Netroots Natron 2008 in Austrin

The Netroots Nation 2008 conference is in full swing this morning in Austin. It actually started sometime Wednesday evening with a party at the Cedar Door. Thursday night was a big night, with parties at the Club Deville and other locales. Friday night the big events were the GQ Magazine/Huffington Post party at Lambert's and the Daily Kos party at Maggie Mae's.

And then, of course, there was an actual convention, with keynoters and panels and interviews and speakers ... blah, blah, blah. I confess, I've not heard any of that. Today's speakers will include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President and current Chief Environmentalist Al Gore. I'll give them a listen.

I am posting pictures from the event on a Picasa web page here. Check back for updates. My favorite picture so far: David Kobierowski (my co-host on TEXAS POLITICS TODAY), Markos Moulitsas (of DailyKos fame) and me.

It's Time For Some Campaignin'!

This is the latest from the nutty geniuses at JibJab. Did they catch the zeitgeist of the election and the essentials of the main characters? You decide. Comments, please.

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Dilettantes on Parade

I was listening to a report from NPR's senior European correspondent Sylvia Poggioli about the G-8 summit meeting in Italy this week, when she threw out an offhand reference to the fact that the White House's official briefing book for the event included a reference to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as a "political dilettante." It also had this to say about Italy: "a country known for governmental corruption and vice." Not exactly something you'd find in the tourist guides, so I suppose it made sense to put it in a briefing book.

ABC News has the full story here. It sounds like the White House briefing book is being written by Wikipedia.


Berlusconi in pre-dilettante days, on a state visit to Washington in 2003. I forget who the guy on the right is.

Jesse Helms, 1921-2008

Jesse Helms passed away on July 4, 2008. He represented North Carolina in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2003, the longest any Senator from that state has served. He was also an asshole.

Helms deserves respect upon his passing, but he also deserves honesty about his virulent racism, which lasted long past its political shelf life or social acceptability. He was vigorous and unashamed in his defense of segregation and his own personal racism, and age did not give him wisdom.

Like other politicians, he was a master at cloaking his baser motives in high-minded rhetoric. In a 1959 op-ed piece, he wrote, ""Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?" Noble sentiments, until you realize that by "tyranny" he meant civil rights laws.

Rest in peace, Senator Helms. If there is a God, I hope He's black.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

(Cross-posted at Burnt Orange Report.)

I believe that the Declaration of Independence is one of the great political documents of all time. Apparently, many other people do; the Declaration is one of the most-imitated charters of human freedom in the world. Even the Texas Declaration of Independence borrows its structure, ideas and some specific statements from the document written during a sweltering summer of 1776 in Philadelphia.

The Declaration articulates not only a case for the separation of the colonies from the English homeland, but lays out a view of humankind and a description of the relationship between a people and its government that was, at the time, revolutionary:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Imagine Johnny Carson had a TV show in England in 1776. He'd have read that and said, "That's crazy stuff!" Unalienable rights, given by God and not the king? The people creating the State, and retaining the power to un-create it? The people's right and duty to have a government, as Barbara Jordan put it, "as good as its promise?" These ideas were staples of philosophical treatises, but the Declaration of Independence was the first major document in which they were the operating principles of a democracy.

As we celebrate the 232nd anniversary of our nation's founding, let's enjoy what a radical and amazing idea it was at the time -- and re-commit ourselves to the making an America as good as its promise.

This video made by Declare Yourself and Constitution Live and executive produced by the incomparable Norman Lear. Give it a watch and listen, and see if you're not inspired.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

The Real Deal on the Real ID Act

(Cross-posted at Burnt Orange Report.)

In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act, which (among other provisions) directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to meet a 2008 year-end deadline for completing 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Act also gave DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff broad authority to waive property rights, environmental, labor and other laws in order to get the job done. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case of Defenders of Wildlife vs. Chertoff, in effect legitimizing the huge grants of power given to DHS in the REAL ID Act.

You could spend hours reading up on the REAL ID Act and all its implications -- or you could listen to two very informative news programs on your local community radio station. This week, two of KOOP's public affairs shows will be examining the REAL ID Act and its provisions assaulting the civil liberties of all Americans. The two shows are TEXAS POLITICS TODAY and SHADES OF GREEN.

On TEXAS POLITICS TODAY, airing Wednesday from 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. CDT, Melissa Del Bosque of the Texas Observer, whose coverage of the border wall controversy along the Rio Grande has won national acclaim, will discuss the border wall battle and the Chertoff decision. Melissa's coverage can be viewed here, here and on the Observer’s blog.

(N.B. -- TEXAS POLITICS TODAY is produced and co-hosted by yours truly.)

On SHADES OF GREEN, airing Thursday from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. CDT, a representative of the national Defenders of Wildlife organization will talk about that organization's lawsuit. Sheila Dean, an activist and blogger working on REAL ID issues, will also appear on Thursday's show.

KOOP, "the little station that could," is Austin's only community-owned radio station. It shares the FM 91.7 radio frequency with KVRX, the University of Texas student radio. It also streams live over the Web at http://www.koop.org/. KOOP is on the air on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on weekends from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.