Kidnappers have seized the senior Egyptian diplomat in Iraq, one month after his arrival in Baghdad, and accused him of being an American spy.
Ihab al-Sherif, 51, evidently underestimated the extreme danger of his new posting in Iraq by going out alone without bodyguards to buy a newspaper.
Three Iraqi witnesses who saw his abduction in the al-Jamaa district said he was driving alone in a car with diplomatic plates. When he stopped to buy a newspaper in Rabie Street eight gunmen attacked, one shouting that he was an "American spy". One of them struck him on the head with his pistol butt before he was stuffed into the trunk of a car and driven away at high speed.

The above (sent in by Chris) is from Patrick Cockburn and Eric Silver's "Egyptian ambassador is kidnapped by Iraqi gunmen in street attack" (the UK's Independent).

Pru e-mails to note "Arundhati Roy speaks from the World Tribunal on Iraq" (The Socialist Worker):


There are remarkable people gathered here who, in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda, have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq.
It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the US, Britain, Italy, Australia and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives -- or to take the lives of others -- for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers -- anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.
The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the US does not recognise) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals and CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.
The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us -- on our dignity, our intelligence, our humanity and our future.

Also from the UK's Socialist Worker, Pru notes "Now on to Gleneagles:"

There were so many demonstrators that some never even set off. Around 300,000 marched and others were still left in The Meadows when everything had finished.
It was a hugely diverse gathering but, wherever they came from, there was a deep desire for real change. People wanted action, not empty promises, from the G8.
Respect MP George Galloway spoke for many when he said, "It's not by accident or act of god that so many people live in poverty. The poor are poor because the rich are rich.
"The leaders of the G8 are not the solution to the problem, they are the cause.
"We won't go along with the deception that we are all on the same side. It is a deception that Blair and Brown are the saviours of Africa. We won't see poverty made history until we make the G8 history.
"If Bob Geldof really wanted to help make poverty history he would stand in Downing Street and he would tell the poor of the world to say, 'We no longer have any debts--we don't owe you any money.'
"Today we ringed Edinburgh, we fashioned a noose around the G8. Not until we hang the system of the G8 will we make poverty history. This group built a system of war and privatisation and exploitation. And that's why we are going to spoil their party on Wednesday."
Pressure from activists has forced the authorities to allow a march on the G8 which is officially allowed to get within 500 metres of the gates of the Gleneagles Hotel. It will be a chance to let the G8 leaders feel our rage against them.
Demonstrate against the G8, Wednesday 6 July. Assemble 12 noon at Gleneagles train station. Buses leave at 10am from Edinburgh’s Waterloo Place and Glasgow’s George Square.
© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.

Erika notes the latest (July 1st) from Riverbend at Baghdad Burning:

"Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq," I commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, "But they have disappeared from his speeches too!"
I was listening to the voiceover on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and pieces of various speeches he used over two years.E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity had been out for 3 hours and we couldn't turn on the air conditioner with the generator electricity we were getting.
E. and I had made a bet earlier about what the theme of tonight's speech would be. E. guessed Bush would dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy and lies coming out of the White House.
I told him he'd dredge up 9/11 yet again… tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear the burden of 9/11… again.
I won the bet. The theme was, naturally, terrorism- the only mention of 'weapon' or 'weapons' was in reference to Libya. He actually used the word 'terrorist' in the speech 23 times.

Mindy e-mails to note "Pope calls on G8 to 'uproot' poverty in Africa " (BreakingNews.ie.):

"I wish with all my heart for the success of this important meeting, hoping that it will lead to a sharing of the costs of reducing debt, to putting into motion concrete measures for uprooting poverty, and to promoting the … development of Africa," Benedict said.

Annie e-mails to note "Bomb kills 20 in Baghdad, slain cleric mourned" (Reuters article from The New Zealand Herald):


A suicide bomber killed up to 20 people at a police recruitment centre in Baghdad on Saturday, while across town an angry crowd of Shi'ite Muslims mourned a senior cleric gunned down by insurgents.
Another bomb killed five and wounded 12 at a police checkpoint on a main highway just south of the city. After dark, two suicide bombers on foot struck a busy street in the centre of another town to the south, killing five people.
The bombings were the worst in Iraq in at least six days, shattering a relative lull in the Sunni Arab insurgency against US forces and the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government.
US President George W Bush, whose approval ratings have slid in recent weeks to the lowest levels of his presidency over concern about the war, said in a radio address the best way to honour the nation's dead was to "stay in the fight".
A senior Interior Ministry source said 20 people had been killed by a bomber in an explosive vest who approached the ministry's special forces recruitment centre in the Mansour district of western Baghdad.

Proving that the only thing a Bully Boy likes more than being a Bully Boy is bragging about being a Bully Boy, hence "I owe Blair no favours on climate change action, says Bush:"

On Africa, Mr Bush brushed off campaigners' complaints that his decision to double US development aid by 2010 was too little, too late.
Although the US gives only 0.2% of its GDP in overseas aid - well below the UN's 0.7% target, which EU states are committed to reaching in the next few years - Mr Bush insisted America was "leading the world when it comes to helping Africa."
He expressed readiness to abandon the farm subsidies which make it difficult for African economies to compete, but only if the EU was also prepared to scrap its Common Agricultural Policy.
Asked if he would make a special effort to help Mr Blair at the summit, which begins on Wednesday, in return for his support over Iraq, Mr Bush replied: "I really don't view our relationship as one of quid pro quo."

The above is from Andrew Woodcock's article in The Irish Examiner and Dominick e-mailed to spotlight it.

Trevor: Well what do you know, after all the weeping and teeth gritting in the US press we learn this.

Trevor's directing us to The Australian Herald's "1979 photo not of Iran president, says U.S.:"

The State Department has concluded that Iran's president-elect is not the student militant seen in a photograph from the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy.

From Barry James' "Africa sceptical on Live 8" (also sent in by Trevor, also from The Australian Herald):

Moeletsi Mbeki, the brother of South African President Thabo Mbeki, said Live 8 would only make matters worse by obscuring the real issue - "the theft of the riches of the continent by its own leaders".
"Throwing money at African governments is not the answer," he said, adding that it would serve only to make African governments less rather then more transparent.
The only concert to take place on the continent, in Johannesburg, attracted about 8000 people, far less than anywhere else in the world.
The Sunday Independent in Johannesburg said the concerts "seem to be nothing but a diversion from back-slapping politicians".
"The cream of the global crop, the big sellers and equally big egos paraded on stages from Britain to Bush country yesterday," it said. "But in Johannesburg, the concert conjured up the begging-bowl image of Africa with a lacklustre line-up.
"As an African watching on satellite television, what can one savour of the musicians from the West, who are once again using the continent to draw attention to themselves?"

Cindy e-mails to note Alex Fak and Anatoly Medetsky "Severstal and RTL Take Over Ren-TV"
(Moscow Times):

The liberal-minded owners of Ren-TV, the last national television channel that offers critical news coverage, have sold a controlling stake to Kremlin-friendly steel giant Severstal, raising the specter of total state control over the country's television airwaves.
Unified Energy Systems, the electricity monopoly headed by liberal reformer Anatoly Chubais, said Friday that it had sold its 70 percent stake in Ren-TV for $100 million to a subsidiary of Severstal Group, which is controlled by Alexei Mordashov, a billionaire and open supporter of President Vladimir Putin.
Also Friday, Ren-TV founders and executives Irina and Dmitry Lesnevsky announced that they had sold their 30 percent stake in the channel to RTL Group, a Luxembourg-based media company controlled by Germany's Bertelsmann holding. Neither side would disclose the value of the deal.

Third Party e-mails to note "Founder of Earth Day dies" (from Candada's CBC News):


Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. politician who founded Earth Day 35 years ago and helped create the modern environmental movement, has died.
Nelson, who was a former governor and U.S. Democratic senator from Wisconsin, died of cardiovascular failure on Sunday at his home near Washington at age 89.

And we'll close with what Rob e-mails, Georg Mascolo's "EMBASSIES FOR SALE: Want To Become Bush's Next Ambassador?" (from Germany's Der Spiegel):


Want to become a US ambassador? It's not as hard as you may think. Just donate a couple of hundred thousand to President George W. Bush's campaign coffers and pick your city. The president's new cadre of diplomats tend to be generous campaign donors, including the wealthy Ohio ball-bearing manufacture who is expected to run the US Embassy in Berlin.
It's possible that David Wilkins, 58, is just a tad too honest for his new job as Ambassador of the United States in Canada. How else to explain his admission that he's only visited America's big neighbor to the north once in his life -- 34 years ago -- on a visit to see Niagara Falls? Wilkins, a deeply religious South Carolina Republican, sees his appointment to the diplomatic corps as a "sign of God."
In truth, one could probably look to more worldly reasons to explain the appointment. Wilkins is one of the Republican Party's most talented fundraisers; in return for his efforts, which helped secure the re-election of US President George W. Bush, the party rewarded Wilkins with the honorary title of "Ranger," a distinction that's bestowed on anyone who contributes or raises more than $200,000 for the party.
In the coming months, Rangers, Pioneers (starting at $100,000) and Super Rangers ($300,000 and up) will be beginning their new jobs as diplomats all over the world. According to the most recent count, 30 of the Republican Party's biggest donors have been rewarded with posts in sun-drenched island nations like Mauritius and the Bahamas, or in prestigious European capitals.
[. . .]
The consulate-for-cash principle isn't exactly new. Next to nights in the White House, parties at Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch and invitations to state dinners, diplomatic service is considered the most sought-after form of recognition for the party's big spenders. And the price for a ticket into the diplomatic corps is high -- at least six figures according to an unwritten rule that's been in place ever since Richard Nixon was in the White House. Back then, the president instructed his chief of staff that "anybody who wants to be an ambassador must at least give $250,000."

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

In answer to e-mails.

1) Yes, there will be a roundup of what's going on in the world.

2) We (Ava and C.I.) appreciate Troy's desire for "as many posts as possible a day" but we're going to bicker over the statement that there were only two on Saturday.

The one that's up on Friday (as noted at the end of it) was an all night thing. As noted at the end of it from that, it was immediately time to start the two posts for Saturday. That's because the time stamp on the entries is when you create them, not when you post them.

Friday's news was a shocker for many people.

Ava: I got together with a group on campus to talk about do we march on D.C., do we do this, do we do that. It was a brainstorming session and they were going on all over the country.

C.I.: Ditto. And after that was over, it was come back here and do some posting. (Looking at the time stamps on entries, about four hours later.) At which point, I dived into the e-mails. While working on one post, the long on, I pulled up another screen to work on the short one (that went up quickly), the Sunday Chat & Chews. The second entry was the members' responses which was an all nighter. The second post ends with this:

Note that there are e-mails that have come in since this post was started. But it's taken several hours just to pull from the e-mails to get the quotes above. So it's first out of the gate. I've been up 23 hours straight now. (I'll do the post on the Times as soon as this goes up.) (Time on the post, time stamp, is put in place when it's begun, not when it's finished.) If I didn't offer a link that I should have to something above, my apologies. I'm really exhausted and flying on caffeine from diet sodas. I'll be working with The Third Estate Sunday Review tomorrow so posts here may be hit and run and spotty. But we'll continue to focus on this topic.

