'The Japanese government is still legally responsible for inhumane crimes such as comfort women, which involved state power including the government and the military,' the prime minister's office said in a statement.

Up to 200,000 Korean women are believed to have served as comfort women, who were sex slaves mobilized for Japanese troops during World War II.

"The court is now protecting the children of same sex parents in gay families in the same way children are protected with heterosexual couples in heterosexual families," said Jill Hersh, who argued the unnamed Marin County woman's case.

Emily B., an El Dorado County woman whose former lover must now pay to support the children following the court's ruling, said she might be able to get off of welfare now.

"I'm absolutely overjoyed today," she said.

The moving sight of aggrieved mother Cindy Sheehan camped out in front of President Bush's ranch touched a national nerve. Sheehan is a white mom that lost a son. And who wouldn't be compassionate and sensitive to her loss? But there are plenty of black moms that have lost sons in Iraq, and few have followed Sheehan's example and publicly and dramatically raised their voices in protest.

Though polls show that more blacks than whites oppose the war, and black Congressperson Maxine Waters has hammered Bush on Iraq, there has been no mass move by blacks to publicly join the antiwar chorus. Few blacks showed up at the peace vigils that Sheehan's one-woman protest stirred nationally in August. With the arguable exception of an antiwar march in Harlem on the second anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the faces of the antiwar protestors have looked like Sheehan's.

Dear Woman Blogger,

Hello, my name is Susan Turnbull and I am a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Over the past year I have realized the important role bloggers play in the political process and have begun reaching out to the blogosphere on behalf of the DNC by posting diaries and comments at Daily Kos, MyDD, DemBloggers, and Swing State Project. I have found my early outreach efforts on these sites to be informative and productive, which has increased my desire to reach out to more progressive bloggers.

Another one of my responsibilities as Vice Chair is outreach to women's groups and helping to spread the message of how the Democratic Party is better than our opponents on the issues that affect women and their families such as choice, daycare, education, domestic violence, healthcare, and security. I have a long history of working on these issues: in the past I have served as the Chair of the DNC Women's Caucus, the Chair of the Women's Leadership Forum, and a founder of the Women's Vote Center at the DNC.

I would like to open a dialogue with you and other Democratic women who blog. I can tell from reading your blog that you are very knowledgeable on issues of concern to women. I would certainly appreciate your advice on how to frame our arguments and any useful information you can alert us to regarding women's issues.

I would also like to better communicate to you what the DNC Women's Vote Center is doing. In the future, I intend to stay in contact with you and let you know about critical actions that need to be taken to protect women's rights, commentary and information on developments that your readers may be interested in hearing about, and any initiatives launched by the DNC to reach out to women voters.


I look forward to establishing this new avenue for exchange of ideas and information.

Sincerely,

Susie


Susan W. Turnbull
Vice Chair, Democratic National Committee

____________________
Susan W. Turnbull
DNC Vice Chair
202-863-8025

“It’s progressive politicians who should be paying more attention.” But, this issue has been overshadowed by the myriad of other issues being pushed by the progressive grassroots. The very sector that liberal and progressive grassroots need to reach out to, are being left by the wayside. To many of these people, their pocketbook is the number one concern, yet no one is listening.

Schick said the church task force that worked on the issue for three years captured some of the important aspects of the arguments. All of the proposals by the panel were meant as a compromise that would satisfy both those who support gay clergy and those who regard gay sex as sinful.

"The actions taken by the delegates were the correct actions at this time," said Fogle. "It shows the church is too divided and we are not ready to make any major changes now."

Critics find it an obsession bordering on the bizarre, twisting traditional notions of news judgment and becoming Exhibit A in the media's fascination with missing people - as long as they happen to be young, white, female and pretty.

With war and terrorism in the news, critics wonder how one missing person case can so dominate a news program. Even on the night President Bush nominated John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, ''On the Record'' spent far more time on Holloway.

I want to ask the president, why did he kill my son?" Sheehan told reporters. "He said my son died in a noble cause, and I want to ask him what that noble cause is."

Sheehan said hers was one of a group of about 15 families who each met separately with the president one day last June.

"He wouldn't look at the pictures of Casey. He didn't even know Casey's name," she told CNN Sunday. "Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject."

Scary shit, indeed. The Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, nationalist tenor of the proposed measures is not, to my mind, at all tempered by Blair's question-begging disclaimer, that "this is [legislation] not in any way whatever aimed at the decent, law-abiding Muslim community of Britain." It is clear that this legislation attempts to further solidify the two-tiered citizenship system (national vs. naturalized) by limiting the rights of naturalized citizens and making immigration and citizenship more onerous processes for certain populations. For if it is true that "coming to Britain is not a right," there is no sense in which "being born in Britain" is a right, either. It doesn't follow from this that, once in Britain, one should not have certain inalienable rights, indeed the same rights as others, regardless of when or how one got there.

Dear Friend:

Senators Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer don't even want Judge John Roberts to get an up-or-down vote!

In fact, high-level sources in Washington are telling us that Senate Democrats and their Hollywood-funded special interest friends are going to use the entire August recess to smear Judge Roberts.

Don't let liberal ideologues like Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer destroy our chances to take the Supreme Court back from the Far Left!

Recently I was one of a small group of conservative leaders and activists that discussed our strategy to support Judge Roberts. And our plan is very specific in what we need you to do:

During the summer recess, bombard the state offices of Republican Senators and some targeted Democrats with thousands of faxes. Demand that they stand firm in support of Judge John G. Roberts -- the President's nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. Warn them that the Left is already plotting to destroy this nomination. Tell them to alert their constituencies.

It's obvious that Judge Roberts has become Public Enemy Number One to the Leering Left and the wildly angry Democrats and pressure groups.

These sore losers -- that's right, THEY LOST (and Republicans forgot they won) -- hope to kill this nomination through lies and phony demands for more and more private documents from the White House.

So far they've found nothing they can use to smear Judge Roberts. But you know what? They'll smear him anyway. And mark my words, when they get tired of looking -- they'll just make stuff up!


Use the hyperlink below and send YOUR 101 PERSONALIZED BLAST FAXES to President George W. Bush and every Senator's state headquarters. Warn them that when they return to business in September, Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer will be waiting -- armed to the teeth with sleazy attacks -- ready to "Bork" another conservative judge who wants to put the Constitution first instead of embracing the Left's agenda. Tell them their job is to VOTE NOT OBSTRUCT!

cfiflistmanager.org/judgeroberts.html

If the above hyperlink does not function, please copy and paste it into the address bar of your browser.

BUT ISN'T THE ROBERTS NOMINATION A "DONE DEAL"?

Yes... we've heard the reports on the nightly news that the Roberts nomination is smooth sailing, too.

Do not be deceived!

Fact is, many people – lesbian, gay, heterosexual, bisexual - get off on porn that doesn’t reflect their actual sexual practices (or don’t get off on porn that does match their stated sexual orientation). One woman told me: “I have no doubt that I am a lesbian and have no desire to have sex with a man, but the thought of two guys doing it really makes my clit throb.” Why? Well, to some of us, cocks are hot. Just because we like to look at them doesn’t mean we need to marry one. (Although we might fantasize having one.) And some self-identified lesbians like having sex with men - straight men, bi men, gay men, and transmen. Plus gay male porn has the added benefit of being more accessible than lesbian porn - finding it just isn’t that hard (pardon the pun).