Make The Supremes Sing a New Song

Have you had enough of the corporate take-over of America?  If this last election didn't rub it into your nose enough that money buys power and democracy is an illusion, just wait.  The next few months are gonna make you long for the Reagan era (gag).

Citizens United was a disaster for our ability to hold fair elections since it granted "personhood" to corporations, allowing big money to give however much it could to the candidates who would sing the song they picked.  But we do have some options, and MovetoAmend.org is leading the way.  Please sign the petition and contribute, if you can.  The corporations have bought the Supremes but We, the People still can reclaim our power if we stand together and overrule the Supremes.  It is our Constitutional right to do so.  Use it or lose it.

Sign the petition and please forward the link to everyone who still believes in justice for all, not JUST US!

http://movetoamend.org/please-contribute

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Join The Pen's vigorous campaign to protect government of the people and get a free bumper sticker!  Just take a moment to fax your senators, the prez and/or newspapers while you're at it.

http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1030.php

 

McCain Condemns Contraception “Holocaust”

John McCain continues to bumble his way through the campaign like Mr. McGoo. The scary thing is he has a good chance of stealing the election if the media continues to propagandize for him. Now for the science lesson of today, courtesy of Jon Ponder @ Pensito Review:
Q: Does a zygote have a brain? A: NO!

McCain Declares Zygotes Are Entitled to Full Human Rights
Jon Ponder | Aug. 21, 2008It has largely been glossed over in the reporting on John McCain’s alleged cheating at the Saddleback megachurch forum on Saturday, but he scored big points that night with Christian nationalists when he awarded full human rights to pre-embryonic fertilized cell masses:

WARREN: Let’s deal with abortion. I, as a pastor, have to deal with this all the time, every different angle, every different pain, all of the decisions and all of that. Forty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. Some people, people who believe that life begins at conception, believe that’s a holocaust for many people. What point is a baby entitled to human rights?
MCCAIN: At the moment of conception. (APPLAUSE). I have a 25- year pro-life record in the Congress, in the Senate. And as president of the United States, I will be a pro-life president. And this presidency will have pro-life policies. That’s my commitment. That’s my commitment to you.

[...] Because cell masses have no nervous systems, it will be very difficult for Pres. McCain to ensure that most of their human rights are not violated:
Examples of rights and freedoms which are often thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to food, the right to work, and the right to education.
(It’s also unclear what his stand would be on torturing zygotes, since he has voted to allow the torture of post-embryonic humans.)
[...] What never ceases to flummox me about this issue is that the same extremists who loathe the government are the ones who are demanding laws that would force American citizens to cede control of their reproductive systems to … the government. It is telling that they only advocate women giving up control of their reproductive functions, which brings to mind the quote from the lawyer and civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy that “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” [my bold]
It goes without saying that what make McCain’s pandering to the extremists in his base dangerous is that if he is elected — which is at least a 50-50 proposition today — he will appoint rightwing activist Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Anyone who believes that individuals are better than government bureaucrats at making these sorts of personal decisions should take that into account when they decide whom to vote for in November.
Write on! Go here for video & entire article: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2008/08/21/mccain-declares-zygotes-have-full-human-rights/
Florynce Kennedy would beat McCain's ass in a New York minute. RIP, dear sister.

Disenfranchisement Upheld by The Supremes

The Supremes have done it again. By stepping on state's rights in voting procedures, they are setting the stage for the next selection of president. Isn't it funny how the repuglicans are all so happy with activist judges when they make rulings in their favor? That's why they are repugnant. Stay tuned for the next election swindle, courtesy of John Paul Stevens, a/k/a TRAITOR!
Supreme Court upholds
photo ID voting law
Mon Apr 28, 2008
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a tough state law requiring voters to show photo identification, a decision critics say could keep some blacks, poor people and other traditional Democratic supporters from voting in the November election.
Resolving a partisan political battle, the country's high court voted 6-3 to reject a legal challenge by Democrats that Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation voter identification law would deter minorities, the elderly and others from casting ballots.
The main opinion agreed with Republican supporters that the law was necessary to prevent voter fraud and safeguard public confidence in the integrity of elections. The Bush administration supported the law.
[...] "The effect of the loss ... will begin to be felt next week when Indiana holds its presidential primary using the voter ID law the court has just upheld," said Nathaniel Persily, an election law expert at Columbia University in New York.
The decision could have broad national significance because more than 20 states have adopted voter identification laws and other states are considering similar legislation.
The law requires a government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license to vote in federal, state and local elections.
[...] Reaction to the ruling split along political lines.
[...] "Denying a fundamental right -- the right to vote -- because a person is indigent, lacks a birth certificate or has no access to a vehicle goes against America's better values," Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said.
Angela Ciccolo of the NAACP civil rights group said the law would have its greatest impact on voters who are poor, elderly, belong to racial minorities or have disabilities.
The lead opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, held the evidence in the record did not support an attack now on the law's validity.
Three other court members -- conservative Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, concurred in the judgment and issued a separate opinion that the law should be upheld because its overall burden was minimal and justified.
Stevens wrote that states had a "valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process." He said voter fraud "could affect the outcome of a close election."
He said the law may place a small burden on a limited number of people -- the elderly born out-of-state who may have difficulty in getting the required documents, the homeless or people with a religious objection to being photographed.
Stevens said politics may have been a factor in adopting the law but that alone did not make it unconstitutional. His opinion left open the possibility of future legal challenges by specific voters.
Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer dissented. Souter said the law threatened to impose major burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of Indiana residents, especially the poor and the elderly. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00940020080428?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
To be fair, not all republicans are repuglicans. Please see previous post: April 16, 2008 Republican Governor Weighs in on Spending Transparency and REAL ID , REAL ID side effects, By Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina, for an op-ed from a man with courage and the ability to think beyond party lines (and the next election).

