Clarence Thomas’ Ethics Problems

Posted: June 19, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: SCOTUS | Tags: , , | 6 Comments

We’ve written before about Clarence Thomas and the number of conflicts of interests that he has ignored in the past.

Justice Long Dong Silver rides again.

Bostonboomer wrote this piece back in February about Thomas and Citizen’s United. This was a follow-up to a piece she wrote in January when Thomas was been criticized for not reporting his right wing activist wife’s lobbying income.  Many liberals–including Rachel Maddow–have argued that cyber stalking of Anthony Weiner and the resultant media frenzy to force Wiener’s resignation may be related to a letter Weiner wrote Thomas in February.  That letter requested Thomas remove himself from from cases challenging the constitutionality of the Health Care Reform Act given his wife Gini Thomas’ lobbying activity for Liberty Central against the law.

Talk Progress discovered several ethics lapses this year alone for Justice ‘Long Dong Silver’ of coke bottle and sexual harassment fame.  Thomas has attended many Koch-sponsored political fundraisers.  Now, the NYT has evidence that Thomas keeps accepting expensive gifts from one particular conservative real estate trust fund baby and fails to report many more.  Any one with a good amount of familiarity with American history will know that 40 years ago, Justice Abe Fortas was forced to resign under the same circumstances.  Recently, it was found out this right wing political donor not only contributed to Thomas’ pet projects like the Pin Point museum in Georgia which features Thomas’ birth place, but he’s received incredibly expensive gifts ranging from a $19,000 bible once owned by Frederick Douglass and $500,000 to seed Thomas’ wife Tea Party organization.  Thomas has also accepted a $15,000 gift from the American Enterprise Institute who wrote a brief in a case that appeared before the court. Thomas did not recuse himself.

The NYT’s reports that Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate tycoon and a major contributor to conservative causes–gave the essential backing of $175,000 to fund the museum, the previously mentioned $19,000 bible,  and $500,000 for Gini Thomas’ organization. There’s also some pretty nice meals and parties included in the gift package along with time spent in yachts and vacation spots.   Thomas failed to report a good deal of this.

We’ve reached the point at which calls for Thomas to resign should be coming from Democrats in Congress and Republicans concerned with corruption. Gini Thomas’ organization has actively been involved with lobbying for causes that include laws that will appear before the Supreme Court.  Weiner was right in pointing out the obvious conflict of interest. This is the analysis from TPM.

Some degree of conflict of interest is inherent in any judge’s professional life — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for instance, saw it necessary to recuse herself from at least 141 cases before she joined the Supreme Court — but when it comes to ethical complications on the nation’s highest court, Clarence Thomas takes the cake. Of particular concern is Thomas’ wife, Virginia, who founded a Tea Party-affiliated group called Liberty Central that opposes various progressive causes, including health care reform — an issue that’s almost certain to come before her husband’s court.

But an increasing number of revelations about Clarence Thomas’ own activities are raising questions about his impartiality.

So, who is Harlan Crow?  The Times mentions the two men met about the time Thomas was placed on the court.    Here’s a brief bit on that from Truth Dig.

After U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas secured a financial favor that led to the preservation of an aging cannery site in the community of his birth in Georgia, legal ethicists are voicing concerns over his friendship with Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and contributor to conservative causes.

Crow’s donation to what appears to be Justice Thomas’ pet project is cause for wonder over how the judge’s rulings might be influenced by his benefactor’s politics. Federal judges are required to adhere to a code of ethics that bars them from raising money for charitable causes for precisely that reason. But Supreme Court justices are not. Crow, who has donated almost $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups, is a known contributor to Thomas’ political advocacy group, Liberty Central, which opposed President Obama’s health care legislation last year.

Crow’s background is given in the NYT article itself.

Mr. Crow, 61, manages the real estate and investment businesses founded by his late father, Trammell Crow, once the largest landlord in the United States. The Crow family portfolio is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and includes investments in hotels, medical facilities, public equities and hedge funds.

