Democracy for New Mexico

Rainbow Easter on the White House Lawn

A couple of compelling posts on Daily Kos describe the experiences of gay families who attended the White House Easter Egg Roll on Monday. They did so as a group for the first time this year, to gain visibility and to demonstrate how much they are a part of the ordinary American family scene. They weren't allowed in the morning group that provided the backdrop for Laura's photo-op, but they had lots of fun, made lots of friends and got interviewed by many reporters just the same. They all wore rainbow leis:

Read the post of wclathe about Emma's day.

Read the post of TerranceDC about Parker's day.

This kind of friendly visibility can be very effective in countering the hate mongering of extremists that sadly is often the only commentary on gay issues ordinary folks hear. Instead of cowering in fear of right-wing name calling, these GLBT citizens are stepping out front and taking risks to change hearts and minds. If only our Democratic officials, candidates and "strategists" were half as brave and direct in challenging the meanspirited myths and ugly biases being pushed by the radical right noise machine.

Imagine where we'd be now if ordinary Americans had been hearing persuasive counter-arguments to the bigotry being pushed by Republican operatives for the last decade. Imagine the progress that could be made if Dems in the public eye would exhibit leadership on these kinds of issues. Imagine their disarming of the pseudo-conservative noise machine by refusing to react to right-wing baiting with deadly silence or smarmy avoidance. Imagine if our leaders fought hard to better frame what's really at stake for a large number of American citizens who obviously deserve full civil rights as much as the next person.

By the way, you may recall that the State Central Committee of the Democratic Party of New Mexico passed a resolution that calls for equal civil marriage rights for all. Our State Party's platform, however, does not contain this position. The word is our "leaders" didn't want to have to deal with the "controversy," so parliamentary maneuvers were used to keep it out of the platform. Sorry "leaders," GLBT citizens have to deal with it every day, even if you refuse to do so out of fear and a misguided sense of "playing it safe." The irony is that Dems don't gain votes by refusing to take strong stands on the issues. Instead they play right into the right-wing stereotype that Dems are weak and dishonest about their values.

Securing full civil rights for African-Americans, Hispanics and others was also very controversial. The difference is that many Dems in earlier times were willing to muster the courage needed to fight for what's right, rather than shrinking from tough issues based on the cold calculations of "consultants" and "strategists." I wonder when and if our candidates and elected officials will ever break free of this culture of cowardice. All we can do is keep pushing until they do.

Tuesday Open Thread

So what are you thinking about today?

My mind's on the environment, having attended a really powerful event yesterday at UNM where Stewart Udall and Jack Loeffler spoke so movingly about the growing environmental crisis that's threatening the future of humankind and almost everything else. Their message: If we don't act SOON, it will be too late. No doubt about it anymore. In a similar vein, here's an article in today's Washington Post about Al Gore and his recently released film about the global environment crisis. See the movie's trailer (Quicktime). Also read The Moment of Truth by Al Gore.

As Udall said, we need to fall passionately in love with our planet once again if we're to make any headway on this problem. It touches every aspect of our being, doesn't it? We need a new way of thinking about how we live with nature, building upon the centuries-old views of indigenous humans all over the world who saw every single element of our planet as alive, even sacred, and connected to the whole, interdependent.

That's what I'm pondering today, but let's hear what's on your mind .... go ahead, click and comment.

Si, Se Puede!

Go look at the photos of all the immigrant justice demonstrations at Yahoo. See the march (credit AP) in Phoenix (left). They erupted in more than 140 cities and towns in the nation yesterday and over the weekend, including here. Doesn't it make you proud to be an American? I watched the rally on the mall in Washington DC on CSPAN yesterday and it gave me shivers down my spine. Literally. I haven't see this much enthusiasm and love for what are genuinely American values, this much hopefulness and excitement on the streets, in years. If there are any perfect symbols for the open-hearted opportunities the nation has provided to the downtrodden and suffering for decades, these marches are it. For me anyway.

