Democracy Now! (Marcia: "always worth watching"):
Headlines for May 20, 2005
- NYT: Army Abuse Report Details Widespread
- Carriles Charged
- Uzbekistan Rejects UN Request
- Haiti March for Aristide Return
- U.S. To Fly 100 Israelis to Testify Against Al-Arian
- Desecrated Koran Delivered by Amazon
- Pinochet Hospitalized
- Child Abuse In Military Families
Battle Over Judicial Nominees, Filibuster Heats Up in Senate
The battle over the filibuster continues to heat up in the U.S senate as the nomination of Texas Supreme Court justice Priscilla Owen comes under debate. Racial politics also entered the debate over the nomination of Janice Brown. We speak with Christy Harvey of the Center for American Progress and Jeffrey Johnson of People For The American Way.
Washington Retains Strong Ties With Uzbekistan Despite Notorious Human Rights Record
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has rejected calls for an international inquiry into a bloody crackdown on protesters in the town of Andijan last week that left up to 750 dead. Washington has close links with Uzbekistan despite the country's notorious human rights record. We speak with a researcher with Human Rights Watch, the editorial director of Antiwar.com and we go to Andijan to get a report from the ground.
Indigenous Community in Colombia Fears Start of "Dirty War"
A large indigenous community in Colombia is predicting that a so-called dirty war could break out in an area that has been at the forefront of non-violent resistance to the government of the pro-US regime of President Uribe. We speak with the former mayor of Toribio and a surgeon and human rights activist from Toribio.
Todd e-mails to inform us that BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week is . . .
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
Some might call Neal Horsley the "Mule Whisperer" because of his history of mumbling sweet nothings in the hairy ears of a few equestrian hybrids.
To learn how Horsley earned his award, use link to continue reading.
And "let's just give it up to BuzzFlash today" (as Keesha suggested in her e-mail).
Keesha steers us to Dan in Dallas's BuzzFlash contribution "NY Times Hides Galloway in "International," and Leaves Out Damning Testimony." Here's an excerpt:
Today The New York Times hid its news article on the damaging and blistering anti-Bush anti-war testimony of MP Galloway before the US Senate in the NY Times "International" section ... guess that the US Senate is foreign territory now for NY Times editors.And guess who the NY Times had to 'write' its most pro-Bush spin ---- none other than the lying Judith Miller--the neo-cons' mouthpiece at the NY Times. Propagandist Judith Miller is Chalabi's best newswhore that the NY Times put front page for weeks on end in the Bush administration's push-to-war-damn-the-facts "reporter."And don't bother to re-read today's Judith Miller piece on Galloway's Senate testimony thinking you missed what Galloway actually said------because the NY Times did not publish ANY of the damaging testimony of Galloway----IT'S NOT THERE.
Eddie also e-mails to note a BuzzFlash exclusive, Pamela Troy's "Dangerous Clowns" which is the first of a four-part series. Here's an excerpt:
Look up the name "Julius Streicher" in the index of most recent books on the Third Reich and you’re likely to be referred to one or two brief mentions. He was a lout whose anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Sturmer, was so crude that he’s sometimes called “Hitler’s pornographer.” He is usually described as a squat thug with a paltry talent for harnessing the combined power of ignorance and malice, someone who intelligent people could safely ignore with a contemptuous laugh.
Many of those who watched the rise of the Third Reich as it happened weren’t that dismissive. In 1936 Time Magazine referred to him as "One of Nazi Germany’s Most Dangerous Clowns." Hitler himself considered Streicher’s ability to mobilize the masses to the cause of Nazism invaluable and Himmler was quoted in Streicher’s newspaper Der Sturmer, "In times to come when the story of the reawakening of the German people is written, and when the next generation will be unable to understand how the German people could ever have been friendly with the Jews, it will be said that Julius Streicher and his weekly newspaper were responsible for a good part of the education about the enemy of mankind." The tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 agreed. Part of the indictment against Streicher read:
In the early days he was preaching persecution. As persecution took place he preached extermination and annihilation and, as millions of Jews were exterminated and annihilated, in the Ghettoes of the East, he cried out for more and more. The crime of Streicher is that he made these crimes possible, which they never would have been had it not been for him and for those like him.
For the past twenty years, Streicher's voice has been most faithfully echoed in the pronouncements of people like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and countless other less well-known "clowns" who frequent cable TV, talk radio and the Internet. Like Streicher, they are often dismissed as so obviously ridiculous that they’re barely worth the attention of well-informed citizens. And while they are not anti-Semites and their rhetoric is unlikely to lead to the mass murder of those they target, it has, like Streicher's, made mindless hatred not just acceptable in the minds of many people, but downright virtuous.
And another BuzzFlash exclusive is noted by Martha, Wes Owens "Constitutional Crisis 101:"
As I sit here watching the Senate on CSPAN, I see we have arrived at a constitutional crisis.
Because I have made my living working as either a contractor or on the direct payroll of the US Federal Government since 1974, the business of the US Govt has been an interest of mine.I never really appreciated the US Senate as an institution until about 1985 when I became friends with a staffer of ex-Senator Roth (R-Delaware, you remember the Roth IRA?) and was concurrently reading Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson. If I recall, some critics of Caro's work dismissed the 2nd volume of Caro's bio., "Master of the Senate," as a rehash of high school civics. Not so. You see, just today, I was led to re-read the Constitution of the United States (the internet is a wonderful thing).
This reading of our Constitution reminded me of the fact that in the original document, the founding fathers designed the Senate as a forum where tradition, stability and the rights of the minority have not only a voice, but the means to speak dissent to the power and passions of the current majority. This is fundamental, basic and necessary to our system of checks and balances in the governance of the United States.
I'll note Barbara's Daily BuzzFlash Minute. Here's the opening paragraph:
George Bush is a perfect example of why we don't want biased, partisan, faith-based judges appointed to the courts. Thanks to 5 overly biased, partisan, faith-based Supreme Court Judges who took it upon themselves to overrule the majority vote in the United States and appoint a moron to the presidency, we've had 5 long years of pure hell, with no end in sight! And he wants more of the same to insure our demise and his success in the future. I can see it now, the courts stacked with holier than thou judges who would agree with Bush in 2008 when he decides to become the Dictator he's aspired to be all along! No thank you, Frist, no thank you, Senators, we don't want any more of your biased, partisan, faith-based bull shit! KEEP THE FILIBUSTER IN THE SENATE!!!!
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