Censored Whig Letters

This writer is surprised that the mainstream media seems to be controlling the political dialogue in America and (this is the surprising part) the political class is simply going along. The questions not being asked, the ideas not being reported and the serious problems not being addressed are much more important than those frequently available from the corporate controlled, mainstream media. The Vitter Sex Scandal is just one interesting example with a degree of sex appeal.

Why are politicians and media pundits not calling for the resignation of Senator Vitter? From the limited facts published in the corporate media, it looks like Vitter may be a criminal and a repeat offender. If the Republican Senator from Louisiana is truly a frequent consumer of the sexual services of prostitutes, he has violated laws.

Of course, Vitter may have sexual or emotional problems that explain his behavior. On the other hand, he may not be lying about his sexual behavior. It is slightly possible that all the others admitting to their sex for money relationships with Vitter are all liars. The DC Madam case just might be only a non-sexual escort service. The police and prosecutors might be wrong. Vitter might be innocent and everyone else guilty or wrong. For the official Vitter talking points to be valid, a large number of other individual must all be wrong.

Vitter is widely known as a morality crusader with his political base in the Christian Right. Vitter was a bitter critic of President Clinton during the impeachment process. Senator Vitter asked Clinton’s morality. Along with almost all the Republican leadership, he cited “breaking the law” over alleged perjury as the reason Clinton should be driven from public office.

Senator Vitter broke the law if he hired prostitutes. It is reported that Vitter did so on often in different locations and with different prostitutes. If the details are correct, hiring prostitutes for sex is illegal in those jurisdictions. Using Vitter’s own logic, he should be forced from office.

The sheer hypocrisy makes the Vitter Sex Scandal much worse. Vitter betrayed his wife. Vitter betrayed his oath of office. Vitter betrayed his supporters. He appears to be a liar along with being a hypocrite. Media pundits and politicians should be talking about this issue in these terms.

It might be worth exploring the legality of prostitution as a larger issue. The nation is long overdue for a new political dialogue on victimless crime issues like the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana. Even Republican politicians might approach these social issues with more open minds, as a result of their repeated involvement in recent sex and drug scandals.

These larger issues involve crowded prisons, racial bias in the jailing citizens, judicial equity, voting rights, future employment opportunities and spending tax dollars. The mainstream media would do the nation a favor by discussing Vitter and enlarging the scope of public debate on the issues raised.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish at no charge without prior approval.

http://www.democratictalkradio.com/wordpress/?p=461

Click on link above to read this interesting bit of history

ACLU: US Constitution in Grave Danger
United Press International
Wednesday 25 July 2007

Washington - The American Civil Liberties Union Wednesday said it is
“do or die time” to save the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU in a statement urged the U.S. Congress to “vote to hold White
House officials in contempt for refusing to cooperate with legitimate
congressional subpoenas.”

The ACLU statement said the issue had become “a constitutional crisis
that threatens to destroy the separation of powers.”

“Presidents have tried in the past to overreach in claiming executive
privilege,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington
Legislative Office. “However, Congress has long served as a check to such
abuses of power, slapping the president’s hand when needed and pursuing
contempt or enforcement actions that eventually resulted in the release of
crucial information. Today’s Congress must do the same if it wishes to
remain a meaningful and independent branch of government.”

The ACLU said it “rejected claims that Congress’ responsibility to
conduct oversight or investigate executive misconduct was somehow less
important than its legislative function and therefore not worthy of
compulsory enforcement.”

“It’s do-or-die time for the separation of powers,” Fredrickson said.
“Congress is facing a historic moment when it can fight for its rightful
place in our Constitution or accept the president’s continued and sweeping
claims of supremacy.”

The ACLU noted that U.S. courts “have long supported Congress’
authority not only to pass laws, but also to investigate their application.
The courts have asserted that claims of executive privilege are a
potentially dangerous proposition that should only be applied, and can only
be upheld, under narrow circumstances.”

