A Note to the Ideological Purists

This was written as a post in the comments on Alternet.:

I often wonder how many of those who post here are paid operatives of the Corporate Right. All of the concern trolling… ‘oh, I fell for Obama and now I see the light’; ‘both parties are the same’; Obama let us down and proved that he is beholden to corporations, just like dubya and Romney’; ‘I’ll use my vote to send a message to the Democratic Party’ [what message? That you are better than the rest of us? more ideologically pure? more reality based? All of these messages are good – but they are not morally superior, because any kind of morally superior judgment would know that no message will be sent and that every one of your friends, neighbors, family and fellow countrymen & women will be irretrievably fucked when Republicans are installed in office due to your morally superior message sending.]

I have been reading back through publications from early 2009. By April of 2009 many on the Progressive Left had already written off Obama and convinced themselves and others that he was a traitor because he did not live up to every single one of their ideals. I have felt the same way often, and have expressed the same concerns to the WH, my congressional rep, my Senators, my local government, friends, family and anyone else that would listen.

Now, however, during this election, I do not have the luxury of ideological purity. Neither does our country.

Obama said one thing during his acceptance speech that I have seen get no play in the analysis. “As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government.”

Catch that? Self-government. Hard and frustrating work of self-government. Not, I’ll send twenty five bucks to Obama, give him my vote and expect him to fix everything that has been fucked in this country for the last 35 years. And, I will give him, alone, 3.5 years to do it.

That is not how it works in self-governance. Not how it works. We must be involved every step of the way. We are the government. We send representatives to DC to represent us. However, we need to do the very hard work of staying on top of them every step of the way and ensuring that they are doing the work that we want done. This requires direct involvement.

I talk to a lot of Progressives and most of them are filled with the same dour frustration of the comments here. Most are rightfully and righteously frustrated with the BS that has not been fixed and the BS that has been continued. I get it. [Many of them also seem to have been only paying attention for the last 4 years and do not get the institutional structure or broken-ness of our congress, elections and campaign finance structure.]

However, to a person, most of them have not been involved. They do not attend party meetings. They are not involved in Progressive groups. They do not attend protests (or start them.) They do not sign petitions or write letters or make phone calls to their reps. They do not do, and have not done, anything to move the course of decision making in the right direction or the direction they want it moved. If we are not actively involved and do not continually use our voices and our power, then we lose our power and the moneyed interests are the ones who are heard. We need to be loud and louder. Our elected representatives need us involved. They need to be pushed by us.

I do not understand those, who have not pushed over the last four years, thinking that withholding their vote or voting third party will all of a sudden be the needed push. In self-governance you have a lot more responsibility than voting once every four years – yet many do not even do that. Your vote is powerful, but it is not your only responsibility.

The corporate masters are counting on you getting discouraged. They are counting on you thinking that ‘both parties are the same.’ They are counting on you sitting this one out or voting third party. They want this and need this. Michael Moore is right, they know that they cannot win if more people vote and so they are taking away the vote from whoever they can get away with taking it away from. We need to vote just to make up for the millions disenfranchised.

It is high past time for those of us who feel powerless to exercise our power where ever we can. Sitting out the election is not exercising power. Voting Green is not exercising this power. Not now. There is way too much at stake.

I am not a Democratic apologist. I am just as pissed about many, many things that have been done or not done. When I look at the Party Platforms, though, it is the Democratic Party that is closest to my beliefs. When I look at the demographics, it is the Democratic Party that most resembles true representation. When I look at the last 80 years of law making in this country it is the Democrats who have supported Women, Unions, Civil Rights, Peace and the Social Safety Net. It is the Democratic Party that says that We are All in This Together [The Right would have us jumping from windows of a burning factory because we are all just means to an end for the factory owner – not actual people, actual people all created equally.]

We are at a major fucking turning point. We do not have the luxury of waiting for the candidate who believes in everything that we believe in. We need to ensure that Obama is reelected and do everything that we can to get him a congress that will not block his every move. Then we need to be involved to push our representatives to enact laws for the people, undo the damage done over the last 35 years, enact laws that remove the power of the financial elite, restore our Rights and Civil Liberties and prosecute those who have screwed us. We need to elect them, then we need to push them.

