The United Nations chides the U.S. for D.C.'s lack of votes in Congress

By Nancy Jane Moore

In a report issued by a human rights committee, the United Nations said Washington, D.C.'s lack of voting rights in Congress violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Imagine that: Not allowing your citizens to vote is considered wrong.

About 160 countries have ratified this treaty, including the U.S. in 1992. Apparently, though, the U.S. didn't really mean it when it, since nothing has been done about D.C. voting rights in the last 14 years.

According to The Washington Post article on the action, D.C.'s lack of voting representation was included in a report that also addresses secret prisons for those accused of terrorism, torture, and U.S. treatment of the poor and homeless -- a pretty sorry list of accomplishments for a country that touts itself as a democratic leader.

It's both gratifying and embarrassing to have the U.N. notice that we in Washington, D.C., don't have the same legal representation as other U.S. citizens. I'm glad someone besides those of us who live here has pointed out the problem, but it is embarrassing for the rest of the world to be made aware that the citizens of the Nation's Capital have no say in how the government is run.

Of course, the U.S. government immediately went on the defensive. The Post quotes from a letter by Warren Tichenor, who represents the U.S. at the U.N. in Geneva:

"The position of the District . . . is not a human rights violation; it is rather a justifiable and important aspect of the federal system of government freely chosen by citizens of the United States."

I guarantee you, Mr. Tichenor, the citizens of the District of Columbia do not consider our lack of votes to be either justifiable or an important part of our federal system. And if Congress would let us freely choose, we'd opt for representation.

As our nonvoting Delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, puts it in the Post article:

"We make such a big issue of everybody else's human rights record. We now have to be listed as one of the great hypocrites of the world."

Real kids are getting hurt: Once again a state court turns its back on the children of lesbians & gays

By Diane Silver

This week's opinion by the Washington state Supreme Court upholding a ban on same-sex marriage doesn't defend anything, but it certainly hurts thousands of children.

I am saddened that this simple fact keeps getting lost in the news coverage about gay marriage.

Here's the point: Many lesbian and gay couples are raising children together. Every one of those children needs the legal and financial benefits that come from having married parents.

Any parent -- whether heterosexual or lesbian or gay -- should be able to understand this and to understand why these kids need families that are legally bound together.

The Human Rights Campaign reports:

According to conservative estimates from the 2000 census, there are more than 1 million children being raised by same-sex couples in the United States. Without the ability to establish a legal relationship to both parents, children of same-sex couples are left without important protections, such as Social Security survivor benefits.

Every opinion that puts marriage farther away from same-sex couples puts the legal and financial benefits of marriage farther away from these children. Every opinion that allegedly "protects" marriage punishes these kids for having the poor taste to "chose" the wrong parents.

How many ways can children be hurt?

Consider this: What happens to a girl whose birth mother dies in a car accident?

The mother's life partner -- the child's co-parent -- may be the only other parent that child has ever known. The child has a loving bond with that parent, but no legal ties because of our backward marriage laws.

The girl has already been devastated by the death of her mother. Do we compound that tragedy by taking away her other parent, so that she is orphaned?

The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports:

Justice (Mary) Fairhust said the plurality and concurring opinions "... condone blatant discrimination against Washington's gay and lesbian citizens in the name of encouraging procreation, marriage for individuals in relationships that result in children, and the raising of children in homes headed by opposite-sex parents, while ignoring the fact that denying same-sex couples the right to marry has no prospect of furthering any of those interests."

That is all true, and it is all outrageous. However, this rationale isn't even close to the real reason why the ban on same-sex marriage is destructive to our country.

When will the courts and lawmakers realize that ALL children deserve to have secure families and that none should be relegated to second-class citizenship?

Coverage of the Marriage Issue & Washington Decision

Decision Could Impact Political Campaign

A Tenuous Legal Decision

Order in the court? Hardly

Banning Same-Sex Marriage Diminishes All Our Freedoms

State Justice Talk about Their Roles in Gay Marriage Ruling

Maryland Supreme Court to take on gay marriage

The Kansas Evolution Election: Anti-science candidate's campaign war chest is stuffed with out-of-district money

There's some good stuff over at Red State Rabble today. One fine post notes that the financial supporters of Kansas Board of Education member Connie Morris -- the poster child for the anti-evolution right -- only include 21 people who live within her western Kansas district. Yup, that's right: 21 living, breathing people.

Her pro-science challenger, Sally Cauble, counts 220 donors who live within the district.
Rabble writes:

The question is, can Connie's out-of-state, out-of-district friends on the religious right buy the District 5 election.

