One Utah

Check out Andrew Sullivan’s blog for a rundown of today’s nationwide rallies in support of same-sex marriage and civil rights for all– including Salt Lake City. Sullivan writes:

When every gay person and every friend or family member of a gay person really, truly believes that the status quo is unacceptable, we will win. Today, [...]

In an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Siobhan Gorman speculates that President Obama’s advisers will urge him to stick with disastrous and counterproductive Bush administration policies such as widespread illegal surveillance and torture. Apparently, these so-called “pragmatic” advisers have somehow missed noticing the abject failure of the so-called Global War of Terror and [...]

Glenn Greenwald, while recognizing that there are higher priorities for the incoming administration, says the time has come to ask Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). An editorial in today’s Washington Post says it’s “time to press Washington to move in the right direction” on DOMA in response to California’s Prop [...]

ABC News interviews two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia. It turns out that yes, the NSA was running surveillance on American citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism. From Brian Ross’ interview with Adrienne Kinne:

ROSS: President Bush has [...]

There’s no bull like Wall Street bull…
It’s already being called “a financial PATRIOT Act,” and “cash for trash.” Read it and weep: Text of Draft Proposal for Bailout Plan.
It puts the power of the purse in the hands of the executive instead of the legislative branch. The dollar amount is not [...]

Almost unnoticed by the news media, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) chaired a Judiciary subcommittee hearing today on “Restoring the Rule of Law.”
The subcommittee heard more than two and a half hours of testimony from the witnesses, who came from all sides of the political spectrum and included former members of Congress, the military and [...]

For those of you who have suffered through what I shall refer to as “Schooling Church Boy”, you know that I called out Richard Okelberry for his dangerous and ignorant, but earnest and well-written, editorial on Obama’s response to the question the Saddleback Church about when a fetus should have human rights.
Obama’s answer was perfect; [...]

At “Camp Justice” in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. military is currently conducting the first American war crimes trial since World War II — of Salim Hamdan, a citizen of Yemen and a former driver for Osama bin Laden.
To call this proceeding a kangaroo court would run the risk of insulting marsupials everywhere.
From Glenn [...]

Thanks, Raw Story. The House Judiciary Committee has released a witness list for its hearing on the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
Late Thursday afternoon, the committee released the full witness list, broken down into two panels.
Panel One
The Honorable Dennis Kucinich, Representative from Ohio
[...]

Everyone except a few bloggers has probably forgotten, if they ever knew, that last April Barack Obama made a half-hearted pledge to prosecute at least some of the crimes committed by the Bush administration. In response to a question from a DailyKos blogger, he answered carefully:
What I would want to [...]

The good news: House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers will convene an impeachment hearing at 10 a.m. on Friday, July 25th. The hearing will address abuses of power by the Bush administration.
The bad news: This hearing has been described as “preliminary” and “informational.” As Rep. Conyers put it, “We’re not doing impeachment, but [...]

Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit appellate court, in a 5-4 ruling (PDF), affirmed that the President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based solely on his assertion that the imprisoned individual is an “enemy combatant.”
The [...]