C.I.: I was in bed by seven and up at ten (three hours) and again dealing with the O'Connor news in my own circle. I was back here and in front of the computer intending to post by three when ABC's This Week had finally sent out their e-mail for who was on Sunday. I thought it would be a quick entry. I pulled up a screen and began reading the e-mail. The title of that post (still saved to draft) included "full of crap." It didn't help that they not only had Toby Keith as a guest but, in the e-mail, called him the "All-American" Toby Keith. All Americans were not stupid. Even those who fell for the Bully Boy's lies were not stupid enough to flash photo-shopped crap of Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks) and Saddam Hussein on the screen during their concerts as Toby Keith did. Let's be really clear here because the press didn't do their job on that (big surprise) as they rushed to trash everyone to prove how "All-American" they themselves were. (Which includes, according to Billie, a free thinking libertarian, pro-pot, columnist who felt the need to call people at anti-war rally -- before the invasion began -- "traitorous.") Toby Keith's flag waving posture was about as reality-based as his attacks on Maines. And, for the record, the attacks predated Keith hiding behind the Bully Boy. The press could have told you that. The press could have pointed out that Keith (leading the "Run 'em out the country!" brigade) has hated the Dixie Chicks for years and slammed them publicly long before he ever learned that he could use the flag as a marketing tool to sell, what he dubs, music.
There was nothing "All American" about his attacks on Maines and the other two Dixie Chicks.
Unless This Week is attempting to say that all Americans are stupid, anti-woman and phonies who pretend to be "rural" when they're everything but. It's a nice little phoney posture Keith's got going that plays well (to use Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Somerby's term) to the "rubes."
But it's not "All-American" and, in their own flag waving, ABC's This Week elected to insult all Americans when they dubbed Keith "All-American."
However, that was a sidenote to the entry. The entry's starting point were the other guests which included all male Senators. And which, in their effort to be like everyone else since apparently there's no originality or bravery at This Week, included the usual jaw boners you were seeing everywhere else. That meant four men weighing in on O'Connor's retirement. O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice, and we're going only have men discuss her?
O'Connor, who's stepping down from the court puts Roe v. Wade at risk and we're going to have only men discuss her?
Diane Feinstein sits on the judiciary committee. Now maybe DF's all the sudden press shy? But not one of the big three Chat & Chews included her.
And it's disgusting that fourteen years of Hill-Thomas, the results is only one woman sitting on the judiciary committee. For those who are too young to remember (as Ty admitted) or for those who have forgotten, Anita Hill had to face an all white, all male judiciary committee chaired by Joe Biden. Biden didn't want to deal with Hill's accusations in his role as chairman. And the nomination had moved from committee to the floor of the Senate. It was only because someone leaked Hill's charges to the committee that the country even learned of Anita Hill.
And idiot's like a Senator from Louis. who's now thankfully gone felt the need to tell the floor Thomas would be a great judge and why, he'd even spoken to one of his "black friends" . . . posturing with the most idiotic responses. Hey Louis. John, you think Thomas turned out to be that great judge you just knew he would be? If so, you're one of the few who does.
Democrats controlled the Senate. They could've stopped the nomination but they didn't. And with some members from the 1991 judiciary committee still on that committee today (I'm talking Democrats), I'm not real sure they'll be any more use to us now than they were then.
If the above seems like a soap box rant, please note, it's the G-rated version of the NC17 that would have been posted. Which is why, an hour or two after I started the post, I saved to draft and called Ava's to speak to her, Jim and Dona (Ava and Dona share an apartment and as most readers of The Third Estate Sunday Review know, Jim and Dona are a couple and it's much easier to reach him there than at Jess & Ty's where he officially lives).

Ava: C.I. filled us in and read the first parts of the post. Jim called it perfection and said post it but C.I. wanted to know if we could do a roundtable hoping that bringing up the matter there would allow other viewpoints. We were fine with the idea and called Jess and Ty who were as well. Mike, Rebecca, Betty and Kat were all willing to participate which is how we ended up with the roundtable. But having started on that, we were now all in the middle of that. Which also includes a member who is weighing a post that might or might not go up at their site and wanted everyone's input on the pros and cons of that. The discussion on the pros and cons took about ninety minutes. The roundtable itself took a lot longer than and where it ends is not the ending so Susan's e-mail noting that it ends abruptly is correct. The next phase would not have been a discussion of Susan Faludi's article but two other topics that got addressed but in reading over the transcript everyone felt that the focus needed to be on abortion, reproductive rights and women's rights. Jess said end it where we end it in the post because it would make the most sense and he was correct. He felt to end it earlier would have people wondering "Did Jess and C.I. bail on the roundtable?" since both had been silent for the second half. It ended up being an all nighter and as soon as it was over, C.I. and I started work over here. Which meant going through the e-mails and we found Maria's post in Spanish and English so while C.I. was transferring that into a post screen, I was calling Ty to say, "Wait! This needs to go up at The Third Estate Sunday Review too!"

C.I.: Everything that was planned for The Third Estate Sunday Review's edition was basically trashed once O'Connor's news came out. The interview with Mike did go on but otherwise there was no idea of what to do.

Ava: And C.I. and I had planned to get together Friday night to do our review so we'd be able to pitch other ideas and help pull stuff together. That didn't happen. I called to push it off until Saturday when the planning session came up on campus regarding what to do and C.I. said, "I was just about to call you for the same reason." In a really nice note that Jim, Dona, Ty and Jess wrote, they mentioned how much C.I. and I despise the review we did. They think it's very funny and so do those of you who've e-mailed in about it.

C.I.: But we worked for over ninety minutes writing that. We didn't think we could be funny and when we finally started the ninety process of writing it (after thirty minutes of "how can we"), it wasn't funny. To get something completed, anything, we wrote it out straight, just the facts.

Ava: We then went over it repeatedly added a joke here and a joke there until we finally came up with, "It's not the Bully Boy, it's Bottoms playing the Bully Boy!"

C.I.: Which gave us about ten minutes to pull together the final draft of what's posted. There are few of those we walk away from thinking "That's pretty good, it's funny." And Ty's correct about that. If it's as funny as so many of you have e-mailed to state it is, we can't tell that.

Ava: Because we're still remembering all the work and stress that went into it. We felt is was so unfunny that we'd decided to do the Montopoli post (and we like Candy Perfume Boy) as a humorous one and to do a funny post on the Times because we felt we owed it to everyone because we were so not funny in our review. Scott Shane was the obvious pick for the spotlight and there wasn't anything needed there other than "read this or at least know about it." We then went through the main section and "Where is the news?" was the question we kept asking back and forth. At which point, I suggested we do the op-ed page or the Sunday Magazine.

C.I.: BuzzFlash already had a heads up to the Sunday Magazine, I thought, that was seen when everyone was pouring over the Karl Rove stories for the editorial at The Third Estate Sunday Review. So we went with the op-ed and immediately saw the "no big deal, let's all remember the process." Historically, long before the sixties, the process is one that is an active process but someone was too busy scuffing their Keds to grasp that.

Ava: And there were six op-eds and not one was by a woman. Did a woman appear on Saturday? C.I. grabbed the print edition to find out.

C.I.: I don't read the op-eds most days. I'll read Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert. If a member sends and e-mail saying, "You've got to read ____" and I haven't passed the paper along to someone else at work, I'll read it. I didn't read John Kerry's this week or Bill Clinton's the week before. With Dowd on vacation, I hadn't planned to read any of her replacements unless they were worthy. MM got a lot of complaints so I read one of his dopey op-eds. But I grab the paper and there's Patricia Nelson Limerick writing nonsense.

Ava: And C.I.'s reading it to me and I'm laughing like crazy because the woman's so damn pretentious and so obsessed with herself. In two days, the Times had run ten op-eds and only was by a woman and they got a nut case to write the one. We didn't critique her looney op-ed's opinion. We weren't sure it had one. We did note her word usuage. We did critique something she wrote in 2004 for CounterPunch (which we linked to).

C.I.: Which led to one visitor e-mailing that we were trying to hop on the bandwagon with Somerby and another visitor e-mailing that we'd ripped off Bob Somerby. We didn't know there would be a Saturday Daily Howler and had I known, I still wouldn't have read it because there was no time for it. Even community member Dallas, who enjoys Somerby's critiques as much as I do -- we usually share e-mails on what we think were the best points and funniest comments several times a week, didn't know about it until Sunday afternoon when he e-mailed the site. If Somerby noted in his Friday Howler that there would be a Saturday Howler, I missed it. I went through it and Democracy Now! quickly on Friday. There was no way they weren't being mentioned but the focus in the mid-day post was on reaction to O'Connor's news. I'm glad that the visitors, like we do, admire Somerby's work, but no, we weren't trying to hop on a bandwagon nor, as visitor two worried, an attempt to rip him off. Had we known he'd covered it, we probably would have gone with the Sunday Magazine and noted Somerby's entry.

Ava: Which will do now. This is from the weekend Howler:

THERE ONCE WAS A SECULAR HUMANIST: Who later took a job as a columnist! Readers, Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Patricia Nelson Limerick hired on at the Times to write some fill-in columns for Dowd. And uh-oh! After a semi-glib remark in her second column--a semi-putdown of "secular humanists"-- she seems to have gotten some negative e-mails. And boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! Today, she devotes her entire fourth column to these troubling, unquoted missives. In so doing, she reminds us of former public editor Daniel Okrent, who was throwing similar pity parties by the time of his own Column 4.
Amazing, isn’t it? Limerick gets the chance to explore any subject on the nation’s most influential page. And by the time of her fourth column, it turns out to be all about her! In fairness, Limerick says that she's really looking for ways to revive "the better angels of our nature." But even when she's doing that, she can't resist taking another dumb shot at those troubling secular humanists:
LIMERICK (7/2/05): Concluding his First Inaugural Address, President Abraham Lincoln expressed his hope for a resurgence of "the better angels of our nature.''
As national unity dissolved [. . .]*
Therefore, on this holiday weekend, I take the opportunity to propose [. . .]*
Alas, the very fact that I have used a metaphor associated with a particular [. . .]*
Oh shut up! Where do they find these simpering idiots, these lightweights, these weak, scripted simps?
Earth to Limerick: Our "better angels" have been in trouble for decades; if a columnist gets a few naughty e-mails, the significance pales beside the decades of slime and hoaxing that have driven our national discourse. Limerick's original (second) column was vastly simple-minded; in it, she reduced a large problem (a problem she didn't really try to explore) to a personal matter between James Watt and Bill Moyers. But today, in Column 4, it’s all about her. Someone wrote Limerick some unpleasant e-mails. The rest of us have to discuss it.

*We will not inflict insult and injury on our readers by quoting Patti in full. Bob Somerby is a for the record kind of guy and, while we're sure he loves his readers, that means he needs to note her dithering comments at length. We admire that but this is a holiday weekend, our nation is at war and we will refrain from adding to the harm or putting our members to sleep.

Ava: Our take on it was similar and that we both felt Patti was a loon. Not unlike Luna at the beginning of Sleeper. We didn't know that she'd reduced something to an issue between Moyers and Watt. Had we known of that, we had plenty of Patti material on that b.s. The CounterPunch article we quoted from, where Patti felt the need to whine about being booed, goes to that nonsense. Patti wants us all to get along, regardless of whether that means holding hands with an unreformed convict or not. Ty went through the e-mails to The Third Estate Sunday Review today to see how the edition went over and said there was one e-mailer who felt we were too focused on "one issue." If Roe v. Wade goes, and we made this point, other privacy rights are next on the chopping block. Don't kid yourself that the fright wing isn't still opposed to, for instance, mixed marriages. Look at the polls on that, which should have been provided by the press at the start of the same-sex marriage debate because by not providing them and not knowing where the country stood on that the implicit message was "we are more than okay with mixed marriage, but we can't stand same-sex marriage." The numbers for opposition to both is very interesting. As Common Ills community members, Jim, Ty, Jess, Dona and myself are, of course, concerned with privacy and privacy rights. We have yet to redeem one of Nixon's crooked cronies. But single-issue Patti wants to revise history and say, "They aren't so bad, they really aren't."

C.I.: I believe that would read, "Alas, it saddens MY heart that so many are of the multitude who will rush to declare a verdict of unworthy on fellow homo sapiens who have, rather well in MY own knowledge landscape, served and serviced the geography that is our nation with what could only be termed noble intentions."

Ava: Good point. Patti wants to be seen as "reasonable" in her haf-witted ditherings --

C.I.: Lots of luck to you there, Patti!

Ava: so she's willing to sell out any other cause, or maybe just ignore it as well as history, to cozy up for her single-cause. We don't see the right to marry, the right to privacy in your own bedroom, the right to utlizie birth control and other privacy rights as a single cause despite our strong support for abortion. Were a homophobic ruling nominee proposed, we would be just as opposed even if he or she argued that abortion should be legal. If the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review is concerned with a "single issue" the issue is privacy rights. That is addressed in the roundtable.

C.I.: The second visitor goes on to say that we even ripped off Somerby's use of "Earth to Limerick" when we used "Ground Control to Patty Nelson Limerick."

Ava: We were buidling on Bowie and Somerby's using Zoolander.

C.I.: Really? I thought it was Chaka Khan?

Ava: "Ground control to Brent!"

C.I.: I know, I love that part of the movie. But I thought it was "Earth to Mickey." Before she cozied up to the Bully Boy, I had most of Chaka Khan's albums. I gave them away after she decided Bully was the boy for her.

Ava: I don't know "Earth to Mickey."

C.I.: Well let's not publicize it here. She's made her own bed and she can lie in it with Republicans.

Ava: Somerby's obviously pulling from two columns by Patti. Which we spelled "Patty" and "Patti" because we weren't sure which she'd go with but finally decided she'd be a "Patti" with an "i." We didn't read the other column.

C.I.: But had we, we would have noted that her pitting Moyers against Watt (and we're sure that Patti had Watts coming out the better) is perfectly in keeping with commentaries on NPR as well as her other loopey writing. We're glad to learn, Somerby notes this, that this is her fourth column. She's a two week substitute so hopefully this was her farewell.

Ava: Or, as she would term it, her "fare thee well."

C.I.: Exactly. Somerby's takes are always worth reading. They're funny and there's a great deal of thought behind them. He obviously did tremendous work on his column. We, on the other hand, used our right to mock the idiotic.