The confrontation between the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress and
the Bush administration on warrantless surveillance has been escalating in
recent weeks, with both sides hardening their positions.

DoJ Policies Re-Written to Remove Restrictions on ‘Voter Fraud’ Indictments Just Before an Election

‘Most if not all prosecutions and investigations should await the end of the election’ Has Been Removed from Guidelines, According to Senate Questioning of Gonzales Yesterday…

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4866

‘You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression’ by Matthew Rothschild — Hartmann’s “Independent Thinker” Book
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 06/26/2007 - 9:16am. Thom Hartmann
THOM HARTMANN’S “INDEPENDENT THINKER” BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

I’m a pretty jaded guy. Back in October of 2001, I wrote — first anonymously under the pseudonym “Rusticus” and then over my own name — the first widely-circulated article comparing the Republican response to 9/11 with the Nazi response to the burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building in Germany in 1933 (it was titled “When Democracy Failed”). It was widely distributed and I was attacked for being an alarmist, although few say so these days.

I thought I’d seen it all. I was part of SDS in the late 1960s, was spied upon, and our group infiltrated by the Michigan State Police and the FBI. I’ve been followed, photographed, wiretapped, and tear-gassed.
Yet that was nearly forty years ago, and even though today I report on the daily Republican outrages 3 hours a day 5 days a week on the most listened-to progressive talk radio show in America, I have to admit — this book shocked me.
Walking around the Take Back America Conference last week — where I was both speaking and doing my show from Radio Row- - Matthew Rothschild walked up to me, introduced himself, and handed me a fresh-off-the-presses copy of his new book, You Have No Rights. We get an average of 6 to 8 books a day in the mail (our mail is about a cubic foot a day, in part because of all the books), and people are always handing me books at public events, but I remembered Matthew from all the great articles he’s written and his work as editor of the Progressive, and so was both glad to meet him and curious about what he’d written.

I started reading it on the plane back to Oregon from Washington, DC, and couldn’t put it down.

If we don’t begin to expose the horrors in this book in a real, meaningful, national, and highly visible way, democracy is in even worse trouble that I thought. And, as I said, I thought I knew how bad it really was.

It’s worse.

As the publisher, The New Press, notes in their summary of the book:

“I’m very liberal and sometimes my friends say I’m giving them some kind of paranoid, nutty stuff, and I agree, but then the FBI show up.” — Marc Schultz, reported to the FBI for reading an article called “Weapons of Mass Stupidity: Fox News hits a new lowest common denominator” while he stood in line at a coffee shop.

In West Virginia, Renee Jensen put up a yard sign saying “Mr. Bush: You’re Fired.” She’s questioned by the Secret Service.

In Alabama, Lynne Gobbell put a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on her car. She’s fired from her job.

In Vermont, Tom Treece had his high school students write essays and make posters either defending or criticizing the Iraq War. After midnight, the police entered his classroom and took photos of the student artwork.

Near Albany, New York, Stephen Downs went to a mall with his son Roger, and the two of them bought shirts in a T-shirt shop. Downs put his shirt on, went to eat in the food court — and was arrested. The T-shirt’s message? “Peace on Earth.”

Most of these stories don’t have the crackling immediacy of the Kent State shootings or the MSU campus shutdown or Watts burning, but in some ways they’re even more sinister, because they reflect a fundamental change in the assumptions held by average people of what America is.

We’re no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave; we’re the land of the fearful and the home of Big Brother. We’re no longer the shining beacon of democracy that inspired nascent democracies for over 200 years; we’re now the example repressive dictatorships use to justify espionage against and torture of their own citizens. We’re no longer a land of laws governed by We, The People, protected from our government by our Constitution; we’re now a land of “leaders” who claim they owe “no accountability” to Congress or the people who elect them.

Very quickly, under the radar but in a deep and real way, we’re moving from being a liberal democracy to a conservative theocratic corporatist/fascist state.