A friend of the Bush family, Mr. Crow is a trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation and has donated close to $5 million to Republican campaigns and conservative groups. Among his contributions were $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group formed to attack the Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, and $500,000 to an organization that ran advertisements urging the confirmation of President George W. Bush’s nominees to the Supreme Court.

Mr. Crow has not personally been a party to Supreme Court litigation, but his companies have been involved in federal court cases, including four that went to the appellate level. And he has served on the boards of two conservative organizations involved in filing supporting briefs in cases before the Supreme Court. One of them, the American Enterprise Institute, with Mr. Crow as a trustee, gave Justice Thomas a bust of Lincoln valued at $15,000 and praised his jurisprudence at an awards gala in 2001.

The institute’s Project on Fair Representation later filed briefs in several cases, and in 2006 the project brought a lawsuit challenging federal voting rights laws, a case in which Justice Thomas filed a lone dissent, embracing the project’s arguments. The project director, an institute fellow named Edward Blum, said the institute supported his research but did not finance the brief filings or the Texas suit, which was litigated pro bono by a former clerk of Justice Thomas’s.

So, Crow is another right wing trust fund baby interested in preserving his hand downs.

There are a number of reasons Justice Thomas might be thankful to Mr. Crow. In addition to giving him the Douglass Bible, valued 10 years ago at $19,000, Mr. Crow has hosted the justice aboard his private jet and his 161-foot yacht, at the exclusive Bohemian Grove retreat in California and at his grand Adirondacks summer estate called Topridge, a 105-acre spread that once belonged to Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress.

Christopher Shaw, a folk singer who said he had been invited several times to perform at Topridge, recalled seeing Justice Thomas and his family “on one or two occasions.” They were among about two dozen guests who included other prominent Republicans — last summer, the younger Mr. Bush stopped by.

“There would be guys puffing on cigars,” Mr. Shaw said. “Clarence just kind of melted in with everyone else. We got introduced at dinner. He sat at Harlan’s table.”

The most interesting thing to read in all of the articles I’ve cited is the number of legal experts that consider this to be unethical at the very least.  It also appears that Justice Thomas has reporting problem when it comes to gifts since it was pointed out in 2004 that his gift list was much bigger than the other members of SCOTUS.  Since then, his gift list is empty.

Beyond the code, the justices must comply with laws applying to all federal officials that prohibit conflicts of interest and require disclosure of gifts. Justice Thomas’s gift acceptances drew attention in 2004, when The Los Angeles Times reported that he had accumulated gifts totaling $42,200 in the previous six years — far more than any of the other justices.

Since 2004, Justice Thomas has never reported another gift. He has continued to disclose travel costs paid by schools and organizations he has visited for speeches and teaching, but he has not reported that any travel was provided by Mr. Crow.

Travel records for Mr. Crow’s planes and yacht, however, suggest that Justice Thomas may have used them in recent years.

In April 2008, not long after Mr. Crow bought the Pin Point property, one of his private planes flew from Washington to Savannah, where his yacht, the Michaela Rose, was docked.

That same week, an item appeared in a South Carolina lawyers’ publication noting that Justice Thomas was arriving aboard the Michaela Rose in Charleston, a couple of hours north of Savannah, where the Crow family owns luxury vacation properties. The author was a prominent lawyer who said she knew of the visit because of a family connection to Mr. Crow.

Justice Thomas reported no gifts of travel that month in his 2008 disclosure. And there are other instances in which Justice Thomas’s travels correspond to flights taken by Mr. Crow’s planes.

No wonder the right wing was eager to take down Anthony Weiner.  It appears that Thomas has accepted gifts from organizations that have either benefited or filed briefs in support of decisions that he’s been party to.  I’ll be waiting for calls from Congress to investigate all of this.  Any bets on how long I’ll be waiting?

