in the hands of any one single corporation and would be detrimental to consumers, small businesses and community banks.

Please click here to read the article on the Fed’s testimony and here to read the article on the new legislation.

As you can see, our campaign to change Wal-Mart is in full gear and gaining tremendous momentum. Now think about this, if we can do all of this with 245,500 supporters, imagine what we can do with 1 million supporters. In the next few weeks, help us continue to build our movement by sign up five more friends, neighbors, co-workers and family.

Together, we will change Wal-Mart and change America for the better. Thank you for all that you do,

Jeremy Bird
WakeUpWalMart.com

First RFK Whistleblower Lawsuit Filed Against Electronic Voting Machine Maker

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has filed the first of two lawsuits claiming fraud against electronic voting machine companies on behalf of whistleblowers within the companies. Read all about it on BradBlog. Excerpt:

Speaking of the level of fraud to be revealed by the suits, which must be sealed by law for 60 days as the Attorney General decides if they will join the complaint, [attorney] Papantonio told Malloy: "When you hear the details, when you hear the caliber of the fraud… you… it'll make Americans feel like they're living in a damned banana republic, a third world country. I have never heard such outrageous facts."

"And you know what?" he continued, "We've had our investigators look at it. We verified everything. And when you hear it, you're gonna say, 'Not in America.' …Bad news is: Yeah, it is in America."

Voting Rights Act Extended After Bigoted Debate

Go watch Rep. Maxine Waters speak on behalf of renewing the Voting Rights Act (or read the text version there). She sure packed a wallop in her 2 minutes on the House floor. Then continue on with FireDogLake's description of what's really went down in the U.S. House of Representatives as so-called conservative Southern Republicans tried to water down this historic legislation. Shameful at any time in our history. Almost unthinkable in the early days of the 21st century.

Fortunately the extension of the Act passed yesterday afternoon and all four base-pleasing amendments to gut the bill failed, although it will be useful to see which Repubs voted for them.**

One of the essentially racist amendments that had been proposed by rightwingnuts would have discontinued the practice of providing voter information and ballots in other languages in districts where large numbers of certain ethnicities reside, like Hispanics, Native Americans or Vietnamese. It's sometimes hard for me to believe we are back fighting the fights we thought were resolved in the 50s and 60s. Against the same kinds of thieves, liars and bigots. I guess such battles never do really end. Preserving democracy requires vigilance. The scoundrels are always trying to push things back to a previous time when they felt comfortably insulated from minorities of all sorts.

The really oily thing is that the rightwingos KNEW these foul amendments would never pass. They just wanted to "discuss" them to impress the bigots in their base. They might as well have painted their foreheads with red letters saying "My Appeal Is To Bigots Everywhere." They are that blantant in their baiting. I'll never understand how reasonable people can be Republicans in this era. I guess denial and blinders are powerful things.
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**UPDATE at 2:53 PM: Here are the names of the Reps who voted against extending the Voting Rights Act. All of the them are Republicans: Richard Baker (R-LA), J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Joe Barton (R-TX), Jo Bonner (R-AL), Dan Burton (R-IN), John Campbell (R-CA), Mike Conaway (R-TX), Nathan Deal (R-GA), John Doolittle (R-CA), John Duncan (R-TN), Terry Everett (R-AL), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Joel Hefley (R-CO), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Wally Herger (R-CA), Sam Johnson (R-TX), Steve King (R-IA), John Linder (R-GA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Gary Miller (R-CA), Charles Norwood (R-GA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Tom Price (R-GA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Ed Royce (R-CA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Thomas Tancredo (R-CO), William Thornberry (R-TX), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)

Breaking: Wilson & Plame File Civil Lawsuit vs. Cheney, Rove, Libby

Holy cow. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson filed a civil lawsuit today against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. They'll be holding a press conference about the suit at the Press Club in Washington tomorrow at 10 AM. Click for their press release and for a copy of the complaint. Both are from a new website set up by the Wilsons, where donations are being accepted to cover legal expenses. The complaint is being filed for "First and Fifth Amendment Violations, Civil Rights Conspiracy, Failure to Prevent Civil Rights Violations, Public Disclosure of Private Facts, Civil Conspiracy." Will the White House perpetrators finally get their due? We can only hope.

