GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





TEXAS DEMOCRATS CALL FOR PARTY UNITY

Dallas Morning News
May 8, 2008

Several prominent Texas supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama agreed Wednesday that the race for the Democratic nomination is over and that the unification of the party needs to begin at once. Mr. Obama's double-digit victory in North Carolina and close defeat in Indiana made it nearly impossible for Mrs. Clinton to catch him in the number of pledged delegates. His popular vote lead, assuming Florida and Michigan are left out of the mix, is also insurmountable. While Democrats have allowed for the prospect of Mrs. Clinton continuing her campaign until the final primaries June 3, many want her to shift to a less-aggressive stance against Mr. Obama and focus her barbs at Republican John McCain.

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Retired nuns barred from voting in Indiana

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Wednesday May 07 2008. It was last updated at 01:56 on May 07 2008.

At least 10 retired nuns in South Bend, Indiana, were barred from voting in today's Indiana Democratic primary election because they lacked photo IDs required under a state law that the supreme court upheld last week.

John Borkowski, a South Bend lawyer volunteering as an election watchdog for the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said several of the retired nuns had been voting all of their lives but were told they lacked the required identification cards and could only file provisional ballots.

Since 2005, Indiana's toughest-in-the-nation law requires every voter to produce a state or federal photo ID card. The supreme court, after weighing scores of legal briefs from conservatives who backed the statute and liberals who opposed it, upheld the law by a 6-3 vote, saying there was little evidence that it was unduly burdensome for voters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/07/uselections2008.usa





Bush picks 3 for election commission

May 7, 2008

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush sent the Senate a new slate of Federal Election Commission nominees Tuesday, an attempt to break a Senate confirmation deadlock that was greeted coolly by the Democratic leader.

Bush nominated two new Republicans and one new Democrat to the FEC. But he resisted efforts to withdraw the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who does not have Democratic support. Bush withdrew the nomination of current FEC Chairman David Mason, who had clashed in the past with likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's spokesman said the White House "has abandoned experience and independence for partisan loyalty."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-nat-fecmay07,0,1047849,print.story





Supremely Conservative: Mac Wants An Even More Conservative Supreme Court

NYT Ed

On a day when Mr. Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina and Mrs. Clinton eked out a win in Indiana, Mr. McCain spoke about his judicial philosophy. He is determined to move a far too conservative and far too activist Supreme Court and federal judiciary even further and more actively to the right.

Mr. McCain predictably criticized liberal judges, vowed strict adherence to the Founders' views and promised to appoint more judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. That is just what the country does not need.

Since President Bush chose Justices Roberts and Alito, the Court has ordered Seattle and Louisville to scrap voluntary school integration, protected employers who illegally mistreat their workers, and constrained women's right to choose and voters' right to vote.

Mr. McCain did not mention, of course, how the Roberts-led Court blithely overruled Congress by nullifying a key part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. He did wax nostalgic about what "the basic right of property" has meant "since the founding of America." (He did not mention that in 1789 many women could not own property and African-Americans were property, but he did criticize the idea that values evolve over time.)

There was a moment when we were briefly cheered. Mr. McCain declared that "all the powers of the American presidency must serve the Constitution and thereby protect the people and their liberties." We hoped that would be the start of a serious critique of how President Bush has violated cherished civil liberties: endorsing torture, ordering unlawful domestic spying and depriving detainees of the most basic right of habeas corpus. [Such a critique was not given.]





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America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America