Late Night: Obama and Boehner Hold “Golf Summit”

Posted: June 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, just because, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Earlier today, Barack Obama, John Boehner, Joe Biden, and John Kasich held a so-called “golf summit” Joint Base Andrews Golf Course in Maryland.

They couldn’t play at the Congressional Country Club, because the U.S. Open is going on there. I’m sure these elite jokers will get to see some of that tournament though.

The game gave the president and the Republican leader four hours to socialize — with or without discussion of the last week’s tense negotiations. Both men play regularly, but Boehner is known as one of Capital Hill’s best golfers. Boehner was ranked 43rd among 150 prominent Washington golfers, while Obama is 108th.

Playing together, Obama and Boehner edged Biden and Kasich on the final hole — pocketing $2 each.

“The foursome had great time and really enjoyed playing golf at Joint Base Andrews today,” a statement from the White House said. “After finishing their round, the President, Speaker Boehner, the Vice President and Governor Kasich went to the patio of the clubhouse where they enjoyed a cold drink, some of the U.S. Open coverage and visited with service members.”

[….]

“The president sees golf as a way to escape Washington, and Speaker Boehner sees golf as part of the politics of Washington. It’s how you raise money, it’s how you get business done. And the president doesn’t see golf that way,” ABC News political director Amy Walter said.

“At best, it’s a great photo op,” Walter said. “I doubt anything really substantive comes out of it. … It can be an opportunity for two people from Washington to prove that Washington can actually get along.”

Forgive me if I don’t see the point of these politicians spending four hours together on the golf course. Do these jokers ever stop and think of how this looks to the millions of Americans who are out of work and/or losing their homes because these “villagers” are basing their decisions about the economy on voodoo economics?

Here are some examples of what I’d like to have seen at the “golf summit.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Clarence Clemons Dies from Complications of Stroke

Posted: June 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , | 8 Comments

From The New York Times:

Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, whose jovial onstage manner, soul-rooted style and brotherly relationship with Mr. Springsteen made him one of rock’s most beloved sidemen, died Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

The cause was complications from a stroke, which he suffered last Sunday, said a spokeswoman for Mr. Springsteen….

Clarence Anicholas Clemons was born on Jan. 11, 1942, in Norfolk, Va. His father owned a fish market and his grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and although he grew up surrounded by gospel music, the young Mr. Clemons was captivated by rock ’n’ roll. He was given an alto saxophone at age 9 as a Christmas gift; later, following the influence of King Curtis — whose many credits include the jaunty sax part on the Coasters’ 1958 hit “Yakety Yak” — he switched to the tenor.

“I grew up with a very religious background,” he once said in an interview. “I got into the soul music, but I wanted to rock. I was a rocker. I was a born rock ’n’ roll sax player.”

Mr. Clemons was also a gifted athlete, and he attended Maryland State College (now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore) on a scholarship for football and music. He tried out for the Dallas Cowboys and the Cleveland Browns, but a knee injury ended his hopes for a football career.

Rolling Stone summarizes the apocryphal story of the night Clemons and Springsteen met and began to play music together.

So much has been said and written about the stormy night in Asbury Park in 1971 when Clemons met Springsteen that it’s hard to separate fact from myth. At the time, Springsteen was a struggling musician playing the New Jersey bar circuit and Clemons was a former college football player who spent his nights playing sax in clubs along the shore. “It was raining and thundering like a motherfucker,” Clemons wrote in his memoir. “When I opened the door it blew off the hinges and flew down the street . . . Somebody introduced me to Bruce, everybody knew everybody, and he asked me if I wanted to sit in.”

Clemons soon became part of Springsteen’s backing band (not yet known as the E Street Band), and when Bruce recorded his debut LP Greetings From Asbury Park in the summer of 1972, Clemons was brought in for the sessions. Over the next two decades, Clemons became the most recognizable member of the E Street Band – for his massive size, equally huge personality and his onstage role as Springsteen’s foil.

