Think, Dammit!

Repeat After Me: It's Not About Us

2009-06-21T13:08:00.009-05:00

I don't really understand the motives of the conservatives on my PC and my TV screaming ad nauseum for the US to insert itself into Iran's latest drama. Have they all gone batshit mad? Do they know nothing of history?

Have they forgotten how the US and Britain subverted Iran's first democratic government with "Project Ajax" in order to protect western oil interests? How the US installed, funded, and propped up the Shah to maintain their very own puppet government, leading directly to the the revolution of 1979 and a tidal wave of anti-American sentiment? How the US supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war and gave Saddam the chemical weapons he eventually used against the Iranian people? How the US vigorously encouraged the Shia to rise up against Saddam at the end of the first Gulf War, only to watch Saddam slaughter them en masse without our lifting a finger to help them? And wasn't it just a few years ago that we named Iran as part of the dreaded "Axis of Evil"? Bush's cowboyisms may have made Americans feel good but they also helped make Ahmadinejad a very popular man in Iran.

For all of those people now opining for the US to insert itself into the Iranian discussion, I can only guess the following motivations:

1. They oppose Obama's current position because they reflexively oppose all of Obama's positions.
2. Shouting out some pro-democracy rhetoric against our enemies feels really, really good.
3. Egocentric fantasy that in order to come to end of job, the Iranian protesters need American support.
4. Neocon sabotage (if we interfere we're likely to drive support for Ahmadenijad, which could set the stage for those who want to bomb bomb bomb Iran).
5. Good intentions but a general ignorance of our history in the region.

The fact of the matter is that this pivotal moment in Iran's destiny belongs solely to Iran. Whether these are death throes or birth pains, it's up to the Iranians to determine. For once let's avoid the temptation to make it all about us.

UPDATE: This is way easier than I thought.

Lindsay Graham falls into category #3 as he over-imagines the importance of America's rhetorical support for the Iranians:

Obama is “certainly moving in the right direction,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on the ABC’s “This Week” program. “I hope that we’ll hear more of this, because the young men and women taking the streets in Tehran need our support. They are basically asking for us to speak up on their behalf.”

John Boehner, well, he clearly falls into category #4 with this little nugget:

Obama needs “to take real, strong action, make it clear he’s not going to sit down with the Iranians until they begin to treat their people respectfully and that they’re willing to stop their nuclear programs,” Boehner said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt.”

Boehner knows perfectly well that both candidates AND their supporters are universally in favor of a peaceful nuclear program. This statement is apropos of nothing related to the election and is, in fact, merely subterfuge for a continued desire to bomb the living shit out of Iran.

And maybe that's the biggest mind fuck of all, that the brave men and women marching in the streets of Tehran that Boehner thinks should be treated "respectfully" are the very people who wish their country to have a nuclear program, and are therefore very people Boehner would like to punish (or kill or whatever, depending on which neocon you listen to).

Power To The People

2009-06-14T12:51:00.006-05:00

I love this photo of an Iranian protester now making its way around the internets. I wonder if I'd have the guts? I like to think I would.

Recent news and info here. Lots more here.

Get Out The Vote, Iranian Style

2009-06-11T09:28:00.005-05:00

I love this picture of rallying Mousavi supporters in Iran. It reminds me of the enthusiastic supporters of a certain unlikely candidate in my own country.

Interestingly, the mullahs are intimidated. I don't know much about Mousavi but if the mullahs fear him, I'm definitely intrigued.

The Great Healthcare Debate

2009-06-11T05:48:00.004-05:00

Somewhere in the discussion on healthcare, I wish someone would reference the affect of rising healthcare costs on employers and their ability to continue employing people. Does one not have the feeling that the wage stagnation of the past decade has something to do (at least in part) with employers absorbing the increasing cost of health insurance?

The REAL frame for the healthcare debate isn't whether or not basic healthcare is a universal human right, nor is it about whether healthcare reform is the equivalent of socialism. The debate should be about what will work best for the general economy in a globally competitive (and decidedly unlevel) labor market. This is uncharted territory... and we will either adapt or die.

It's no secret that US employers are suffering under the weight of health insurance. Large global employers like mine are shunning US workers for cheaper, no-frills (i.e. no benefits) resources in emerging countries, while smaller businesses are simply getting crushed by the cost of employment.

What I want to see is a conversation that discusses what shifting the cost of healthcare coverage from private to public administration does for (or against) the national economy.

Short Term Memory

2009-06-11T05:22:00.003-05:00

David Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin's daughter on The Tonight Show were stupid and distasteful. Some things about Palin as a public persona have been unintentionally funny and easy to mock but mocking her children is simply inappropriate.

That said, all of the fauxtrage about how "nobody would dare make fun of a Democrat's child" just proves that folks have a serious case of short term memory... am I the only one who remembers the non-stop jokes about Chelsea Clinton's physical appearance? "Ugly Chelsea" jokes flowed freely during the Clinton years, not only from comedians but also from people like John McCain. Even The Boston Globe had a humorous article on whether her hair could be fixed.

I like to think she got the last laugh, however, as she certainly seems to have grown into a striking and intelligent young woman.

Just Curious

2009-06-10T21:28:00.004-05:00

I wonder if Shepard Smith will write a tell-all book someday on the evil inside Fox News. I strongly suspect that not only is he the only sane one there, but quite possibly the only one with a conscience.

Another Crazy On The Right

2009-06-10T21:09:00.005-05:00

Sounds like a Fox News viewer on outrage overload.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An 88-year-old Maryland man with a long history of ties to white supremacist groups is the suspect in Wednesday's shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, two law enforcement officials told CNN.

James von Brunn served six years in prison for trying to make what he called a "legal, non-violent citizens arrest" of Federal Reserve board members in 1981 -- a sentence he blamed on "a Negro jury, Jew/Negro attorneys" and "a Jew judge," he said on his Web site, "Holy Western Empire."

Oh, and he's a Birther. Of course!

Repulsive

2009-06-09T20:01:00.003-05:00

Surely I can't be the only one repulsed by the right wing freaks calling for a boycott of GM. Who does that serve, exactly? Last time I checked, GM was still an American company employing American workers that creates work for lots of other American companies (non-socialist ones, even!) like my husband's.

What the hell?

Question

2009-06-08T08:07:00.002-05:00

Why do Democrats allow Republicans to characterize health care reform / single payer as "allowing the government to come between you and your doctor"? The talking heads repeat this over and over and over like a mantra but it's so absurd that I can't read it without rolling my eyes.

1) Republicans are hardly afeared of government coming between you and your doctor. See: RU46, the "morning after" pill, and almost anything having to do with abortion, even when a woman's health is in jeopardy. See: Assisted suicide and end of life matters. See: Terry Schiavo.

2) You know who else comes between you and your doctor? INSURANCE COMPANIES. My pediatrician, who I love and adore, has -- over the past 20 years -- constantly tried to help me navigate around my insurance company to get the care he thinks is important for my kids. All this fearmongering about "healthcare rationing" by the government just makes me want to claw my ears out... what do people think insurance companies do to ensure their profit?

Are people really this stupid? Apparently the GOP is banking on it.

Ed Whelan Is A Douchebag

2009-06-07T09:32:00.001-05:00

For committing an act of extreme douchebaggery.

Obama's Cairo Speech And Iran's Big Moment

2009-06-04T08:40:00.006-05:00

Just a quick note on this because I have a ton of work to do but basically I was flabbergasted by Liz Cheney's response (among others) to Obama's Cairo speech, which -- owing to the joy of puppy duty -- I was awake at 5:00 am to watch.

Obama's speech was mostly excellent except for a gaping hole where the depth of his Iranian nuclear discussion should have been. The fact that the hole was there was, I thought, pretty obvious... there is an intensifying and historic election battle underway between Iran's Ahmedinejad and his Reformist opposition, Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi is fast moving into "holy shit, did he really say that?" territory with his criticisms of Ahmedinejad, and we in the US should immediately recognize the potential of an Iranian reformist winning the presidential election with popular support. This is exactly what we've been hoping for.

But gee, what could possibly go wrong at such a pivotal moment? Hmmm... how about some angry rhetoric coming from a US president about Iran's nuclear energy program?

Anyone who watches anything other than Fox News probably knows that the Iranian people consider Iran to be an autonomous state and that nuclear energy has very broad popular support. And if I were Iranian, I would probably not only share in that sentiment but also insist that Iran has as much right to a nuclear energy program as anyone else, including India, Pakistan, and Israel, not to mention the US, and would not take kindly to anyone telling me otherwise. Ahmedinejad -- whose hands nobody wants to see anywhere near a little red button -- would surely find such US rhetoric a gift and would happily exploit it during the election. Why give him the opportunity? Why not just lay low for a while and see if the Iranian people are ready to join the rest of the world?

Which brings me back to Liz Cheney, an inexplicably regular guest on Morning Joe who almost certainly knows what's at stake with the Iranian election but who can't seem to bring herself to demonstrate just a modicum of restraint in her criticism of Obama's lack of fiery rhetoric. Liz Cheney would rather misrepresent the situation to score some cheap points with the "oh noes, Obama is a secret Muslim who's selling out America!" crowd than speak what she knows to be the truth:

The frontrunners in Iran's presidential race clashed during a fiery debate broadcast to a national television audience on Wednesday evening.
The verbal jousting between Ahmadinejad and opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi -- a former prime minister and reformist candidate who poses a threat to the firebrand Iranian president -- lasted an hour and half.
Mousavi said Ahmadinejad's dictatorial ways have hurt Iran's image across the globe and could be a prelude to a dictatorship.
"There are two ways of confronting the country's problems," Mousavi said. "One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism."
He said Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust had repulsed Iran's allies.
"This has greatly damaged us," Mousavi said.
The Iranian president called the Holocaust, in which six million Jews perished at the hands of the Nazis, "a big deception." Ahmadinejad also has lashed out at the United States and Israel, calling at various times for the end of Israel's existence as a Jewish state.
In addition to Mousavi, two other challengers -- former parliament speaker Mahdi Karoudi, another reformist, and hard-liner Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Expediency Council -- hope to unseat Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election. Neither took part in Wednesday's debate.
The outcome of the election will set the tone for Iran's policies on crucial issues, including its nuclear ambitions and the possibility of bilateral talks with Washington.

Think about it.

Suffering Idiots

2009-06-01T20:08:00.006-05:00

I have heard the infamous Sotomayor quote at least a million times now:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

It's been "objectively" reported on the news, raked over by pundits, written about on blogs. Pat Buchanan and the entire Morning Joe gang obsessed over its "racist" implication for days. For my part, I took both her quote and their rants at face value, less suspicious of our right-wing driven media than I should have been. Silly me.

Finally tonight I found myself wondering if there wasn't more to the Sotomayor quote... so I Googled it. Guess what I found?

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

I find nothing even remotely controversial about the quote in context, which is probably why I had to go look for it myself. Seriously... I can't believe I have to live in the same plane as the idiots who control our national dialogue.

There's something very broken in the Republican party if they think their best winning strategy is to appeal to (and stoke, whenever possible) racial fear and hatred. It's been 40 years since the Nixon campaign gave us the "Southern Strategy", 30 years since Reagan's first presidential campaign gave us the mythical "Cadillac driving welfare queens", and 20 years since Papa Bush's campaign scored a victory with Willie Horton. Although Mexicans have spent the past decade wracking up points on GOP's fear-o-meter, the emergence of Obama has certainly sent the crowd into a big-scary-black-man tizzy. Where can a generation of folks who suckled on the teat of racist fear go for comfort?

ACORN ACORN affirmative action ACORN reverse racism ACORN ACORN La Raza ACORN!!!

If We're Going To Play "How Much Does It Cost"...

2009-06-01T19:51:00.003-05:00

Apparently the fauxtrage of the day is supposed to be the cost of Obama's trip to New York, which got me to wondering... how much did it cost us when Bush decided he was going to move the entire WH operations to Crawford, Texas, several times a year for eight years?

Funny how that never gets mentioned. But that's right... we're all fiscal hawks now!

UPDATE 6/3/2009:

Bush made 149 trips to Camp David (where he spent 487 days of his 8 year term) and 77 visits to Crawford (where he spent 490 days of his 8 year term). Musta cost a pretty penny... where's the outrage??

Who Coulda Seen This Coming?

2009-06-01T10:49:00.003-05:00

When you incite the crazies, the crazies feel compelled to act.

And yes, Republicans, it IS TOO your clan who always goes nuts. From Eric Rudolph to Timothy McVeigh to any number of active militias waiting for a reason to pull the trigger, you own domestic terrorism. Code Pink and PETA don't hold a candle to the crazies on your side of the fence. These are your people, responding to your hyperventilating, incendiary, factually challenged, intentionally sensational bullshit. So from now on, please spare me the fauxtrage over legitimate reports on right-wing extremism.

ACORN ACORN ACORN!!!

Do you hear me Glenn Beck? Do you hear me Pat Buchanan?

P.S. Regarding Tiller, there are sad and tragic reasons to perform late term abortions... and thankfully they're rare enough to have made Tiller one of the few in the country needed to provide them. As if it's not heart wrenching enough to find yourself in that situation, to have a bloviating idiot like Bill "loofa" O'Reilly misrepresent the facts to play for ratings (e.g. money) is just disgusting. It reminds me why I've completely detached from those people and their twisted beliefs.

Sotomayor Nomination

2009-05-27T19:59:00.004-05:00

The three most interesting things surrounding the Sotomayor nomination:

1. The irrational fear white people have that minorities are out to get them. White men seem to carry this fear the furthest, which I suppose makes sense since as a group they have the most to lose. Whatever -- I find the egomaniacal paranoia quite disturbing. Is it such a crazy thing to want a SCOTUS that even remotely reflects the population of the country it serves? I've always found it odd that women make up more than 50% of the population yet we can only find one qualified woman (and briefly, two) to serve on the court? Perspective matters... and anyone who suggests that those seven white men aren't bringing perspective to the bench with them are liars.

By the way, are we really supposed to feel sorry for the seven white male justices because their numbers have dwindled from nine? Awww... poor fellas!

ACORN ACORN ACORN ACORN (Boo!)

2. The grotesque (and grotesquely transparent) attack on Sotomayor's "intelligence" and "temperament". I guess we're all supposed to find that more acceptable than coming right out and calling her a dumb bitch. Sotomayor graduated from Princeton summa cum laude and went to law school at Yale, where she edited the Yale Law Journal. She was an assistant DA, was in private practice, and was nominated to the US District Court by Bush the Senior. Yeah, I mean c'mon... what a moron!

It's always been the case in this country that those who rest on their legacy lifestyles insist on a meritocracy for everyone else. In Sotomayor we have an indisputably meritocritous ascent and yet these same folks can't help themselves from trying to diminish her. Curious, no?

3. The sudden conversion of pundits / talking heads from laymen to legal experts. Suddenly Rush Limboob, Pat Buchanan, and everyone on Fox News are citing Sotomayor's reversal record like they know what it means. They don't. It's sad. Sometimes it's just better to STFU.

What A Coincidence!

2009-05-12T08:41:00.001-05:00

This is timely... and convenient for the Cheney administration:

British journalist and historian Andy Worthington, an expert and author on Guantanamo, reports that the man who had supplied a key false tie between Iraq and al-Qaeda --- after being tortured in Egypt, where he had been rendered by the U.S. --- has died in a Libyan prison. "Dead of suicide in his cell," according to a Libyan newspaper.

Deep Thoughts

2009-05-04T09:09:00.005-05:00

Conventional Republican Wisdom: In an election with the highest percentage of voter turnout since 1968, previously red states and independent voters went for Obama because McCain/Palin wasn't conservative enough.

Running To The Right

2009-05-03T08:36:00.006-05:00

I am still amused to see the Republicans on my teevee lamenting their loss of power and conspiring on how to win it back. Having witnessed the same with the Democrats previously (and really, isn't history full of political come back stories?), I can only offer the following:

America is not a "center right" country -- that statement is, and always has been, as convenient for Republicans as it is off-the-mark. In today's polling, America is actually looking like center left. By assuming Americans are naturally on their side, Republicans will continue to commit the sin of overreach.

Americans are reactive and America is self-correcting. It's the giant swinging pendulum theory at work. It's a good thing for our political system... a healthy thing. If the Republicans are now out of power, it's because they went too far to the right.

Americans are tired of operating out of a place of fear. It's not our style... the American spirit has always been a mix of visionary optimism and heads-down determination. Neocon Republicanism (Cheney-style) had its moment in the sun after 9/11 but that moment was an anomaly and an aberration. America is not immune to such moments... we interred Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor, for example, but it never takes long for us to come to our senses. See self-correcting, above.

Here's the most important point: As long as Republicans try to force-feed social conservatism to the entire country, they will continue to lose. The convenient but unnatural coupling of social conservatism with fiscal conservatism is simply a losing long term strategy, and the far right's insistence on driving socially liberal conservatives out of the party all but guarantees a long and industrious Democratic rule. Dems learned this lesson well, which is why they have a big coalition of blue dog Dems now driving the lefties crazy. But it's a healthy mix and the resulting debate is healthy for the party and for the country, in general. I likes it.

If the Republicans think the way to win is by moving even further to the right, God bless 'em. A long and industrious Democratic rule doesn't bother me in the slightest. But if they figure out that maybe christianist social cons are best left to the southeast districts and that the GOP can tolerate a few paleocons in the northeast and west, the road to recovery might become a little shorter.

In Which I Am Annoyed To All Hell

2009-05-01T07:36:00.003-05:00

Things that annoy me today:

This article in Politico -- "Dems Struggle with Gitmo Politics" -- seems to have Republicans pressing Democrats on the issue like it's a winning strategy in Gotcha! politics. I guess we're supposed to forget that this is yet another mess made by Bush Co. which the Dems must now clean up and for which there are now, regrettably, no good options left. Bush made Gitmo a symbolic pothole in America's moral high road and fucked around with the detainees until they were untriable in any court of law. So now Republicans want to point and laugh as Democrats try to figure out what to do with this fubar'd situation? Unreal.

I remember when The Republicans of Olde thought individual rights were important. Now they're only important when they don't clash with the goals of the christianists. In case folks haven't noticed, the christianists (aka "social conservatives") seem to have an unending obsession with policies they think are best for the cultural collective and have very little regard for the rights of any one person. Opposition to R v W, women's rights, civil rights, gay marriage, etc, have all been argued on the basis of their threat to society at large. And now with the pending David Souter retirement I am forced to listen non-stop to tv pundits reporting that conservatives were "duped" into appointing a liberal. Color me annoyed. Doesn't it seem like Souter's focus on the rights of the individual might be considered more conservative than the conservatives obsession with preserving their ideal cultural collective?

People who don't support a level playing field. John Cole's post titled "Moral Hazard is for the Little People" says it all. And Dick Durbin is spot on:

Durbin said on the Senate floor that in negotiations, the banking industry argued that restructuring primary home loans—secondary home loans and luxury loans for items like yachts can already be restructured by a bankruptcy judge—would create a moral hazard in this country.
“Senator, you don’t understand the moral hazard here,” Durbin paraphrased the banking argument. “People have to be held responsible for their wrongdoing. If you make a mistake, darn it, you’ve got to pay the price. that’s what America is all about.”

“Really, Mr. Banker on wall street? that’s what America is all about?” he railed.

“What price did wall street pay for their miserable decisions, creating rotten portfolios, destroying the credit of America and its businesses?” Durbin said of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout Congress passed, and Durbin supported in the waning days of the Bush administration. “Oh, (the bankers) paid a pretty heavy price. Hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money sent to them to bail them out and put them back in business, even to fund executive bonuses for those guilty of mismanagement. Moral hazard, huh? How can they argue that with a straight face? They do.”

Out-Foxed

2009-04-30T17:16:00.003-05:00

Fox News didn't get a question during the Obama 100 Day press conference? Whaaaa!! Boo hoo!!!

Perhaps that's because they're a faux news organization. The kind of faux news organization that doesn't carry presidential pressers. The kind of faux news organization that sponsors teabagging parties and then lies about the turnout. The kind of faux news organization that eggs on the crazies toward secession and armed revolution (the former being perhaps an idea I could warm to).

But most infuriatingly, the kind of faux news organization that purposely misrepresents facts to hype up their increasingly crazy audience... a really bad habit for a "news" organization:

During the April 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, White House correspondent Wendell Goler cropped a comment by President Obama and took it out of context -- effectively reversing the statement's meaning -- to falsely suggest that Obama supports creating a health care system "like the European countries." Goler claimed that Obama "doesn't want to do it halfway" on health care, and then aired a clip from a March 26 online town hall event of Obama saying, "If you're going to fix it, why not do a universal health care system like the European countries?" Following the clip, Goler reported: "His critics worry universal health care would mean government-run health care." In fact, Obama actually said, "Now, the question is, if you're going to fix it, why not do a universal health care system like the European countries?" [emphasis added] In doing so, Obama was paraphrasing the town hall question he had been asked -- "Why can we not have a universal health care system, like many European countries, where people are treated based on needs rather than financial resources?" -- before explaining why he opposed such a system.

I was kind of tickled to see Obama dis them, though... he's a guy after my own heart, that one.

Specter Defects

2009-04-29T06:59:00.002-05:00

Specter's defection to the Democratic party isn't totally surprising to me, although I think it says less about the greatness of the Democrats than it does about the current suckiness of the Republicans. As long as the GOP wants to rule from the far right of their party they will continue to alienate the majority of Americans. As long as they think putting people like Palin at the front of their leadership -- someone who is generally unqualified but fits the rigid social/religious requirements of the wingers -- they are doomed. As long as the Republican party continues to represent a dictatorial do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do standard, they are doomed. As long as they focus on catering to the whims of the (diminishing) southern white population, they are doomed. And as long as they cling to failed or outdated ideologies and chant them like a mantra while ignoring contraindicating facts, they are doomed.

Not that I mind any of this since the modern GOP has become anathema to me.

I do feel a certain regret, however, since a strong GOP challenge would keep the Dems on their toes. A weak opposition party challenge is historically proven to result in a self-indulgent ruling party. I also feel a little concerned by the hysterical tone and tenor of those wingers who feel threatened by the loss of power within their party... the bizarre fixation on guns (the need to amass them, flex them, paranoid rantings about how Obama is going to take them, bbb), the need to participate in exaggerated "Socialist!" rhetoric, the whole idea that Obama is a Manchurian candidate (or God forbid, the anti-Christ). The nutso-ness of some of these people is getting a little scary to me. With Faux News egging them on by scapegoating groups like ACORN (a relatively powerless acronym if ever there was one) and urging "revolution" (picture Glenn Beck with tears streaming down his cheeks, crying over the death of his country while simultaneously insisting that his followers "surround them"), I am worried about what the more unstable of this group might do.

Regardless, to this iteration of the Republican party (now in its death throes), I say: Good riddance.

Cousin Matthew (1958 - 2009)

2009-04-27T21:15:00.004-05:00

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

by Dylan Thomas

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead mean naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

Goodbye, Matthew... it won't be the same here without you.

The Big Fat Lie

2009-04-23T16:39:00.004-05:00

Not that Fox News discriminates between big lies and little lies, but this time they've really cooked up a whopper: that via torture we were able to prevent a second 9/11 in LA. Except, of course, we didn't. The Library Tower plot fizzled in February 2002 and KSM was captured in March 2003. Any news outlet, politician, blog, or pundit who insists on repeating the lie is either a fool or playing their audience for one.

First of all, the background: No, Karl Rove, Marc Thiessen, and Fox News are not telling the truth when they claim that U.S. torture techniques prevented a 'west coast 9/11.'

Rove et al. claim that after CIA waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave authorities information used to foil a plot to hijack an airplane with a shoe bomb and fly it into the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower (now known as the U.S. Bank Building).

In other words, Rove and his crew say torture saved America from another 9/11.

As Timothy Noah and Daily Kos TV have documented, however, the Rove timetable just doesn't add up. While KSM was arrested in March 2003, the plot was stopped in February 2002 -- more than a year earlier. Rove's tale could not possibly be true.

If there had ever been information obtained via torture that had produced actionable intelligence and resulted in anything good you can bet your sweet ass the Bush admin / CIA would have found a way to leak it. If the best they can come up with now is a dupe, then you know they've got nuttin'. Another footnote to the epic fail that was Bush / Cheney.

p.s. In the deepest, darkest trenches of my heart, though, I do think someone ought to get tortured for causing me to have to remove my shoes everytime I go through security at an airport.

Memories

2009-04-22T22:50:00.001-05:00

Remember when Cheney said Reagan proved deficits didn't matter?

The Great Descent

2009-04-21T19:01:00.005-05:00

What an insightful comment by E.D. Kain (h/t Sullivan):

A larger point is that Fox News is simply not conservative. The fact of the matter is, I find NPR and even News Hour more conservative than Fox - but in a different sense, I suppose, than the standard boiler plate conservatism that has so infested American politics. What I mean to say is that the conservatism of Fox News tends to be wrapped up in loud, divisive, trashy television that is cheap and ugly and reactionary and essentially all things distasteful that conservatives should look at with scorn and antipathy. The measured, reserved, thoughtful and culturally sensible tone of NPR is far more conservative. I’d rather my kids listen to it than watch Glenn Beck. I’d rather they listen to Fresh Air than Rush Limbaugh. Why have conservatives let go of the high culture war? Why have they conceded defeat there - in the arts, in literature, in music - trading it instead for trash television and cheap rhetoric?

I tend to paint all conservatives with the colors of Fox News these days but that's probably unfair of me -- I forget that they're not all regurgitating Fox's daily absurdities. When I read comments like that of Kain, I remember why I used to be non-partisan.

When Fox first came out I thought it was merely a conservative news source. Then it seemed like they became drunk on the level of access they had to Republicans in power and started carrying water for them. Then there was the abundance of weirdly shiny-lipped blond women in short skirts. Over the past year or so, however, and definitely since November, they've gone completely off the rails. Clearly this is a ratings strategy, this latest drive to reach out to every disenfranchised white person they can rope in with crazy talk of fascism, revolts, armed revolutions, tyranny, etc. They sure do seem larger than life with Glenn Beck crying over the "death" of his country on TV but what they've become is the Jerry Springer of cable news.

At its inception, Jerry Springer was just another talk show competing with Oprah, Sally Jesse Rafael, Maury Povich, etc. It covered serious topics and hosted mainstream guests. Wanting to break from the pack, the Springer show decided to get a little more tarty with sensational topics like adultery and homosexuality. Eventually they went all-out trashy and now it isn't a show until someone takes their top off and blames their mother for stealing their lesbian lover.

Harrrr... Pirates!

2009-04-21T18:22:00.004-05:00

Happy to see that the remaining grinning pirate is being tried as an adult.

The way the international shipping companies have handled piracy over the past decade is a disgrace. By treating it as a mere business transaction they have actually created a thriving pirate industry. Small bands of armed pirates zoom up to a cargo ship and are allowed -- allowed!! -- to hold the crew hostage until a payment is delivered. The insurance actuaries actually calculate this hostage "fee" into their policy price, which shipper's accountants have actually determined to be cheaper than providing security detail for their vessels. The whole thing is just batshit crazy.

I couldn't have been more proud that it was an American crew that refused to go along with the scheme, and I couldn't have been more proud of the way the Navy handled the confrontation. They used restraint, rescued their hostage, and left two very strong messages. First one for the pirates: Don't fuck with American ships. Second one for the rest of the world: This is how you do it.

Of course I couldn't end the post without saying that the media -- and especially the right wing talking heads -- behaved atrociously during the whole episode and have proven once again that they're worthy of my mocking disgust.