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TEOTWAWKI

People prepared for TEOTWAWKI... an acronym for "the end of the world as we know it."

"I refer to myself as a modern survivalist, which means I don’t do without," Spirko explained. "I have a nice TV; I have nice furniture. We are not living in the sticks, but I take all of these things very seriously."

Spirko, an Army veteran and self-described "stark-raving-mad Libertarian," is part of a growing movement of people who are preparing for a disaster natural, economic or man-made. Referred to as "modern survivalists" or "preppers," they are taking steps to protect and provide for their families should something bad happen.

Theirs is a different breed of survivalist, far from the right-wing militants or religious extremists who hole up in bunkers, live off the land and wait for the apocalypse.

Preppers are regular people with regular jobs who decided after 9/11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can’t rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry.

Justified in these tough economic times? Scared of the Socialist Black President? Watching too much FAUX News and Glenn Beck? Smart or fringe lunatics?

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Take a Long Walk on a Short Pier

The fucking nerve! On the House's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint...

Republicans have warned that the prospects for bipartisanship will all but vanish if majority Democrats attempt to muzzle them.

Am I missing something here? Could the republi-cons first demonstrate some bipartisanship! I'm sorry, 3 lousy votes on the stimulus package doesn't cut it.

UPDATE: h/t Think Progress

President Obama’s budget passed the House and Senate yesterday, by votes of 233-196 and 55-43, respectively. No Republicans voted for the budget in either chamber. Twenty House Democrats voted against the budget.

Please, continue being republi-con obstructionists... the American people are making you the most ignored political party in our history.

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Sunday Interlude

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In Honor of Darwin-Day

The DeEvolution of Man and how it happened by KoRN.

h/t to Kiddo who emailed this to me.

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66 Pages

Is there nothing sacred? Why is it, that I cannot send my kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich without worrying that it will kill him? What's worse, is that I have had to implore him to not purchase anything at school to eat because it might be tainted with salmonella. (What about the poor kids who depend on school lunches as their main meal?!)

The news last night warned that they are not sure that the salmonella was contained to only the institutional brand; I finally checked the FDA website this morning to see what brands actually contain (or might contain) the tainted peanut butter and was horrified to find that the warning applies to 66 pages (PDF) of products. Everything from granola bars, to candy, to pet food, to frozen dinners - including Trader Joe's brand, which is supposed to be a higher class product.

Sign here to demand that our food is safe. Sorry to say that there is a petition begging our government to ensure that children can safely eat peanut butter sandwiches.

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Irreconcilable Headlines

I find it absolutely incomprehensible that these headlines can coexist:

Flood of Foreclosures: It’s Worse than You Think

Record Number of Families Seek Refuge in Shelters (Note: Link is to the NYT section dedicated to homelessness. YES, there is an entire section.)

The picture at the top of the Truthout article has a caption which reads:

Ezekiel Pierre Sejour stands in front of an empty, foreclosed home that he and his mother Marie Nadine Pierre, were moved into by the Miami group Take Back the Land after she lost her jobs and could no longer pay her loans. Take Back the Land moves homeless families into empty foreclosed homes in Miami and provides legal protection from eviction. (Photo: Getty Images)

This is exactly what should be happening all across the country.

The article says that banks are holding inventory for a number of reasons and this inventory is not being listed on the MLS. The problem with not listing these homes is that not only does it offer us horrible and incomplete data, but it keeps the homes empty, longer. The longer that the homes remain empty, the worse shape that they are in and the more money that it costs to get them to the point where they are saleable.

The banks are holding them because flooding the market with the true numbers will lower home prices substantially, everywhere. Who among us would want to continue to pay our mortgages if the value of our homes were to suddenly drop below the amount that we owe? How many of us would just walk away? That is a problem.

