Interesting article in The Smirking Chimp, by Norman Solomon, urges progressives to oppose President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court arguing that, if confimed, Kagan, “will move the Supreme Court to the right.”

Solomon quotes University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle: “During the course of her Senate confirmation hearings as Solicitor General, Kagan explicitly endorsed the Bush administration’s bogus category of ‘enemy combatant,’ whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right. Now, in her current job as U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan is quarterbacking the continuation of the Bush administration’s illegal and unconstitutional positions in U.S. federal court litigation around the country, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Excerpts:

• The White House is in the grip of conventional centrist wisdom. Grim results stretch from Afghanistan to the Gulf of Mexico to communities across the USA.
• The president (by nominating Kagan) has taken a step that jeopardizes civil liberties and other basic constitutional principles. … Unless the Senate refuses to approve Kagan for the Supreme Court, the nation’s top court is very likely to become more hostile to civil liberties and less inclined to put limits on presidential power.
• Here is yet another clear indication that progressives must mobilize to challenge the White House on matters of principle. Otherwise, history will judge us harshly — and it should.
• For more than 15 months, evidence has mounted that President Obama routinely combines progressive rhetoric with contrary actions. As one bad decision after another has emanated from the Oval Office, some progressives have favored denial — even though, if the name “Bush” or “McCain” had been attached to the same presidential policies, the same progressives would have been screaming bloody murder.
• But enabling bad policies, with silent acquiescence or anemic dissent, encourages more of them. At this point, progressive groups and individuals who pretend that Obama’s policies merely need a few tweaks, or just suffer from a few anomalous deficiencies, are whistling past a political graveyard.
• The corporate-military centrism of the Obama administration has demoralized and demobilized the Democratic Party’s largely progressive base …. For progressives, giving the Obama administration one benefit of the doubt after another has not prevented matters from getting worse. …. Progressives should fight the Kagan nomination.

Written by Mike Bock

In his commencement speech at the historically black college, Hampton University, last Sunday, President Barack Obama said, “education is what has always allowed us to meet the challenges of a changing world,” and, speaking to the Hampton graduates, he said, “You’re in a strong position to out compete workers around the world.”

But, he told the graduates, “What’s at stake is more than our ability to out compete other nations. It’s our ability to make democracy work in our own nation. Now, years after he left office, decades after he penned the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson sat down, a few hours’ drive from here, in Monticello, and wrote a letter to a longtime legislator, urging him to do more on education. And Jefferson gave one principal reason — the one, perhaps, he found most compelling. ‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free,’h e wrote, ‘it expects what never was and never will b e.’

“What Jefferson recognized, like the rest of that gifted founding generation, was that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy who those — to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart. It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged; if we held our government accountable; if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.

“The success of their experiment, they understood, depended on the participation of its people — the participation of Americans like all of you. The participation of all those who have ever sought to perfect our union .”

See You-tube here

Written By Mike Bock

In the campaign to persuade Kettering voters to approve a new 6.9 mill property tax for Kettering Schools, I received six pieces of literature through the mail urging a “Yes” vote — all of impressive professional quality.  I’m on the list to receive all of the information sent to board members.  Most Kettering voters did not receive all six pieces of literature, but were targeted with specific literature according to a marketing strategy based on voter demographics. This was an expensive campaign.  As of early April, almost $19,000 was spent by the Political Action Committee, “Citizens for Kettering Schools.”  The levy request failed, but received 48% “Yes” votes.  A new levy campaign is planned for November.

• The Blue Ribbon Report (Sent to all Kettering households and paid for with District funds, not PAC funds.)
• Letter from former school superintendents Jim Trent and Chet Rousch (Mr Trent is the current school board president.)
• A three fold flyer
• A testimonial from Kettering parents Mike and Victoria Delman
• A testimonial from Kettering parents Sondra and Harry Vearn
• A letter from Oakview School Elementary Principal, Margaret Engelhard

Written by Mike Bock