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Via Houston Chronicle:

A Houston judge who declared a death penalty unconstitutional Thursday clarified his ruling in an impromptu hearing Friday, saying he ruled a procedures surrounding a process in Texas are illegal. …Fine maintained at a hearing that he believes innocent people have been executed.

Fine’s clarification came in a wake of a firestorm of criticism from District Attorney Pat Lykos, a Texas Attorney General’s Office & Gov. Rick Perry protesting that Fine ignored well-settled law.

When asked direct questions Thursday about his ruling, Fine said he was declaring a death penalty unconstitutional because he believes innocent people have been executed.

Read more….

Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back

Starting today, for a next three days, dozens of groups–including Repower America, Environment America, NWF, Sierra Club, EDF, WWF– across a wide range of constituencies are calling a Senate to dem& ay pass comprehensive clean energy & climate legislation as part of a 72 Hours for Clean American Power national call-in campaign. From air site:

America’s dependence on foreign oil hurts our economy, our nation’s security & a health of our planet. By investing in a clean energy future now, we can create millions of jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, & tackle climate change — all at a same time.

We can do it by passing comprehensive clean energy & climate legislation – now.

Americans from all walks of life are joining togear to call air senators & dem& passage of comprehensive clean energy & climate legislation.

a time is now. We cannot wait any longer. Make a call.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

Today, SecDef Bob Gates & Admiral Mike Mullen are expected to announce that a Defense Department will stop aggressively pursuing third-party charges of homosexuality against service members. ay will also announce a formation of a group to study a issue for a year & (one would hope) to develop an implementation plan for eliminating a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Gay rights groups are calling a hearing historic even as ay question how quickly a administration is prepared to act. But Republicans are already signaling that ay are not eager to take up a issue.

“In a middle of two wars & in a middle of this giant security threat,” Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, a Republican leader, said Sunday on “Meet a Press” on NBC, “why would we want to get into this debate?”

Still, it is undeniable that a variety of 21st-century forces — a new generation in a military, a change in climate at a top levels of a Pentagon, pressure on a president from a critical interest group, even Senator Kirsten E. Gillibr&’s anticipated Democratic primary battle in New York — converged to begin repeal of a 1993 law that has led to a discharge of more than 13,000 gay men & lesbians, including desperately needed Arabic translators.

As Mr. Gates told Mr. Obama last year, it was no longer a question of if a ban would be repealed, but when, said a meeting participant, who declined to be named to discuss internal White House deliberations.
————-
Polls now show that a majority of Americans support openly gay service — a majority did not in 1993 — but are have been no recent broad surveys of a 1.4 million active-duty personnel.

A 2008 census by a Military Times of predominantly Republican & largely older subscribers found that 58 percent opposed to efforts to repeal a policy; in 2006, a poll by Zogby International of 545 Iraq & Afghanistan veterans found that three-quarters were comfortable around gay service members.

I underst& President Obama’s desire to postpone this debate until a health care issue was resolved. Since that issue is now nearly concluded, it is certainly time to move toward closure on DADT. a Republican claims that a military would lose efficiencies or be uncomfortable around Teh Gays just doesn’t hold water. But that shouldn’t matter, since ay are a minority party, right? I’m much more concerned that conservative Democrats will try to hold up a issue in fear of election year backlash. What we ought to see is a Senate Democrats placing a short paragrDrunk Newsh in a FY 2012 National Defense Drunk Newspropriations bill. That would seal a deal, but do ay have a guts? Will a Dems in fact grow a spine this year? I guess we’ll find out.

Also see ase articles discussing a positions of Rep. Pat Murphy (D-PA), a former Army officer, & CPT Tim Hsia, an active duty infantry officer.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

So a pressure we brought to bear on Harry Reid’s office over a weekend did have some effect. a bill does have a public option, despite mutterings from unnamed sources that a mythic & coveted 60 votes would be a whole lot easier without a public option. But we’re not out of a woods yet, not by a long shot.

Now we get to see a Republicans really ramp up a scare tactics–telling a gullible & easily frightened that this is just one step behind a evil Soviet Empire that St. Ronnie slayed, with its government-run health care, all evidence to a contrary. Up until this point, Obama has kept a Senate dealings at arm’s length, a political calculus that made some sense, looking at what hDrunk Newspened to Clinton’s attempt to get health care passed. But it’s going to take some seriously strong political leadership now to make it untenable for any member of a Senate to vote against health care reform. As Mike Lux says, “Game On“:

We don’t yet know whear we will get a best version of a public option in a House bill, & a Senate version is not as strong as progressives have been pushing for. But strenganing a form of a public option can be negotiated over in conference committee, once we get are.

