Gay Marriage: Today

Following the sad passage of Proposition 8 in California last month, gay marriage has been in the news a lot lately. Newsweek magazine did a cover story on the spiritual reasons why gay marriage should be welcomed. The magazine then followed up on-line with responses to the article by experts in the field. And just this week, President-elect Obama invited the Rev. Rick Warren, a evangelical pastor from Orange County, California, to give the prayer at his inauguration. Warren is vehemently opposed to gay marriage and was one of the key backers of Proposition 8.

Obama is taking a lot of heat for this selection and justly so. While Warren has a commendable track record on the issue of fighting poverty -- unlike most well-known pastors in America -- his anti-gay stance is completely immoral. The President-elect defended his selection when the outcry against it came by saying that his would be an administration of inclusion, where all sides of a story would be welcome, thus helping America to come together. While I can support this in principle, it rings false to me here. Surely there were other pastors that would have been acceptable to the religious right who would also not have been key supporters of Propositon 8... and perhaps who were not publicly anti-gay. How can a choice truly be inclusive when the man being chosen is so radically exclusive?

Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, wrote a letter to Obama that was later published. It sums up the situation and the hurt pretty well.

Dear President-elect Obama -

Let me get right to the point. Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. Our loss in California over the passage of Proposition 8 which stripped loving, committed same-sex couples of their given legal right to marry is the greatest loss our community has faced in 40 years. And by inviting Rick Warren to your inauguration, you have tarnished the view that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans have a place at your table.

Rick Warren has not sat on the sidelines in the fight for basic equality and fairness. In fact, Rev. Warren spoke out vocally in support of Prop 8 in California saying, “there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population ... This is not a political issue -- it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about." Furthermore, he continues to misrepresent marriage equality as silencing his religious views. This was a lie during the battle over Proposition 8, and it's a lie today.

Rev. Warren cannot name a single theological issue that he and vehemently, anti-gay theologian James Dobson disagree on. Rev. Warren is not a moderate pastor who is trying to bring all sides together. Instead, Rev. Warren has often played the role of general in the cultural war waged against LGBT Americans, many of whom also share a strong tradition of religion and faith.

We have been moved by your calls to religious leaders to own up to the homophobia and racism that has stood in the way of combating HIV and AIDS in this country. And that you have publicly called on religious leaders to open their hearts to their LGBT family members, neighbors and friends.

But in this case, we feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination. Only when Rev. Warren and others support basic legislative protections for LGBT Americans can we believe their claim that they are not four-square against our rights and dignity. In that light, we urge you to reconsider this announcement.

Sincerely,

Joe Solmonese
President
Human Rights Campaign

There have been plenty of op-eds on the subject as well. These include those by Chris Durang, Trey Ellis, Morra Aarons-Mele, Phil Bronstein, and Barney Frank.

Also, the HRC is inviting folks to thank Newsweek for covering the topic of gay marriage in a thoughtful, open manner. You can find their call for action here.

19 December 2008

Prop 8: It's Love, Stupid

Kieth Olbermann gave a wonderful, passionate commentary last night on why those who voted for -- or who supported from afar -- Proposition 8 in California last week got it so very, very wrong. He spoke not of politics, but of human decency and the need for love in an unloving world. He asked how one could blindly follow the supposed dictates of one's religion and yet ignore the maxim that all world religions use, namely "do unto others as you would have done unto you."

I highly recommend a look.

BARACK OBAMA WINS

Hope lives.

5 November 2008

Vote Obama!

I've spent the better part of a year telling you why I believe that Barack Obama should be our next president. Part of that, too, was telling the story of why John McCain is not fit for this position. Now, the day of reckoning is at hand. Get out and vote on Tuesday. No line should be too long. No day should be too hot or too cold. No foot should be too tired and no back should ache too much. Just vote.

Vote Barack Obama for President!

Yes we can!

3 November 2008

Trouble Voting?

If you have troubling voting on Tuesday -- or see anyone else having issues -- please, please, please report it. Trouble could include a challenge to your right to vote, trying to get you to cast a provisional ballot, saying that you are not registered, or anything else. Be forceful and do your best to cast an actual ballot. Cast a provisional ballot if all else fails. You should always have that right.

If you run into issues, you can call the Obama campaign hotline for just this reason at 1-877-874-6226. The call is free and the campaign will help you protect your rights and the rights of other voters. You can also contact the campaign via this link if you have a Blackberry or laptop.

You should also report problems to the press. CNN has a free hotline set up as well for this purpose. That number is 1-877-466-2608.

I also mentioned the Video Your Vote campaign in a prior post. If you have a video camera, consider taking it to record any problems at your voting place. You can see what to do with the footage at the link provided. Also at the post are voting tips on protecting your right to vote.

Voting is our most precious right as Americans. Protect and defend it!

3 November 2008

Massachusetts Live!

My wife and I are now Bay Staters. I arrived yesterday and we have managed to move our stuff into our rental home. I'm most excited to begin our new lives here... hopefully celebrating with an Obama victory tomorrow!

3 November 2008

"B" for Barack

Many of you have probably heard of the bizarre case of a McCain campaign volunteer carving a "B" into her cheek and claiming that an African-American Obama supporter did it because she worked for McCain. Yes, the story is horrid on many levels, primarily psychological. However, there is also a strong political slant to the story.

The woman who perpetrated the hoax did so surely to raise racial tension in the campaign. A black man going after a white woman? Carving into her face? Who would have supporters like this? Fortunately, her scheme backfired, with police being on to her from the start. And this brings forth the political story.

In spite of the fact that the police thought it a hoax from the start and treated the would-be victim as the suspect, the right-leaning media ran with the story. What is worse, the McCain campaign ran with it, too. While there is no indication that the national McCain campaign pressed the story, McCain's campaign communications director in Pennsylvania ran hard with the story from word one. Now, the McCain campaign is denying this set of facts, which brings the national campaign into the mix of lies. From TPM's David Kurtz:

In response to our story, campaign spokesperson Brian Rogers told MSNBC that the campaign didn't provide those details to the local reporters, but that the police did, and the reporters were sloppy in attributing them to the McCain campaign.

So here's what the McCain camp would have you believe. Two different TV stations. Two different reporters. Neither could distinguish what they were told by the police (whom they presumably deal with on a daily basis) from what a campaign flack told them. So thorough is their sloppiness that even after the fact, upon reflection, both reporters stick by their stories, continuing to misattribute police statements to the campaign.

The McCain campaign denial also requires you to believe that, more than 12 hours after the concocted attack, the police -- who say they were suspicious of the hoaxster's account from the beginning -- started leaking to reporters an incendiary version of events that didn't even make it into the original police report of the incident.

Perhaps most implausibly, the McCain camp account requires you to give the benefit of the doubt to a crew that wants you to believe that Obama himself is a smooth-talking, baby-killing Islamic terrorist who embraces socialism and white women.

Now, TPM's Josh Marshall calls for the national McCain campaign to come clean and answer for its lies surrounding the matter. Quoted in full.