Ava: "Don't knock the mock!"

C.I.: Our slogan. Somerby was willing to wade through her excessive, antiquated wordage (it's as though all that time in the old West has baked her brain) and find the bits and pieces that might be dubbed thought. We weren't willing to do that. It's a looney column (and the only one of Patti's appearing in the Times that we've read).

Ava: We think Somerby wrote a great critique. But we also think our critique, intended only to convey the woman was a dithering fool and to make you laugh, succeeded as well because where else would you read this:

"Feeling pure, self-righteous, smug and nestled in the company of the like-minded is one of humanity's greatest natural highs." Is she attempting to be confessional? She's high on something, alright, self-love and self-delusion. Is their a rehab for those who fashion themselves as modern day Aimee Semple McPhersons?

C.I.: That's probably our favorite part of the entry. Although Rachel said we had her "gasping for air" with this section:

Oh come on, Patti, no one named Patti should be allowed to write with such useless excess. "Representative from posterity?" We'd try to explain to her all that was wrong with that sentence, all the was wrong with the entire column, but she's off to be fitted for another white flowing robe with matching turban and her followers are getting antsy, or as antsy as dazed zombies can get at any rate.

C.I.: We were just off an all nighter with The Third Estate Sunday Review and neither of us got much sleep on Friday night.

Ava: And C.I. didn't go to sleep "Friday night" until Saturday morning. The only community member that was up and e-maling when we were doing the Sunday posts on the Times was Eric who e-mailed "The whole main section is crap." We agreed with Eric with the exception of Scott Shane's article.

C.I.: When we read Patti's looney column, it woke us back up because we were laughing so hard.
Neither of us were in the mood for Ked's kid channeling Frankie Goes to Hollywood with "Relax."

Marcia and Charlie both wrote in wanting a certain kind of entry this weekend. This is our attempt at that. Charlie is with family and wanted to show them something tomorrow that was more conversational and Marcia wanted an entry where "the world gets put on hold and it's just talk to the community." Hopefully, this is somewhat like what you were asking for.

Beth is mobile, in answer to Bob's question. She's still got back pain and she was willing to do an interview but with it being the holiday that was put off (by C.I.) since she will have a house full of company.

Where is Isaiah's comic? A lot of e-mails on that. Isaiah's comic is e-mailed to the site via a program called Hello! that Blogger recommends. There's a problem with Hello! and we attempted repeatedly to e-mail it in this morning. UK Computer Gurus, who note they aren't celebrating the Fourth of July, are working on that. Thank you for that. And thank you for the comment. There are members outside the US and on another weekend that would have been obvious on this end (to me, C.I.).

C.I.: It's been a rough few days and my apologies for not acknowledging that outside the US, this wasn't a holiday. Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts will go up tomorrow either due to the UK Computer Gurus figuring out why it won't post or via Rebecca's kind offer to scan it and post it at her site (at which point we would piggy back link).

Is the Times being dropped is a question from fifteen e-mails. There is a move in the polls Gina and Krista do for their round-robin that suggests it's very likely members will lose interest in the Times when it becomes a for pay site. If the trend continues, we'll move on to a different paper and that will be The Christian Science Monitor if the trend in that polling continues. That would be a decision based on the membership's choice and reached around the time that the Times goes to a for-pay site format (Septemenber).

Morey writes in to note his objection that we skipped out on the interview with Mike at The Third Estate Sunday Review. Morey feels that since Mike is a community member we should have been there taking part.

Morey has a good point and we won't say he's wrong. But we do know that either there would be no TV review or we would have been up much later than we were. Which was around twenty-fours straight. At some point, something has to give. We support Mike, we think he's doing a gret job. Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Rebecca were present for the interview and we think, and are not surprised by this, that they did a great job. Our bailing on the interview was not meant to slight Mike and please don't read it as such. It was a time management issue and we had a review to do. We'll e-mail Mike later in the week to make sure he didn't read our bailing as a reflection on interest (or lack of) in him. (He's in the midst of a family reunion.)

Where are the additional links, ask Tonya. Apparently Tonya's the only one utilizing them. (Not a suprise if you read the Friday round-robin.) We added The Manny's link and then went on to the second link voted on by the panel. We couldn't add it. It wouldn't display. Dallas tried as well. (Thank you, Dallas, for all the work you do.) Dallas notes that the blogger blogged last on Wednesday or Thursday and seemed to be down on blogging. (We didn't read that entry. We're going by Dallas' interpretation.) So we were left to wonder whether or not the blogger had deleted their site? If that happened, that's sad news because obviously the blogger has something worth saying. We were already working on one e-mail to a blogger (more on that later) and didn't have time to e-mail the blogger with the site that now comes up "cannot be displayed." We're holding off on additional links until we figure out what's going on there. (And we're hoping it was just a glitch.)

The Manny. Brian Montopoli, aka Candy Perfume Boy, has been added. The panel approved that link with their vote. "Wait, he's a professional journalist! Why was the panel needed!"
As we've noted here before, we think of him as an emerging journalist, or, if you will, an emergent journalist. And that's not meant as an insult. He is of the left (and hopefully will become more so but that's his business) so linking to his personal site was not a problem. But as we set out the guidelines re: Candy Perfume Boy, the panel would be needed to approve a link to his site.

We did e-mail the Manny this morning (this is the more later). As a link, he's obviously not going to get the sort of treatment the Times does. The community, more and more, loves The Manny. (Three pieces came in last week that he'd written for CJR Daily. They weren't linked to because a) there wasn't time and b) "It's a great piece!" doesn't help when time is short. Pull something from the piece or copy and paste it in full.)

We like The Manny, he makes us laugh and his love for parenthetical is exceed only by our own love for them. (We could never give up the parenthetical aside.) (And pray he never does.)

We're glad he's on the permalinks list. This was not prid pro quo and, in fact, we noted in the e-mail that The Common Ills is not a blog and should never be mentioned in the CJR Daily blog report. So don't e-mail him asking for that. As Maria and Natalie point out (and have others but only they gave approval for their inclusion in this morning's post), he gives good e-mail. So if you feel the need to drop him a line, do so for that reason. We get more than our share of "traffic." While it's great that so many members want others to know about this site, we really don't need to self-promote.

If The Manny writes something boneheaded, we'll note our objection here. We reserve the right to good natured humor (or what we think passes for it) but even were The Manny not an emergent journalists, he still wouldn't deserve The Full Bumiller.

Brad notes that some entries have noted articles with links but not quoted from them and says he's too busy to go all over the web (we hear you) so that those type of things really do not help him. We agree.

C.I.: Brad, they were useless articles in my opinion and only noted because in one instance it was a "yea!" piece that could be contrasted with another piece in the Times. The one that was reality based we quoted from. In terms of Douglas Jehl's piece (which was worthy of noting), I couldn't pull an excerpt. It was a lengthy piece and had a great deal to say. I'm not sure today where a pull quote could have come from. He was mopping after Bumiller which left him with a huge mess. The only other instance that I'm aware of has been BuzzFlash links where I've said "I'm in a hurry, but we'll note it later today." If there are additional ones, please let me know or when you see something like that, let me know immediately and I'll address it as soon as possible. As Gina & Krista's polling found (no surprise) either due to time or other concerns, most of you don't go to the links. You want to know what is important from the piece and get a quick taste of it. That's fine, we're a resource/review.

Brad: During the week, I'm lucky to get time for a half-hour of Democracy Now! so if I don't have time for the only show on radio or TV that matters to me, I do not have time for links and I am not served by a link that tells me nothing but the writer's name and the title of the piece.

C.I.: Good point and again, let me know if you see it again.

Now we're going to get to work on at least one "What they're reporting on outside the US" post.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Can someone explain to us please what Candy Perfume Boy is doing to the community?

 

We (Ava and C.I.) do not believe that The Common Ills was built up from scratch so that Brian Montopoli could wave his love wand, magic though it may be, and turn community members into love slaves.  (We could be wrong.)  So why does it appear that Candy Perfume Boy is doing just that?

 

Natalie writes Friday to say:  I'm way too old for him, but I can't help myself he's so sexy in his e-mails.  Twenty years younger and I'd haunt the Columbia campus!

 

Natalie, please take a cold shower!

 

But sadly, Natalie is not alone.  There seems to be a creeping affection sneaking its way through the community for one Brian Montopoli and how it started is the question of some debate.

 

We e-mailed Maria, one of the first to become infected and fall under the shadow of his love wand.

 

Maria:  You know, I thought he'd be so different.  But he wrote and wrote and he wrote.  He gives good e-mail!

 

We just bet he does.  And we're doubting he learned that in any class room.

 

It sometimes seems like a goodly section of the community put on their Sinatra's Swingin' Session and started singing along with "You Do Something To Me" (Cole Porter):

 

Let me live 'neath your spell
Do do that voodoo that you do so well
'cause you do somethin' to me
Nobody else could do

Candy Perfume Boy, you are tearing the community apart!  (Or at least causing it to defocus.)  Your suberfuge is sneaky.  But we've got your story down pat.

 

He was working his way through some poli sci 'zines

When the freelance thing felt like something you do in your teens

What was he do?  Where was he to go?

He was out on his fanny (exhale, Natalie!)

So backpack over one shoulder, he headed to CJR

He was there to post but some members saw more

He had style

He had bed hair

He was there

That's how he became The Manny

 

Who would've guessed that the candy perfume boy we've described

Was just exactly what the doctor prescribed

Now Maria finds him appealing, watch out Natalie!

It's not really him, it's just a screen shot from the TV!

 

 

 

 

 

( photo from http://www.brianmontopoli.com/index.asp)

 

He's the boy strutting in briefs when everybody else is wearing jeans

The blushing boy from Redwood City, The Manny named Brian.

 

And yes, for members who've been e-mailing, now that the election is over the blog additions are going to be made and yes, we'll be adding Brian Montopoli's site. (We'd say visit at your own risk -- due to the infection noted above, not a commentary on the writing -- but we know the usual procedure -- one person grabs the site and copies and pastes Gina and Krista did a humorous job discussing that in their regular round-robin Friday.)

 

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

 

(Note:  "The Manny" is obviously a reworking of the lyrics, slight reworking, to the theme to The Nanny -- "The Nanny Named Fran" -- which was written by Ann Hampton Calloway.  Natalie and Maria saw the text to this before it went up and approved their inclusion.  Lynda e-mailed the photo.)

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

The National Organization for Women's annual convention began Friday morning with an agenda that included discussions about the morning-after pill and feminism in popular culture, along with the election of the group's president.
A few hours later, the gathering had a new focus.
After the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was announced Friday, NOW's young feminist task force held an emergency session for three hours. The members talked about ways to mobilize young women, including college students, reasoning that they would be the people most affected if a new Supreme Court justice helped overturn the right to have an abortion.

The only reason the above isn't our pick for spotlight story is because it's so short. And, while pro-lifers chants are quoted, NOW's chant isn't. It's a seven paragraph story, E. Thomas Wood's "Abortion Takes Center Stage at Women's Rights Gathering."

Now, Ava's idea, we'll turn our eye to the op-ed pages where we find . . . and op-ed on the battle about to be waged . . . written by . . . a man. Isn't it always nice to hear a man tells everyone to chill on the issue of abortion? Well isn't it? So calm and distant, detached. We wonder why that is? We also wonder why, in this day and age, the Times can't find a female law professor who can write an op-ed on the topic?

In case you missed it, Maureen Dowd's in the midst of a long vaction (working on a book, if we remember the announcement correctly). We've seen the space go back and forth between genders in a truly Myra Breckinridge manner. That's really not cutting it. When you have only one female op-ed writer (out of six) and she's on vacation (extended, no less) a better effort needs to be made to represent women on the op-ed pages if only for symbolic reasons. A young female journalism wanna' be in high school or junior high picks up the paper today and what's she to think as she sees little Stevie Carter stamping his Keds-clad feet and hissing 'calm down,' next to Frank Rich, Nicky K, Byron Calame (new public editor, yes, they went with a man -- and are you surprised by that?), David Grinspoon, and William Easterly.

Did you count that? We'll do it for you. There are six op-ed columns (that's counting the public editor) today and of those six, not one is by a woman.

What about yesterday, you ask? Surely yesterday they had woman yesterday? Yes, among the four op-eds yesterday, one was actually written by a woman. This was Saturday, the day after O'Connor's announcement. And what did the sole female op-ed contributor, Patricia Nelson Limerick, write about "Make Way For Airheads" woops! "Make Way for Angels."

Gail Collins has noted that a woman for a woman alone is not a reasonable replacement when Dowd's on vacation. We quite agree. Reading through the nonsense of "Make Way For Angels," we quite agree. And here's a tip for Collins, when someone pens "Therefore on this holiday weekend . . ." demand a rewrite then and there. Or as Limerick might put it, "then and therefore."