May Clemons continue to make music and tell tall tales in Rock’n’Roll Heaven.

Obama’s War

Posted: June 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Libya | Tags: , , | 10 Comments

For a candidate that basically ran on the brag that he was the only candidate who genuinely opposed the Iraq War Resolution, Barack Obama sure turned into a President that is relying on similar Bushian war logic.  The NYT’s Charlie Savage has a must read article up on the behind-the-scene maneuvers this President made on the way to joining the NATO operations in Libya.  It seems that Obama rejected the views of top lawyers at the Pentagon who questioned the legal authority of the President to approve the operation without Congressional consent.  Glenn Greenwald has some analysis of the article at Salon.

The growing controversy over President Obama’s illegal waging of war in Libya got much bigger last night with Charlie Savage’s New York Times scoop.  He reveals that top administration lawyers —  Attorney General Eric Holder, OLC Chief Caroline Krass, and DoD General Counsel Jeh Johnson — all told Obama that his latest, widely panned excuse for waging war without Congressional approval (that it does not rise to the level of “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution (WPR)) was invalid and that such authorization was legally required after 60 days: itself a generous intepretation of the President’s war powers.  But Obama rejected those views and (with the support of administration lawyers in lesser positions:  his White House counsel and long-time political operative Robert Bauer and State Department “legal adviser” Harold Koh) publicly claimed that the WPR does not apply to Libya.

As Savage notes, it is, in particular, “extraordinarily rare” for a President “to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice.”  Just imagine if George Bush had waged a war that his own Attorney General, OLC Chief, and DoD General Counsel all insisted was illegal (and did so by pointing to the fact that his White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and a legal adviser at State agreed with him).  One need not imagine this, though, because there is very telling actual parallel to this lawless episode …

Obama is holding to the idea that the Libya operations fall short of the definition of “hostilities” and that the campaign does not fall under provisions of the War Powers Resolution which states that any “unauthorized hostilities” must be halted after 90 days.  This is explained in more detail in the NY Times article itself.

“It should come as no surprise that there would be some disagreements, even within an administration, regarding the application of a statute that is nearly 40 years old to a unique and evolving conflict,” Mr. Schultz said. “Those disagreements are ordinary and healthy.”

Still, the disclosure that key figures on the administration’s legal team disagreed with Mr. Obama’s legal view could fuel restiveness in Congress, where lawmakers from both parties this week strongly criticized the White House’s contention that the president could continue the Libya campaign without their authorization because the campaign was not “hostilities.”

The White House unveiled its interpretation of the War Powers Resolution in a package about Libya it sent to Congress late Wednesday. On Thursday, the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, demanded to know whether the Office of Legal Counsel had agreed.

“The administration gave its opinion on the War Powers Resolution, but it didn’t answer the questions in my letter as to whether the Office of Legal Counsel agrees with them,” he said. “The White House says there are no hostilities taking place. Yet we’ve got drone attacks under way. We’re spending $10 million a day. We’re part of an effort to drop bombs on Qaddafi’s compounds. It just doesn’t pass the straight-face test, in my view, that we’re not in the midst of hostilities.”

The logical follow-up question is, of course, is Boehner acting in the interest of Republican politics or the rule of law?  I’ll avoid that one and instead rely on other liberal writers to take the argument that even if Boehner is wrongly motivated, he’s got the action right.  James Fallows writing for The Atlantic states that  “Obama Is Wrong About Congress and Libya”.  Fallows does not have Republican gamesmanship in mind.

But after three months of combat, and after several decades of drift toward unilateral Executive Branch action on matters of war and peace, Obama is doing a disservice to the nation, history, and himself by insisting that the decision should be left strictly to him. If the Libyan campaign ultimately “goes well,” he will not in any way lessen his own political and historic credit by having involved the Congress. If it goes poorly, he will be politically safer if this is not just his own judgment-call war. More important, in either case he will have helped the country if his conduct restores rather than further weakens the concept that a multi-branch Constitutional republic must share the responsibility to commit force. We can only imagine the eloquence with which a Candidate Obama would be making this exact case were he not in the White House now.