It is time for the McCain campaign to come clean about what role any of its staffers may have had in hyping or pushing the press to hype the charges stemming from Ashley Todd's vicious and reprehensible hoax.

As Greg Sargent reported yesterday, McCain Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman pushed reporters on a highly incendiary version of Todd's hoax -- providing reporters with quotes from the fictitious attacker and telling them the the "B" scratched on Todd's face stood for "Barack." As the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson aptly put it, Feldman's actions showed "not just a willingness to believe it but an eagerness to incite a ... racial backlash against the Obama campaign."

Our reporting did not find any direct evidence that the McCain campaign's national headquarters played a role pushing the story.

However, the national campaign has now come forward and lied about what happened in Pennsylvania. McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers has now told NBC that alleged quotes from the McCain campaign in early reports of the story were actually the product of "sloppy reporting" and that they were actually quotes from the Pittsburgh police.

This is simply not credible.

Initial reports specifically quote the McCain campaign. And at least two sources involved in the contemporaneous reporting have come forward and said on the record that the quotes came directly from the McCain campaign. To believe that two separate local news organizations made the identical mistake with the same quotes and are now both covering it up is simply not credible. But that is what Rogers is now claiming.

The McCain campaign's after-the-fact lie about its role in this hoax makes it essential that it provide a complete and honest account of both the local and national campaign's role. As I said above, we did not find direct evidence of the national McCain campaign pushing this story. But Gov. Palin did call Todd after the purported attack, as did Sen. McCain. And news of these calls was provided to the press.

The involvement of the candidates and specifically the release of such information -- which was clearly intended to bump up interest in the story -- shows some level of involvement by the national campaign.

Perhaps it is simply that the national campaign heard a staffer had been mugged and had the principals call the purported victim. One might further speculate that it was only the Pennsylvania communications director who heard about the calls and took it upon himself to push these out to the media.

Possible, but certainly a generous interpretation. And now that we see the national McCain campaign making false statements about what happened, its credibility on the whole story is simply too damaged to allow such a benefit of the doubt.

Reporters who the McCain camp cannot stonewall need to push for a clear accounting of what happened -- starting by coming clean on Feldman's role. If this were simply some other minor campaign mystery, the sort that is routinely tossed off late in a hard-fought campaign, it might not matter. But the awfulness of what was attempted here makes nothing less than a full accounting necessary.

25 October 2008

Addition: If you can believe it, the Pennsylvania GOP -- and the McCain campaign as a whole -- grows even more putrescent. Now, they are claiming that Obama will bring a second Holocaust on Jews in Israel. I kid you not.

Santa Fe Absentee Ballot Search

If you live in Santa Fe County (New Mexico) and chose to vote absentee by mail in the upcoming November 4th election, you can check on the status of your absentee ballot here. Only your first and last name, plus the date of the election are required. Adding your date of birth helps narrow the search, so I would include it. Your NM state voter ID number is not required for the search, however.

The check worked well for me, noting the date that my application for a ballot was received, the date my ballot was sent to me, the date that my voted ballot was returned to the county clerk, and the status of my absentee ballot ("processed in the system"). Every vote should count. Check on yours.

24 October 2008

Today's "State of the Race"

Here is how the electoral map stands today, fourteen days out from the presidential election. Things look good for Obama, and hense for the country. Still, this is no time to grow complacent. We need to be campaigning for the Illinois Senator. We need to be getting out the vote and voting -- early if possible -- ourselves. We'd be better off winning in a landslide than losing a close race because we didn't do our utmost to get Obama elected!

24 October 2008

SNL: Bush Hearts McCain

Will Ferrell returned to Saturday Night Live last night to play President Bush as he endorses the McCain-Palin ticket... much to the displeasure of the Arizona Senator.

24 October 2008

Protect YOUR Vote

PBS, via the Bill Moyers' Journal site, has offered suggestions on how to protect your vote in the upcoming election.

Protecting Your Vote

Steven Rosenfeld, author of COUNT MY VOTE: A CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO VOTING, has documented several potential problems voters may face at the polls in an article on ALTERNET, from voter purges and unprocessed registrations to a shortage of poll workers.

Election Protection, a non-partisan coalition, offers another online resource for voter education and protection through an informational Web site and an election hot-line (1-866-OUR-VOTE). They also offer a useful voting-checklist flyer you can print out and bring with you to the poll.

The Election Protection voting checklist:

Be sure you are properly registered.
Most states require voters to register in advance of an election (though some allow voters to register on Election Day). Deadlines range from 3 to 30 days before an election. To find out if you are properly registered, confirm your address, obtain a copy of a voter registration form, or learn about registration deadlines in your state, call 866-OUR-VOTE or, for more information about registration rules in your state go to www.866ourvote.org.

Be sure you go to the correct polling place.
In many states, if you vote at the wrong location, your vote will not be counted. If you are unsure exactly where to vote, find your polling location by calling 866-OUR-VOTE or by going to www.canivote.org.

Find out your options for convenient voting.
Many states allow individuals to vote prior to Election Day, either in person or by absentee ballot. Absentee voters typically must request an absentee ballot in advance. To learn about the options in your state, including how to obtain an absentee ballot, visit www.866ourvote.org, or call 866-OUR-VOTE.

Find out if you are required to show ID.
Every state has identification requirements for at least some categories of voters. Find out the rules for your state by visiting www.866ourvote.org, or calling 866-OUR-VOTE.

Review sample ballots and information about candidates and issues.
If you familiarize yourself with the layout and instructions of the ballot, you can prevent mistakes when you go to vote. Some local election officials will provide you a sample ballot if you request one. Also, know who and what you're voting for — you can research all candidates and ballot issues by contacting local civic groups or visiting www.canivote.org. If you have questions, concerns or problems, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Trained volunteers for the nation's largest non-partisan voter protection effort are available to answer your questions and help make sure your vote counts.

Video Your Vote

YouTube, the leading online video community that allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos, has partnered with PBS to empower American voters to upload their Election Day voting experiences to YouTube at Video Your Vote. YouTube and PBS also will distribute 1,000 Flip Video(tm) camcorders through Pure Digital Technologies, Inc.'s Flip Video Spotlight Program so that participating non-partisan nonprofit groups and local PBS stations across the country can also capture polling place activity.

23 October 2008

New Republican "Jim Crow"

Last Friday, Bill Moyers featured as part of his "Journal" an interview with Mark Crispin Miller, an expert on the history and workings of voter and election fraud in the US. Miller made clear what anyone who has followed this issue since the 2000 election knows: it is far easier to steal an election in the US now than at any time in our history... and much easier than it is in many if not most other democratic nations. Miller lays out the problems clearly in about ten minutes, ten minutes that will scare the crap out of you. Our right to vote and have that vote counted -- to ultimately turn out our government should we as citizens so desire -- is the bedrock of our nation. Countless Americans have shed blood for that right and without it, we are nothing as a people.