Looking at these massive crowds clamoring to be Americans in reality, not just in spirit, I kept thinking, aren't these the very kinds of citizens we have always wanted and, in fact, need to stay alive and jumping? People willing to take a risk for freedom and opportunity -- ambitious, hard-working, energetic, creative, practical, hopeful people. The very types of people who have made our nation what it was for many years -- a beacon of hope and a symbol of justice, fairness and ingenuity. I found the powerful shouts of "si, se puede," of "USA-USA," of "we are one people," to be thrilling and inspiring.

But then again, I grew up in a place created almost exclusively by immigrants, and that's still being molded by them daily. The Chicago where I grew up in the 1950's was a cacophy of languages, foods, customs, religions and ethnicities. I grew up in the blue collar neighborhoods that were the second or third stops immigrant families made after leaving the "old neighborhoods" of their youth. The path out of the masses of tenements that housed their parents and grandparents, and where they grew up mostly poor.

Almost to a household in my era, the grandparents did not speak English beyond a few phrases, but the parents did. And certainly in my generation of children, most of us instead knew only fragments of Polish, German, Italian, Lituanian or other languages of orgin. We were Americans through and through. Although our older relatives were often illiterate, we became college graduates.

The younger ones always become Americans. I don't care whether their parents or grandparents come from Ireland, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, China, Japan, Africa, Mexico, Central America, South America or any other place. America is contagious. The very idea and spirit of America is the lure, the reward and the decisive factor. All immigrant families produce Americans, though sometimes not until the next generation. It has always been this way.

Where I grew up, most of the grandparents were the poorest of the poor peasants from abroad, come to make a new home where it would be easier for their children, not so much for themselves. For themselves there was only hard work, sacrifice and perhaps a 5-cent movie once a week. My grandmother, for instance, one of 14 children in her family, left a farm in Poland on her own at the age of 13 to work as a dishwasher in Sweden. Their much subdivided farm plot could not support 16 people. She was one of the youngest, so she was encouraged to leave.

At 17 she made it to America, staying at first with an older sister who had already arrived in Chicago. Again, she worked as a dishwasher, then worked her way up to the position of cook at a quality restaurant in downtown Chicago. Then she married and had three children, two of whom finished high school and one of whom -- my mother -- quit school at 16 to work since my grandfather had died young. Meanwhile my grandmother got a job cleaning offices downtown. My mother's two children -- myself and my brother -- both graduated college. A common story in the neighborhoods I spent my youth.

What is different about the immigrants I knew growing up and those who come from Mexico now? Only one thing -- absurdly low immigration quotas that have made them "illegals or "undocumented." It's important to realize that America had no immigration quotas until the mid-1920s. Before that, it was a free-for-all. The huddled masses were entirely welcome. And even after, for many years, the quotas were very high, the legal immigrants allowed in many. As is the case now, there were dirty jobs to do that weren't appealing to most workers who were born here. Some things never change.

Why were immigration quotas finally enacted? The same fears and biases that are present all too often in the current debate. Remember reading about the signs around New York and Boston that read, 'No Dogs or Irish Allowed"? Oh, it was scary to have so many swarthy, oily, ignorant, smelly, nasty, drunken, unhealthy, sneaky foreigners coming to our soil! They didn't speak English! They never would! They would never "assimilate"! They weren't really Americans. They were disloyal. They were communists. They were dangerous. They would take the jobs of the Americans. Many of the same things are heard now, about this crop of immigrants.

And what is causing the significant increase of undocumented workers from Mexico? Numbers have skyrocketed since NAFTA was enacted. Think about it. The restrictions and requirements imposed by "free" trade, the world bank and other instruments of unfettered capitalism on Mexican workers and farmers has, for the most part, crushed them. When you practically force Mexico to import huge quantities of corn whose low price is subsidized by the American government, it destroys the livelihoods of thouands and thousands of small farmers who can't sell theirs. When you do the same with other goods, you shut down the jobs of small buinesses and their workers. It's not rocket science. And just wait until the full effects of CAFTA kick in. There will, no doubt, be large increases in the number of immigrants leaving their homes in Central America as well.

