What HS kids think about race and politics

The kids I know have a lot of opinions about race, but I’d say that in my HS, only about 30% of the kids care at all about politics, and most of them don’t know a lot about the issues. Most opinions are no more complicated that “Dude, that ain’t right.” or “Well he’s a Christian so I agree with him.” But Feministing has this great video up about HS kids in NY talking about Barack Obama, politics and race. The video is kinda long, but really worth watching.

 

Why Hillary?

Dan Solis from ThinkYouth sent me this video along with this note:

If this doesn’t get you motivated to endorse Hillary on your blog, I don’t know what will.
I gotta admit, this video made me tear up a bit. Have you seen it already?

I’ve seen the video, and I am well convinced that Hillary should make a statement with her hairstyle. So why does her hair look so flat on the video? And why should any of that mean that people should vote for her?

Vote for the candidate who will be the best president! Vote for the one who will be able to fix all the things that Bush and the Republicans broke. Don’t vote based on gender or race.

Here is my tribute to Ann Richards the week that she died.

 

Old enough for 10,000 votes?

Super delegates each have the same voting power as regular delegates. And each of the regular delegates represents about 10,000 actual democratic voters. So …. how can someone who was too young to vote in the 2004 election be old enough to be a super delegate?

Well, there is at least one, Jason Rae, a 21 year old college student from Wisconsin.

Click here for the video.

Huffington Post also has a story on this.

 

Time for Texans to see the candidates

Hillary’s first public rally in Texas is this evening in El Paso. Our primary is March 4, so learn about the candidates and plan to vote!

Clinton launches Texas tour in El Paso

Locked in a tight battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton will kick off the Texas portion of her campaign in El Paso today with a free public rally at the Don Haskins Center, followed by a private $1,000-per-person fundraiser.

“The excitement is obvious,” said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, one of the organizers of Clinton’s El Paso visit.

The Clinton rally begins at 6 p.m. today She is scheduled to speak at about 6:30 p.m. However, to accommodate the expected large crowd, the doors at the Don Haskins Center will open at 4:30 p.m., officials said.

Among those who plan to attend the rally is West Side voter Yolanda Uranga. She’s going along with her husband and several friends.

“We’ve got to have a good turnout because she needs us right now,” Uranga said.

Reyes urged people to show up early because the arena holds 12,000 people, and entrance is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

“In 1996 the Clintons had a rally at the airport with 44,000 people, and what people forget is that we turned away another 12,000 people,” Reyes said. “That’s how much interest there is.”El Pasoan Rick LoBello, who is helping organize Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in El Paso, said some Obama supporters will have their own cordial rally outside the Don Haskins Center today.

“Just like there is a lot of support for Clinton in El Paso and it is going to show tomorrow, there is a lot of support for Obama, and if he ever comes to El Paso it will show, too,” he said.

Clinton and Obama are locked in a tight race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Among the states left to vote is Texas, which conducts its primary on March 4.

Reyes said former President Bill Clinton is also expected to visit El Paso in the next two weeks.

Ramon Bracamontes may be reached at rbracamontes@elpasotimes.com; 546-6142.

 

Huckabee, the Constitution and the News

Update below!

Would someone please tell me why the story about Huckabee wanting to change the Constitution and start a theocracy here is NOT in regular newspapers? I am not allowed to use AlterNet or TPM or the blogs as sources for weekly “current events in politics” assignments. And if it isn’t even news for a high school history class, then it’s really not news for the American public!

Here’s what Google News Search had for the search terms huckabee “god’s standards” constitution:

Huckabee Advocates Changing the Constitution to Live By “God’s …
AOL News Newsbloggers, VA – 1 hour ago
… means what he says, he wants the turn the US into a Christian Taliban state, where we would be ruled by what Mike Huckabee believes is “God’s standards. .

Huck, the Constitution and ‘God’s standards’
MSNBC – Jan 15, 2008
WARREN, Mich. — Huckabee’s closing argument to voters here this evening featured a few new stories and two prolonged sections on illegal immigration and …

Huckabee trades God for jobs in Michigan Guardian Unlimited, UK – Jan 14, 2008 The former Baptist minister Mike Huckabee today discarded the emphasis on conservative social values that propelled him to victory in the Iowa caucuses …

Huckabee, 3rd In Michigan, Looks Ahead To So. Carolina WCPO, OH – Jan 15, 2008 By LIBBY QUAID, AP Writer LEXINGTON, SC (AP) — Mike Huckabee, nursing a second third-place finish in northern states, looked ahead to the South where he … Mike Huckabee Doesn’t Believe in Constitution Stop the ACLU, PA – Jan 15, 2008 by Jay @ 9:42 pm on January 15, 2008. If I may quote a famouse liberal…”You say you wanna change the Constitution, well you know…we all wanna change your …

Why not the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune or a newspaper my teacher accepts as real?!?!? Here’s what Huckabee ACTUALLY said:

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

He’s a FFFFing candidate for President who has already won a state! Tell me why that this shouldn’t be front page news on all the newspapers this week.

Update: It IS in a real newspaper! Just not in the United States. The UK Guardian has the story.

 

John Edwards and corporations

Corporations can be very good for a country because they employ people, create things, sell things, and provide services. But there can be problems when corporations have too much influence over government and when they refuse to negotiate with unions or use union workers. John Edwards is the democratic candidate who is talking the most about corporate greed and the problems that it can cause. Here’s part of an article from Huffington Post that explains what he said in Iowa on Friday.

While Edwards has consistently campaigned on an economically populist program, his speech today in Dubuque was marked by a noticeable ratcheting up and radicalization of his critique of corporate wealth and power.

“Why on earth would we expect the corporate powers and their lobbyists, who make billions by selling out the middle-class, to just give up their power because we ask them nicely?” Edwards asked. He made no mention of rivals Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in today’s speech; in the past, he has slammed Clinton for being too indebted to powerful Washington lobbies.

Edwards is in the midst of a final 38-county push to win next Thursday’s Iowa caucuses. Even his own supporters will concede that taking Iowa is a do-or-die must for a campaign running third in national polls, but in a virtual dead heat in the Hawkeye State with rivals Clinton and Obama.

Nestled on the gritty Illinois border, Dubuque has been hit hard by the collapse in American manufacturing jobs and offers itself as a perfect venue for Edwards’ message of economic fairness. The local Flexsteel plant has lost about two-thirds of its 800 jobs over the past decade. Paper maker Georgia Pacific, another big employer in town, has also been hit hard by job exports.

“Iowa has lost twice as many jobs to unfair trade deals than it’s won in the so-called technological revolution,” Edwards adviser Dave “Mudcat” Saunders told the HuffPost before today’s event started. “What kind of revolution is that?” Saunders said Edwards would stay on his message of opposing “unchecked greed” and that it was a theme that resonated deeply throughout the state.

 

 

Washington, DC and Voting

Why would anyone in congress keep the people of Washington from voting?

 

D.C. Vote Bill Dies in Senate

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Republican lawmakers yesterday blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. vote bill, a potentially fatal setback for the District’s most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.

The opposition to the bill is this, but I think that the Republicans don’t want people in Washington, DC to vote because many of them are black and most of them are registered Democrats.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the White House have strongly criticized the legislation. They maintain that, because the District is not a state, the bill violates the constitutional mandate that House members be chosen by the “People of the several States.”

“I opposed this bill because it is clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional,” McConnell said in a statement. “If the residents of the District are to get a member for themselves, they have a remedy: amend the Constitution.”

The article points that out too.

In addition to voicing legal concerns, opponents were wary of the bill’s potential political repercussions. Some Republicans feared that the measure could eventually lead to the addition of two full D.C. senators, who probably would be Democrats.

If this is a real democracy, then the citizens of our country’s capital city should be able to participate also.

 

Karl Rove and the TV media

Think Progress has a post up called

If It’s Sunday, It’s Karl Rove

and in it they have a list of questions that they want the talk show hosts to ask Rove. Here’s the list:

• Promoting the war as a member of the White House Iraq Group
• Leaking Valerie Plame’s identity
• Compiling the list of fired U.S. attorneys
• Politicizing government agencies
• Dealing with Jack Abramoff
• Violating White House email record-keeping rules
  

In addition to those, I think they should also ask him about these things:

• Who Jeff Gannon was spending nights with in the White House?
• Is George Bush drinking or doing drugs?
• Who is the real president, Bush or Cheney?
• Why did you decide to leave now?
• What gave you the idea that there are no rules for you and your friends?
• Why did you decide Congress doesn’t matter anymore?
• Did you rig the voting machines?
• Don’t you feel guilty destroying the country like this?