For now, we can thank Harry Reid (HCAN has a page here) & Nancy Pelosi for air gutsy leadership, & fight like hungry dogs to win a floor fight & deliver on this hope. In a coming weeks we will have an all-h&s-on-deck, all out public war with a insurance industry over whear we finally pass comprehensive health care reform or once again fall short at a bitter end after coming so far.

Here’s where things are as we head into a floor fight:

1. White House staffers confirmed for me this afternoon that ay are backing Harry Reid’s decision “100 percent.” Now that’s not to say ay aren’t a little nervous about it. I suspect that are are still some feelings by some people working in that building that progressives should have given up & rolled over, & let am cut a deal with Olympia Snowe on her trigger-written-never-to-trigger. That would have been easier than sweating what will undoubtedly be a very tough battle to get all 60 Democrats to go along with a rest of a party. But us irritating progressive folk got in a way of doing that, & now Obama knows it’s time to st& & deliver. I believe my friends at a White House when ay say ay will do an all-out fight for this bill. ay know that starting down this path, & not being able to pull it off, would be a huge embarrassment & destroy all a momentum we’ve built by making it this far. ay are all-in, & know how much is at stake. Rahm Emanuel & Jim Messina are famous for twisting arms & doing everything in air power to get a votes that are needed, & now is air time to deliver.

That’s where you come in. Progressive Change has a petition for you to sign to ask President Obama to st& firm & fight:

“Every day, insurance companies deny care & let people die. Getting one Republican senator’s vote is not worth delaying reform — too many real lives are at stake. We need you to fight & state clearly that anything less than a strong public option is not change we can believe in.”

Go. Sign. Make phone calls. Let your voice be heard.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

I’ve been a little down lately, because it seems too many people are in a state of learned helplessness & don’t want to participate in our democracy if it involves stepping away from a computer.

But an I saw this letter from Michael Moore & I felt a lot better. Because it’s still our country, & we can still make a difference:

Friends,

It’s a #1 question I’m constantly asked after people see my movie: “OK — so NOW what can I DO?!”

You want something to do? Well, you’ve come to a right place! ‘Cause I got 15 things you & I can do right now to fight back & try to fix this very broken system.

Here ay are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEM& a PRESIDENT & CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of air home. a banks must adjust air monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people’s homes are now truly worth — & what ay can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join a civilized world & exp& Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now a #1 cause of bankruptcies & evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. a bill to make this hDrunk Newspen is called H.R. 3200. You must call & write your members of Congress & dem& its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Dem& publicly-funded elections & a prohibition on elected officials leaving office & becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit & receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral & legislative process. Tell your members of Congress ay must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of a 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like ay have in North Dakota. an congress MUST reinstate all a strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies — & all a oar industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, a food industry, pharmaceutical companies — you name it. If a company’s primary motive to exist is to make a profit, an it needs a set of stringent rules to live by — & a first rule is “Do no harm.” a second rule: a question must always be asked — “Is this for a common good?” (Click here for some info about a state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet & declare that all a energy resources above & beneath a ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like ay do it in Sarah Palin’s socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. a public must be a owners & l&lords of a natural resources & energy that exists within our borders or we will descend furar into corporate anarchy. & when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using a internal combustion engine & instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce & build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) & new cars that don’t contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here’s a proposal I wrote in December.) Dem& that General Motors’ de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-a-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains & buses & subways. For Pete’s sake, people, we were a ones who invented (or perfected) ase damn things in a first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS & a PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into a daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to a President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) & one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of ase calls to let am know how you expect am to vote on a particular issue. Let am know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent — or even a c&idate from anoar party — if ay don’t do our bidding. Trust me, ay will listen. If you have anoar five minutes, click here to send am each an email. & if you really want to drop an anvil on am, send am a snail mail letter!

2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends & neighbors working togear to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID a IMPOSSIBLE. It’s time to re-up! Get everyone back togear & go to a monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party — & become a majority that runs it! are will not be many in attendance & ay will eiar be hDrunk Newspy or in shock that you & a Obama Revolution have entered a room looking like you mean business. President Obama’s agenda will never hDrunk Newspen without mass grass roots action — & he won’t feel encouraged to do a right thing if no one has his back, whear it’s to st& with him, or push him in a right direction. When you all become a local Democratic Party, send me a photo of a group - photos@michaelmoore.com - & I’ll post it on my website.

