First Door on the Left

by Marie Cocco

After 21 years, two kids and countless trips over the interstate and through the woods to grandmother’s house, there is one thing about my marriage I can say for sure. It is not threatened by a few gay couples in Massachusetts.

It isn’t weakened by gays around the block or around the country and certainly not by gays in Canada. In truth, my family and millions of others have managed to survive all manner of plagues we were warned would bring on the demise of the institution.

You could start, I suppose, with Elvis. Follow a straight line right up through the pill, the legalization of abortion, the march of women into the workplace and kids into day care.

Finally there was a president’s sexual dalliance with an intern, which was, to hear the culture warriors tell it, such a degradation that no child who’d heard about it could possibly grow up knowing right from wrong and would never understand the meaning of marriage. But the warriors themselves exposed the affair, howled about it incessantly on television, then impeached the president over it. Anyone seeking to protect the ears of America’s children from their noise would have to have left the planet.

Now we are told that if states legally recognize homosexual couples so that they can, for example, make a hospital visit without interference during a medical emergency, the American marriage is doomed. The warriors are again in full-throated cry, calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages. Amending the founding document, they argue, is necessary because without such a prohibition, more and more states, as a Massachusetts court has ruled, will legalize gay marriage, and more and more other states will be forced one day to recognize these contracts as valid.

Of course, we never ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in Congress in 1923. “Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex,” it says. This passed Congress in 1972 but ratification was blocked in the states after a well-financed and rather loud campaign by – who else? These same culture warriors.

Equal rights for women, they argued, must not be enshrined as the supreme law of the land. Unisex toilets would be our ruin.

So now they want to amend the Constitution to enshrine discrimination against homosexuals as the supreme law of the land. The Constitution would be changed to restrict the rights of Americans, rather than expand them.

Read the rest of the column. The lady makes sense.

Tom DeLay really does not want to testify in the federal court case concerning the redistricting of the Texas congressional districts. You see, if they get him under oath he’ll have to tell the truth. That is the last thing he wants to do.

AUSTIN — A federal court hearing is set for Monday on House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s fight against testifying in a lawsuit challenging Texas’ new congressional districts.

DeLay and Congressman Joe Barton have filed motions to quash a democratic subpoena for their sworn testimony. Both are Texas republicans and DeLay led the push for the new districts.

Attorneys for democrats in Texas’ congressional delegation said they want to explore the role DeLay played in the redistricting process.

The Houston Chronicle reports the Monday hearing will be conducted by conference telephone call among the judges and lawyers in the case.

The case is scheduled to go to trial before a three judge federal court panel in Austin on Dec. 11.

The thing is, he’s already under oath. It’s called the Congressional Oath of Office:

I, American Patriot, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

He’s not keeping that one either.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – President Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq was the talk of Baghdad’s teahouses, kebab shops and mosques Friday, with many Iraqis asking why he didn’t take advantage of his trip to see firsthand how his rule has treated them.

Many complained that Bush met with few Iraqis during his secret, two-hour stay Thursday evening and never left the grounds of a heavily fortified U.S. base. Several called the trip an electoral stunt, and took offense that he would use their country as his stage.

“He visited Iraq for the sake of the Americans, not the Iraqis. He didn’t come to see how we are doing,” Muzher Abd Hanush, 54, said in his barbershop. “To come, say hello and leave – what good does that do?”

(snip)

U.S. senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Reed spent about 10 hours in Baghdad on Friday and planned another day in Iraq on Saturday after overnighting out of the country. On Friday, Clinton traveled between the airport, coalition headquarters and another U.S. military base in a convoy of civilian SUVs with an escort of Humvees and Apache helicopters.

She met with coalition officials, U.S. troops, a group of Iraqi female politicians and talked briefly with Iraqi workers on the bases. Media coverage was restricted, however, and few Iraqis heard about her trip Friday.

Alla Abdul Wahab, a 38-year-old windowpane seller, hadn’t heard about Clinton’s trip, but asked what Bush’s visit would ultimately do for Iraqis.

