Rights and Liberties

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Jon Stewart on Swiss Minaretaphobia
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on December 4, 2009 at 8:22 AM.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency (Via TPM) reports that Swiss intolerance continues to grow:

A mainstream Swiss political leader is calling for a ban on separate Muslim and Jewish cemeteries.

Christophe Darbellay, president of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland, made the statement in a television interview Tuesday, two days after Swiss voters passed an initiative to ban minarets.

The anti-minaret initiative came from the opposition ultra-conservative Swiss People's Party and other right-wing political organizations. Critics say Darbellay is starting a "crusade" to attract voters by proposing similarly xenophobic measures.

For a lighter look at this dark story developing in Switzerland, here's Jon Stewart:

10 Companies to Avoid This Holiday Season
Posted by Tara Lohan on December 4, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

Air America put together a list of companies that you should think twice about before handing them your money. Their research is based on descriptions from The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated By Their Politics And Practices. This is a super handy little book that tells you about companies' environmental, human rights and labor practices and also which political parties they give money to and how much. There are probably hundreds of ‘10 worst' (or best) lists you could come up with from the book, but Air America at least got the ball rolling.

Here's a little info on what they found. You can read the whole thing on their website and you should, there's lots more there. Also check out the book. It's handy to take along shopping. Or maybe it will just be an iPhone app soon anyway (or maybe it is?).

1. Children's Place: "It gets its products from places with human rights and labor violations and had to pay $1.5 million in a settlement alleging that they violated the Securities Act.

2. Hanes: "...went the extra step to be cited for ‘egregious labor violations.'" Oh, and they have not even an attempt at an anti-discrimination policy for sexual orientation and gender identity.

3. JC Penny: "D- on Green America's scorecard and D+ from the NAACP."

4. Limited Brands (this includes Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works): "The now scarily common ‘sourced from countries with widespread, well-documented human and labor rights abuses' rears its head here..."

5. IBM: "It's been sued for improperly converting employee pension plans and for exposing them to toxic chemicals." Oh and also for "aiding and abetting South Africa's apartheid regime."

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Sweden Cutting Aid to Uganda Over 'Appalling' Anti-Homosexuality Bill
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on December 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM.

The Ugandan parliament is currently considering an “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” under which any person “convicted of gay sex is liable to life imprisonment.” If that person is HIV positive or has sex with a minor or a person with a disability, he or she would be found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality” and face the death penalty. Although the U.S. has not yet taken an official position on the bill, other countries are speaking out. Both UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper have called the legislation unacceptable, and now Sweden is adding its voice:

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A Look at the Shady Morals of NY State Senator Hiram Monserrate Who Opposed Marriage Equality
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 3, 2009 at 3:02 AM.

I’ve made my views on Ruben Diaz fairly clear. One jackass I’ve focused less on is Hiram Monserrate, a New York state senator who was one of eight Democrats to vote “no” on the marriage equality bill that failed today. Mr. Monserrate was too cowardly to speak on the senate floor about marriage equality, and instead chose to cast his “no” vote without explanation. So while Mr. Monserrate is projecting his “moral values” onto the rest of us, it’s worth pointing out that those morals include slashing his girlfriend’s face with a broken beer bottle, which required 20 to 40 stitches to close. That was before he violently dragged her, while she was bleeding, through the lobby of their building to take her to the ER. What a guy. (Did you catch that it’s their building? That is, they live together. Unmarried. I think my grandma calls that “in sin.” Just sayin).

Because he was only found guilty of misdemeanor assault, he was able to keep his senate seat. Because he was able to keep his senate seat, he was able to vote against marriage equality today.

You can call Mr. Monserrate’s district office at (718) 205-3881, and his Albany office at (518) 455-2529. Tell him that your moral values embrace equality and deplore violence.

And when it’s re-election time, throw a few dollars toward Jose Peralta. I know I will.