Another reason that the banks are not listing the homes is because they want to sell them in bulk to investors. This will be just grand; we can return to the days of slum-lords and serfdom, where just a few wealthy people own all of the homes and the rest of us lose our power of negotiation.

This is George W. Bush's "Ownership Society." This is exactly what he had in mind.

The rich will really have all of the power, owning all of the properties; the people who have to rent from them will just have to be happy with what they get. AND, we will all be renters. Brown water coming out of kitchen sinks, holes in the walls that rodents use as entry points, bugs and other nasties…get used to it…this will be the country that they are trying to create for us. Still.

Despite the election of Barack Obama and the very loud, unified, cry of “No More” heard across this country – the moneyed interests, the banks and the investments houses still are trying to enact Dickens’s England where the cry heard is “please sir, may I have some more.”

Dammit. Enough.

I believe that the many organizations dedicated to ending homelessness are already on it, that they are already moving towards the solutions necessary.

I hope that the Congress is listening and reconciles these two headlines so that people no longer lose their homes and that the millions already sitting empty become housing for those living in cars and on the streets. A country with this much wealth has no excuse for Tent Cities or too full shelters.

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What do These Senate Republi-con Fools Have in Common?

Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) Enzi (R-WY) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Wicker (R-MS)

Besides being male, Christian, white (sorry Martinez, you're about as Hispanic as Alberto Gonzales), right wing tools... they all voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

A bill to amend title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and to modify the operation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, to clarify that a discriminatory compensation decision or other practice that is unlawful under such Acts occurs each time compensation is paid pursuant to the discriminatory compensation decision or other practice, and for other purposes.

May your re-election loss come down to the women you refused to give equal pay too!

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Guess What? God Causes Teenage Pregnancy!

Jesus causes teen pregnancy
This I know
Because Sarah and Bristol
Tell me so

Not in so many words, but that is what I got from their beautiful statement, that they had to release because the horrible awful press inquired and there was "erroneous" information flowing around.

Bill McAllister, the governor's office communications director, adds: "The governor's office previously declined to comment to honor the family's wishes that the event remain as private as possible. However, the high volume of press inquiries, along with some erroneous information that was published, prompted the governor to make a statement."

The great news is that Bristol and Levi, because they are so blessed with God's Will and are such hard workers, get to set aside any plans that they ever had for their futures, because God saw fit to bless them with a baby. It really has nothing to do with the fact that Bristol's mother is anti-birth control and anti-sex education. Because, if Bristol had been armed with proper information about her body and had the opportunity to approach her mother and father with honest information about her sexuality, she still would not have been able to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. The baby was God's Will; it had nothing to do with lack of communication or shame inducing guilt trips in the Palin household.

"We are over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby," Governor Palin said. "The road ahead for this young couple will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy. Bristol and Levi are committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child. They are both hard workers, they're very strong, and have faith they've made the right decision in setting aside their own interests to make this child their highest priority."

For that baby's sake, I am happy that they are both hard workers. Extremely pleased. I hope that they will teach their child the things that were denied them.

Regardless of my snark, at least Sarah Palin has made it clear that God turns "circumstances" (circumstances are unfortunately defined as "an unessential or secondary accompaniment of any fact or event; minor detail") into blessings. I have a really difficult time referring to a "baby" as a circumstance; but, hey, I am just not as close to God as the Palins.

Palin added, "When Bristol and Levi first told us the shocking news that she was pregnant, to be honest, we all at first looked at the situation with some fear and a bit of despair. Isn't it just like God to turn those circumstances into such an amazing, joyful blessing when you ask Him to help you through?"

God's Will - the greatest excuse for shitty parenting, evah!

Crap.

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You’re Right – It Is Personal

This whole auto industry failure; union busting; kill the economy; families starving thing, does hit home, and I cannot separate my personal feelings from my intellectual opposition to what the GOP is doing. I feel it now the same way that I felt it as a little girl – and it frightens me.

Click "read more" to find out why.