The above link features both the video and a transcript of the interview with Miller. It also features a great deal of information on protecting your individual right to vote as well as the rights of others. check it out!

23 October 2008

Joe Klein on Obama

Joe Klein of Time has a great article out on Obama as a candidate, on why he has been effective, and on why it will likely secure him the presidency. McCain is almost never mentioned, but he looms large, in that it makes him look very, very small.

23 October 2008

Sweet Pea

You are my heart.

23 October 2008

Goldwater for Obama

C.C. Goldwater, the granddaughter of the late, iconic Arizona Senator, has written a piece in support of Barack Obama for president. Are there any conservatives who are not part of the far-religious-right of the party that still back McCain?

23 October 2008

Worse Best Man Ever!

A friend forwarded the link to this YouTube video and -- after I stopped my tears of laughter -- I knew that I had to share it. I feel sorry for those folks, but damn, that is some funny stuff. I just don't see how they won't win $10,000.00!

22 October 2008

23 October 2008 Addition: Here is john McCain doing almost the same thing, proverbially speaking.

Palin's Ambition Redux

On October 5th, I posted an entry titled "Palin's Ambition," featuring a New York Times op-ed about Palin's focus on increasing her stature within the GOP. Today, Andrew Romano of Newsweek is writing along similar lines, only he is going a bit further, noting that it appears that Sarah Palin is laying the groundwork -- sometimes at the expense of her current running mate -- for her own run at the presidency in 2012. (Who could not shudder at that thought?!?)

22 October 2008

Palin & Cheney, Sitting in a Tree...

Is Sarah Palin channeling Dick Cheney or does she actually believe this stuff? Scary either way!

22 October 2008

Protect the Vote!

Join the ACLU in pressuring the Justice Department to fulfill its mandate to protect voters rights. The right to vote is our most basic freedom. Voter suppression by third-party forces threatens this right. However, an even greater threat to our democracy is government complicity in this suppression. Do not stand silent.

From the ACLU:

We are on the eve of one of the most historic elections of our time. And the last thing America needs right now is another election that leaves us uncertain of its legitimacy.

Unfortunately, there are enough shenanigans going on to raise serious concerns.

The biggest of them all: Attorney General Mukasey and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are walking away from their sacred responsibility to guarantee smooth and fair elections.

While the government is engaged in a highly-publicized attempt to raise the specter of voter fraud against groups who have been working hard to register poor and minority voters, DOJ is doing little -- if anything -- to deal with the real problem -- hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of registered voters who may turn up on Election Day just to be turned away.

I just asked the DOJ to take decisive action before Election Day to protect the right to vote for everyone. You can do the same here:

Election officials should concentrate their limited resources on expanding access to the ballot box and protecting voters. Demand that the Department of Justice act to protect voting rights.

22 October 2008

Today's "State of the Race"

Here is how the electoral map stands today, fourteen days out from the presidential election. Things look good for Obama, and hense for the country. Still, this is no time to grow complacent. We need to be campaigning for the Illinois Senator. We need to be getting out the vote and voting -- early if possible -- ourselves. We'd be better off winning in a landslide than losing a close race because we didn't do our utmost to get Obama elected!

21 October 2008

The Death of Karl Rove

Arianna Huffington has a very interesting piece today about how the Internet may just be spelling the demise of Rovian-style politics in America. It is very much worth a read.

21 October 2008

Colin Powell Endorses Obama

Background and video here. The Huffington Post has a piece on what it might mean politically.

19 October 2008

Campaign 08: The Obama Strikes Back

May the force be with Barack Obama... always!

18 October 2008

McCain on McCain: Hafeful

Once again proving just how craven and dishonorable McCain has become, he has now hired the same robocall firm that smeared him in the 2000 Republican primary to smear Barack Obama. In 2000, McCain called the firm's work "hate calls." Now, it's just another bag of desperate McCain tricks.

18 October 2008

20 October 2008 Addition: Yesterday, Sarah Palin spoke publicly against robocalls. Today, she recorded one. You can't say it enough. That woman has a set on her.

Campaign Comedians

It has long been a tradition for presidential candidates to attend the anual Al Smith Dinner in New York City, roasting each other while there. Last night, Obama and McCain did the tradition proud.

17 October 2008

ACORN Redux

Two new sources of push-back have emerged against the ACORN-as-boogeyman story that the Republican party is pushing in its late-hour desperation. The first is by the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers has written a letter to the Justice Department and the FBI Director, reacting to the FBI opening an investigation into ACORN's affairs. Conyers, whose committee oversaw hearings on Bush Administration officials' illegal voter-suppression tactics prior to the 2006 election -- of which the scandal surrounding the firing of US attorneys figured prominently -- is an expert on these political games disguised as protect-the-people fervor.

The second comes from perhaps the most prominent US attorney fired as part of that particular Bush scandal, David Inglesias. Although Inglesias, a respected star in the New Mexico Republican party, had much to say on the matter, this sums it up pretty well.

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again. Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic."

My original post on the ACORN matter appeared on October 14th under the title "ACORN: Reality Check."

17 October 2008

20 October 2008 Addition: RNC dodges on ACORN in New Mexico. It's always sad when the facts come back to bite you in the ass!

Joe Porter: Call and Response

A relative of mine forwarded me a letter from a McCain supporter that has been making its way around the Internet for some time. I'll copy it below.. After Mr. Porter's letter, I'll copy my response to my relative.

My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign, Illinois. I'm 46 years old, a born-again Christian, a husband, a father, a small business owner, a veteran, and a homeowner. I don't consider myself to be either conservative or liberal, and I vote for the person, not Republican or Democrat. I don't believe there are "two Americas " but that every person in this country can be whomever and whatever they want to be if they'll just work to get there and nowhere else on earth can they find such opportunities. I believe our government should help those who are legitimately downtrodden, and should always put the interests of America first.

The purpose of this message is that I'm concerned about the future of this great nation. I'm worried that the silent majority of honest, hard-working, tax-paying people in this country have been passive for too long. Most folks I know choose not to involve themselves in politics. They go about their daily lives, paying their bills, raising their kids, and doing what they can to maintain the good life. They vote and consider doing so to be a sacred trust. They shake their heads at the political pundits and so-called "news", thinking that what they hear is always spun by whoever is reporting it. They can't understand how elected officials can regularly violate the public trust with pork barrel spending. They don't want government handouts. They want the government to protect them, not raise their taxes for more government programs.

We are in the unique position in this country of electing our leaders. It's a privilege to do so. I've never found a candidate in any election with whom I agreed on everything. I'll wager that most of us don't even agree with our families or spouses 100% of the time. So when I step into that voting booth, I always try to look at the big picture and cast my vote for the man or woman who is best qualified for the job. I've hired a lot of people in my lifetime, and essentially that's what an election is – a hiring process. Who has the credentials? Whom do I want working for me? Whom can I trust to do the job right?

