May 22 2009
Both of these videos speak for themselves without dialogue from me!
David Swanson speaks on Real News: “Policy Differences or Crimes?”
Rachael Maddow, with Vince Warren, Director of Center for Constitutional Rights
Rachel speaks out on Obama’s speech and indefinite detention!
(Note: I tried over and over to embed the video with no success. I don’t get it. Nightprowlkitty did it the other night — she must’ve hit a nerve I haven’t found. Sorry, wish I could’ve done it myself!)
Liz Holtzman next!
May 22 2009
In a bizarre post at Salon, Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. says we shouldn’t judge a family that is on the lam, so that their 13 year old son won’t have to experience the hell of chemotherapy treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma:
The story of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy from Minnesota with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, became tabloid fodder overnight. The boy and his mother are on the lam because the mother refuses, because of her beliefs, to authorize chemotherapy treatments for her son. Hodgkin’s lymphoma has a 90 percent cure rate with chemotherapy, and a 95 percent chance of killing a person without it. Chemotherapy will likely save Daniel’s life, and as a pediatrician I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to recommend it.
But I would also like to turn down the volume on the talk-radio chatter and outraged editorials. That’s because nobody seems to be talking about what it takes to beat Hodgkin’s (or any other cancer). What it takes is a grueling regimen that can indeed give even a dying person pause. In fact, the Hausers didn’t refuse chemotherapy outright. They defied doctors and a judge’s ruling only after Daniel experienced some of its violent effects following one round. If you don’t understand why, listen to my friend, Arun Ponnusamy, 36, who beat acute lymphocytic leukemia. “Surviving cancer is one thing,” he says. “Surviving chemotherapy is another thing entirely.”
I call bullshit. First of all, every type of cancer has a different chemo regimen, and because the bulk of his post is actually about Ponnusamy’s treatments, to have any credibility, Parikh must first explain the similarities between Ponnusamy’s cancer and Hauser’s. But more directly to the point, and in direct contrast to Parikh’s absurd approach, we’re talking about saving the life of a child. Hodgkin’s treatments are brutal, but they usually “cure” the cancer. As in giving the kid a chance at a full life. Which makes enduring probably 12 cycles of chemotherapy not such a terrible prospect. I would know. I am a Hodgkin’s survivor.
May 22 2009
Happy Friday and welcome to the 5th in the Dog’s First Amendment Friday series. This series is following the syllabus for the class called The First Amendment and taught at Yale Law School by Professor Jack M. Balkin. As with the Friday Constitutional series this is a layman’s look at the Law, specifically the Supreme Court opinions which have shaped the boundaries of our 1st Amendment Protections. This week we will look at two cases which deal with the Press’s right to report and comment on cases still before the Courts.
The cases were decided together in an opinion titled Bridges V California. If you are interested in the previous installments of this series you can find them at the links below:
May 22 2009
In the wake of Obama’s speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new converts who now support indefinite “preventive detention.” It thus seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion as possible of the implications of “preventive detention” and Obama’s related detention proposals (military commissions).
I hope by now my ability to disagree with and criticize President Obama is not questioned. Thus, when I say that I think there may be merit in a detention regime (the military commissions proposal seems fatally flawed to me as described) that detains known combatants in a manner that is compliant with the Constitution and the Geneva Convention, I hope my argument can be addressed seriously. I do not think Glenn’s post considers the possibility that President Obama’s proposal may in fact be such a Geneva Convention compliant detention regime. More . . .
May 22 2009
As we all know, the fear-mongering from Republicans about the possibility of Gitmo prisoners being transferred to federal prisons in the U.S. worked to convince all but 6 Democrats (Durbin, Harkin, Leahy, Levin, Reed, Whitehouse) to vote against funding for shutting it down. Apparently, Harry Reid was so completely terrorized at the prospect that he had trouble explaining himself clearly without the help of reporters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared in a press conference today, “We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” In several tense back and forths with reporters, Reid said he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil, saying flatly, “We don’t want them around the United States”:
And now, just in time to play on that fear, we get the story of four Muslims who were arrested in New York for trying to blow up synagogues and shoot down airplanes.
The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.<…>
The charges against the four men represent some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time, and come months into a new presidential administration, as President Obama grapples with the question of how to handle detainees at the Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.
May 22 2009
Cross posted from The Dream Antilles
Early this morning the Connecticut Senate voted to abolish Connecticut’s death penalty. The vote was 19-17. The bill now goes to Governor Jodi Rell (R). She sounds like she will veto the bill. So, if you care about the value of human life and making Connecticut and America more just and ending the barbarism that is the death penalty, this is an important time to spend a few moments to call or email Governor Rell to ask her to sign the bill. The phone is 860.566.4840. The email: [email protected].