NY Senate Votes Down Same-Sex Marriage, Anti-Gay Group Declares Victory For God (And Asks For Money)
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 2, 2009 at 2:40 PM.

No sooner did the New York State Senate vote down same-sex marriage (against promising odds) than the self-appointed morality police declared it a victory for God, one that "will reverberate up and down America, putting the fear of God -- and the American voter -- into the hearts of weak-kneed and weak-willed politicians everywhere."

Those are the triumphant words, anyway, of the National Organization for Marriage, the non-profit organization that, among other projects, created the much parodied "Gathering Storm" TV ad whose self-consciously multicultural cast warned of the looming menace of terrifying! freedom-robbing! same-sex marriage, with all the maturity and lyrical depth of a middle school poetry contest. ("There's a storm gathering / the clouds are dark / the winds are strong / and I am afraid.")

Yes, the NOM has a way with words. In a message to its supporters -- "Dear Friend of Marriage" -- Executive Director Brian S. Brown could barely contain his glee that gay New Yorkers will continue to be denied the right to marry the people they love. "The New York state senate just rejected gay marriage 38 to 24," he cried. "Praise God!"

And thank you. NOM spent $600,000 reaching out to voters through phone calls and television and radio ads to make sure politicians heard from ordinary voters like you.

Gay marriage inevitable? Don’t believe the lie! You can make a difference and we at NOM are so proud to work with you and millions of other ordinary Americans who know in their hearts that marriage IS the union of husband and wife.

Brown continued his letter as any good victory speech would, by thanking the various individuals who made it all possible, reserving special mention for Bronx Republican Ruben Diaz "who was in his office praying before the vote and has been a true leader on this issue."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

NY Set to Legalize Gay Marriage
Posted by Kos , Daily Kos on December 2, 2009 at 11:02 AM.

DC Council Passes Marriage Equality, 11-2
Posted by Adam Bink, Open Left on December 2, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

This morning the DC Council passed legislation legalizing marriage equality. The vote was 11-2. The two against were former Mayor Marion Barry and Yvette Alexander. Neither vote was surprising, and both had been active in trying to weaken the bill or put it to a ballot vote. What is heartening is how many Councilmembers stood up for equality today, and stood firm in the face of the Washington Archdioecese's recent disingenuous blackmail threats to cut off charity services.

On the religious note, even better was that the lead sponsor, Chairman Mendelson, adopted a proposed amendment by GLAA, one of the local LGBT activist groups, and other supporting organizations. It would delete the words "same-sex" from the following bill text (bolding mine):

"a religious society, or a nonprofit organization which is operated, supervised, or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious society, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities, or goods for a purpose related to the solemnization or celebration of a same-sex marriage, or the promotion of same-sex marriage through religious programs, counseling, courses, or retreats, that is in violation of the religious society's beliefs."

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Why Do Mainstream Media Suck Up to Pastor Rick Warren?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 1:27 PM.

One of the most maddening things about covering the religious right as a progressive journalist is watching the mainstream media suck up to the leading figures of the religious right, as if, because they are self-declared men of God, they are somehow beyond reproach. Nowhere was this phenomenon more on display than this weekend's edition of NBC's Meet the Press, in host David Gregory's interview of Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, and author of the Purpose-Driven Life.

The premise for the interview was not anything newsworthy that Warren had done, but rather the True Meaning of Thanksgiving, which Warren was happy to illustrate with examples of his own generosity. Warren even compared himself, with no challenge from the host, to King Solomon. And MTP producers gave Warren a full half of the program, without any balance offered by a liberal religious figure.

In fact the one newsworthy thing Warren has done recently -- lend tacit support to a proposal for the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda -- never came up in Gregory's interview. This controversy has been around for a while. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner reported it on November 3, and the think tank Political Reseach Associates issued an October 29 press release calling on Warren to denounce the draconian law, which would include the death penalty for HIV-infected people who have sex of any kind, and would "authorize...life imprisonment for gay sex," according to Posner, who called Warren for comment on the law. What she got back was a statement from Warren saying he took no position on the Uganda law, which would also criminalize organizing for LGBT rights.