I'm concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply don't get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can't explain, and calling it "change".
"Change what?", I ask.
"Well, we're going to change America", they say.
"In what way?", I query.
"We want someone new and fresh in the White House", they exclaim.
"So, someone who's not a politician?", I say.
“Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff changed, so we're voting for Obama", they state.
"So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has enabled a man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education, raise incredible amounts of money and dominate the news, and win his party's nomination for the White House that system's all wrong?"
"No, no, that part of the system's okay we just need a lot of change."
And so it goes. "Change we can believe in."

Quite frankly, I don't believe that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In recent months, I've been asking virtually everyone I encounter how they're voting. I live in Illinois, so most folks tell me they're voting for Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why only that he's going to change a lot of stuff "Change, change, change." I have yet to find one single person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man is qualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on earth other than the fact that he claims he's going to implement a lot of change.

We've all seen the emails about Obama's genealogy, his upbringing, his Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let's ignore this for a moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, "What qualifies this man to be my president? That he's a brilliant orator and talks about change?"

CHANGE WHAT?

Friends, I'll be forthright with you I believe the American voters who are supporting Barack Obama don't have a clue what they're doing, as evidenced by the fact that not one of them - NOT ONE of them I've spoken to can spell out his qualifications. Not even the most liberal media can explain why he should be elected. Political experience? Negligible. Foreign relations? Non-existent. Achievements? Name one. Someone who wants to unite the country? If you haven't read his wife's thesis from Princeton, look it up on the web. This is who's lining up to be our next First Lady? The only thing I can glean from Obama's constant harping about change is tha t we're in for a lot of new taxes.

For me, the choice is clear. I've looked carefully at the two leading applicants for the job, and I've made my choice.

Here's a question - "Where were you five and a half years ago? Around Christmas, 2002. You've had five or six birthdays in that time. My son has grown from a sixth grade child to a high school graduate. Five and a half years is a good chunk of time. About 2,000 days. 2,000 nights of sleep. 6, 000 meals, give or take." John McCain spent that amount of time, from 1967 to 1973, in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. When offered early release, he refused it. He considered this offer to be a public relations stunt by his captors, and insisted that those held longer than he should be released first. Did you get that part? He was offered his freedom, and he turned it down. A regimen of beatings and torture began. Do you possess such strength of character? Locked in a filthy cell in a foreign country, would you turn down your own freedom in favor of your fellow man? I submit that's a quality of character that is rarely found, and for me, this singular act defines John McCain.

Unlike several presidential candidates in recent years whose military service is questionable or non-existent, you will not find anyone to denigrate the integrity and moral courage of this man. A graduate of Annapolis, during his Naval service he received the Silver Star, Bronze
Star, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross. His own son is now serving in the Marine Corps in Iraq . Barack Obama is fond of saying "We honor John McCain's service...BUT...” which to me is condescending and offensive - because what I hear is, "Let's forget this man's sacrifice for his country, and his proven leadership abilities, and talk some more about change."

I don't agree with John McCain on everything - but I am utterly convinced that he is qualified to be our next President, and I trust him to do what's right. I know in my heart that he has the best interests of our country in mind. He doesn't simply want to be President - he wants to lead America, and there's a huge difference. Factually, there is simply no comparison between the two candidates. A man of questionable background and motives who prattles on about change, can't hold a candle to a man who has devoted his life in public service to this nation, retiring from the Navy in1981 and elected to the Senate in1982.

Perhaps Obama's supporters are taking a stance between old and new. Maybe they don't care about McCain's service or his strength of character, or his unblemished qualifications to be President. Maybe "likeability" is a higher priority for them than "trust". Being a prisoner of war is not what qualifies John McCain to be President of the United States of America - but his demonstrated leadership certainly DOES.

Dear friends, it is time for us to stand. It is time for thinking Americans to say, "Enough." It is time for people of all parties to stop following the party line. It is time for anyone who wants to keep America first, who wants the right man leading their nation, to start a dialogue with all their friends and neighbors and ask who they're voting for, and why.

There's a lot of evil in this world. That should be readily apparent to all of us by now. And when faced with that evil as we are now, I want a man who knows the cost of war on his troops and on his citizens. I want a man who puts my family's interests before any foreign country. I want a President who's qualified to lead.

I want my country back, and I'm voting for John McCain.

Here was my response:

I'm going to be honest with you here. I don't agree with almost anything in this letter. I've been blogging for almost a year and a half now, much of it focused on Obama's candidacy and McCain as being morally unfit for the presidency. I do not believe that McCain lacks the experience to be president -- although his actual grasp of both economic and foreign policy issues is tenuous at best, especially after three decades supposedly in the mix of things -- so much as I believe that he lacks the temperament and moral rectitude to be president. No person wanting the presidency is above reproach. No one. Anyone with the hubris to seek the office is by definition megalomaniacal to some degree. That said, in McCain, I see a person who will do anything to become president. Anything. His entire candidacy has been about himself first, country much farther down the line.

As for his service during Vietnam. I, too, am amazed by that experience and the suffering that he and others must have endured. However, it in no way either qualifies him to be president, or makes the nation beholden to him in evaluating him for the highest office in the land. The writer of this letter may see a "but" as condescending and offensive, but -- no pun intended -- I see it as every citizens' obligation to challenge those who seek to lead us.

Barack Obama's background is one that should be revered, not denigrated. He came from a poor family, with the still-sadly-reflecting-on-us hardship of being African-American to boot. With the help of a loving, protective, encouraging family, he picked himself up by his bootstraps and went to two of the finest schools in the land, Columbia and Harvard Law School. Is this not what we want of Americans? Is this not living our so-called maxim of "with hard work, you can make anything of yourself?" (As an aside, when Obama applied to Harvard, he did so without telling the school that he was black.) At Harvard, his peers elected him president of the Law Review. In this, his peers believed him to be the best among them and while it may pain me as a Penn Law grad to say it, those folks had to have been among the smartest people in the country to be there. (Notice I do not say "wisest." Wisdom and intelligence have almost nothing to do with each other.) With that position, Obama could have done anything: Clerked at the Supreme Court, worked at the White House, or taken a position of enormous prestige and salary in the private sector. He chose a private law firm in Chicago -- where he met his wife -- but remained less than a year b/c he started his community service while at the firm and it became his then-calling. From there, he became a community organizer, a position that should be lauded. I know; my wife has been one. His work there was in rough neighborhoods with people who often didn't trust him -- ironically -- b/c he had achieved education and the trappings of a world foreign to them. He worked horribly long hours for next to no pay. Serving the least among us. Next, he spent eight years in the Illinois Senate. This is surely the transition from that which can be deemed -- at least in large part -- selfless to the political, which is never wholly selfless. Politicians may want to help the people, but they all also want to help themselves. Still, his service in Illinois must not be overlooked. The size of the state makes the position a full-time one and one with significant power. He shined there, so much so that he gained the spotlight at the national level. That is where many of us -- myself included -- learned of him as he ran for his US Senate seat in 2005-2006. Today, as we approach the presidential election, he has almost twenty years of experience in public life. (And in that time, he managed to write -- not to have ghost-written for him -- several books that outlined his moral and political philosophies.)