What's interesting is that although Bush may well pardon Scooter Libby before he goes to trial in his criminal case, as his father did with his Iran-Contra buddies, he can't pardon anyone in a civil suit. Pop goes the weasle?

Who Cares About Gay Marriage?

This is a must read if you want to gain a clear picture of why GLBT people and their supporters are pushing so hard for gay civil marriage rights. How would you like it if your life partner were rushed to the hospital and you were told you couldn't be in on the information or decisionmaking, or visit them in the ER? People usually believe that legal documents like a durable power of attorney, a healthcare proxy or a domestic partnership registration allow GLBT partners to obtain many of the legal rights provided by civil marriage, but it's not really true. There's no guarantee across all states or even in states that supposedly recognize the documents.

Healthcare workers and others can refuse to acknowledge these documents on a whim, and there's no readily available legal remedy. Especially in states that have passed legal prohibitions against any and all forms of gay marriage or partnership, there is no legal recourse in such situations.

How much longer can a culture that purports to be a democracy that guarantees equal rights under the law for all continue to allow right-wing religious doctrine to trash the civil rights of GLBT citizens? I don't give a shit what religions say about gay relationships. What I care about is seeing to it that civil law treats everyone with equality and fairness, regardless of what this religious leader or another proclaims. If we allow this to continue, what next? Should we stop allowing vendors to sell contraceptives because the Catholic Church calls them sinful? Should we require all citizens to attend a religious service and all stores to close on Sundays (or Sabbath)? Either we have separation of church and state or we're rapidly devolving into a theocracy.

Another thing that irks me about the "sanctity of marriage" crowd is that they don't seem to have a problem with straight people availing themselves of this "sacrament" before a justice of the peace, sans religious content. If "marriage" is solely a holy, religion-controlled event, how is it that all marriages aren't required to be performed within a house of worship? How would allowing gay partners to enter into a civil contractual agreement before a judge destroy the sanctity of church weddings? Short answer: it wouldn't.

Unfortunately, the GLBT struggle for equal rights hit another obstacle recently, with the New York Supreme Court's decision stating their state constitution doesn't require the recognition of gay marriage. DNC Chair Howard Dean, renewing his push for GLBT equality after that horrible gaff while being interviewed on the 700 Club, had this to say:

"As Democrats, we believe that every American has a right to equal protection under the law and to live in dignity," he said, according to the Associated Press. "And we must respect the right of every family to live in dignity with equal rights, responsibilities and protections under the law. Today's decision by the New York Court of Appeals, which relies on outdated and bigoted notions about families, is deeply disappointing, but it does not end the effort to achieve this goal.

The fight continues, as much within our Party as without.

Earth to America

Blue Man Group does some clever and powerful stuff amidst its more commercial ventures. This video is one example. Chalk it up as a short take on the main point of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. Have you found the emergency exits yet? Can you hear?

Independence Day: Liberty, Truth, Justice

(Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-rationalism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism. ~Wikipedia)

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. ~Thomas Jefferson

Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. ~Abraham Lincoln

Of the tyrant, spies and informers are the principal instruments. War is his favorite occupation, for the sake of engrossing the attention of the people, and making himself necessary to them as their leader. ~Aristotle

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either rods or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. ~Frederick Douglass

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed persons can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead

Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past, while we silence the rebels of the present. ~Henry Steele Commager

As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. ~George Washington

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.  ~William Faulkner

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation ~Jimmy Carter

Where liberty is, there is my country. ~Benjamin Franklin

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular – but one must take it simply because it is right. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. ~Cesar Chavez

... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. ~Voltairine de Cleyre

Woman must have her freedom, the fundamental freedom of choosing whether or not she will be a mother and how many children she will have. Regardless of what man's attitude may be, that problem is hers - and before it can be his, it is hers alone.  ~Margaret Sanger

If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. ~James Madison

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness. ~H.L. Mencken

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation. ~Coretta Scott King

If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retributions. ~Justice Louis Brandeis

America's adventure in free government [is threatened by a] military industrial complex. . . We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. ~ Susan B. Anthony

... it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds ... ~Samuel Adams

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure. ~Thomas Jefferson

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. ~Katherine Hepburn