“What good will this visit bring?” he asked. “He came to see the Americans – that’s all.”

Actually, he went to get a few good pictures and sound bytes for his campaign, but that’s beside the point.

Why is it that George W. Bush has to come and go under the cover of darkness and a giant cloak of secrecy and never leave the confines of a heavily fortified military compound, while Senators Clinton and Reed can spend two full days in the country and travel about freely? Is the security for senators really that much better than the security for the president?

Three images tell the story of George W. Bush’s presidency.

The first, of Bush and bullhorn atop the rubble at New York’s Ground Zero on Sept. 14, 2001, came to symbolize his transformation into a powerful wartime president. The second, of Bush in flight suit with “Mission Accomplished” banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, became the symbol of Bush’s unrealized optimism about the U.S. military’s victory in Iraq.

Yesterday, Nov. 27, 2003, brought an equally vivid but more complex image of Bush. His stealthy landing in Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day portrayed a leader well aware of the chaotic and dangerous situation in Iraq but determined to assure the Iraqi people that the United States will not, as he has put it, “cut and run.”

While the troops cheered the moment, it is too soon to know whether the image of Bush in his Army jacket yesterday will become a symbol of strong leadership or a symbol of unwarranted bravado.

Iraqis may be reassured that the United States will put down the insurgency and restore order in their country. Or they may take the image of Bush landing unannounced at night without lights and not venturing from a heavily fortified military installation as confirmation that the security situation in Iraq is dire indeed.

But one thing is certain. Bush’s Thanksgiving Day surprise ties him, for better or worse, ever more tightly to the outcome of the Iraq struggle.

I wish he were as committed to the war on terror as he is to his war in Iraq. It would also be nice if he used some of the tax cuts he gave his rich friends to pay for his war.

Three images define the Bush presidency, and all three are of destruction and war. That’s some kind of presidency.

by Scott Galindez, Political Editor, truthout.org

When Howard Dean stood on the Stage at the annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa and pointed to the crowd shouting, “You have the power!” numerous times, I thought it was a good campaign theme. I did not realize that it was more than a theme. It was an accurate description of the Dean campaign.

I recently attended a grassroots summit in Los Angeles organized by the Dean campaign titled “From Mouse Pads to Shoe Leather.” 250 people crowded into a lecture hall at UCLA. Howard Dean was not there, and this was not a rally. It was all about taking action.

Conventional wisdom in political circles says California is too big for grassroots organizing. Most campaigns focus all their efforts into media campaigns in California and ignore true grassroots organizing. The result is top down organizations that leave people feeling disconnected from the political process. The Dean campaign is bucking the trend. Their organization in California is growing from the bottom up.

On January 31st, 2003, the Dean campaign had seven national staff members, 432 known supporters and $157,000 in the bank. In the last 11 months, over 500,000 people have signed on and contributed to the Dean campaign. Tens of thousands have attended local meetings and are actively volunteering for the campaign.

This brings us back to California. Joe Trippi, Howard Dean’s campaign Manager, spoke to the crowd. After a rousing standing ovation greeted him, he opened by saying “A great myth in American politics is that I am running this campaign. The truth is that it is you the people.” The crowd again rose to its feet. Trippi went on to say that the difference in this campaign is that, while other candidates tell you how they are going to solve your problems, Governor Dean talks about what we together can do to change the direction of our country.

Another refreshing theme of Trippi’s remarks was that this campaign is building a new Democratic Party. He pointed out that the Republicans lead in every fundraising category but one: Donations over a million dollars. The Republicans even lead in donations of less than $100. He said, “The Republican Party has succeeded in convincing people that they are part of the process. The Democrat’s biggest obstacle is to convince people that they can make a difference. You are succeeding in doing that, and that is why this campaign continues to grow,”

The crowd rose to its feet once more when Trippi announced that this campaign is not just about the presidency, but that it will help take back the Congress as well. He went on to explain that, after the party conventions, despite opting out for the primaries both candidates will opt-in to the public financing system and will not be able to raise money for their own campaign. Trippi said that the day after the convention, they would evaluate what Congressional campaigns to target. They will then go to the millions of contributors to their campaign and ask them to contribute to Congressional candidates, giving them a major funding boost.

