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Left Bank Cafe Democracy Posts
Democracy - The What's Left of It Edition (Part 1) - Jul. 31, 2013
Democracy - The What's Left of It Edition (Part 2) - Aug. 5, 2013
American democracy is now under assault. Attacks against the "supreme power.. vested in the people" and against "periodically held free elections" have been ongoing for a long time. But recent Supreme Court decisions, legislative actions at the State level, the unchecked influence of special interest money, the rampant disregard for the truth, the abuse of the filibuster, and the continuing excesses of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act have made a mockery of the concept.
Voting Rights and Civil Rights
Voter Suppression
American democracy is in danger - not from any external threat or from foreign terrorists but from within. Racism, militarism, and a distorted concept of American exceptionalism pose, each in its own way, a threat to America's highest ideals. Political spending, given corporate personhood and an unlimited ability to influence elections by SCOTUS, provides an amplifier for the voices of the ruling class while stifling the voices of the less advantaged. Powerful special interest groups influence domestic laws as well as foreign policy. Legislation for the common good is blocked by right-wing extremists. Laws protecting the rights of all are dismantled by an ideological judiciary and the essential right of democracy, the right to vote, has been subverted. Such is the state of affairs and such is the degree of disillusionment that, in the 2014 midterm elections, two out of three voters chose not to exercise their most basic democratic right.
Many Americans demonstrate for the right of felons and psychopaths to have unchecked access to automatic weapons and protest when the government tries to improve health care. But not enough people protest the spying, the persecution of whistle blowers, the torture, the drone killings and the loss of basic democratic rights which have been with us since 9/11. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” I guess they've forgotten what one of our idolized Founding Fathers said.
Resources
A well-informed electorate is key to a functioning democracy. Two good fact-checking organizations are:
Media Matters at http://mediamatters.org/
FactCheck.org at http://www.factcheck.org/
The Brennan Center for Justice at
http://www.brennancenter.org/issues
covers voting rights, money in politics, government and court reform, justice issues, and civil liberties associated with national security laws.
The ACLU has a webpage with state-by-state voting requirements. You can also find out how to become a voting rights activist and who to contact if you feel your voting rights have been wrongly denied.
For civil rights, hate crimes and extremist groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose mission is "Fighting Hate, Teaching Tolerance, Seeking Justice", has "get informed" and "get involved" webpages. You can find them at:
If you want to get involved in the movement to overturn Citizen's United, check out the Move To Amend website.
Fifty years ago, on June 21, 2014, three civil rights activists - Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney - disappeared. The three had been working on the "Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to register African Americans to vote in the South.
The Next Attacks on Campaign Finance Reform and Voting Rights - May 21, 2014
After Citizens United and McCutcheon, you could be forgiven if you thought the ruling class was through with their attacks against reasonable constraints on campaign financing. After the widespread implementation of voter suppression laws in Republican-held states over the past few years, you could also be forgiven if you thought they would sit back and allow the laws to do the dirty work of denying people the right to vote. In both cases, of course, you would be wrong.
Voter Suppression 2014 - April 14, 2014
Besides the threat to democracy from the Roberts Court's decisions removing restrictions on campaign financing (Citizens Unitedand McCutcheon), there is an even more blatant and direct threat in the numerous state laws aimed at suppressing voter turnout.
SCOTUS; R.I.P. Voting Rights - June 25, 2013
The long-awaited Supreme Court decision on the 1965 Voting Rights Act, renewed by Congress in 2006, is in. While not ruling on the constitutionality of the law itself, the right-wing majority, in a 5-4 vote, struck down one of the most important clauses of the act and effectively invalidated another.
Critical Decision Time at the Supreme Court - Feb. 21, 2013
The Supreme Court will hear two cases in the coming months that could set back the United States' standing as a modern democracy. The right-wing activist judges on the court will have the opportunity to overturn both the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the federal campaign contribution limitations on individuals.
