Darkstar

George W does not stand for Women

baltimoresun.com - Anti-woman deeds louder than words

NEW YORK - There has been quite a bit of chatter on the Web about how President Bush is trying to portray his middle initial, W, as standing for "women" and attempting to cast his agenda in a pro-woman light. While no elected official will ever declare that he is "anti-woman," it is difficult to see the Bush agenda from any other perspective.

Whether it's the gag rule on women's health clinics overseas or messing with breast cancer research here at home, the Bush administration has systematically degraded services and science that benefit women. In an election where women will play an influential swing-voter role, this is an important story to get out, and Carmen Barroso of International Planned Parenthood is just the woman for the job.

Electoral Voting Reform

TomPaine.com - Flunking College

With ABC's The Note   predicting today that "Whoever wins the electoral votes of 2 out of 3 (or 3 out of 3) of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida will be the next president of the United States," Democrats should be worried. Here, the Center for Voting and Democracy offers a feasible solution to the problems of the anti-democratic Electoral College system.

Rob Richie is executive director of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Steven Hill is the Center's senior analyst and author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics.

what's going on?

AlterNet: Election 2004: The frightened, the clueless, and the 'f word'

There are too many interesting things going on this week to simply focus on one. So here's a smattering of stories about the frightened, the clueless, and the "f word":

I'll spare you the jokes about how the controversy over "F-9/11" is "heating up" but the particulars are worth a mention. The Federal Elections Commission, in addition to its own internal recommendation that it prevent "F-9/11" ads after July 30 from mentioning Bush (or using his image), is considering a complaint, filed by a Republican group, alleging that the film amounts to a glorified campaign ad and as such violates campaign finance laws. Yeah, I'm sure that's what McCain-Feingold had in mind...

DailyKos reports that Ralph Nader is getting some much needed help in building a strong and lasting progressive movement -- from conservative groups in Oregon. From a "Citizens for a sound Economy" phone banking script: "Ralph Nader needs 1,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot and we need to ensure he gets them...Ralph Nader is undoubtedly going to pull some very crucial votes from John Kerry, and that could mean the difference in a razor-thin Presidential election."

Finally, the latest Gallup poll brings good tidings to Kerry and anyone interested in removing the Bush. In a space of three weeks, Americans went from believing that it was not a mistake to send troops to Iraq by a margin of 58-41, to believing that it was, 54-44. Even more devastating for Bush is the fact that these numbers precede the devastating events of the past couple of days. The number of registered voters who believe the war has made us safer has gone from 56% in December to 37% now.

But the bottom line is how the states line up. According to poll-expert Ruy Teixeira: "Bush (is) ahead by 8 points in the solid red states (won by Bush by 5 points or more in 2000), but Kerry (is) ahead by 14 in the solid blue states (won by Gore by more than 5 points) and ahead by 9 in the purple states (decided by less than 5 points in 2000). And Kerry is carrying independents nationwide by 10 points and moderates by 24 points."

So what's it all add up to? Bush gets all snippety with an Irish journalist who, unlike too many of his American counterparts, has the gall to seek an actual answer to his question while Cheney opts to keep it simple telling Sen. Patrick Leahy to "F--- yourself."

Why the Right has not gotten around to hating Kerry.. yet

The Gadflyer: I Want My Kerry Hatred!

It's been five months since John Kerry won the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary and thus became the all-but-inevitable Democratic nominee, and it seems that the Right has been slacking off. Where are the anti-Kerry books? The conspiracy theories? The intimations of murder and drug-running? The maniacal ravings of the unhinged Right we've come to know and love? Paul Waldman examines why the Right is still so focused on Bill Clinton. He says the Right has not gotten to know Kerry yet, but who has?

Dysfunctional Government

A Near Miss for Key Rights

Turley—a law professor at George Washington University—reminds us that the framers created Congress as a check on presidential power. In the politically charged climate after 9/11, however, he faults the Senate and the House for being "absent without constitutional leave" in the war on terror. That left the court to limit the president's power. Yet, says Turley, it may have proved to be the most dysfunctional of all the branches in its reasoning and results

Pictures of F911 Opening Night

Opening Night Pictures of the Honolulu show just got posted on Michael Moore's website. Check out pictures from all the opening nights across America.

jane's mehndi resources

jane's mehndi resources is a good link to the wonderful word of Henna and Mehndi resources. Beautiful body art that last 2-3 weeks. Grrr. There is a great community out there providing tons of free information on how to mix henna, apply and care for each application. Go on, give it a try.

Small campaigns and technology

Kayne McGladrey has an interesting offer out to Washington Democratic candidates. "Would the public read the web log of a local candidate? And would a local candidate periodically write on a community web log?" The response is sort of disturbing... and shows that politicians are still stuck in the 1990's when it comes to approaches to campaigning. Kayne quotes Einstein:

Einstein, who's not often thought of when discussing politics, said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result each time.By following the same tired but true approach, established politicians risk that another insurgent campaign like Howard Dean's will succeed by engaging voters where others have failed. The question is simply a matter of who's going to be first, and what side of the aisle they're sitting on.

ABA: End Mandatory Minimum Prison Terms

A report released by the ABA (American Bar Association) suggest that mandatory sentences should be abolished along with a host of other recommendations. One of the most alarming statistic from the report is that:

Based on current trends, a black male born in 2001 has a one in three chance of being imprisoned during his lifetime, compared with a one in six chance for a Latino male and one in 17 for a white male, the report noted.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said Wednesday that society should re-examine how it spends money and makes choices about who goes to prison, how long they stay and what happens when they get out.

He accepted the first copy of a report from the American Bar Association, which found that many get-tough approaches to crime don't work and some, such as mandatory minimum sentences for small-time drug offenders, are unfair and should be abolished.

Eight in 10 Support Climate Change Legislation

U.S. Newswire - Eight in 10 Support McCain-Lieberman Climate Change Legislation; Majority Willing to Accept Increased Costs of $15 a month

Contact: Steven Kull of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 202-232-7500 WASHINGTON, June 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Eighty-one percent of Americans polled said that they support the targets of the legislation, commonly known as the McCain-Lieberman legislation or the Climate Stewardship Act, which calls for large companies to reduce their emissions to year 2000 levels by 2010 and to 1990 levels by 2020. When told it has been estimated that this would increase costs to the average American household by about $15 a month, 67 percent still said they would support it. If a candidate would support the legislation, 52 percent said this would increase their likelihood of voting for him or her, while just 14 percent said that it would decrease the likelihood (no effect: 32 percent). These are some of the findings of a new PIPA-Knowledge Networks poll of 753 Americans nationwide conducted June 8-14 (margin of error plus or minus 3.6 percent). Other highlights include: