Following an emotion-filled debate with spectators and legislative aides watching closely, the Nebraska legislature voted 30-19 to override the state governor’s veto of their bill to abolish the death penalty in the state. Note that Nebraska is a very conservative state so this move is quite astonishing.
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Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept interviewed the ACLU’s Deputy Legal Director, Jameel Jaffer about the maneuvering behind the USA Patriot Act whose provisions under section 215 will expire because of sunset provisions on June 1 unless Congress acts to pass something. The House has passed something known as the USA Freedom Act that revised some key provisions of section but that failed to pass in the Senate.
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For many people of my generation, the Vietnam war was a turning point that radicalized us. For the first in our lives, we saw a cruel war waged by a massive military power that used chemical and biological weapons on a massive scale against a much weaker nation and a defenseless population and whose effects will be felt for generations to come. But we also saw how that military could be defeated by a determined population that was fighting to repel foreign invaders and their local puppets. We saw first hand how the US government and its allies lied shamelessly in the effort to advance its imperialist ambitions, cloaking its real goals behind the rhetoric of democracy. That undoubtedly colored our view of geopolitics and is maybe why we saw so clearly the lies that led to the Iraq war and can also see the same dynamic trying to be resurrected against Iran.
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At yesterday’s official campaign launch, there was a large crowd of thousands as Bernie Sanders called for a ‘revolution’ and hammered away at the issue of how the wealthy are vacuuming up all the wealth. You can see the crowd that gathered and can see his speech below.
I was of course pleased that the Irish voted in favor of same-sex marriage and delighted that the margin of victory (62% in favor) was so large. The fact that a country that is so closely identified with Catholicism gave such a strong affirmation that all people should be treated equally regardless of their sexual orientation has sent shock waves through not only the Catholic establishment but through much of the anti-gay world.
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I usually don’t watch the presidential primary debates, seeing them as a waste of time. But this time, I may watch some, especially the early ones, because they promise to be quite entertaining. I wrote before about the problem that the Republican party is having because the large numbers of declared and undeclared candidates (with estimated numbers running as high as 20) makes it logistically difficult to hold debates.
Yes, I know that he already had said that he was running for the presidential nomination but in the strange way that American elections are run and dragged out for so long, it makes sense to get the most publicity by first saying you are interested in running, then setting up exploratory committees, then letting it be known that you are definitely running, and then formally kicking off the campaign. In Sander’s case, that last step will be taken today at 5:00 pm in his home town of Burlington, Vermont, where he was first elected to office as mayor.
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You may have been following the intricate and arcane maneuvering in the US senate where the fate of key data gathering provisions of the USA Patriot Act are due to expire on June 1 unless Congress takes action before then. Dan Froomkin gives us the current state of play on the debate over the NSA’s blanket collection of data. Froomkin says that currently there are just two options available:
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As the presidential campaign picks up steam (even though the actual date is still 18 months away!), the merits of the Iraq war are being debated once again as the chaos in the region and the rise of groups like ISIS has made even many people on the conservative end of the political spectrum begin to wonder if that fateful decision to invade Iraq has not resulted in creating a much worse situation. Everyone is eager to avoid blame for the debacle that has pretty much destroyed a once modern nation.
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I am way out of touch with popular culture and so I had never heard of John Legend before the Oscars this year when the news reported that he and Common (another performer whom I had never heard of until recently) had given a boffo live performance of the song Glory from the film Selma during the Academy Awards show, where it won an award and where the two gave great acceptance speeches.
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