After Joe Trippi left the stage, the real work began. The room remained crowded. The volunteer organizers announced many activities that are underway, including Dean Corps. The concept of Dean Corps is to get involved in community projects. One of the Dean Corps projects at this meeting was a food drive for families in need this Thanksgiving. The front of the room was filled with bags of food to be donated to a local mission. They also announced that on Thanksgiving they will be working with the YWCA to serve meals to the poor. To top it off, on December 13th, Dean Corps will be building a house with Habitat for Humanity.

There were also two exciting youth initiatives. One was “Punks for Dean,” and the other was “Generation Dean”. Both groups are doing extensive outreach to youth in California. Judging by the amount of young people in the room, their efforts seem to be paying off.

After a brief primer on grassroots politics, there were breakout sessions ranging from “Labor for Dean” to “Outreach.”

At the organizing strategy meeting, I was amazed to hear them talking about breaking down into precincts. There were no campaign staff present and they were discussing ways to disseminate precinct lists. The strategy was being developed by the volunteers, many of whom have never worked on a campaign before.

The Dean campaign began growing in chat rooms, then “Meetup” sessions where the online activists met at restaurants and meeting halls. Now, tens of thousands, soon hundreds of thousands of people are organizing in a decentralized grassroots campaign that is changing the political process.

It really is not about Howard Dean. You really do have the power.

Ever wonder what really went on in the House of Representatives during that three hour vote on the Medicare bill the other night? Robert Novak spills the beans…

GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill

During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.

Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan’s southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father’s vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. “DeLay the Hammer” on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.

Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill’s authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.

They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no’s. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.

Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state’s 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002′s contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a “no” vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years — maybe more.

Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. “It was absolutely too personal,” he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience.

However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short.

The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho — into voting “yes.” They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed.

The conservative Club for Growth’s Steve Moore, writing to the organization’s directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill “would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.”

Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.

The Republicans will not at nothing to get what they want. It makes me wonder what is going to happen next November when it starts to look like they are going to lose control of the White House. I have a feeling it is going to make Florida in 2000 look like child’s play. Scary stuff.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 — In a stunning mission conducted under enormous secrecy, President Bush flew into Baghdad today aboard Air Force One to have dinner with United States officials and a group of astonished American troops.

His trip — the first ever to Iraq by an American president — had been kept a matter of absolute secrecy by the White House, which had said that he would be spending the Thanksgiving weekend at his ranch outside Crawford, Tex.

Even his wife, Laura, and his parents, the former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, were not told in advance, officials said later.

The trip was an extraordinary gesture, with scant precedent, and was seen as an effort by Mr. Bush to show the importance he attaches to the embattled United States-led effort to pacify and democratize Iraq.

I still do not like the man and I still believe he is the worst president our country has ever had. However, even I will concede that this was a nice thing to do.

I will remain impressed if none of the photographs or stories from this trip show up in political ads during the coming year. I do not want to believe that this trip was nothing more than a photo-op planned for political gain.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is visiting Afghanistan and Iraq.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas believes that reinstatement of the draft is inevitable. The only question is, will it come before or after next year’s election? If things continue as they are in Iraq, I see no way the Bush administration is going to be able to postpone it until after the election.

He has written an article entitled “The Crime of Conscription” which you should read in its entirety. I’m going to quote a few paragraphs from the article here…

To get more troops, the draft will likely be reinstated. The implicit prohibition of “involuntary servitude” under the 13th Amendment to the Constitution has already been ignored many times so few will challenge the constitutionality of the coming draft.

