The Obama Blues

I spent about 45 minutes on the phone last night debating the state of our government with one of my closest friends. We did not really get anywhere, I am still saddened with my growing disillusionment with the Obama administration, who are suffering from, in my opinion, a lack of effective executive leadership. I feel like Obama should not just make speeches (which he is good at) but take courageous stands on the substance of those speeches and use the power of his remarkable oratory to throw the moral might of the White House (as small as that may be these days) behind issues that he feels passionately about. I want to be inspired by him to fight for the things we elected him to fight for.

I know, I know. He got health care and passed financial reform. He has done a remarkable amount for the LGBT community in terms of equalizing benefits. He passed the hate crimes act and the Lily Ledbetter fair pay bill. He has done a lot .. an almost ridiculous amount, in fact. And in the face of really implacable Republican opposition.

But he has not done a lot more that it seems like he could do. That he promised us and that we elected him specifically to do.

I know he got health care passed and I know that the Senate kept him from doing a lot of what he wanted (for more on the Senate, check out George Packers remarkable article about the senate today). But when we elected him, he was against an individual mandate. When the debate was winding down, and more than 50 senators were for a public option (which would have only effected a tiny number of people, but like many wonderful social programs in this country, i.e. social security and medicare, that would have been a good start), the White House let it die. The public option still probably wouldn't have passed, but to see our President, who claimed to have supported it, crusading for it would have been encouraging.

I know he can't repeal DADT, that needs to come from congress. But he could be loud and out front about the rightness of its repeal, he could issue an executive stay on the implementation of the order. I know he came out and said that people have a right to build a Mosque (within a cultural center) a few blocks from the site of the former WTC. But he could have thundered about the sanctity of the first amendment and how central that was to our country's founding. Instead, we get milquetoast boilerplate and the strong language comes from the Daily Show.

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So my disappointment with Obama and his administration is not based on the policies they have passed, but on the things that they could have fought for or things that they could have tried to pass but failed to do. In many cases, not pushing, not fighting, has left many of his policies unsatisfactory or potentially ineffective or simply not enough.

It is not enough to remove all combat troops from Iraq when we still have 50,000 men there and are basically farming out the combat missions to private contractors. Yup, this is technically removing combat troops, but not really. Yup you check off your promise to be out by summer 2010, but its not really ending the war. If this is the bad war, if there are all these reasons we should not be there, explain it to us and show the millions who believe in you that you ideas about the war were true. You are the commander in chief, make it happen and make us believe and understand.

It is not enough to say you are closing Gitmo, to work at it, to release some of the prisoners and then just not get it done. If you campaign on Gitmo being a moral atrocity and something which must end, it does not cut it to pay only passing attention to fighting the ridiculous claims that it would be dangerous to close Gitmo and house the prisoners within the US. Be a moral leader, use your towering oratory and inspire us to agree with you and fight the uninformed politics of fear.

It is not enough to pass financial regulation that has no details and can still be gutted by lobbying regulators. Regulatory capture, which was not addressed at all, was a major factor in the financial crisis. Yup, you get to check off financial reform, but you didn't really give us financial reform. If this is such a major threat to national security and our way of life, and if you are really with main street and want to curb finance to help the populace, fight for reform that will really do that. You might not get it, but fight for us.

I know it uses up political capital (which you have to shepherd carefully to be successful) to fight for things, and the administration wants to be successful. And I know that things now are so much better than under Bush. And that Obama is working on improving transparency and changing the culture of government ... and maybe in two years I will eat my words and things will really be moving in the direction I think that they should be. That would be awesome.

And maybe he really is trying his best and the nature and scope of the problem are such that I really don't get it, it is truly a monumental task and he is doing the best that anyone can do. But for now, I am deeply disappointed and it is Obama's fault; he centered his political identity on promises that he is not fulfilling. He set himself up for my disappointment ... perhaps he did not realize the difficulty of fulfilling many of his campaign promises when he made them, but the fact is I was passionately pro-Obama because I thought, more I believed he was going to do things that he is not getting done.

In my eyes, the most important promise of his presidency, his promise of major changes in our political system, hasn't happened. Maybe this is the Republicans being successful, preventing change and leading me to blame it on the White House. But regardless of the reason, Obama was elected to change the status-quo, to upend the system. His seeming ineffectiveness in this regard is especially disappointing because Obama was such a skilled orator during the campaign, he convinced us that he really could change things. But instead of being a careful, calculating political amalgamation of Bush + Clinton in a prettier package, we wanted him to smash typical political ideal. We wanted a crusader, a game-changer. We got a skilled, centrist politician who seems to knows how to sell the change bill of goods but not how to actually make the change.

