Posted by Mary Mancini on May 31, 2006 under Uncategorized | 
Matt Besser from The Upright Citizens Brigade is touring the South and is making a stop in Nashville:
Wed. Jun 7 @ 7:30pm at Bongo Java Cafe, 2007 Belmont Blvd.
Tix: $8 advance; $10 door
Visit bongojava.com for more info.
Matt writes:
Dear Atheist, Humanist, Secularist, Theist, Cynic, & UCB Fan:
I have a show that Ive been doing for over a year at our theaters in NYC and LA. The show is essentially stand up comedy about current issues concerning the separation of church and state, and I tie these issues into the crazy letters of my Evangelical grandmother who objected to the marriage of my Jewish dad to my Protestant mother. She thought that my parents were going to hell and she would not like this show at all, G*d rest her soul.
If I’m coming to your town please inform me of any separation of church and state issues currently boiling in your state. I’d love to know about them.
Sincerely,
Matt Besser
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized |
From Truthout.org: “The New York Times argues that in a country that spends so much time extolling the glories of democracy, it’s amazing how many elected officials go out of their way to discourage voting. States are adopting rules that make it hard, and financially perilous, for nonpartisan groups to register new voters. They have adopted new rules for maintaining voter rolls that are likely to throw off many eligible voters, and they are imposing unnecessarily tough ID requirements.”
From the Times article: “Florida recently reached a new low when it actually bullied the League of Women Voters into stopping its voter registration efforts in the state. The Legislature did this by adopting a law that seems intended to scare away anyone who wants to run a voter registration drive. Since registration drives are particularly important for bringing poor people, minority groups and less educated voters into the process, the law appears to be designed to keep such people from voting.
It imposes fines of $250 for every voter registration form that a group files more than 10 days after it is collected, and $5,000 for every form that is not submitted — even if it is because of events beyond anyone’s control, like a hurricane. The Florida League of Women Voters, which is suing to block the new rules, has decided it cannot afford to keep registering new voters in the state as it has done for 67 years. If a volunteer lost just 16 forms in a flood, or handed in a stack of forms a day late, the group’s entire annual budget could be put at risk.”
Nice.
Posted by Mary Mancini on May 24, 2006 under Uncategorized |
My drive home from work was ruined tonight by a story on Marketplace. According to Dawn Kopecki author of a recent Business Week article, President Bush has given John Negroponte, the intelligence czar, the authority to “exempt any publicly traded corporation that is working on national defense issues or national security issues from the reporting and accounting requirements under the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act“, which is “the rules and regulations that require companies to keep accurate records, acurate books, accurate accounting . . . and then disclose those projects and that information to investors.”
Kopecki pointed out the significance of the date the memo was signed - May 5. She said, “it is the day that Porter Goss stepped down from the CIA. It’s also six days before USA Today published its story that three major telephone companies had turned over massive amounts of customer calling records to the federal government, that the NSA was using to data-mine and look for patterns and, basically, spy on.”
Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal, bless him, remarked on the significance of the date and the memo: “Now, if you play this out, conceivably what this rule now means is that AT&T and Bell South and Verizon, who have these government contracts — it’s been reported in the papers — have these government contracts to sell customer data to the government, they may never have to report that income or how the finances of that program worked.”
Kopecki agreed and added, “The White House, when I asked them point-blank whether or not any company, including those telephone companies, had been given this waiver, they said no comment. Negroponte’s office hasn’t called me back since I sent them my questions two days ago. We really don’t know, and I believe, and what securities attorneys have told us, is we may never know because it doesn’t require anyone to disclose it to anyone outside the Senate and House intelligence committees.”
Take a look at the memo President Bush sent to Negroponte [.pdf]. Read the article in Business Week.
President Bush is covering his tracks.
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized |
From Democracy Now!
On Wednesday, May 24th, thousands of people in cities across the country will protest the Telephone Companies AT&T, Bell South and Verizon, expressing outrage at the tactics of the major telephone companies (AT&T, Bell South, Verizon and Qwest) to pass National Video Franchising legislation in Congress. The Telcos are spending one million dollars a week to buy the votes of members of Congress for their legislation (House Bill 5252 and Senate Bill 2686), and on advertising to influence public opinion, using astroturf groups to distort the issues. The proposed legislation will curb local control over video franchises, negatively impact thousands of local Public, Educational and Governmental Access channels, allow red-lining in low-income and rural communities and jeopardize the openness of the internet by removing net neutrality provisions designed to promote competition.
Take action wherever you are.
I’ll be on the fruitless search tonight for national TV coverage of this issue and today’s events.
UPDATE: The only coverage.
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized |
From today’sNY Times:
“WASHINGTON, May 23 — After years of quietly acceding to the Bush administration’s assertions of executive power, the Republican-led Congress hit a limit this weekend.
Resentment boiled among senior Republicans for a second day on Tuesday after a team of warrant-bearing agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation turned up at a closed House office building on Saturday evening, demanded entry to the office of a lawmaker and spent the night going through his files.