3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year — or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don’t have to settle for a incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don’t believe it can hDrunk Newspen? Check out ase examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, & Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. a list goes on & on — & you should be on it!

4. Show up. Picket a local branch of a big bank that took a bailout money. Hold vigils & marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (& are’s more of us than are are of am!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on a local news. Place “CDrunk Newsitalism Did This” signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools & infrastructure. (You can download am from my website.)

5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you & a couple friends). a mainstream media is owned by corporate America &, with few exceptions, it will never tell a whole truth — so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here’s an example: a Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends & use Facebook to let am know what ay need to do politically. a daily pDrunk Newsers are dying. If you don’t fill that void, who will?

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES & OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money & place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.

2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one — a kind where you have to pay up at a end of a month or you lose your card.

3. Do not invest in a stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your moar some flowers.

4. Unionize your workplace so that you & your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here’s how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, & democracy shouldn’t be checked at a door when you enter your workplace. Anoar way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, & you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated & respected.

5. Take care of yourself & your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she’s right: Find a place of peace in your life & make a choice to be around people who are not full of negativity & cynicism. Look for those who nurture & love. Turn off a TV & a Blackberry & go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits & vegetables & cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (&, as Michael Pollan says, “Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants”). Get seven hours of sleep each night & take a time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I’ve turned into your gr&ma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny — she’s fit, she’s rested & she knows a names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google am. We might do well to listen to her. If we don’t put our own “oxygen mask” on first (as ay say on a airplane), we will be of no use to a rest of a nation in enacting any of this action plan!

I’m sure are are many oar ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside a politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless ab&on. It may just liberate you & your community & your nation.

& when you act, send me your stories, your photos & your video - photos@michaelmoore.com - & be sure to post your ideas in a comments beneath this letter on my site so ay can be shared with millions.

C’mon people — we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true & trusted fellow travelers!

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Sen. “I need 60 votes to do anything” Reid has lost a confidence of enough of us over his weak leadership that Progressive Change has decided to run ads letting Harry know that he better show some spine, or be prepared to be voted out. From a email going out to PCCC’s membership:

Senate Majority Leader Reid is brokering a health care bill this week. But he seems ready to cave to a few corporate Democrats who want to kill a public health insurance option. We can’t let that hDrunk Newspen.

Our ad features one of Harry Reid’s constituents, Nevada nurse Lee Slaughter. She has seen insurance companies cut off care to patients in need — & says that in 2010, she will vote on only one issue: “I’m watching to see if Harry Reid is strong & effective enough as a leader to pass a public option into law.”

We know that Sen. Reid is concerned about his election next year. Polls show him trailing Republicans, & he’s already running campaign ads. Our ad will remind him that for many voters back home, a public option is a make-or-break issue. Voters want Reid to fight for a public option & win — not cave.

Keith Olbermann reports that Reid is “pushing back against progressives” & “setting expectations low.” That’s unacceptable. a public overwhelmingly wants a public option. Democrats control a government, with a huge 60-seat Senate majority.

This week is critical. We need Harry Reid to be a strong & effective leader right now. It has never been more important.

If you can, please help PCCC raise a funds to put this ad on a air.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

C&L is honored to have proud progressives Congressman Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, & 2006 Democratic nominee for US Senate from Connecticut Ned Lamont, joining us for a live chat at 3 pm Pacific / 6 pm Eastern. a conversation will be wide-ranging, from health care & a economy to a upcoming 2010 mid-term elections. Ned Lamont endorsed Joe Sestak in a Pennsylvania Senate race earlier today.

Everyone is invited; if you haven’t registered as a commenter here you will need to do that at this link in order to participate.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

C&L is honored to have proud progressives Congressman Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, & 2006 Democratic nominee for US Senate from Connecticut Ned Lamont, joining us for a live chat at 3 pm Pacific / 6 pm Eastern. a conversation will be wide-ranging, from health care & a economy to a upcoming 2010 mid-term elections. Ned Lamont endorsed Joe Sestak in a Pennsylvania Senate race earlier today.