What else would you ask him?

 

Governor Richardson

 

AP Photo: Democratic presidential hopeful New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson responds to a question about NAFTA during…

The mainstream media makes it seem like Clinton and Obama are the only Democratic candidates, but there are a lot of them, and some say some pretty good stuff. Here’s some of what Governor Bill Richardson from New Mexico has been saying:

“I believe that school reform should improve schools,” he said. “But our nation’s school reform has made our schools look more like reform schools, with all the mindless testing and bureaucratic rules and regulations.”

Richardson ticked through his accomplishments as governor, including his Making Schools Work plan. That effort addresses not only classroom instruction but health and nutrition, parental involvement and clean schools.

“Our children can’t learn if they aren’t healthy,” he said. “In New Mexico, we now provide access to free health insurance to every child under the age of 5. We have expanded our state immunization program. … We’ve implemented statewide breakfast programs for our neediest kids. And we’ve gotten junk food out and put physical education back in.”

He also wants to get spend more on education and less on war. He wants to get rid of No Child Left Behind and give better salaries to teachers:

Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson says schools should be a higher budget priority than the war in Iraq.

“We need to get out of Iraq, where precious lives and needed dollars have been wasted,” New Mexico‘s governor said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday to New Hampshire educators. “We could use these resources to improve our schools and make the economy, once again, work for the middle class.”

Richardson proposed an extended school year, a longer school day and a complete repeal of President Bush‘s No Child Left Behind plan. He also pledged to seek a federal minimum wage of $40,000 for teachers. The average first-year teacher earned $31,753 in 2004-2005, according to the American Federation of Teachers’ most recent survey.

“Too often, you’ve been ignored, taken for granted, underpaid and blamed,” Richardson said in remarks obtained by The Associated Press. “It was Aristotle, 2,300 years ago, who wrote that the fate of nations depends more on educating youth than any other factor. Not the military. Not the political leadership. Not the economy.”

Which other candidates are saying important things that the media is not reporting?

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at

Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

More on Impeachment

This is from Democrats.com:

Ten Reasons to Impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney

I ask Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for the following reasons: 1. Violating the United Nations Charter by launching an illegal “War of Aggression” against Iraq without cause, using fraud to sell the war to Congress and the public, misusing government funds to begin bombing without Congressional authorization, and subjecting our military personnel to unnecessary harm, debilitating injuries, and deaths.

2. Violating U.S. and international law by authorizing the torture of thousands of captives, resulting in dozens of deaths, and keeping prisoners hidden from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

3. Violating the Constitution by arbitrarily detaining Americans, legal residents, and non-Americans, without due process, without charge, and without access to counsel.

4. Violating the Geneva Conventions by targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals, and ambulances, and using illegal weapons, including white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new type of napalm.

5. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant.

6. Violating the Constitution by using “signing statements” to defy hundreds of laws passed by Congress.

7. Violating U.S. and state law by obstructing honest elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

8. Violating U.S. law by using paid propaganda and disinformation, selectively and misleadingly leaking classified information, and exposing the identity of a covert CIA operative working on sensitive WMD proliferation for political retribution.

9. Subverting the Constitution and abusing Presidential power by asserting a “Unitary Executive Theory” giving unlimited powers to the President, by obstructing efforts by Congress and the Courts to review and restrict Presidential actions, and by promoting and signing legislation negating the Bill of Rights and the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

10. Gross negligence in failing to assist New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina, in ignoring urgent warnings of an Al Qaeda attack prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and in increasing air pollution causing global warming.

Buzzflash is having a contest (with cash prizes!) to list the
“Top 10 Reasons to Impeach Bush and Cheney”.

And here is one from AfterDowningStreet:

 

Accountability Demands Impeachment
Marcel J. Harmon, Ph.D.

I’m outraged – again.