Unpopular wars invite conscription. Volunteers disappear, as well they should. A truly defensive just war prompts popular support. A conscripted, unhappy soldier is better off on the long run than the slaves of old since the “enslavement” is only temporary. But in the short run the draft may well turn out to be more deadly and degrading, as one is forced to commit life and limb to a less than worthy cause – like teaching democracy to unwilling and angry Arabs. Slaves were safer in that their owners had an economic interest in protecting their lives. Endangering the lives of our soldiers is acceptable policy, and that’s why they are needed. Too often, though, our men and women who are exposed to the hostilities of war and welcomed initially are easily forgotten after the fighting ends. Soon afterward, the injured and the sick are ignored and forgotten.

It is said we go about the world waging war to promote peace, and yet the price paid is rarely weighed against the failed efforts to make the world a better place. Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense. What right does anyone have to sacrifice the lives of others for some cause of questionable value? Even if well motivated it can’t justify using force on uninterested persons.

It’s said that the 18-year-old owes it to his country. Hogwash! It just as easily could be argued that a 50 year-old chicken-hawk, who promotes war and places the danger on innocent young people, owes a heck of a lot more to the country than the 18-year-old being denied his liberty for a cause that has no justification.

All drafts are unfair. All 18- and 19-year-olds are never drafted. By its very nature a draft must be discriminatory. All drafts hit the most vulnerable young people, as the elites learn quickly how to avoid the risks of combat.

The dollar cost of war and the economic hardship is great in all wars and cannot be minimized. War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures. The great tragedy of war is the careless disregard for civil liberties of our own people. Abuses of German and Japanese Americans in World War I and World War II are well known.

But the real sacrifice comes with conscription – forcing a small number of young vulnerable citizens to fight the wars that older men and women, who seek glory in military victory without themselves being exposed to danger, promote. These are wars with neither purpose nor moral justification, and too often not even declared by the Congress.

This really is beginning to sound more and more like Vietnam, isn’t it?

Across the country, families and friends are drawing closer to one another today, as we celebrate and give thanks in the same way Americans have been doing for centuries.

Thanksgiving is the first holiday that was uniquely American. It says something fundamental about us — that humble congregation and gratitude for our blessings is deep within our national character.

Across the country are those whose blessings are few and whose need is great. Millions of families will be having a wholesome meal in a community center or soup kitchen today, never far from the reality to which they will return tomorrow. As we give thanks for all that we have, let us dedicate ourselves to building a world in which this day’s abundance becomes every day’s, for all to share.

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

Warren Christopher served as Secretary of State from 1993 to 1997. He has written on op-ed column for the Washington Post on the current state of our foreign policy and what needs to be done to fix it…

As the Democratic presidential primary season enters its decisive phase, foreign policy unexpectedly stands at center stage. The candidates will be measured by whether they continue tactical quarreling over the past or present a strategic vision for the future.

Under normal circumstances, a change of party controlling the White House does not produce a turnabout in the nation’s foreign policy. While new administrations may make minor course corrections, especially on specific issues raised in the campaign, they typically discover that they agree more than disagree with their predecessors’ foreign policy goals and approaches.

In the case of the current administration, however, fundamental departures from existing foreign policy have been the norm from the outset. President Bush took office with no perceptible mandate for radical change in foreign policy. Yet, immediately upon assuming the presidential mantle, he set about reversing nearly every major foreign policy initiative that carried the Clinton imprint. He announced that the United States would stand aside from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and he denounced eight proposed international agreements, even purporting to “unsign” one of them. As his direction became clear to the world, our friends and allies began to question, and then to dissociate themselves from, the actions of the U.S. government. Now, three years into the Bush II era, American standing and credibility in the world have dropped to their lowest point in decades.

If the major premise of President Bush’s policy changes had been correct — that the United States does not need help or consensus to work its will in the world — the loss of international friends might be less important. But the opposite is true. With two soldiers killed on average every day this month, Iraq is a quagmire in which the United States, by the telling of its own secretary of defense, “slogs” rather than skates. And at a moment when we need help, the United Nations and major powers other than Britain are loath to help us fight, finance or fashion a way out.

You will need to click on the headline to read what he says needs to be done now. His proposals are exactly what Governor Dean has been advocating throughout this campaign.