:-)

Free Markets

2009-04-21T08:42:00.003-05:00

Ah yes, the mythologically self-correcting free market at work:

April 21 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc.’s board will likely survive a shareholder vote at today’s annual meeting, even after overseeing $28 billion in losses and a 77 percent stock decline last year.

Groovy.

I'd love to know which market principle this follows, where nobody is ever punished or even held accountable for failure?

Tortured Logic

2009-04-20T18:22:00.012-05:00

Bush said on multiple occasions that "This government does not torture people." Aside from the fact that we found out that he intentionally lied to us (again), I am irritated that I'm now forced to listen to endless hours of torture justification on cable news. My thoughts haven't quite gelled yet, but here they are:

I'd support it if I thought it did more good than harm.... but I don't think the evidence has proven that to be true. And even though I don't support a program of torture, I couldn't say I'd rule it out in a ticking time bomb scenario. I am pretty certain, however, that a true ticking time bomb scenario is somewhere in statistical fantasy land while the probability of a torture program being abused (with negative results) is pretty high. To summarize: I am very comfortable supporting a no-torture policy with an exception for Jack Bauer to shoot out someone's knee cap if there's a nuclear bomb scheduled to go off in LA in 20 minutes.

If you waterboard someone 183 times without getting a big reveal and you think, "maybe we'll get something if we waterboard him 184 times," then you are an idiot.

I can't figure out why the Right is so schizophrenic on this topic. A few years ago when Abu Ghraib was in the news, the wingnut talking heads went on and on and on about how it was a) an isolated incident carried out by a few bad apples, b) more like fraternity hazing than torture, c) another symptom of Bush Derangement Syndrome because clearly St. Bush said We Do Not Torture. Now that the truth is out, they're unconcerned about being lied to and unconcerned about torture being used and instead are mad because... the truth is out. The twisting logic is really disturbing.

Are we really worried that now that al Qaeda knows our torture techniques they'll be able to "survive" our torture techniques? Can you really train someone to withstand 11 days of sleep deprivation without going mad? Can you really train someone to withstand having his testicles crushed? If the assumption by Joe Scarborough and Dick Cheney is that the enemy will be trained to "outlast" torture because they know it will eventually cease, does that mean we must plan to torture indefinitely (or to death) to be effective? The logic isn't working for me here.

Speaking of sleep deprivation, that is some wicked shit. Please stop acting like it isn't "real" torture.

What happened to moral high ground? I thought it was the all-important moral high ground that allowed us to invade Iraq, a sovereign nation, in part because Saddam... um... tortured people he considered to be a threat to his government (one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, blah blah blah). So would conservatives now have us concede the moral high ground? Or are we saying to everyone, "watch the mouth speak about America's moral high ground while the hand behind the back executes our torture policy?" Or are we saying torture is the new moral high ground?

Most studies indicate that torture isn't overall effective. It's used because it seems like it should work, it's used because people are lazy, it's used because people are desperate. None of which makes it good policy. The people who support it are the same people who wanted to go to war in Iraq because they thought that would make them safer, despite the fact that if they educated themselves on the kind of pesky details you won't find on Faux news, they'd find that wasn't true, either.

Now that the truth is out, let's just stop doing it and move on. Those who are obsessed with prosecution must get over themselves. We've got too much going on right now to stop and sort out who did what and under what motive in the Bush regime. We were misguided, we did something we shouldn't have, now we're not. End of story.

Cheney cherry picking his Faux News interview with Hannity was just about as pathetic as Cheney cherry picking his torture stories. (I've always wondered -- why did that administration have so little faith in their policies that they'd only talk to people who had already proven their support for them?) The fact is that the Bush administration selectively leaked anything they thought might garner them the support of the villagers and/or discredit their critics long ago. I am highly skeptical that we averted a bunch of terrorist activity through torture but by all means, release the memos he's requesting. My recollection is that terrorist threats usually seem really HUGE when they're first reported and then quickly fizzle out as more information is obtained. Remember that Londoner who was gunned down by police in the subway a few years back? For days the news coverage raged on about how the killing was totally justified because the brown guy was a terrorist. Politicians were patting each other on the back. Questions were raised but the story was way too fun and compelling -- We killed a terrorist!!! And then details started to emerge. And then the truth was revealed -- it had just been some unlucky schmuck on the subway after all.

BTW, Cheney's recent grumblings remind me of a man who knows history will judge him harshly. No doubt he will go to the grave believing he did the right thing -- it's that way with all of history's great villains. The would-be president who could never have gotten elected as such, who instead snuck in through the back door as Bush's "mentor" veep, has a world view that's as dubious as it is dangerous. I for one am thrilled to see him fading away.

Short Memories

2009-04-20T17:43:00.010-05:00

Zoh my gawd, please for the love of all that's holy can we just shut up about how Obama shaking the hand of an enemy will cause the downfall of America as we know it. It won't. It is a media created Faux-trage. Trust me.

No matter what the ratings driven talking heads on cable tell you, US foreign policy under Bush was an anomalous freak show -- not the norm. Are our memories so short that his disastrous eight year reign has somehow become our gold standard?

Tea Party Til You Puke

2009-04-15T21:37:00.005-05:00

An incoherent, irresponsible load of crap sponsored non-freaking-stop by Faux News. While I found the build up somewhat amusing, the most entertaining aspect was the pathetic national turnout... "thousands"!! Well, that and the continued bizarre fixation on ACORN (that a ginormously powerful media corporation like Rupert Murdock's continues to scapegoat ACORN -- a mostly irrelevant group of poor people who, to summarize, knock on doors for a living -- really freaks me out).

If the turnout had matched even one week's worth of the newly unemployed (~650K) I might have been impressed. If they'd come anywhere close to the number of New Yorkers alone who participated in the 2003 national anti-war protests (~500K), I might have been impressed. But an aggregate number of maybe a hundred thousand (who knows, really, after Neil Cavuto got caught inflating numbers by 300% on the air) is supposed to make us think there's a revolution pending? I don't think so.

After all the hours of hype and news coverage leading up to it, I feel kind of sad for the organizers.

But what the hell... it's America, and protests -- no matter how silly (Code Pink, anyone?) -- are just another part of who we are.

Current And Former Defense Officials

2009-04-15T21:30:00.004-05:00

First the slander regarding the defense budget (a 4% year over year increase is apparently the new "gutted"), now the slander of the man who owns it. It's rather predictable that "current and former defense officials" who have something to gain -- or more accurately, lose -- in the reallocation of resources are now slandering Defense Secretary Gates.

The changes in the budget represent a shift that's long overdue. High tech military toys are important but we've been over prioritizing them. The military power that wins the kind of wars we actually fight is far more conventional than what we fantasized about during the cold war.

Bush Sr. and Clinton (under the recommendation of Rumsfeld) went entirely in the wrong direction when they reallocated funds in order to make the military more about technology and less about boots on the ground. This latest move represents a vital correction.

Goodbye, Texas

2009-04-15T21:14:00.004-05:00

I know, I know... it's not me, it's you. You're just not at a place in your life where you feel like you can commit. I understand -- you have issues. And the truth is, Texas, if you're not happy with me, I could never be happy with you. That whole "preserve the Union" thing Lincoln pushed us into is a quaint, outdated notion. Go... be free.

Do your thing.

I wish you all the best.

Economics

2008-11-24T20:08:00.002-06:00

The Citi bailout and all of the blah blah blah around it has me just as bewildered as ever. Those who think this is just about saving the stock market are outraged. Those who think this is about saving the economy are cautiously onboard. I'm still angry but I'm also concerned... and I am starting to agree with those who are seeing a bigger picture.

The market was not the ultimate economic indicator when things were looking bullish and it's not the ultimate indicator now. We've got bigger problems.

The last few grafs from Nouriel Roubini's latest pessimistic piece:

Thus, dealing with this deadly combination of deflation, liquidity traps, debt deflation and defaults that I termed as global stag-deflation may be the biggest challenge that U.S. and global policy makers may have to face in 2009. It will not be easy to prevent this toxic vicious circle unless the process of recapitalizing financial institutions via temporary partial nationalization of them is accelerated and performed in a consistent and credible way; unless such actions are combined with massive fiscal stimulus to prop up aggregate demand while private demand is in free fall; unless the debt burden of insolvent households is sharply reduced via outright large debt reduction (not cosmetic and ineffective “loan modifications”); and unless even more unorthodox and radical monetary policy actions are undertaken to prevent pervasive deflation from setting in.

Thus, while the Fed may pursue radical, “crazy” and “crazier” monetary policy actions the true policy responses to the risk of deflation may lie elsewhere: when monetary policy is in a liquidity trap a properly-targeted fiscal stimulus is more appropriate and effective; cleaning up the financial system and properly recapitalize it is necessary; and debt deflation and debt overhang problems are more directly and properly resolved through debt restructuring and debt reduction than by trying to reduce the real value of such liabilities via higher inflation.

Civic Duty

2008-11-24T19:50:00.004-06:00

Check out this civics quiz. Judging by the report card (above), some of us could use a little more studying!

Deep Thoughts

2008-11-23T09:30:00.003-06:00

It's interesting that those who are now out of power in Washington are all suddenly excited about the idea of bi-partisanship.

Scary

2008-11-22T09:32:00.002-06:00

Watching a Fox News "discussion" about the current financial ~~markets~~ mess and I am appalled to realize that the passionately arguing host understands less about it than I do.

Not sure why this embarrassment is being aired.

ReligiFREAKS

2008-11-18T09:30:00.002-06:00

Does religion reduce already "fragile" minds down to quivering blobs of gelatinous goo?

We report, you decide.

From Newsweek (yes, Newsweek!):

On Nov. 5, Todd Strandberg was at his desk, fielding E-mails from around the world. As the editor and founder of RaptureReady.com, his job is to track current events and link them to biblical prophecy in hopes of maintaining his status as "the eBay of prophecy," the best source online for predictions and calculations concerning the end of the world. Already Barack Obama had drawn the attention of apocalypse watchers after an anonymous e-mail circulated among conservative Christians in October implying that he was the Antichrist. Former "Saturday Night Live" ingénue Victoria Jackson fueled the fire when, according to news reports, she wrote on her Web site that Obama "bears traits that resemble the anti-Christ." Now Strandberg was receiving up-to-the-minute news from his constituents in Illinois. One of the winning lottery numbers in the president-elect's home state was 666— which, as everyone knows, is the sign of the Beast (also known as the Antichrist). "It is very eerie, and I take it for a sign as to who he really is," wrote one of Strandberg's correspondents.

There's more but you can read it for yourself. God save us from these idiots... and that's all I'm sayin'.

State And Local Gloom

2008-11-13T09:10:00.002-06:00

The downstream effect I've been worried about...

Mayor Daley said Wednesday he’s been warned by a parade of corporate CEOs that a blizzard of job cuts are about to bury the souring Chicago economy.
“Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there’s going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That’s just the beginning. It’s not their end result,” Daley told reporters after a City Council meeting.
Mayor Daley told reporters after Wednesday's City Council meeting that CEOs throughout the city have warned him of sweeping job cuts to last into next year.

“Each one of them tell me what they’re laying off and they’re going to double that next year. So, you’re talking about huge numbers of permanent layoffs…It’s going to have a huge effect upon all businesses relying off of one another. And for cities, counties and states, your revenue is going to keep coming down….Some of these local governments are going to be in jeopardy. They won’t have enough money to [meet] their payroll. It’s that serious.”

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

2008-11-11T15:38:00.002-06:00

Maybe my mom will let me out of the basement if I promise to clean my room and get better grades.

In her first national television interview since the election, Gov. Sarah Palin delivered a lengthy post-mortem of the presidential campaign, criticizing the media, her campaign handlers and the aides who anonymously leaked damaging characterizations about her to the press.

...

Ms. Palin directed most of her media criticism at liberal bloggers, whom she twice called, “those bloggers in their parents’ basement just talkin’ garbage.”

It must be a comfort to her to believe that. Whatevs.

Stimulating The Economy

2008-11-09T09:45:00.004-06:00

Nouriel Roubini talks stimulus, via Bloomberg:

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government should enact an economic stimulus package of between $400 billion and $500 billion before the end of the Bush administration in January, New York University professor Nouriel Roubini said.

Roubini, who predicted the current financial crisis in 2006, said the economy risks falling into “a self-fulfilling animal spirit recession that is more severe than otherwise” because of the collapse of credit markets and weak consumer and corporate spending.

“The only way to increase aggregate demand is going to be through” government spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure, Roubini said at a Bloomberg conference in New York. “We need a huge plan, $300 billion is not going to be enough. I think we’re going to need a plan of $400 billion to $500 billion.”

U.S. Treasury officials and other policy makers are grappling with financial turmoil that has pushed down the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by 42 percent this year, its worst annual retreat since 1931.

“If we don’t do that fiscal stimulus today, three months from now, six months from now the collapse of the real economy is going to be so severe that anything we’re doing today to recapitalize the financial system is going to be undone,” Roubini said.

I am alarmed by the degree of alarm on Roubini's website these days. Check this out:

The good news is that America has just elected a president with leadership, vision and great intelligence. President Obama will also choose a first rate economic team: individuals such as Larry Summers and Tim Geithner would be excellent choices for the position of Treasury Secretary. Obama and his team are fully aware of the very difficult economic and financial challenges that the country is facing and will work hard to resolve them.

However, Obama will inherit and economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollar in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap as the Fed is fast approaching the zero-bound constraint for the Fed Funds rate; the risk of a severe debt deflation as the real value of nominal liabilities will rise given price deflation while the value of financial assets is still plunging. This is the bitter gift that the Bush administration has bequeathed to Obama and the Democrats.