Additional analysis can be found at The New Yorker where Amy Davidson argues that bombing Tripoli is the very definition of hostilities.

But the War Powers Resolution doesn’t say anything about wars in which we have allies not counting, or ones the U.N. likes; it isn’t about lonely wars or bad wars, just wars. The Administration adds a second set of rationalizations, which make even less sense:

U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.

Is the point that, while we are bombing Libya, we are doing it from a distance, out of Qaddafi’s forces’ range, so there aren’t “exchanges” of fire, just one-way barrages—hostility, rather than hostilities? By the same reasoning, it wouldn’t count as war if any overwhelming force attacked anyone who couldn’t effectively hit back; that exemption could apply not only to cruise missiles and drones but to a column of tanks rolling into a village. Is the only concern of the War Powers Act—is our only concern about war—whether our own soldiers can be shot? Aren’t we also interested in making sure there is some accountability when our government decides to shoot? (Would, someday, Congress have a say when it came to human troops, but not robot soldiers?) A war is not simply a short-term public-health issue; it can inveigle our country diplomatically, financially, and morally for decades.

The other question is whether the Administration’s summary even describes the reality on the ground in Libya. (No “sustained fighting”?) And given reports of covert operatives, the pressure to end a stalemate, and the continuing threat to civilians, the assertion that there is no “significant chance of escalation” is mysterious—does it just mean that we promise we won’t go in too deep? Wishful words don’t dispel legal obligations.

So, why is Obama afraid of facing congress at this point in time?  Senator Dick Durban–an Obama ally–is currently calling for Congressional authorization of the Libyan actions and his done the paper work.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is backing many of his colleagues in the Senate as in believing that an act of Congress is needed to justify the U.S. military action in Libya.

While the U.S. has gone only so far as launching air strikes, Durbin says a joint resolution authorizing force, barring ground troops and setting an end date should be approved by Congress. Military operations involving Libya have been going on for three months.

“Congress alone has the constitutional authority and responsibility to declare war,” Durbin said. “The founding fathers were very clear that before we commit troops in an offensive situation, that the government can only do that with the approval of Congress. Now the Libyan situation is not as clear as some others but I think it’s clear enough that we should pass an authorizing resolution.”

Durbin says he would vote for it and says what President Obama is doing in Libya is the right thing.

Durbin is posed to do the authorization.  It’s obvious that many Republicans and Democrats would probably support the measure. So, the question remains, why isn’t the President seeking congressional approval at this point?

Saturday: Strictly Hillary

Posted: June 18, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Hillary Clinton, morning reads | 34 Comments

h/t Still4Hill

Morning, news junkies. My link dump this weekend is almost all Hillary. Enjoy.

I’ll start you off with this op-ed Hillary penned in the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat yesterday–it’s called “There Is No Going Back in Syria”:

The Syrian people will not cease their demands for dignity and a future free from intimidation and fear. They deserve a government that respects its people, works to build a more stable and prosperous country, and doesn’t have to rely on repression at home and antagonism abroad to maintain its grip on power. They deserve a nation that is unified, democratic and a force for stability and progress. That would be good for Syria, good for the region and good for the world.

Also from Reuters… Clinton and Lavrov discuss Syria U.N. resolution.

What Did Hillary Whisper? (Insert your caption here!)

Next up, a nice and frothy link… “What Hillary Whispered“ — this is a fun Hillary-themed tumblr that’s been making the rounds (see The Atlantic, NY Mag, and Glittarazzi….Team Glittarazzi calls What Hillary Whispered their new favorite work distraction.)

