Vermont's elected officials in both the state House of Respresentatives and the Senate have decided that employment discrimination is a bad thing.  The House and the Senate passed a bill expanding the definition of discrimination to include "gender identity and expression."  This basically means that if the bill were to pass, then Carl who likes to dress like Carol can't be discriminated against, just like Carl who likes to sleep with Carl and not Carol can't be discriminated against.

Governor Jim Douglas has vetoed this legislation.

When I started my undergraduate career, I was enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, and boy, nothing works harder than a Democrat in Texas - we had lobbying committees set up for different issue areas, and we were in legislators' offices every week presenting our case.  We were fired up and we were effecting change.

But then I decided I needed a change, because while the University Democrats were a beacon for reason and hope, a lot of the rest of the student body was not, and the school didn't seem to be suiting my academic needs.  So I thought, "where can I get the education I want and be in an amazing political environment?"  My answer: The University of Vermont!

So I arrived in the Green Mountain State, thoroughly excited to join a thriving, motivated, spectacular political group - the College Democrats.  Upon attending my first meeting, I found less than ten people in attendance, and it only got worse from there.

Read on below!

Alright, so we've heard that President Bush's speech on Monday night will not be about anything as volatile as logging domestic calls or Rovian involvement in Plamegate, but about the possibility of placing national guard troops along the US-Mexico border.

With the current immigration laws, and how ridiculously hard it is to legally emmigrate to the United States these days, putting national guard troops along the border will most definitely not solve any immigration problems - we need to get back to our roots as prescribed on the Statue of Liberty - you know the line.

But suppose that the US immigration laws were a lot less draconian, and Bush was proposing to militarize the border - would it really be a bad thing?

Jump down before you yell at me!

So I'm willing to bet that most of you aren't taking a fervid interest in the Vermont governor's race, but we've had some pretty interesting developments over the last week.  Vermont has a Republican governor (Jim Douglas) and a Democratic legislature, and two days ago, Douglas signed a health care plan very similar in nature to the one passed in MA a few months ago.  But why did he do it?  Take a look at the events unfolding...

Make the jump!

There's been a lot of buzz lately about President Bush's statements on signing bills, wherein he usually declares the authority to defy the wishes of Congress.  Ever since I read the Globe piece, I've been trying to find a comprehensive list of signing statements, to no avail.

So I decided to turn to my very good friend Google, and run a search to find five random signing statements, to see what they're all about.  So I present to you a sampler of just what's in a signing statement, and just what President Bush thinks he can do in the face of congress.

Jump the gap to see the statements!

The Senate recently passed an emergency spending bill designed to fund the war in Iraq and pay for post-Katrina reconstruction.  In response to what they believe to be an excess of pork, twenty Republicans have voted against the bill.  Fiscal responsibility, right?  Let's take a look at the soundbite from Senator Jim DeMint:

"...every Democrat and many Republicans proved they care more about pet projects than the future of our children and grandchildren." (Source)

Flip!

The original story of the new Spanish language version of the US National Anthem has already been diaried a few times, but I noticed that this detail has been left out:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said he would introduce a resolution Monday ''giving senators an opportunity to remind the country why we sing our national anthem in English.'' (Source)

So Lamar Alexander thinks that the notion of being American is fundamentally tied to the notion of the English language.  Jump below for more.

I tried to search the diaries to see if this was posted previously, but it kept timing out, so I apologize if you've seen this before.

The SCOTUS handed down a decision upholding Roe v. Wade today, although it was without comment or recorded dissent, which suggests to me that they considered the correctness of the precedent.  Nonetheless, the new court's giving me a good vibe.  Full story on the flip.

Everyone knows that it's completely possible to support the troops without supporting the war, and be patriotic in the Mark Twain sense of the word, but here on Daily Kos I read a lot of stories about how the administration's edicts for Iraq and their subsequent removal from reality are ridiculous and detrimental to many things, and not a lot of stories about the soldiers who do perform benevolent acts, despite the official directives.

So for one diary, I'd like to shift focus from the war to the troops, and give the decenct and humanitarian acts performed by some of them the credit it deserves.