So hopefully I am wrong, that Obama is diligently working for change and is playing a longer game than I can see. I would be thrilled to be shown to be incorrect, and would happily throw my weight behind him again. But for now, I am left disappointed in Obama and looking at third-parties and other, essentially hail-marie's in an attempt to support something that will truly change our system.

Two Revolutions

I remember, not all that well, but reasonably well, what it was like when the Berlin Wall came down. Everything changed, although I (being 13 at the time) couldn't really tell how, I knew there was a shift in, well everything. Later, while I was living in the Czech Republic, I asked my then girlfriend and her sister what it was like when the wall came down. They described feeling good, but it was nebulous to them as they were also pretty young.

But something that they said did stick with me, because it seemed so unusual and odd, something that I cannot imagine happening in the US. The day after the wall fell, every school in the country stopped their Russian classes. It seemed strange to me to stop a particular kind of education, especially because Russian is a useful language ... but Pavla's mother Hana explained that the Russian classes were an example of the way that the Soviet union had tried to control not just the country, but Czech society, and the end of classes was an example of that.

It is interesting that the shift in the Soviet Union began when Reagan started his own charm offensive, I still remember the words glasnost and perestroika, which represent the undercutting and collapse of an empire built on fear and anger. Many people are saying, perhaps rightly, that the shift in Iran is now occurring because of Obama's similarly open and charming speech in Cairo. And while I do not think that Iran has had the same effect on the world as the Soviet Union, I do think that Iran represents a country which has in the recent past used fear and anger, particularly against the US, to justify the failings of an theocratic dictatorship.

It seems, from what I have been reading, that the people of Iran, despite the apparent violence done to them by the government, are ready to move past the controlling, angry, fearful Iran of the last era. Perhaps they will reclaim their place on the world stage, as Persia has be a central playerin the world for much of the last two millenia. Or maybe they will lurch into another kind of failed government. Or maybe the current regime will triumph and Iran will become even more oppressive and ready to burst ... or maybe a combination of the above will happen and Iran will slowly move away from its current government, lurching around until it settles on something different. Whatever happens, I think that as we watch, listen to, read, tweet, and otherwise follow the happenings in Iran, we should not only send our wishes and prayers for a satisfactory and safe resolution of this conflict, but we should also be aware that we may be witnessing a fulcrum point in history.

Conservative Misinformation University

So, as many of you know I recently got married and went on a mini-honeymoon, thus the month long hiatus from posting. I will be back soon, hopefully with some pictures and details of what has certainly been the best 2 weeks of my life. But for now, I direct your attention to this video, created by Media Matters, which clearly demonstrates the inanity of the right wing punditry present in our media (not that I think the left is that much better, but they are a bit more educated and accurate, though they still make a ton of mistakes) ...

The Great Reset

So recently, Obama pushed through an 800$ billion stimulus package that sets up a large number of projects, many of which are designed not only to help the economy but to set up long-term trends and projects that will take us into the "next phase" of America. In that sense, these kinds of plans are the silver lining of the recession ... and the Atlantic monthly recently published an interview with urban theorist Richard Florida titled The Great Reset about this very issue. It is well worth reading, check it out.

How this time is different

From the Speakers Office .... 1,000 words?



Maybe this recession is a little more serious, and maybe the political games we have been used to for the last generation really aren't the best idea right now.

Remember

Something we should all remember ...

Dr. Seuss for Obama

Awesome.

Palin Crushes Biden???

Well, if you read right wing punditry, that is what they would have you believe. Apparently, most of the reviews give the edge to Biden, with the exception of McCain surrogates and right-wing pundits like Michelle Malkin. And Fox news ... right, they are right-wing pundits .... I have to wonder what they put in the Kool-Aid that all these people are drinking. When you read lefty blogs all of them say Biden won, but all of them say Palin did this well, Biden looked bad here, etc ... but the right-wing blogs seem like they could have been written before the debate, based entirely on what these people wanted to see happen. What happened to intellectual honesty and the idea of constructive criticism?

So having watched the debate, I will put in my two cents. I thought Biden did a great job. He constantly hammered home the differences between the tickets, he was lucid, knowledgeable and also genial without being patronizing. He hit hard on the economy and harder on Iraq, and gave a lot of solid soundbites (it is sad that this is important, but these days it really is). Admittedly I did not watch the first 30 minutes, where apparently he was much worse, and based on the fact checking I have seen, he spouted a number of falsehoods, although Palin had more (it is disappointing to me that I am not more upset about this, but such is the state of politics that spouting fewer lies now passes for better. Its sad, lies should be bad no matter how many are told).

