In a 6 – 3 vote that surprises exactly no one, the Supreme Court today upheld the laws that support picture identification to be presented at the polling place for states that are effected.

From AP:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush.

Justice Stevens said that the law was justified to protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.  

I say that the law discriminates against elderly and poor people that do not have a picture ID and often no way of getting to the DMV to obtain one, or no way of paying for one if they did have a way to get there.  

But, what do I know.  I’m not a Supreme.  I’m just a simple American citizen that believes all registered voters should be able to vote without restriction.

did Bush “beat” Al Gore?

or did Jeb fudge the numbers?

Florida screwed us

Bush must stay healthy

or we go from bad to worse:

President Cheney

Bin Laden still free

while we flounder in Iraq

that’s Bush-league justice

the Katrina storm

was too much for Brownie

heck of a job?  pffffft!

Cheney went hunting

and shot his friend in the face

that’s how he treats friends

God may very well forsake us if we do not change our ways.

I was disturbed today by a comment that I read at dKos this morning. The comment contained a quote, attributed by the comment author ‘broui’ to the Paul Tsongus campaign for President. The quote:

Truth is what people are willing to believe.

On prime time… on prime time. Actors representing the real justices and these people and their decisions being bashed ON PRIME TIME. It’s too good. And guess who showed this to me??????????? My republican brother-in-law.

Wow.

Tears in my eyes… couldn’t help myself… this is on prime-fucking-time:::

It’s a roller coaster ride. A tumbling act. We let words loose to persuade, describe, exclaim, defame, refute, convince, lie, confuse, or clarify.

We take stands, have platforms, craft mission statements and credos, construct constitutions, and write theses and treatises. We’re busy alright. Conquering worlds with words… and sometimes the horizons explode. Sometimes all light is lost…….

Or, should I say that Republicans in the US Senate say SCREW YOU to Americans, again (still)?

From AP:

Senate Republicans killed legislation Wednesday aimed at removing limits on how long workers can wait before suing their employers for pay discrimination.

Democrats, speaking to key constituencies of women, minorities and swing voters this election year, said they weren’t finished trying to pass the bill.

I don’t know which sentence above is more depressing.  I do know that the information contained in both is damning for both Republicans and Democrats.  The Republicans for being corporate whores and the Democrats for being election year whores.

Debate on the legislation, which was proposed in response to a Supreme Court decision last year, was steeped in election-year politics and shadowed by a White House veto threat.

snip

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 last May 29 to throw out her complaint, saying she had waited too long to sue. Under the justices’ decision, which they said was based on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, an employee must sue within a 180-day deadline of a decision involving pay if the employee thinks it involved race, sex, religion or national origin.

So, our esteemed Right leaning US Supreme Court decided that if you wait more than 180 days from the time you were discriminated against by an employer, in their estimation the statute of limitations on your complaint has expired.  (If anyone asks you why putting a Democratic Candidate in the White House this election cycle is a MUST, see Appointments – Court, US SUPREME).

I’ve been thinking about this for days now. Ever since my nephew told me he thought that winning was the reason one plays baseball.

And I thought::: has our obsession with winning turned us into losers? Our family routines, our learning curves, and just plain old having fun all seem to take a beating from the prevailing ends justify the means American mindset.

Is winning market share or baseball games or presidential races more important than how one plays the game, the quality/efficacy of products one puts on the market, or the policies/integrity of candidates?

Winning is only an outcome, isn’t it? What happens to all the stuff that needs to happen to get to the winning? Isn’t all the in-between stuff, those small moments, where we get our life lessons?

Cross-posted from my blog at Campaign for America’s Future.

In my previous entry I laid out the differences between liberals and progressives, movements and political parties.  For those of you who haven’t time to read through it, a brief recap:  Liberals believe in socio-economic justice, whereas progressives believe the same thing but also in taking it to the next step-using government as a powerful tool with which to achieve it by making Big Business behave.  The Progressive Movement, much like movement conservatism, has a definite set of goals, and the Progressive Party is the political force through which we can reach them.

Cross-posted from my blog at Campaign for America’s Future.

Lately I’ve been getting an increasing recurrence of the same questions: what is the difference between liberals and progressives, and what is the difference between the Progressive Movement and the Progressive Party?  The answers to these questions are important, for as we inch ever closer to the general election in November and as primary battles across the country reach their conclusion the future of our country and our world shall be determined by them-and by how swiftly we figure them out.

The first question I shall tackle is, what is the difference between a liberal and a progressive?  For that I’ll quote the Huffington Post’s David Sirota, who explains it far more eloquently than I can:

I often get asked what the difference between a “liberal” and a “progressive” is. The questions from the media on this subject are always something like, “Isn’t ‘progressive’ just another name for ‘liberal’ that people want to use because ‘liberal’ has become a bad word?”

The answer, in my opinion, is no-there is a fundamental difference when it comes to core economic issues. It seems to me that traditional “liberals” in our current parlance are those who focus on using taxpayer money to help better society. A “progressive” are those who focus on using government power to make large institutions play by a set of rules.

To put it in more concrete terms: a liberal solution to some of our current problems with high energy costs would be to increase funding for programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). A more “progressive” solution would be to increase LIHEAP but also crack down on price gouging and pass laws better regulating the oil industry’s profiteering and market manipulation tactics. A liberal policy towards prescription drugs is one that would throw a lot of taxpayer cash at the pharmaceutical industry to get them to provide medicine to the poor; a progressive prescription drug policy would be one that centered around price regulations and bulk purchasing in order to force down the actual cost of medicine in America (much of which was originally developed with taxpayer R&D money).

Let’s be clear: most progressives are also liberals, and liberal goals in better funding America’s social safety net are noble and critical. It’s the other direction that’s the problem. Many of today’s liberals are not fully comfortable with progressivism as defined in these terms. Many of today’s Democratic politicians, for instance, are simply not comfortable taking a more confrontational posture towards large economic institutions (many of whom fund their campaigns)-institutions that regularly take a confrontational posture towards America’s middle-class.

Cross-posted from EENR Blog

The Kyoto Treaty is not the only treating affecting human survival that Bush prefers let languish without the participation of the United States.  He also unsigned us from the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court.

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ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

PREAMBLE

The States Parties to this Statute,

Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a

shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time,

Mindful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of

unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity,

Recognizing that such grave crimes threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world,

Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole

must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at

the national level and by enhancing international cooperation,

Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to

contribute to the prevention of such crimes,

. . .

http://www.icc-cpi.int/library…