Because these stories lack the violence of the 1960s, they are all the more shocking. The subtlety of this transformation is so very Orwellian, so very much like that imagined by Huxley, that warned of by William Shirer and Milton Mayer.

In a previous book review, I suggested a Rex Stout novel about the private detective Nero Wolfe, written in the 1950s, in large part because it showed how back then a citizen could say through a locked door to the police, “Go away if you don’t have a warrant.” Today TV shows glorify militarized police squads kicking in doors, and citizens are arrested for filming police activity.

The America of 2007 is not the America I was born into in 1951, and with startling rapidity it’s not even the America it was in the last year of the Clinton/Gore presidency just six short years ago. It highlights the banality of evil.

Which is why it’s so important for us all to read Matthew Rothschild’s book … and so vital that we pass it along to those who haven’t yet pulled back the curtain and seen what’s going on in the shadows not covered by our infotainment industry. Buy a copy of this book to read yourself, by all means, but buy a second to pass along. It’s that good.

THOM HARTMANN’S “INDEPENDENT THINKER” BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Get your copy of “You Have No Rights” from the BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and the host of The Thom Hartmann Program syndicated nationally by Air America Radio. His website is http://www.ThomHartmann.com.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/hartmann/016

Corporate Media pundits and sell-out Democratic personalities are denouncing a return to the Fairness Doctrine standards in broadcasting eliminated by the Reagan Administration. They are falling into a trap set by the Republican Right and the largest corporations in America. Essentially, they are letting Republican political spin set the agenda for “acceptable” political views.

Grassroots Democratic activists do want a return to the Fairness Doctrine and Equal Time provisions in broadcasting. Private business owners are using without charge the public airwaves. These businesses are making huge profits by using public assets that belong to all American citizens. They owe us a public obligation to present diverse opinions and provide balanced public programming.

Using public property for private profit comes with strings. Private profits are only acceptable if the overall policy serves the public good. Our government policy cannot be based solely on making the highest level of profit for the private businesses involved in broadcasting.

Broadcasters who do not give all major viewpoints a voice on their segment of the public airwaves should lose their licenses. This was the situation before the corporatist radicals surrounding Ronald Reagan rigged the system by gutting almost all the public service regulations previously in effect. We need to return to our traditional, pre-Reagan standards.

It is unfortunate that the Corporate Media wants to take support for the Fairness Doctrine off the table for the political leadership of both major Parties. It is really a fool’s errand. The grassroots of the Democratic Party strongly support the Fairness Doctrine and will demand that our candidates support it in 2008.

The Corporate Media attacks on the Fairness Doctrine are creating a backlash. Activists now will not stop at a return of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting. Centralized media control is now widely seen as a serious threat to our democratic institutions by most reformers. We need a complete change of direction when it comes to regulating broadcasting.

We need to limit radio station ownership to no more than 20 stations. We should encourage local ownership and minority ownership. Ownership of major city newspapers, radio stations and television stations in the same market should be prohibited.

Democrats should join with other reformers to make our public airwaves actually serve the public interest. Centralized media ownership curtails competition. It lowers the quality of programming. It promotes the possibility of politicization of programming. It drives up advertising costs. It hurts content diversity. It is broken and needs fixed! Democratic politicians who side with the large media corporations instead of the grassroots activists are going to have serious future political problems.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish at no charge without prior approval.

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted July 17, 2007.

The Justice Department is pressuring 10 states to purge their voter rolls, while states are ignoring laws to help low-income Americans register to vote.

State welfare offices across the country are not offering millions of low-income Americans the opportunity to register to vote when applying for public assistance despite a federal law requiring them to do so, according to an analysis of a recent federal voting registration report and experts who say the Department of Justice and states are to blame.

“It’s huge. It’s another area where the administration is failing us,” said Donna Brazile, chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute, speaking of the Department of Justice’s oversight of the nation’s voter registration laws. “They are not pushing states to recognize their voter registration responsibilities.”

