Author: Man Eegee

I am very conflicted about writing this diary, but I feel that I must in light of the Memorial Day holiday.

The Gold Star Mothers are a group of mothers who have lost a son or daughter in service to the United States.  They have been in existence since 1928 as a result of losses endured during World War I.

The success of our organization continues because of the bond of mutual love, sympathy, and support of the many loyal, capable, and patriotic mothers who while sharing their grief and their pride, have channeled their time, efforts and gifts to lessening the pain of others.

We stand tall and proud by honoring our children, assisting our veterans, supporting our nation, and healing with each other.

These women, who have endured one of the hardest sacrifices for our country, came together to help one another cope; yet they have denied the application of Ligaya Lagman.  

Follow me below the fold for a sad story…
Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2004.  His mother, Ligaya Lagman, submitted an application to join the Gold Star Mothers at the behest of veterans and legislators in her hometown of Yonkers, New York.

The problem arises because Mrs. Lagman is not a United States citizen.  According to the Gold Star Mothers rules, only U.S. citizens are eligible for membership.  Mrs. Lagman has Permanent Resident status but that was not enough for the Gold Star Mothers to accept her application.

CNN has picked up on the story:

Lagman has lived in the United States for more than 20 years. She was not at home Thursday, apparently tending to her husband, who is hospitalized. But her other son, Chris Lagman, said in Thursday’s The Journal News that all she wants “is recognition as the mother of this fallen soldier.”

Lagman’s application was initiated by Ben Spadaro, a veteran from Yonkers, who said he learned about the citizenship rules of the American Gold Star Mothers while working on a national cemetery committee of the Veterans Administration. When he learned of Anthony Lagman’s death and saw Lagman was a citizen but his mother was not, he thought, “He’s buried in a military cemetery, with full honors. She should be able to join.”

“We decided to tell the absolute truth on the application,” he said. “We put down, `I am not an American citizen.’ It was a ploy to get them to reject her, and then we said they should change the rules.”

But the organization’s 12-member executive board voted against any change.

“We can’t go changing the rules every time we turn around,” said Herd, the national president. “When we have problems within our organization with people not abiding by the rules, we just get it straightened out, we don’t change the rules.”
CNN.com

The purpose of this diary is not to get angry with the Gold Star Mothers Board of Directors (although it’s hard not to get outraged).  The reason I wrote this is because I feel Ligaya Lagman deserves to be recognized for the loss she endured.  I hope you will join me in writing to the group’s President and respectfully ask that they reconsider their rules.  The group is already feeling pressure from veterans and legislators, including Senator Hillary Clinton.  

Maybe, just maybe, we can help to give Mrs. Lagman the honor she deserves.

The American Gold Star Mothers, Inc.
2128 Leroy Place NW – Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202-265-0991
Fax: 202-265-6963
E-mail us at goldstarmoms@yahoo.com

Syria announced that it will stop all cooperation with the United States on Bush’s War on Terror.  Just in time for the Senate to confirm John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador to show us his proven diplomatic skills.

“This is actually the state of the affairs. Today, we are not cooperating with the United States,” [Syrian Ambassador] Moustapha told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

At the same time, Syria is still willing to work with the United States on security issues, he said.

“We’re not saying we will not do this anymore,” Moustapha said. “We are saying that this is not happening today because of this state of affairs between us and the United States.”

He added, “We are trying to tell the United States we are willing to engage with you constructively. We want a good relationship with you, but you have to stop this unfair media campaign against Syria, because we think it is unfair and it is unconstructive.”

CNN.com

There is a lot of debate about whether or not the Senate Dems should filibuster the nomination of John Bolton.  Given the recent nuclear fallout with the judicial nomination process, I’m not sure it’s wise to block Bolton given that the U.N. assignment isn’t lifetime like a judgeship.  (Note that I said block.  I feel strongly that all Dems should vote No)

I believe we are entering a critical point with respect to international diplomacy.  The global situation is volatile, at best.  Iran is hell-bent on starting its nuclear power program, North Korea is testing missiles, Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess, and now Syria has given the middle finger directly to the U.S.  John Bolton is the person Bush wants to send to the table?

Thankfully we have a Republican voice in the Senate actively opposing Bolton’s nomination.  Let’s see if some of the so-called moderate Republicans will join a unified Democratic caucus and defeat this joker.  Bolton must not be confirmed.  I would rather send a signal to Bush that he has failed in his judgement of an acceptable ambassador to the United Nations than advocate Bolton’s approval to “see what happens”.  In my opinion (humbly of course), our global situation is too unstable to roll the dice with this one.