A paragraph beginning with "Alas" should also catch your attention since the century is not the eighteenth. And we'll celebrate Limerick's proposed "Take a Deep Breath Day" when her gauzy haze leaves the op-ed pages and goes back to whatever "recovering secularist" hostel she biked in from. The woman makes Elisabeth Bumiller seem reality based. Ground control to Patty Nelson Limerick, that great WHISH you hear is the sound of all air leaving your empty head via the giant windmills of your mind.

If anyone missed it, Dowd, whether you love her or hate her, or maintain an indifference, has an opinion. And she can convey it in a straight forward manner with no need to come off sounding like a dithering fool at a Renaissance fair.

"Feeling pure, self-righteous, smug and nestled in the company of the like-minded is one of humanity's greatest natural highs." Is she attempting to be confessional? She's high on something, alright, self-love and self-delusion. Is their a rehab for those who fashion themselves as modern day Aimee Semple McPhersons?

"While you eat your solitary lunch, you are to make your best efforts to imagine a representative from posterity occupying the empty seat across the table."

Oh come on, Patti, no one named Patti should be allowed to write with such useless excess. "Representative from posterity?" We'd try to explain to her all that was wrong with that sentence, all the was wrong with the entire column, but she's off to be fitted for another white flowing robe with matching turban and her followers are getting antsy, or as antsy as dazed zombies can get at any rate.

We'd suggest she go off somewhere and start her own cult but, honestly, we fear she already has. Patti's a histographer. That's a nice way of saying "she sure ain't a historian."

She doesn't always go over well, take for instance, wait, let's let her tell it:

I had barely started my sentence when someone in the Boulder, Colo., audience let loose a loud hiss.
And I said the first thing that came to mind, which turned out to be, "Don't do that."

But Patti, they had to. You are, after all, you. And you were trying to rehabilitate the image of John Ehrlichman. We'd ask, "Have you no shame" were it not for the fact that we already know the answer to that -- as evidenced by this paragraph:

Five minutes in his company will convince anyone that John Whitaker is a fine human being. He does not try to conceal or dismiss the bad behavior that produced Watergate. But his testimony asks us to realize that if we devote ourselves to shuddering over Watergate, we will fail to attend to the achievements of the National Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws of that time. If we narrow Ehrlichman and Nixon's heritage to Watergate, we do a considerable disservice to history.
So I asked an audience to forgo the pleasure of simple condemnation of John Ehrlichman, a man who had surprised me -- and surely would have surprised himself -- by assuming the status of the friend of my friend.

Patti, Patti, Patti, we're "shuddering over" you. Five minutes in his company might convince you of something but that's only because you started off unmoored. For those of us who know the period, we're not rushing to give our props and shout outs to Ehrlichman. While Limerick's certainly allowed to work herself into what ever Dionysian revelry over which ever recovery fad she's on this week, it's probably a good idea not to attemp to channel Julie Nixon Eisenhower while she's still alive. Our opinion.

Normally we don't address the Times' op-ed pages. But there is so little in the main section of the paper. It was this or the Sunday Magazine (possibly we picked the tiger and not the lady with that choice). This falls into the issue of representation which we have addressed before. And note, we didn't address her opinion because a) we weren't sure we could find any actual thought in the piece and b) her column is, quite frankly, not intended for the enjoyment of anyone who's stopped doing endless pencil drawings of horses in spiral notebooks.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]
 

A record 15.6 million documents were classified last year, nearly double the number in 2001, according to the federal Information Security Oversight Office. Meanwhile, the declassification process, which made millions of historical documents available annually in the 1990's, has slowed to a relative crawl, from a high of 204 million pages in 1997 to just 28 million pages last year.
The increasing secrecy - and its rising cost to taxpayers, estimated by the office at $7.2 billion last year - is drawing protests from a growing array of politicians and activists, including Republican members of Congress, leaders of the independent commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and even the top federal official who oversees classification.
[. . .]
But across the political spectrum there is concern that the hoarding of information could backfire. Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said the failure to prevent the 2001 attacks was rooted not in leaks of sensitive information but in the barriers to sharing information between agencies and with the public.
"You'd just be amazed at the kind of information that's classified - everyday information, things we all know from the newspaper," Mr. Kean said. "We're better off with openness. The best ally we have in protecting ourselves against terrorism is an informed public."
Mr. Kean said he could not legally disclose examples he discovered of unnecessary classification. But others cite cases of what they call secrecy running amok: the Central Intelligence Agency's court fight this year to withhold its budgets from the 1950's and 60's; the Defense Intelligence Agency's deletion of the fact that the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was interested in "fencing, boxing and horseback riding"; and the Justice Department's insistence on blacking out a four-line quotation of a published Supreme Court decision.

The above is from Scott Shane's "Increase in the Number of Documents Classified by the Government" in this morning's New York Times. It's our pick (Ava and C.I.) for the story you need to know about. If you use links, please read the story. (If you have a hard copy of the paper, please read the article.) If you don't use links, just note the above.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana.


Encuesta: 57% siente que Bush "engañó intencionalmente" al país sobre Irak
Según una nueva encuesta realizada por el Washington Post y ABC News, por primera vez la mayoría de los estadounidenses, un 57%, considera que el gobierno de Bush, "engañó intencionalmente" a la población sobre la guerra de Irak.

Encuesta: 42% cree que el Congreso debería interpelar a Bush si mintió acerca de Irak
Una nueva encuesta de Zogby demuestra que el 42 por ciento de los votantes creen que el Congreso debería interpelar al presidente Bush si se descubriera que no dijo la verdad acerca de las razones para ir entrar en guerra con Irak. Mientras que los demócratas en su amplia mayoría estuvieron a favor de la interpelación, la encuesta encontró que el veinticinco por ciento de los republicanos apoyaría la medida, si se determinara que Bush mintió acerca de Irak.

Italia ordenó arresto de 13 agentes de la CIA por secuestro
Un juez italiano ordenó el arresto de 13 agentes de la CIA por el secuestro ilegal de un clérigo musulmán en 2003 en Milán y por luego trasladarlo a Egipto, donde se informa que fue torturado. Según el juez, los agentes de la CIA secuestraron a Hassan Osama Nasr, mientras se dirigía a la mezquita del lugar y luego fue llevado en una camioneta blanca a una base ítalo-estadounidense. Posteriormente fue trasladado en avión a una base estadounidense en Alemania y de allí a El Cairo. El clérigo, también conocido como Abu Omar, nunca fue acusado por ningún delito y jamás tuvo que comparecer ante un tribunal. Al llegar a Egipto, denunció haber sido golpeado y recibir la aplicación de electroshock en los genitales. El secuestro tuvo lugar, supuestamente, sin el conocimiento del gobierno italiano, que también buscaba a Abu Omar con la ayuda de Estados Unidos. Funcionarios italianos se quejaron de que el secuestro afectaba los esfuerzos de investigación por terrorismo en Europa. Es la primera vez que un gobierno extranjero presenta acusaciones contra agentes estadounidenses implicados en la lucha contra el terrorismo en el exterior. En Alemania y en Suecia también se investigan casos en que agentes estadounidenses secuestraron hombres buscados por la justicia. Estados Unidos describió la práctica de secuestrar extrajudicialmente individuos buscados y luego transferirlos a otros países como "arrestos extraordinarios". Reed Brody, de la organización Human Rights Watch, describió la emisión de órdenes de arresto como un avance y agregó que, "finalmente alguien, en alguna parte podría ser responsabilizado por este sospechoso programa de "arrestos". Por fin esta orden de arresto demuestra que nadie está por encima de la ley, ni siquiera los agentes de la CIA".

Rumsfeld: Resistencia iraquí podría durar una década
El Secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld admitió que podrían tardar una década en sofocar la resistencia en Irak. Rumsfeld afirmó el domingo que "la insurgencia podría continuar por varios años. Las insurgencias tienden a prolongarse por cinco, seis, ocho, 10, 12 años". Rumsfeld confirmó además los datos de un informe publicado en el Sunday Times de Londres, donde señalan que funcionarios estadounidenses se han reunido en forma secreta con la resistencia sunnita, en un intento por negociar el fin del combate.

Se solicitó a Rumsfeld el lanzamiento de lista para evitar el reclutamiento
Esta noticia está relacionada con el reclutamiento militar. Un grupo de padres pertenecientes a la coalición Leave My Child Alone (Deja a Mi Hijo Tranquilo) solicitaron hoy al Secretario de Defensa Donald Rumsfeld que establezca una Lista Nacional para evitar el Reclutamiento para proteger la privacidad familiar del reclutamiento militar no deseado. La solicitud tiene lugar una semana después de que se revelara que el Pentágono trabaja con una empresa de marketing privada llamada BeNOW, para crear una base de datos de estudiantes del liceo y la universidad, con fines de reclutamiento. El New York Times informa que la base de datos ya cuenta con 30 millones de nombres. Megan Matson de la coalición Leave My Child Alone dijo, “millones aplaudieron cuando la Comisión Federal de Comunicaciones (FCC) creó una lista para evitar el reclutamiento de consumidores. Ahora necesitamos que las fuerzas armadas hagan una lista para proteger la privacidad de nuestros hijos”.

Zapatistas anunciaron plan para formar alianza política
Estas noticias provienen de México, donde el ejército rebelde Zapatista prometió el jueves que formará una alianza política de la izquierda. Planean enviar a una delegación en una gira nacional para generar apoyo antes de las elecciones presidenciales del año próximo. Sin embargo, los Zapatistas dijeron que se mantendrían fuera de la política electoral porque "ya sabemos que todos los candidatos son neoliberales". El grupo dijo que impulsarían una nueva constitución que "reconozca los derechos y libertades de las personas, y que defienda a los débiles de los poderosos." El anuncio fue realizado una semana después de que los rebeldes declararan la "alerta roja" para mantener discusiones internas de alto nivel acerca del futuro de su movimiento, y tres días después de que dijeran que procurarían acercarse más la política y abandonar el conflicto armado.

Bush ordenó cambios en el FBI, la ACLU advierte creación de "Fuerza de Policía Secreta"
El presidente Bush ordenó una serie de cambios drásticos en los servicios de inteligencia del país, provocando que los grupos de defensa de las libertades civiles se mobilizaran para advertir que el país está avanzando en la creación de una fuerza de policía secreta. Como parte de la reorganización, el FBI formará un nuevo Departamento de Seguridad Nacional que incluirá contrainteligencia, contraterrorismo y divisiones de inteligencia. Asimismo se otorgará mayor poder de supervisión del FBI a John Negroponte, el jefe de espionaje del país. Negroponte, el primer director de inteligencia nacional del país, tendrá autoridad para aprobar la contratación del máximo funcionario de seguridad del FBI, y estará facultado para comunicarse con agentes y analistas del FBI en temas relacionados con la inteligencia. Los cambios también pretenden derribar las antiguas barreras existentes entre las actividades de inteligencia exterior e interna. Los grupos de libertades civiles advierten que los cambios significan una medida radical hacia la creación de una fuerza de policía secreta en Estados Unidos. Timothy Edgar de la Unión Estadounidense de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por su sigla en inglés) le dijo al Washington Post, “Los espías y los policías desempeñan diferentes funciones y proceden en virtud de diferentes reglas por una razón. El FBI está efectivamente siendo controlado por un espía experto que debe rendir cuentas directamente a la Casa Blanca”. Edgar continuó diciendo que, “Es alarmante que la misma persona que supervisa el espionaje en el exterior, ahora supervisará el espionaje interno”. Los cambios implementados por Bush se basaron en recomendaciones realizadas por una comisión especial de inteligencia dirigida por el juez de apelaciones Laurence Silberman y el ex senador Charles Robb.

Estados Unidos acusado por muerte de tres periodistas iraquíes
En Irak, tropas estadounidenses mataron la semana pasada a tres periodistas iraquíes. Reporteros Sin Fronteras ha solicitado una investigación por la muerte del director de programación de la televisión al-Sharqiya, quien murió el martes de un disparo mientras conducía cerca de un convoy estadounidense. El domingo, tropas estadounidenses mataron a un editor de noticias de un canal de televisión local de Bagdad. Y el viernes, un reportero iraquí que trabaja para una agencia de noticias estadounidense murió de un disparo en Bagdad, se cree que por tropas estadounidenses. Las fuerzas militares de Estados Unidos aún no confirmaron las muertes. Según el Comité para la Protección de los Periodistas, al menos 45 periodistas y 20 trabajadores de los medios murieron mientras cubrían la guerra en Irak.

Por otra parte, la policía iraquí abrió fuego el martes contra un grupo de 2.000 manifestantes en la localidad de Samawa.
Un hombre murió de un disparo en la cabeza, y otros siete resultaron heridos. La manifestación fue organizada por trabajadores desempleados y algunos de los participantes lanzaron piedras a la policía.