Given this dismal background, let us consider next in more detail the macro outlook for the U.S. and global economy and its implications for financial markets…
The latest U.S. macro news have been worse than awful: collapsing retail sales and consumption, free fall in capex spending by the corporate sector, sharply falling industrial production, sharply falling employment, housing still in free fall and home prices bound to fall 40% from the peak, collapsing auto sales, forward looking indicators of business (ISM) and consumer confidence dropping to multi-decade lows, sharp surge in corporate defaults, a wrecked banking system and financial system that will have to be partially nationalized. This is the most daunting set of economic and financial challenges that any president has had to face since FDR during the Great Depression. And in the meanwhile in the rest of the world things are as bad: a severe recession in Europe, Japan and other advanced economies; the risk of a hard landing in many emerging markets including China; an almost certain global recession; a severe global financial crisis.

So let us not delude each other: the U.S. and global recession train has left the station; the financial and banking crisis train has left the station. This will be a long and severe and protracted two year recession regardless of the best intentions and good policies of the new U.S. administration. It will take a lot of hard work and sound policies to clean up this mess and reduce the length and severity of this economic contraction.

There's more but I'll let you read it for yourself. It's all very ungood.

Digging In Their Heels

2008-11-09T08:50:00.008-06:00

Check out this map... it shows counties that voted more Republican in 2008 than they did in 2004.

Draw your own conclusions.

Country First

2008-11-08T09:57:00.008-06:00

In what must be one of the most interesting sideshows of the 2008 election, Joe Lieberman -- part time Democrat -- is now weighing his options between the Republican and Democratic parties.

Now, before any Lieb fans go off on an immediate tangent about how he's a great guy who was abused by the Democrats, let's just step back for a minute and ponder the situation because it really is kind of fascinating.

Lieberman, an old and powerful member of the US Senate, has been on a rather tumultuous ride over the past decade. In 2000 he was Gore's VP pick against Bush/Cheney, where he was brutally ridiculed by Republicans (as is their way) both before and after being defeated by them. Remember "Sore Loserman"? Ah yes, I'm sure he was feeling the love.

In 2002, Lieberman became an unquestioning supporter of the Iraq invasion. I say unquestioning because, despite the emerging cracks in Bush's case, and despite the horrific mismanagement of the war post-invasion, Lieberman continued to be Bush's number one fan. Even after John McCain himself finally had the balls to say to Bush, essentially, "What the hell are you doing?" Lieberman continued with his faithful, unflinching support. None of this endeared Lieb to the anti-war faction of the base, all of whom began working overtime to oust Lieberman from the Senate.

Lieberman was forced to defend his seat in a tough primary fight against base-supported Ned Lamont in 2006. His Senate peers were a bit torn on who to back... Lieberman had been outspoken in bucking his party regarding Iraq but he still voted with the Dems on most other issues. In the end they mainly stayed silent, vowing to support whichever candidate -- Lieberman or Lamont -- emerged the victor.

Here's where it gets interesting.

What's probably not known to people who don't follow politics closely is that Lieberman asked for Obama's help in defending his seat against Lamont and received it. By 2006 Obama was already becoming somewhat popular among Dems on the national scene with his youthful charisma. At Lieberman's personal request, Obama lent him whatever influence he had by traveling to Connecticut to actively campaign with Lieberman, including a turn as keynote speaker at the annual Jefferson Jackson Bailey Dinner:

Lieberman, Connecticut's junior senator, is under fire from some liberal Democrats for his support of the Iraq War. He was key in booking Obama, who routinely receives more than 200 speaking invitations each week.
Some at Thursday's dinner said that while they were pleased with Lieberman's success in bringing Obama to Connecticut, they still consider Lieberman uncomfortably tolerant of the Bush administration.
Obama wasted little time getting to that point, calling it the "elephant in the room" but praising Lieberman's intellect, character and qualifications.
"The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it," Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.
"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

It was a generous thing to do and it cost Obama some support among the base. Lieberman lost the primary but eventually won the Connecticut general by running as an "Independent Democrat".

Lieberman's idea of paying Obama back, of course, was to not only support McCain in 2008 but to go well out of his way to undermine Obama.

When Lieberman announced he was supporting McCain and planned to speak at the Republican Convention, Democrats asked one thing: Don't publicly attack Obama. Lieberman agreed and then... well... completely disregarded.

"When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the battlefield," Lieberman said, "John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge (in Iraq), and because of that, today our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure but in honor."
Further, Obama "has not reached across party lines to accomplish anything significant," Lieberman added.

Red meat for the Republican base, who gobbled it up with cheers and adoration. After the convention, of course, the Lieb attacks on Obama continued. Not only did Lieberman campaign for McCain, he actively campaigned against Obama. Taking incredible liberties with the truth, such as the "cut off funding" statement above, added insult to injury.

So now Lieberman's guy has lost and Lieberman will most certainly not be electable in Connecticut as a Democrat (Independent or otherwise) anytime during the next 100 years. What's a guy to do? Why, crawl back to the Dems with his tail between his legs, of course.

I thought Lieberman's betrayal of Obama was stunning but if Lieb felt so strongly about McCain that he was willing to throw away the fruits of a long political career for it, you've got to at least give the guy some credit, right? I figured after the election Lieberman would ride out the end of his term and then disappear to "spend more time with his family", quietly paying the price for his principled stand.

As John Belushi used to say, "But noooooooooooooooo..."

What's happened instead is that Lieberman expects to be restored as a full fledged member of the Democratic caucus and retain his two coveted chairmanships. Fortunately Reid had the good sense to put the brakes on that... and while Lieberman will be allowed to caucus with the Dems, he'll be stripped of his chairmanships. I think that's a fair price for party betrayal. The party giveth, the party taketh away.

Lieberman, however, is apparently more politician at heart than principled statesman. He's put out feelers to the Republicans to see what they're willing to offer. If they'll give him a chairmanship, he's willing to flip. So far the Repubs are not biting... they'd love him to come vote with them but they're not willing to fork over a committee. It will be quite interesting to see what happens next.

I have no sympathy for the man at this point.... for me it's all just a bit of entertaining dramz. I kind of hope Lieberman does flip. Republicans might love him now but that's only because he's stabbing his own party in the back. Once he's a Republican who frequently votes like a liberal, they're going to lose that love in a hurry. Quite frankly, I couldn't think of a better punishment for him than being despised by both parties.

Palin Meets The Bus

2008-11-06T14:42:00.011-06:00

Is Palin getting thrown under the bus by her own campaign? I have no idea... and I don't really care.

It's possible that some of the stories about her are exaggerated but her lack of basic knowledge is irrefutable (unless you are so deeply in denial as to disavow evidentiary fact). Argue the nuance all you want but the woman was simply unqualified to be anywhere near the presidency. I'll assert my Midwest common sense here: If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and talks like a duck... it's a god damned duck.

Palin may be cool, hip, sexy, fiesty, etc, but nobody should have to be tutoring a 44 year old vice presidential candidate on basic, elementary facts.

You like her? Great. Send her a letter of support. Put her picture on your wall. Aspire to be like her. Invite her for a beer. Move to Alaska. Join the AIP. Whatever. Do NOT put her a heart beat away from Oval Office.

I am astonished by how many wingers are online and on TV demanding that we believe she's the future of the Republican party, indignant that anyone would dare point out the obvious flaws of her candidacy. You know what? I really do hope she is the future of the Republican party. I believe she represents about 36% of the population perfectly -- a guaranteed minority. The remaining 64% of us will chart our own course.

In the meantime, Fox has more scoop as O'Reilly drills Carl Cameron:

What Might Have Been For McCain

2008-11-06T08:25:00.011-06:00

I haven't settled down enough yet to write about what an Obama presidency means to me (and it means quite a lot) but I do want to say this: I'm surprised by how much I've been thinking about "what might have been" with regard to John McCain.

Surely I've written before about my admiration of McCain. In 2000 I thought he was a far more worthy candidate than Bush and, if not for the political dirty tricks of Rove, I could very well be saying good bye to the eight year reign of a president I voted for twice.

McCain ran a straight campaign in the 2000 primaries... he was honest about who he was and what he stood for and he didn't grovel for the christianist vote. He had that mavericky image for bucking his own party, which didn't endear him to the elders but did represent a sort of independent thinking. The press loved him for all of these things because he made good story but the GOP itself, alas, was not a fan. He was one small step away from being regarded with all of the current contempt of a Jeffords or a Chafee.

Fast forward to 2008.

This time McCain knew he needed to get the fundies onboard in the primaries, especially running against such christianist favs like Huckabee and Brownback. He repositioned himself on social issues (God, gays, and abortion), reversals he attributed to a recent "epiphany" (the epiphany being a decision to do whatever it took to win, I assume). He openly courted christianist ~~bullies~~ leaders like James Dobson.

McCain managed to slip through the primaries under the radar, basically outlasting the other candidates whose passionate support was scattered widely among the base (i.e. a Thompson supporter was definitely not a Brownback supporter, and a Romney supporter was definitely not a Huckabee supporter). McCain exited the primaries relatively unscathed... and then for months he had a front row seat to watch the top Dem candidates land punches on each other. It should have been a good start to the general election.

The problem for McCain was that he still had the same basic reputation he had in 2000. The party elders didn't trust him and the base didn't like him. They liked him better than Obama or Hillary, of course, but they didn't like him enough to volunteer their time and money. Facing an enthusiasm gap, and without the money and volunteers that come with supporter enthusiasm, McCain was looking a bit like a lame horse out of the gate.

Enter Sarah Palin and the great Hail Mary. Seeing opportunity in the disenchanted PUMA crowd, McCain made a few feeble attempts to win them over. Fixating on the idea of using a running mate to generate the enthusiasm he couldn't achieve on his own, handpicked Neocon apprentice Sarah Palin must have seemed perfect for the job: young, female, sassy, sexy, impeccable christianist creds, "outsider", and best of all, backed by the full faith and credit of one Mr William Kristol.

And there, I think, is where McCain did himself the most damage. In theory Palin was a good play but in practice she was a disaster.

Palin delighted Republicans at the convention with her ability to deliver blistering Democratic mockery. It seemed like the entire GOP had a collective 2004 flashback orgasm. The christianist wingers were particularly delighted by the choice since, despite McCain's best attempts to portray himself as born-again, the fundies never quite believed him. And perhaps most importantly, in a year when Democrats were openly passionate about both of their top candidates, the Republicans were desperate for a little O-factor of their own. McPalin was suddenly the belle of the ball.

And then the rain came.

Despite grumblings to the contrary, there was no "gotcha" journalism in exposing Palin's intellectual and educational weakness. The press was doing what the press is supposed to do, they were vetting an unknown candidate. People seem to have forgetten that the press (and Hillary/McCain operatives) had vetted Obama thoroughly over 23 months... he did countless interviews and press events, including EIGHT interviews on Fox alone. You cannot run for public office and not let people poke at you... it's how we the public find out what you're made of. Shame on Palin supporters to insist we should buy a carefully crafted image. The simple truth is that you can't hide ignorance, not when it's in plain view of an entire nation. Spunky Sarah Palin might have gotten by on novelty alone in more prosperous times but with two active wars and an economy on the brink of implosion, serious conservatives were in no mood to humor her.

The selection of Sarah Palin also meant that McCain immediately lost his most compelling argument against Obama: experience. McCain might have pulled off the election if he'd been able to comparatively hammer away at Obama's inexperience instead of defending Palin's ("I can see Russia from my house!"). A lost opportunity.

Would McCain have fared better with someone unquestionably qualified like, say, Kay Bailey Hutchison? Maybe. I think McCain was in an awfully difficult situation here, though... Hutchison would have carried tremendous appeal among women, moderates, and independents --however -- McCain was still in dire need of getting that base out there working for him. In the end, he chose to move right instead of center. Palin did what she was meant to do (excite the base) but the numbers show that she cost him the center and, as goes the center, so goes the election. She's the Howard Dean of the GOP.

Another course changer was, I think, the economy. In what was perhaps the most freakish coincidence I have ever seen, McCain started his "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" campaign at almost the precise moment the economy started to implode. Clearly McCain's strategy was to begin neutralizing Obama's natural strength, the economy, by making it a non-issue. Moving the discussion away from economics and onto foreign policy, his particular strength, would have given him an advantage. No sooner did he begin this play, though, on the exact day he dispatched adviser Donald Luskin to publicly ridicule the Dems in the Washington Post for their economic pessimism, the financial meltdown launched itself into public awareness. Timing is everything, they say.

A frustrated McCain began injecting radical negativity into the campaign, hurling the kind of crazy rhetoric and invective that quickly becomes a story unto itself. I'm not sure McCain intended it to get as crazy as it got -- the press kept insisting it couldn't be McCain's idea, that McCain himself was "not like that". That may be true, for by all accounts McCain refused to enter Pastor Wright territory until the last few desperate days of the election. As I think about the way it rolled out I'm almost convinced McCain lost control of his message to the echo chamber that is Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the Drudge Report. Instead of helping McCain, they simply drowned him out.

Regardless of what McCain did or didn't intend in impugning the Americaness of Obama, I think the whole thing started to wear pretty thin on a public more focused on their 401Ks.

In this it seems McCain fell into the same death trap Kerry fell into in 2004, which is to say he made his theme about running against someone instead of running for something. While appeasing the base (Bush bashing, anyone?), it does almost nothing to attract the middle and actually starts to sound whiny and melodramatic and slanderous after a while. By the time McCain found a real message -- accidentally, from Joe the Plumber -- it was a day late and several dollars short.

Given the fact that he was running against a heretofore unknown black man, I think McCain might have stood a pretty good chance of winning if he'd made a more serious running mate selection and found a more consistent, positive message.

As an aside...
I'm the last one to give the Republican party any advice but I think they're suffering the same malady the Dems suffered in 2000 and 2004. The base is passionately insisting the party needs to need to move further away from the center but that's a position that doesn't hold with the majority of Americans. The Republicans are looking at a similarly long journey in the wilderness if they decide to let the base rule their heads.

