MoveOn.org Positive Agenda Party 5/25 @ 6pm
Senate panel backs Hayden CIA confirmation with 4 of 7 Democratic Votes
UPDATE 5/26/06: The Senate today confirmed Hayden by a 78-15 vote, demonstrating that the majority of Democratic Senators have forgotten their role as constitutional counterweight to the Administration and an investigatory and oversight body. They’re still running scared from a President whom less than 1/3 of Americans continue to support. In short, they’re letting down their party by failing to provide an effective opposition, and worse, they are letting down America.
Senate Intelligence Committee backs NSA’s Gen. Hayden’s CIA confirmation by a 12-3 vote. That means that 4 Democrats, Feinstein, Rockfeller, Levin, and MIkulski, voted to confirm General Hayden, likely giving him exactly the bi-partisan lustre he needs to win confirmation.
The links above are to each Senator’s statement on their votes to recommend confirmation to the full Senate. Every single one of them dodges the real issue that, as Senator Feingold said in his statement on his NO vote, "General Hayden directed an illegal program that put Americans on American soil under surveillance without the legally required approval of a judge."
The issue is that Hayden has already proven himself amenable to carrying out illegal directives of the President. He did not resign when asked to break the law, he rolled over and did it. Now the Administration is moving him to the CIA where they can order him to violate American laws and the Constitution again.
I’m disgusted with my party today.
Senators Feingold, Wyden, and Bayh did the right thing and voted against a man, who despite his talents and qualifications, facilitated a massive breach of the public trust and the rule of law. Senator Feingold’s statement explains the case eloquently below the fold…
Who do you support in 2008?
Bashas Uses Citizen’s Arrest to Break up Labor Organizing
I received an interesting press release which I reproduce here in its entirety and without independent fact checking. The release is from the UFCW. There is some poor quality phonecam video of the incident available, too:
(May
21, 2006 Phoenix, AZ) Two women were arrested Sunday morning as part of
the Bashas corporation ongoing effort to silence worker concern over
unprecedented increases in health insurance premiums.The two women, Sarah Gresoski, 23, and Teresa D¹Asaro, 39, both members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, were meeting with employees at the Basha-owned A.J.s at Uptown Plaza in Phoenix. Such meetings are allowed and protected under federal law.
The A.J.¹s store manager made a "citizens arrest" of the two women apparently after consultation with unnamed company officials. Phoenix Police Officers then were called to take the women into custody and charged them with "criminal trespassing.
Following the arrests upwards of 60 employees and union members launched a picket line in front of the A.J.s store chanting slogans like "Eddie keep your promise, your workers deserve better" and "Eddie, Eddie you can¹t hide you just showed your greedy side.
For the past three days UFCW members have been meeting with employees at Bashas-owned stores across the Valley including Bashas, A.J.s, and FoodCity.
While Bashas has a history of labor problems, most notably at FoodCity, the health insurance issue is companywide affecting virtually all of Bashas 10,000 employees.
On June 1st, workers at Bashas-owned stores are being hit with dramatic cost increases in their health insurance premiums and forces them well below the industry standard.
Last year Bashas trailed only Wal-Mart and McDonald¹s in taxpayer funded health insurance "subsidies" paid by the State of Arizona. An estimated 5-percent of Bashas employees were forced to turn to public assistance for health care according to published reports in 2005.
By loading more of the health care burden on already strained households, Bashas is only going to be sending more and more of employees to Arizona¹s taxpayers for their health care," said UFCW Local 99 President James McLaughlin.
Senate Progress on Immigration Compromise
I got a very interesting mailing from the Democratic Party’s National Immigration Forum and Dean’s new outreach center, the American Majority Partnership, the other day. I reproduce it here entirely. It outlines the amendments to the Senate compromise that have been offered, those under consideration, and those likely to be considered in the near future.
Chairman Dean has made our position on immigration reform clear: We
support comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens our borders,
protects U.S. workers and their wages, reunites families, and allows
those who pay taxes and obey the law to earn the opportunity to apply
for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
These are the right policies and the right values. Democrats may not be polling with a majorities on every single issue we support on immigration, but we are standing for what’s right and principled, and that is more important to building an enduring consensus of principle, than to tack with every gust of the political winds.
Massacre in Iraq: Haditha is Arabic for Mi Lai
Tort Reform™ is an Attack on Constitutional Rights
I wrote yesterday on damage compensation caps, marketed under the trade name Tort Reform™ by the GOP, and the damage it does to those harmed by medical and other negligence. But the ideas behind Tort Reform™ also raise serious and fundamental challenges to the role of the jury in the administration of justice and protecting American freedoms.
I’m not alone in this opinion. James Madison said that trial by jury “is as essential to secure the liberty of the people as any one of the pre-eminent rights of nature.” Yet the right to have the facts of a civil dispute, including compensation, decided by a lay jury, is so offensive to corporate interests that they would have you believe that our best and brightest are unable to design safe products, deliver quality medical care, or perform a host of other activities unless we gut one particular of our Bill of Rights – the Amendment VII, which reads:
”In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved…”
The right of access to jury to determine the facts is a basic human right that goes back to the Magna Carta in our own culture’s immediate history, and back to the Greeks and the Romans during some of the earliest civilized periods of human history. For all that time citizenship has included the unimpaired right to have the facts of your plight, including the necessary remedies, decided by a sample of your peers. “Juries represent the layman’s common sense and thus keep the law in accord with the wishes and feelings of the community,” said USSC Chief Justice Rehnquist (in one of the few instances that I agree with him wholeheartedly).
