Thinking Liberally

Tim Robbins Couldn't Vote, Scattered Reporting Of Similar Glitches

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/11/tim-robbins-couldnt-vote-scattered.html

Tim Gill, the founder of software giant Quark and gay social network Connextion, will match dollar for dollar all donations made by midnight tonight via via the Connextion giving link, here: https://secure.ga4.org/01/3million?source=connexion

UPDATE: From Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California:

The latest Field Poll, released this morning, shows that our campaign ads are working. Now that we are finally up on the air equal with the other side, we have turned our deficit in the polls into a very narrow lead with 49% indicating they plan to vote no and 44% saying they intend to vote yes.

Unfortunately, the same poll found that 22 percent of those surveyed had already voted -- and that this group voted "yes" on Proposition 8, 50 to 44 percent. That's why it is so critical that over the weekend we convince any undecided voters to vote NO on Tuesday. We need your contribution NOW!

This will be an extremely close race that will be decided by the 7 to 10% of voters still up for grabs. We must continue to stay on the air equal with the other side in order to convince these voters to vote NO.

Our new hard hitting television ad, narrated by actor Samuel L. Jackson, reminds voters of the history of discrimination starting with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2. Watch our new ad.

We need to raise a minimum of $1.5 million today to keep this ad on the air over the weekend and on Monday. Donate Now!

With your help we will defeat this attempt to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry the person they love and strip away our dignity. Please continue your support with a donation and ask the people who care for you to do the same keep this new ad on the air.

It's Make Or Break Time On Prop 8

ETA: 'No on Prop 8' and Florida 'No on 2' Sites Attacked by hackers

Help keep the Radio Hall of Fame from honoring a major right-wing homophobe:

http://www.hrcbackstory.org/2008/10/take-action-ant.html

... at least they're not all a totally lost cause.

Interesting Republicans Against 8 ad:


Too bad McCain and Palin don't agree.

I thought I'd get us started with a NOW topic. But first I thought I'd introduce myself a little for those of you who don't know me. I'm an attorney that practices criminal defense work (that's the bulk of my practice) in the metro Detroit area. chet_lemon is my much younger but brilliant sister and xie_xie_xie is one of my illegal, same sex, polygamous internet wives and she's equally brilliant :)

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE TODAY IN AMERICA?
I've no clue, but our story takes place in Jena, Louisiana. It started with some students (black) who wanted to join their friends (white) under a tree on school property that was "whites only". Problem # 1: How the hell did this continue to be an acceptable thing after Martin Luther King and Brown v. the Board of Education et al? The next day, nooses were hung in the tree. Problem # 2 (I'm sure needs no description and I've decided there's too many problems in this mess to keep counting them.) It escalated from there to taunting, arson and assault.

Not interesting and appalling enough for you? Try this on for size. No charges were filed when the nooses were hung in the tree (ummm can anyone say racial intimidation/hate crime). No charges were filed when the arson occured. A misdemeanor charge was filed, finally after a white man beat up a black teen. Of course charges of THEFT were filed against black teens who took a gun away from a white person threatening them. Of course charges were filed when a white student was assaulted (a white student who felt free to use the term n----r ... a white teen who was friends with the 3 students who hung the nooses in the tree). This leads us to the defendants, the Jena 6 as they've come to be known. (For those of you interested in more details GO HERE).

Listen, I'm not advocating violence or vigilante justice but what are people supposed to do when you enforce laws differently based on the color of your skin (or sexual preference or religion or anything)? I'm also not naive enough to believe that justice is really colorblind (hello, I practice criminal law in a major urban city) but this is separate systems completely...separate rules based on race and that's unacceptable and supposedly illegal and unconstitutional.

It makes me wonder: If this is going on today, out in the open, right in our criminal justice system, with the support of the local government, what else are we missing?

So much for the land of the free and the home of the brave.