The closest Gregory came to this issue was to ask Warren if his AIDS-mitigation work had altered his views of gay people:

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GA Jail Goes Pink to Deter Repeat Offenders
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 12:45 PM.

This may be one of the most asinine things I've heard yet, but the sheriff of Georgia's Ben Hill County jail has decided to make everything in the jail pink:

Pure Pepto Bismol Pink will cover every wall inside the jail.

"We are also going to have pink shower shoes, pink wash clothes, pink towels, pink sheets and pink blankets," said jail administrator Martin Hough.

If you're wondering why:

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Someone Is Finally Taking Our Busty Bikini-Clad Barista Crisis Seriously
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 12:25 PM.

Like most straight dudes, I simply hate breasts on attractive young women. 

So this comes as quite a relief to me:

Laws aimed at shielding the public from X-rated behavior by employees and customers at drive-through espresso stands are scheduled for a possible vote at a Snohomish County Council hearing this week.

A licensing ordinance would brand businesses adult entertainment if baristas bare too much flesh. The county also is considering a tougher version of its criminal law on lewd conduct. The new rules would apply to all businesses, not just the ones peddling cups of Joe.

[Hat-tip to Oliver Willis, who often offers sober dispatches from the hot-chick newsbeat.]

It's interesting how our perspectives shape the way we read a story like this one. I approached it with the assumption that it was going to be about just the usual 'won't somebody please think of the children!' conservative hypocrisy about sexual morality.

But then I realized that only one of the two measures described in the story really fits that description, and I actually have no truck with the other.

This first one, expanding the definition of "lewd behavior" in the criminal code, seems superfluous (there are already laws against indecent exposure). And if it's not an abridgment of citizens' 1st Amendment rights, it at least provides a slippery-slope in that direction:

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Naomi Klein: Why Rich Countries Should Pay Reparations To Poor Countries For The Climate Crisis
Posted by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! on November 30, 2009 at 1:40 PM.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the best-selling author of The Shock Doctrine. Yes, independent journalist Naomi Klein joining us from Toronto, Canada to talk about the latest shocks to the economy and with the climate summit in Copenhagen just two weeks away, the coming together of a global movement for climate justice. She is just out with the 10th anniversary edition of her first book, the international bestseller No Logo. And her latest articles include "Climate Rage," for Rolling Stone Magazine, and "Copenhagen, Seattle Grows Up," for The Nation. Naomi Klein, Welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with the issue of climate change and as you put it, climate rage. Tell us what is happening.

NAOMI KLEIN: That piece in Rolling Stone is looking at a growing demand for the repayment of climate debt. This is really a relatively new framing for the climate crisis and is becoming predominantly from the developing world, led by the government of Bolivia and other Latin American governments, and it has been joined by the coalition of least developed countries which are primarily in Africa. And essentially what they're saying is that the climate crisis as we know was created in the industrialized world. There is a direct correlation between industrialization (what we call development) and carbon emissions. In fact, 75 percent of the historical carbon emissions have been produced by only 20 percent of the world's population. Then we have this cruel geographical irony, which is that the effects of climate change our felt overwhelmingly in the developing world, and the parts of the world that are least responsible for creating the crisis. According to the World Bank, 75-80 of the effects of climate change are being felt in the developing world. So, you have this inverse relationship between cause and effect.