Stealing an Election - May 2, 2012
The most fundamental right in a democracy is the right to vote. That right is under severe and organized attack across the country. Under the guise of preventing voter fraud (which is almost completely non-existent in the United States), voter ID laws have been passed in 32 states...
Hate and Other Groups - Mar. 15, 2012
Lost amidst the political news of the past couple of weeks...was a sobering report from the Southern Poverty Law Center....The number of active hate groups identified by SPLC in 2011 rose slightly to 1018, continuing a decade-long trend.
Today as we celebrate what would have been the 83rd birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., there is an African-American in the White House and The Greatest heavyweight boxer of all time is about to turn 70.
March on Washington - Aug. 24, 2013
Fifty years ago, on August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington, D.C. The theme of the March on Washington, as it came to be called, was "jobs and freedom." It was probably the largest rally for human rights in the history of the United States. It was here that Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech, a call for racial harmony and equality.
Folk singer and activist Pete Seeger passed away on January 27 at the age 94. Infamously blacklisted after his appearance before the McCarthy-era "House Un-American Activities Committee", he was a tireless advocate for workers, civil rights, the environment and peace.
Sunday Roundup - August 11, 2013 - 1965 Voting Rights Act
On the 48th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act being signed into law by LBJ, Mother Jones had a post reminding us of how much the law has meant. MJ presented "five recent and egregious examples of minority discrimination that were blocked by Section 5, the part of the law the Supreme Court eviscerated in June."
Sunday Roundup Nov 30, 2014 (Ferguson)
In a Mother Jones article posted days after the shooting, Jaeah Lee writes: The killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, was no anomaly....But quantifying that pattern is difficult....No agency appears to track the number of police shootings or killings of unarmed victims in a systematic, comprehensive way. We do know some of the data and Lee presents them....
The Death of Michael Brown Dec 3, 2014
We may never know exactly what happened in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9th that led to the shooting death of an unarmed eighteen-year-old African-American named Michael Brown. The shooter, a white policeman, says he acted in self-defense and that he would or could have changed nothing. Eyewitnesses and law enforcement experts both support and repudiate these statements. What we do know is that the grand jury did not return an indictment, that the proceedings of that grand jury were deeply flawed, and that there is an underlying assumption about the actions of young black men that leads to tragic and unnecessary deaths....
Sunday Roundup Dec 7, 2014 (Eric Garner)
A grand jury once again failed to indict after the death of an unarmed African-American at the hands of a white police officer. The victim this time was Eric Garner and the place was New York City. The case of New York Police Department officer David Pantaleo wasn’t supposed to be like Ferguson. There was a video showing how a simple stop for selling untaxed cigarettes turned into a chokehold...
Campaign Financing
Updates and Briefs - Jul 23, 2014
R.I.P. Campaign Finance Reform - April 8, 2014
n a 5-4 vote last week, the Roberts Court sounded the death knell of campaign finance reform with its McCutcheon v. FEC ruling. "The Supreme Court...continued its abolition of limits on election spending, striking down a decades-old cap on the total amount any individual can contribute to federal candidates in a two-year election cycle."
Updates and Briefs - July 23, 2014
Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon vs. FEC
The Next Attacks on Campaign Finance Reform and Voting Rights - May 21, 2014
Today's Mixed Bag (Montana Corrupt Practices Act) - June 25, 2012
SCOTUS summarily reversed the Montana Supreme Court's ruling that held Montana's century old ban on corporate political donations to be constitutional and not in violation of Citizens United...
In Praise of Montana and Vermont - Feb. 18, 2012
On February 17, the Supreme Court of the United States blocked a Montana Supreme Court ruling that had upheld that state's century old limit on corporate campaign spending...
Gerrymandering
Sunday Roundup - Nov. 17, 2013
In an article posted on its website on November 11, Rolling Stone magazine takes up the lock on Congress that Republicans have in spite of the growing gap between their policies and the wishes of the majority of the electorate. Tom Dickinson explains how national Republicans have rigged the game by "waging an unrelenting campaign to exploit every weakness and anachronism in our electoral system. Through a combination of hyperpartisan redistricting of the House....