Informe: Italia solicitará extradición de 13 agentes de CIA
Un funcionario de un tribunal italiano informó que Italia se prepara para solicitar la extradición de 13 funcionarios de la CIA acusados de secuestrar a un clérigo musulmán en las calles de Milán hace tres años. Los fiscales también solicitaron la colaboración de Interpol en la búsqueda de sospechosos, todos identificados como ciudadanos estadounidenses. Uno de los sospechosos mencionados es Robert Seldon Lady, ex jefe de la sección de la CIA en Milán.


España aprueba matrimonio homosexual
En España, el parlamento nacional aprobó un proyecto de ley para permitir que las parejas del mismo sexo se casen y adopten hijos. La votación tuvo lugar un día después de que los legisladores canadienses aprobaran una ley similar. Hasta el momento Holanda y Bélgica eran los únicos países del mundo que habían legalizado el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo.

Castro se reunió con Chávez y discutieron tratado de petróleo
El líder cubano Fidel Castro viajó a Venezuela, en lo que es su primer viaje al exterior desde 2003. Castro se reunió con el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez en una cumbre para discutir la creación de una alianza regional de petróleo que distribuya combustible más barato en el Caribe. Los mandatarios de Trinidad y Tobago, República Dominicana, Granada, Dominica y San Vicente y las Granadinas también asistieron a la cumbre. Chávez señaló que "es una cumbre histórica y como potencia petrolera mundial estamos extendiendo una mano".

Maria: Hello. In English, here are twelve headlines from Democracy Now! Read the headlines in English below and ask yourself "Is there anyone I can pass this on to?" Again, NBC owns Telumundo. What message is getting out to Spanish speaking people in this country and is there anyone you can alert to the fact that Democracy Now! is providing their headlines each day in Spanish and English for reading and listening to. Please get the word out.


Poll: 57% Feel Bush "Intentionally Misled" Nation on Iraq
Meanwhile a new Washington Post/ABC News poll has found that for the first time most Americans - - 57 percent - - believe the Bush administration "intentionally misled" the public in going to war in Iraq.

Poll: 42% Back Impeaching Bush If He Lied Over Iraq
A new Zogby polls shows that 42 percent of voters believe Congress should impeach President Bush if it is found that he did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq. While Democrats disproportionately favored impeachment, the poll found twenty-five percent of Republicans would back the measure if it were determined that Bush lied about Iraq. Calls for impeachment have increased since the Sunday Times of London published what is now known as the Downing Street Memo. The memo from the summer of 2002 outlined the Bush administration's position on Iraq. It said that the invasion of Iraq was inevitable and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed."

Italy Orders Arrest of 13 CIA Agents Over Kidnapping
An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents for illegally kidnapping a Muslim cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003 and then transferring him to Egypt where he was reportedly tortured. According to the Italian judge, the U.S. agents seized the man -- Hassan Osama Nasr -- as he walked from his home to a local mosque. He was then taken away in a white van to a joint U.S.-Italian base, then flown to a U.S. base in Germany and then onto Cairo. The cleric - who is also known as Abu Omar -- was never charged with a crime and has never appeared in a court of law. Once in Egypt, the cleric said he was beaten and given electrical shocks on his genitals. The kidnapping in Milan was reportedly done without the knowledge of the Italian government which had also been tracking Abu Omar with U.S. assistance. Italian officials complained that the kidnapping damaged ongoing efforts into terrorism investigations around Europe. This marks the first time a foreign government has filed criminal charges against US agents involved in counter-terrorism work abroad. Officials in Germany and Sweeden are also investigating similar cases where U.S. agents kidnapped wanted men. The U.S. describes the practice of seizing wanted individuals and then transferring them to third countries as extraordinary rendition. Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch described the issuing of the arrest warrants as a breakthrough. He said "Finally someone, somewhere may be held accountable for this shadowy program of 'renditions.' ... At long last, this warrant shows that no one is above the law, not even CIA agents."

Rumsfeld: Iraqi Resistance Could Last A Decade
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has admitted it could take another decade to quell the resistance in Iraq. Rumsfeld said Sunday, ''That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years." Rumsfeld also confirmed a report in the Sunday Times of London that U.S. officials have been secretly meeting with leaders of the Sunni resistance in an attempt to negotiate an end to the fighting.

Rumsfeld Urged to Launch Do Not Call List Over Recruiting
This new on military recruiting: A group of parents from the Leave My Child Alone coalition are calling on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today to establish a National Do Not Call List to safeguard family privacy from unwanted military recruitment. The request comes a week after it was disclosed that the Pentagon has teamed with a private marketing firm called BeNOW to form a massive database of high school and college students to target for recruitment purposes. The New York Times reports there are already 30 million names in the database. Megan Matson of the Leave My Child Alone coalition said, "Millions applauded when the FCC formed a Do Not Call List for consumers. Now we need the armed forces to create one to protect our children's privacy."

Zapatistas Announce Plan to Build Political Alliance
And this news from Mexico -- the Zapatista rebel army pledged Thursday to build a political alliance of the left. They plan send a delegation on a nationwide tour to drum up support ahead of next year's presidential race. The Zapatistas however said they would stay out of electoral politics because "we already know all candidates are neo-liberals." The group said they would push for a new constitution that "recognizes the rights and liberties of the people, and defends the weak against the powerful." The announcement came a week after the rebels declared a "red alert" to hold high-level internal discussions about the future of their movement, and three days after they said they would seek to move toward politics and away from armed conflict.

Bush Orders FBI Changes; ACLU Warns of "Secret Police Force"
President Bush has ordered a number of sweeping changes to the nation's intelligence services prompting civil liberties groups to warn that the country is moving closer to establishing a secret police force. Under the reorganization, the FBI will form a new National Security Service that will include counterintelligence, counterterrorism and intelligence divisions. In addition the country's spy chief John Negroponte will be given greater oversight power of the FBI. Negroponte -- who is the country's first director of national intelligence -- will have the authority to approve the hiring of the FBI's top national security official and will have the power to communicate with FBI agents and analysts in the field on intelligence matters. The changes are also intended to break down old walls between foreign and domestic intelligence activities. Civil liberties groups are warning the changes represent a radical step toward the creation of a secret police force in the United States. Timothy Edgar of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Washington Post, "Spies and cops play different roles and operate under different rules for a reason. The FBI is effectively being taken over by a spymaster who reports directly to the White House." Edgar went on to say, "It's alarming that the same person who oversees foreign spying will now oversee domestic spying." The changes put in place by Bush were based on recommendations made by a special intelligence commission headed by senior appellate judge Laurence Silberman and former senator Charles Robb.

U.S. Accused of Killing Three Iraqi Journalists
In Iraq, U.S. troops have killed as many as three Iraqi journalists over the past week. Reporters Without Borders have called for an investigation into the shooting death of the program director for al-Sharqiya television. He was shot dead on Tuesday while driving near a U.S. convoy. On Sunday, a news editor with a local Baghdad TV channel was shot dead by U.S. troops in the capital. And on Friday, an Iraqi reporter working for an American news organization was shot and killed in Baghdad, allegedly by U.S. troops. The U.S. military has not confirmed any of the killings. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 45 journalists and 20 media support workers have been killed while covering the war in Iraq.

Iraqi Police Open Fire On Protesters
Meanwhile on Tuesday Iraqi police opened fire on a group of 2,000 demonstrators in the town of Samawa. One man was shot in the head. Seven others were wounded. The demonstration was organized by unemployed workers. Some of the protesters threw rocks at the police.

Report: Italy to Seek Extradition of 13 CIA Agents
An Italian court official has said that Italy is preparing to request the extradition of 13 CIA officers accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan three years ago. Prosecutors also have asked the help of Interpol in tracking down the suspects, all identified as U.S. citizens. One of the suspects named was Robert Seldon Lady -- the former CIA station chief in Milan.

Spain Oks Same Sex Marriage
In Spain, the nation's parliament has approved a bill to allow same sex couples to marry and adopt children. The vote came just one day after Canadian legislators approved a similar law. Up until now the Netherlands and Belgium were the world's only nations that had legalized same sex marriage.


Castro Meets With Chavez; Discuss Oil Deal
And Cuban leader Fidel Castro has flown to Venezuela in his first trip abroad since 2003. Castro met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at a summit to discuss creating a regional oil alliance that would help distribute fuel more cheaply to the Caribbean. Also attending the summit were leaders of Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Chavez said, "It's a historic summit. As a world power in oil, we are extending them a hand."

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

Erika: It is war! It's war on who we are as the right gets ready to attack us all. Roe v. Wade will be only the first item on the cutting block if people don't stand up to Bully Boy. Kim Gandy [president of NOW] had an announcement I think the community should know about:

This is a state of emergency for women's rights. Sandra Day O'Connor broke down barriers for women as the first female Supreme Court justice -- and George W. Bush will try to replace her with a hard-right extremist justice who will put those barriers up again.
O'Connor has been the Court's swing vote on key issues like abortion rights, job discrimination and affirmative action. She was the deciding vote to uphold women's reproductive rights in the Court's most recent decision on that issue, Stenberg v. Carhart, which was decided 5-4.
With the resignation of O'Connor, George W. Bush will have the opportunity to replace a justice who has often made the difference in the preservation of essential rights with an anti-woman justice who could influence the court's decisions for the next 40 years.
President Bush has identified as his most admired justices arch-conservatives Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, whose radical ideologies make their decisions disastrous for the advancement of women.
This is not the time to play favorites. It's the supreme moment to play fair. Every member of the Senate will have to choose sides - either they will side with the bullies in the Republican leadership or they will take the side of our fundamental freedoms.
NOW is prepared to lead the fight against any nominee who would turn back the clock on our civil, economic, and reproductive rights -- and our supporters will be urging Senators to reject any nominee who is not committed to protecting those rights.
The character and record of anyone nominated to our nation's highest court must be thoroughly reviewed and considered by the Senate in their important "advice and consent" role. Any nominee must demonstrate the ability to separate his or her political ideology from the responsibility to fairly interpret the law - and uphold democracy's promise to protect the civil liberties of all people, not just the privileged few.
Bush will divide the country again if he makes this nomination process confrontational and controversial. After a close election, the country needs a justice with a sharp legal mind, strong personal ethics, and a commitment to upholding the rights and protections we take for granted in this country.
NOW is determined to make sure every person in this country understands what is at stake for our rights, our liberties, and our lives.

Lori: Thank you for steering to Christine with the first announcement. Ms. Musing was the resource and Christine the voice that most helped me through this dark, dark day.

Zach: Not only did Bill Scher [Liberal Oasis] have something to say worth hearing but it sent a message, to me anyway, by including him that this topic was open to all members who support choice. John Nicols has something online at The Nation that I'd note:

With O'Connor's exit, the court will move in one of two directions. No, not right or left. With O'Connor out, the court will either go backward or forward.
If President Bush nominates and the Senate confirms an activist soulmate for Scalia and Thomas, the court will not simply become more conservative.
It will move back toward the days before Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower used their nominations in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to wrench the judicial branch out of a dark and undistinguished past. Those selections made the Supreme Court a functional branch of government, rather than an obstructionist defender of an often corrupt old order.
People for the American Way President Ralph Neas put it best when he said Friday, "A Scalia-Thomas majority would not only reverse more than seven decades of Supreme Court legal precedents, but could also return us to a situation America faced in the first third of the 20th Century, when progressive legislation, like child labor laws, was adopted by Congress and signed by the President, but repeatedly rejected on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Court."

[Note Ralph Neas will be a guest on CBS's Face the Nation this Sunday.]

