Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) stunned political observers Friday by announcing she will resign the governorship after just two and a half years in office.
The first-term governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee made the announcement at her home in Wasilla. Some political observers had expected Palin to forgo an opportunity to seek re-election, but few expected Palin to resign office. Her reason for stepping down was not immediately clear.
Alaska’s NBC affiliate, KTUU, was the first station to report that Palin would leave office. Her departure paves the way for Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell to be sworn in; KTUU said he would take office at the end of the month.
The move, coming nearly a year before she would be forced to reveal her plans by filing deadlines, is sure to lead to widespread speculation that Palin will devote herself full-time to a presidential bid in 2008.
A mujst-read from my friend David Swanson at AfterDowningStreet:
In my analysis, we should be focusing on three things, which for purposes of brevity and alliteration I will call: Communications, Congress, and Counter recruitment / resistance. Communications encompasses all public discussion of the wars and impacts all other approaches, including targets I consider far less likely to be influenced by us than Congress, such as the president, generals, the heads of weapons companies, the heads of media companies, the people of Afghanistan, your racist neighbor, etc. If our communications strategy can change the behavior of any of these targets, terrific! We should be prepared to take advantage of such opportunities should they arise. But the first place we are likely to be able to leverage successful communications will be the House of Representatives. Counter-recruitment / resistance is another area that overlaps with communications but involves much else as well, and it is a strategy that we continue to underestimate.
Oh, to be a GOPper these days must be painful and difficult. Between a highly critical Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin and — finally! — the OK for Minnesota’s Al Franken to take his place in the US Senate is giving the beleaguered and broken Republican Party much grief. How do they deal with the situation? The Washington Post reports.
In the short term, Republican leaders plan a two-pronged strategy. First, they will try to keep the heat on moderate, red-state Democratic senators in an effort to force them to resist voting for President Obamas major initiatives. “The goal is try to affect the end result knowing they have the votes from Day One,” said a top GOP Senate aide who was not authorized to speak publicly about tactics.
Second, Republicans plan to blame Democrats for any failures in policy or inaction. “I can say without hesitation that this government is totally theirs now, and everything that comes out of it and everything that results from it is on their plate,” Republication National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said on MSNBCs “Morning Joe.”Republican strategists say that they will target more conservative Democratic senators such as Mary Landrieu La., Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor both Ark., and Ben Nelson Neb.. The approach will be to publicly attack Democratic ideas until they are so unpopular in relatively conservative states that members such as Landrieu cannot back them. This tactic worked when Republicans won a vote in the Senate that stripped funding to implement Obamas plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But some Republican strategists said the Coleman defeat ought to generate a broader reexamination of the partys status rather than simply a review of its legislative tactics.
Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic remembers the King of Pop — his promise, his pop perfection, his pain.
I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone. I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours’ and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.
And Michael was such a beautiful child…
Ultimately, while I mourn the loss of Michael Jackson the entertainer, composer, and human being — and the loss of a childhood icon — I am so ticked. Jackson was denied what he should have had in his too-short, too-stressed time on Earth… a life.
I recall a chubby cheeked angel with a big heart and boundless talent. My first concert was seeing the Jackson 5 — my mom took us to the Baltimore Civic Center (long gone), and what a show… For months, I swore to anyone who would listen that Michael blew a kiss to me up in the nosebleed seats – I really thought he had. Michael was only three years older than I, and that made him perfect to be my future husband. Obviously, that didn’t happen — couldn’t happen. And when the bizarreness began… well, I wouldn’t have wanted it to happen.
Tonight, however, I choose to remember his amazing music and the seemingly limitless joy that cute, scarily talented firecracker gave us… and to hope that Michael finds the peace in death that seemed to elude him in this world.
Prayers to his kids and his loved ones.
Off the Wall is on… must put some blood on the dancefloor in MJ’s honor.
As the pundits rehashed the scandals of his life and debated what had brought him to a sudden end, Michael Jackson’s fans, an army of admirers undivided by language, religion or national differences, reacted with tears – and joy at the music he left behind. A look back at the life of the King of Pop:
A new day emerged Wednesday at Focus on the Family, and it appears that day is somewhere in the 1960s. Going from business attire to more casual workwear is fairly routine these days, but the Denver Post reports that the biggest change specifically affects Focus’ women workers.
