baby steps

Another step towards equality was reached today when Governor John Lynch of New Hampshire signed a civil union bill into law. The new law not only enables homosexuals to enter into a legally binding commitment it also entitles same-sex couples entering a civil union to the same (state-level) rights granted to married couples.

“This is not a state that believes in discrimination. And once people understood that same-gender couples were being denied rights like hospital visitations and the right to inherit the homes they’d shared with their loved ones — stories like that opened our eyes. And once your eyes are opened, you can’t close them again. This is the right thing to do,” said New Hampshire Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord.

Now, ten states have laws providing some form of recognition and rights for same-sex couples despite the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

scare tactics

Cheney spoke at the West Point Graduation on Saturday. Here are a few quotables from his speech (attempting to scare us into supporting the war) which paints the picture of unstoppable, relentless terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens as a result of pulling out of Iraq.


"Al Qaeda's leadership has said they have the right to 'kill 4 million Americans, 2 million of them children, and to exile twice as many and to would and cripple thousands,"

"Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it,"

"(our enemies) oppose and despise...every notion of upright conduct and character,"

"America is fighting this enemy in Iraq,"


What did Iraq do to us to provoke this war? I keep forgetting...


"...we are there because the security of this nation depends on a successful outcome,"

Happy Memorial Day!

A personal note: This day always had special meaning to my grandfather, a WWII veteran who recently passed away. He worked very hard to compile a list of those from their community who honorably served in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, and Desert Storm for the Grove City, Pennsylvania Community Roll of Honor. This type of dedication to honor those who have risked their lives for this country (whether or not we agree on if we should be involved in the conflict) I hope will not be lost with my generation.

Pelosi in Europe

Speaker of the House, Nance Pelosi is currently in Europe. She is travelling to Belgium, Greenland and Germany for meetings with other politicians and scientists on ways to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Hopefully more participation like this by U.S. politicians may push the U.S. to finally ratify the Kyoto protocol (which would require the U.S. to reduce emissions by 7% below 1990 levels) and any forthcoming amendments to the United Nation's international treaty on climate change that may come out of the climate change summit that is meeting in June.

U.S. embassy in Iraq

The U.S. is in the process of building the world's largest and most expensive embassy in Iraq. The 104 acre site will be a constant, and I am sure greatly appreciated (did you catch that sarcasm?), reminder of western penetration of the Middle East. The embassy makes the statement that not only are we going to continue to occupy your country but we are here for the long haul. Not suprisingly, the embassy has and will be a prime target for attacks (the construction site was already hit with mortar fire this month).
You can view the full article from the Associated Press here.

Breaking the Iron Triangle?

Will the House vote to expose the role lobbyists play in soliciting and donating to politicians really limit the influence powerful lobbies have on politics? Democratic presidential hopefuls pushed hard for the bill wanting to live up to their promises to clean up congress. This bill passed with an overwhelming majority 396 to 22 but as Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts put it, “As long as campaigns can spend an unlimited amount of money, they will find a way to get their hands on it.” Past limits to the dollar amount of contributions only pushed for politicians to find more contributors so the likelihood that this bill will make a difference in who has the most influence on our legislators is slim.

"The entire government has failed us..."

Keith Olberman speaks out against the current administration, Iraq, the republicans, the democratic candidates and Bush's criticism of Congress for not funding the war.

You win this round

The new Iraq spending bill will not include a time table for withdrawl of U.S. troops or any notion of an exit from the war. Despite my original belief that the democrats would stand strong and refuse to fund this mockery of a war without contentions for an end, the presidential veto of the last proposed bill (and threat to veto any further bills similar) has cracked them. Though I take comfort that Pelosi shares in my dissapointment alluding to the idea that she will most likely not vote for the bill, which she helped create. The new bill will dish out around $120 billion and establish 18 political and legislative benchmarks for the Iraqi government. Starting in late July Bush will be required to report on their success in reaching these benchmarks and if the Iraqis fall short, they could forfeit U.S. reconstruction aid. You can read the full story here.

"the worst in history"

I found these Jimmy Carter quotes criticizing the Bush administration quite entertaining (enjoy):


"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,"

"For the first time since Israel was founded, we've had zero peace talks to try to bring a resolution of differences in the Middle East,"

"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,"

Bill Richardson

Finally a political ad that I thoroughly enjoy! It leads me to believe he has a good personality, gives my a nice little synopsis of his resume, and demonstrates that you don't always have to throw mud at another candidate to make yourself look better! I think this just moved Richardson up a notch or two in my book (perhaps the pro-choice stance and support of LGBT rights has something to do with it too). He also has a good deal of knowledge on foreign relations (something our current president lacks). He was appointed by Clinton as U.S. ambassador to the UN and also worked for the Department of Energy. It is a shame that not all the democratic candidates get there fair share of coverage by the mainstream media outets.

Pop Quiz...

....courtesey of Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.