As for foreign policy experience, very few presidents in our history have had it before attaining their office, or that of the vice presidency prior. Since WWII, only two have had this background, Ike and George H.W. Bush. The former, of course, was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WWII. The latter was Ambassador to China, Ambassador to the UN, and the head of the CIA. Many of the presidents that we see as interacting on the world stage in the grandest fashion have not been among those who enjoyed prior foreign policy experience. In our recent past, FDR, JFK, and Reagan all fit into this category. They excelled in spite of the supposed gap in their resumes because they had -- or developed -- a clear vision for the actions of their administrations and they surrounded themselves with people who had the experience that they themselves lacked. These presidents were men of conviction, but open to ideas and methodologies. Each was intelligent and engaged. I believe that Obama falls well within this pattern. Whether he will ultimately prove himself to be adept on the foreign stage should he win in November, I don't know. However, his early judgment on the war in Iraq, his early call for a renewed effort in Afghanistan, his call for the engagement of our enemies from a position of strength, and his absolute rock-solid belief in our need to shore up our position with our long-time and new-found allies -- to regain America's honor in the world of nations -- are the clarion call of a good start.

On the home front, Obama stands behind the restoration of Constitutionally-protected rights that the Bush Administration has stripped from Americans. The evisceration of the Constitution has done more to harm America from within than any foreign enemy ever could do. As Rome fell from within, so too shall the US. He wants to return fairness to the tax policy of the nation, decreasing the burden on the middle class. This is morally right and will free this group of people to be more productive. He wants to secure healthcare for every American and has a detailed plan to do so. And with the recent financial blow-up, he wants to reregulate our financial markets, to put umpires back in the game. If he does nothing more than push for these things, it will be a packed first term. One may disagree with his goals, but I fail to see how he has not enumerated what he will do or that for which he stands.

As for McCain, I will specifically only raise two issues. I'll then point you to a few blog posts of mine that may shed further light on my thinking about the man.

First and specifically regarding foreign policy, McCain's naval service did not provide him with any leadership background for the presidency. I say that with no disrespect at all. For it to be relevant to the scale of the presidency, he would have had to be a leader such as an Area Commander, dealing with the in's and out's of an operation spanning a large portion of the globe. Ike falls into this category. Being a fighter pilot, while certainly providing leadership experience, is not of this magnitude. To use a somewhat ham-handed analogy: Playing wide receiver in college doesn't make one qualified to coach in the Super Bowl. [I would also note that many military observers believe -- and even McCain himself has stated -- that he was admitted to the Naval Academy due to the positions of his father and his grandfather, the ultimate in affirmative action, if you will. Moreover, he was a very, very poor student while there and was only allowed to stay due to the influence of his family. Honestly, this doesn't bother me. We've had many effective presidents who were poor students. However, I do believe that it removes the Naval Academy as any sort of feather in McCain's cap.]

The second deals with McCain's relationship with his wives. He returned to the US after his captivity in Vietnam to his first wife, Carol, and their four children. Carol had been disfigured and crippled in a car accident while McCain was away. McCain began a series of affairs, one to a woman decades his junior named Cindy, whom he later asked to marry him... while he was still married to Carol. I'll say only two more things about this. First, this doesn't exactly smack of "high moral character" to me. Second, it does say something about Barack Obama that never once has he raised these facts against his opponent. I can't imagine the reverse being true.

As mentioned above, here I'll point you in the direction of a few details that I believe speak to McCain's lack of fitness for the presidency. If you take a look at my blog, you'll see that I could list volumes. However, I'll simply note a smattering instead.

The first deals with his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Next we have McCain clearly choosing being president over the wellbeing of his family.

On pigs and lipstick, speaking to both character and values.

Another POW, one who knew McCain at the Naval Academy and who was a POW for eight years, had things to say that I found interesting. As I said in my writing, I take them with a grain of salt, but they are interesting nonetheless.

Here, also, is a small survey of conservatives who are supporting Obama, with their justifications for doing so. Post one. Post two.

Finally, I will leave you with something that I wrote regarding our need for leaders of substance, leaders who are not common.

I found a response from another reader of Mr. Porter's letter. It is worth the read to be sure.

15 October 2008

Minorities and the Meltdown

Conservatives have been pushing the idea that ill-conceived loans to low-income, mostly minority loan applicants are the root cause of the financial meltdown in the US. Often, it is said, that these loans came from Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae and were pushed by Clinton-era laws governing these entities. Fox News and right wing radio have been pushing this story for all its worth. After all, giving voters a target other than Bush-associated Republican politicians -- especially minorities! -- is great politics.

Be that as it may, the story simply is not true. The problem wasn't the targeted laws that covered Freddie and Fannie. Rather, it was the lack of regulation of other banks who saw an opportunity to rape and pillage in territory they previously ignored. From David Goldstein and Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Newspapers:

Fannie, the Federal National Mortgage Association, and Freddie, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., don't lend money, to minorities or anyone else, however. They purchase loans from the private lenders who actually underwrite the loans.

It's a process called securitization, and by passing on the loans, banks have more capital on hand so they can lend even more.

This much is true. In an effort to promote affordable home ownership for minorities and rural whites, the Department of Housing and Urban Development set targets for Fannie and Freddie in 1992 to purchase low-income loans for sale into the secondary market that eventually reached this number: 52 percent of loans given to low-to moderate-income families.

To be sure, encouraging lower-income Americans to become homeowners gave unsophisticated borrowers and unscrupulous lenders and mortgage brokers more chances to turn dreams of homeownership in nightmares.

But these loans, and those to low- and moderate-income families represent a small portion of overall lending. And at the height of the housing boom in 2005 and 2006, Republicans and their party's standard bearer, President Bush, didn't criticize any sort of lending, frequently boasting that they were presiding over the highest-ever rates of U.S. homeownership.

Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.

During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.

In 1999, the year many critics charge that the Clinton administration pressured Fannie and Freddie, the private sector sold into the secondary market just 18 percent of all mortgages.

Goldstein and Hall further note:

Conservative critics also blame the subprime lending mess on the Community Reinvestment Act, a 31-year-old law aimed at freeing credit for underserved neighborhoods.

Congress created the CRA in 1977 to reverse years of redlining and other restrictive banking practices that locked the poor, and especially minorities, out of homeownership and the tax breaks and wealth creation it affords. The CRA requires federally regulated and insured financial institutions to show that they're lending and investing in their communities.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote recently that while the goal of the CRA was admirable, "it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — who in turn pressured banks and other lenders — to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity."

Fannie and Freddie, however, didn't pressure lenders to sell them more loans; they struggled to keep pace with their private sector competitors. In fact, their regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, imposed new restrictions in 2006 that led to Fannie and Freddie losing even more market share in the booming subprime market.

What's more, only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans.

These private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans.