What results is massive dislocation and poverty on a grand scale, even worse then before. To eat, to survive, these people will do anything and go anywhere, especially when employers are there across the border, ready to snap them up and put them to work. Who wouldn't risk it if they were in the same circumstances? Only those whose spirits are already so broken by poverty and hopelessness that they can't make the move. What is created is an economic structure with a thin layer of ultra-rich investors, a destruction of the middle class, and an eruption of poverty for most people. Just think, the BushCo loyalists would like to create a similar economic mess right here, and they're already hard at work on that project.

So what can we do to solve the immigration "problem"? To my mind what we need to do is expand legal immigration quotas drastically, to suit the real situation on the ground. We need to provide a reasonable way for those already here to attain citizenship -- and stability. We need to put the pressure on our elected officials to make trade more fair and to rein in the worst traits of global capitalists. In other words, we need to push to make global trade, financial and trade forces serve the people, not the other way around. And if we legalize our immigrants in a proper manner, they can help us organize to accomplish this. They can vote for the people's concerns. They can join labor unions and push for higher wages. And you wonder why corporatists of both Parties are fighting this? No mystery to me...

Monday-Tuesday Open Thread

Someone emailed me and suggested we institute some open threads where anything and everything can be discussed by readers. So here goes, our first Monday Open Thread.

What issues are you thinking about today? What are you concerned about? Found anything especially funny, upsetting or interesting on the net lately? Go ahead and start a conversation. Click the comment button below and type away. I know there are hundreds of you out there who haven't yet made a comment on this blog. Now's a good time to start. Go head. Be Wile E!

To give you some background music for your keyboarding pleasure, here's Pink and the Indigo Girls doing Dear Mr. President.

More and More Like Nixon Every Day

It's heartening to see Scooter Libby's revelation that Bush and Cheney okayed his leak of top secret material getting serious attention on TV, in the print media and on blogs. Do we dare hope that this sordid situation receives continuing serious coverage over many news cycles? Question of the day on this issue from Digby:

If the president was willing to authorize leaking of national security information to reporters for political purposes, why should we believe he won't authorize warrantless wiretaps on Americans for political purposes?

Coincidentally, when the always smirking Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, he hinted that Bush and the NSA might be conducting a truly domestic warrantless spying operation. Previously he has insisted that the current NSA surveillance program monitors only Al-Qaeda "suspects" talking with people in the U.S.  According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested for the first time Thursday that a president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within the United States.

"I'm not going to rule it out," Gonzales said when asked about that possibility at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Gonzales has implied previously that there are secret NSA spying programs in addition to the one Bush admitted was in place to intercept conversations between suspected terrorists abroad and individuals on domestic soil. See this Washington Post article from early March.

Are you old enough to remember Richard Nixon commenting in 1977 about his view of executive privilege by saying, "well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal?" If so, you too must be experiencing a frightening case of deja vu. All over again. Watch Nixon explain away his law breaking. I wonder what excuses Bush will use when he is finally cornered. And he will be.

Irony: Nixon with Prescott Bush, Dubya's Grandpappy

Making My Day: A Hero and a Squealer

The Hero: I have to add a second video of the day. A guy named Harry Taylor (left) spelled out his dismay and shame about Bush and his anti-democratic policies right to his face today at a Bush speech in North Carolina. Crooks and Liars has the video and the transcript of Taylor's remarks and the president's misleading response. I don't know how he got into a Bush event, but I'm sure glad he managed to get past the screening. Chalk one up for the people. UPDATE: You can now post a message thanking Harry Taylor at a special website.

The Squealer: Add to this today's disclosure that Scooter Libby testified that Dick Cheney, with the direct approval of Bush, okayed the leaking of very high security intelligence on Iraq to bolster the administration's shamelessly dishonest push for war. Here's what an LA Times article has to say on the Libby story:

President Bush personally authorized leaking long-classified information to a reporter in the summer of 2003 to buttress administration claims, now discredited, that Saddam Hussein was attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction for Iraq, according to a court filing by prosecutors in the case against former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

... Court papers filed by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald late Wednesday said that before Libby's indictment, he told a federal grand jury investigating the (Plame) leak that Cheney told him to pass on information about a secret National Intelligence Estimate to the press and that Bush had authorized the disclosure, according to the court papers.