Brenda e-mailed to say there are no words for what she's feeling right now and highlights Ralph Neas' statement:

The American people deserve a serious national conversation about the impact of future Supreme Court justices on their lives, liberties, and legal protections. We hope that conversation will lead President Bush toward collaborative consultation with senators from both parties, and to the selection of a consensus nominee or nominees whose commitment to protecting Americans rights and freedoms will earn genuine bipartisan support.
If instead the President chooses a controversial nominee that does not meet those standards, Americans deserve to know what the fireworks are all about.
Justice O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and became one of its most powerful and widely respected justices. She played a crucial pivotal role at the center of a Court divided on many fundamental constitutional questions. This week she was part of a narrow majority reaffirming the constitutional principle of government neutrality toward religion. She voted to uphold some state restrictions on women’s access to abortion but consistently upheld the fundamental constitutional right to privacy in cases on reproductive choice. She cast the deciding vote to allow state universities to use affirmative action programs that create educational opportunities for a diverse student body. She upheld the authority of Congress to regulate campaign contributions to candidates and political parties. She sided with her more conservative colleagues on some “federalism” cases, but was not willing to pursue the more aggressive states’ rights agenda pushed by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. O’Connor was part of the 1986 majority in Bowers v Hardwick upholding state sodomy laws; in 2003 she was part of a 6-3 majority in Lawrence v Texas, overturning a Texas sodomy law specifically targeting gays, though she did not join the five-justice majority to overturn Bowers.
The influential role played by O’Connor, and the fact that there are likely to be more vacancies on the Court over the next few years, mean that the impact of President Bush’s nominees could be extraordinarily far-reaching and long-lasting. If O’Connor is replaced by a justice in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas, as President Bush has suggested and right-wing leaders are demanding, the consequences would be disastrous for many of the legal and social justice victories achieved over recent decades. And if new justices cement a Court majority for a backward-looking 19th Century view of the Constitution, future legislation protecting individual rights or the common good could be struck down as unconstitutional.
Many Supreme Court decisions upholding important constitutional principles such as privacy or equality under the law have been decided with only one or two vote majorities, almost always with O’Connor as the crucial vote. New appointees who share the judicial philosophies of Scalia and Thomas could overturn numerous Supreme Court rulings that enjoy broad popular support, including cases affirming the right to privacy, allowing affirmative action in higher education, protecting the rights under state law of individuals who are members of HMOs, and upholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to take action to reduce air pollution when a state fails to act. In fact, People For the American Way Foundation’s recently updated Courting Disaster report documents that a Court majority sharing the Scalia and Thomas judicial philosophies could overturn more than 100 Supreme Court precedents. (www.courtingdisaster.org)
This does not have to be – and should not be – a conversation only of, by and for lawyers. Questions that should be at the core of any confirmation process reach many Americans’ daily lives and personal concerns: Will the courts abandon their role in preserving Americans’ right to privacy and strip women of the constitutional right to make their own family planning and reproductive choices? Will Congress lose the power to protect Americans’ civil rights from abuses by state governments and others? Will state universities be prohibited from engaging in affirmative action to promote racial diversity? Will corporations gain excessive political and economic power? Will the Supreme Court further undermine the federal government’s ability to safeguard the air we breathe and the water we drink?
WHAT’S AT STAKE ON THE SUPREME COURT: AN OVERVIEW
The following information, excerpted from People For the American Way Foundation’s Courting Disaster, provides a brief summary of the ways in which a Supreme Court dominated by justices who share the judicial philosophies of Scalia and Thomas would alter the Court, and the Constitution.With the Court so closely divided on important constitutional issues, even one or two new far-right justice would be very damaging. Three or four who share Scalia’s and Thomas’ extreme views would spell disaster. During the past half-century, the Supreme Court protected individual rights and liberties in many critical areas. A few examples demonstrate the scope of the Court’s impact:
it struck down many practices related to elections and the political process that denied minorities the right to full, equal participation in our democracy;
it held that the Constitution protects Americans’ privacy, that women have a fundamental right to a safe, legal abortion, and that governments cannot criminalize adults’ private consensual sexual behavior;
it struck down the pernicious de jure racial segregation in our nation’s public schools;
it protected government employees from being fired or demoted for their political party affiliation.
A Scalia-Thomas majority would not only reverse more than seven decades of Supreme Court legal precedents, but could also return us to a situation America faced in the first third of the 20th Century, when progressive legislation, like child labor laws, was adopted by Congress and signed by the President, but repeatedly rejected on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Court.
A shift of one or two votes would reverse Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of reproductive freedom and the right to privacy. But that would just be the beginning. Among those rights that could be drastically redefined if just one or two hard-right justices join the Court are:
Privacy Rights:
Reversal of Lawrence v. Texas (2003) would authorize criminal prosecution of private sexual conduct by consenting adults. And reversal of Ferguson v. Charleston (2001) would allow hospitals to test pregnant women without their knowledge or consent for suspected drug use and give the results to police.
Civil Rights and Discrimination:
Reversal of Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ. (2005) would allow retaliation against those who complain about illegal sex discrimination in education. Reversal of Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) would forbid affirmative action by state universities. Reversal of J.E.B. v. Alabama (1994) would allow sex discrimination in jury selection.
Reversal of Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) would mean that improper and unnecessary institutionalization of disabled persons would no longer be considered a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”).
Church - State Separation:
Reversal of Lee v. Weisman (1992) and Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe (2000) would eliminate true government neutrality toward religion and authorize government-sponsored prayer at graduation and other public school events.
Workers’ Rights and Consumer Protection:
Reversal of Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990) would allow government employees to be fired for belonging to the “wrong” political party. And reversal of Rush Prudential HMO, Inc. v. Moran (2002) would invalidate important state laws protecting HMO patients’ rights in more than 40 states.
Environmental Protection:
Reversal of Alaska Department of Conservation v. EPA (2004) would strip the EPA of the authority to prevent damaging air pollution by industries when state agencies improperly fail to do so.
Campaign Finance Reform:
Reversal of the part of the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling that the far right opposes would invalidate limits on individual campaign contributions. And reversal of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003) would invalidate most of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, including its ban on political parties’ use of unlimited soft money contributions.

A Supreme Court with additional justices who do not meet consensus standards could radically rewrite our nation’s fundamental definitions of justice. This disturbing truth should figure prominently in any public debate over the courts and should give mainstream Americans of both parties reason to pause before accepting any nominee to the nation’s highest court who is not committed to upholding basic rights and legal protections that Americans cherish.
People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation have published more than 100 reports on judicial issues and nominees, including a number of potential Supreme Court nominees.
See www.pfaw.org.
For a recent in-depth memo on the constitutional requirement, precedents, and public support for President Bush choosing a consensus nominee rather than a political confrontation, see http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=18941
For PFAW Foundation’s 2005 Courting Disaster report,
see www.courtingdisaster.org.


Liang: NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tori: Didn't you get the memo? It doesn't matter. That's what I'm seeing as I go around to some sites on the left that whine about how O'Connor's step down is sucking the air out of this story or that. There's movie reviews, there's whining on other topics, but God forbid we give attention to a "side issue." And God forbid they expect my web traffic again after treating me and my concerns as second class and unworthy. This news that Bully Boy will be replacing O'Connor truly frightens the hell out of me. I'm sure males in this community will get that and be frightened because it will effect more than the issue of choice. But there are sites that are now on my sh*t list because this isn't "news" to them. They'll be all over the next departure, wait and see. But since O'Connor's taking with her any hope of privacy rights (which includes the rights for gays and lesbians) this is a "side issue." Fine, then make mine a to go order and I'll take my traffic to sites that don't expect me to order from a window while all the males, and women who'll keep their mouths shut, are allowed to sit at any table. Dismissals of this topic as news tell me all I need to know about who is with me on this battle and who's holding the knife they're about ram in my back.

???: At Big Brass Blog, Pam's had some posts that really spoke me today. I won't pick out one because there are so many. She gets how scary this is and she's hollering at the top of her lungs.
Why are so many silent on this?

Note: This is Fourth of July weekend, a lot of people are probably not posting. If someone's posting, as Tori notes in her comments, and they're not addressing this, I guess we'll read this as they don't give a damn. As for whether or not it's news, Supreme Court Justice is a lifetime appointment. If they've ever blogged on the Court -- a decision, a comment made by a judge -- then I have no idea why they aren't blogging on this. But if they're not blogging or if their posts went up early, you're probably dealing more with the fact that it's a holiday weekend and people were out the door before the news hit. They may also have gotten pulled into a meeting on this topic. (As did I which is one reason this post has been delayed. My apologies. The other reason is due to the large number of e-mails on this.)

Lloyd: Good news of the day comes via Atrios:

CNN just flashed up poll results regarding Roe. 65% want a justice who would uphold Roe. 47% of Republicans want a justice who would uphold Roe (verus 46% who want one who would overturn it).

Billie: I'm noting a lot of silence on this or a lot of a half-assed b.s. of I'll devote a paragraph to this just to get those feminists off my back. And I'm not just talking about men who are doing half-assed jobs. I guess George Lakoff hasn't "framed" the issue for them yet. The mantra must be "What Would Lakoff say?" Which brings me to what spoke to me. Thank you for the Third Estate Sunday Review's piece. I want to note one section and then another article that came out this month because they're on the same wavelength:

Karla has a story, every woman that chooses to have an abortion does. As "moderates" in the Democratic Party launch yet another attack on women's rights, people need to remember that reproductive rights are a battle we already fought and won. These men (and it's usually men) in the Democratic Party who want to "back off" from this issue have never faced a decision like Karla or any woman had to make. It's a privacy issue and whether a woman has been raped or not, she doesn't owe it to anyone to explain her decision to a judge, a Congressman or anyone.It's her body, it's her choice and she should be allow to make it.
Instead of caving yet again, "moderates" should try to find enough of a spine to endorse a position that more than half of America supports. We're not sure whether they find it personally distasteful or if it's just another case of some poll showed them they might be able to persuade a few religious freaks to vote for them. It doesn't matter. The battle for reproductive rights was a long one and we won. And if moderates think they're going to take that right away or move away from supporting it, we can draw the battle lines all over again.
Reproductive rights are not "on the table." The party needs to realize that and find it's spine.

Billie (con't): The second thing was Katha Pollitt's "If the Frame Fits...:"

In the wake of the 2004 election, Democrats have embarked on an orgy of what the linguist George Lakoff calls "reframing"--repositioning their policies linguistically to give them mass moral appeal. Prime candidate for a values makeover? Abortion, of course. It's as if the party, with its longstanding, if lukewarm, support for reproductive rights, were a family photo with Uncle Lou the molester right in the middle. Maybe if we cropped it to put him way off to the side? Or Photoshopped a big shadow onto his face? Or just decided to pretend he was nice Uncle Max? In "The Foreign Language of Choice," posted on AlterNet, Lakoff writes that he doesn't like "choice"--too consumerist. In fact, he doesn't even like "abortion"--too negative. He wants to "reparse" abortion in four ways. Dems should talk about it as an aspect of personal freedom from government interference, and as the regrettable outcome of right-wing opposition to sex ed and contraception. They should reclaim "life" by talking about the fact that "the United States has the highest rate of infant mortality in the industrialized world," thanks to poverty and lack of healthcare, which are the fault of conservatives, "who have been killing babies--real babies...[who] have been born and who people want and love" and damaging their health through anti-environmental policies that put toxins in mother's milk. Finally, they should talk about the thousands of women each year who become pregnant from rape: "Should the federal government force a woman to bear the child of her rapist?"
George Lakoff is really smart and eager to help, so why does this way of talking about "medical operations to end a pregnancy" make me want to reparse myself to a desert island? Is it the sly reference to rape victims coerced by the "federal government," object of much red-state loathing, when surely he knows that the relevant policies--on giving out emergency contraception in ERs for example, or using Medicaid funds for abortions--are set at the state level, like most abortion laws? Is it the singling out of rape victims as uniquely deserving, which tacitly accepts the conservative "frame" of abortion as a way for sluts to evade the wages of sin? In fact, most American voters who favor abortion restrictions already make an exception for rape. The ones who don't--the 11 percent who would ban abortion completely--have already framed it to their satisfaction: Yes, the government should force rape victims to carry to term because the "child" should not be murdered for its father's crime.

I had no idea that Lakoff was involved in the "framing of abortion." It figures. Lakoff "is really smart" but the idea that he's going to speak to all is doubtful and members have raised this issue from the beginning which is why we've dealt with it (and the framing craze) from the beginning.
Racial and sexual minorities have not felt welcomed by the framing. Women have not felt welcomed by the framing. Straight talkers have not felt weclomed by the framing. The list is endless and it continues to be a topic each week in e-mails. So my hunch is Lakoff can speak to and for a certain white, straight, upper-middle class, standard to Norman Rockwell-ish childhood, male. The idea that any one person can speak for all of us is insane. The idea (and Rebecca's noted this as well) goes against marketing among other things. But Lakoff's become a flavor of the month for many months. It's really easy to whine about "the message" instead of dealing with the realities of a crumbling party infrastructure, a presidential campaign that ignored many issues, sell outs who make it hard for people to see a difference in either of the two major parites . . . Instead of dealing with reality, it's real easy to deal with "the message."

Framing wasn't discovered by Lakoff. (Nor was the notion that abortion is a privacy right -- again, Sarah Weddington argued that in Roe v. Wade.) It's always existed. And it's largely existed in the negative to play gatekeeper. "This isn't important!" "That isn't news!" Journalists have "framed" for years. In addition anyone offering an opinion or even writing a history book is framing by what they include and what they don't. The press refers to it as the "angle."

Lakoff's attempted to get the Democratic Party to think about how they speak and that's a good thing. But for all the hop on the framing bandwagon, we haven't seen it used effectively by our elected officials in anything that gives me hope. What we've seen is straight talk from a Barbara Boxer or a John Conyers be embraced by warmly (by grassroots Democrats as well as by third party members).