Let's hope not. Get involved. Give money. NOW.

More on Bush's Kafkaesque plan to try "enemy combatants"

The Washington Post has posted a copy of the Bush administration's proposed legislation for trying the Guantanamo detainees in a pdf file on its website.

According to the Post, the draft bill:

explains how the government would create commissions of U.S. military personnel who could impose a penalty of life imprisonment or death based on evidence never disclosed to the accused. Military judges could also exclude defendants from their trials whenever "necessary to protect the national security."

That doesn't sound like anything approaching due process of law to me. In fact, it sounds like a system that can easily be abused. If the defendants don't know what the evidence is, how can they refute it? I'm shocked, but I don't suppose Kafka would be.

My earlier comments on this legislation are here.

Kansas Politics: What the radical right really wants

By Diane Silver

The somewhat obscure race for the Republican nomination for Kansas Insurance Commissioner provides a clear window into what the radical right really wants. The race wil be decided in the Tuesday, Aug. 1, primary vote.

They don't want to just harass lesbians like me and limit the benefits our children receive. They want to make it harder for you -- whoever you are -- to receive a fair insurance policy, or possibly, to interact on a level playing field with big-money, big-power corporations. The reason I say that is because these folks are arguing for an end to government regulation.

Kansas City Star columnist Barbara Shelly does a good job today of explaining how this is playing out in the Insurance Commissioner race. That campaign pits incumbent Sandy Praeger, a moderate Republican, against Eric Carter, a member of the Kansas House who appears to have never met a government regulation, or maybe a government, he liked.

Shelly writes:

Voters on Tuesday will be rendering a judgment on government itself. Do they expect government to intervene on behalf of the public, or do they expect it to get out of the way?

Carter, on his campaign Web site, decries government as "the great fiction" and scoffs at social programs and regulation.

That dislike of regulation makes him a curious candidate for a watchdog post. The insurance commissioner monitors companies to ensure they set fair and realistic rates and pay valid claims.

Carter, a state representative from Overland Park, has sponsored legislation calling for unregulated pricing for auto and home insurance, and the lifting of mandated health insurance coverage for services such as prostate cancer testing, mental health treatment and chiropractic care.

Shelly adds:

These are strange times. Kansas has an education commissioner who has been openly hostile toward public schools. Washington is stocked with "regulators" who have made careers of fighting government regulation.

The trend is to stock government jobs with people who are antagonistic to government. As a "watchdog" who believes in unleashing the insurance industry, Carter would fit right in.

The choice before Kansas voters Tuesday is bigger than a moderate Republican Party stalwart and a conservative fresh face.

It's also a referendum on Praeger's view that government should work for people, and Carter's goal of diminishing government.

I couldn't have said it any better.

Right now, the race between Praeger and Carter is unexpectedly close, which is truly unfortunate. It appears that few Kansas voters are paying attention. That's a real tragedy because if Carter wins and gets his way, everyone with insurance -- just about every single person in Kansas -- will be hurt by his policies.

Power failures are caused by deregulation, not acts of God

By Nancy Jane Moore

An article on TomPaine.com explains something I've been saying for some time: Deregulation of the electric power industry led to inadequate maintenance of the infrastructure -- and that's why we keep having major power emergencies.

The people of Queens, NY, just suffered through an extended power outage for over a week. A recent bad storm left many folks in St. Louis powerless for many days. Here in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area we've had so many extended power outages that I get nervous with every thunderstorm. When the power goes, you never know when it will come back on. After Hurricane Isabel a few years ago -- a category 1 storm that was milder than some of the electrical storms we've had -- several friends of mine were without power for more than a week.

The power companies blame everything on Acts of God or, occasionally, on excessive use by consumers. (The only time electric companies ever encourage conservation seems to be during a heat wave.) But as Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen puts it in the TomPaine article:

With the requirements to invest a share of profits into improving reliability now removed, Wall Street and the power industry shunned putting their money into unprofitable investments like upgrading transmission lines and distribution networks. Why should investors spend money on low-rate-of-return investments like reliability when they can make a killing buying and selling power plants?

He goes on to explain how this affects the companies that are actually in charge of the power that comes into your house and mine:

On top of this market failure, deregulation has also encouraged distributional utilities, like ConEd in New York, to skimp on preventative maintenance spending. They have slashed utility workforces -- particularly experienced, unionized jobs. And regulators in New York and other deregulated states no longer pour over the companies' reliability budgets, allowing the utilities' service to slide in pursuit of higher profits. As a result, distributional utilities now have too much incentive to replace equipment after, not before, it blows.

That probably explains why, from time to time, the power goes out in my neighborhood on nice days when there's not a cloud in the sky and the temperature is so mild I shut off the air conditioner and open the windows.

I won't even get into the exploding manhole covers caused by problems in the underground power lines that plagued the Georgetown area of Washington a few years ago, eventually causing a power outage so bad that businesses in the area had to shut down for several days.

What's the matter with Arlen Specter?

By Nancy Jane Moore

Why is Sen. Arlen Specter caving to the president on the surveillance issue?

Specter is the man who introduced legislation on July 26 challenging the constitutionality of Bush's use of signing statements as a non-veto veto (Washington Post report), the leading Republican supporter of abortion rights, someone usually considered a major irritant to Bush.

But on the surveillance issue, Specter appears to have gone over to the dark side.

Under the Specter/Bush proposal, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court would decide whether the National Security Agency's warrantless information gathering actions -- including tapping into phone and email records with the apparent cooperation of telecommunications companies -- is constitutional.

Why should the FISA court, which is only set up to review and fast track warrants in classified cases, address constitutionality? That's the purpose of the Supreme Court and as near as I can tell, this proposed law steps on the Constitution by trying to reassign that power.

Or as Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien puts it:

When the privacy of millions of Americans is at stake, we deserve more than a closed hearing by a secret court.

A Washington Post report on testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee leads me to believe that the bill doesn't even require the White House to submit new programs to the FISA court:

Another witness at yesterday's hearing, Steven G. Bradbury, an acting assistant attorney general, made it clear that legislation introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) after negotiations with the White House would "encourage" -- but not require -- Bush or a future president to present any future surveillance program to the secret FISA court for approval.

According to The New York Times, Specter seems to think he's wrung a major concession out of Bush:

"I would just suggest to you" the senator said, "that given the president's attitude on the surveillance program and his attitude on executive power generally that it was not a simple concession, but really was quite a breakthrough."

Senator Specter, don't you understand? You don't need to compromise here. If Congress stands up to the president and reins him in, it won't matter whether he agrees or not.

You can read the proposed legislation in this pdf file on the EFF website.

The White House still wants to try Guantanamo detainees in kangaroo courts

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Washington Post says Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has confirmed a report in The New York Times that said the Bush administration is circulating a draft of legislation that would legalize unfair trials of so-called enemy combatants.

The proposed legislation would allow defendants to be excluded from their own trials, according to The Times, and would generally legalize the military tribunals that were struck down by the Supreme Court a few weeks ago. The Times says:

The draft measure describes court-martial procedure as "not practicable in trying enemy combatants" because doing so would "require the government to share classified information" and would exclude "hearsay evidence determined to be probative and reliable."

Funny, but I always thought the reason hearsay (testimony based on what witnesses have heard, rather than what they know from their own observation) was excluded precisely because it isn't reliable. At least, that's what I learned in law school.

According to the news reports, they're circulating the draft among military lawyers, though I'm sure they're doing this in an effort to get those attorneys (who have generally opposed the tribunals) to support the bill. I doubt the Bush people really want JAG lawyers' professional opinions or have any intention of incorporating any of their suggestions into the bill.

Obviously the administration paid no attention to the principles underlying the Hamden decision and is only looking for ways to get around it. We must hope that Sen. Lindsay Graham -- a Republican who has served as a military lawyer -- sticks to his guns on this issue. It is depressing to contemplate that an administration that is supposedly "promoting democracy" abroad is so devoted to completely undermining the basic principle of due process of law.

The Times got a copy of the legislation from an official at an agency that is reviewing it, so their reporters have actually seen the proposed 32-page bill. Alas, they have not made their copy available to their readers. If anyone else has posted a copy online, I can't find it as yet. If I can find it, I'll post a link.

On a related note, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus says that Alberto Gonzales is making John Ashcroft look good! She observes:

But as I watched Gonzales testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, it struck me: In terms of competence (the skill with which he handles the job) and character (willingness to stand up to the president), Gonzales is enough to make you yearn for the good old Ashcroft days.

I don't think I'd go that far -- Ashcroft showed such contempt for the Constitution that he should never have been allowed to hold the job -- but it is pretty clear that Gonzales does whatever Bush wants him to do. Either Gonzales lacks integrity and moral fiber, or else he has drunk the White House Kool-Aid and really believes that trampling on civil rights is the way to promote democracy in the world. I'm not sure which is worse.

Florida decides to micromanage the history teachers

By Nancy Jane Moore

Florida has adopted a law that details how history should be taught in the public schools. The law provides, among other things:

American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.