It is in this context that we see a growing movement from the developing countries that really are on the front lines of climate change, saying that the rich world that created the climate crisis owes them a debt, owes them a tangible reparations for the creation of this crisis. And those reparations should be paid in three forms. First through deep emissions cuts in the developed world, in the rich world. At least 40 percent below 1990 levels- this is a figure we have heard a lot. In addition to this, they are saying the rich world, the G-8 countries, the industrialized countries, should pay for the costs, the huge costs, that poor countries face in adapting to climate change. In addition to that, they’re also saying that they would like to leapfrog over the dirty energies, the fossil fuels that are fueling the climate crisis. But they point out that this is expensive and more expensive to shift to cleaner green technology than it is to develop with cheap, dirty fuels, which is the way we did in the rich world. So, they are saying we will change, but we don’t think we should have to pay this additional cost because of our problem that is not of our creation. Essentially the climate debt arguments is the “polluter pays” argument, which is a familiar argument to people in the United States, its a basic principle of jurisprudence. Another way of putting this is “you broke it, you bought it”.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk specifically about the countries that are raising these concerns and saying we shouldn’t have to pay. For example in Africa.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the African Union, the coalition of African states, have been very clear that their primary demand out of Copenhagen are these deep emissions cuts and serious funding for adaptation to climate change. In eastern Africa right now, you have massive, you have serious droughts affecting millions of people. That is just one example of the kind of costs that are being incurred because of climate change already. So, we’re not talking about projecting into the future, some hypothetical future, we are talking about right now.

The main push, as I said, is actually coming from Bolivia. And Bolivia has an extraordinary climate negotiator, who I quote in the Rolling Stone piece, named Angelica Navarro, who I first met in Geneva. She was actually Bolivia’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization. She’s very clear, very tough, multilingual. It takes a lot of strength to stand up to the sort of pressure that a small country like Bolivia faces, whether at the World Trade Organization or now in the climate negotiations. And Angelica Navarro is really up to the task and she has been giving these really inspiring speeches, at summits in the lead up to Copenhagen. And has really been an galvanizing force for other developing countries.

But also, you know she is taking a demand that is coming from groups like the third World Network, Focus on the Global South, Jubilee South, coalitions of NGOs and climate justice groups, that have been making these demands on the outside of summits. But, what is interesting now is that these demands have entered inside the summit, they are at the negotiating table. And of course there is extraordinary resistance from the United States, and the European Union, Canada, Australia, to the idea that they shouldn’t just be giving money to the developing world to adapt to climate change, to deal with climate change, out of the goodness of our hearts, out of a sense of charity, but actually out of a legal obligation. This is a frightening concept as you can imagine.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein –

NAOMI KLEIN: The case for this is very strong, just to add.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon rejected widespread predictions that the summit in Copenhagen would be a failure.

BAN KI-MOON: Reading the latest news reports, however, you might think Copenhagen is destined to be a disappointment. That is wrong. To the contrary, we can, and I believe we can and we will reach a deal in Copenhagen that sets the stage for a binding treaty as soon as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to what Ban Ki-Moon is saying?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the problem is the definition of success in Copenhagen has been lowered and lowered. A few months ago the definition of success in Copenhagen was countries agreeing to lower emissions, to levels that climate scientists were demanding. And the science is very clear that we really do need cuts of 40 percent below 1990 levels. The other definition of success was rich countries coming to the table with levels of funding for the developing world that once again meet the actual need. And we know what those types of figures are. The World Bank for instance has estimated the cost faced by developing countries to simply adapt to a changing climate dealing with droughts, dealing with increased flooding, is $100 billion a year. The cost of leapfrogging over those dirty energies, as I was saying earlier, that’s $500 billion-$600 billion a year. That’s a figure from independent UN researchers. But now what we hearing from the UN is there hope for Copenhagen is that they can get developed countries, rich countries, to agree to $10 billion a year.

