My name is Catherine Morgan, I'm a writer, nurse, mother, and founder of "The Political Voices of Women". This is a blog dedicated to inform and educate the voting public through articles, ideas, and links. It's also a way of giving myself a voice, rather than just sitting back and watching politics and my opinion go by.
--- I am now also at the Care2 Election Blog.
Reuters Photo: A polar bear sow and two cubs are seen on the Beaufort Sea coast within the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Alaska Image Library.
From the micro to the macro, from plankton in the oceans to polar bears in the far north and seals in the far south, global warming has begun changing life on Earth, international scientists will report next Friday.
“Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” says a draft obtained by The Associated Press of a report on warming’s impacts, to be issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists and more than 100 governments.
In February the panel declared it “very likely” most global warming has been caused by man made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Animal and plant life in the Arctic and Antarctic is undergoing substantial change, scientists say. Rising sea levels elsewhere are damaging coastal wetlands. Warmer waters are bleaching and killing coral reefs, pushing marine species toward the poles, reducing fish populations in African lakes, research finds.
“Hundreds of species have already changed their ranges, and ecosystems are being disrupted,” said University of Michigan ecologist Rosina Bierbaum, former head of the U.S. IPCC delegation. “It is clear that a number of species are going to be lost.”
The IPCC draft estimates that if temperatures rise approximately 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit more, one-third of species will be lost from their current range, either moved elsewhere or vanished.
From Associated Press bureaus around the world, here are snapshots of animals and plants the IPCC will identify as already affected by climate change…..READ COMPLETE ARTICLE
WASHINGTON - President Bush isn’t rushing to the rescue of his old Texas friend, Alberto Gonzales, after the attorney general’s one-time lieutenant undercut his old boss’ account of the firings of eight federal prosecutors.
Rather than merely signing off on the firings, as Gonzales has repeatedly stated, his former chief of staff says the attorney general was in the middle of things from the beginning.
“I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions of U.S. attorney removals was accurate,” Kyle Sampson told a Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry Thursday into whether the dismissals were politically motivated. — READ FULL ARTICLE
The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena yesterday to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, demanding that the Justice Department turn over hundreds of pages of new or uncensored records related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year.
The subpoena is the first served in connection with the dismissals, and it escalates the legal confrontation between Democrats and the Bush administration, which has resisted demands for more documents and for public testimony from White House aides. The order comes just a week before the embattled attorney general is scheduled to testify in the Senate, a hearing widely considered crucial to his attempt to keep his job. — Read Full Article
WASHINGTON - MARCH 22: U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) addresses the National Newspaper Association’s Government Affairs Conference March 22, 2007 in Washington, DC. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and former New York City mayor and Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani also addressed the group and all mentioned energy independence as a defining issue in the 2008 elections. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Chuck Hagel (R) on George Bush: This is Not a Monarchy
WASHINGTON - With his go-it-alone approach on Iraq, President Bush is flouting Congress and the public, so angering lawmakers that some consider impeachment an option over his war policy, a senator from Bush’s own party said Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican leader harshly criticized House Democrats for setting an “artificial date” for withdrawing troops from Iraq and said he believes Republicans have enough votes to prevent passage of a similar bill in the Senate.
“We need to put that kind of decision in the hands of our commanders who are there on the ground with the men and women,” said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. “For Congress to impose an artificial date of any kind is totally irresponsible.”
GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush’s impeachment. But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.
“Any president who says, I don’t care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don’t care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that,” said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run. — READ FULL ARTICLE
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If it was up to you, would you impeach George Bush?
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales speaks during a discussion on Project Safe Childhood Tuesday, March 27, 2007 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)
What is with this story? Is the press making more of it than there is? Or is it bigger than anyone even imagines? Here are to videos, and an article……What do you think is going on?
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An Interview With Gonzales
Tim Russert on Gonzales Story
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At first I thought this whole Gonzales thing was a “witch hunt” with no real substance, maybe even a diversion of some kind. But, it seems like there is even more to this story than anyone even knows yet. How big is this story going to turn out to be?
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WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Justice Department official will refuse to answer questions during a Senate committee hearing on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself, her lawyer said Monday.
In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling’s lawyer said she would not testify because senators have already decided that wrongdoing occurred.
“The public record is clear that certain members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have already reached conclusions about the matter under investigation and the veracity of the testimony provided by the Justice Department to date,” John Dowd, Goodling’s lawyer, said in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.
The letter said Goodling learned that a senior Justice Department official blamed her and other Justice Department officials for any misleading statements he had made to one of the Democratic senators who has pushed for answers about the firings, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. — READ FULL ARTICLE AND SEE VIDEOS
This seemed like an interesting story. It seems to me, that during an investigation everyone should be under oath, or why bother having an investigation? What do you think?