The process begins today in the United States Senate for the showdown on the Bush’s judicial nominees.  Compromises have been offered, faith has been used as a division tactic, and we have come to the moment of truth.

The Republican Congress has followed lock-step with the extremist position of George Bush.  They claim to be appalled that judges “legislate from the bench”.  The reality is that they are appalled that these judges don’t legislate their extremist right-wing theocratic viewpoints.  The vote on the filibuster will “out” the Senators that care more for the President rather than their constitutional role as implementers of the Constitution.

Update [2005-5-18 17:44:41 by Man Eegee]: Senate debate is done for today (5/18/05). It will resume at 9:30am EDT with rotating hours of debate by the two parties. Please contact your Senators! At this last stage, it’s best to call and fax their offices.

Today’s outrage included:

On the same day that a federal judge whose family was assassinated testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about courthouse safety, Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) described Democratic efforts opposing some of President Bush’s judicial nominees as “leadership-led use of Cloture vote to kill, to defeat, to assassinate these nominees.”

Federal Judge Joan Lefkow was a target for assassination, and her husband and mother were murdered in February of this year. Democratic Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) hammered Frist’s comments and asked they be struck from the Senate record.

Raw Story.com

Update [2005-5-19 11:36:5 by Man Eegee]: Senator Durbin of Illinois exposed the motives of the Republicans by asking for unaminous consent on Thomas Griffith, one of the other nominees Bush is trying to push through the Senate. After an objection by Sen. McConnell (R-KY), Durbin then called for unanimous consent on three other nominees. Sen. McConnell objected again. And we’re the ones obstructing?!?!?!?

The point of this type of parlimentary procedure was to show that the Republicans don’t really care about an “up or down vote” (their favorite term nowadays). They want 100% of their nominees approved–making the Senate a rubber stamp for President Bush and silencing the opinions of Democrats across the country regarding judicial nominees. The Republicans are determined to destroy the checks and balances of our government.

::Continued below::
Update [2005-5-19 19:2:4 by Man Eegee]:

There were a lot of great speeches on the floor of the Senate today (5/19/05). Dembloggers.com has made a few of the them available for viewing. Check it out.

According to Fox News.com:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist intends to file a cloture petition to end debate on the Priscilla Owen nomination on Friday, he planned to announce on the Senate floor Thursday evening.

[snip]

That petition would require a vote to end debate on Tuesday. If the vote fails — meaning Republicans don’t achieve the 60 votes necessary to break the Democratic filibuster — the stage will be set for a showdown vote on Tuesday to abolish judicial filibusters, the so-called “nuclear option.”

I don’t know about you all, but the Democrats made me proud again today. Whether the nuclear option is invoked or not, the polls are showing the public’s support for the Republicans meager at best. Now it’s our job to make Frist, DeLay, etc. pay for it in the 2006 elections. (end of update)

“In the last two elections, the American people made clear they want judges who will faithfully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench,” Bush told a Republican Party event Tuesday evening.

“I have a duty to nominate well-qualified men and women to the federal judiciary. I have done just that, and I will continue to do so,” he said.

“The Senate also has a duty — to promptly consider each of these nominations on the Senate floor, discuss and debate their qualifications and then give them the up or down vote they deserve.”

CNN.com

The two nominees who will set off this nuclear showdown are Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen.  Both nominees have given ample proof in the past of their radically conservative viewpoints.  They are hardly the poster children for judges who will not “legislate from the bench”.

This is our last chance to email, fax and call our Senators.  Whether you are represented by a Republican or a Democrat, make sure your elected officials know how you feel about the preservation of the filibuster.  Here is a handy reference page with contact information.

The Republican Senators who have been wavering between support of the President’s extremism and the traditions of the United States Senate are listed below.  Please make the extra effort to contact them, especially if you live in their state:

• Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
• Susan Collins (R-Maine)
• Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
• John McCain (R-Arizona)
• Lincoln Chafee (R-Rhode Island)
• John Warner (R-Virginia)
• Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska)
• John Sununu (R-New Hampshire)
• Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania)
• Mike DeWine (R-Ohio)

We are entering scary times, my friends.  There is a scandal erupting here in Arizona involving cocaine trafficking through the U.S. Border that has already nabbed 16 law enforcement officers and soldiers.  The sting operation that has lasted for 3 1/2 years is “expected to bring more arrests and involve people from additional agencies.”

