kpete
kpete's Journal
Best DOMA Pic!
(San Francisco City Hall in celebration thereof)
HERE: http://www.dependablerenegade.com/.a/6a00d8341bf82953ef019103de68ae970c-500wi
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
To those celebrating the gay rights victory, this is your moment. Enjoy it. To racial diversity warriors, mourn. But not for long. In the morning we must all rise together and remember what Winston Churchill reportedly said: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Remember also what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from the Birmingham jail: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
And remember that it is no coincidence that there is quite a bit of overlap among the states that were covered by the Voting Rights Act, those that have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, those with some of the most restrictive abortion laws and those that have considered or passed some of the strictest anti-immigrant bills.
Racial hostility, homophobia and misogyny are braided together like strands of the same rope. When we fight one, we fight them all.
Engaging in combat as a coalition reinforces and expands everyone’s power, reach and influence. We must realize that if everyone can see the sameness in these struggles, rather than the differences, we will be able to see that America is already a majority minority country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/opinion/blow-joining-together-in-justice.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130627&_r=1&
Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits
Source: Reuters
Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits
Thu, Jun 27 10:06 AM EDT
By Alexandra Valencia and Brian Ellsworth
QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden, and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez.
"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests," government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.
In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance human rights training.
Read more: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE95Q0L820130627?irpc=932
Roberts To Black Folks (and/or Democrats): Don’t Bother Trying To Vote
The Supreme Court struck down a central portion of the Voting Rights Act Tuesday, effectively ending the practice in which some states with a history of racial discrimination must receive clearance from the federal government before changing voting laws.
The vote was five to four, with the five conservative-leaning judges in the majority and the four liberal-leaning justices in the minority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the decision.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/06/25/roberts-to-black-folks-andor-democrats-dont-bother-trying-to-vote/#comments
http://www.scotusblog.com/
http://projects.nytimes.com/live-dashboard/2013-06-25-supreme-court
Two years ago, African Americans, lower-income Americans, and young Americans participated in the 2008 presidential election in historic numbers. This November, however, these groups largely stayed home, as did most Americans.
http://projectvote.dreamhosters.com/newsreleases/611-project-vote-releases-new-analysis-of-who-voted-and-who-didnt-in-2010.html
"Most Americans stayed home."
The wingnuts didn't. End of story.
It’s going to take constant effort to ensure that everyone who wants to actually gets to vote out every last damn Republican in Congress.
http://www.scotusblog.com/
Former Rep. Barney Frank Catches CHENEY In "Blatant Lie"
Former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) called out former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday, claiming that his book contained a huge error regarding control of the House of Representatives and Frank's position on a powerful committee.
During a Monday appearance on HuffPost Live, Frank brought along a copy of Cheney's "In My Time" for a little fact-checking session.
"I came across just a blatant lie," Frank said.
According to Frank, Cheney's book claims that George W. Bush's administration tried to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003. The book alleges the motion was blocked by Frank, who Cheney writes served as Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee at the time.
"I was not the chairman of the Financial Services Committee in 2003," Frank said. "The Republicans controlled the House."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/24/barney-frank-dick-cheney_n_3491052.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
"Parts of the world becoming uninhabitable-Companies say warming oceans threaten cost of protection"
And here’s why we need executive action on climate, the sooner the better: pic.twitter.com/nfJ6D7TXmt
:large
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/349350141435736065
Demonizing Edward Snowden: Which Side Are You On?
JUNE 24, 2013
DEMONIZING EDWARD SNOWDEN: WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
POSTED BY JOHN CASSIDY
From John Cassidy at the New Yorker (quoting Thomas Drake who gets it exactly right)
"To get a different perspective on Snowden and his disclosures, here’s a portion of an interview that ABC—the Australian Broadcasting Company, not the Disney subsidiary—did today with Thomas Drake, another former N.S.A. employee, who, in 2010, was charged with espionage for revealing details about an electronic-eavesdropping project called Trailblazer, a precursor to Operation Prism, one of the programs that Snowden documented. (The felony cases against Drake, as my colleague Jane Mayer has written, eventually collapsed, and he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.)
INTERVIEWER: Not everybody thinks Edward Snowden did the right thing. I presume you do…
DRAKE: I consider Edward Snowden as a whistle-blower. I know some have called him a hero, some have called him a traitor. I focus on what he disclosed. I don’t focus on him as a person. He had a belief that what he was exposed to—U.S. actions in secret—were violating human rights and privacy on a very, very large scale, far beyond anything that had been admitted to date by the government. In the public interest, he made that available.
INTERVIEWER: What do you say to the argument, advanced by those with the opposite viewpoint to you, especially in the U.S. Congress and the White House, that Edward Snowden is a traitor who made a narcissistic decision that he personally had a right to decide what public information should be in the public domain?
DRAKE: That’s a government meme, a government cover—that’s a government story. The government is desperate to not deal with the actual exposures, the content of the disclosures. Because they do reveal a vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance state that has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism—far beyond." http://nyr.kr/1a9fHeQ
.....
the rest:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/06/demonizing-edward-snowden-which-side-are-you-on.html#entry-more
Snowden’s Asylum Request: ‘Unlikely I Would Receive Fair Trial or Proper Treatment Prior to Trial’
Excerpts via FiredogLake.
As a result of my political opinions, and my desire to exercise my freedom of speech, through which I’ve shown that the government of the United States is intercepting the majority of communications in the world, the government of the United States has publicly announced a criminal investigation against me. Also, prominent members of Congress and others in the media have accused me of being a traitor and have called for me to be jailed or executed as a result of having communicated this information to the public.
Some of the charges that have been presented against me by the Justice Department of the United States are connected to the 1917 Espionage Act, one of which includes life in prison among the possible sentences.
...
Ecuador granted asylum to the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, in relation to this investigation. My case is also very similar to that of the American soldier Bradley Manning, who made public government information through Wikileaks revealing war crimes, was arrested by the United States government and has been treated inhumanely during his time in prison. He was put in solitary confinement before his trial and the U.N. anti-torture representative judged that Mr. Manning was submitted to cruel and inhumane acts by the United States government.
The trial against Bradley Manning is ongoing now, and secret documents have been presented to the court and secret witnesses have testified.
I believe that, given these circumstances, it is unlikely that I would receive a fair trial or proper treatment prior to that trial, and face the possibility of life in prison or even death.
the rest:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/06/24/snowdens-asylum-request-unlikely-i-would-receive-fair-trial-or-proper-treatment-prior-to-trial/
GREENWALD: 'Some call it aiding & abetting - I call it investigative journalism'
GREENWALD: The reason I've been reluctant to answer that question up until this point is because the theory on which those questions are based - and I'm not suggesting you're embracing it, but you're - you're referencing the theory that others have embraced - is really quite pernicious, that if you're a journalist and you work with your source and in - and in cooperating with them and in obtaining documents that you think ought to be released to the public that somehow that's called aiding and abetting. I call that investigative journalism. There is no investigative journalist on the planet who doesn't work cooperatively with their sources in order to obtain the information they need to inform their readers.
more:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/news-is-what-somebody-somewhere-wants.html
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