“What kinds of conversations does executive privilege protect?…What are the limits on privilege?” a newspaper columnist wrote in the spring of 1998 on a subject strangely familiar today.
“Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration,” the columnist wrote. “Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything.”
“Sounds like you’re reading an old column of mine,” Tony Snow, the Bush administration’s press secretary, said today, readily recognizing his nine-year-old words read back to him at a morning press gaggle in which Snow was arguing for Bush’s right to protect the internal deliberations of his White House staff.
In March 1998, Snow wrote for the Detroit News, in which this column about a president’s over-reaching assertions of executive privilege appeared. Today, he is press secretary for another president confronting an aggressive Congress. It’s a different situation, Snow insisted today. - read full article
Tony Snow You mean this Tony Snow?and Dan Barlett
archive.salon.com
Many of you already may be aware of this, but many may not be. Either way, if you haven’t signed the petition, you can click on one of the links below to do that. This information is very troubling to me. (This is about Internet freedom. “Network Neutrality” — the First Amendment of the Internet — ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites). And, it also seems not so unlikely that something like this could happen. As a “little guy” with a blog, I don’t want the Internet to change. The Internet is the only media outlet, not being controlled by Corporate America. The scary thing to me is; that the government is already 99% controlled by Corporate America, and the government is going to decide if “we” get to keep our Internet “voice”. If this type of thing is aloud to happen to the Internet, we might as well just start letting Corporate America “hire” our political officials, and do away with the middle man (the voter) all together.
Right now Congress is being pushed to abandon the First Amendment of the Internet — a principle called “network neutrality” that preserves the free and open Internet. Congress needs to hear from you today or they will hand over control of what you do online to companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.
Politicians are trading favors for campaign donations from these companies. They’re being wooed by people like AT&T’s CEO, who says “the Internet can’t be free.” Sign this petition to tell your elected representatives to protect Internet freedom now. — CLICK HERE TO SIGN PETITION AT THE TAKE ACTION WEB SITE
What is this about?
This is about Internet freedom. “Network Neutrality” — the First Amendment of the Internet — ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites.
But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress doesn’t take action now to implement meaningful Net Neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.
Network Neutrality — or “Net Neutrality” for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.
Net Neutrality ensures that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service. Net Neutrality prevents the companies that control the wires from discriminating against content based on its source or ownership.
Who else supports Net Neutrality?
The supporters of Net Neutrality include leading high-tech companies such as Amazon.com, Earthlink, EBay, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Skype, Vonage and Yahoo. Prominent national figures such as Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps have called for stronger Net Neutrality protections.
Editorial boards at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Seattle Times, St. Petersburg Times and Christian Science Monitor all have urged congress to save the Internet.
What can I do to help?
You can help make the internet faster, more open and accessible to all. Tell Congress to preserve Internet freedom and help ensure that America’s communications infrastructure benefits all Americans.
As a “little guy” with a blog, I don’t want the Internet to change. The Internet is the only media outlet, not being controlled by Corporate America. The scary thing to me is; that the government is already controlled by Corporate America, and the government is going to decide if “we” get to keep our Internet “voice”. If this type of thing is aloud to happen to the Internet, we might as well just start letting Corporate America “hire” our political officials, and do away with the middle man (the voter) all together.
This is the video mentioned in the comment section of this post:
Those two videos do a good job at distorting the issue. Why not post this one so your readers can make a rationale decision about so-called net neutrality.
To the more than 10,000 law enforcement agencies who use them, Taser-style stun guns probably seem like a godsend — a quick jolt of electricity and even the brawniest and most berserk criminal can be brought to the ground. No guns, no deaths and no permanent damage….
However, a CrunchGear investigation paints a different picture. Not only have at least 167 people died after being Tasered, according to The Arizona Republic (although the number of these deaths that can be directly attributed to the weapons is disputed), but there appears to be an aggressive effort by the company to silence critics and to control data and, on occasion, manipulate statistics with the intent of preserving an illusion of safety surrounding its products. ……………..
…………………………………………Even Taser’s harshest critics acknowledge that being shocked is highly preferable to a gunshot. The problem seems to be that in its proactive presentation of the products as nearly-harmless — through a combination of suing critics (effectively silencing potential critics), controlling relevant research, and offering Taser shocks to anybody who passes by its booths at conventions — the public perception of Tasers becomes one of a device that is entirely non-lethal, making their misuse inevitable. Just ask Mustafa Tabatabainejad. — READ THE FULL ARTICLE
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I think even more important than the belief of the “harmlessness” of the taser, we need to be even more concerned about the “misuse” of this weapon by law enforcement. When law enforcement is under a misconception that these weapons are safe to use, they are going to use them much more often, and I don’t mean against people that they would have ordinarily used a gun on. This will (and in some cases, has already become), the “easy” way to subdue someone, it’s a slippery slope.