At the same time, the Justice Department’s Voting Section, which enforces voting rights and supervises elections in some states, is pressuring 10 states to do more to purge voter rolls — or remove ineligible voters — before the 2008 presidential election, according to letters sent to state election officials this spring.

“We conducted an analysis of each state’s total voter registration numbers as a percentage of citizen voting age population,” wrote John Tanner, the Department of Justice Voting Section chief, in an April 18, 2007, letter to North Carolina’s top election official. “We write now to assess the changes in your voter registration list … and the subsequent removal of persons no longer eligible to vote.”

Cynthia Magnuson, a Justice Department spokeswoman, confirmed in an e-mail that similar letters had been sent to 10 states, but did not list the recipients. “The Department actively works with all states to comply with all provisions of the statutes we enforce,” she said.

Voter lists are updated because people move, die or lose their right to vote if convicted of felonies. But because this process occurs out of public view and without much regulation, it can be open to partisan abuse or produce incorrect results, such as in Florida in 2000 when an estimated 50,000 voters were incorrectly removed from voter registration lists.

The contrast of a Justice Department that apparently has not enforced voter registration opportunities for poor people — who tend to vote Democratic — and a department that is pressuring states to more thoroughly trim voter rolls has prompted some voting rights advocates to accuse the agency of selective enforcement and partisan bias.

“I think it’s pretty clear the Justice Department is pursing a partisan agenda to get states to purge voters while ignoring requirements to get states to register voters,” said Michael Slater, deputy director of Project Vote, a national nonprofit specializing in voter registration drives targeting low- and moderate-income families.

Voting Section chief John Tanner did return a telephone call to discuss his office’s priorities and accomplishments. On Monday, July 16, the House Judiciary Committee announced it was postponing a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, July 17 “because the Department refused to make Voting Section chief John Tanner available to testify,” its press release said.

However, Hans A. Von Spakovsky, a former assistant attorney general who served four years as a top Civil Rights Division lawyer overseeing the Voting Rights Section discussed accusations of changing “the enforcement direction of the department” in a June 29, 2007, letter to the Senate Rules Committee. He became a federal elections commissioner in December 2005, and his appointment is under review.

Von Spakovsky’s 18-page letter is a detailed defense of some of the department’s most controversial recent rulings, such as approving a Texas congressional redistricting plan and a Georgia voter I.D. law that later was blocked in court as a violation of the Constitutional amendment barring poll taxes. Nowhere in the often-technical letter is any mention in section 7 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which is intended to help poor people vote by requiring state welfare agencies to offer the chance to register.

Instead, Von Spakovsky defended an aggressive stance with enforcing the NVRA’s voter purge provisions, which fall under section 8 of the law. “The division could not willfully ignore the list maintenance requirements of the NVRA,” he wrote. “It is the responsibility of DOJ to enforce these laws.”

While the national media has followed the department’s firing of U.S. attorneys who, in some cases, did not pursue voter fraud cases — another priority of longtime GOP lawyer-activists like Von Spakovsky — the department’s oversight of the nation’s voter rolls has mostly gone unnoticed. The potential impact on the 2008 election could be enormous, however, especially if millions of disenfranchised people registered and voted.

A just-released federal voter registration report reveals the stakes. In late June, the Election Assistance Commission issued a biennial voter registration report to Congress for 2005 and 2006. The report found that 16.6 million new registration applications were received by state motor vehicles agencies while only 527,752 applications came from state public assistance offices — a 50 percent drop from 2003-2004. The report also found 13.0 million voters were purged nationwide and 9.9 million were put on “inactive” status, meaning these people have to provide identification before receiving a 2008 ballot…..

Click on link below to read the rest of this article

http://www.alternet.org/story/56957/

“Out of control, elitist power mongers” would be the best phrase to describe the political mindset of the Bush Republican machine. The current Bush Administration and their Senate allies are completely unwilling to bend to majority rule on the Iraq War or the other major issues of today. In the Republican elitist world, the people are to be ruled over instead of represented by Republican officeholders and judges.

