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Monday, June 30, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have."
- - Harry S. Truman
JUNE 30th IN HISTORY:
1971 -- "I Am Not a Crook" Dick Nixon orders felony burglary of the Brookings Institute, where Daniel Ellsberg, Leslie Gelb & Morton Halperin worked, in a meeting with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, Attorney General John Mitchell, Chief of Staff H.R.Haldeman & Chief Political Aid Charles Colson. Colson later proposed a firebombing. When this meeting was later revealed, future Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger said of the meeting, "I have no such recollection."
1980 -- U.S. Supreme Court upholds $122 million judgment to the Lakota (Sioux) Nation for illegal taking of the Black Hills in South Dakota. Saying the hills are sacred & still not for sale, the Lakota Nation turns down the payment saying they still want the land back.
RHINO HERE:
Today I offer links to 3 articles on the democratic presidential candidates. RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is written by Norman Solomon, co-author of "Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You." It looks at the Democratic Leadership Council's centrist stand & how Governor Howard Dean gave a 26-minute speech to officially begin his campaign & never mentioned Iraq. Soloman calls that, "a remarkable performance from someone who has spent much of the last year pitching himself as some kind of anti-war candidate."
Those following the MoveOn Presidential Primary know the results were made public Friday with former Governor Dean in 1st with 43%, Congressman Dennis Kucinich in 2nd with 24% and Senator John Kerry in 3rd with 16% of the vote. None of the other candidates got close to double digits. Since no one got 50% of the vote, MoveOn will wait to officially endorse anyone till this fall.
The Dean Campaign did not exceed expectations, since many thought given his early start & Internet presence, he'd reach 50% and Kerry, the best-funded & highest-polling campaign, limped in 3rd. But the Kucinich Camp, with a lack of media attention or money to spend on phone banking & being referred to by media pundits as a "fringe"candidate, won 76,000 of the 317,000 total votes, beating everyone's expectations.
If you have a favorite, today is the day to make a contribution to their campaign since June 30 is the deadline for federal matching funds. Reports are that the 3 top candidates raised a lot of money during the MoveOn promo helping them to build their coffers. The Kucinich Campaign raised more than $1 million this quarter (and federal matching funds will double that). Almost all has come in small donations through the Internet.
Here's the link to the complete report on the MoveOn results:
http://www.moveonpac.org/moveonpac/report.html
If you haven't heard Dennis Kucinich speak, here's a cheap & easy way to do it:
2 HOUR VIDEO OF 3 SPEECHES BY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DENNIS KUCINICH
Suggested requested minimum donation: $5 per tape or DVD
Quantity prices: 2 or more: $2 per copy plus $2 per order to help with postage
** Dennis Kucinich's "A Prayer for America" speech (at USC; 2/17/02, 18 min); the speech that got 25,000 responses when the transcript was circulated on the internet.
** Dennis Kucinich at Temple Kol Tikva (Woodland Hills, Ca.; 4/4/03, 1 hour 43 min); introduced by actor Elliot Gould.
** Dennis Kucinich on the Energy Crisis (6/24/01, :17); Dennis tells about his battles with the power privatizers as mayor of Cleveland, and why we must save public power.
Checks should be made payable to JusticeVision and sent to
Ralph Cole, - 1425 W. 12th St. #262 - L.A., Ca., 90015, USA
Write "Kucinich Order" on the outside of your envelope.
This article looks at how Howard Dean compares to the more centrist candidates like Graham & Gephardt. It also has a list of links to summaries of the positions of all the other candidates.
Closet Centrist - Howard Dean Isn't Quite The Left-winger After All
By William Saletan , SLATE.COM, 6/23/03
Monday afternoon, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean announced that he was running for president to promote health care, child development, and fiscal responsibility. "But most importantly, I wanted my party to stand up for what we believe again!" shouted Dean. To his legions of supporters, he pleaded, "You have the power to take back the Democratic Party!" Those are good lines, and they got the applause he wanted. But they're for show. Dean isn't nearly the left-winger his fans or critics imagine.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/930194.asp?0dm=C11RO
Washington Post coverage of the MoveOn primary
Dean Finished First in Moveon.org Primary
Kucinich Prevents Dean From Reaching 50 Percent
By David Von Drehle , Washington Post, 6/27/03
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean finished first among Democratic presidential candidates in the closely watched online "primary" organized by Moveon.org -- but a strong showing by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) prevented Dean from winning enough votes to secure the online advocacy group's outright endorsement.
Together, Dean and Kucinich captured nearly 70 percent of the votes in a process that one practitioner of online politics called "the liberal primary." With a reported membership of some 1.5 million people, and a track record of raising millions for friendly candidates, Moveon.org is perhaps the most influential left-leaning group in cyberspace.
IT'S ALL AT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40761-2003Jun27.html
8:06:39 AM 
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Tilting Democrats in the Presidential Race
by Norman Solomon, CommonDreams.org , 6/26/03
The corporate Democrats who greased Bill Clinton's path to the White House are now a bit worried. Their influence on the party's presidential nomination process has slipped. But the Democratic Leadership Council can count on plenty of assistance from mainstream news media.
For several years leading up to 1992, the DLC curried favor with high-profile political journalists as they repeated the mantra that the Democratic Party needed to be centrist. Co-founded by Clinton in the mid-1980s, the DLC emphasized catering to "middle class" Americans -- while the organization filled its coffers with funding from such non-middle-class bastions as the top echelons of corporate outfits like Arco, Prudential-Bache, Dow Chemical, Georgia Pacific and Martin Marietta.
In a 1992 book, "Who Will Tell the People," political analyst William Greider noted that the Democratic Leadership Council's main objective was "an attack on the Democratic Party's core constituencies -- labor, schoolteachers, women's rights groups, peace and disarmament activists, the racial minorities and supporters of affirmative action." During the eight years that followed, President Clinton "moderately" shafted many of those constituencies. Clinton proved to be a political survivor. But his presidency led to the destruction of Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate...
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT:
http://commondreams.org/views03/0626-11.htm
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Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged.
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Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
6:25:03 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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