Democrats Abroad Australia

Martin Luther King took a chance on peace and civil rights...
Al Gore took a chance on an inconvenient truth...
The Stonewall rioters took a chance in 1969...
The US Democratic Party is ready for their chance!

NY Times Editorial

Looking at America

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

Believe it or not, the Iowa caucus occurs on January 3rd, 2008. From the date of writing (15 December, 2007 in Oz, 14 December, 2007 in the U.S.), that's a lousy 20 days from now. And counting (down).

Many of you will have heard, if only vaguely, of an effort by U.S. cities to 'get around' the refusal by the Bush administration to sign the Kyoto Protocol. The effort goes under the name of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.

NY Times

The White House as a Moving Legal Target

By ADAM LIPTAK

In a four-paragraph letter on Wednesday announcing that the Bush administration had reversed its position and would submit its domestic surveillance program to judicial supervision, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales used one phrase three times. A secret court, he said, had fashioned a way to allow the program to be monitored by the judiciary without compromising the need for “speed and agility.”

Detainee trials may allow hearsay testimony in death-penalty cases

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has drafted a manual for upcoming detainee trials that would allow convicted terrorists to be imprisoned or put to death using hearsay evidence and coerced testimony.