Palin was fine, if by fine you mean she was not self-immolating, she showed she could speak fluently and was very "folksy". If by fine you mean that she added something substantive to the discussion, demonstrated a more than cursory knowledge of anything or provided strong support for her ticket, then she was awful. And she spent the whole time rambling, looking at her notes or calling McCain a maverick ... in fact, I found this graphic that basically sums up her debate strategy (from Adennak)



Update - Well, it looks like I was wrong about Fox, at least partially. While the Fox news coverage did make it seem like Palin won the debate, their data say otherwise.

Taxes in 2009

I thought this was an interesting and very informative graphic describing both Obama's and McCain's tax policies .... take a look and pass this information on. I think if people really understood the policies described by this graphic, the race would be very different ...

More Politics

I have to say, I am surprised at myself for putting up so much political stuff here, I had never intended for that to happen ... however, I find myself so shocked and disappointed at the media coverage of the campaigns and so disgusted at the bullshit that is being so flagrantly tossed around, especially by the "honorable" and "truthful" republican candidate John McCain, I feel the need to do something. Perhaps I am just being sucked into the pageantry, perhaps I am just nervous because polls show McCain in the lead (hopefully temporarily) ... but perhaps this is a truly serious problem.

I honestly have no idea how many people read this, probably very few, but maybe someone will see my comments and pass them on and then I will be helping make a difference in what I feel is the most important choice facing america in my lifetime. Hopefully you agree, and if you do, maybe this will be of interest to you.



Its not that McCain is blatantly lying about things, sure he is doing that and so is Palin and their lies are particularly transparent ... but politicians lie and hedge and shade the truth. Obama does it, Hillary did it, its something that we unfortunately expect and have become inured to. The problem here is that because of McCains lies, we really have no idea what he is going to do, and because they are such blatant falsehoods and not the standard political hedging, I believe we cannot trust the man at all ... so all we have to go on are the policies of his party (we all know how those have turned out) and his actual choices ... picking Sarah Palin, voting against veterans aid, backing down on his own immigration bill, confusing global affairs (czechoslovakia, Iran training Al-Qaeda, the Iraq-Paikistaini border) ... we cannot afford this man as our president.

A Letter From Alaska about Gov. Palin

I found this really interesting, and instead of forwarding it to most of the people I know, I thought I would post it. It is a letter from a citizen of Wasilla, and it talks about this persons experience with Sarah Palin, and maybe just as importantly, gives some perspective on Alaskan life in Wasilla. One should note that this letter does seem rather critical of Gov. Palin, however, it seems that many of these criticisms are the result of personal experience with the governor rather than simple partisanship, and that the situations this person is talking about have all been, by now, discussed at some length in the media ...

Dear friends,
So many people have asked me about what I know about Sarah Palin in the last two days that I decided to write something up . . . Basically, Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton have only two things in common: their gender and their good looks. :) You have my permission to forward this to your friends/email contacts with my name and email address attached, but please do not post it on any websites, as there are too many kooks out there . . .

(since this person asked for her name and email address, I have removed them, but have checked on her statements with internet research and this individual has been interviewed by the NYT in regards to Gov. Palin, and this particular letter has been quoted by a number of papers including the Boston Herald )

Thanks, Xxxxxxx


ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first-name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months. She is "pro-life." She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (atthe time), and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents. During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same six years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996–2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents. The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list, though, so borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million.

What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, and that was still in litigation seven years later -- to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She alsosupported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in 5 to 7 years without any borrowing.

While mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once. These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city. As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal -- loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop (see below). As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The city councilperson who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) had engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to. As governor, she gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects -- which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance -- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative. Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president. There have to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she. However, there are a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM vs. FACT
• "Hockey mom": True for a few years
• "PTA mom": True years ago when her first-born was elementary school, not since
• "NRA supporter": Absolutely true
• Social conservative: Mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconstitutional).
• Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
• "Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
• "Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
• Political maverick: Not at all
• Gutsy: Absolutely!
• Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
• Has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
• A "Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling offshore and in ANWR.
• Fiscal conservative: Not by my definition!
• Pro infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
• Pro tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
• Pro small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
• Pro labor/pro union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro labor/pro union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you Google my name (Xxxxxxx + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

(I have done this and this person is featured in a number of articles in this way).

