An enormously important news article and a coming decision by the Justice Department have made this the month when some important decisions on torture are made by the government and the general public as well. Those decisions may shape America’s direction for a long time to come.

Both houses of the Vermont legislature overrode the veto of Republican governor Jim Douglas and that state became the 4th state to pass a same sex marriage bill. Today let’s spend some time getting to know one of the legislators behind that hard-fought victory–that most people said was impossible–Representative David Zuckerman, a member of Vermont’s Progressive Party.

As Jane told you earlier, there will be citizen-organized protests all over America today. As opposed to the greedy, gimmicky garbage being pushed by News Corp & Friends, these protests are calling for transparency in the federal government’s financial relief programs, and real, systemic reform.

Citing copyright violations, the [cough] National Organization for Marriage [cough, cough] got the audition tapes for its hateful commercial pulled from YouTube, but there’s a fair use mash-up online for your viewing pleasure. . . .

Serving those hit hardest by the economic downturn is a huge growth industry, but the gifts and donations to support this work has taken real hits. Serving the needs of the poor — the “invisible people” — is never easy, and it’s getting tougher every day.

The citizen-organized protests to reform the banks (as opposed to the Fox orchestrated “bright shiny object” teabagger protests to blame black people) are going to be taking place in 70 cities across the country today. 

You can find the one closest to you here.
You can find the one closest to you here.

Bill Greider and I are going to at the Lafayette Park demonstration here in Washington DC.

First there were Norm Coleman’s webmasters thinking it was a smart idea to store credit card information on Norm’s donors on an unsecured website. Then there was the RNC’s stiffing their vendors — including longtime Republican ones — on the bills for the Tear-Gas Frolic in St. Paul last summer. Then there was Michele Bachmann spewing nonsensical lies about The Coming One World Currency. Now we find out that Congresscritter Joe Barton (R-Texas) thought that the stock market was better than a bank when it came to being a place to park one’s campaign cash. Ai-yi-yi!

I can remember the first time I saw Star Wars, sitting in that darkened theater with my older cousin, in awe of the star cruisers that seemed to fly right out of the screen at us. It was magic. I became hooked on science fiction at the ripe age of eight because of the genius of Yoda. And all the potential of space travel and our own possibilities.

New videos from The New Mastersounds and The Thermals

Michelle Obama helped with spring planting in the White House garden yesterday, along with some of the WH kitchen and grounds staff and students from Bancroft Elementary School in DC. This is a great teaching moment on nutrition and activity in a nation where childhood obesity has become rampant.  More and more children are taking diabetes and blood pressure medications, and that costs us all.