As historian J.L. Bell notes in an excellent article on the new law published on George Mason University's History News Network:

This law is, of course, a construction of U.S. history. The words "shall be viewed" show that, even as lawmakers insist on one interpretation of American history, they acknowledge others.

Bell also points out that the Florida law, in explaining how to teach the Declaration of Independence, says teachers are to discuss the "inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property." The last time I read the Declaration of Independence, the words were "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I'm sure the founders considered property important, but it isn't in the Declaration. Apparently the Florida legislators don't think happiness is important -- or maybe they equate property with happiness.

A law like this one is more insidious than the ones that block the teaching of evolution or require that "creationism" be taught. The anti-evolution laws are at least obvious. With this law, you have to read the whole thing very carefully to understand that they're essentially requiring that history be taught as if there were no conflicts about how different parts of our history should be viewed. They've thrown in bits about African Americans, Hispanics, and women so that they sound politically correct. But they also want flag education. Pretty clearly they want to mandate the teaching of a certain view of history.

All this reminds me of the way history was taught in the Soviet Union -- or in virtually any dictatorship. History is not just a collection of absolute facts; interpretation of those facts matters and interpretations change as we learn more. And arguing about those interpretations refines our understanding.

Even without legislation, history has usually been taught in keeping with the local community's take on the country. When I was in high school, we were taught the Civil War as a conflict between "us" and "them." While I don't recall my teacher actually using the words "the War of Northern Aggression," the support of the Confederacy was abundantly clear. This was at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, more than a hundred years after the Civil War.

I assume that even in Alvin, Texas, they teach a more nuanced view of the Civil War these days. But this new Florida law scares me.

Patriotic movements have always focused on history class -- teachers who questioned too many cherished U.S. myths have been fired many times -- but passing laws that outline how to teach is another step closer to controlling people's opinions.

The Kansas Evolution Election: Moderates need money today to have a chance of defeating the radical right

[corrected and updated 9:45 pm]

By Diane Silver

While the religious right is taking a beating in fund raising in statewide Kansas races, some moderate candidates for the state Board of Education are hurting just seven days before the Aug. 1 primary.

Thoughts From Kansas reports (scroll down to the bottom of his report) that the only moderate incumbent on the board, Janet Waugh from Kansas City, is trailing her opponent in fund raising. The fund-raising efforts of other moderates are having varying degrees of success.

This primary is important. If moderate candidates like Waugh are knocked off in the Aug. 1 vote, then what happens in the November general election won't matter because the moderate candidates will already be off the ballot.

If you believe in teaching science and a public school system that is fair to students of all faiths, it is time to get out the check book and the credit card.

Give today to moderate candidates.

Waugh, Donna Viola and Jack Wempe are in particular need of our help.

See here for details on the candidates and web site and snail mail addresses.

Latest Headlines: Religious right gets swamped; attorneys call Bush lawless; and we understand Fred Phelps

Kansas Politics: Religious right gets swamped in fund raising for statewide offices

The American Bar Association says Bush's signing statements are unconstitutional

Abuse as theology: Fred Phelps' son tells his father to stop venting his rage

More Frightening Theology

And now for something completely scary

Inside the Beltway

Choosing a mayor in Washington, D.C.

The Census Bureau finds another 31,528 people in Washington, D.C.

And More

U.S. forgets the lessons of Vietnam & flubs Iraq

Living with a target on your back

Living with a target on your back

[bump - See below for why this blast from the past is being reposted.]

By Diane Silver

You wake up in the morning, rushed as always and get your 10-year-old son out of the door to school. He's fed, on time and even has his math homework stuffed in his backpack, all of which is a miracle of sorts. After he has gone, you pull on your winter coat and gloves and hope the car will start in this blasted cold. When you finally get to work, the phone calls and the meetings are a relief. You've been a single parent since breast cancer killed your life partner three years ago, and the challenges you face at the office are nothing compared to the challenges you see at home

Or perhaps...

You're late. You had promised you would be at the hospital a half an hour ago, and even though 30 minutes doesn't sound like much, you regret every instant you aren't with her. But the bills are piling up now that you're down to one income, and you had to work late. Your son needed attention before you took him to a play date. When you dropped him off, you had thank the mother and father of your son's friend. You had to update them on your lover's condition, pretending all the time that you don't feel the razors cutting into you heart as you speak.

Or perhaps...

You're alone. Your son is in college now. You just gave him a toolbox for his birthday so he could fix up his rented house. He comes by once a week for dinner. (Got to make certain he has those necessary fruits and vegetables). You hear about books and classes, papers and finals, new ideas, frustrations and hopes. He is funny and caring. He even saves his money. You wonder in amazement if you did something right as a parent, after all.