On the 2012 elections: From the Think Progress website: “Based on current tallies, Democrats now lead Republicans 59,343,447 to 58,178,393 in total votes cast for their House candidates — meaning that the American people preferred Democrats over Republicans by nearly a full percentage point of the total vote. Yet, despite clearly losing the popular vote, Republicans will control nearly 54 percent of the seats in the House in the 113th Congress.” (From "The Fiscal Cliff (and other) Follies", Jan. 3, 2013)
With Republicans on the verge of taking over the US Senate in November, every vote that might prevent that disaster is important. Here's some of the past week's news on the status of voter suppression in two "solid red" states in the midst of a demographic shift. Overturning a Federal trial court's earlier decision, the Supreme Court upheld without comment the Texas Voter ID Law, one of the worst in the nation....In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State is delaying approval of tens of thousands of minority applications secured by by the New Georgia Project on the grounds that fraud was involved. There is little evidence of any such thing....
Sunday Round-up Oct. 5, 2014 : Voting Rights (or lack thereof)
As the US midterm elections draw near, voting rights proponents have sued in Federal court, contesting various voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states. With SCOTUS's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and their unleashing of unlimited campaign money by the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the voter suppression laws are the third part of the shameful Troika of Plutocracy that promises to turn this year's election into the least democratic since the days of Jim Crow...
Sunday Round-Up - Oct. 26 2014 - Voter Suppression
With Republicans on the verge of taking over the US Senate in November, every vote that might prevent that disaster is important. Here's some of the past week's news on the status of voter suppression in two "solid red" states in the midst of a demographic shift.
Voter Suppression 2014 - April 14, 2014
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly - April 2014
What's With Florida? - Sep. 30, 2012
It's sort of like when “W” extended the so called “War on Terror” to Iraq. There were absolutely no Al-Qaeda in Iraq until our misguided invasion inspired their recruitment and drew them there. Now Florida, one of the Republican-held voter suppression states, finally has some real cases of voter fraud to talk about. The fraud is the work of Republican operatives.
Keystone State is Key - August 16, 2012
Wednesday, a Republican judge in Pennsylvania denied the request for an injunction to stop Pennsylvania's voter ID law from going into effect. This was done in spite of the acknowledgement of all involved with the case that in person voting fraud is practically nonexistent in Pennsylvania.
Florida 2000 Redux - June 18, 2012
A formidable legal battle is taking shape in the key battleground state of Florida. At stake is Florida's 29 electoral votes and, quite possibly, the ever-tightening 2012 Presidential election. Florida's Republican governor Rick Scott has ordered a purge from the voter rolls of up to 180,000 supposed non-citizens. As happened in Florida's 2000 purge of alleged felons, mistakes will be made, eligible voters will be eliminated from the voter rolls and turned away at the voting booth.
Stealing an Election - May 2, 2012
The most fundamental right in a democracy is the right to vote. That right is under severe and organized attack across the country. Under the guise of preventing voter fraud (which is almost completely non-existent in the United States), voter ID laws have been passed in 32 states and are in effect in 30 of them as of this writing.
Attacks on the Right to Vote - Oct. 31, 2011
"One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today." - Bill Clinton, 2011 Campus Progress National Convention, Washington, D.C., July 6, 2011 From Maine to Florida to Wisconsin to Texas, Republicans are coordinating an effort to suppress the vote ...
Post-Constitutional America - spying, torture, habeas corpus, and whistle blowers (With kudos to the TomDispatch post of the same title.)
Sunday Roundup May 12, 2013 (Guantanamo Bay Prison)
One of the first things Barack Obama did when taking office in 2009 was to pledge the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay prison. Guantanamo was being used as a facility for the indefinite detention of prisoners in the "war on terror". Well, four years later, prisoners are still being held in indefinite detention and a hunger strike is underway.
Sunday Roundup May 19, 2013 (Guest "Op-Ed")
Le Carré has just quoted Spy's fictional chief of the British secret service's predictable answer to the question: how far can we go in the rightful defense of Western values without abandoning them along the way?....