Here's what our Senate Minority Leader, Harry Reid, said in response to the story:

"In light of today's shocking revelation, President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information. The American people must know the truth."

The neo-con house of cards is toppling, a little more each day. Can't you feel the sea change coming? The tipping point we've all been waiting for? The crush of evidence starting to overwhelm Bush's ability to keep the truths and the facts from coming to light?

DeLay Scurries

Hell just froze over. Former Speaker of the House and pest control expert Tom DeLay is scurrying away at last, withdrawing from his race to keep his Texas Congressional seat. Mounting legal problems and an expanding probe into corruption within his office have made a fleeing cockroach out of the once powerful Hammer. Once again, Howard Dean was way ahead of the pack on this. Last May he said:

“Tom DeLay is corrupt. No question about it. This is a guy who shouldn’t be in Congress and maybe ought to be serving in jail.”

Despite DeLay's claim he's pulling out of the race because the poll numbers aren't good, it may well be a sign of the seriousness of his mounting legal problems. He announced his withdrawal about a week after a second close aide pleaded guilty on a corruption charge. According to ABC News:

Last week, former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to conspiring with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to corrupt public officials, and he promised to help the broad federal investigation of bribery and lobbying fraud that already has resulted in three convictions.

It seems clear that Rudy will be telling what he knows about the DeLay pay-to-play machine in order to obtain a lighter sentence. Also on the way is the much anticipated squealing expected to come from Abramoff himself, who pled guilty in a recent Florida corruption trial and will face grave charges in another upcoming trial in DC. Pigs squeal. Cockroaches scurry to escape the light. The chickens come home to roost. The Exterminator gets hammered! (Sorry, I can't help myself!)

Say It Again Russ: Feingold on Fox

Sen. Russ Feingold was on interviewed Fox News Sunday yesterday. Click here for the transcript. If MoveOn wanted to do something truly helpful with an ad, they'd run this exchange verbatim:

MIKE WALLACE: Senator, in a hearing this week, you said that the president's wiretap program is, and I quote, "one of the greatest attempts to dismantle our system of government in history." And you called John Dean as a witness, who said that this is worse than Watergate. Senator, do you really believe there is any comparison?

FEINGOLD: Actually, I do think this is worse. Not in terms of personal misconduct. Our greatest priority in this country is fighting the terrorist elements that attacked us on 9/11. But when the president breaks the law and doesn't admit that he's broken the law, and then advances theories about being able to override the law on torture, and having a preemptive doctrine of war, what he's trying to do is change the nature of our government.

He's trying to turn our presidency into an imperial presidency. So this is one of the greatest challenges in our history, to Congress to stand up and make sure we still have the rule of law and checks and balances. That's actually why it's more significant than the very serious events that occurred at Watergate.

Crooks and Liars has video.

SJC Dems Abandon Feingold Censure Hearing

UPDATE: Here's a video clip of Sen. Feingold using a post from blogger Glenn Greenwald to question John Dean about the similarities of the excuses for warrantless wiretapping used by John Mitchell of Nixon's White House and Bush's. Also the entire hearing is supposed to be re-aired on CSPAN tonight at 6:50 MST.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Sen. Feingold's censure resolution was held this morning. One of the witnesses who urged the Congress to act now to uphold the rule of law was John Dean, who served on Nixon's staff during the Watergate era. Too bad most Dem members were AWOL. According to CNN:

Nixon White House counselor John Dean asserted Friday that President Bush's domestic spying exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled his former boss from power, and Sen. Orrin Hatch snapped that Democrats were trying to "score political points" with a motion to censure Bush.

"Had the Senate or House, or both, censured or somehow warned Richard Nixon, the tragedy of Watergate might have been prevented," Dean told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Hopefully the Senate will not sit by while even more serious abuses unfold before it."