And you wake one morning and pick up the newspaper...

Or you turn on the radio...

Someone who has never met you says he knows you. He says the fact that you exist, that your son exists, your late life partner existed is so vile, so threatening that he is coming after you.

He has to make certain that the son you love, the partner for whom you sacrificed could never, ever be called a family. He has to guarantee that the legal and financial benefits given to other families are kept from yours.

He gets what he wants. His ideas are written into the Kansas Constitution. Your family is so horrifying, it seems, that protection from it must be burned into our most basic law.

And you tell yourself to take a deep breath. You tell yourself it's OK; you'll survive. Your people have always gotten by, living in the cracks of society, if necessary.

And then you pick up the newspaper...
Or you turn on the radio...

And this man who was not with you when you sat up all night holding your infant son when he was sick ... and you held your life partner's hand as she was dying ... this man says he's coming after you again.

It's the children he wants now, or maybe your job, or your friend's job. The problem you see is that you aren't doing exactly what he wants you to do, you're not working in the job he wants you to have.

You wonder what it will take to make this man feel whole, to make him feel safe.

Will he have to harass your son for no other reason than the fact that he was born into your family?

Will this man have to orphan children?

Take away jobs?

Will it satisfy him if you, your mortgage, your overworked exhaustion, your skills, your talents, your love and your friends are finally run out of this state?

And you wonder what you will lose next.

And you wonder when it will end.
---------------------------------------------------

*Why repost this? Alas, it hasn't come even close to becoming out of date, even though it was first posted in December. Also, In This Moment's intrepid staff is tied up today on other projects and wanted to still provide some thoughts for you all to chew on.

Kansas Politics: Religious right gets swamped in fund raising for statewide offices

By Diane Silver

A first, very quick look at the campaign finance reports filed today in Kansas shows that the most conservative candidates appear to be falling far behind in the race to raise money for the campaigns for governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

This is VERY interesting news. The reports for the state Board of Education don't seem to be up yet, though, so stay tuned for further developments.

All of the reports are for the period of Jan. 1, 2006 to July 20, 2006.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has swamped her GOP opposition in the fund-raising derby. A moderate Democrat who lured the former state GOP chair to be her running mate, Sebelius raised $1.09 million during the reporting period. She reports having $2.05 million cash on hand.

None of the Republican candidates for governor even came close.

Jim Barnett and his ultra-ultra-conservative running mate, Susan Wagle, brought in $237,503 during the period and ended with $194,213 cash on hand.

Ken Canfield, another alleged darling of the right, brought in $196,233 and ended the period with only $6,536 cash on hand.

Robin Jennison, a former Kansas Speaker of the House, brought in $112,680 and had $156,394 cash on hand.

The other GOP candidates for governor didn't come anywhere close to these totals.

In the attorney general race, Republican Phill Kline, much beloved of the far right, raised $314,506 and had $418.491 in cash on hand.

Democrat Paul Morrison out-raised Kline easily, bringing in $659,653 during the reporting period and ending with $764,839 cash on hand.

In the race for the Republican nomination for secretary of state, state Sen. Kay O'Connor -- famed for questioning whether women should have the right to vote -- raised a whopping $32,638. She ended the reporting period with $4,465 cash on hand.

Her opponent in the Republican primary, moderate incumbent Ron Thornburgh raised $70,235 and ended with $46,834 on hand.

This is only a quick first look, and I didn't have time to take in the details. I could well have missed something rather obvious, but still... how fascinating.

As far as the governor's race goes, perhaps the GOP should just throw up its collective hands and cry uncle!

The American Bar Association says Bush's signing statements are unconstitutional

By Nancy Jane Moore

A "blue ribbon" task force of the American Bar Association said in a report issued July 24 that a president's use of signing statements to assert that he will not follow laws adopted by Congress "undermine[s] the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers."

In an ABA press release, task force Chair Neal Sonnett, a former U.S. Attorney, said:

Abuse of presidential signing statements poses a threat to the rule of law. Whenever actions threaten to weaken our system of checks and balances and the separation of powers, the American Bar Association has a profound responsibility to speak out forcefully to protect those lynchpins of democracy.

The President should use his veto power instead of signing statements, the report reccommends. The 34-page report, available as a pdf file, gives a detailed history of signing statements. It also refers to a website set up by Joyce A. Green that lists every signing statement Bush has issued.

The report also cites an article by Prof. Neil Kinkopf of the Georgia State University College of Law, published on the website of the American Constitution Society, in which he sums up the problem posed by Bush's signing statements:

If the President may dispense with application of laws by concocting a constitutional objection, we will quickly cease to live under the rule of law.

