Executive orders from the office of the new President are trickling in at a faster pace now. Here’s the rundown so far:
Guantanamo Bay must be closed down within a year. Nothing is clear yet about what exactly the government plans to do with the detainees, whose trials have been suspended. Along with Guantanamo, the CIA has been ordered to shut down their overseas network of covert prisons where they’ve kept suspects in secret custody for months or years. Another order Obama signed created a task force to figure out what to do next.
The U.S. Army Field Manual is now the official standard for interrogation for all U.S. personnel; it prohibits waterboarding as well as threats, coercion, and physical abuse, which is surprising to me, since that sounds like a pretty tight restriction on anything approaching torture. A source of the Washington Post suggests that there may be revisions to that manual in store, which would re-expand what is allowed.
Feministe » Executive Order Watch.
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I also disagree with re-expanding. To get information you have to make people want to tell you things. You know what people want more than anything? Attention from other people. You use solitary and information rewarded with attention. You have to fine tune it and is a really different way of looking at things but I have noticed things and I stand by it. You never have to treat them with less than respect.
Written on January 23, 2009 | Posted in
News
New York Governor David Paterson has refused to accept a state commission’s list of recommended candidates for chief judge of the state Court of Appeals because the list does not include a single woman. In a press conference on Wednesday, Gov. Paterson strongly criticized the bipartisan Commission on Judicial Nomination, saying, “I don’t accept that there wasn’t a woman in this state that wasn’t qualified to serve on the Court of Appeals.”
Feminist Daily News 12/4/2008: New York Governor Rejects All-Male Candidate List for Judicial Appointment
Written on December 11, 2008 | Posted in
News
“I have received seven calls today threatening to recall me from office if I do not publicly retract my position and switch to Yes on 8,” Low informed supporters in an e-mail Wednesday, October 29. “The Yes on 8 campaign is continuing their efforts of deception and coercion. Let’s have a strong showing during this final stretch.”
Chip White, a spokesman for Protectmarriage.com, the main group backing Prop 8, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Instead of backing down, Low turned up in San Francisco this morning (Thursday, October 30) to join Mayor Gavin Newsom and other Asian American politicians from the Bay Area for a walk through Chinatown to urge voters to support marriage equality
The Bay Area Reporter Online | Breaking news: South Bay <br>lawmaker receives recall threats
Written on October 31, 2008 | Posted in
News
Nicest thing is Obama roasts himself to roast McCain. The man oozes class.
Written on October 17, 2008 | Posted in
Videos
After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy – 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do – as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis – a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.
Farmer in Chief | CommonDreams.org
Written on October 17, 2008 | Posted in
News
I am a Black Woman. I teach at at a high school where we are 85% Black, 10% Latino, and 5% White. All of my high school classes are Black and I do my damnedest to teach them about being proud of where they come from, who they are, and where they are going. Everyday, I feel, in the words of that old spiritual, that I’m on the battlefield, attempting to help them understand the true GREATNESS that comes with being Black.
This is a task unto itself, for they have been taught they have so many things to be ashamed of, and the primary “thing” is their Blackness. To be Black, they’ve learned, is to be at the bottom of every barrel (socio economic, education, legal system etc.) They’ve learned that it is dangerous to want more, to do more, to be more. And I am here, trying to help them unlearn that, emphasizing–in my kids’ cases–that it is okay NOT to want to use your body or step on someone else’s to “get money,” that it is okay use your mind, which is the greatest gift they are blessed with, not just to “get money,” but to “get knowledge,” to “get empowered.”
I wish they could see in themselves what I see in them… that We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For.
elle, phd: We’re the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For….
Written on October 17, 2008 | Posted in
News
The Bush Administration is up to its old tricks again, quietly putting ideology before science and women’s health. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is poised to put in place new barriers to accessing common forms of contraception like birth control pills, emergency contraception and IUDs by labeling them “abortion.” These proposed regulations set to be released next week will allow healthcare providers to refuse to provide contraception to women who need it. We can’t let them get away with this underhanded move to undermine women’s health and that’s why I am sounding the alarm.
An Outrageous Attempt by the Bush Administration to Undermine Women’s Rights | Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org
Written on October 17, 2008 | Posted in
News
There’s a lot of info out there on this election. This page is a simple FAQ of where things are now. (It looks up to date.) If you know nothing or just want a clean overview this maybe the site for you.
Presidential Election 2008 FAQ.
Written on October 16, 2008 | Posted in
News