Pop quiz: Before last week's House hate crimes vote, which of the following absurd tactics did anti-gay groups use to try to stop the vote?


a. Manufacture a blatantly fake House transcript.
b. Promote the work of a known racist filmmaker (whose other titles include "Keep America White").
c. Claim this law would make it a crime to "read the Bible a certain way" or have anti-gay thoughts.
d. Callously invoke the Virginia Tech massacre.
e. All of the above.
If you answered 'E', you've been doing your homework.


The hate crimes legislation currently trying to make it through the Senate known as the Matthew Shepard Act hopefully wont suffer the same fate as the legislation that went through the house (which does not have a large enough majority to override the promised presidential veto). Our own California Senators Boxer and Feinstein are cosponsors of the bill, which proposes to expand federal hate crimes laws to include crimes commited against a person based on their perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability (current laws only include race, color, religion or national origin).

Veterans Speak Out

The veterans group VoteVets.org is launching a half-million-dollar TV ad campaign featuring Maj Gen John Batiste (Ret.), former commanding general of the first infantry division in Iraq to speak out against President Bush and the war.

and the winner is?

Hopefully, with a new leaders afoot, the U.S. and France can ignore the stereotypes which have fostered animosity between the two countries in the past and embrace newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s statement that, “friendship means accepting that friends can think differently.” Though Sarkozy shares his predecessors anti-Iraq war stance he embraces the U.S. as an ally. Turkey is not so lucky. Sarkozy is very admit in preventing Turkey from joining the European Union. Turkey has been working to adhere to the reforms needed to become an EU prospect but recent turmoil (and a near coup d'etat) may make Sarkozy's wish to shun the country come true.

"Pornography and violence poison our music and movies and TV and video games. The Virginia Tech shooter, like the Columbine shooters before him, had drunk from this cesspool." said (potential GOP presidential candidate) Mitt Romney yesterday in his graduation speech at Regent University (a conservative Christian school).

Oh Mitt Romney! Thank goodness we have you and others from the Christian right enlightening us on who is to blame for the evils in this world.

"The beauty of literature, poetry, and music is that they leave room for the audience to put its own imagination, experiences, and dreams into the words" said Dee Snyder at a Senate hearing September 19,1985.

Romney went on to persecute single people (because if you aren't marriend and making babies you can't be a good Christian human being) and crticize French marriage law. So, he is for gay marriage right?

An end to capital punishment?

America joins the ranks of China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Vietnam, and Kuwait in that these are the ten countries with the most executions in 2006. Though the U.S. method of lethal injection claims to be more humane than the execution styles administered by many other countries.
Idealy lethal injection consists of three shots: the first renders you unconscious, the second paralyzes muscles and blocks breathing and the last is to stop the heart. In actuality sometimes the inijections are administered wrong or simply do not work leaving a conscious convict to suffer a slow and painful death from suffocation.
Out of the 37 states that allow the death penalty New Jersey, Maryland, Montana and Nebraska are moving towards a ban of this form of punishment.
America is one of the few democracies, along side Japan, India, South Korea and Taiwan, that still has a death penalty. Perhaps it is time to move on from this barbaric method of punishement? Or at least have the decency to kill them quickly...

Kucinich 2008

Dennis Kucinich, sadly he has no chance of being the democratic candidate for the 2008 presidential election. As somewhat of an old hippy he is too liberal (the green party vowed that if he ran for office they would not run a candidate against him). I really stand behind some of his ideas such as establishing a department of peace, keeping politics away from a woman's right to choose (despite the fact that his personal feelings are pro-life) and has a formulated a seemingly realistic 12 step exit strategy for the Iraq War (which he never supported).

"I am offering the following approach to change America's direction away from death and disintegration and towards life and social cohesiveness," Kucinich in reference to his desire to establish a department of peace.

The house stands firm

"Earlier today, the leader and I sent to the president a bill that made a strong commitment to support our men and women in uniform, and a strong commitment to honor our promises to our veterans. This was a bill that was worthy of the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform. It was a bill that honored and respected the wishes of the American people to have benchmarks, to have guidelines, to have standards for what is happening in Iraq.... The president vetoed the bill outright and, frankly, misrepresented what this legislation does," said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi n response to President Bush's veto of the Iraq supplemental bill. Pelosi's full commentary.

Despite lacking the majority to overrule the presidential veto Pelosi and fellow democrats stand strong. I hope that they continue to do so until the President is forced to compromise on a committment to leave Iraq in exchange for funding.

Mission Accomplished?

It is the FOURTH anniversary of Bush's mission accomplished speech and with it comes a presidential promise to veto the Iraq funding bill that will pass through congress. The bill would order that troops begin leaving Iraq by October 1st of this year but will doubtfully get the 2/3 majority needed to override the expected veto.
In fairness to the President I agree that we must view the war in Iraq as two wars: the fist, which entailed taking Saddam's regime out of power, was a quick success but the second, constructing a predominately western democratic regime that would have at least of inkling of stability, has and will be a failure. This reconstruction should be handled either multilaterally (working intensely with and in the interest of the people of Iraq) or unilaterally, with the people of Iraq taking full control of stabilizing a regime. What makes us more capable then them? It is merely an elitist notion that they are incapable of handling this situation as well (if not better) than the U.S..