Does The Arc of History Really Bend Toward Justice?

President Obama is fond of quoting this remark of Martin Luther King, Jr., which originally comes from an abolitionist preacher. Every time he says this, I hope that it is true.Perhaps, these bends come in acts that go little noticed.

This week I celebrated with the Iranian community the July 16th Court Decision by the Appeals Court here in D.C. that recommended the Iranian opposition group, the PMOI, be taken off the terrorist list. The three-judge panel slammed the State Department in what I counted were 9 consecutive pages of criticizing their criteria, the dubious sources of their intelligence, their suppression of exculpatory evidence, the lack of due process accorded the Iranians, and even their sneaky behavior in the court proceeding itself. While foreign policy is the domain of the executive this decision was the toughest I've read that State has to clean up its act. The court decision is also complimented by a House bill that calls for the release of all political prisoners in Iran.

Yesterday, President Obama signed into law the Tribal Law and Order Act, which the First Nations have demanded since the 1990s. Candidate Obama had promised to sign this act as well as take a number of steps to rectify past wrongs against our native American community. Buried in the Healthcare bill are provisions to improve medical services for the reservations, in the sitmulus bill provisions for development in the native American community and after decades his administration settled the Cobell case, which had called for an accounting by the U.S. Government of what is owed the native American community. The payment is now hung up in the U.S. Senate. With his plans for rural internet development,this would be an added bonus to the native American communuity. President Obama also said the United States was currently reviewing the Covenant on Peoples' Rights at the United Nations, which had been rejected by the Bush Administration.

Judge Susan Bolton finally struck down major provisions of Arizona's Immigration Bill, sparking off protests from the Republican Governors' Association. Judge Bolton was recommended for her present position by Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, who said she was "fair and balanced".

Kudos to the AFL-CIO, who is now organizing the unemployed, particularly the 99ers, almost 5 million Americans whose benefits have run out. Could these really be the surge voters of the mid-terms? Called lazy, hobos and drug purchasers by Republican congresspeople, could these people really favor the GOP?

Champions of small business, the GOP has blocked again the loan programs for small businesses--a program that would have created millions of jobs and provided tax cuts for small businesses. Somehow, Republicans are campaigning on the notion that Democrats will be raising taxes on small businesses, when they want to repeal the small business tax breaks in the stimlus package and have blocked small business loans. Will voters fall for this nonsense?

Charles Cook has a piece out tomorrow "A Turning Point for Democrats?", where he argues that the last two Gallup polls indicate that the Democrats may be getting their mojo back. He says these two positive generic polls where Democrats are ahead by 6 and then 4 points indicate it will be a very-very close contest for control of the House. This is a sharp change from his earlier calls that there was a Republican Tsunami coming. Zogby, writing in Forbes this week, warns Republicans they may have peaked too soon. Steny Hoyer told the press yesterday that he doesn't expect Democratic losses to surpass 28 seats and thinks they will do better than that.