Obama saved the Dem base from themselves by leading them to the center so slowly they didn't even realize it was happening until they'd already bought in. It's funny that most people don't know how soundly the base rejected Obama when he first appeared on the scene. I remember the day Obama made a single tentative post on Daily Kos back in 2006 to try to explain a vote he'd made that had enraged them. He got pummeled (irrationally, IMO). He never came back to dkos after that... I don't think he ever intended to pander to the base. In the end he won them over with his electability... because, for everything the Dem base aspires to achieve, losing another election isn't one of them.

Oops

2008-11-05T21:23:00.001-06:00

Looks like a case of mistaken identity.

Results for Guilford County, where Sarah Palin made her remarks about real Americans in pro-America parts of the country:

Obama/Biden 58.75%
McCain/Palin 40.44%

Dangerous

2008-11-05T20:52:00.004-06:00

Wow... wow. Just wow. Fox News -- yes, that Fox News -- is reporting that:

Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were.
She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.

Most of us picked up on the fact that she was terribly uninformed but holy shit... she's dangerously uninformed. And I would have been dependent on her to keep my babies safe?

What was McCain thinking????

Holy Crap!

2008-11-05T20:26:00.005-06:00

I went to bed in Real America and I woke up in Fake America!

Pride

2008-11-05T19:45:00.002-06:00

Condoleezza Rice has the right be proud... she was one of the trail blazers.

WASHINGTON -- An emotional Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reveled Wednesday in Barack Obama's election, calling it an "extraordinary step forward" for the nation.

A child of the segregated deep South who became the highest-ranking African-American woman ever in American government and was once considered a potential Republican presidential nominee, Rice called the Democratic president-elect "inspirational" and said his victory was proof of America's promise.

"This was an exercise in American democracy of which Americans across the political spectrum are justifiably proud," she said.

"As an African-American, I'm especially proud," said Rice, her eyes glistening with emotion, "because this is a country that's been through a long journey, in terms of overcoming wounds and making race" less of a factor in life. "That work is not done, but yesterday was obviously an extraordinary step forward."

Getting To Know You...

2008-11-05T18:46:00.002-06:00

The most powerful man in the GOP.

With his party in tatters, Mitch McConnell is now the most powerful Republican in the country — the lone GOP senator who can stand in the way of an unfettered liberal agenda in Washington, and a key go-to man to rehabilitate his party.

McConnell, a soft-spoken Washington insider from Kentucky with a canny understanding of Senate tactics, is an unlikely pick to be the GOP’s Stonewall Jackson. Yet by virtue of surviving a tight reelection for a fifth term and having no real challenger to his position as Senate minority leader, McConnell is positioned to be both the ultimate dealmaker and the Republican firewall against a leftward tilt in American government.

I really am a fan of checks & balances and as such was not terribly disappointed to see the Dems fall short of a 60 seat majority in the Senate. That's said, I prefer intelligent checks and balances. Here's hoping Senator McConnell is a good egg.

Robbed!

2008-11-05T08:20:00.006-06:00

EXCLUSIVE: GOP claims ACORN registered Mickey Mouse to vote in Pennsylvania 600,000 times, disputing state's 55%-44% result

Also... 13 New Yorkers renting an apartment in Ohio prior to election may have swung the state's result... Fox News investigating stolen election... Developing...

Oh Noes!

2008-11-05T07:28:00.010-06:00

BREAKING: Real Virginia announces plans to secede after Fake Virginia delivers Virginia's 13 electoral college votes to Obama.

The Winner

2008-11-04T22:15:00.003-06:00

Obama.

I know in my gut this is the right thing.

The Vote

2008-11-04T08:44:00.008-06:00

I have cast my vote. Finally.

Hard to believe it's been four years since I heard Obama's words for the first time as a keynote speaker during Kerry's Democratic convention. I knew -- immediately -- that this was someone worth watching, not just for his amazing charisma (let's face it, Gore and Kerry had been total snoozers) but because his "One America" speech zeroed in on what had become one of the most painful aspects of politics for me... the idea that the power elite find it politically expedient to pit Americans against each other for their own political gain. He articulated perfectly what my brain had been screaming for years.

Over these past four years I've gotten to know Obama better and found him worthy of my respect and support. While I'm not confident of a win tonight, I am at least confident that I have backed the right candidate, the candidate who truly reflects my vision of America, and I am damn proud to have participated in his campaign. Even if my phone calls to South Carolina were not fruitful, I like to think the $90 we donated to the campaign bought a few hardworking staffers some pizza and cokes during an all nighter.

Obama has conducted himself and his campaign with intentional integrity... the kind of integrity one has to purposefully commit to or else succumb, as McCain did, to an escalating list of disappointing, bottom-feeder behaviors. John McCain, whose desperate, pathetic, cynical pandering to christianist James Dobson in the primaries turned out to be only the beginning of what would become a series of desperate, pathetic, cynical actions.

Fox News and the Drudge report have also behaved deplorably, lowering the level of discourse beyond what I thought most reasonable people would tolerate. It's not their right-leaning slant that's at issue... it's their intentional distortion of fact and perspective. It's a still frame from a video of Obama wiping the corners of his mouth that suddenly becomes "Obama flipping off McCain". It's a "recently uncovered" interview with Obama that's actually been posted on a newspaper's website for 11 months, easily accessible to everyone. It's a weeks-long tirade about ACORN registering Mickey Mouse when actual people are forced to wait in line for 8 hours in order to cast the vote their country asks of them. The list goes on and on.

A functional democracy depends on the ability of its citizens to weigh facts and maintain perspective. This tragic breakdown of critical thought makes me sad.

And yet there is hope, no? There's always hope.

Funny HaHa

2008-11-03T08:02:00.006-06:00

So... I cruised over to do my daily Faux News headline scan to see what the GOP talking points are for the day and I see the infamous Obama coal headline about "a newly surfaced tape" that the San Francisco Chronicle has been allegedly sitting on.

Zoh My Gawd, a newly surfaced tape! A Grand Liberal Media Conspiracy to HIDE the TRUTH!! Thank goodness Faux News has uncovered the scheme!

So I follow the Faux News link that says "Obama's Interview with the San Francisco Chronicle" and lo and behold, it takes me directly to the San Francisco Chronicle website where they had posted the damn interview with Obama on 1/18/2008, the day after it was recorded. It's still there, cleverly hidden in plain view of anyone who might want to read it, Google it, reference it, link to it, etc.

I swear to gawd, if these people did not exist we would have to make them up.

Puppycam

2008-11-02T20:00:00.007-06:00

My whole family is in love with Puppycam... the website a friend turned me on to with live streaming video of these adorable little puppies. We've been watching them all weekend.

Maybe we're getting too attached.

On Wealth Redistribution

2008-11-02T13:59:00.007-06:00

I expected McPalin to campaign on the evils of "tax and spend" but I am absolutely flabbergasted that my fellow Americans have so readily latched onto such a one-sided definition of "wealth redistribution" as is currently being associated with Obama.

How can anyone be so seemingly unaware that the "free market" we love to worship naturally results in wealth redistribution as well, such as a massive concentration of wealth at the top? How can they be oblivious to the fact that as the rich suck dollars out of the working class, they use their growing power to rig the system to ensure their continued success at the expense of everyone else? How can Americans reject the idea -- to their own detriment -- that a reassertion of balance is occasionally necessary to the equation? Taxes and targeted tax cuts and tax deductions are all forms of wealth redistribution. They're economic tools. It's silly for McPalin to attribute wealth redistribution to Obama like it's some kind of terrible sin.

Concentrated wealth was the hallmark of the Gilded Age as well as the roaring 20's. It was the legacy of the Reagan era and we've seen it again in the financial industry boom of the past decade. Concentration of wealth is a natural outcome of laissez fair capitalism. Fortunately for us, our economy has never been what we might call "pure bred". Over the years (through actions both intended and accidental), socialist elements have been introduced to restore balance, waxing and waning in cycle. Our economy has been dynamic enough to tolerate such influences without succumbing to them entirely, swinging like a giant pendulum intent on finding economic equilibrium.

We should be appreciative of the economic tools at our disposal. We should work to increase our objective understanding of the rules and functional boundaries of this hybrid economic system. What we should not do is demonize the concept out of ignorance and fear like a bunch of 17th century Salem witch hunters.

I understand the proud tradition of doing for yourself. I understand the natural desire to ascend to personal wealth and prosperity. Believe me, I have no desire to adopt extreme socialist economic models, most all of which are deeply flawed. For the most part, capitalism has proven to be an adequate foundation for our economy. But come on... let's be smart about the reality of the capitalist model and its limitations.

And most importantly, let's never confuse the economic with the political. What Obama is proposing -- stabilizing the middle class -- is smart in a consumer driven economy but it's not without cost. Repealing Bush's tax cut for the upper tier is probably the right thing to do (the tax cuts DURING WAR TIME were irresponsible anyway).

I'm Shocked... Shocked!

2008-11-02T09:20:00.002-06:00

Gee... who coulda guessed?

Georgia's Secretary of State Promotes Voter Challenges and Refuses to Extend Early Voting Hours

By Kate Klonick - November 1, 2008, 5:04PM

Add Georgia to the list of states where Republican officials are actively engaged in voter suppression efforts.

In the midst of a record turnout for early voting in Georgia, that has led to long lines, discouraged voters and exhausted poll workers, Secretary of State Karen Handel, a Republican, has claimed federal law ties her hands, preventing her from extending early voting hours.

With just days to go to the election, Democratic politicians demanded yesterday that Handel step in and extend early voting hours -- as has been done in both North Carolina and Florida.

But in an opinion piece published in the AJC on Thursday, Handel blamed her inaction on the issue on federal law which requires Justice Department approval to change voting law.

Ironically, it is Georgia's history of discriminatory voting practices that puts it on a federal "pre-clearance" list, mentioned in Section 5 of the Voter Rights Act of 1965.

While the DOJ can take up to 60 days to review any change that is submitted, it has the power to grant expedited review in emergency situations -- and Georgia's situation would certainly seem to qualify, Gerry Hebert, a former acting head of DOJ's voting-rights section, told TPMmuckraker.

"Georgia has asked and been granted expedited review by the DOJ in the past, so to say because of the voting act, we can't do this -- that's not really accurate," Hebert said. "The DOJ has done this in as little as 24 hours. . . so to use Section 5 as an excuse that this isn't possible, that's someone that really doesn't want to make the change."

But hey, ACORN ACORN ACORN... booga booga, scary!!!

Troublesome

2008-11-01T10:38:00.010-05:00

I got home yesterday after spending a week in fake Virginia. Unfortunately, I didn't get to mingle much with the local fake Americans since I was locked up in a data center for 15 hours a day. It was a long and grueling week!!

Speaking of long and grueling... instead of hyperventilating about the eeeeevils of Mickey Mouse appearing on voter rolls across America, maybe folks should be a little more outraged that real live people are being made to stand in line for 8 hours at a stretch just to cast their vote. Look at the photos below from Atlanta. And this is early voting! This scenario will repeat itself all over the country on Tuesday. My husband is an hourly worker... taking a day off to vote would cost him a day's worth of pay. That's a pretty heavy poll tax on working class voters. And that, my friends, is bullshit. It's not as if states have been unaware that this was going to be a big year. I can only guess that some of these states -- including Georgia -- have a certain vested interest in discouraging voter turnout.

This situation makes me particularly ill since I routinely hammer on people to get off their asses and vote, as is their civic duty in a democracy. As it turns out, this year it's not voters who are abdicating their responsibility to the country... it's the country who is in danger of abdicating their responsibility to voters.

To the faux outraged among us: This is what real voter fraud looks like.

Fox News Sunday

2008-10-26T08:43:00.005-05:00

I'm watching Fox News Sunday, where Bill Kristol is making the argument that McPalin should let Sarah Palin be the closer for the last 10 days of the election. I'm all for it... put her out there! The more they send Sarah Palin out to excite the fundie base, the more she will turn off the indies. She's not a uniter... she's just another divider. Preaching to the choir is not what leadership is all about and she proves me right every time she opens her mouth.

BTW, it's no surprise that Kristol is so rabid about Palin... he's the one who discovered her while on one of those Weekly Standard cruise events. They stopped at Alaska, Gov Palin met the ship, they hung out for a day, and Kristol identified her as the next empty vessel to front the neocon movement. He's been the powerful force behind her ascent. Just for fun, think for a moment how well it worked out for America the last time an empty vessel was tapped to front the neocon movement.

Albuquerque

2008-10-26T08:38:00.005-05:00

New Mexico is a battleground state so I'm pretty sure these are all real Americans (45,000). I love the pic of the kid... that's something Ryan would do if he was bored and had a bunch of stickers.

No, Really?

2008-10-25T19:42:00.003-05:00

I've said, like, a thousand times that we need to quit treating capitalism like a religion. It's an economic system, no more... and no less. The whole idea that greed is meant to result in some kind of moral good is patently absurd.

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

Greenspan, 82, who relinquished leadership of the Fed just two years ago, said the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry -- and the vast, mostly hidden trade in derivative financial instruments it spawned -- exposed a "flaw" in his categorical reliance on free markets.

Over the last two decades, fortunes have been made and lost parsing Greenspan's Delphic declarations, but there's a breathtaking example of ideological blindness embedded in that first sentence. Does Greenspan really believe that banks, brokerages, rating agencies and insurance companies act of their own accord? Even he has to understand that the people who run them decide how they respond, even to market forces.

There are no autonomic reflexes in finance. Did Greenspan really believe that the people in power, presented with a chance to make a killing, would put the interests of their institutions and stockholders ahead of their own?

In the end, greed is just greed, and capitalism is just as good (or bad) as we allow it to be.

Funny Ha Ha

2008-10-25T19:01:00.004-05:00

The Mormons of Utah are suddenly so concerned that marriage should be between one man and ONE woman that they're massively funding the campaign to change the California constitution via Prop 8?