Now for a series of more weighty links… if you missed it this past Sunday, here’s NPR’s take on Hillary’s trip to Africa: “Clinton’s Africa Tour Underscores The Power Of Women.” For more info, see:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks to Julia Dolly Joiner, Commissioner, Political Affairs, African Union Commission, at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Monday, June 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Hillary also made a speech at the African Union where she talked about empowering the women of Africa:

And finally, when it comes to economic opportunity and development, we must empower the continent’s women. The women of Africa are the hardest working women in the world. And so often – (applause) – so often what they do is not included in the formal economy, it is not measured in the GDP. And yet, if all the women in Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town, decided they would stop working for a week, the economies of Africa would collapse. (Applause.)

So let’s include half the population. Let’s treat them with dignity. Let’s give them the right and responsibility to make a contribution to the 21st century of African growth and progress. And the United States will be your partner, because we have seen what a difference it makes when women are educated, when they have access to health care, when they can start businesses, when they can get credit, when they can help support their families. So let us make sure that that remains front and center in the work we do together.

My $0.02: Unfortuntately, the US model is coming undone since women’s access to health care (and economic security) are under attack. See:

An op-ed, unsurprisingly published in the NY Post, criticized Hillary for not visiting the Congo and not delivering on a special envoy yet. Hillary did bring up the Congo in her remarks to the African Union though:

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we remain concerned about the continued violence against women and girls and the activities of armed groups in the eastern region of the country. Every effort by the AU and UN will be necessary to help the DRC respond to these continuing security crises.

My $0.02: True, it’s words and not actions per se, but to act as if Hillary has forgotten the Congo just because she visited other areas this time is a stretch. I’m sure she’ll never forget the Congolese survivors she has met after all the outreach she has done. Not to mention the fact that Hillary’s Africa trip was cut short by all that volcanic ash this time anyway, so it’s not like she even got to say and do all that she was planning on anyway.

At least the cover art looks like Hillary.

Getting back to the power of women, but in more political terms… The UK Telegraph: “Hillary Clinton must be on the rise – she’s got her own comic.”

My $0.02: Tim Martin’s art blogging at the link isn’t really about Hillary per se, though it does give some interesting background on the maker of the Hillary comic and about socio-political cartoons in general. Nice to see Martin mention the graphic novel Persepolis. I have to say, from the glimpses I’ve gotten of Bluewater’s Hillary comic book so far, I’m not terribly impressed. Still, I take Martin’s point that “if the grinning, policy-spouting simulacra in Female Force and Political Power point even one reader in the direction of these inspiring and adventurous pieces of contemporary writing, their efforts won’t have been in vain.”

Another one about the comic — ABC News reports that the book portrays Hillary and O as friends before the primaries:

The unauthorized, full-color comic book, released last week, describes how in 2003, then-New York Sen. Clinton sat on a tarmac in a private plane, waiting impatiently for a thunderstorm to pass before taking off for Chicago, where she hoped to attend a fundraiser for Illinois state senator and Senate-hopeful Obama. After eventually making it to Chicago, she was blown away by the young politician, according to the book.

“He’s young, brainy, African-American and a terrific speaker,” the book shows Clinton telling an aide. “Just the kind of candidate that we need more of, that Bill and I have spent our lives promoting. There’s a superstar in Chicago.”

“At one point,” Maida writes, “Obama gave her a gift: a photograph of him, Michelle, and their two young daughters, Sasha and Malia. From then until she left the Senate in 2009 … even during their rivalry amid the contentious 2008 campaign … Hillary displayed it prominently in her office.”

My $0.02: Funny how that kind of material made the cut and the three pages where the Bill Clinton caricature got to express his point of view on South Carolina, etc. did not.

On a similar note… Did anyone else catch Mr. Fish lumping Hillary together with every Tom and Dick in DC?

My $0.02: It’s one thing to argue as Taylor Marsh has, that women leaders have not proven to be less hawkish than men, which is a conversation worth having, but it takes a real dick–figurative, literal, whatever–to make the Weiner scandal about Hillary needing to be afraid of people running her out of power, as Mr. Fish’s comic does.

