There, that about catches me up to date.
Except so much has been going on!
Unfortunately, major life changes (many!) are keeping me busy.
So I'll be posting sporadically for a while.
However, there are a couple thoughts I want to share right now...
ALITO
Here are a few good reasons to oppose the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court (and to contact your Senator!):
With respect to personal liberty, Alito takes an extremely narrow view of what the Constitution protects, as reflected in his opinion sanctioning the strip search without a warrant of a ten-year old girl. With respect to religious freedom, he has not insisted upon the separation of church and state, as required by the First Amendment. With respect to the regulation of dangerous industries, he ruled that Congress does not have the authority to make the possession of machine guns illegal. With respect to labor, he ruled that despite a Congressional statute authorizing it, state workers had no ability to sue for unpaid sick leave. With respect to the environment, he made it more difficult to sue polluters under the Clean Water Act. With respect to employment discrimination, Alito favors rules that make it more difficult for women and minorities to sue. With respect to corporate power, he has ruled against anti-trust remedies. With respect to one person – one vote, Alito has said that he disagrees with Reynolds v. Sims, a leading case establishing this principle.
SPYING
I can't believe President Bush actually admitted to a crime on live television! His attitude on this whole spying thing reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character's damning over reaction in A Few Good Men. I mean, come on! When the law allows the President to order a wiretap on anyone without court approval and gives him 3 whole days to ask for approval after the fact there can only be three excuses: ignorance, laziness, or questionable intent. The first two are terrible, and don't apply. We know the President was not ignorant of the law because he had his lawyers work up grand-sounding logic around the law just in case; we know that he wasn't lazy because he sure spent an awful lot of energy on the spying itself, going after grannies and Catholics and people who like peace. Why wouldn't the President ask for approval for wiretaps from a court that has approved something like 300,000 out of 300,040 asked for in the last 30 years? Requests for such wiretaps are not public, so it couldn't have even been that he feared word of his actions would get out. No, the only plausible scenario is that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that it probably wouldn't get court approval, and that it definitely wouldn't stand up to public scrutiny. So, he kept it secret, operated outside a very fluid law, and violated the US Constitution. You tell me, is this worse than a lie about an extra-marital, consensual sexual affair? Shame on anyone that says No!
CHINA
As the pieces of the always murky 'what will the future look like' puzzle begin to fall into place, a few things are apparently clear: the environment will be a wreck and natural resources in shrinking supply; the world in general and the US in particular will continue to be addicted to oil because oil will continue to drive market, consumer, and capital power; China will grow as a competitor to the "world's sole super-power" (the U.S.) on many, many fronts - including political, military, commercial (which makes the whole world go 'round, don't you know?), and consumption. Connect the dots: oil drives world economies - greater access means greater dominance; oil will be in increasingly tight supply; oil will be in increasingly high demand; the US and China will be in fierce competition for oil to keep their markets chugging. Two possibilities are readily apparent: 1) we can learn to get along, to share, to do all those things parents try to teach their kids; or 2) we can go to war (again!) over oil. Of course, we won't really go to war over oil. No, instead China will be painted as some kind of monster bully instigating a fight with peaceful, freedom loving America. Attempts will be made to scare the American public silly with what might happen should we lose out - communism spreads, the masses are unemployed, censorship reigns and rights are revoked. Fight for your Rights! we'll be told. Meanwhile, we're already losing our rights to an increasingly dictatorial presidency and cabal of cronies intent on perverting power for their own agenda. Don't believe me? Consider the President's push for the right to torture, despite a just passed law specifically banning it; his push to hold people in prison forever without charge or trial despite habeas corpus and the essential moral principles of liberty and freedom; his Orwellian subversion of environmental protections and control on corporate power; and the latest, spying on his own people and subverting dissenters while pretending to 'protect them' (see above). This President, and those who would continue the process he has begun, will one day have us fighting a monster they paint China as being (or some other foreign power) while they quietly remake us into exactly that image. We are already on a path that leads to the possibility of the torture, imprisonment, and 'disappearance' of anyone who dares speak against the will of power. We must resist all efforts to strengthen the executive branch; we must maintain checks and balances and the spread of power; we must not allow the unitary executive theory to become reality. No one person (and no group of con-men) can be trusted with so much power. George W. Bush has proved this once again.
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