Every day I get deluged with email from the ACLU, and over thirty other groups requesting political action. Most address issues I expect I'm familiar with because of the amount of time I spend here so I probably don't pay them as much attention as I should.
Like everyone else I get caught up with concerns about the economy, jobs, our forever wars, BP, alternative energy and Climate change. I'm hoping our president is better than that and realiszes that we need to do everything we can to make things better right now and not do stuff that makes problems worse.
This morning I received an email from Laura W. Murphy Director, Washington Legislative Office of the ACLU. It says "The White House has decided to voluntarily impose" "Rep. Stupak's draconian abortion coverage ban" "for all women in the newly created high risk insurance pools."
It further claims that "Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, department is putting this unnecessary and harmful restriction into effect"
Maybe I have outrage fatigue, and maybe this was just the last straw, but I need some answers. How can this administration be getting this far off track?
There are certainly many positive things that Obama has done. I expect history will regard the difference between his predecessor in that office who was one of the worst presidents ever, and Obama as extreme. In most of his actions he comes across as cool, calm, collected, intelligent and generally wise.
I tend to blame his advisors and administrators for some of the most glaring defficiencies, people like Rahm, Geitner, Holder, Salazar, and McChrystal, but other actions by this President seem inexplicable.
No question he is making his way through a long list of important priorities and getting some action accomplished on some things. I'm sorry but too many urgent issues are simply not being handled properly or ignored altogether. I think its time we start listing some of the priorities which don't seem to be getting addressed
The ACLU is active on many fronts ranging from Capital Punishment, to Drug Law Reform, Free Speech, HIV / AIDS, Human Rights, Immigrants' Rights, LGBT Rights, National Security, Prisoners' Rights, Racial Justice, Religion & Belief, Reproductive Freedom, Technology and Liberty, Voting Rights, Women's Rights, the Military Commissions Act, the ACLU v. NSA: The Challenge to Illegal Spying, Torture: Seeking Truth & Accountability, Women's Health and Reproductive Freedom and the Latest Supreme Court News.
Why are there still so many areas where our "elections have consequences" Democrats are letting us down. Why are our prisons still full of innocent people being subjected to a death penalty which most enlightened countries have repudiated.
Why have we spent a trillion dollars on the war on drugs so that people who are suffering from conditions which can be helped by medical marrijuana can still be fired from their work for failing drug tests which show the presence of a substance they have been prescribed by doctors?
Why so we still have mandatory minimum sentences for over 150 separate offenses? Why does using crack cocaine carry a 100 to 1 sentencing disparity with using powdered cocaine when both are simply different forms of the same drug?
Why is the Obama administration still allowing defendants who in some cases have been imprisoned for 1/3 of their lives without trials to come up before military commissions which have cjanged the rules five times represented by military officers who offer no defense?
Why do we still use National Security as an excuse for keeping secret and not transparent our crimes of kidnapping torture, murder, holding without rendition, and now indefinite detention and assassination.