I haven't read Lakoff's writing (ever) and have no interest in doing so. It's Reinventing Government all over again where we're presented with two choices this or that and "this" will save us! He seems intelligent in interviews but he often misses the point and if he's prompted the "abortion is a 'side issue'" concept that so many have lept on, there's no reason community members have had no use for his advice from day one. Fifteen years from now, people will look back at this decade's hula hoop the same way they look back at Reinventing Government and wonder why they got so caught up in all the excitement. (My opinion.)

Jim: We've hit a record for number of e-mails in our account. I grabbed Ava's day to help her out so there wouldn't be many personal responses even if we hadn't topped over 500. But "for the record," I want something cleared up. C.I. participated in that story. I went through our first note to the readers and see it's not even noted there. Here's the story:
C.I. came to speak to a group I belong to. During the talk, I was thinking, "Sounds just like C.I."
After the talk, I made breezy conversation and then said, "You're C.I.!" The shocked look gave the answer. Dona, Ty and Jess and I had been thinking of doing a blog for some time. We were early members of the community and remain members. We had C.I. there and were just piling on the questions. Dona made the point that now was the time to quit talking and do the site because we could actually have input from C.I. that weekend. Which is what we did. Jess mentioned that Dona's roommate and fellow journalism major Ava should be brought on board.
Ava was very shy and we had no interest she'd be interested, but she was. So we all got together and turned out that first issue. Ava knew "Karla." I scared "Karla" off with big talk of how important her story was and how much it could help others. C.I. and Ava repaired that. (I've learned to hold back on the enthusiasm now that I know it can scare people off.) During the interview, we all participated and during the writing of the article we all participated. So "for the record," C.I. was a part of that article and a part of every article in that first edition. The TV review is the perfect example. We hated Joey (and still do). C.I. and Ava were making jokes about the show. We were eager to rip the show apart, Dona, Ty, Jess and myself, because it was so much nonsense. But that's where Ava and C.I. paired up as writing partners and started their feminist critiques of TV that we gladly offer each week. Back then, we'd nod along with some observation they made, usually funny, about the sexism of the a but that was the first thing we struck from the review. Why? We didn't realize what we had going. When later on, in another review, we struck a point of Ava's that was really important to her, C.I. argued for it to be put back in (it was) and that's when they really ran the TV reviews. The reaction from readers demonstrated something we hadn't grasped yet, Ava and C.I. know what they're doing and they're speaking with a unique voice. When we finally grasped the obvious, we bowed out to let them do what they do so well. This is "for the record" and I expect it all to be noted, C.I. I'll also add that we will be addressing the topic of abortion at The Third Estate Sunday Review. As usual, we've got ideas but nothing on paper. A lot of that comes from the fact that we're completely thrown by the news of today. We were prepared for Bully Boy to replace a right wing zealot. We had no idea he'd first get a crack at replacing a swing vote on the Court. These are scary times and they just got scarier. But to everyone writing in with so many complimentary things about our article, be sure to thank C.I. as well.


Wally: You think it ain't getting any worse then you hear today's news. I'll note that there's a petition at MoveOn.org and that the idea of a right wing zealot turning us back to the Dark Ages just destroyed my weekend.

Brandon: Want another reason why Jude should be on Air America? I heard repeat after repeat today. Is this a "news network" or the Comedy Channel? They pulled this crap at Christmas today and the point was made then that they needed to bring on guest hosts and not march off on holiday. They blew today away when people needed more than Al Franken's lame jokes in repeats. When you posted the announcement, where did you get the information? From The Diane Rehm Show which was what? Live. Diane Rehm can still go in after all this time and do a show. Pampered souls of Air America apparently need Fridays (and additional days because it's been repeat city for most of the week) off to celebrate Monday's Fourth of July. They want listeners to make them the first stop and have impact and influence the debate. You don't do that by broadcasting dead air and that's what it is when you're running old repeats. Comedy Central was too generous so strike that, they're TV Land. Next time everyone puts in requests for holiday leave, Air America needs to line up guest hosts. They can start with Jude. Tonight's Majority Report could have been Bill Scher and Jude sitting in for Sam and Janeane. It would have been informative and it would have allowed the issues of the day to be addressed. I don't begrudge anyone time off. I do fault the network for thinking that when we've just learned Bully Boy just got a crack at a lifetime appointment, politically interested Americans are dying to hear repeats served up hour after hour. The message from the network seems to be "We're here to fight! Right after we get back from vacation!" "From the network."
People deserve time off. The audience, however, does not deserve nonstop repeats on a day when major news is breaking. Line up substitute hosts.

Susan: What is there to say about today's news except "Get ready for the fight of our lives!"?
I've gone from depressed to hopeful and back again. This has been one of the most stressful days of my life thus far this year. I couldn't even turn on the radio or put on some music. I just wanted to be surrounded by a calming, reassuring quiet.

Gina: Christine did post the poll story you excerpted, "The Polls Speak: Americans Support Abortion." Thank you for noting it before it was online because there will be talk of "Oh, we need to step away from abortion" all over again. If I can do a plug, Krista and I are working on a special edition round-robin with activism ideas and resources. So for members who get the round-robin, we hope to have that out Saturday afternoon at the latest. We've drafted Eli, Rebecca, Kat, Ruth, Keesha and Wally to help us with that. And we're all about to be on conference call. Rebecca had a great point this week about asking yourself what you could do and then doing it. However small you might think it is, do it. It will have some impact on others and it will free you to think of other actions you can take.

Ethan: A voice that really speaks to me is Ruth. And though she hasn't weighed in on this, I want to thank her because I've been off the last two days and just puttering around the house, painting the trim, mowing the yard and really laying back. (I haven't clicked on one link offered here in the last two days to show you how lazy I've been.) But her entry this morning made me think, "I really should listen to The Diane Rehm Show today." I took the portable radio out to the backyard this morning to listen while I was raking and when Diane Rehm said what the Associated Press was reporting, I couldn't believe it. I guess I was shocked because I kept raking and shaking my head. Then she brought it up again saying it was confirmed and I still couldn't believe it. I came inside and my wife asked if I was okay thinking I looked so out of it because of the heat. I told her it was bad news on the radio but wouldn't say what because I wanted to believe I'd heard it wrong. I'm at the computer and she's asking what was the news?
So I tell her. And am headed to yahoo. She says, "Go to C.I." and sure enough there was the announcement. We're pulling from the midday entry to make our own list of resources to hand out at our cookout. I guess we're doing what everyone is doing and just trying to make sure people get what is at stake. My wife said she felt like the start of The Pelican Brief when they hear the judge has died. We just can't believe it. But let Ruth know that I was listening to Diane Rehm because of her head ups and to keep on posting because her voice speaks to me.

Demetreka: Hands off my body! That's all I've got to say the Bully Boy and any bullsh*t nominee he wants to propose.

Julia: I've known Roe v. Wade hung by one vote for sometime. I've voted accordingly and donated accordingly. So it's not like the news this morning was completely unexpected. So why do I feel so ill prepared? I've never felt less safe in my own country.

Marci: I was at the sink washing glasses for the party this weekend and half listening to Diane [Rehm] while thinking about: who was coming, who would fail to show at the last minute, who would bring along guests without a heads up . . . What did Diane just say? I turned off the water and walked into the living room thinking either I heard it wrong or Diane got her judges mixed up and would quickly correct herself. I had heard it. Diane wasn't wrong. And at some point, I broke my coffee table. I don't even remember that. I just remember yelling at the top of my lungs. When I stopped yelling, besides being embarrassed, I saw the coffee table was broken.
I'm not a violent person. I am not proud of my reaction. But that was my reaction.

Paula: My reaction? Pack everything up and get the hell out before the American Taliban close the borders.

Rachel: Thank Martha for the suggestion of posting the review of Simpleton Simpson and Lackadaisical Lachey. I needed that laugh damn bad. I've been a zombie today. On the phone I've been all "uh-huh" and "okay" and had no idea what anyone was saying. Friday morning, I start out thinking, "I'm off Monday! I'm off Monday!" and a few hours later the whole world crashes. I didn't emerge from my stupor until I started laughing. Now I'm ready to fight.

Annie: As someone who spoke out and, with many, many other women, fought the original battle for control of our own bodies, I can't believe the day we all feared is now here. I'm mad at O'Connor for retiring. I'm mad at John Kerry for not making abortion a campaign issue. I'm pretty well mad at the whole damn world right now. We didn't not fight and win this battle so that some pampered, prep school punk could come along and tell us he owned our bodies.

Denise: My reaction has been tears. I'll just start crying and won't even know I'm crying until the tears hit my cheeks. I feel like I'm grieving.

Kimberly: With me, you guess right. I was listening to Diane Rehm because of Ruth's heads up. I was at work and just staring into space. I had to go to my boss and say "Can I please go on break early." The worst thing about today's news for me was having to stay at work when I wanted to be home rounding up friends to figure out what we could do, what we should do.
I'm one of the members who is checking the site from work and I do appreciate that efforts are made to keep it work-place safe. I didn't see a word that would lead to a write up in the Third Estate Sunday Review article but I agree with you on that, if there was one, people would just have to deal with it.

Joey: My reaction today was to read the announcement right after it must have went up because no one at work knew anything about it. And my second reaction was, "What kind of morons do I work with?" Eight people asked me, "Who is Sandra Day O'Connor?" Of the eight, four of them then said, "Does it really matter?" after I explained who she was. I'm the youngest one in my office, 21, and there are all these jokes made about it. Or put downs like, "Well when you have a family . . ." or "When you're my age . . ." I can put up with that crap, I need the pay check. But I never realized what uninformed morons I worked with until today and if that sounds mean feeling so alone at work today, surrounded by supposedly educated people, wasn't exactly "welcoming."

Cedric: There's a big religious wing-nut at my job. She always says things at the office parties like, "Easter's not really about candies or a bunny, you do know about Jesus, don't you?" And she'll tell this interracial couple that she's prarying for them because they've gone against "God's teachings." Or she'll hand slip a "Pray for Our President" handout on your desk when you've stepped out of the office. This is who broke the news to me. She comes into my cubicle smiling so happy and all excited. I thought maybe that guy she's been engaged to for the last seven years had finally proposed and was feeling kind of happy about that because she "only works" because she's not married. And she'll tell anyone at work that. And tell women who are married that she's praying for them. Then she opens her big mouth and breaks the news about O'Connor. "Jesus is smiling on us again!" she get chirping. Then she adds that O'Connor's sick and God's given her that "gift" (illness) because she didn't live up to his teachings. I just started yelling, "Get out! Get out! Get out!" It's Jurrassic Park time now as we get shoved back to the Stone Age. They'll go after Roe v. Wade first, then they'll go after affirmative action, then they'll go after the gay and lesbians, just the whole check list. And if you're black, you better not think that there's anyone who's going to rush to save you. This is war on the American people and they just declared it.

Jill: How do I feel? Enraged, betrayed, and abused. If Democrats in the Senate don't filibuster each and every anti-choice nominee Bully Boy trots out, they can consider me gone to the Green Party. I don't care if we end up with an eight justice Court.

Note: We have had an eight justice Court and people should be aware of that now. Currently O'Connor states that she'll continue to serve until Bully Boy gets his pick. If she changes her mind, and there may be pressure put on her to change, you know that the talking point will be:
"There are only eight justices! We can't have that! What happens if there's a tie!"

If there's a tie, the lower courts ruling stands. I'll pull out my Constitutional Law text books this weekend but it was either the tail end of the sixties or the early seventies when a confirmation was not being made and the Supreme Court was hearing rulings with only eight judges sitting on it.

Mike: Disgutsted. And I guess all the moves to the "center" on abortion by our cowardly elected officials will make it that much hard for us to wage the battle that needs to be waged. Also, call Mike of Mikey Likes It! "Mike." I can go by Michael. It'll be less confusing.

(Will do. Thank you, Michael.)

Karen: The Green Party doesn't have anything up yet on O'Connor's retiring but their web site is http://www.gp.org/ and member may want to bookmark it because if Dick Durbin's cave is any indication, the Democrats will let their supporters down yet again. Check out the Green Party.

Tammy: Christine was a good site to steer people to. Via Christine, here's what inspired me the most today, Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal:

With Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation, President Bush could reverse 32 years of freedom and progress for women. Women who have the most to lose will be the strongest voice in the debate over this Supreme Court fight. This time, for once, we will not be ignored. Let there be no mistake about it, the feminist movement today is declaring a state of emergency to save the court for women's rights.
Twenty four years ago, as president of the National Organization for Women I testified for Sandra Day O'Connor before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I knew then that O'Connor, although a conservative voice, would be one who would not permit the elimination of women's fundamental rights, including the right to privacy. Indeed the National Organization for Women played a pivotal role in the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor – she was nominated in 1981 at the height of the Equal Rights Amendment campaign.
One of the reasons she was nominated is that NOW stood outside the White House with thousands of people demanding that President Reagan nominate a woman, and a woman who would not turn her back on the women of the nation. Even a very conservative President heard our voices. And we must make our voices so loud today another ultra conservative President will hear our voices.
We had then, and we have now, the power of the gender gap to save women's lives ... and we intend to use it. We will begin from this conference by a march Saturday, July 2nd to the Tennessee legislative capital so that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) will hear our voices.