So Amy, they will turn around and say that is a success, but it is simply not a success. So, the definition of success is just been pushed lower and lower. And this is really a troubling issue, and it an issue that a lot of environmentalists, climate justice activists are going to have to confront. Because, with an issue like climate change, urgency matters, maintaining a sense of urgency in the face of this crisis really matters. So, there is a danger, a very real danger of creating an illusion of doing something about the problem in Copenhagen. You know, having Obama go make another terrific speech which he is very good at, claiming it is a breakthrough that the U.S. is talking about emission cuts of between, now they are saying 14-20 below 2005 levels, which is just absurd, it has nothing to do with the science. And then this $10 billion a year figure, which once again there such a huge gap between that figure, and the lowest possible figure that we’re hearing from the World Bank which is $100 billion.

So, we have to be very careful about what is called success, because if you turn around and say “It is a success to have U.S. commit to 14 percent cut from 2005 levels,” and a throwing a couple billion dollars a year out of the goodness of their hearts while still recognizing historical responsibility, then you lose some of this crucial urgency, in confronting this crisis. So, I think is very important for the climate justice movement not to allow politicians to pass off the failure as success.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, the issue of President Obama going. He's going to be in the region, he's going to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. He also just recently was in Copenhagen. He was there to push for Chicago to get the Olympics. But, he has not said he is going, although 65 world leaders have. The top three carbon polluters, the U.S., China and India, have not said they will attend the meeting. Your response?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know John Kerry is publicly calling on Obama to go and I think now that that is happened, my assumption is Obama will go. I do not think Kerry would be saying this if it was not already pretty much decided that he will go. And I think this whole process of lowering the definition of success, so essentially failure can be passed off as success, is really, much of it is about creating conditions for Obama to go and claim that failure is success. So, frankly, I think he will go, but I do not think we should allow that to be a definition of success.

AMY GOODMAN: Now of course we will be there, “Democracy Now!” will be there in force, en masse, to cover what is happening for the two weeks. We will be covering what is happening at the summit and we will be covering what is happening in the streets. Naomi, it is the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Seattle, the protests in Seattle, Washington. I’m going to be there in a few days and there’s a lot of conversation about what that has meant. But, before we go to break and talk about this 10 years later, talks specifically about what is planned for Copenhagen in the streets.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the latest column I wrote for The Nation is about this line that you can draw from Seattle to Copenhagen. I call the column “Seattle Grows Up,” because I think we're also seeing an evolution of a movement that can to world attention on the streets of Seattle. I think there has been a profound deepening of the coalition between groups that are primarily focused on poverty, on development, on debt, and environmental groups that have traditionally been focused on environmental issues. We saw that in Seattle, the beginnings of that coalition, with the famous "Teamsters and Turtles" coalition. Now we are seeing something much deeper.

It is this idea of climate debt that is bringing together groups, like I was saying, Jubilee South, like Action Aid, groups that have been mostly focused on anti-poverty and development and are now are seeing climate change as the single greatest barrier to human development around the world, but also seen the call for climate reparation as an opportunity for, to quote Angelica Navarro, Bolivia's ambassador to the climate negotiations, who I was talking about earlier, when she talks about the need for the developing world- developed world to pay our climate debt, she says if this happened and we would have a Marshall Plan for planet earth, which is a very exciting prospect because it means you have the opportunity to tackle simultaneously two of humanities most intransigent challenges, most intransigent problems, climate debt on the one hand, and inequality on the other. So, the bringing together of these two forces. That is what's going to be really, really exciting in Copenhagen. And a lot of the people, a lot of networks that grew out of Seattle are going to be activated in Copenhagen and have only grown stronger in recent years.

AMY GOODMAN: When we will come back, we’ll talk about ten years after the Battle of Seattle protest overall, its also the 10th anniversary of the release of your book, No Logo, I want to talk about "world branding."

...

... But Naomi, before we talk more specifically about Seattle, what about the specific actions planned for the streets of Copenhagen at the Climate Summit?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, it's going to be a maze, Copenhagen. It's the largest environmental gathering in history, larger, even, than the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. So there's going to be a lot happening all around the city.

