May 7, 2008 archive

As Buhdy did in his essay a few days ago, I’ve been trying to imagine what our current political situation looks like to those who are not immersed in the blogosphere and the news…in other words, to people who are NOT political junkies.

I combine that with the fact that it looks like the long nightmare of our Democratic primary season might be about to come to an end. It seems obvious that we are going to have a race between McCain and Obama. For most folks here, that is not the choice we would have liked, but its what we have. That is unless we want to sit it out or cast a “conscience” vote for someone else. I will not judge anyone’s decision in these matters. But for me, the choice is easy. And that’s because I think that, with Obama, we’ve gotten about as good as we could get in our current political climate.

We’ve got alot of work to do in helping educate and motivate more people to take a deeper look into where we stand as a country. But I can see some progress in the outcome of our current race for the white house. And for me, Booman summed it up well today in a diary titled What This Means.

1. America’s own terrorist is partying in Miami. The Los Angeles Times reports Luis Posada Carriles, a terror suspect abroad, enjoys a ‘coming-out’ in Miami. 500 Cuban Americans honored “Luis Posada Carriles, the former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela on terrorism charges and under a deportation order for illegally entering the United States three years ago. Posada, 80, has mostly kept a low profile since his release from a Texas prison a year ago and a federal judge’s dismissal of the only U.S. charges against him — making false statements to immigration officials.”

   Posada is the alleged mastermind of a Cuban airline bombing in 1976 that killed all 73 people on board. Plus he is a suspect in a string of hotel bombings in Havana during the 1990s and according to court documents, claims to have been involved in “some of the most infamous events of 20th century Central American politics.” Posada has also boasted of numerous attempts to kill Castro, including an attempt in 2000 that he was serving time in a Panamanian prison before pardoned in 2004 by Panama’s President Mireya Moscoso as a favor for Bush.

   The Bush administration “has never given Venezuela a formal answer to its 3-year-old request for extradition of Posada, despite a treaty providing for such cooperation that has been in effect since 1922”. “Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, condemned the celebration of Posada as a mockery of justice and evidence of a Bush administration double standard in fighting terrorism.”

Four at Four continues with stories about wiped emails, war funding, and the duck-billed platypus.

So, it turns out that Hillary will campaign on.  No matter what.  Lending herself millions.  Fighting on and on.  I’ve seen this before:

Enough already!  Basta ya!

Thanks to Sarah Lane at EENR for supplying the links in this entry.

When the Supreme (Kangaroo) Court upheld an unconstitutional poll tax last week that was passed in the form of a voter suppression law in Indiana, some people (like Injustice Antonin Scalia) were quick to dismiss the horrendous effects. But as that state held its primary yesterday, reports about voters being turned away because they did not have the poll tax began coming out.

Twelve elderly nuns-NUNS, for crying out loud-were told they could not vote because they didn’t have the required state or federal ID card. They are all in their eighties and nineties. Vietnam and Gulf War I veteran Russell Baughman was denied his right to vote, because his identification wasn’t considered good enough.

People unable to obtain the draconian Indiana poll tax ID-nuns, veterans, the disabled, students, and poor folk-are being denied their right to vote. Denied because they cannot meet the requirements to obtain state-issued identification. Bradblog reports that in order to obtain the necessary items to get a state-issued identification card (a state-issued copy of one’s birth certificate), a state-issued identification card is needed. It’s a vicious and ultimately dangerous catch-22, making it impossible for the disenfranchised to meet the poll tax requirement. Bradblog also reports that at least 43,00 Indiana residents have been prevented from exercising their right to vote in this fashion.

This is what the Supremes upheld, ladies and gentlemen. Twenty states, including Ohio, have mandatory ID laws designed to suppress the votes of minorities, the elderly, students, veterans, and the poor (an economic situation that affects all the other categories of disenfranchised to one degree or another). Although the Buckeye State was able to counter this in part by allowing fewer restrictions on absentee voting, others-including Indiana-enjoy no such protections. This is what America has come to: another banana republic, another dictatorship, that suppresses the rights of its citizens and engages in sham elections.

Yesterday was crazy…and today isnt looking much better.  Some days I just have no choice but to be in 2 places at once….being a single parent of 2 is like living in a zone defense.  And yesterday, it was ALL defense….

So, right now my one eye’s still closed and the other is only half open.  So I’m off to get the ‘skin-ponies’ (i decided that if LEP’s dogs can be ‘fur-people’, my kids can be ‘skin-ponies’….heeheehee) off to school, and then hopefully back here for a quick pony party post…a real one, not this drivel im typing right now….

…but if’n I dont make it, add some comments below so this place doesnt look so empty…..  😉

Original article by Ralph Nader, subheaded The Story of Lisa Kelly, via Counterpunch.com.