U.S. president George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair could face war-crime charges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the occupation of Iraq. — read full article
The ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that he would be willing to launch an inquiry and could envisage a case in which the Blair and Bush could one day face charges at The Hague.
Ocampo urged Arab countries, particularly Iraq, to sign up to the court to enable allegations against the West to be pursued. Iraq’s ambassador to the United Nations said that his country was actively considering signing up. READ FULL ARTICLE
One of the best ways of controlling dissent may be to ensure that it never has a chance to develop in the first place. This can be achieved by preventing people from obtaining information that is contrary to state policies and agendas - if they only know what you want them to know, they are more likely to support the policies you are pushing.
In Hitler’s Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, Ingo Muller describes how some of this played out in Nazi Germany during World War II. One of the most significant laws was the “Extraordinary Measures Related to Broadcasting” which made it a crime, punishable by time in prison, to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. People who listened and passed information along to others were accused of undermining “the capacity of the German people to resist” and could be sentenced to death:
In one such case, a Special Court acquitted a landowner who had informed one of his hired hands on March 27, 1941, that the government of Yugoslavia had been overthrown after joining the so-called Triple Pact (signed by Italy, Japan, and Germany) on March 25 in Vienna. This piece of news was broadcast throughout the Reich itself during the evening hours of March 27, but the defendant had heard it shortly before on a Swiss radio station. The Special Court was of the opinion that the report was not likely to threaten the capacity of the German people to resist, since it was not only accurate, but broadcast only a few hours later in Germany as well and was not unexpected, as the internal political difficulties of the Yugoslavian government had been well known when the pact was signed.
The Fourth Criminal Panel of the Supreme Court nevertheless reversed this acquittal and demanded a penitentiary sentence. The justices determined that for the defendant to be found guilty it was not necessary for “damage to have occurred or for there to have been a particularly negative effect or even for resistance to have in fact been weakened. The likelihood or threat referred to in the decree is inherently present in all news which . . . in its content can be detrimental to the German people in their vital struggle. . . The time and form for making unfavorable news known must be left to the authorities. The fact that the news is later made known by German sources. . . does not render an act which has already been committed exempt from punishment.”
The premise behind this decision is that people don’t have a right to information, and in particular to information that is unfavorable to the government’s plans. Instead, the government has the authority to determine which information people deserve to know and which should be kept from them — including information which might affect them.
This might sound like something that would only happen in an authoritarian society, but even in America we have people who think in similar lines. There are no bans on listening to or spreading information from foreign news services, but there are attacks on American media who broadcast information that the government wants to keep secret — including information, like domestic spying, which might affect you directly. Once again, the premise is that you don’t have a right to learn what the government might be doing to you or in your name.
Franz Vollmer, a senior official in the Ministry of Justice, included in his summary of judicial decisions for 1943-1944 a whole catalogue of remarks which now ranked as capital crimes:
“Not to be tolerated and as a general principle deserving of the death penalty… are remarks of the following kind: the war is lost; Germany or the Führer started the war frivolously or to no purpose, and ought to lose it; the Nazi party should or would resign and clear the way for peace negotiations, as the Italians have done; a military dictatorship ought to be established and would be able to make peace; people ought to work more slowly, so as to bring an end to the war; the spread of Bolshevism would not be so bad as the propaganda makes out, and would harm only leading Nazis; the British or Americans would stop the Bolsheviks at the German border; verbal propaganda or letters to the front urging soldiers to throwaway their guns point them at their own officers; saying that the Führer is sick, incapable, a butcher of men, and so on.”
There are certain similarities between this and something said by Karl Rove in 2006: “It’s odd to me that most of these critics are journalists and columnists. Perhaps they don’t like sharing the field of play. Perhaps they want to draw attention away from the corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance.”
Here, “corrosive” refers to the ways in which the free press has directed criticism and doubt towards the Bush administration. One of the most disturbing themes repeated so often by the Christian Right in America has been the idea that distrust of the government and dissent from the administration qualifies as a lack of patriotism — or even a sign that one is on the side of the enemies.
There is a significant amount of insecurity behind such attitudes — both on the part of those in power, trying to avoid critical scrutiny, and those out of power who are trying to provide justifications for why the powerful shouldn’t be scrutinized more closely. We should care about the early signs and examples of such attitudes because the direction they lead to is a place none of us want to go.