But, here is where I think it's really different from Seattle: in Seattle, the World Trade Organization was really the enemy for the activists in the street, and the goal was to shut down the meeting, both from the outside and inside. And you had this interesting coalition of activists in the street with that message, that "No WTO" message. And then you had coalitions of developing countries inside, emboldened by these protests in the street, emboldened to stand up to the pressure from the European Union and the United States. And ultimately it was that sort of "pincer" that collapsed the meeting.

In Copenhagen, it's a different dynamic, because the fact is that the people in the streets overwhelmingly support the mission of the meeting in Copenhagen. And, so, they're not saying "no" to the idea of a climate summit. In fact, they're saying "yes," and they're revealing, highlighting that, in fact, it is the world leaders, particularly world leaders from the heavy-emitting countries, like the United States and Canada, who are the naysayers, who are the ones who are saying, "No, we don't actually want to tackle the climate crisis, we don't want to make the emissions cuts that are needed, that are required by science."

So, in a sense, it’s an inversion where it’s the activists who are saying, "Yes, we believe in this mission." And it's the politicians, really, who we need to reveal as being the ones who are actually saying, 'no,' even as they claim to be saying 'yes,' and even as they claim -- even as they sell failure as 'success.'"

So, it’s really tricky for activists in terms of figuring out how you interact with a summit like this. So, there's one day, for instance, the 18th -- December 18th, where activists are going to be kind of storming the conference center, nonviolently, but using civil disobedience. But their goal, they say, is not to shut down the meeting, but to open up the meeting and to have a forum inside the meeting to talk about real climate solutions, like leaving fossil fuels in the ground—dirty fossil fuels, particularly things like the Alberta tar sands -- talking about solutions like climate debt that we’ve been discussing, and exposing the fallacies of the claims that the market can solve the climate crisis.

Because, of course, that's what we’re going to be hearing a lot of in Copenhagen, market-based solutions: cap and trade, emission trading, carbon sinks, basically creating a huge market in pollution. And you have many of the same players that crashed the global economy, like Goldman Sachs, salivating over the idea of being able to have a speculative bubble over carbon.

So, that's the dynamic. It's not saying "no," not saying "shut down," but saying, "Open up. Let's talk about real solutions." And another example of this is that, actually, there will be an attempt to shut something down in Copenhagen, but that is focused on shutting down the port for a day -- Copenhagen's port -- to highlight the corporate side of this equation, the shipping industry and how emissions-heavy it is. And, so, not to shut down a meeting that actually the activists believe in, but to go after industry itself. So, there's going to be a lot of actions like that. A lot of thought and debate is going into how to craft actions that are really consistent with the goals of this movement.

AMY GOODMAN: And the delegates, the people who are involved in the climate talks, as opposed to the activists in the street -- something interesting that happened ten years ago with the Battle of Seattle that also turned things were those inside who were saying, "You are not listening to us." I mean, developing countries, for example, countries in Africa. What about those countries here, their role at the climate summit in Copenhagen?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, it remains to be seen. As I said, some of the most interesting solutions are being put on the table by Latin American governments, like Bolivia, also Ecuador.

But what we just saw in Barcelona, which was, you know, the last major negotiating push before the meeting in Copenhagen, is that the coalition of African states walked out of the summit en masse. So, basically a form of civil disobedience within the summit, in protest of the very low commitments for emission cuts coming from the developed world, which was interesting that the African bloc walked out, not because there wasn’t enough money for them, not because there wasn’t enough aid for them to deal climate change, but because they don’t simply want aid, they want us in the rich world to change our way of life because they are facing the effects of that. They’re on the front lines of climate change.

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Dubai May Finally Be Broke, But It's Been Morally Bankrupt All Along
Posted by Johann Hari, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

Dubai is finally financially bankrupt -- but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time. Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accouterments, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

If you go there with your eyes open -- as I did earlier this year -- the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

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George Will: Get Off My Lawn You Hippie Dope Fiends!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 8:35 AM.