Beginning today, men who work at Focus no longer have to wear mandatory business attire, including a tie, and female employees don’t have to stick with just dresses or skirts and hosiery. Men can now come to work donning an open-collar shirt — but no spandex — and women can be decked out in dress pants and pantsuits.
On its face, this is not major news. It is instructive, however, when considering the source of the hateful and divisive “information” that comes from Focus on the Family and its various media outlets. In sharing this at the very least interesting and unique (in 2009 America) story, the intent is not to criticize, but to get people thinking: Female employees were forced to wear dresses, skirts, and panty hose at Focus as recently Tuesday. Two days ago. Boggles the mind — and it may explain quite a lot about the mindset of at least some of our opponents.
The Tuesday 7:30pm MVBA General Meeting (at the Belvedere) may be the most important of the year. If you are happy with policing, legislation and prosecution related to our current club and crime problems, then you can stay home and watch “America’s Funniest Home Videos”. Otherwise, please email this to your neighbors and print about a dozen of the attached fliers to post at your neighbor’s doors. Our guests listed below are the exact people who can help solve this problem and we won’t likely get them all to the table again. Please read on for information on critical MVBA efforts on this matter.
Major Smith for Central District Baltimore City Police Department
Sheryl Goldstein, Director of Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice
Catalina Rodriguez – City Council President’s Community Liaison
Ian Hines, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhoods
Patricia Jessamy, State’s Attorney for Baltimore City
Verna Jones, Maryland State Senator
William Cole, City Councilman Baltimore City
Jack Young, City Councilman Baltimore City
Michelle Pierce, Community Law Center
Crimestoppers Reward: At its Tuesday night meeting, the MVBA board resolved to fundraise for a $1,000 reward for any anonymous tip leading the arrest and conviction of any teen involved in a street assault in Mount Vernon after June 15th. Though justice for past victims is important, it was felt we should keep our focus on deterrent of future crimes. The primary focus for the reward is psychological – aimed at what is clearly group behavior. In the mind of the potential assailant(s), we seek to convert what is now a peer-group audience into potential peer witnesses. We plan to market this reward directly to the teens with the same style, promotional graphics, cards (“GameOva”), and myspace webpages as are currently use to promote their events.
Anonymous tips and reward distribution will be handled by Metro Crime Stoppers who work in close partnership with the Baltimore Police Department. More details will follow, but first we need to raise the funds quickly, so please donate online (www.mvba.org) , or mail or bring a check to the MVBA meeting.
Citizens on Patrol Segway: Our Safety Committee is growing including about a dozen trained Segway operators. These Segways are a tremendous “force multiplier” that allow our late-night volunteers to cover and support a much greater area. We need more than the two we have access to (one generously donated by Charles Street Development Corp.), so we’re trying to raise about $6k for a third unit. Please donate online (www.mvba.org) or mail or bring a check to the meeting and we’ll keep you informed of our progress. Also, you are encouraged to join the Citizens on Patrol and get Segway training yourself by sending an email to safety@mvba.org
Community Law Center: It is rare for MVBA to pass the hat for another organization. Michelle Pierce at the Community Law Center (link) has provide critical and inspired pro-bono legal representation to MVBA on several critical liquor cases – we would be in a far worse situation today without her help. She was key to getting El Patron and Red Square’s illegal club operations shut down, she is representing us block new live entertainment operations at Robert Oliver, and of course scarcely a day goes by that she isn’t working on the Suites Ultralounge problem (obviously a tough case). MVBA board member Stan Keyser has offered a $500 match to any MVBA donations to the CLC. The CLC is a non-profit suffering under budget cuts and an organization that your board encourages you to support. Please donate online (www.mvba.org) or mail or bring a check to the meeting.
DONATE: Please donate by clicking the link below and use the “add special instructions” link at the last step for any specific instructions on which of the above initiatives you want your funds directed, else you can let the Safety Committee make that determination. Sorry, due to time constraints, this is not a tax-deductible opportunity. You don’t need to be or become a PayPal member and you also have the option of simply sending a check to: Mount Vernon-Belvedere Association, 1221 N. Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202 for: Safety Program (or any of the above).
Click the “Donate” button at www.mvba.org”
The MVBA General Meetings take place on the third Tuesday of each month with the exception of August and December. Meetings are held at the Belvedere Hotel, 1 E Chase Street at 7:30 PM.