The Clintons in Bermuda, summer of 2009. I'd say this is as good a glimpse as we've gotten of "Hillary's future."

On the neverending DC parlor game called “Hillary’s future”…. More Hillary-should-replace-Biden noise, this time on Huffpo. That is one persistent internet urban legend, Lol. And, over at wowowow, Liz Smith asks this question about Hillary: “Would she do the ‘unthinkable’ and challenge her own party’s sitting president, the man who elevated her to the position of Secretary of State?”

My $0.02: As I asked of Jonathan Alter’s profile on Hillary in the June issue of Vanity Fair, what part of Beaches and Speeches do people not understand? 1600 PA Avenue just isn’t big enough for Hillary anymore.

Incidentally, Stacy at SecyClintonBlog recently spotlighted a Guardian piece from the beginning of this year that I guess popped up again last weekend–it’s called “Clinton is proving that a feminist foreign policy is possible – and works.”

My $0.02: Hillary’s feminist foreign policy is precisely why she’s transcended the White House and has much bigger horizons ahead of her. (Be sure to click over to Stacy’s post–she chose two great photos to go along with the piece.)

Excerpt from the Guardian link:

Back in the heady days of 1970s feminism there was an argument that once women achieved political power, there would be no more war. Margaret Thatcher and her Falklands war exploded that myth, and along with it any residual notion that women might do foreign policy differently from men. Indeed, it became a credibility requirement for any women with a senior foreign or defence brief to give a wide berth to anything with a whiff of being a woman’s issue. Women had to work extra hard to look tough on the world stage. Meanwhile, women’s issues were parked in the softer brief of international development.

It is these unspoken rules that Hillary Clinton has been dismantling since becoming US secretary of state two years ago. She is the most powerful politician to advance an explicitly feminist agenda. Even in that most delicate and crucial relationship with China – on which the world’s attention will be fixed this week for the Chinese president’s visit to the US – Clinton has gone out of her way to press feminist issues. In China’s case, she has highlighted the country’s growing gender imbalance caused by the high abortion rate of female foetuses.

My extra $0.02: I’m glad the author of the article drew attention to this. Even though I was born and raised in the US, I grew up acutely aware of the Indian practice of sex selective abortions–it has always been just as important an angle of the abortion debate to me as a woman’s right to choose. That’s one of the reasons why Hillary earned my support. Her pro-choice view is grounded in a complex understanding of gender politics and iniquity around the world.

In other human rights developments on the global stage…

Yes she did...and she keeps on!

Ever the Fierce Advocate her current boss will never be, yesterday Madam Secretary put out a statement on “the first ever UN resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.” From the link:

This resolution will commission the first ever UN report on the challenges that LGBT persons face around the globe and will open a broader international discussion on how to best promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.

All over the world, people face human rights abuses and violations because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including torture, rape, criminal sanctions, and killing. Today’s landmark resolution affirms that human rights are universal. People cannot be excluded from protection simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The United States will continue to stand up for human rights wherever there is inequality and we will seek more commitments from countries to join this important resolution.

My $0.02: It would help if America’s domestic leaders would stand up for the human rights of people here at home, too. Just sayin’.

Also from the fact sheet the State Department put out on “U.S. Accomplishments at the UN Human Rights Council’s 17th Session,” (the session concluded Friday):

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

The United States continues to join UN members to call attention to violence against women and girls around the world and improve international efforts to eliminate and prevent that violence. The United States strongly supported a Canadian-led resolution addressing Violence Against Women, took part in annual day discussion on addressing sexual violence against women in conflict, and responded to the report of Violence Against Women Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo on the United States.

My $0.02: The fact sheet also has bullet points on the LGBT resolution, internet freedom, business and human rights, and country-specific resolutions. As usual Saudi Arabia is absent from the list.

We’re about halfway-through, so if you’re not bored yet, click to read the rest: Read the rest of this entry »

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