May 22 2009
(Editors Note: This essay contains strong opinions that might not be suitable for those under the mental age of 13)
Unless you were one of the thousands tortured or killed, unless you were one of those who has teh gay and were denied your civil rights, unless you were jailed under the Patriot Act, unless you were one of those….ok, it’s a long list…I’ll start again…
ONE of the greatest damages done under the iron fist of The Bush Reign Of Terror….was the repression of thought. Specifically the repression of Right of Free Thought. The Right to be Rebellious. Not just to express rebellion, but through the insidious forces of social pressure, to even, within the confines of your own head, THINK freely, let alone rebelliously.
The Right of Free Speech barely survived, even as an endangered and protected species. The blogs did much to keep that alive. On life support. With only a few visitors during supervised visits and only during visiting hours. It was much curtailed and assaulted, but you could, if you were willing to suffer the slings, arrows, and shocked gasps accompanied by raised and disapproving eyebrows still…sorta….SAY what you thought.
But you had to think about what you thought first. And therein lies the problem.
We were….and still are, forced to self-censor. Which is far, far worse than some Authority censoring you. Self-censorship kills the human spirit. Self-censorship is a form of suicide.
“What are you rebelling against Johnny?”“Whaddya got?”
Marlon Brando
May 22 2009
Dave Waldman writes on Obama’s reluctance to prosecute for torture:
That poses an extraordinarily broad array of difficulties, not the least of which is that it’s an open an ongoing threat to the greater Obama agenda, which is itself often invoked as a reason for not dabbling in the “distraction” of “looking backward.” But unless we can demarcate Cheneyism — the “anything goes” philosophy as explicitly illegal, unconstitutional and illegitimate, its continued existence (and threatened practice by future administrations) calls into question the value and durability of the whatever parts of the Obama agenda are ultimately implemented, on detainee policy or anything else.
Last week, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations had a hearing entitled Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones: DRC and Sudan. The US Senate wishes to tackle rape as a weapon of war. Barbara Boxer feels we are in good position to affect the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan.
May 22 2009
Making noise to effect change is not always something one can hear, but that one can see.
These distractions are to help one see things that you may not hear, & I hope they do make a little noise in your already busy & hectic lives.
So, I`ll begin with this.
Silent Scream
May 22 2009
With Memorial Day right around the corner, check out this wonderfully moving article printed in USA TODAY entitled “More Than A Long Weekend” by Kathy Roth-Douquet, Blue Star Families’ Co-Founder and co-author with Frank Schaeffer “AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service — and How It Hurts Our Country”.
May 22 2009
The Stupid That
Is Dick Cheney
Is Beyond Me
U.S. to Steer GM Toward Bankruptcy
Filing Expected as Chrysler Set to Emerge
By David Cho, Peter Whoriskey and Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Obama administration is preparing to send General Motors into bankruptcy as early as the end of next week under a plan that would give the automaker tens of billions of dollars more in public financing as the company seeks to shrink and reemerge as a global competitor, sources familiar with the discussions said.
The move comes as the administration prepares to lift the nation’s other faltering car company, Chrysler, from bankruptcy protection as soon as next week, industry sources said.The shifts into and out of bankruptcy are landmarks in the Obama administration’s attempt to broker a historic restructuring of the American auto industry in the space of months.
Spread of Swine Flu Puts Japan in Crisis Mode
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: May 21, 2009
KOBE, Japan – It all began at a high school volleyball tournament here on May 2 – or so residents of this Japanese port city suspect.
Soon, volleyball players who took part in the event were coming down with swine flu, early cases in a wider outbreak that has made Japan the worst-hit country outside North America in the global epidemic.On Thursday, confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus in Japan reached 279, centering on Kobe and the neighboring city of Osaka, in western Japan. Like many other countries, Japan has reported mild flu cases and no deaths. Still, it is in crisis mode: more than 4,800 schools have been closed in the region, medical services are swamped, and testing laboratories are working around the clock.
USA
Obama Faces Pitfalls With ‘Surgical’ Tack on Detainees
NEWS ANALYSIS
By PETER BAKER
Published: May 21, 2009As President Obama defends his national security strategy, he faces a daunting challenge. He must convince the country that it is in safe hands despite warnings to the contrary from the right, and at the same time persuade the skeptical left that it is enough to amend his predecessor’s approach rather than abandon it.
Arguably on the defensive over policy for the first time since taking office, Mr. Obama is gambling that his oratorical powers can reassure the public that bringing terrorism suspects to prisons on American soil will not put the public in danger.At the same time, he must explain and win support for a nuanced set of positions that fall somewhere between George W. Bush and the American Civil Liberties Union.