I recently finished reading Seymour Hersh’s piece in the June 25th New Yorker on Army General Antonio Taguba’s investigation and resulting report regarding the Abu Ghraib scandal. In the third to last paragraph, Hersh quotes Taguba as follows: “’There was no doubt in my mind that this stuff’ – the explicit images – ‘was gravitating upward. It was standard operating procedure to assume that this had to go higher. The President had to be aware of this.’ He [Taguba] said that Rumsfeld, his senior aides, and the high-ranking generals and admirals who stood with him as he misrepresented what he knew about Abu Ghraib had failed the nation.”

As I’ve done so many times before, I wondered again how this administration has managed to leave its six-year wake of political, social, economic, and environmental damage, in such an arrogant and incompetent manner, without more of a demand for accountability. I turned to my wife and again asked how we could begin impeachment proceedings against a president who lied about having sex, yet let the George W. administration skate.

But my wife simply replied, “I’m not going to waste my energy and time on this when nothing will get done – I’m just not going to get outraged.”

How many times have I heard others express the same sentiment? How many times have I let my own outrage fizzle as the day-to-day issues of life take over? The all-encompassing daily grind, our culture of consumption, and mind-numbing 24/7 mass media – all act as a distraction to the benefit of those in power. And the growing divide between the have and have-nots only magnifies our day-to-day struggle, further distracting us from the bigger picture. The corporate sector implicitly and explicitly promotes this for it’s own benefit, via corporate lobbying and huge political donations to both Democratic and Republican candidates.

But if any administration has deserved to be held accountable, it is this one.

The Bush administration started a war of choice in Iraq due to dubious intelligence and poor reasoning at best, and at worst by outright lying to the American public and bullying its critics. Our resulting role as the aggressor and extreme mismanagement of the war has taken the lives of US and coalition soldiers, private contractors, and countless Iraqi civilians. It has cost us over $500 billion, greatly reduced out standing in the world, functioned as a prime recruiting device for terrorists across the globe, and arguably made the world a less safe place to be.

Where is your outrage?

And what about Osama Bin Laden? Why has this administration failed to bring the architect of 9/11 to justice? The fiasco in Iraq has distracted us from bringing in the man who brought down the twin towers.

Where is your outrage?

This administration, through its placement of woefully unqualified individuals in charge of FEMA, it’s failure to grasp prior warnings, and lack of a quick initial reaction, greatly bungled the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf region.

Where is your outrage?

This administration’s misrepresentation of scientific data for its own agenda – its utter disregard for science – has delayed a proper US response to global warming. It has stymied stem-cell research, marginalized the position of Surgeon General, and may severely impact the recruitment of young people into the sciences for years to come.

Where is your outrage?

The administration was, at the very least, indirectly involved in the outing of a CIA agent, an act that when done knowingly is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The one bit of accountability that emerged from this scandal – the conviction and sentencing of Scooter Libby for lying to prosecutors – was muted after the president commuted his sentence.

And the list goes on. Yet Speaker Pelosi and other prominent democrats have said that impeachment is “off the table.” Why? Because it’s a “waste of time?” Or does it have more to do with political inconvenience?

Holding those in power accountable for their actions is critical for maintaining a functioning democracy. It can be messy. It can be painful. But it must be done – to remind our elected officials that they ultimately answer to the American public, and not to powerful corporate interests, not to the demands of their own egos, and certainly not to a personal ideology based on a narrow perception of God.

The outrage is growing. A July 6th pole by the American Research Group indicates that 45 percent of Americans favor initiating impeachment proceedings against the president, and 54 percent favor impeaching the vice president. Congress could very well act on this, but it’s unlikely unless we demand this of our elected officials.

Where is your outrage?

 

Buying Elections

When our country first started, only free white male citizens who owned land could vote or become elected. Now, outside of Washington DC, all adult citizens who are not felons can vote, and it’s supposed to be that they can all become elected officials. Right? Then why are there so many very rich people in Congress?

NYC Mayor Bloomberg left the Republican party yesterday, probably because he plans to run for President. I like the fact that he knows the Republican party is dying and can never win in 2008, but I dislike the idea that he can possibly win BECAUSE he is willing to use hundreds of millions, possibly a billion!!! of his OWN MONEY!