Every American should read the 2004 book, Worse Than Watergate, by John Dean. While the book is a little dated by events occurring since 2004, it gives great insight into the legal, political and institutional mechanics of enforcing Republican elitist minority rule put in place very early in the first Bush term.

Courts were packed with biased judges who routinely place partisan interests and Republican ideology above the law. Legal precedents were established to provide unprecedented secret government and to undermine procedures to regulate executive authority. Regulatory bodies were filled with Republican partisan ideologues and political hacks.

One cannot really understand the importance of the US Attorneygate Firing scandals without understanding the issues raised in Worse Than Watergate. John Dean understands from personal experience the Constitutional issues, legal moves and institutions of government involved. Dean saw the big picture even before it was fully revealed to the wider public by ensuing revelations.

Bush and Cheney expanded claims of executive power to nearly dictatorial levels. They claim that Congress has no right to effectively examine almost any aspect of White House behavior or policies. In reality, the Bush Republicans basically deny the right of Congress to engage in Congressional oversight activities.

The ability of Bush to retain the support of the partisan core of the Republican Party concerning the Iraq War issue reveals that information control is essential to the efforts by the Bush Republicans to retain political power. Every dictatorial machine needs a rabid minority of hardcore supporters to stay in power.

On Iraq, Republican Senators have been put in a box by Bush. Republican Senators are likely to have problems in the Republican primaries if they vote to end Bush’s War. Republicans are fed Bush Republican Spin on the issue by Fox News and the Right Wing Talk Radio Machine constantly. The Republican partisans live in another reality devoid of information that would destroy their belief system. Open government, education, unbiased information and honest answers are the enemies of Bush Republicanism.

With over 70 percent of Americans opposed to Bush’s war policies, Republican Senators are unlikely to win the 2008 general elections as supporters of Bush’s Iraq War. The vast majority of Americans do not live in the alternative reality of Bush Republicanism. Those citizens already realize that Bush’s way can never win the Iraq War. Bush Republicanism ran the effort for far too long and the damage is done. Things like torturing prisoners or killing Iraqi civilians cannot be undone. Bush put our goals out of reach.

We lost the Iraqi populace by staying far too long and doing the wrong things. Bush Republican incompetence, greed and ideology lost the peace in Iraq that our military had gained. Some of same problems seem too apparent in Afghanistan.

Bush and Cheney lost the Iraq War. In order to save Bush Republicanism from total ideological extinction, they are trying to run out the clock so the inevitable withdrawal can be blamed on the next, likely Democratic Presidency! Bush and Cheney will abuse their offices by imposing their minority view on the vast majority of dissenting fellow citizens concerning Iraq because it serves their goal to retain power in the future.

The Bush Republicans will block national health insurance or efforts to replace free trade with fair trade although overwhelming majorities of Americans support both. Fairer tax burden distribution and stronger environmental protections will be fought by the Republicans. Easier voting and ending “no-bid” government contracts will be opposed by the Republican elitists. What they cannot win in the legislature will often be blocked by their partisans in the courts. Their power will always come before democracy or common decency.

Hiding failure and corruption is the Bush Republican way. Few Americans believe that Libby should have been given special treatment by Bush. Libby intentionally obstructed a criminal investigation that seemed to reach the highest levels of the Bush White House. Had Libby not lied, investigators might have indicted Karl Rove or Vice President Cheney. Citizens might have discovered that Bush ordered the outing of a covert CIA agent for political reasons. If so, Bush and Cheney might have been impeached.

The only thing that might have made Scooter Libby talk was jail. By taking time in jail off the table, George W Bush effectively covered up the truth about this terrible crime committed by White House operatives. Libby is one of the Republican elitist rulers. Under Bush Republicanism, he is effectively above the law like his bosses.

It is time to end elitist, minority rule and restore representative democracy. We have a government to repair. We have the American Dream to save.

Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: P.O. Box 283, Earleville, Maryland 21919. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com . Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

222,000 Letter Carriers Have Tentative Contract Deal
by Mike Hall, Jul 13, 2007

The Letter Carriers (NALC) and U.S. Postal Service (USPS) have reached a tentative five-year agreement that includes new limits on contracting out work. NALC President William H. Young calls the pact a “win-win situation” for the 222,000 union members and the USPS.

This agreement is fair to hard-working letter carriers by taking necessary steps toward protecting their jobs now and well into the future, along with financial compensation that takes into account increases in the cost of living and the difficult task carriers often face in delivering mail to our nation’s growing population, At the same time, it helps the U.S. Postal Service to build on its record as the most efficient and affordable postal service in the world.

The proposed contract includes new limits on contracting out letter carrier work in more than 3,000 city delivery installations and establishes a six-month moratorium on contracting out city carrier delivery services elsewhere across the country. It also establishes a union-management team to study subcontracting issues.

In addition, the new pact eliminates the use of low-wage temporary workers known as “casuals” and replaces them with bargaining unit workers covered by the contract.

A rank-and-file ratification vote will soon get under way.

In January, Postal Workers (APWU) members ratified a four-year deal with the USPS that covers some 272,000 postal clerks, maintenance and motor vehicle craft employees. The 55,000-member National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU) also ratified a new contract in January.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/07/13/222000-letter-carriers-have-tentative-contract-deal/

Ehrlich’s Womble Carlyle: Law Firm or GOP Political Action Committee
Annapolis, MD - Evidence is mounting that former Governor Bob Ehrlich and his new North Carolina law firm’s Maryland-based staff are the driving force behind a totally anonymous and controversial smear website. The owners and operators of that website have gone to great lengths to both communicate their partisan attacks to the press and keep their identities secret from the voters of Maryland.

On July 9th, Ehrlich claimed to the Baltimore Examiner that he and his staff at the law firm Womble Carlyle did not know who was behind the anonymous smear website www.omalleywatch.com, but “we certainly applaud their efforts.”

Once again, the man who sent his staff out to claim that his longtime political hit-man was “irrelevant to our world” - at the same time the dirty-trickster was communicating with Ehrlich’s wife via personal e-mail and using her nickname “Ken” - is not telling the truth.

The day after Ehrlich’s denial ran in the paper, his former press secretary Henry Fawell - who is now paid by Womble Carlyle - apparently to attack Governor Martin O’Malley, sent reporters an email outlining alleged criticisms about a land conservation purchase going before the Board of Public Works the following day. [Click on this link: http://www.mddems.com/pdf/HFawell_email.pdf ]

Hours later, the same details and identical criticisms were posted on www.omalleywatch.com.

This raises and answers a number of interesting questions:

First, who is behind www.omalleywatch.com? Would the answer be: MDGOP@womblecarlyle.com?

Second, note that Fawell’s email was sent during business hours on July 10, 2007. Does this clear up the mystery of what exactly the law firm’s non-lawyers - Fawell, Greg Massoni and Paul Schurick - are doing at a law firm? Answer: MDGOP@womblecarlyle.com.

Third, in his email, Fawell writes: “We wanted [insert media outlet] to know.” Who is “we?” Is it Womble Carlyle? Or Fawell and the former Governor?

Fourth, is attacking long-established Maryland businesses, like Langenfelder Marine, Inc. - which employs 60 people on the Eastern Shore - really a good business development strategy for the new law firm in town as it seeks clients, particularly when that very business - and members of the Langenfelder family - donated more than $2,000 to the Ehrlich campaign?

Fifth, do the Womble Carlyle partners in other cities sanction this behavior by their employees and partner?

Sixth, given the confirmed connection, direct or otherwise, between Ehrlich, his fellow employees at Womble Carlyle and a partisan and political smear website, can the voters and members of the press trust anything they say, ever again?

Seventh, is this a dignified way for a political figure to behave following his own defeat?