Testifying to a Senate committee on Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold's resolution to censure Bush, Dean said the president "needs to be told he cannot simply ignore a law with no consequences."

Here's a transcript of John Dean's testimony supporting Feingold. And here's Feingold's statement. Excerpt:

If Congress doesn’t have the power to define the contours of the President’s Article II powers through legislation, then I have no idea why people are scrambling to draft legislation to authorize what they think the President is doing. If the President’s legal theory, which is shared by some of our witnesses today, is correct, then FISA is a dead letter, all of the supposed protections for civil liberties contained in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that we just passed are a cruel hoax, and any future legislation we might pass regarding surveillance or national security is a waste of time and a charade. Under this theory, we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government, we have a monarchy.

Shameful: Almost every Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee DID NOT attend today's hearing:

Joe Biden, DE (no word on whereabouts)
Dick Durbin, IL (back home "meeting with constituents")
Dianne Feinstein, CA (claims "scheduling conflict)
Chuck Schumer, NY (office closed this morning)
Ted Kennedy, MA (his office said he was "out of town"

Herb Kohl of Wisconsin was there briefly and said nothing. The ONLY Dem on the committee who spoke on behalf of censure was Patrick Leahy of VT. The words cowardly and disloyal come to mind. More than 70% of Democrats around the nation support the censure. With voters in general, it's about 50-50. What are these Senators afraid of? It's bad enough to have to fight the Republicans on presidential lawbreaking, but to have top Dems standing in the way of the constitutional inquiry of one of their own is truly morally bankrupt, in my opinon.

I hate to say it, but these Senators are starting to look like the Democratic Wing of Republican Party. There is just no excuse for this. If Dem insiders want to ensure a low turnout of progressive and base Dems in the November mid-term elections, they should keep on mocking the passionate and courageous Dems like Murtha and Feingold and whining about their "devisiveness." I guess any Dem brave enough to speak out on the blatant and dangerous abuses of the Bush administration in any meaningful way is judged to be "devisive" in the same way that Republicans deem any Bush critics "unpatriotic."

The Beltway status quo is a stubborn and unrelenting force for inertia. Long-term, entrenched power always is. If you need more evidence on that, check out the new "Real Security" initiative " unveiled by Dems earlier this week. It's almost surreal that the plan makes not one mention of illegal NSA domestic spying, torture or distorted intelligence. Instead, it transparently equates supporting freedom and justice in the world with increased military strength. Trust us! We'll do the same thing Bush is doing, only more competently!

If we can't do better than this, expect millions of core Dem voters to stay home come November. I'm sure the poobahs at the DCCC and DSCC will be flabbergasted, but still unconvinced that their mincing blandness is to blame. To say they take the votes of the Democratic base for granted would be putting it mildly. If we don't get something better to take door-to-door to potential voters this Fall, it's gonna be a long, hard slog indeed. If we make that slog at all, that is.

Finally, here's a post that contains some of the best writing I've encountered that lays out the reasons the Democrats should be lining up en masse to sign on to Feingold's censure resolution. Wake up Democrats -- there IS no Congress if Bush is allowed to continue down this path. Either Democrats must live up to their oaths of office or they are, as the post says, as bad as the Republicans who are worshipping their new monarch.

If and when Americans wake up to the fact that their constitution and democracy have been totally trashed, I hope that many put the blame squarely on the Dem apologists who fiddled with shallow "strategists" and "pollsters" while America burned.

If you'd like to make your feelings known on how Dem committee members acted today, click away:

Patrick J. Leahy, RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT

Edward M. Kennedy, MASSACHUSETTS 

Joseph R. Biden, Jr., DELAWARE

Herbert Kohl , WISCONSIN 

Dianne Feinstein, CALIFORNIA 

Russell D. Feingold , WISCONSIN 

Charles E. Schumer, NEW YORK

Richard J. Durbin , ILLINOIS

God to Bush: Take a Hint

Bill Maher's closing bit last Friday night on HBO's Real Time:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's  no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could  involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do.

There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to  Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like  a man. Herbert Hoover was a lousy president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airlines, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you
don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if  you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: Take a  hint.