I'm not sure when George Will completed the transition from acerbic center-right pundit to crotchety old fart whinging about the kids these days, but there's actually something reassuring about the fact that even in a world as crazy as ours is today a bow-tied moral scold like George Will can still find the time to get worked up over states passing medical marijuana laws.

Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine.

The Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana.

George Will's mad about it. But he was for states' rights before he was against them, of course. When? Oh, way back in ... last week, when the issue was a state's God-given right to refuse to participate in federal health-care schemes. Anyway ...

Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

Oh. My. God. College students smoking pot! What next -- people marrying trees?!?

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Conservative Hypocrisy: Food Stamps Are Hand-Outs to the Lazy ... Until I Need Them
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 30, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

This article on increasing rates of reliance on food stamps illustrates pretty clearly the right-wing mentality when it comes to social programs -- any sort of government aid is a hand-out to the lazy until I need it. Then it's still a hand-out to the lazy, just not for me.

While Mr. Dawson, the electrician, has kept his job, the drive to distant work sites has doubled his gas bill, food prices rose sharply last year and his health insurance premiums have soared. His monthly expenses have risen by about $400, and the elimination of overtime has cost him $200 a month. Food stamps help fill the gap.

Like many new beneficiaries here, Mr. Dawson argues that people often abuse the program and is quick to say he is different. While some people "choose not to get married, just so they can apply for benefits," he is a married, churchgoing man who works and owns his home. While "some people put piles of steaks in their carts," he will not use the government’s money for luxuries like coffee or soda. "To me, that's just morally wrong," he said.

He has noticed crowds of midnight shoppers once a month when benefits get renewed. While policy analysts, spotting similar crowds nationwide, have called them a sign of increased hunger, he sees idleness. "Generally, if you’re up at that hour and not working, what are you into?" he said.

I don't know, sir -- but since you're there too, why don’t you tell us?

Almost as precious is the suggestion that food stamps should come with work requirements, akin to cash welfare benefits:

"Some people like to camouflage this by calling it a nutrition program, but it's really not different from cash welfare," said Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, whose views have a following among conservatives on Capitol Hill. "Food stamps is quasi money."

Arguing that aid discourages work and marriage, Mr. Rector said food stamps should contain work requirements as strict as those placed on cash assistance. "The food stamp program is a fossil that repeats all the errors of the war on poverty," he said.

No word from Mr. Rector, though, on where those jobs are coming from.

Food stamps are increasingly utilized in large part because more Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Work requirements aren't particularly helpful if you live in rural Appalachia or suburban Detroit or the South Bronx and there just aren't jobs to be had.

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Hey Gov. Kaine, Restore Voting Rights for Felons
Posted by Tara Lohan on November 28, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Tim Kaine will be leaving office as Governor of Virginia in January but there's one last things folks are hoping he'll do: Restore voting rights for felons. Virginia and Kentucky are the last states to permanently revoke voting rights for anyone convicted of a felony as well as other civil rights like serving on juries or holding public office.

Here's a message from the Virginia Organizing Project, which has been working on this issue.

1. Virginia has an estimated 300,000 former felons who cannot vote.

2. The Governor of Virginia can restore voting rights for former felons.

3. We need Governor Tim Kaine to sign an Executive Order to correct this injustice -- before he leaves office in January. Call Governor Tim Kaine at (804) 786-2211 or send an e-mail here and ask him, "Please sign an Executive Order to restore voting rights for former felons so that their rights are automatically restored when they finish their sentence."

What you can do if you live in other states:

Please contact Valerie Jarrett at the White House (202-456-1190) and ask her to encourage Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (also DNC Chair) to sign an Executive Order to restore voting rights for former felons.

THANKS! Your phone call can make a HUGE difference -- please pass this on...

After Kaine leaves office he'll be replaced by Republican Bob McDonnell and Virginia residents are afraid that will be a backwards step on this civil rights issue.