Supreme Court Spins US Citizens Out of Justice

The Boopsy Twins

Court skeptical of taking on Iraq cases
Several Justices Express Doubts About Extending Reach of US Courts Into Iraq
PETE YOSTAP
Mar 25, 2008 13:11 EST
Several Supreme Court justices expressed strong doubts Tuesday about extending the reach of U.S. courts into Iraq to stop the transfer of two American citizens into Iraqi control.
The skepticism by Chief Justice John Roberts and others came after a lawyer representing the Bush administration argued that U.S. courts cannot intervene in the cases of Mohammad Munaf and Shawqi Omar.
Omar allegedly assisted a terrorist network and Munaf allegedly set up the 2005 kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Baghdad. Both proclaim their innocence and both are Sunni Muslims who say they will be tortured if turned over to the Iraqi government.
The Bush administration's legal position is that the two men are being held by the multinational force in Iraq, of which the U.S. contingent is only a part.
[...] Joseph Margulies, the lawyer for Omar and Munaf, says the two are under the control of the U.S. military and should have access to U.S. courts.
Margulies told the justices that "the buck stops with the United States government when it comes to these detainees."
[...] Responding to concerns expressed by Justice Samuel Alito, Margulies said providing Munaf and Omar the rights to which they are entitled as U.S. citizens would not impact the other 20,000 people in custody in Iraq.
[...] Justice John Paul Stevens rejected Margulies's argument that there is a parallel between the cases of Omar and Munaf and that of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen seized on the Afghanistan battlefield and later detained at a naval brig in Charleston, S. C.
"A very different place of detention," Stevens said.
The Supreme Court gave Hamdi the right to use U.S. courts to challenge his detention and the Bush administration eventually released Hamdi.

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=100433

WWJRD?

TruthDig presents Maria Cocco with an excellent report on the next wave of voter fraud. Keep an eye out for John Roberts, who will show his true colors on this matter.
Justice Is Blind, but Can She Vote?
Posted on Jan 8, 2008
By Marie Cocco
WASHINGTON—The most revealing indicator of the state of our democracy is not to be found in the snowdrifts of New Hampshire but in the marbled chamber of the U.S. Supreme Court. Soon enough, we will discover whether the court under Chief Justice John Roberts will become a partisan tool in the national Republican drive to place constraints on voting that are targeted at those who tend to support Democrats.
Not since the Supreme Court stopped the Florida presidential election recount in 2000 has a voting case been so significant, or so overflowing with partisan bile.
On Wednesday, the justices will hear a challenge to Indiana’s strict law requiring photo identification in order for a voter to cast a ballot at the polls. The state claims the law is necessary to stop voter fraud. Yet no one—not Indiana officials, not the U.S. Justice Department, which has taken the state’s side in the dispute, nor any commission—has come up with a single case in the state’s history in which an impostor showed up and cast a vote.
[…] studies have repeatedly shown that those least likely to possess photo identification—most commonly a driver’s license—are African-Americans, the poor, the elderly and the disabled. In short, they are more likely to vote Democratic.
[….] The Justice Department is a party to this embarrassment, including in its brief an example of absentee ballot fraud in a mayoral primary. But the Indiana ID law has no bearing on absentee voters. The state still allows absentee ballots to be counted without a photo ID, on the basis of a signature checked against registration rolls. Still, the department argues that the mere “temptation” of voter fraud and the possibility of “undetected” wrongdoing is sufficient to support a law that constrains some legitimate voters from casting a ballot in person.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080108_justice_is_blind_but_can_she_vote/