Politics

A pretty intelligent article on Sean Penn’s visit to Iraq.

Penn spoke quietly, with evident sincerity. This was the time for a kind of summing up. For the most part during his three-day visit, Penn had gone out of his way to avoid the cameras, saying that he would share his thoughts at a press conference just prior to leaving Baghdad.

Now, as he continued with his statement, the room was still. Penn said that he was “privileged to have lived a life under our Constitution that has allowed me to dream and prosper.” And he continued: “In response to these privileges I feel, both as an American and as a human being, the obligation to accept some level of personal responsibility for the policies of my government, both those I support and any that I may not. Simply put, if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis will be on our hands.”

And then, Sean Penn added: “My trip here is to personally record the human face of the Iraqi people so that their blood – along with that of American soldiers – would not be invisible on my own hands. I sit with you here today in the hopes that any of us present may contribute in any way to a peaceful resolution to the conflict at hand.”

Remember, as long as we’re pretending to be a democracy, the actions of our government are the responsibility of all of us. The citizens of Iraq, or Afghanistan, do that have that privilege or responsibility.

Is this code for “blame the Jewish-controlled media?”

Trent Lott on his critics — emphasis mine:

When you’re from Mississippi, when you’re conservative and when you’re a Christian, there are a lot of people that don’t like that. But I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame.

The cover of yesterday’s Daily Mirror:

The Nation has a good essay by Adrienne Rich, titled “Making the Connections,” regarding the fact that the pro-corporate, pro-war, anti-civil liberties activities of the current regime are all parts of the same agenda.

This makes a good excuse to link to the Blue Button Project — I set up the web site.

Head over to James’s site to read more about it.

Good blog post from Nathan Newman on Bill Frist.

Remember my post a few days ago about the Eli Lilly protection amendment mysteriously appearing in the Homeland Security Act?

The language was taken from Frist’s original version of a bill to protect them.

The LA Times is covering this story, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else except from bloggers.

I find it very disturbing that other major newspapers seem to be ignoring it, or burying it away from the front page.

Hundreds Are Detained After Visits to INS

Hundreds of men and boys from Middle Eastern countries were arrested by federal immigration officials in Southern California this week when they complied with orders to appear at INS offices for a special registration program.

The arrests drew thousands of people to demonstrate Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesmen refused Wednesday to say how many people the agency had detained, what the specific charges were or how many were still being held. But officials speaking anonymously said they would not dispute estimates by lawyers for detainees that the number across Southern California was 500 to 700. In Los Angeles, up to one-fourth of those who showed up to register were jailed, lawyers said.

The number of people arrested in this region appears to have been considerably larger than elsewhere in the country, perhaps because of the size of the Southland’s Iranian population. Monday’s registration deadline applied to males 16 and older from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. Men from 13 other nations, mostly in the Mideast and North Africa, are required to register next month.

Many of those arrested, according to their lawyers, had already applied for green cards and, in some instances, had interviews scheduled in the near future. Although they had overstayed their visas, attorneys argue, their clients had already taken steps to remedy the situation and were following the regulations closely.

“These are the people who’ve voluntarily gone” to the INS, said Mike S. Manesh of the Iranian American Lawyers Assn. “If they had anything to do with terrorism, they wouldn’t have gone.”

…

I’ve only seen an AP story from the NY Times.

From 2000: McCain and Bush flirted with neo-Confederate movement.

FBI warns corporations to look out for violence from anti-war protesters.

50 Trent Lott Facts. My favorites:

41. As youngest member of the House Judiciary Committee, he voted against impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974. Twenty-five years later, he voted for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

46. Once declared he feels closer to Jefferson Davis “than any other man in America.”

47. In mid-’90s, organized the Dark Ages Weekend, a mid-winter outing for ultra right-wingers at Miami’s posh Doral Golf Resort and Spa in Miami.

49.In 1981, helped Jackson, Miss., annex white suburbs to dilute political strength of black voters.

"There’s only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I’ve got an additional responsibility to hug and that’s me and I know what it’s like." — Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2002.

One word: ick.

Lisa at Ruminate This writes about TomPaine.com’s offer of $10,000 for information about who inserted the provision into the Homeland Security Bill protecting Eli Lilly from lawsuits:

In November, as Congress finalized the legislation authorizing a new Department of Homeland Security, two paragraphs suddenly appeared in the bill giving drug maker Eli Lilly & Company something it desired: a shield from lawsuits by parents who claim the company’s vaccines caused their children’s autism.

The provision diverts those suits from state courts to a federal ‘vaccine court’ where damages are capped at $250,000 – small compensation for a child’s lifetime of medical care. And because any damages awarded by the vaccine court are paid by U.S. taxpayers, manufacturers are relieved of liability.

We have a very broken democracy when provisions like this become law and no person has to take credit or blame for it. Bills don’t write themselves.

New report out from People For the American Way:

Bush, Lott, and Ashcroft: Shared Agendas Threaten Civil Rights Gains