Sunday Roundup May 26, 2013 (Obama's Counter-Terrorism Speech)
David Corn in a May 23 post in MotherJones sees a glimmer of hope for civil liberties in President Obama's speech on counter-terrorism policies. Obama made the speech a day after the Administration admitted to the killing of four US citizens by drones.
Sunday Roundup June 9, 2013 (NSA Spying I and II)
It was government overreach under Bush and it still is under Obama. The only thing new about the recent revelations of government telephone spying is that the practice is still continuing. The National Security Agency is sweeping up the telephone records of Americans suspected of no wrongdoing....Then there is the more recent revelation that besides the telephone records' program, there is another program, called PRISM, that is targeting search histories, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats. If anything, this may be even more troubling.
Sunday Roundup June 16. 2013 (The Prosecution of Bradley Manning)
In a June 11 post on Tom Dispatch. human-rights lawyer Chase Madar takes on the "dystopian secrecy" of the post 9/11 era in the government's prosecution of Bradley Manning..."the young private’s act of civil defiance was in fact a first step in reversing the pathologies that have made our foreign policy a string of self-inflicted homicidal disasters."
Sunday Roundup June 23, 2013 (NSA Surveillance, Snowden and Hong Kong)
The US has charged 29 year old whistle-blower Edward Snowden with espionage. Kind of ironic, isn't it? They are charging the person who blew the cover on the NSA's warrantless surveillance with spying....
Sunday Roundup July 14, 2013 (NSA Spying and Edward Snowden)
Edward Snowden, the whistle blower who brought to everyone's attention details of the extent of the NSA surveillance programs, is reported ready to request political asylum from Russia - at least until he can arrange safe passage to one of the Latin American countries that have offered him asylum....
Sunday Roundup July 28,2013 (Snowden)
In its continuing effort to capture, extradite and punish NSA whistleblower Eric Snowden, the Obama Administration recently assured the Russians that they would not torture Snowden or seek the death penalty against him. Russia so far is having no part of it and Snowden remains in Russia awaiting temporary asylum....
Sunday Roundup Aug 4, 2013 (NSA Spying)
On Wednesday in The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald reported on the latest revelations from the documents released by whistle blower Edward Snowden - the NSA tool X-Keyscore. The program "allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals."...
Sunday Roundup Aug. 11, 2013 (Post-Constitutional America)
In a TomDispatch post on August 4, former State Department whistle blower Peter van Buren paints a chilling picture of the America that we are now living in. Two hundred thirty five years to the day after the Continental Congress established the first whistle blower protection law (see below), Wiki-leaker Bradley Manning was convicted on 20 of 22 counts and now faces up to 136 years in prison. The government's actions have "ushered us, almost unnoticed, into post-Constitutional America."...
Freedom of the Press? - Aug. 20, 2013
With all the bad examples of journalism and news reporting we've had in the past decade or so (think about the march into the Iraq War), it is disheartening to hear of the attempts to intimidate and muzzle The Guardian for its courageous reporting on the NSA spying scandal....
Military Injustice - Aug. 21, 2013
This morning a military judge sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks. This is a travesty that should be condemned by all right-thinking people on this planet. Evidently it's less offensive to commit war crimes than to release documents of the crimes without the government's permission....
Sunday Roundup Jun 1, 2014 (Guantanamo)
Andy Worthington writes in Al Jazeera of the lack of progress on releasing prisoners from Guantanamo. A year after Obama's promise to resume releasing prisoners from Guantanamo, 78 men cleared for release are still there. Worthington notes the Congressional obstacles and Obama's inability to overcome those obstacles...
Sunday Roundup Dec 14, 2014 (US Senate Torture Report)
The Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on torture carried out by the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks. The report concludes that the CIA repeatedly misled the public, Congress and the White House about the agency’s aggressive questioning of detainees — including waterboarding, confinement in small spaces and shackling in stress positions — after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, minimizing the severity of the interrogations and exaggerating the usefulness of the information produced. [Politico]
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