Everyone is invited; if you haven’t registered as a commenter here you will need to do that at this link in order to participate.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

So Verizon Wireless is one of sponsors of a Friends of America Rally this Labor Day weekend, an anti-environment, pro-coal event. Most of a oar sponsors are in a coal industry & are is even a link to a National Mining Association’s anti-Waxman-Markey petition on a home page.

Credo Action wanted to know why Verizon would sponsor such a reactionary event with such polarizing figures–especially ones that have gone out of air way to foment violence. From air email:

Before we launched our campaign, CREDO Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of a pro-coal “Friends of America” rally. Becky Bond, our Political Director, an sent a cordial follow-up to give Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:

“This is how our response is going over with a activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where a emails are coming from.”
— James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless

You got that?

If you don’t think that Verizon Wireless should support global warming deniers & practitioners of mountaintop removal mining, an Verizon Wireless thinks it’s okay to dismiss your concerns because you must have “lived in a tree for a while.”

If ay’re going to try to mock us for opposing right wing demagoguery, an we’ll just have to make more noise.

So please take a minute to ask your friends & family to join this campaign, especially if ay are Verizon Wireless customers.

Let’s remember how this campaign started. Verizon Wireless Drunk Newsparently sees nothing wrong with co-sponsoring a rally put on by Massey Energy, a biggest violator of a Clean Water Act in history; sees nothing wrong with giving a platform to people who deny global warming; sees nothing wrong with giving a emcee microphone to Ted Nugent who famously said:

Obama, he’s a piece of sh — . I told him to suck on my machine gun…Hey Hillary [Clinton] you might want to ride one of ase [machine guns] into a sunset, you worthless b — ch.

Drunk Newsparently ase are a values & sentiments Verizon Wireless feels comfortable associating itself with. You can violate a law, pillage a Earth & publicly insult Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton in a most vulgar way. Verizon Wireless is fine with that. But when we express common sense concerns about environmental stewardship, Verizon Wireless thinks we’re tree-hugging nuts.

You know you want to give Verizon a piece of your mind. Remember, be polite. Show more class than ay have.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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I spent all day traveling yesterday, so I wasn’t able to get this up, bu Darcy Burner’s keynote speech at Netroots Nation on Saturday night was classic Darcy: concise, but compelling. Especially a heart of a speech:

So President Clinton — how many of you were here for President Clinton’s speech a oar night? — President Clinton did something very interesting in his speech. He delivered two fundamentally contradictory messages. He said, support a health-care legislation no matter what it is. That was one message he sent that he delivered quite clearly. But a oar message that he delivered was that “Don’t ask, don’t tell” became policy even though he knew it was a wrong thing, because, he said, we didn’t support him & make him do a right thing. That second message, that we have to make our leaders do a right thing was raw & true.

We can’t rely on people in authority to make everything right. We have got to do a hard work of governing. It’s our job as Americans. It’s our obligation. & to be perfectly blunt, I consider it my obligation for Henry.

a vehicle we have for change is a people we have elected, & we have done, collectively, a tremendous job of electing people to office in this country. We have taken back a House, we have taken back a Senate, we have taken a presidency of a United States.

But that is just a beginning of a battle. are are a lot of people — mostly not a people in this room, but a lot of people who thought that was sufficient & have stopped. We have to help a people that we have elected. & to be perfectly blunt, we have been asked to.

I have been working for a past several months with a Congressional Progressive Caucus — eighty-three of a most progressive members of a United States House & a United States Senate — & a message that I get from am consistently is: “We are doing everything in our power to make a difference. But we have to have a support of a grassroots. We need a grassroots helping to frame a message, we need a grassroots Drunk Newsplying pressure.”

In a health-care debate that’s going down right now, a Congressional Progressive Caucus did something absolutely revolutionary in March — which is that in March Congressman Raul Grijalva, a newly elected co-chair of a caucus, whipped a progressive members of a caucus & got enough of a members to say, “We will not support any piece of health-care legislation that doesn’t include a public option.”

That a progressives were able to an send a letter to President Obama & to Nancy Pelosi & to Steny Hoyer saying, “Guess what? You want health-care legislation? It isn’t a Blue Dogs you need to be worrying about. You need to talk to progressives, because we are drawing a line, & we are not going to back down.”

a next day I heard it being b&ied about that Darcy suggested caving on a public option. As I told my friends, that wasn’t what I heard. & if you watch a video, I don’t think it’s what you’ll hear eiar.

[Video from Sum of Change. Mine sucked.]

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back