The Mormon church, whose members have emerged as the leading backers of a ballot measure to end same-sex marriage in California, is scaling back its Utah campaign operation but will continue to support the initiative.
Church members will no longer be making phone calls from Utah to California voters, Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a prepared statement Friday.
At the request of the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, church members in Utah had been enlisted to make calls on behalf of the measure.

"However, the church has since determined that such phone calls are best handled by those who are registered California voters," Farah said.
Opponents of the measure have criticized the church's involvement in the campaign.
The Courage Campaign, a liberal advocacy group, plans to deliver a petition to a Mormon church in Los Angeles next week demanding the church stop funding the Yes on 8 campaign.
But a spokesman for the church, which holds traditional marriage is a sacred institution ordained by God, said the church continues to support the measure despite curtailing its Utah phone bank operation.
Church members have been the biggest contributors to the Yes on 8 campaign.

Now that's funny!

The Defectors

2008-10-24T14:42:00.008-05:00

Sarah Palin seems to have become the catalyst for the Great Republican Divide.

After my initial Palin outrage subsided I began to notice that only a certain type of Republican voter seemed to be excited about her. I first noticed this in my Republican voting friends, several of whom were turned off by Palin, waffled, and then became apprehensive Obama supporters. I then noticed this trend among the punditocracy, when a few regular Republican supporters were openly critical of Palin. And finally, when a host of conservative ideologues (I call them the intellectuals) started jumping ship, I knew for sure something was going on.

The Republican party is splintering... a divide between the ideological conservatives (paleo-cons) and the religi-social populists that's been a long time coming. I couldn't be more grateful -- or more fascinated. I was not politically inclined back when Democrats went through something similar... it's history in the making.

I've written about some of the public defections that have caught my eye. There have been others, like Ken Adelman, but I've been busy and I can't blog about every little thing I read (nor would you want me to, I'm sure). But Charles Fried, the most recent defector, isn't just another Republican... he's a McCain advisor.

Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.

This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked that his name be removed from the several campaign-related committees on which he serves. In that letter, he said that chief among the reasons for his decision "is the choice of Sarah Palin at a time of deep national crisis."

Fried is exceptionally thoughtful and principled; his vote for Obama is especially noteworthy.
...
UPDATE: Fried writes to TNR: I admire Senator McCain and was glad to help in his campaign, and to be listed as doing so; but when I concluded that I must vote for Obama for the reason stated in my letter, I felt it wrong to appear to be recommending to others a vote that I was not prepared to cast myself. So it was more of an erasure than a public affirmation--although obviously my vote meant that I thought that Obama was preferable to McCain-Palin. I do not consider abstention a proper option.

Fake Virginia

2008-10-24T14:00:00.010-05:00

Obama rally in Leesburg, which, sadly for all of those people, is in the fake part of Virginia.

On Sunday I'm traveling to the fake part of Virginia that is Herndon, where I'll fit right in with these imposters (my American creds being somewhat in question since, despite the fact that I'm from the part of Illinois that is NOT Chicago, I have a known affection for sushi and lattes and Obama).

Hoax

2008-10-24T13:23:00.005-05:00

Turns out the McCain staffer attack was a hoax.

I'm absolutely sure the McPalin campaign had nothing at all to do with this -- and yet -- their continuous attempts to rouse the lowest part of our humanity (fear, prejudice) probably helped spawn the strange, made-up story of the 6' 4" black man taking out his rage on a defenseless white woman. Isn't that what it's been insinuated we should fear, that 4 years of Obama will include revenge on whitey?

Karma has a way of finding you and kicking your ass when it's due and I have no doubt that this story -- which spread like wildfire after the pied piper of the right, Matt Drudge, posted it on his site -- will be unhelpful to McCain in the end.

Possible Vs Plausible

2008-10-24T08:59:00.004-05:00

The "blame the victim" crowd generally pisses me off... I've got a hyper sense of empathy and it doesn't take much to trigger it. And I do believe that there are very bad people out there, even among those who share my political passions. That said... does anyone else find this story somewhat lacking in credibility?

When I first read about the McCain campaign worker being "mutilated" by a psychotic Obama supporter I was horrified. OMG... mutilated!! A "B" carved into the poor woman's face by some monster with a freaking knife!! And then I read the part about how she refused medical assistance and I thought, "huh?" She was attacked and had her face carved up and she refused medical assistance... that seems odd. What about her face? What if she has a concussion from having her head punched?

And then I saw the picture, above. I'm not sure that looks like a knife carving to me. Why is it backwards? It's plausible that her attacker was dyslexic, or that he was standing above her head when he was carving it... but if he was standing above her to carve it, assuming it required two hands to both hold her head and hold the knife, and assuming she was then able to fight him with her arms, wouldn't it be more jaggedy? That nice roundy B seems kind of deliberate and artful... it's hard to believe it's the result of some frenzied, crazy freak on a public street. It occurs to me that the B looks more like fingernail scratching, like the kind my sister and I used to leave on each other after some childhood fight. It could have been done with the edge of a knife but again, even if the poor woman was in shock and not struggling at all, how could the attacker have gotten that B so smooth without breaking the skin at any point? I couldn't carve the skin off of a potato that evenly.

It also seems weird that he got his money and let her go and then noticed a bumper sticker on her car and went back to inflict some personal damage. This looks like a well lit public street in a populated area... an attack could have happened that way but it seems odd that it would.

All of this is not to say it's impossible her story is entirely true... certainly it could be. It just seems more probable (to me) that it's only partly true. Obviously she got that black eye somewhere. Quite possibly she was robbed. Quite possibly she was robbed by a viscous Obama supporter. But that B... something about that just seems funky to me.

At any rate, we hope the best for the woman, whatever the circumstances may be.

As an aside: Why didn't the Pittsburgh police take a photo of her face? That seems like very sloppy police work given the type of attack.

Fake Americans

2008-10-24T07:20:00.003-05:00

Indianapolis, yesterday.

Local Election Thoughts

2008-10-23T13:04:00.009-05:00

In light of the "ACORN dramz vs systematic voter rolls purge" game, I wonder if it's a good idea to encourage people to vote early (both Dems and Repubs). I voted early in 2004 due to travel plans and it went very smoothly. That way if anyone should encounter any issues, at least they'll have time to cast a provisional ballot.

As usual, I'm struggling a little with my State Rep vote. I will probably end up voting for Manzullo again despite the fact that I can barely stomach his social positions and rhetoric. In the end I favor him because his longevity has given him clout, and clout means favor for my district. Same with Winters. Let's face it, with what's looming ahead for local municipalities, we can use a little clout. Show me the money!

I'm taking a closer look at Democratic county board candidate Paul Gorski merely for the fact that he has picked up on the county's atrocious zoning behaviors and is making it an issue. Zoning has become my local hot button issue. His take on funding golf courses through usage fees instead of property taxes also appeals to my common sense.

Mental note to ask my mom about the States Attorney race... I may have to defer to her opinion on this as I have no freakin' clue. 17th Circuit will be Fernando Engelsma and... Mom, help?

I'm voting against the concealed weapon carry. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I just know I'll be out some night shooting pool, having a few drinks, and manage to spill a beer on the angry drunk guy carrying a gun under his jacket. So... no. Or as Jeff would say, oh hell no...

Remember: If offered a choice, go with paper ballots!!! As someone who has spent the past 15 years in information technology, you're going to have to trust me here -- sometimes good old fashioned paper really is better. There are two basic problems with computers... 1) they break, and 2) they can be programmed. Seriously. Stay away from the electronic ballot machines.

Huh?

2008-10-22T09:18:00.003-05:00

So let me get this straight... Palin's favorability numbers are already low among Indies and Dems but it took a $150K clothing expenditure to spark some outrage among Rep voters?

Apparently they don't care that she abused the power of the office of the Gov to settle a personal score, don't care that she falsified her expense reports, don't care about the blatant lies she's told about her record and qualifications, and they don't care that she doesn't know what the constitutional limits of the VP office are. They're upset because the RNC spent $150K on clothes for her campaign?

Honestly, I will never understand these people.

Differences

2008-10-21T22:37:00.004-05:00

As someone facing grandmotherhood someday (hopefully, and hopefully not too soon!), I can't help but see this photo and wonder what it's like to have a grandchild who looks a little like you but still so very different. Obviously your heart sees past the difference -- I'm a thousand percent certain mine would -- but I wonder if, in our natural state of egocentricity, it ever feels weird.

Maverick

2008-10-21T22:33:00.001-05:00

You know what this would get me? Fired.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters' 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor's children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.

Spreadin' That Wealth Around, You Betcha

2008-10-21T08:46:00.004-05:00

As usual, John Cole says what I'm thinking but with more flair:

Not socialism:

Welcome to the People’s Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state’s Republican governor. That’s $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin’s. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.

Socialism:

Among the more prominent elements of his tax proposal, Senator Obama would end the Bush tax cuts and allow the top two tax rates to return to 36 and 39.6 percent.

As with all things McPalin, I guess it's OK if you're a Republican.

Cute

2008-10-21T07:35:00.002-05:00

I expect we'll probably see more of this kind of thing.

CULLOWHEE, N.C. – Police at Western Carolina University and wildlife officials were investigating the discovery early Monday of a dead bear cub draped with a pair of Barack Obama campaign signs.
Leila Tvedt, associate vice chancellor for public relations, said Monday night that maintenance workers found the 75-pound bear cub shot to death in front of the school's administration building at the entrance to campus. The Obama yard signs were stapled together and placed over the bear's head, Tvedt said.

The bear had been shot in the head, Tvedt said.

One More Before Bed

2008-10-19T23:19:00.006-05:00

My mind has been very busy today but I've got one more thought to drain out before I go to bed.

Here it is: I am sooo sick of this whole Joe the Plumber thing. What about Me the Project Manager?

I have quietly listened to the Joe thing without comment, appreciating the exchange between Joe the Citizen and Obama the Candidate. To me, this is what democracy is supposed to be about. When is the last time a presidential candidate went out into the wilderness where they might have to actually encounter someone who hasn't already signed a pledge to agree with them?

So what did Obama do when he encountered a skeptical Joe... did he ignore Joe and scurry away like a frightened little titmouse? No, he engaged with Joe... he listened to him and then tried to persuade him. They exchanged their ideas. In the end Joe wasn't convinced but I LOVED that he had the opportunity. Do you suppose McPalin would engage with Me the Project Manager at a rally event? Hell no! To them, Me the Project Manager isn't even part of the "real America". They have personally -- McCain and Palin -- attacked my values and questioned my patriotism. Say what you want about Obama but I have yet to hear him personally comment on the American creds or patriotism of the people who choose not to vote for him.

And I have to say, I didn't find a damn thing wrong with Obama's response to Joe, either. It seemed pretty obvious to me -- especially in the context of Obama's position toward the middle class -- that he was talking about the gross concentration of wealth in the top tier of the country that has occurred over the past decade (yes Mr. Clinton, I said decade) at the expense of the middle class. Am I really supposed to believe that a round of tax breaks that for a change favor me and pretty much all of my hard working friends, family, and neighbors should be considered "welfare"?? Am I supposed to believe that trying to rebuild and strengthen the middle class while not pretending it can be done for free is a bad thing?

Well I don't.

Here's the facts, jack: The fat cats have left this country on the verge of economic ruin. We have achieved the Clinton/Bush dream of transforming the US into a nation of bankers instead of a nation of producers. Hooo-ray. Well for those who are experiencing buyers remorse, I've got news for you: this ship ain't going to turn around over night.

Forget the myth of trickle down economics. Even if it was real (and it wasn't), it has never been less relevant than now with our CONSUMER ECONOMY being entirely Keynesian in nature. If the middle class isn't spending money, there will be no small business opportunities for Joe. Trust me Joe, take the tax cut (which apparently he qualifies for under Obama's plan). And take the cheaper health care, too. I'm one of the people who pays for (and cherishes) that "gold plated Cadillac" insurance McCain wants to tax. Just thinking about it pisses me off.

There's a couple of other things Joe might want to consider. First off, until the cost of American labor is on par with the rest of the world, corporate tax cuts will net us exactly zero new jobs. Zee-roh. It isn't just tax rates or health care or union wages that are contributing to our plight... it's real wages. If they can pay a guy in China to do the same job for $13,000 that we'd pay a guy over here to do for $70,000 (and without any pesky environmental laws), where do you think that job is going to end up? But fear not, Joe... American wages have been stagnating for years now while wages in the BRIC countries have been rising. In a few short decades we'll have this whole wage disparity thing licked.

Our goal during this period should be creating and marketing new energy. Beyond economic stability and national security, this is maybe our next best chance to create a foothold from which to climb in the new world order. "Drill, baby, drill" is what oil people say when they want the party to last for a few more familiar years... it is NOT what visionary, forward thinking people should be saying.

Obama is also smart enough to know (coming from a state legislative body, perhaps) that federal government has a role to play when times are tough and it's not just about bailing out banks. Most economists seem to agree that infrastructure spending will be the key to keeping the national economy lubed, to keeping money flowing through the local economies in a downturn. Otherwise, what exactly does everyone think is going to happen when the municipalities are cash-strapped in a prolonged recession? And it's not just about saving schools and pensions and public transportation, either. Hopefully everyone knows that the term "crumbling infrastructure" is not just a work of rhetorical art... I think about it every time I drive over a bridge. It's as necessary an investment as a new roof or new windows on a house... not sexy and not cheap but the cost of NOT doing it will cause you to lose whatever you were trying to save (and then some).

So go ahead, Joe... vote against your own interests in the name of ideology. You won't be the first and I'm sure you won't be the last. I'm just a little bothered by the idea that your vote goes against my interests, too.

Powell Is An Elitist

2008-10-19T22:30:00.002-05:00

Photo by Platon

Colin Powell, the elitist (h/t Politico):

I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim,and he might be associated with terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards — Purple Heart, Bronze Star — showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

Beautiful Day

2008-10-19T22:22:00.001-05:00

Yikes:

I'm in southwestern Ohio, Cincinnati. It's been a fascinating Sunday.