In a speech last March, Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, debunked the notion that the push for affordable housing created today's problems.

"Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans," she said. "The CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."

In a book on the sub-prime lending collapse published in June 2007, the late Federal Reserve Governor Ed Gramlich wrote that only one-third of all CRA loans had interest rates high enough to be considered sub-prime and that to the pleasant surprise of commercial banks there were low default rates. Banks that participated in CRA lending had found, he wrote, "that this new lending is good business."

14 October 2008

McCain Transitions... to Another Blunder

The McCain campaign continues its impersonation of the Keystone Cops. From Murray Waas at The Huffington Post:

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.

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.

The article continues here.

Obama had a similar snafu with a person on the search team to select his running mate. In that instance, Obama quickly admitted his error and the person in question resigned, no doubt with a word from the candidate himself. We'll see what happens here.

14 October 2008

California's Proposition 8

Proposition 8 is currently on the California ballot for next month's election. If passed, it would repeal the right of same-sex couples to marry. In an effort to help stave off the destruction of this basic human right, I sent the following message to friends and family.

As you may know, there is a state constitution measure on the ballot in California that would reverse the basic human right to marry for gay couples that is currently the law of the land in that state. Polling indicated that Californians opposed the measure until recently. However, there has been a massive, massive push of ugly, negative, and quite often misleading advertising that has now swayed the public slightly in favor of the measure. This push has come as the result of a huge influx of cash from the far right, a lot of it from outside California. Now, organizations in favor of freedom and equality are pushing back.

The Human Rights Campaign has secured donors who have agreed to match donations -- thereby doubling the value of any donation -- in an effort to combat this anti-equality message in California. I made a donation to this effort this morning and I'm sharing this with you in the hope that you may decide to follow suit.

https://secure.ga3.org/03/caequalpac_match

The thought of California turning back the clock after winning these basic human rights for its citizens literally makes me sick to my stomach. Hopefully, its citizens will rise to the occasion and do the right thing, voting no on Proposition 8.

Thanks for your time.

Due to its encrypted nature, the above link may need to be cut-and-pasted into your browser.

Citizens of California, plase VOTE NO on Propostion 8. If you have friends or relatives in California, please urge them to do the same.

14 October 2008

Addition: Is this The Great "Prop 8" Schlep?

Trooper-Gate Report

The Trooper-Gate report was released last Friday. It found that Sarah Palin had violated Alaskan ethics statutes governing executive conduct. In other words, the abuse of power charges were affirmed.

TPM has full coverage of the report as well as where the matter may go from this point. It is also worth noting that Palin, continuing her on-going assault on reality, immediately told reporters that the report had cleared her of all wrongdoing. I've said it before and I'll say it again. This woman has a pair.

14 October 2008

Addition: More is coming out as to how Trooper-Gate, including another investigation of the scandal, is advancing.

Addition 2: The Village Voice has an overview of Palin's time in public life in Alaska that is interesting.

ACORN: Reality Check

Don't believe the right wing voter fraud hype. We've been down that road before.

14 October 2008

Addition: This is how the politicization of the Department of Justice and the associated scandal of the illegal firing of US Attorneys fits into this.

Addition 2: More on the ACORN con-job can be found here.

Addition 3: Fox News and the push for this story.

16 October 2008 Addition: Here is info on the unfounded -- and illegal -- actions against ACORN by Republicans prior to the 2006 election.

McCain's October Surprise

Arianna Huffington has a new column out outlining what she believes the McCain campaign might try in a last-ditch effort to pull the election back on a footing more to its liking. She maintains that the most likely scenario for this is having McCain trumpeting some new foreign crisis as the next armageddon, regardless of its actual threat level to the US and to the world.

The arena of foreign policy is the last area -- indeed the only area -- in which the common American -- and perhaps more importantly, members of the mainstream media -- believe McCain to be the safer choice than Obama for the presidency. However, Huffington makes it clear that McCain's supposed proficiency in this arena is really a house of cards. Moreover, she outlines just how Obama and his running mate can preemptively undercut such a ploy on the part of McCain should it come about.

It's worth a read.

14 October 2008

Geeks for Obama!

This bit of news heralds two major shifts in the universe. The first is that the youth vote is being courted by the Obama campaign SERIOUSLY and may very well decide the election. The second is that we geeks may actually be taking over the world in our persistent, yet under-the-radar fashion. The game featured isn't the sort that I personally fancy, but I love the type of interplay between the worlds real and fantasy.

14 October 2008

"The Palin Problem"

The cover story of the latest Newsweek that I have received deals with the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate, her impact on the race thus far, and what such a candidacy means for our country. In The Palin Problem, Jon Meacham offers what I believe is one of the best essays from the mainstream press on just what a failure the choice has been politically for McCain, as well as what the choice actually says about a too-large minority of Americans... and thus about the (poor) health of our democracy. Do not miss it.

Another recent Newsweek column, this one by Fareed Zakaria the week prior, also dealt with Palin. It, too, is worth a read and let's just say that Mr. Zakaria doesn't think that McCain put "country first."

14 October 2008

McCain's Hatemongering, P. 2

Frank Rich had another great piece in yesterday's New York Times on the topic of the McCain campaign's use of the so-called "race card," especially in recent weeks, in the presidential contest. He says quite clearly -- and correctly -- that there can be no doubt that McCain is overtly playing on racial fears -- stoking the worst demons of the American psyche -- in an attempt to whip up support for his candidacy. Rich is incorrect on one point, however.

"McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead."

I believe that McCain should indeed now be considered a racist. This past week has made that clear. He is the master of his campaign. The buck stops with him. Put it as you will, but what the campaign says and does, from top to bottom, is an extension of McCain the man. Palin comes across as overtly racist on the stump. McCain's tepid defense of Obama in the face of the frenzied crowds he himself stoked are too little, too late to avoid the label now of "racist."

Rich says something quite true near the start of his column.

IF you think way back to the start of this marathon campaign, back when it seemed preposterous that any black man could be a serious presidential contender, then you remember the biggest fear about Barack Obama: a crazy person might take a shot at him.

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King. After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007, some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

“I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying,” Obama reassured his supporters. Eventually the country got conditioned to his appearing in large arenas without incident (though I confess that the first loud burst of fireworks at the end of his convention stadium speech gave me a start). In America, nothing does succeed like success. The fear receded.

Guess what... I'm scared again.

12 October 2008

"Body in Numbers"

My wife and I watched a four-part series recently on the Discovery Health Channel titled Body in Numbers, which explained human bodies and human lives in numeric terms that were most illustrative to us as non-scientists. The network is running it in reruns from time-to-time and soon it will be available on DVD, if it already isn't. It's very much worth a look.

Also, a doctor friend sent me this link to a movie featuring a white blood cell going after a bacterium. It is really, really cool.

10 October 2008

Taxes and Patriotism

Thomas L. Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, has written a piece on patriotism and paying taxes, with Sarah Palin at its heart. It is worth a read, excerpted here.

Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can’t just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: “You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that’s not patriotic.”

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

10 October 2008

Buckley for Obama

Christopher Buckley, son of William F. Buckley, is throwing his support behind Barack Obama for president. In doing so, Buckley, who is a staunch Conservative and a political commentator like his late father, is joining an ever-growing list of the Conservative elite who will not be voting for McCain in November. You can check out his article here. It is worth reading.

10 October 2008

Addition: While not an endorsement, David Brooks, a conservative columnist at the New York Times, had interesting things to say about Obama, Palin, Biden, and McCain in an interview with The Atlantic. Brooks once worked for William F. Buckley.

Addition 2: Another conservative falls for Obama. This time, it is Wick Allison. Allison worked at The National Review under William F. Buckley, finally becoming its publisher.

14 October 2008 Addition: Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, while not endorsing Obama, has made it clear that McCain has put the country at great risk in picking Palin as his running mate. She is now claiming that staffers in the current White House agree with her. In similar fashion, a chief strategist for President Bush's 2004 election campaign, Matthew Dowd, also let McCain have it for his pick of Palin. Goodness, but the vultures are circling!

21 October 2008 Addition: Conservative newspapers that backed Bush are beginning to endorse Obama.

CT Affirms Gay Marriage

In another blow to civil and moral injustice, the Connecticut Supreme Court today ruled that laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in the sate are unconstitutional. With the ruling, Connecticut becomes the third state to recognize a Constituional right for same-sex couples to marry. Hazzah!

Also see New York Times article here.

10 October 2008

McCain's Hatemongering

This pretty much says it all. From an op-ed piece by Frank Schaeffer in the Baltimore Sun:

John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

At a Sarah Palin rally, someone called out, "Kill him!" At one of your rallies, someone called out, "Terrorist!" Neither was answered or denounced by you or your running mate, as the crowd laughed and cheered. At your campaign event Wednesday in Bethlehem, Pa., the crowd was seething with hatred for the Democratic nominee - an attitude encouraged in speeches there by you, your running mate, your wife and the local Republican chairman.

Shame!

John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.

You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate.

John McCain, you are no fool, and you understand the depths of hatred that surround the issue of race in this country. You also know that, post-9/11, to call someone a friend of a terrorist is a very serious matter. You also know we are a bitterly divided country on many other issues. You know that, sadly, in America, violence is always just a moment away. You know that there are plenty of crazy people out there.

Stop! Think! Your rallies are beginning to look, sound, feel and smell like lynch mobs.

John McCain, you're walking a perilous line. If you do not stand up for all that is good in America and declare that Senator Obama is a patriot, fit for office, and denounce your hate-filled supporters when they scream out "Terrorist" or "Kill him," history will hold you responsible for all that follows.

John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us. You are doing this in wartime. You are doing this as our economy collapses. You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.

Change the atmosphere of your campaign. Talk about the issues at hand. Make your case. But stop stirring up the lunatic fringe of haters, or risk suffering the judgment of history and the loathing of the American people - forever.

We will hold you responsible.

10 October 2008

Palin Debate Flow Chart

For those of you who saw -- or who even missed -- the vice presidential debate last week, a flow chart of Sarah Palin's thought processes for the debate has emerged. It is both sad because it is true and hilarious because it is true.

10 October 2008

"The Great Schlep"

The comedian Sarah Silverman has helped start The Great Schlep, a campaign to encourage Jewish grandchildren with grandparents living in in Florida to implore said grandparents to vote for Barack Obama. As she puts it, the Jewish population in that state could swing it one way or the other... so familial pressure is warranted! Also, since not everyone is Jewish, she wants it made clear that we can all do our part in the great schlep for hope.

At the web site, she has a very funny video as her rallying cry. A word of caution is warranted, however, since it contains a bit of profanity. It doesn't rise to the level of a New Jersey dock worker. Rather, it is more on par with a McCain campaign rally these days.

10 October 2008

Addition: In another bit of humor, take a look at this song parody about Sarah Palin. It's clever, but again, it contains some colorful language.

Amazing Photographs

A friend turned me on to a web site with photographs that you just have to see!

7 October 2008

Democracy In Action

This time Montana is in the sites of those using voter suppression tactics. From Zachary Roth of TPM Muckraker:

Last week, we noted the announcement by the Montana Republican party that it's challenging the voter registrations of over 6000 voters, mostly in Democratic-leaning counties.

The GOP has presented the move as an effort to combat fraud. For all the challenged voters, says the party, there were discrepancies between the address under which they registered to vote, and a U.S. postal service address database.

But two registered Montana voters, along with the state Democratic party, this morning filed suit with a federal court to stop the challenges, calling the GOP move "a transparent and very likely unsuccessful attempt" to discourage voters from turning out.

It's already clear that the list of challenged voters includes a good number of people who are hardly prime suspects for voter fraud.

In an opinion piece published yesterday in the Montana Standard, the state's GOP lieutenant governor, John Bohlinger, noted that one voter who's being challenged is Frank St. Pierre, an 86-year old ten-time Medal of Honor winner who helped save thousands of allied troops in Dunkirk during the Second World War, and happened to move across town recently. Bohlinger called the effort to challenge St. Pierre "an utter disgrace."

And as we told you earlier today, the list also includes Kevin Furey, a former Democratic state representative who's an army reserve officer about to deploy to Kuwait. (The GOP has since backed down on that one.)

You can read the rest of the story here. Also, that op-ed linked above is worth the direct read.

7 October 2008

15 October 2008 Addition: Perhaps this really was democracy in action. LOL

Early New Mexico Voting

Absentee voting by mail starts in New Mexico today. Watch your mailbox for your ballot if you have already requested one! If you have not yet done so, please read this post.

7 October 2008

McCain's -- Unsuccessful? -- Onslaught

Andrew Romano of Newsweek has a very interesting op-ed about McCain's decision to go 100% negative during the remainder of the campaign and why it likely will not work. Check it out.

7 October 2008

Addition: Joe Klein of Time has a new op-ed which similarly dissects McCain's continuing slide into the mud. And I love the title, Embarracuda, Klein's name for Sarah Palin.

McCain & The Keating 5

The Obama campaign has released a new film on the web outlining John McCain's role in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal. With the current economic crisis being so dominant an issue in the 2008 election, it is probably a smart tactic for Obama to bring up McCain's part in a past crisis. We'll see what happens.

6 October 2008

Voter Registration Deadline

See Bottom

Today is the deadline to register to vote in New Mexico and a great many other states. Please, if you are not registered to vote, do so. Your vote can make a difference in the upcoming election.

Generally, you can register at your local county clerk's office, at post offices, and at libraries. Field offices of the Barack Obama campaign can also register you. (You can find those offices via this link.) You can also begin the registration process on-line at this link.

6 October 2008

Addition: It appears that today, October 7th, is actually the final day to register to vote in New Mexico. The Obama campaign sent out an e-mail with a link to easily register on-line.