Court Rules Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional, Irrational is an old piece of mine published at LA Progressive. Today, a comment came from a religiously motivated ‘phobe who is under the mistaken notion that the US is a theocracy, and… well, let’s just say this misguided fellow child of the Creator picked the wrong day to mess with me.
First, check out the Jim Crow proponent’s comment (name withheld because I respect his humanity more than he respects mine).
JCP: I support marriage as a religious union and I also support civil unions. I am far from anti gay, I had a gay organist play the music at my wedding. I have had dinners at a gay club. I have a child who has a same sex partner and while they are of the same sex, they are not of the same ethnicity, which causes an additional problem in our current social order. Both of them feel as I do, that marriage is a “religious term”. This couple and their parents agree that strong civil unions, a secular joining outside the church is needed to provide equal rights. Civil unions should have the same legal privileges as marriages but not the same name. I also contacted a gay cousin for an opinion and got the same answers.
My family supports marriage as a religious term that declares that one man and one woman have joined as one before God and their church membership. If the term marriage is used outside of it’s original religious intent, then government is diluting a religious act.
All of my family members feel that some gays want the term “marriage” so much that they do not pursue the much more attainable solution of social unions performed under state law and outside of the church. Such a union could quickly be available in all states where as “gay marriage” is going to take a lot longer in places like the south.
I have another minority group in my family, Quakers. I have an observation about the minority members of my family, one group invites an invasion and the other group would require some converts in order to repopulate itself. How do gays become parents? If one or both would agree to carry a fetus to term I would have more warm feelings towards gays. What would happen to a country composed of only gays or Quakers? One group can not replace the population of the country and the other group can not defend it, yet my family has done both. My family members agree that a country could not survive if it were composed of only either of these two minorities.
Viel Gluck to all
My turn.
NR Davis: Sounds like “Some of my best friends are gay, so I can’t be a homophobe.” [And apparently self-hating gays, to boot.]
Screw that.
Let’s just agree that you are un-American and opposed to legal equality for all citizens and save the rest.
Brown v. Board of Education. Separate but equal is NOT equal. Separate but equal is UNconstitutional. And immoral.
Period.
Your religious views are yours. Period. They don’t belong in civil law. Period.
And if you expect people to accept inequality peacefully or quietly and to continue to endure the secular government punishing us because of your religious views, think again, pal.
Why should I pay taxes if I am unequal under law???
Why should I accept it — for *your* sake?
Think again.
Until the philosophy that holds one group superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, it’s war. Period. [Thanks, Bob Marley. I'm standing up for my rights.]
You’re in my prayers. No one wants to withhold equality from you, but not only do YOU wish to do that to ME, you [expect] me to accept it. Which means that in addition to being un-American, your position is INSANE.
If what you say is so — it patently is not — then hets who marry in courthouses should be limited to civil union. And church weddings should hold NO legal status. [And no tax exemption.]
If you get civil marriage, so should I. That’s the American way. Otherwise, America is a vile, mendacious construct.
And let’s be honest: You don’t want equality; you want SUPREMACY. And that is just evil on every level. Shame on you.
Do I sound rude? I am not taking anything from you, buster. And I refuse to kowtow to your ilk anymore. I’ve had it.
I know my right-wing friends and loved ones don’t like the word “ilk,” but the shoe fits. I don’t like second-class status and am forced to suffer that indignity day in, day out, year after year. Who has it worse?
Watch — I’ll be called the bad one. Be nice to your oppressor — including the new president — no matter what, right?
Screw that. I’m not trying to take his rights away. If anyone owes an apology JCP does — to me and to the millions human beings he feels should be less than him under civil law because his god says so.
Cheers to New Hampshire! Six states down, 44 to go. And we’re comin’ for ya, bigoted 44. It’s war. Nonviolent war, but war. A loving war, but war. The second-class citizens — those who don’t hate themselves — have had it up to here. We’re done.
Advice to those, who like me, live under the majority’s boot: Be good and kind and fair to everyone, but do not accept inferior status. Do not capitulate to their terms. Those who align with the Religious Wrong and its theocratic tyranny over the secular arena don’t deserve superiority and supremacy. Period. They deserve equality and fairness — and so do we, whether their god likes it or not.
What is marriage? Adorable tyke Jesse has the answer to Grover’s question.