The episode prompted cries of constitutional foul from Republicans — even though the lawmaker in question, Representative William J. Jefferson of Louisiana, is a Democrat whose involvement in a bribery case has made him an obvious partisan political target.
Even our own Zach Wamp (R, TN) has concerns, “”When I first saw [reports of the search], I thought: ‘Wonder if the federal government needs to be reined in.”
It’s interesting that this is the issue causing Republican congressional leadership apoplexy. Could it be that it’s because they fear whose office will be next? Or is it because this is the first time in our history that a congressional office has been searched?
Regardless, this is just another example of the executive branch expanding its powers and Alberto Gonzales believing that all he has to do is say that the Department of Justice has “a great deal of respect for the Congress as a co-equal branch of government” for it to be true.
Don’t misunderestimate me, “No member is above the law,” as Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland explains, and even congressional leaders must be held accountable. But if the information needed is subpoenaed but not produced in a timely manner, where are the contempt charges?
And keep a keen eye on the hypocrisy of ordering an FBI raid because the info from Rep. Jefferson was requested 8 months ago without result. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) waited for months but was ultimately denied security clearance to advance an inquiry aimed at determining which administration officials authorized, approved and audited NSA surveillance activities.
OPR Counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Representative Maurice Hinchey (D, NY), the most vocal Congressional advocate for investigation of the spying program, that he had closed the Justice Department probe on May 9, because his office’s requests for security clearances to conduct the investigation had been denied.
“I am writing to inform you that we have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program,” Jarrett explained in his letter to Hinchey. “Beginning in January 2006, this Office made a series of requests for the necessary clearances. On May 9, 2006, we were informed that our requests had been denied. Without these clearances, we cannot investigate this matter and therefore have closed our investigation.”
Too bad Congress doesn’t have a civilian investigative organization at its disposal.
Posted by Mary Mancini on May 23, 2006 under Uncategorized |
…it’s not enough!
We were off last week and we missed you! But not as much as Mary missed ‘The West Wing.’ What’s a girl to do on Sunday night at 7pm? Watch HBO’s Baghdad ER, a powerful reminder that our president has mismanaged the Iraq War, failed our war veterans (200 homeless vets a night and counting), and manipulated the American people. (Part 1: 48:09, 22MB)
Listen to Monday’s Show, Part 1
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Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized |
…it’s not enough!
Our guest in Part 2 is Paul Waldman, senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the just released book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives must Learn from Conservative Success. Paul says that liberals need to put on the gloves and start fighting back. He says we need to pick fights. He says we need to stand up and say, “We’re sick and tired of you trashing our states and our values, Mr. Bush, so take your tobacco-chewing, trailer park living, Nascar-loving, Field & Stream reading, grits-eating, right-wing freak show back to Texas where you belong!” There. We feel much better now. (Part 2: 55:13, 25MB)
Listen to Monday’s Show, Part 2.
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Posted by Mary Mancini on May 21, 2006 under Uncategorized |
Unexpected hero, Jean Rohe, choose to alter her speech to the graduates of the New School in New York this past week to protest John McCain, who was present at the graduation to receive an award. She spoke right before McCain and was able to use her speech as a preemptive strike against his. This is what she said:
If all the world were peaceful now and forever more,
Peaceful at the surface and peaceful at the core,
All the joy within my heart would be so free to soar,
And we’re living on a living planet, circling a living star.
Don’t know where we’re going but I know we’re going far.
We can change the universe by being who we are,
And we’re living on a living planet, circling a living star.
Welcome everyone on this beautiful afternoon to the commencement ceremony for the New School class of 2006. That was an excerpt of a song I learned as a child called “Living Planet” by Jay Mankita. I chose to begin my address this way because, as always, but especially now, we are living in a time of violence, of war, of injustice. I am thinking of our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in Darfur, in Sri Lanka, in Mogadishu, in Israel/Palestine, right here in the U.S., and many, many other places around the world. And my deepest wish on this day–on all days–is for peace, justice, and true freedom for all people. The song says, “We can change the universe by being who we are,” and I believe that it really is just that simple.
Right now, I’m going to be who I am and digress from my previously prepared remarks. I am disappointed that I have to abandon the things I had wanted to speak about, but I feel that it is absolutely necessary to acknowledge the fact that this ceremony has become something other than the celebratory gathering that it was intended to be due to all the media attention surrounding John Mc Cain’s presence here today, and the student and faculty outrage generated by his invitation to speak here. The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded. Not only this, but his invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all, and to commemorate our achievements.
What is interesting and bizarre about this whole situation is that Senator Mc Cain has stated that he will be giving the same speech at all three universities where he has been invited to speak recently, of which ours is the last; those being Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Columbia University, and finally here at the New School. For this reason I have unusual foresight concerning the themes of his address today. Based on the speech he gave at the other institutions, Senator Mc Cain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our “civic and moral obligation” in times of crisis. I consider this a time of crisis and I feel obligated to speak. Senator Mc Cain will also tell us about his cocky self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others. In so doing, he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions and open ears. I am young, and although I don’t profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong, that George Bush’s agenda in Iraq is not worth the many lives lost. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.