Second, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent." Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall -- they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Time for some campaignin'

If you have not heard of Jibjab I actually feel bad for you ... a cartoon website that very occasionally makes up hysterical political cartoons with a unique take on the US's (and often the worlds) problems. Anyway, if you have never been there go now and spend a good half hour or 45 minutes laughing.

Of particular interest is the most recent cartoon, describing the current campaign season "Time for some campaignin' ". While it is not the best they have ever done (the 2004 political cartoon "This Land" covering the Bush-Kerry election wins that prize), it is quite funny and well worth a look .

Librarians: The newest threat to national security

I mean, not really. John McCain is not actually the president yet (nor, hopefully, will he ever be), so actions taken by his campaign are not made in the interest of national security. Instead, presumably, these actions will be made in the interest of John McCains bid for the presidency.

That is why this particular incident is so odd. At a campaign rally at the Denver Center of the performing arts (a building that is private but was partially paid for by federal funds), police, responding to a complaint about trespassing, removed a 60 year old librarian carrying a McCain = Bush sign from the outside of a McCain campaign event. The full details can be found here.

There are several things worth noting about this action, above and beyond the infringement on this poor woman's right to free speech (I mean if they had pointed out a place for he to stand with the sign rather than ticketing her and threatening her with arrest, he rights would have at least been served to some degree). First, why was only this woman singled out to be removed? I mean, presumably there were many people in line and in the rally wearing pins and T-shirts and other politically expressive media, but they were not asked to leave for trespassing.

Secondly, and somewhat positive in my opinion, if this woman was asked to leave because her sign was offensive to the McCain campaign, how telling is it that McCain's campaign was so worried about their candidate being linked to the sitting Republican President that they created a scandal by removing this woman. I mean, I know his polling numbers are in the toilet, but seriously, when was the last time a campaign so strongly attempted to dissociate itself from a previous administration of the same party. I mean we all know Gore did not like Clinton personally, but I think he would have been happy to have been seen as continuing Clinton's policies.

Well, the campaign has stated that the only reason the woman was removed was that no one at the event was allowed to carry signs. Right. I am sure they would have removed her just as quickly if she had been carrying a "McCain for a better tomorrow" sign. Well, whatever they said they were doing or were actually doing, the result was the unacceptable censure of an Americans right to free speech.

Obama, McCain and honesty

I have started a number of blogs recently with "I don't normally talk about politics but ...". At this point I would have to say that I do, sometimes, talk about politics, particularly with this election being so important to the future of this country and the entire planet.

As you can probably guess from previous posts, I am unabashedly liberal, and though I am actually on the left of a number of his positions, I strongly support Barack Obama. He is campaigning on changing the political culture, running as a positive, honest and forthright politician. He is doing this better than most, though he still hedges and back-pedals and does the things that we all think make politicians a bit slimy ... however, these things are necessary in American politics because everyone makes mistakes and the news here covers every little thing ...

However, Baracks falsehoods and mis-steps are nothing compared to those of his opponent, and at least he had the integrity to publicly apologize for his perceived miscues and not outright lie about them. John McCain, he of the straight talk express, the maverick whose personal integrity is without question ... he is either suffering from some sort of unique political ahlzeimers that allows you to forget only contradictory statements, or he is a flat out liar. Check out this video clip and decide for yourself ...

Obama is the right call

When this campaign season started, I was very much for Hillary, just wanting to all the other candidates to get out of the race so our girl could go on and get the Democratic revival started in the white house. But slowly, as the campaign season wore on, I have tired of Hillary's crap and really started to become interested in getting Obama into the White House. His presence and speaking ability (his speech on race was incredible) and his policies (non-nuclear proliferation, ethics, helping to create a searchable database for government contracts and a host of other things he has pushed for in the Illinois State Senate and in Washington) all argue that his election, even if he can only accomplish a 10th of what he is proposing to do, could trigger one of the most significant shifts in government policy and political ideology in many, many years. Yup, I am solidly for Obama, and you should be too ... but if all that stuff is not enough, check out his proposals for increasing transparency in government. Incredible and long overdue.



Obama '08.

Awesome and necessary

This is one of the best political rants I have ever seen, and is a feeling that I not only share but am shocked that more people have not spoken out about. If you are a democrat and are thinking at all about the current electoral process, this video is worth watching.

Priorities People!