Update [2005-5-13 10:35:10 by Man Eegee]: Eleven of the 16 defendants appeared in court yesterday (5/12/05). The remaining five will appear over the next few days. They all pleaded guilty and were released on their own recognizance. The Az Daily Star has a breakdown of the specific allegations for the eleven.

In the comments below, BooTribber rba linked to an article by Common Dreams regarding journalist Gary Webb’s extensive work on the subject. He died from an apparent suicide last December.

Regarding media coverage, the AP article has gotten mileage across the country’s papers, including the NY Times, USA Today & Washington Post. The WaPo also had their own analysis of the sting operation. (free registration required)

More below the fold…

Those charged include a former Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector, a former Army sergeant, a former federal prison guard, seven members of the Arizona Army National Guard, five members of the Arizona Department of Corrections and a police officer, officials said.

All 16 agreed to plead guilty to being part of a bribery and corruption conspiracy and were scheduled to enter pleas Thursday in federal court, said Noel Hillman, a Justice Department official.

::snip::

Hillman said the defendants drove cocaine shipments past checkpoints manned by the government while they wore official uniforms, carried identification and used official vehicles.

“Many individuals charged were sworn personnel having the task of protecting society and securing America’s borders,” Monroe said. “The importance of these tasks cannot be overstated and we cannot tolerate, nor can the American people afford, this type of corruption.”  [emphasis mine]

AP – Yahoo News

This scandal has the potential to blow the lid off the border/immigration debate.  I will do some investigating here locally and give you updates as I find them.

From the diaries by susanbhu. Donde esta Corona, hombre?! (Burp. Ole!) Oye hombre, donde esta mi Corona? (My main man eegee said to say that instead.)

Did you know that tomorrow today is Cinco de Mayo?  I was reminded of the holiday last night while channel-surfing and the annual Cinco de Mayo Corona commercial came on the screen.  They’re so clever huh?  Wow I’m thirsty.

All snark aside, I wanted to take this opportunity to raise awareness in the BooTrib community about the true meaning of Cinco de Mayo as well as the deliberate attempt to hijack the cultural celebration.

Follow me…
There’s a widespread myth that Cinco de Mayo is celebrated as Mexican Independence Day. That’s not true, their actual Independence Day is diez y seis de Septiembre, or September 16th.  Cinco de Mayo serves as the commemoration of the Mexican Army’s victory over the French in 1862 in the Mexican state of Puebla.

The victory was a glorious moment for Mexican patriots, which at the time helped to develop a needed sense of national unity, and is the cause for the historical date’s celebration.

Unfortunately, the victory was short lived. Upon hearing the bad news, Napoleon had found an excuse to send more troops overseas to try and invade Mexico again, even against the wishes of the French populace. 30,000 more troops and a full year later, the French were eventually able to depose the Mexican army, take over Mexico City and install Maximilian as the ruler of Mexico.

Maximilian’s rule of Mexico was also short lived, from 1864 to 1867. With the American Civil War now over, the U.S. began to provide more political and military assistance to Mexico to expel the French, after which Maximilian was executed by the Mexicans – today his bullet riddled shirt is on display in the museum at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City. So despite the eventual French invasion of Mexico City, Cinco de Mayo honors the bravery and victory of General Zaragoza’s small, outnumbered militia at the Battle of Puebla in 1862.
MexOnline.com

The celebration of Cinco de Mayo has gained in popularity in the United States with a growing number of Latinos in communities across the country.  Unfortunately over the past few years, Cinco de Mayo has been commercialized and linked to the beer industry.  Think about it, when you read my diary headline, did you think of a margarita or a Corona?  That shows their success.

Over the past few of years, Latino activists in the U.S. have tried to re-claim the true meaning of Cinco de Mayo.  They host community events featuring Mariachi and Folklorico performances that celebrate the culture of the Mexican people.  It’s a well-needed alternative to the fiestas that have become a huge drunken spectacle. So tomorrow today, before you squeeze that lime into your Corona, remember that the Almighty Dollar drove the marketing campaign to get you to happy hour on “Drinko de Mayo”  

To read more about the hijacking of Cinco de Mayo by the liquor industry, I invite you to check out the following articles:

La Prensa – San Diego, CA

Toledo Blade – Toledo, OH

The News-Sentinel – Fort Wayne, IN

WOAI.com – San Antonio, TX

Salud!

On Sunday, May 1, 2005 artists from Mexico and the United States dedicated a mural in Nogales, Sonora that was created on the wall that separates their two countries.  Seeking to build a bridge of culture and recognizing their common humanity, these people of all ages are seeking to transform the climate of tension that grows between the U.S. and Mexico governments.