Next door to me, two young white women got into a bit of an argument with my neighbor. They were Obama canvassers seeking his vote. He's an Italian immigrant and very dear friend and neighbor, but I had to go outside when my dogs started barking and I heard their altercation. The women were very nice, and I've never heard my neighbor sound like this before.

My own dear neighbor yelled at me, "I CANNOT TALK TO YOU!" How bizarre. I gave the young women each a can of Pepsi and thanked them for their courage.

About an hour later, as I was watching my beloved Bengals getting spanked by the Steelers, another woman knocked on my door. A middle-aged African-American woman. Canvassing for McCain. I told her my mind is made up for Obama but wished her luck and thanked her for what she was doing today. She also accepted a can of Pepsi; it's a beautiful, sunny day here in Ohio and she's working hard.

Strange days, indeed. I've lived here on this street for seven years and have never seen anything like this before!

KK's Homecoming

2008-10-19T20:33:00.008-05:00

Isn't she beautiful?!?!?!

It's Getting Ugly Out There

2008-10-19T13:34:00.004-05:00

In Caledonia, WI:

Police in Caledonia are investigating the assault of a campaign volunteer as she was canvassing for Senator Barack Obama Saturday afternoon.In an exclusive interview with 12 News, 58 year-old Nancy Takehara of Chicago says she was going door-to-door when she came across a disgruntled homeowner.“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving,” Takehara said. “He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

The man eventually stopped and the Caledonia police were called. Takehara was asked if she needed medical assistance, but she was not seriously injured. Instead, she says she was shaken up by the homeowner’s reaction.“This negative stuff has to stop,” said Takehara. “We’re all Americans. This is all about protecting our democracy, not about attacking each other.”

Takehara was encouraged when she had a message waiting at home from the candidate she is fighting for. Takehara called back and she and Senator Obama talked one-on-one.Takehara said, “Senator Obama understood… it was wonderful. It made me feel wonderful. It made me feel connected to this government again.”The Obama campaign did not want to comment on the incident at this time.

Police tell 12 News they are still investigating the case and will forward the complaint to the Racine County District Attorney’s office after it’s completed.

I wish this was the first time I'd read something like this but it's becoming all too common... I'm starting to sense a trend. McPalin has done everything possible to incite exactly this kind of behavior... this is what happens when you go out of your way to appeal to people's fear and prejudices. I'm sure they did not expect it to manifest in the form of physical attacks but I have seen so much ugly video, read so many nasty reports, read so much ugly, ignorant online commentary that I'm actually starting to doubt that Obama would make it out of a presidency alive. Seemingly normal people -- the kind of folks you run into at the grocery store or a kids sporting event -- turn into foamy mouthed lunatics with their ACORN, Ayers, terrorist, Muslim paranoia. It's scary... very scary... to think about how some of these crazier people might vent their anger if Obama actually wins.

UPDATE:
John Cole has similar thoughts:

The violence will not be anything that the National Guard can suppress. It will be big Republican guys beating middle aged volunteers, vandalism, potshots in the night. Like they did in the 90’s, super-patriots will wall themselves off in little clans. If they feel the need to act, they will follow McVeigh and Rudolph’s example and bomb something.
You cannot ‘put down’ festering bitterness like this. It will become a part of life like bad weather and dog crap on the sidewalk. It’s pretty easy to avoid, but we’re past that point now. John McCain decided to lose ugly. The party, always captive to the whims of the top of the ticket in the best of times, eagerly followed suit. Clever people at the top of the party are saying things that can only lead to violence if simpler folks in the ‘base’ take it seriously.

To illustrate my point, you can’t find a simpler bunch of base minds than rightwing blogs. When Republicans lose huge, let’s see what fraction honestly tries to account for the GOP’s failures and come up with a strategy to fix them. If more do that, as Kos did to the dismay of conspiracy theorists on the left, then I will never be happier to be wrong. But I seriously doubt that will happen. Most of the none-too-sharp rightwing bloggers will egg on the evil Democrat/ACORN conspiracy story, and their even dimmer readers will take the next logical step.

Improving?

2008-10-19T12:16:00.003-05:00

It's probably going to be rough seas for a long time but maybe -- just maybe -- we have staved off a systematic economic meltdown. I won't pretend I understand what Calculated Risk is monitoring with these indicators but they seem to be saying we're at least only circling the drain instead of diving through it.

The yield on 3 month treasuries: 0.79% up from up from 0.40% (BETTER)

The TED spread: 3.59 down from 4.11 yesterday (BETTER)

Activity in the Treasury's Supplementary Financing Program (SFP). This is the Treasury program to raise cash for the Fed's liquidity initiatives. If this program slows down borrowing, I think that would be a good sign.

Here is a list of SFP sales. No announcement today have to wait for progress.

The A2P2 spread is 4.49 for Thrusday up from 4.4 for Wenesday. slightly worse.

Industry contacts. I'm tracking some financing deals there are being held up right now. If these deals complete that would be a good sign (I'll post something when this happens). No improvement yet.

The two year swap spread from Bloomberg: 122.2 down from 138.38 BETTER

I'll add a couple more indicators, but this is progress.

Bad News / Good News

2008-10-19T10:57:00.003-05:00

The bad news: Tens of thousands of Iraqi demonstrators marched in the streets of Iraq to oppose a pact that would extend the US presence in Iraq for 3 more years.

The good news: Muqtada al-Sadr had actually requested a million demonstrators.

Elitism

2008-10-19T10:44:00.003-05:00

Elitist Republicans come out against the dirty, below-the-belt robocalls coming from McPalin:

Two Republican senators facing reelection battles in states also seeing presidential campaign attention are speaking out against anti-Obama robocalls from John McCain's campaign and the RNC.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins expressed her dispeasure first on Friday.

“They don’t serve John McCain well,” Collins told PolitickerME. “This kind of campaign call does not reflect the kind of leader that he is."

And today Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign issued a blanket statement condemning negative ads and phone calls.

"I call on Al Franken, the DNC, the RNC, the DSCC, the NRSC and any other organization engaged in negative attacks on any candidate to bring them to an immediate end," Coleman said in the statement.

Asked if this included McCain's campaign, Coleman spokesman Luke Friedrich replied: "The senator is calling on everyone."

Quid Pro Quo

2008-10-19T10:28:00.010-05:00

Obama raised $150M in September... that's freakishly amazing, although I must take some credit for it since we gave him $50 during the Palin-Biden ~~debate~~ soundbite exchange.

Obama is now in our pocket with a grand total contribution of $90. Quid pro quo, man!

Real Americans

2008-10-19T10:08:00.004-05:00

McPalin keeps insisting that they've got the corner on "real America" but these sure look like real Americans to me.

100K show up to hear Obama in Mo.

Not Here

2008-10-19T09:38:00.002-05:00

The story of the six year old Las Vegas boy abducted by the Mexican mafia in retaliation for his grandfather's double-dealing drug scheme has completely torn at my heart. Thankfully Cole Puffinburger has been released unharmed.

I've heard that involving family members in personal disputes is wide spread in Mexico and Central/South America but it's not generally something that has happened here in the U.S. I have to believe if the news media had not taken this story national, if this story had stayed in obscurity, it might have had a very different ending. But Americans have an unparalleled sense of fair play, and while we may not care so much if drug dealers want to pick each other off, innocents caught in the cross-fire will not be tolerated. Whatever those Mexicans thought they were going to get away with here, they way underestimated the shitstorm they invited when they kidnapped little Cole.

Looks like they figured it out fast... and I bet they won't be trying that again any time soon.

I Had A Dream

2008-10-19T09:09:00.002-05:00

I had a dream last night in which I was babysitting Sarah Palin's son, Trig, and did not want to give him back. In my dream I was aware of his Down Syndrome challenge and was quite protective. It was very vivid, to the point where I could feel the weight of him in my arms.

I can't even begin to explain that one! He is a cute little baby, though.

Endorsements Starting To Flow

2008-10-19T08:46:00.005-05:00

Colin Powell just gave a whopper of a press conference after revealing on MTP that he's endorsing Barack Obama for prez. I hope I can find the transcript.

Speaking of endorsements, the Chicago Tribune, which hasn't endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate EVER in its 161 year history, endorsed Obama last week. Here's a snip but, in fact, the Trib wrote almost 2 full pages:

Many Americans say they're uneasy about Obama. He's pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

The change that Obama talks about so much is not simply a change in this policy or that one. It is not fundamentally about lobbyists or Washington insiders. Obama envisions a change in the way we deal with one another in politics and government. His opponents may say this is empty, abstract rhetoric. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we are going to deal with the grave domestic and foreign crises we face without an end to the savagery and a return to civility in politics.

And here's another new endorsement today, this one from the Houston Chronicle, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat since they endorsed LBJ in 1964 (go figure). Here's a snip:

After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.

Obama appears to possess the tools to confront our myriad and daunting problems. He's thoughtful and analytical. He has met his opponents' attacks with calm and reasoned responses. Viewers of the debates saw a poised, well-prepared plausible president with well-articulated positions on the bread-and-butter issues that poll after poll indicate are the true concerns of voters. While Arizona Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have struck an increasingly personal and negative tone in their speeches, Obama has continued to talk about issues of substance.

Atrios Makes A Point

2008-10-17T22:40:00.009-05:00

If you moved, would you remember to contact your elections board and ask to be removed from the voter rolls? It has never even occurred to me to do that. I mean, when I get to wherever I'm going it has eventually dawned on me to register anew but there's no way I would think to have myself removed from the old roll. In fact, now I wonder if I'm doubled registered anywhere?

Atrios makes the point:

A lot of Democrats in this state now, though I really want to flag this sentence for a hint of what's to come.
In Philadelphia, the number of registrants, 1.1 million, actually exceeds the census count of the eligible population. The city has identified 58,000 "duplicate" registrations, and the actual number of eligible voters on the rolls is probably closer to a million, said the election board's Bob Lee.
They trotted this one out in '04, too. Since the media (not this article, really, but generally) has decided that playing stupid on these issues is the right way to go, let me offer a wee rebuttal of the inevitable. When people move, most do not bother to contact their local elections board and ask to be removed from the voter rolls. When people die, most do not bother to contact their local elections board and ask to be removed from the voter rolls. Philadelphia has about 10 trillion polling places, and if you move 50 feet in this city you likely end up having to renew your voter registration. Philadelphia also has a lot of old people who sadly occasionally die.

Note to my kin: If I die, please remember to purge me from the voter rolls to prevent my good name being sullied by fraudulent registration.

Noonan

2008-10-17T22:05:00.004-05:00

I have never cared much for Peggy Noonan or her sentimental style but she's captured one of my revolving thought fragments and put it to paper quite nicely here:

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.

In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.

I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

As an aside: "...she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine." Doesn't that seem a tad melodramatic?

Defining The "Real" America

2008-10-16T22:46:00.008-05:00

Even the Republicans on Fox News have become too elite to suit the "regular folks".

On his radio show today, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh toed the McCain campaign line and lashed out at the Fox All-Stars panel for their criticisms of McCain. He noted that during their post-debate analysis, the All-Stars — including Bill Kristol, Nina Easton, Mort Kondrake, and Juan Williams — were somewhat critical of McCain’s performance. “The Fox All-Stars, they’re not America,” Limbaugh concluded. “They have become elites”:
LIMBAUGH: You don’t know how hard this is for me to say folks, Roger Ailes is one of my closest friends. … Saw him this weekend, I spend a lot of social time with him. It is really hard for me to tell you what I really think about the Fox All stars reaction to this debate was last night. … The Fox All-Stars have become elites too.

Welcome to the elitist crowd, Fox All-Stars! Those of us who habitually form independent thoughts and then string words together to form complete sentences in support of those thoughts are always happy for company (although I never thought I'd be saying that to you!).

Another Bogeyman Of The Right

2008-10-16T21:02:00.012-05:00

Like Cadillac driving welfare queens, gays taking over the world, and The War On Christmas, ACORN has become the latest bogeyman produced by the right. These people are masters of the craft: find a seed of something real but relatively insignificant and blow it completely out of proportion to manufacture outrage and create a politically convenient [trap, wedge, movement].

I don't understand why people continue to fall for it. Sure, you can dislike ACORN for a variety of reasons (I personally find the idea of paying for voter registration insulting -- we should not have to entice people to perform their civic duty). But come on... ACORN is not a huge threat to democracy or anything else.

Why can't people see through ploy this by now?

But McCain's voter fraud worries – about Acorn or anyone else – are unsupported by the facts, said experts on election fraud, who recall similar concerns being raised in several previous elections, despite a near-total absence of cases.
"There's no evidence that any of these invalid registrations lead to any invalid votes," said David Becker, project director of the "Make Voting Work" initiative for the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Becker should know: he was a lawyer for the Bush administration until 2005, in the Justice Department's voting rights section, which was part of the administration's aggressive anti-vote-fraud effort.
"The Justice Department really made prosecution of voter fraud of this sort a big priority in the first half of this decade, and they really didn't come up with anything," he said.
"We're chasing these ghosts of voter fraud, like chickens without a head," said Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York who has researched voter fraud and fraud claims for most of the past decade. "I think it's completely overblown, I think it's meant to be a distraction."
"This stuff does not threaten the outcome of the election," said Minnite. "How many illegal ballots have been cast by people who are fraudulently registered to vote? By my count, it's zero. I just don't know of any, I've been looking for years for this stuff."
...
Even the non-partisan truth-in-politics Web site FactCheck.org called foul on McCain's alleged possible conspiracy, noting that a Republican prosecutor handling a key Acorn registration fraud case has said there's no evidence indicating the group was involved in vote fraud.
"This scheme was not intended to permit illegal voting," said King County, Wash. Prosecutor Dan Satterberg in a 2007 statement, after a federal-state investigation found seven Acorn workers had submitted over 1,700 bogus voter registration forms.

And The Winner Is...