I strongly recommend looking at the list of signing statements and reading both the task force report and Prof. Kinkopf's article.

The Task Force recommended the following actions, which have not yet been approved by the ABA:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association opposes, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, the issuance of presidential signing statements that claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law the President has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the President, if he believes that any provision of a bill pending before Congress would be unconstitutional if enacted, to communicate such concerns to Congress prior to passage;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the President to confine any signing statements to his views regarding the meaning, purpose and significance of bills presented by Congress, and if he believes that all or part of a bill is unconstitutional, to veto the bill in accordance with Article I, § 7 of the Constitution of the United States, which directs him to approve or disapprove each bill in its entirety;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements he issues, and in any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, to submit to Congress a report setting forth in full the reasons and legal basis for the statement; and further requiring that all such submissions be available in a publicly accessible database; and

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges Congress to enact legislation enabling the President, Congress, or other entities or individuals, to seek judicial review, to the extent constitutionally permissible, in any instance in which the President claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or interprets such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, and urges Congress and the President to support a judicial resolution of the President's claim or interpretation.

In addition to Sonnett, the task force includes: Former FBI Director Williams Sessions; former federal circuit court Judge Patricia Wald; former Rep. Mickey Edwards; law professors Harold Hongju Koh, Charles Ogletree, Stephen A. Saltzburg, and Kathleen Sullivan; and lawyers Bruce Fein, Mark Agrast, and Tom Susman.

Choosing a mayor in Washington, D.C.

By Nancy Jane Moore

We're going to elect a new mayor in Washington, D.C., this fall. Our current mayor, Anthony Williams, isn't running for re-election.

I can guarantee you two things about our next mayor: He or she will be African American and a reasonably liberal Democrat. The only serious candidates are all African American and the winner of the September 12 Democratic primary will also win the general election in November -- winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to election.

According to The Washington Post, the race seems to be coming down to two candidates: Ward Four Council member Adrian Fenty and Council Chair Linda Cropp. The Post conducted a poll that shows Fenty at 39 percent of the vote and Cropp at 31 percent. Among likely voters, Fenty's lead is even larger. He has a slight lead among both white and black voters -- an unusual event in a city where race is often an issue, even when, as in this case, all candidates are African American.

I'm leaning to Fenty, but I have to confess that I don't see major political divisions between him and Cropp -- or even between the two of them and the other candidates.

Fenty's my council member and I've noticed improvements in our ward since he took office. I agree with his stand against the so-called emergency crime legislation, though I disagreed with his opposition to baseball. Mostly I think he brings new ideas and new energy and is the most likely person to come up with some different approaches to solving our problems.

Cropp strikes me as a representative of the old guard. I haven't been impressed by her leadership on the council, nor by her baseball flip-flops. But I won't be heartbroken if she ends up as mayor -- we could certainly do worse.

My impressions of the candidates have been formed by listening to the DC Politics Hour every Friday at noon on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU radio. Everyone who is anyone in the District appears on that show to be grilled -- sometimes mercilessly -- by the show's resident analyst Jonetta Rose Barras, various other reporters and community activists, and members of the public who call in. This show combines good political reporting with citizen involvement -- a good way to become informed if you don't have time to go ask all the questions yourself.

Every candidate for mayor has been a guest on the program. This coming Friday the guests will the candidates for Council Chair -- Kathy Patterson and Vincent Gray. I plan to listen to help me decide which one to support.

Being mayor of the District is a funny job -- in some ways it's like being a governor, because we are like a state in many respects (except for that pesky lack of votes in Congress). We have the same issues as many other large cities -- schools, crime, poverty -- but we also have special problems because the federal government is right on top of us. And while we are the central part of a large metropolitan area, we have virtually no clout in handling our suburbs -- they're part of Maryland and Virginia.

In truth, our mayor -- like our nonvoting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton -- has to be a good negotiator, because we don't have much power in the larger world.

Local elections are generally that: local -- of interest primarily to the people who live in the jurisdiction. But I suspect that most people who follow politics do care about elections in other states and cities. I know I followed the California recall of the governor and subsequent election closely and bit my fingernails over the Washington state governor's race cliffhanger in 2004. I watch mayor's races in places like Chicago, LA, New York, San Antonio. I'm curious about how the system works in other cities, about why certain people get elected. For that reason, I'll try to keep In This Moment readers posted on the D.C. election.