Finally, Senator Mc Cain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, “have nothing to fear from each other.” I agree strongly with this, but I take it one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace. We have nothing to fear from people who are different from us, from people who live in other countries, even from the people who run our government–and this we should have learned from our educations here. We can speak truth to power, we can allow our humanity always to come before our nationality, we can refuse to let fear invade our lives and to goad us on to destroy the lives of others. These words I speak do not reflect the arrogance of a young strong-headed woman, but belong to a line of great progressive thought, a history in which the founders of this institution play an important part. I speak today, even through my nervousness, out of a need to honor those voices that came before me, and I hope that we graduates can all strive to do the same.
And this is why she said it.
Thank you, Jean Rohe. I’ll be in NY next weekend. I’d love to buy you a drink.
Posted by Mary Mancini on under Uncategorized |
Frank Rich writing in today’s NY Times compares the pr machine behind Sony’s potential blockbuster “The Davinci Code” with the “Washington playbook” used by many politicians over the last decade:
“The Machiavellian mission for the hit-deprived Sony studio was to co-opt conservative religious critics who might depress turnout for a $125-million-plus thriller portraying the Roman Catholic Church as a fraud. To this end, as The New Yorker reported, Sony hired a bevy of PR consultants, including a faith-based flack whose Christian Rolodex previously helped sell inspirational testaments to Hollywood spirituality like “Bruce Almighty” and “Christmas With the Kranks.”
“The Sony scheme also echos much of the past decades Washington playbook. Politicians, particularly but not exclusively in the Karl Rove camp, seem to believe that voters of “faith” are suckers who can be lured into the big tent and then abandoned once their votes and campaign cash have been pocketed by the party for secular profit.”
“But for all these betrayals, Dobson and Co. won’t desert the Republicans come Election Day. If Rove steps up his usual gay-baiting late in the campaign, as is his wont, maybe the turnout of those on the hard-core right will eke out a victory for the party that double-crossed them not just on cultural issues but also on secular conservative principles (like fiscal responsibility and immigration-law enforcement). If so, they’ll promptly be Da Vinci’d yet again.”
He continues to get it right again skewering not only Rove and our own Senator Frist but Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean for trotting out their own “Davinci Strategy.”
“The idiocy began the morning after Election Day 2004, when a vaguely worded exit-poll question persuaded credulous party leaders that “moral values” determined their defeat (as opposed to say, their standard-bearer’s campaign). Their immediate response was to seek out faith-based consultants not unlike those recruited by Sony [producers of "The Davinci Code" movie], and practice dropping the word “values” and biblical quotations intor their public pronouncements. In the House, they organized, heaven help us, a Democratic Faith Working Group.
“As the next election approaches, they’re renewing this effort, to farcical effect. The Democrats’ chairman, Howard Dean, who proved his faith-based bona fides in the 2004 primary by citing Job as his favorite book in the New Testament, went on the Pat Robertson TV network this month and yanked his party’s position on same-sex marriage to the right (He apologized for the mis-statement” once off the air).”
“Not to be left behind, Senator Clinton gave a speech last week knocking young people for thinking “work is a four-letter word” and for having TV’s in their rooms, home internet access and, worst of all, that ultimate instrument of the devil, iPods. “I hope that we start thinking some very old-fashioned thoughts,” she said. (She also subsequently spologized, once her daughter complained, joining the general chorus of ridicule.) However, “old-fashioned” Mrs. Clinton’s thoughts, don’t expect her to turn back Mr. Murdoch’s campaign cash in protest against his steamy new TV channel.”
“The one New York politician even more disingenuous in this racket is Rudolph Giuliani. He outdid John McCain’s appearance with Jerry Falwell by campaigning last week for Ralph Reed in the lieutenant governor’s race in Georgia. Any religious conservative who mistake’s “America’s Mayor,” an adamant supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, for a fellow traveler is in desperate need of an intervention, if not an exorcism.”
“But the hypothetical, easily duped voter may no longer exist. Like the Bush era, the cynical Rove strategy of exploiting faith-based voters may be nearing its end. For proof, just take a look at the most craven figure in American politics: the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. To flatter the far right, this Harvard-trained surgeon misdiagnosed Terri Schiavo’s vegetative state from the Senate floor, and justified abstinence-only sex education in AIDS prevention by telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he didn’t know for certain that tears and sweat couldn’t transmit HIV. But increasingly it’s not only liberals who see through him. One of his latest stunts, a proposed $100 gas-tax rebate, provoked Rush Limbaugh to condemn him for “treating us like we’re a bunch of whores.”
You need a subscription but you can read it all here.
Posted by Mary Mancini on May 19, 2006 under Uncategorized |
This is what we should be fighting against…too bad we’ve spent all our earnestness fighting a false war in Iraq.