Now for what Shirley's dubbed the "American Idol" vote. In a recent post on something that members weighed in on, I noted that a number had just e-mailed they supported it or they were against it. Shirley, rightly, pointed out that this "American Idol" vote is a vote. So here are the results of the 753 e-mails (that's the total plus however many are quoted above) on this topic (numercial breakdown):

28 need more time to figure out what they think or to sort it through.

8 members noted that while this is important, they don't think it should be the sole focus of this site for the weekend. (They may or may not be disappointed.)

3 members didn't not want it discussed further. (One of which noted that it was because the entire thing was too depressing.)

714 were upset by O'Connor's retirement and want this topic on the front burner.

Note that there are e-mails that have come in since this post was started. But it's taken several hours just to pull from the e-mails to get the quotes above. So it's first out of the gate. I've been up 23 hours straight now. (I'll do the post on the Times as soon as this goes up.) (Time on the post, time stamp, is put in place when it's begun, not when it's finished.) If I didn't offer a link that I should have to something above, my apologies. I'm really exhausted and flying on caffeine from diet sodas. I'll be working with The Third Estate Sunday Review tomorrow so posts here may be hit and run and spotty. But we'll continue to focus on this topic.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
 

Articles of note in this morning's New York Times include Carlotta Gall's "U.S. Troops Still Missing After Crash in Afghanistan:"


Still searching for a small reconnaissance team, hundreds of United States troops swarmed the mountainous terrain of eastern Afghanistan on Friday, near where a helicopter was shot down on Tuesday, killing all 16 aboard, military officials said.
The helicopter, a Chinook MH-47 with Navy Seal commandos and other Special Operations personnel aboard, was flying in to extract the reconnaissance team during a battle with insurgents suspected as members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, said Lt. Col. Gerry O'Hara, a military spokesman at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. The Chinook came under small-arms fire and was hit by a larger projectile, most likely a rocket-propelled grenade, and crashed, the military has said.

Note that David S. Cloud contributed to the report.

Marica e-mails to note Elisabetta Povoledo's "Italian Leader Chastises U.S. in Kidnapping Case in Milan:"

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded Friday that the United States show "full respect" for Italian sovereignty, after summoning the American ambassador and asking him to explain the reported abduction of a Muslim cleric by people associated with the C.I.A.
Mr. Berlusconi told the ambassador, Mel Sembler, that he "demanded full respect for Italian sovereignty from the United States," according to a curt statement released by the prime minister's office. He also reassured Mr. Sembler that relations between the countries remained strong.

Zach e-mails to note Lizette Alvarez's "A Scotsman With the Gifts of Gab and Jab:"


INCORRIGIBLE to the core, George Galloway is used to being threatened, ousted, libeled, filleted in the press and just plain reviled.
Over the years, the grand-père terrible of British politics has been called corrupt and treacherous; labeled an apologist for Saddam Hussein, a claim he forcefully rejects; portrayed as a Louis Vuitton-toting Socialist; and dismissed as a self-aggrandizing Labor Party turncoat.
"I could show you my scars," Mr. Galloway, 50, said from inside the ramshackle room where he sat, the stubby end of his Montecristo cigar a reassuring arm's reach away. "I am swimming against the stream. As Dr. Johnson once said, 'The grimmest dictatorship is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy,' and I am fighting that orthodoxy. It's not that I relish it. It's that I am not afraid of it."
But since his appearance in May before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, where to the delight of many here and in America he flung scorn at two senators over Iraq, vilification has shifted to a modicum of admiration (even if it is grudging, at least in Britain).
Mr. Galloway, who is accused by the Senate subcommittee of enriching himself through the scandal-plagued oil-for-food program, volunteered to testify. Then, he swiftly turned the tables, he said. Entering the room, "not as the accused, but as the accuser," he ripped into the senators for ignoring central questions about Iraq and conducting what he called "the mother of all smokescreens."

From Adam Liptak we get an update on the Plame outing, in terms of Matthew Cooper (Time) and Judith Miller (goes without saying) in "Reporters Facing Jail Time Submit Preferences:"

In her papers, Ms. Miller argued that it was pointless to imprison her because she will never talk. She provided Judge Hogan with letters from soldiers with whom she was embedded during the war in Iraq attesting to that.

Tolerate her or hate her, Miller at least appears to realize how she needs to fight this. (Liptak's doing a straightforward report this morning, by the way. So consider that noted as well.) If the paper won't help her (Liptak does no harm in his report today), looks like Miller's finally ready to fight her own battle the way it should be fought.

Demonstrating that he is the Stephen King of the press set, Woody's hawking his latest, a book on Mark Felt. It's called Tuesdays With Tyranny. No, I jest. It's called How to Turn a Bully Into a National Hero. Again, I jest. But we won't print the title here nor we will help get the word out on his book. (Read Michael Janofsky's article if you're interested in the book.) From the start of the "news" (which appears to be less precise than originally reported, no surprise), we've noted the troublesome issues of Felt's actions at the F.B.I. We stand behind that judgement. Others can rush to praise him as a "national hero." That's their business. Here we don't applaud the destruction of civil rights. Jennifer Dorhn was but one victim. We don't have short memories and we know the time period. Felt was no hero. He and Nixon had an inter-mural squabble and the country benefitted (sports analogy! I'm tired). Daniel Schorr was probably correct (my opinion) in his assumption/evaluation that it had to do with Felt being passed over. As one of several people who were Deep Throat (if you missed that, it wasn't trumpted as loudly, Felt couldn't have passed on all that Deep Throat did or been working alone), he's earned a place in history. But he had already had a place in history and it's far less noble than the illusion of Deep Throat. After becoming "Deep Throat," he never rejected his past actions but defended them. That is not a hero in my book. Apparently it is in Woody's. But then we have him to thank for Janet Cook which says about all that needs to be said there.

If I pick up the book at all, it will be to read Carl Bernstein's breif section ("A Reporter's Assessment") and, due to it's brevity, I'll read that in store.

Neil A. Lewis offers a run down in "In List of Potential Justices, Many Kinds of Conservative."

I'm phoning it in this morning. (Thank yous, big ones, to Zach and Marcia for picking a highlight each.) I have yet to get any sleep since getting up Friday morning. There will be posts throughtout the next few days. We are not on holiday.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
 

The O'Connor Court.
The phrase has been used so many times over so many years to describe the Supreme Court that it is nearly a cliché. Yet the simple words capture an equally simple truth: to find out where the court is on almost any given issue, look for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
If you are a lawyer with a case at the court, pitch your arguments to her. If your issue is affirmative action, or religion, or federalism, or redistricting, or abortion, or constitutional due process in any of its many manifestations, you can assume that the fate of that issue is in her hands. Don't bother with doctrinaire assertions and bright-line rules. Be meticulously prepared on the facts, and be ready to show how the law relates to those facts and how, together, they make sense.
And it is because Justice O'Connor has played such a pivotal role on the court for much of her 24-year tenure that her unexpected retirement is such a galvanizing event. Much more than the widely anticipated retirement of the predictably conservative Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, her departure creates an opportunity for President Bush to shape the court.



The above is from Linda Greenhouse's "O'Connor Held Balance of Power" in this morning's New York Times. It's our spotlight as the article in the paper this morning most worth noting. If you're someone who goes to the links and you haven't already read it, go to the article. If you're a member who never clicks on the links (and that's not a problem) just note the above and hopefully it gives you an idea of where the analysis was headed.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[Note: This entry originally appeared at The Common Ills.]

The Sunday Chat and Chews, is life so slow and pointless that you're truly considering partaking of them this weekend?

All shows air on Sunday, check your local listings for time.

We'll start with NBC's Meet the Press and since some members care about it (and since it will be discussing the O'Connor resignation) and since it will be providing Nina Totenberg (NPR) as a guest, we'll be nice enough to even note the air times for this week:

** PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO WIMBLEDON COVERAGE, MEET THE PRESS WILL AIR AT A SPECIAL EARLY TIME THIS SUNDAY.
Baltimore, MD 8:00 AM
Oklahoma City, OK 7:00 AM
Chicago, IL 7:00 AM
Omaha, NE 7:00 AM
Cincinnati, OH 8:00 AM
Palm Beach, FL 8:00 AM
Dallas, TX 7:00 AM
Philadelphia, PA 8:00 AM
Denver, CO 11:00 PM
Phoenix, AZ 5:00 AM
Des Moines, IA 7:00 AM
Salt Lake City, UT 6:00 AM
Hartford, CT 8:00 AM
San Diego, CA 5:00 AM
Kansas City, MO 7:00 AM
San Francisco, CA 5:00 AM
Las Vegas, NV 5:00 AM
Seattle, WA 5:00 AM
Los Angeles, CA 5:00 AM
St. Louis, MO 7:00 AM
Memphis, TN 7:00 AM
Tampa, FL 3:30 PM
Miami, FL 8:00 AM
Washington, DC 8:00 AM
Milwaukee, WI 7:00 AM
New York, NY 8:00 AM

PLEASE CONSULT OUR WEBSITE (www.mtp.msnbc.com) OR LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THE AIR TIME IN MORE MARKETS

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R - PA) Chairman, Judiciary Committee
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D - VT) Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee
SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD (D - CT)Foreign Relations Committee
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R - NE) Foreign Relations CommitteeSelect Committee on Intelligence
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R - CA)Chairman, House Armed Services Committee
PETE WILLIAMS NBC News Justice Correspondent
NINA TOTENBERG National Public Radio Legal Affairs Correspondent
JOHN HARWOOD Wall Street Journal National Political Editor

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, announced her retirement this morning, paving the way for an intense confirmation battle over the president's nominee to fill her seat on the Court. The two men that will lead that confirmation process will also lead off "Meet the Press" this Sunday: the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

Then, as the United States prepares to celebrate its Independence Day, the war in Iraq still dominates the hearts and minds of the American public. Did President Bush's address to the nation buoy support for the war? And how will American and Iraqi forces counter the strength of the insurgency? We will ask three key members of Congress this Sunday in an exclusive joint interview: Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) of the Foreign Relations Committee, and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA).

And a special "Meet the Press Roundtable" will share insights and analysis into Justice O'Connor's legacy, potential nominees for the Court and the politics of the confirmation process. We will be joined by two experts on the Court, NBC's Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and NPR's Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg as well as John Harwood of the Wall Street Journal who is following the behind the scenes battle as liberal and conservative interest groups try to shape the future direction of the Court.

Nina Totenberg's a strong legal analyst. I might be tempted to watch. But anyone else notice that of eight guests, Totenberg's the only woman?

Host a roundtable on choice and make Gloria Steinem one of the guests and Meet the Press can make up a very obvious omission that they should have caught themselves. For those wanting to get in touch with their inner masochists vicariously, check out the segment with Duncan Hunter since there's a good chance he'll wimp out again and Russert will eat him alive.

Over at CBS, Face the Nation this Sunday offers:

Host:
CBS Evening News Anchor Bob Schieffer
*CBS News Chief White House Correspondent John Roberts Substituting*
Topic:
The Supreme Court
Guests:
Sen. Joseph Biden
Democrat - Delaware
Judiciary Committee
Sen. Orrin Hatch
Republican - Utah
Judiciary Committee
Ralph Neas
President & CEO, People For The American Way
Jay Alan Sekulow
Chief Counsel, American Center For Law And Justice
Jan Crawford Greenburg
The Chicago Tribune

I don't know about you, but when I think about the issue of choice and the Court & women, I think Joe Biden. Don't you? I mean wasn't he just amazing in the Hill-Thomas hearings? Oh wait, he wasn't. You're right. So what the hell's he doing on? Apparently Barbara Boxer, Patty Murray and others are press shy? Who knew!

Isn't it so 1992? The issue does effect us all, I'll grant you that, but where are the women? Token's on a topic they should be front in center on.

I'd hoped ABC's This Week would give viewers something to be excited about. Perhaps it still might. But apparently, ratings be damned, it's not all that interesting in attracting viewers.
Which would explain why, as it's after midnight in New York, no e-mail from This Week has been sent out. And on their web site they advise you to check back on Friday to find out who the guests will be.

With This Week not weighing in, if I watched one show this Sunday, it would be Meet the Press to hear Totenberg. And note, she's not there to offer opinion. She's their as a reporter who's covered the Court for some time. Point, there's not one woman who's brought on to offer an opinion. Booking only male reps will lead to that.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.