He should have no more right to bypass the primary system and get into the highest public office than anyone else. Already a candidate has to have enough money that they don’t need to work at a regular job while they campaign, but no one should be able to buy the presidency.

The solution? Public financing of elections, like Arizona and Vermont already do.

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

Stolen Elections

The Republican Party plays dirty when it comes to elections.  In 2000, they STOPPED the Florida vote count and have been disenfranchising black voters for years in many places.  Bobby Kennedy Jr has had two important articles recently about election fraud.  (Will The Next Election Be Hacked and Was the 2004 Election Stolen?”)  Now there is a new article in the Free Press that talks about four different ways that the election might have been stolen.    In the article, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman connect the 5 million missing RNC emails to the election results and talk about the RNC email servers and the official Ohio election servers being housed in the same place and run by the same company.Here are some of the interesting things in the article itself:

E-mails being sought from Karl Rove’s computers, and recent revelations about critical electronic conflicts of interest, may be the smoking guns of Ohio’s stolen 2004 election. A thorough recount of ballots and electronic files. preserved by a federal lawsuit, could tell the tale.

….

 But two felony convictions have thus far resulted from what prosecutors have called the “rigging” of the recount in Cuyahoga County (where Bennett has been forced to resign his chairmanship of the board of elections). More are likely to follow.

The practices that led to these convictions were apparently repeated in many of Ohio’s 88 counties. The order to violate the law—or at least tacit approval to do so—is almost certain to have come from Blackwell.

Please this article in the Free Press for more information.

 

Found that 31% !

You know how you keep hearing that 31% or so Americans still support Bush? And then you shake your head and ask yourself, “But WHY? Don’t they know any better?” Turns out …. they don’t!

Now these may not be exactly the same 31%, but it turns out that 31% of American adults do not know the name of the vice-President. Also, according to a Pew survey,

Told that Shia was one group of Muslims struggling
in Iraq, only 32% of the total sample could name “Sunni” as the other
key group.

The best of the findings though is that

those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report.

Oh good grief! The news has gotten so bad that fake news on a comedy channel is better than the regular news.

Scariest thing? All those uninformed adults have the right to vote, and only one or two of the YouThinkLeft writers are old enough for that right. But we can all name Dick Cheney and tell you that the other group of Muslims in Iraq is the Sunni.

Like most of my posts, this is cross-posted at Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

 

Texas may return to paper ballots !!!

I just got this in my mail box from VoteRescue.org, and I think it is really cool!

—Freckles

Call to Action: Print & Sign Our Petition (PDF)

Volunteer to Hand Count Paper Ballots

House Bill 3894 Introduced

VoteRescue in Austin, Texas is proud to announce the submission yesterday of HB 3894 by Texas Rep. Lon Burnam of Tarrant County, which calls for hand-counted paper ballots, and the elimination of electronic voting systems for our elections in Texas. The exception would be ballot marking machines such as Automark. Our founder, Karen Renick, had a major hand in crafting this bill.

Vote-PADS or Equalivote systems, both non-electronic voting systems, will be recommended for use with the disabled community to fulfill the Help American Vote Act mandate.

This victory follows many weeks of preparation, lobbying with the state House Committee on Elections and their legislative aides, and a multi-pronged presentation to this Committee on February 21st to argue against any bill that would add printers to electronic voting machines, (one of which was presented that day; at least two more are in the wings) and for hand-counted paper ballots.

VoteRescue presenters of that perspective at the Capitol that day, February 21st, included Karen Renick, Abbe Waldman DeLozier, Vickie Karp, Joni Ashbrook, Kathleen Wynne, Paul Alotto, Babs Warren; from Tarrant County, Texas, were Doreen Geiger and Jerry Lobdill. Laura Killins was unable to attend due to illness, but did a lot of the preparation with Joni for cost analyses between electronic voting systems and hand-counted paper ballot elections.

This presentation led to a meeting with Rep. Burnam in which he expressed alignment with our HCPB position and a willingness to help us move forward in this direction.

We believe this victory is a FIRST in the nation since the “takeover” of our elections by electronic voting system beginning around 2000 – 2002.

Thank you to all VoteRescuers and supporters for your help! We will be announcing soon a date, time and place for a celebration!

Press release to follow, which will include major points of the bill.