Today, Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York, was found to be linked to a prostitution ring ... he was Client 9, and had arranged to meet a prostitute. This story was covered on every major network and most political blogs have already taken up an opinion. In my opinion, while this is hypocritical in the extreme (given that Mr. Spitzer has busted prostitution rings in the past) it is really not that relevant to the job he is doing as governor. Nor did it cause anyones death or create any serious problems in the world (I do feel for Mr. Spitzers family and I am not belittling the betrayal they must be feeling).

Also recently, a state Representative in Oklahoma, Sally Kern, chair of the State Social Services committee, got up in front of a group of supporters and gave a speech spewing virulent, anti-homosexual rhetoric (which was also delusional in the extreme ... and pretty humorous in its ludicrosity) ... I have found it in a few blogs, and the Victory Fund has put out this video, "I'm listening", to raise awareness, but the fact that a state official is propagating horrific misinformation and essentially promoting hate crimes has not even made the news cycle.

What is wrong with us?

John Hagee and the Pro-Israel Right

Its kind of a running joke among myself and my Jewish friends that the pro-Israel wing of the republican party really just wants Israel around so that when the messiah comes they will all be slaughtered according to what is written in the bible. I mean, I know that people actually think this, but it is so far-fetched and ridiculous that I have trouble comprehending this belief.

But I know I am wrong, and that people really do think this way, but sometimes the bald ridiculousness of it kind of rears up and smacks you in the face. That happened to me this morning, trolling through the blogosphere, when I found this article, saying,

John Hagee, deemed one of the 20 most influential evangelical leaders in America, is an increasingly powerful, fast rising star on the Christian right who has built his career on aggressive support for the Israeli hard political right. In early 2006, Texas pastor John Hagee founded the new, ostensibly "pro-Israel" national lobbying group "Christians United For Israel". But John Hagee's writings, in his latest book, might lead some to doubt Mr. Hagee's love for Jews. In "Jerusalem Countdown: A Prelude To war" Hagee has stated that Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by rebelling against God and that the Holocaust was God's way of forcing Jews to move to Israel where, Hagee predicts according to his interpretation of Biblical scripture, they will be mostly killed in the apocalyptic Mideast conflict Hagee's new lobbying group seems to be working to provoke and which John Hagee believes to be anecessary precondition for the "Rapture" that will lift Christians, but not Jews, bodily into Heaven to enjoy physical immortality amidst paradise.

Really? One of the most influential Christian leaders in America boldly states that Israel simply exists to be destroyed in the glorification of fundamentalist Christians and its okay? How could this man possibly be mistaken as pro-israel? I know, I know, if you look at his ministry website it looks very pro-Israel, so it must be true.

I know politics make strange bedfellows, and that for some the ends justify the means, but I cannot see how support for a Jewish state based on the idea that all Jews should eventually burn in hell is actually Pro-Israel. That is like saying that the American Beef Council is pro-livestock ... completely ridiculous. This is a virulent anti-semitism that is on par with any other we have seen, yet somehow it is okay because it is supported by this mans interpretation of the Bible. How is that interpretation different from an Islamic leader claiming Jihad is supported by his understanding of the Koran?

Update: How is this man even popular? Are we so self-hating that someone who basically blames Hurricane Katrina on the people of New Orleans' behavior can gain support based entirely on fear and anger? I mean, I seem idiotically naive for even asking these questions ... of course this sort of thing plays, it is hugely successful and has been part of mainstream American politics for years now. At this point, separation Church and State, at least the republican arm of it, is non-existent, as political leaders and candidates pander to these people, seek there endorsements and declare their beliefs in these truly abhorrent ideas ...

Clinton and Obama

So we have all heard that there are similarities and differences (as minimal as they are) between these two candidates, but often that is all you hear ... without hearing exactly what the differences are. I mean, they are both Senators, so their priorities and values should be reflected in the public record of laws passed and acted on in the Senate, so we should compare their legislation ... right?

Well, I had not seen anyone do this in a substantive manner until now, but Obsidian Wings just put up an interesting comparison of the laws and amendments acted on by Barack and Hillary in the last few Congresses, it is well worth a look.

Now Texans have a right to dildos too

The horror. The travesty ... where are the family values!!!

Texas has been upended, its morality assaulted and its good people put into peril but activist judges. Just yesterday, judges in the Texas Federal court of Appeals struck down a law that makes it illegal to own sex toys in Texas.

Who will save the good cowboys and cowgirls from the depraved, lascivious judiciary?

PS - For a country that values personal freedom and individual choice, we certainly have a lot of laws that restrict our choices in very personal activities.