More below the fold…

Alberto Morackis, a Nogales, Sonora, artist who on Friday brushed light blue paint on the mural’s river, said that even though the purpose of the border wall is to separate, the making of the mural has served to bring together people from both sides.

“People are turning the border into something positive through art,” said Morackis, 43.

He was one of three artists from Tucson and Nogales who collaborated on the artwork.

Rafaela Fontanot, a project coordinator, said the plan was for people from Sonora and Arizona to jointly create the mural. Several youths from Tucson planned to participate.

“The idea was for people in the community to come together and create a mural that reinforces our cultural identity and our values,” she said. “The mural also is a show of solidarity with the indigenous people of Chiapas who continue to struggle for autonomy.”

Fontanot said the mural was painted on a portion of the wall, used daily by scores of young Mexicans who cross illegally, to send a message.

The absence of so many young Mexicans who leave for the wealthier United States means a shrinking labor force in their own country that particularly affects rural areas, she said.

“Maybe the mural can persuade a young man to reflect on what he’s leaving behind – or even keep him from crossing,” Fontanot said.

Arizona Daily Star – Emphasis mine

Living here in the U.S. we tend to see the immigration issue as one-sided.  We don’t realize the impact that it has on the economies of Mexico and other South American countries.  According to a Pew Hispanic Center report in 2004 “the amount of money sent to Mexico increased dramatically from $9.2 billion in 2001 to $13.2 billion in 2003, a growth of 43 percent.”  The immigration issue is complex because it’s more than just the U.S. economy at stake.  

Projects such as this mural help to ease the hostility that exists between the two countries.  My hope is that once our elected leaders decide to enter negotiations on Immigration Reform, they will consider the consequences both north and south of the border.

I was hoping the headline was a mistake; but it’s not.  This is the environment Bush’s administration has created in our country.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting Bush and his family, “routinely” asks for five “identifiers” of people who will be near the president to run through a criminal data base, Mazur said.

The five factors — name, date-of-birth, Social Security number, gender and race — are used to search the database “in a most timely and effective manner,” he said.
CNN.com

They are requesting the information for the guest list at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday.  According to interviews in the article, this is the first time they have asked for a guest’s race.

Just when you think they couldn’t be more offensive.

From the diaries by susanhbu.

Immoral. This budget is yet another example of the poor reaping the consequences of the rich’s decision-making. The Democrats were united against the budget because it cut Medicaid benefits.

Details (with updated vote line-up) below …

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said it was a first step toward confronting the “massive problem” of meeting the nation’s defense and domestic spending needs while coping with relentlessly rising baby boomer health and retirement costs. “The president sent us a budget which for the first time in seven years stepped on the sacred ground of trying to address the entitlement costs of the federal budget,” he said.

 

It was the effort to control spending on the Medicaid health program for the poor — one of the three big entitlement programs, along with Medicare and Social Security — that created the biggest obstacle to agreement on the budget. Medicaid was last cut in 1997.

 

Democrats and some Republicans, led by Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, objected that cuts in projected spending for Medicaid would impose a hardship on states that rely heavily on federal grants to care for the poor.

The vote was 214-211 in the House and 52-47 in the Senate

Update [2005-4-29 9:2:15 by Man Eegee]:

The House of Representatives vote tally can be found here. No Democrats voted in favor of the budget.

We are the defenders of Social Security, Medicare and other social problems that are important to the people of this country.

I’ve been waiting to see how long someone around here would write a diary about the exploding frog phenomenon in Germany.  I guess I’ll take the lead, how else am I supposed to procrastinate?

So far, more than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in Hamburg and in Denmark. But the pond water in Hamburg has been tested, and its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The remains have been checked for a virus or bacteria, but none has been found.

Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian’s chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.

But, because the liver is missing and there’s a hole in the toad’s body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.

And you thought YOU were having a bad day…

Now that would be amusing.  I knew the papers here would start rumbling sooner or later about challenges to Governor Napolitano’s reelection.  She is a savvy politician that manages to get her agenda advanced despite an overwhelmingly right-wing bent State Legislature.

The wife of former vice president Dan Quayle, she has virtually instant name identification. At the same time, with no political background, she does not have roll call votes that could be used against her.

Party officials are courting Quayle, who lives in Paradise Valley, at least in part because it would mean one woman taking on another.

Other names on the list of possible challenges are:  former (disgraced) Governor Fife Symington, Rep. Rick Renzi, and State Senate President Ken Bennett.

So there’s your check of the pulse for the Arizona governorship.  I plan to work real hard to keep Janet in office.