2008-10-15T22:25:00.007-05:00

Wowser... the snap polls have it for Obama again. I thought it might have been tighter based on CNN's little lines during the first 30 minutes but these polls aren't even close. I suppose if you're going to have a good run, make sure you do it at the end of the debate.

I'm telling you, McCain is going to lose a lot of women with that women's "health" sneer. It was as close to naked contempt as anything I've ever seen from a man, whether he meant it that way or not. Bill Clinton could leave DNA on a thousand little blue dresses and there'd still be no comparison.

Things You Won't See On Drudge: Part 4

2008-10-15T22:12:00.001-05:00

Bad judgement.

William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Things You Won't See On Drudge: Part 3

2008-10-15T22:06:00.002-05:00

John McCain was for ACORN before he was against it.

From Politico:

The beleaguered Democratic-leaning community group Acorn sends over this photograph: John McCain, in March of 2006, sitting beside Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek at an event Acorn co-sponsored in Florida.

The immigration event, which other photos show was packed with red-shirted Acorn member, was co-sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese, the SEIU, and other groups.

McCain, still spiting much of his party on immigration at the time, was the headliner.

Bertha Lewis, Acorn's chief organizer, said in a statement that came with the photo, “It has deeply saddened us to see Senator McCain abandon his historic support for ACORN and our efforts to support the goals of low-income Americans."

”We are sure that the extremists he is trying to get into a froth will be even more excited to learn that John McCain stood shoulder to shoulder with ACORN, at an ACORN co-sponsored event, to promote immigration reform," she said.

Deep Thought

2008-10-15T22:02:00.003-05:00

I wonder if Sarah Palin or John McCain will go on Keith Olbermann's show or Rachel Maddow's show the way Barack Obama went on Bill O'Reilly's show.

If not, what are they hiding?

The Great Debate, Part 3

2008-10-15T21:27:00.011-05:00

I did not get to watch the entire debate tonight... only the last 30 minutes or so. (sadness) While I was on my calls I did have CNN on mute in the background, though, and tried to follow the infamous little lines.

So, by the lines: It looked to me like McCain might have had the upper hand in the first half. The second half definitely looked more favorable to Obama. I'm not sure if either of them gained any ground over the other... by now it probably looks like a Rorschach test to most of us.

There was one moment that I struck me pretty hard. Now, ya'll know I'm not a fierce pro-choice, feminist kind of person. I thought Obama did just fine on his Roe v Wade position... he represents me well on that topic. What struck me was when McCain sneered his statement about the life of the mother. What the hell was THAT? If a Youtube video pops up, I'll post it for posterity.

P.S. I just realized how often I rush to change the channel when Bill Bennet comes on CNN. I find him so repugnant that he makes me feel physically ill.

Best Thing I've Seen All Week

2008-10-15T19:20:00.005-05:00

I've been sitting on conference calls until 9:00 every night this week so I am happy to find some comic relief on the intertubes. This exchange between Matt Taibbi and Byron York (he of National Review fame) is priceless.

Before I get into the substantively interesting dialogue, check out the first bit of bizarrely twisted logic from the "conservative" mind of Byron York:

M.T.: You don't think the unregulated CDS market was a major factor in the current crisis? Were you watching when AIG almost went under? Were you watching the Lehman collapse?

B.Y.: I think that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also major factors. And I believe that many of the problems in the mortgage area can be attributed to the confluence of Democratic and Republican priorities: the Democrats' desire to give mortgages to people, particularly minorities, who could not afford them, and the Republicans' desire to achieve an "ownership society," in part by giving mortgages to people who could not afford them. Again, I believe that if you are suggesting that the financial crisis is a Republican creation, or even more specifically a McCain creation, I think you're on pretty shaky ground.

Got that? It's a set of different but confluent priorities... Democrats want to give mortgages to minorities who cannot afford them, while Republicans were trying to achieve an ownership society by giving mortgages to white people who cannot afford them. See the difference?!?! I swear to gawd I about busted a gut laughing when I read that but I'll give him points for admitting that Freddie/Fannie was a joint venture.

The rest of the interview is equally amusing but for different reasons.

M.T.: Oh, come on. Tell me you're not ashamed to put this gigantic international financial Krakatoa at the feet of a bunch of poor black people who missed their mortgage payments. The CDS market, this market for credit default swaps that was created in 2000 by Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act, this is now a $62 trillion market, up from $900 billion in 2000. That's like five times the size of the holdings in the NYSE. And it's all speculation by Wall Street traders. It's a classic bubble/Ponzi scheme. The effort of people like you to pin this whole thing on minorities, when in fact this whole thing has been caused by greedy traders dealing in unregulated markets, is despicable.

B.Y.: I was struck by the recent Senate testimony of James Lockhart, who is head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, about the sheer recklessness of Fannie in recent years. Despite "repeated warnings about credit risk," Lockhart testified, Fannie became more reckless in 2006 and 2007 than they had been in the scandal-ridden tenure of Franklin Raines (who departed in 2004). In 2005, Lockhart said, 14 percent of Fannie's new business was in risky loans. In the first half of 2007, it was 33 percent. So something terribly wrong was going on there, and it became a significant part of the present problem.

M.T.: What a surprise that you mention Franklin Raines. Do you even know how a CDS works? Can you explain your conception of how these derivatives work? Because I get the feeling you don't understand. Or do you actually think that it was a few tiny homeowner defaults that sank gigantic companies like AIG and Lehman and Bear Stearns? Explain to me how these default swaps work, I'm interested to hear.

Because what we're talking about here is the difference between one homeowner defaulting and forty, four hundred, four thousand traders betting back and forth on the viability of his loan. Which do you think has a bigger effect on the economy?

B.Y.: Are you suggesting that critics of Fannie and Freddie are talking about the default of a single homeowner?

M.T.: No. That is what you call a figure of speech. I'm saying that you're talking about individual homeowners defaulting. But these massive companies aren't going under because of individual homeowner defaults. They're going under because of the myriad derivatives trades that go on in connection with each piece of debt, whether it be a homeowner loan or a corporate bond. I'm still waiting to hear what your idea is of how these trades work. I'm guessing you've never even heard of them.

I mean really. You honestly think a company like AIG tanks because a bunch of minorities couldn't pay off their mortgages?

B.Y.: When you refer to "Phil Gramm's Commodities Future Modernization Act," are you referring to S.3283, co-sponsored by Gramm, along with Senators Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson?

M.T.: In point of fact I'm talking about the 262-page amendment Gramm tacked on to that bill that deregulated the trade of credit default swaps.

Things You Won't See On Drudge: Part 2

2008-10-15T18:01:00.004-05:00

Not that I care much if the GOP wants to waste precious time obsessing about ACORN in the last few weeks before the election but it does seem pitifully, almost insultingly, manipulative.

It's like this: every election year we're treated to a GOP frenzy over voter registration fraud (funny how it never translates into actual voter fraud, no matter how hard they try to make the connection) and then, after the election, we're treated to the flip side argument... a Dem frenzy over vote suppression (slightly more proven). Doesn't anyone ever... um, you know... pick up on the trend? We're going to be subjected to this during every election cycle. It's just the way it is.

Anyway, for your reading entertainment:

There are also even more nuts and bolts facts that need to be understood to fully grasp how insane the furor that's erupted over ACORN truly is:

ACORN flags and turns in three kinds of cards, those that it can verify, those that are incomplete, and those that it flags as problematic. It turns those in labeled in a special way and are very conservative in terms of what it flags as problematic. It has stacks of problematic cover sheets. [...]

The Lake County Board knew about the questionable registrations today because ACORN flagged them for the board. For example, the Jimmy John’s card is one that a caller had flagged and labeled as problematic. ACORN can get that caller to talk to the press.

According to Regina Harris, the Director of Registrations for Lake County, (Indiana) this claim checks out. "It's certainly true. They did have three batches separated." she told me this morning. "There was a pile they knew were good, there was some they said had missing info -- like no voter ID number or a missing birthday -- and another batch they called 'suspicious.' "

Why would ACORN submit registration forms it had deemed "suspicious"? Because under most state laws, voter registration organizations are required to turn in all the forms they receive. In a phone conversation today, ACORN press coordinator Charles Jackson confirmed that this is the case in Indiana.
So, there you have it. ACORN is required in most states to turn in all the registration cards it receives, even those it believes to be fraudulent. In response to this, ACORN makes the effort to separate out the cards in three categories, calling attention to those forms which are most problematic, a fact that is confirmed by an Indiana Director of Registrations. So, unless conservatives are arguing that ACORN is both attempting to commit massive voter fraud, while also reporting this fraud to the proper authorities, then there's really no case here. Just typical election year bluster. In fact, these cries of massive voter fraud are practically an annual tradition for the GOP, and perhaps no president more than Bush has made such aggressive efforts to find the wily and elusive fraudulent voter. And just what have they found? Not much:
Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

120 cases of voter fraud in a nation where more than 100 million voters turn out for presidential elections does not tip the scales, nor imply any voter fraud conspiracy. In the meantime, those very same conservatives who are claiming to be horrified by ACORN's non-existent corruption of the voting system are turning a blind eye to the very real problem of states illegally purging voters from the rolls. While ACORN's imagined crimes require a massive conspiracy beyond the simple delivery of bad voter registration cards, purging voters from the rolls prevents those eligible voters from exercising their rights -- no massive conspiracy needed.

Things You Won't See on Drudge: Part 1

2008-10-15T17:47:00.003-05:00

The Palins hang out with people who hate America!! Everyone knows it, nobody wants to report it. Why?

He's Dead To Them Now

2008-10-15T13:43:00.009-05:00

Wasn't it just a few months ago that conservatives were publicly mourning the death of their intellectual Godfather, William F. Buckley? He was a bit before my time, really, but I enjoyed their remembrances of the acerbic old gentleman.

I recently wrote about Christopher Buckley, his son, and his excoriation at the hands of his own party following his vote against McPalin. Now there's some dramz!

Call me crazy but it seems perfectly reasonable to me that folks who haven't fallen for the "Obama is secretly a terrorist!" meme might prefer him to McPalin for a host of logical reasons. And it certainly doesn't seem like Christopher is a rebellious youth looking to cast himself out of his father's shadow. So why the public stoning? And why would these people presume to know better than his son how his father would have judged his position? Nevermind... that was a rhetorical question.

My father in his day endorsed a number of liberal Democrats for high office, including Allard K. Lowenstein and Joe Lieberman. One of his closest friends on earth was John Kenneth Galbraith. In 1969, Pup wrote a widely-remarked upon column saying that it was time America had a black president. (I hasten to aver here that I did not endorse Senator Obama because he is black. Surely voting for someone on that basis is as racist as not voting for him for the same reason.)

My point, simply, is that William F. Buckley held to rigorous standards, and if those were met by members of the other side rather than by his own camp, he said as much. My father was also unpredictable, which tends to keep things fresh and lively and on-their-feet. He came out for legalization of drugs once he decided that the war on drugs was largely counterproductive. Hardly a conservative position. Finally, and hardly least, he was fun. God, he was fun. He liked to mix it up.

So, I have been effectively fatwahed (is that how you spell it?) by the conservative movement, and the magazine that my father founded must now distance itself from me. But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.
While I regret this development, I am not in mourning, for I no longer have any clear idea what, exactly, the modern conservative movement stands for. Eight years of “conservative” government has brought us a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance. As a sideshow, it brought us a truly obscene attempt at federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

Read the whole thing here.

Bill Bennet was on CNN this morning mocking the intellectuals (i.e. the ideologically principled) of his party for their dislike of Sarah Palin. He alternately praised the "regular folks" for their support of her. It really is like being in Upside-down-land these days, where conservatism now means exactly NOTHING. I have said repeatedly that, despite my differences with ideological conservatives, I can at least understand and respect most of their points. They're consistent, their thoughts are logical and linear, and their ideas have withstood the test of time. But these "regular folk" conservatives are all over the map... twisting their beliefs with every political meme and social / religious bias.

I feel sincerely sad about the demise of actual conservatism, not the least of which because I think liberalism needs a proper check. But this... this... thing masquerading as conservatism is scary to me... it's like fucking mob rule.

Think, Dammit!

Repeat After Me: It's Not About Us

Power To The People

Get Out The Vote, Iranian Style

The Great Healthcare Debate

Short Term Memory

Just Curious

Another Crazy On The Right

Repulsive

Question

Ed Whelan Is A Douchebag

Obama's Cairo Speech And Iran's Big Moment

Suffering Idiots

If We're Going To Play "How Much Does It Cost"...

Who Coulda Seen This Coming?

Sotomayor Nomination

What A Coincidence!

Deep Thoughts

Running To The Right

In Which I Am Annoyed To All Hell

Out-Foxed

Specter Defects

Cousin Matthew (1958 - 2009)

The Big Fat Lie

Memories

The Great Descent

Harrrr... Pirates!

Free Markets

Tortured Logic

Short Memories

Tea Party Til You Puke

Current And Former Defense Officials

Goodbye, Texas

Economics

Civic Duty

Deep Thoughts

Scary

ReligiFREAKS

Recommended Reading

State And Local Gloom

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Stimulating The Economy

Digging In Their Heels

Country First

Palin Meets The Bus

What Might Have Been For McCain

Oops

Dangerous

Holy Crap!

Pride

Getting To Know You...

Robbed!

Oh Noes!

The Winner

The Vote

Funny HaHa

Puppycam

On Wealth Redistribution

I'm Shocked... Shocked!

Georgia's Secretary of State Promotes Voter Challenges and Refuses to Extend Early Voting Hours

Troublesome

Fox News Sunday

Albuquerque

No, Really?

Funny Ha Ha

The Defectors

Fake Virginia

Hoax

Possible Vs Plausible

Fake Americans

Local Election Thoughts

Huh?

Differences

Maverick

Spreadin' That Wealth Around, You Betcha

Cute

One More Before Bed

Powell Is An Elitist

Beautiful Day

KK's Homecoming