"The Rape of Europa"

I watched a really interesting documentary last night, The Rape of Europa. It chronicles the systematic pillaging of art works throughout Europe by the Nazis prior to and during WWII. It dealt not only with the theft of works of art from Jews, but also theft from private and state collections "unrelated" to Nazi hatred of the Jewish people. Hitler, as a would-be artist, had a passion for art and indeed drew up an art "hit list" prior to the start of his invasions so that works on the list could be targeting by field commanders, with the works then sent back to Germany. Hundreds of thousands of works made their way into Germany this way.

What was amazing was just how many people risked their lives to save art from the Nazis. One such group was the so-called "Monument Men" of the American army. In spite of my great interest in WWII and having spent a lot of time researching this war, I had never before heard of the Monument Men. These were men, lead by a Yale art professor, who were tasked by the army with protecting architectural and fine art as Allied forces advanced against the Third Reich. What they did and the amount of art that they helped to preserve was just amazing.

I've also seen two other movies recently that I can highly recommend. The first is Outsourced, a comedy about an American forced to travel to India to train his replacement after the company for which he works outsources call center jobs. The second is Greenfingers, a comedy-drama about an English prisoner who finds redemption via gardening. Both are sweet, funny films.

6 October 2008

Palin's Ambition

Frank Rich had a very interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times about Sarah Palin's political ambition and her place now within the Republican party.

5 October 2008

SNL: The Veep Debate

Saturday Night Live was back last night with a wonderful spoof of the Vice Presidential debate from last Thursday. The skit once again features Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and has Jason Sudeikis playing Joe Biden. Best of all, Queen Latifah does a great, great guest spot as Gwen Ifill.

Overall, I may have even laughed harder at this skit than I did at Fey's original portrayal of Palin three weeks ago. This is that funny. SNL's other recent opening skit based on the presidential campaign spoofed McCain's television spots.

5 October 2008

Gidget Goes to Washington

After Sarah Palin's fourth wink during the Vice Presidential debate Thursday night, I dubbed the event Gidget Goes to Washington. Regardless of the political consequences of the debate -- and we'll cover those -- the woman is an embarrassment. It is absolutely not because she's stupid. It's because she's out of her current depth. Moreover, the McCain campaign "forcing" her into this folksy rag doll persona -- Caribou Barbi -- is an affront to the people at which it's actually aimed. It's style over substance, although not admitting that the English language has consonents may be stretching the "style" label a bit far. As Carl Bernstein put it, she was "all prep and no depth." (Bernstein's is a great editorial, BTW.)

That she is so unprepared to be president -- and that standard should be the qualification for being vice president -- tells one all one needs to know about John McCain. He rolled the dice to become president at the peril of the nation and this is evident every time this woman opens her mouth without a speech in front of her. The format for this debate was perfect for Palin because it forbid follow-up questions. That is the difference between her better performance here and the appalling work she put in with Katie Couric in the past two weeks. In other words, no one could call her either on her not answering the questions or answering them incorrectly.

Really, we were seeing two debates Thursday night. Joe Biden was debating John McCain. Sarah Palin was debating Sarah Palin. By that I mean that Biden's goal was to forcefully link McCain to the presidency of George W. Bush, something that he accomplished I think. Sarah Palin on the other hand, had the goal of stopping herself from becoming a laughing stock and thus killing the ticket. Actually, she did this by not melting down. This may seem at odds with my previous analysis. However, it is not. She is a buffoon, but a buffoon that did her job politically. She did well enough to stop the bleeding of conservative support. That was her baseline for personal victory.

Beyond that, the night was certainly a victory for Obama. Palin's cutsie manner had me thinking that it wouldn't play well to Independant voters. Moreover, she often failed to answer the questions asked of her. I wondered whether folks would pick up on this; A blizzard of words often works in a debate. However, early polling seems to indicate that people were not suckered. They saw that she really didn't do much up there but smile, wink, and say "maverick" over and over and over. Oh, and over. And that isn't going to cut it.

Things are not looking good for McCain right now. He's pulled out of Michigan and will now only defend states that Bush won in 2004. Defending only your own territory and pushing into none of your opponent's is not the way to win an election. Also, McCain plans to up the ante on negative campaigning. Indeed, a full 100% of his future weekly add buy will be negative. While it often has worked in the past -- it got both Bushes elected after all -- it is a sign of desperation. (Speaking of desperate, McCain is even campaigning in Nebraska to shore up support in this reddest of red states. Yikes!) There is little time for it to work and all of the political landscape keeps tilting Obama's way. I mean, is McCain lying about William Ayer's connection to Obama really going to make folks forget that their homes/jobs/insurance is on the line?

What is more, the Trooper-Gate report is set to land next week in spite of everything that the McCain campaign has done to try to kill it... and that is A LOT! Combine that with Palin's release of her tax records and that they indicate that she and her husband may have violated several tax laws and it only gets worse. (One other nugget from the debate that may get play is that Palin claimed that her administration as governor tried to divest Alaskan funds from Sudan after the attrocities in Darfur began. In reality, she blocked such divestment. This woman does have a healthy pair!)

Perhaps the biggest problem that McCain has is that the press, long his self-proclaimed "political base," is mistrustful of him... even resentful. And it is for good reason. His running mate is hiding from them. He openly lies to them... even when they call him on it outright. This means that more and more, the media will start telling the truth -- or a closer version of it -- about McCain, rather than the he's-a-maverick bullshit that we were fed for the past two years. Indeed, Rolling Stone has just such a new article out now.

The only reasons I'm not calling this thing for Obama right now are twofold. First, he's black and second, there could be an October Bin Laden surprise.

On Obama being black, we are in uncharted territory here. Folks have a history -- sadly -- of telling pollsters one thing and voting another. Is a five point lead really a five point lead for Obama... or is it a two point lead because he's African-American? I have hope, not in the goodness of the hearts of my fellow men overall, but that so many new potential voters have registered because of Obama that this possible effect of racism will be reduced. We shall see and I'll "know" a whole lot more when we are 15 days out from the election than I do now.

As for Bid Laden, many believe that his release of a new tape on the Friday before the 2004 election lost it for Kerry. It switched the race just enough to the traditional Republican stronghold of foreign affairs at the last minute to get Bush his extra 1%. Bin Laden is no idiot; militaristic Republicans are the single best al Qaeda recruiting tool that he has. John McCain would be much, much better news for Bin Laden than would Barack Obama.

So, back to the debate... I thought Palin did about what I thought she would. She put a McCain campaign spin on on her debating performances during her race for governor. As I said, she's not an idiot. In time and with the right education -- and the desire to be educated, of course -- she could be worthy of federal office. As it now stands, this is simply not the case.

And the clock is ticking...

4 October 2008

Note: Remember that I linked a lot of post-debate reviews and op-eds in my post yesterday. You can also find the link to a full-length video of the debate itself. Check the post out.

6 October 2008 Addition: A friend just sent me this link detailing two tax experts' opinions that Palin did in fact violate tax laws on the returns that were made public.