And now for something completely scary

By Nancy Jane Moore

The Harper's magazine online column Washington Babylon reports that some fundamentalist Christians are thrilled over what's happening right now in Lebanon because they think the rapture is on its way. The column gives a link to the "Rapture Ready/End Times" chat. I'm not willing to check it out for you; you'll have to go follow the link yourself. I got creeped out enough reading the bits Ken Silverstein pulled out.

All of these ideas about the rapture -- when "true" Christians go to Heaven and everyone else is left to suffer -- come from a distorted reading of the Bible, one rejected by most theologians. Awhile back I figured I'd better find out more about this subject, so I read one of the Left Behind books. You can read these books as fantasy novels, of course, but unfortunately many of the readers take them literally -- something that doesn't happen with the vast majority of those who read other fantasy like the Harry Potter books or the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

A lot of people seem to buy into this bad theology. The First Amendment guarantees their right to believe this stuff, but I get really scared when I think we might have a foreign policy built around it. I really hope the US isn't sitting around doing nothing about the Lebanon situation because the President thinks the rapture is coming.

Abuse as theology: Fred Phelps' son tells his father to stop venting his rage

By Diane Silver

The estranged son of anti-gay minister Fred Phelps is publicly calling on his father to stop his hate-filled picketing of funerals.

Nate Phelps also provides perspective on his childhood and his controversial father. That insight helps explain Fred Phelps theology, which may well conceive of God as an abusive parent. More on that below, but first the news about Nate Phelps.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports today:

Nate Phelps said he left home for good in 1980 after a terror-filled childhood in which Fred Phelps beat him and his siblings during outbursts of violence.

"When I watch what he's doing now, I see shadows and visions of who he was when we were growing up," he said. "When we were kids, he could vent his rage and anger on us. Now, I'm seeing the same kind of vicious rhetoric and cruelty, it's just that he can't beat these people up."

Nate told the newspaper that he hasn't spoken to his father or any of the family members who remain with the Westboro Baptist church in 15 years.

Fred Phelps and his minions have picketed just about everything in Kansas and the U.S. that might have the remotest gay connection. He was well known for picketing the funeral of gay-bashing victim Matthew Shepard and of the victims of AIDS.

Now the Westboro Church pickets the funerals of soldiers. He claims that U.S. deaths in Iraq are a sign that God is angry with this country for allegedly accepting homosexuality.

Leaving aside the fact that gay and lesbian Americans don't have anything close to equal rights, Fred Phelps' actions have united many Americans around the idea that it's abusive to picket funerals.

The Capital-Journal reports:

"The dominant feeling I have is anger," (Nate Phelps) said. "It's the idea that they can take something so private and personal and painful and be so hurtful about it. I categorically dismiss what he's doing and am appalled by everything he says and does."

Nate Phelps said he was speaking out about his family to provide another perspective about their protests.

"There's a perception that the family is unified on this, and that's not the case," he said.

Abuse allegations have swirled around Fred Phelps for a long time.

In a 1994 story in The Topeka Capital-Journal, he and his brother Mark Phelps said they and their siblings grew up in a violent household in which they were frequently beaten by their father. Mark Phelps, who also cut ties with Fred Phelps, said he used to beat his own siblings under orders from his father.

Nate Phelps said the story was accurate.

"It wasn't fantasy, it wasn't hyperbole," he said. "He was cruelly, viciously violent -- physically, verbally and psychologically."

First, if this is true, then my deepest sympathies go out to all of the Phelps children. My prayers even go out to those who stay with Fred Phelps. Out of their own pain, they are attacking me and other gays and lesbians, and seeking to inflict pain on the parents and spouses of soldiers who sacrificed in Iraq.

What I find most fascinating -- and sad -- about the accounts of Fred Phelps as an abusive father is the fact that he seems to conceive of God as being like himself.

In an earlier run-in on this blog with one of the members of the Westboro Church, that individual did a good job of summarizing the Phelps theology. In a sentence, it is:

You can't understand the love of God until you understand his hate.

The subtext of this "theology" is as follows.

If you conceive of God as a violently abusive parent, then understanding his hate is all important. If you don't know what God hates, you can't, well, not do that. If you don't avoid doing the forbidden thing, God will (1) hurt you (2) refuse to love you.

As all children of abusive parents know, such parent's love is conditional. That seems to be the God Fred Phelps describes, although that's not the God I believe exists.

One of the most horrible things about abuse is that the child can never please the parent.That's because the parent's problem isn't the child or child's actions, but the parent's own pain. Thus, the parent keeps raging and beating and verbally trashing the child.

If this is Fred Phelps' conception of God, then how horrible for him and his children and followers. Even in their own theology, they can never win because this kind of God can never be satisfied.