In today's WaPo:

The skin of the 7-year-old Iraqi boy carried a blueish hue, and he could barely breathe. Doctors said he could die in his teenage years unless a heart defect was repaired. This week, with the help of some Texas soldiers, Kadhem Kathem had open heart surgery in Houston and is on his way to recovery.

Jump down.

I've been quarreling with this in my brain for some time now, and I can't decide whether or not I think this should be included in Constitutionally protected free speech.  I stumbled onto an article about child "models," who are really just above child porn stars.  Technically speaking, this is legal right now.  A directory of some kind for these "models" can be found here.

Now most of these pictures are wholly disturbing, most likely exploitative, and could quite possibly be fueling the desires of sex offenders.  But should this form of free speech be allowed?  I muse below the fold.

This is going to be a relatively short diary, but this quote was just too good to be true.  When I was scanning through the Washington Post today, I started to read a story about Dean emphasizing the need to appeal to "values voters," and define moral values as more than "abortion and gay marriage."  Real morals are things like making sure children are fed, etc.

The article was talking about the 2004 election and the shift in low-income voters to Bush as November 2nd approached.  And here's the quote we've all been waiting for...

(Emphasis mine.)

Short commentary below the fold.

I just read a summary of H.R. 1528, and it is one of the worst drug war bills I've seen in a while.  Let's explore what this bill would do (emphases will be mine):

Because federal judges aren't qualified to make decisions like that on a case-to-case basis; it's much better to have a one-size-fits all policy that will apply to every single drug offender in the US.

Please someone start a list of more griveous offenses that can and will receive less jail time than this.  Maybe start with corporate felony ;)

More below.

Apparently, conservatives will be demonstrating outside of a Rock The Vote anniversary celebration tonight, because of Rock The Vote's opposition to personal retirement accounts.  So far, this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard coming out of far-right-ville today, but it's still early.  For conservatives to protest against an organization that does not advocate one party or another when registering voters, and has turned out an obscene amount of voters from places that noone would expect is just, to be 8 years old, silly.

The fact that Rock The Vote has a position on Social Security has nothing to do with their purpose as an organization, and it has nothing to do with their registration drives.  Conservatives criticizing RTV for having a position on Social Security is like conservatives criticizing a Washington Post reporter for having a personal political affiliation.  Both RTV and the Post reporter will do their jobs beyond partisan lines, and anything else is inapplicable.

Quote below the fold.

Hello people,

I'm currently engaged in a debate with someone who believes that all viewpoints are derived from some sort of moral code, Biblical or otherwise.  We got into a discussion about consent in marriage, and why it was necessary, and I'm having some trouble puttings things into words for my response.

His quote is below the fold.

Read this Reid quote on Bill Frist today:

Do you agree with Reid about the nature of politicians?

So when I was in the 10th grade, I got an essay topic for a contest.  The jist of it was "If you could go anywhere and do anything at any point in time for 24 hours, what would you do?"  I thought about it for a while, and decided that I would go find the first person who ever concieved of the notion of God, and I would make sure that noone ever heard that idea.

So we all remember how the war on terror took an odd twist from being focused on Afghanistan and al-Qaeda to being focused on Iraq, and we all remember the frightening comparative analysis of funds and troops in the two countries.

Lately, it seems as though we've been focusing more on the actual terrorists, and it gave me a small amount of hope that we might actually be doing some good things, even though it doesn't seem like we're spending that much time on it.

But have no fear, our misaligned priorities may soon be back, according to an article in today's Washington Post, read more below the fold!

I'm in an argument with someone about the positions of certain government officials on the idea of invading Iraq originally.  He claims that Clinton and Gore supported the invasion without UN support, and that "everyone" believed that Iraq had WMDs.  I'm not great on getting sources for information like this (Google isn't usually helpful,) and I know all of you are a lot better at this than I am, so does anyone have sources I can cite regarding the positions of Democratic leaders on the unilateral invasion of Iraq and the quality of the intelligence available? Also, if anyone has a good place for sources like this, that would be extremely helpful so I don't have to bother people every time, hehe.