See, right-wingers: No controversy, no confusion, no skies falling. Just love. No one but someone filled with hate, a control-freak religionista, or a heterosupremacist could fault the little boy’s answer. If it helps, those happy to leave me without equality can insert the word “civil” in front of the word “marriage.” You see, that’s all we’re demanding (NOT asking): civil marriage equality. The churches will take care of themselves; mine already does the right thing.
That boy deserves a big hug. Obviously, he has great parents. Lucky kid. Lucky us!
Though my wife can be a terror at times, I still like keeping her around as my spouse. This is also despite the fact that Andy Pugno of “Yes on 8” fully expects us to divorce: “if California goes as Massachusetts did after legalizing gay marriage, a substantial portion of the still-recognized gay marriages will be dissolved by divorce within a few years.”
No, I want don’t want a divorce; I want to return my marriage license. I’m now an owner of a document and a part of a system that specifically excludes a segment of the population, specifically my queer brethren. I’m ashamed to be a part of the California marriage system, and I want nothing to do with it until this discrepancy is fixed.
Spread the song and message far and wide. Sing with pride at the top of your lungs. Remember our community’s history and how far we have come — then take that feeling of pride and use it as fuel to fight for our future: Take to the streets to answer the bigotry and cowardice of the California Supreme Court. Boycott bigoted establishments Work for equality until America finally is what it pretends to be — a land of equality and justice for all.
The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law.
The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists say they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.
Although the court split 6-1 on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the justices were unanimous in deciding to keep intact the marriages of as many as 18,000 gay couples who exchanged vows before the election. The marriages began last June, after a 4-3 state high court ruling striking down the marriage ban last May.
In an opinion written by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, the state high court ruled today that the November initiative was not an illegal constitutional revision, as gay rights lawyers contended, nor unconstitutional because it took away an inalienable right, as Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown argued.
Only Justice Carlos R. Moreno, the court’s sole Democrat, wanted Proposition 8 struck down as an illegal constitutional revision.
Justice Joyce L. Kennard, who voted with the majority last year to give gays marriage rights, joined George and the court’s four other justices in voting to uphold Proposition 8.
President Obama on Tuesday nominated federal appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
If confirmed, Sotomayor, 54, would be the first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court justice and the third woman to serve on the high court.
Sotomayor “is an inspiring woman who I believe will make a great justice,” Obama said at a White House announcement.
She “has worked at almost every level of our judicial system, providing her with a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice,” he added.
Obama said Sotomayor would bring more experience on the bench than anyone currently serving on the Supreme Court when appointed.
My latest Baltimore Progressive Community Examiner column is up. (Apologies for the time off — a massive injury has kept me largely bedridden for a week, but pain or no, I gotta get to work for sanity’s sake.) The subject is Baltimore City Public Schools’ rule that students who commit violent acts in school must be barred — permanently — from area public schools. They’ll be allowed no access to alternative schools, home instruction (unless their folks can homeschool, an unlikely proposition for most), or any city educational resources. In the short run, it looks like a great thing for schools: Overall suspension and expulsion rates are down. But what are the long-term prospects? What the heck are these kids to do?
Do read the column and think about it. And be sure to listen to the Anthony McCarthy Show tonight at 6pm Eastern. I’ll be among the guests addressing this hot-button and very important topic. You can listen in Baltimore via 88.9 FM. You can listen from anywhere in the world via the WEAA Web site.
Progressive news, commentary, activism info, religion, pop culture and more from award-winning journalist-broadcaster Natalie Davis
GDPR – Grateful Dread Public Radio
LISTEN NOW! TUNE IN for our singular multigenre music mix, award-winning progressive news/talk and independent music and entertainment programs, vital info you can use, diverse POVs you won't hear on corporate media, activism alerts & more.
I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone. I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours’ and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.
18 Jun
For Right-Wing Group, Someone New Wears the Pants
Posted by NR Davis in Activism, Equality, Media. Tagged: anti-gay, Commentary, conservative, Culture, fashion, focus on the family, fotf, Opposition Research, Religion, republicans, Right Wing, society, women, women's rights. 2 Comments
On its face, this is not major news. It is instructive, however, when considering the source of the hateful and divisive “information” that comes from Focus on the Family and its various media outlets. In sharing this at the very least interesting and unique (in 2009 America) story, the intent is not to criticize, but to get people thinking: Female employees were forced to wear dresses, skirts, and panty hose at Focus as recently Tuesday. Two days ago. Boggles the mind — and it may explain quite a lot about the mindset of at least some of our opponents.