U.S. forgets the lessons of Vietnam & flubs Iraq

By Diane Silver

The Washington Post has already posted a piece from its Sunday newspaper on how we undermined our own effort in Iraq. This fascinating article details how civilian and military leaders either forgot or refused to follow the lessons learned from fighting a guerilla war in Vietnam.

Thomas E. Ricks of the Post writes:

(T)here is also strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials.

Apparently, military leaders had little education on fighting insurgencies and literally hadn't read what is considered the best book on the subject. Today, we're playing catch up, and it may well be too late.

I cannot say that I have even the smallest understanding of how hard it must be to fight in Iraq. Sometimes, though, the Post's revelations point to a failure to apply common sense, at least among some officers.

I'm just a foolish, middle-aged woman from Kansas, but long ago I learned that if you want someone to like you, you don't harass them. To win the trust of the Iraqi population and to prompt them to tell us about insurgents, wouldn't it have been wise to be decent to folks?

In an effort to gain intelligence, the U.S. military would often arrest every able-bodied male of combat age in a neighborhood. Guess what happened. The Post reports:

Senior U.S. intelligence officers in Iraq later estimated that about 85 percent of the tens of thousands rounded up were of no intelligence value. But as they were delivered to Abu Ghraib prison, they overwhelmed the system and often waited for weeks to be interrogated, during which time they could be recruited by hard-core insurgents, who weren't isolated from the general prison population.

This fascinating piece looks is the first in a series of articles on the topic.

Gays finally get same respect animals receive & earn blessings from the Arkansas Episcopal church

By Diane Silver

The retiring Episcopal bishop of Arkansas has OK'd blessing ceremonies for "faithful, monogamous same-sex relationships," AP reports. (registration required.)

The Right Rev. Larry Maze, bishop of the 14,000-member diocese, wrote to clergy that "seeking ways of recognizing and blessing" the relationships "falls within the parameters of providing pastoral concern and care for our gay and lesbian members."

AP says:

(Maze) said the ceremonies will be local observances in each church, not approved formal rites. Arkansas has banned gay marriage, so same-sex couples will have no legal standing in the state.

Two churches - St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Little Rock and St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville - plan to offer the ceremonies.

The Rev. Lowell Grisham of the Fayetteville church, notes:

"My gay friends are very sensitive about the notion that we've been blessing animals for years and find it so difficult to bless their relationships."

What's sad about the current fight over same-sex marriage is the hypocrisy of it.

Many gay and lesbian couples have had some form of informal blessing or ceremonies for their relationships for years from many different churches.

I know of Lutheran, Episcopal and Baptist churches, for example, where clergy have performed ceremonies. Many of them have occurred in Kansas. But of course, this can't be admitted in public in case someone gets upset.

I applaud the bishop of Arkansas for his brave move. May more churches realize that human beings and their relationships are at least as important as animals.

The Census Bureau finds another 31,528 people in Washington, D.C.

By Nancy Jane Moore

Responding to a challenge filed by city officials, the U.S. Census Bureau changed its 2005 estimate of Washington, D.C.'s population from 550,521 to 582,049 -- a jump of 31,528. The new figure also means that the city's population grew over by almost 2 percent over the last five years, instead of falling by about 4 percent.

Given the booming area economy and the fact that every street you walk on seems to be a construction zone -- not to mention the high-flying real estate market -- the revised figures make much more sense than the earlier estimate. In fact, I can't quite figure out how they missed them the first time. Misplacing 5 percent of the population seems like a pretty big error to me.

The Washington Post quotes Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey as calling this increase "a big deal." It makes up for losses in the 1990s, he noted.

Mayor Anthony Williams -- who wants to see the city's population jump by 100,000 -- was also happy about the new figure, according to the Post. The population has grown by about 10,000 since 2000.

The Census Bureau didn't do much to let people know about the change -- no press release, just an email to city officials and a tiny, hard-to-find chart on its webpage showing the cities whose challenges to 2005 estimates were approved. The main population charts haven't been corrected yet.

By the way, the District has quite a few more people than Wyoming and we're not that much smaller than North Dakota, Alaska and Vermont. All of these states have three things we don't have: two senators and a voting member in the House of Representatives.

And unlike the people of Puerto Rico and other territories, who also have no vote in Congress, we pay federal taxes. If you were paying attention in history class, you probably remember that one of the causes of the American Revolution was taxation without representation. Unfortunately, unfair voting plans in the U.S. didn't end with the American Revolution.

If you'd like to help in our ongoing fight for representation in Congress, check out DC Vote.