My dad is from Tennessee. He grew up extremely poor, his family was basically “share croppers” – they never owned a thing. They lived in a shack on the land that they took care of. My dad quit school in the 6th grade so that he could go to work in the tobacco fields and help to take care of his family.

The army saved his life. He gained 40 pounds in his three months of basic. He said that it was the first time that he got good meals and good sleep. He had worked so hard for so many years that basic friggin’ training was a reprieve. The army also brought him west. The Army took him out of Tennessee and away from that life of share cropping; it also brought him to a union state with union jobs.

Dad worked for a Chevy dealership as a mechanic for 40 years, (except for a couple of years in the late 1970’s.) Dad had worked his way up to Service Manager. (I remember what a big deal that it was for my daddy to go to work wearing a tie. I recall looking in the closet at his ties...it was so extraordinary. Dad also no longer came home covered in grease.)

In the late 1970’s dad’s dealership went non-union. I will never forget what it was like, walking the picket lines with my family. The talks broke down, the union dissolved, my dad was fired.

He worked for a couple of different independent mechanic shops – but he could not make enough money, nor did he have any benefits. About this time mom, who had also worked for some auto dealerships and done miscellaneous odd jobs to help us survive over the years, started working nights as a custodian for the school district. She had to do this, the job offered benefits which my dad no longer had.

Dad was eventually hired back, at the same dealership, on the bench. On the bench means that he was once again an auto mechanic. No more ties, no more clean fingernails.

For the next 20 years dad worked as a mechanic. He finally retired, at age 65, one of the longest working employees at the dealership. He outworked the original owner’s son, who took over and retired while dad bent over cars and dolly’d under cars and had fucking computerized vehicles overtake auto mechanics (the technology changed so dramatically that the older mechanics just could not do it anymore – btw, when dad started working at the dealership, the owner’s son was still in High School.)

Meanwhile, mom worked her way up at the school district and eventually became a crew chief of a unit that went from school to school resurfacing the hardwood floors. She also worked on the board of her union, serving various volunteer positions.

After 20 years the district killed her position, dissolved her crew, and she had to take a seniority cut and go back to work in one of the schools. She worked nights for close to 30 years and put up with crap from students that no one should ever have to put up with. She was union – that is the only reason that her job was saved at all. She was union and had to put up with the crap that she did, but at least she had a job and she had benefits.

So, this whole anti-union, anti-American auto industry, Tennessee union-busting Senator, kill-the-American-dream-and-make-families-starve Bullshit really hits home. These bastards who sit in their offices making decisions that affect millions of people need to realize that these people are not numbers, they are not statistics, they are real people who are just trying to eat and take care of their families. They are trying to save their homes and be able to turn on the heat in the winter.

I remember when money was scarce and I remember not being able to turn on the heat. Luckily, for my family, we raised our own beef, had chickens for eggs, went hunting for venison in the fall, went fishing in the spring and had an enormous garden where we grew our own vegetables and had fruit trees out back. Our cellar and freezer were full – we were spoiled in that way and grateful for the plentiful food that we had…but we were always a paycheck away from losing it all. I never understood as a kid what a difference that growing and raising our food meant; not until adulthood brought grocery bills and an understanding of what my parents did.

Ya, you’re right, it is personal - I wish that it were personal for the Senators in DC.

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Sleeper Part 2?

Nothing disgusts me more than sexual abuse of kids under the age of 18. Now, a repulsive story out of Texas about sexual abuse of powerless teen males at a juvenile detention center. What bothers me the most about it, complaints were filed, test conducted, investigations carried out, "DNA samples collected" and yet, two years have passed since there has been any action on this case.

When Dwight Harris, executive director of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), appeared before the Senate Finance Committee at the Capitol on February 1 to discuss his agency’s fiscal needs for the next biennium, he came prepared for some tough questions. It has been a difficult year for the troubled agency, which oversees the system of correctional facilities for boys and young men known as state schools. Last summer, federal agents investigated allegations of abuse following a riot at the Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg. The findings of that investigation are still pending, as is a multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuit filed by several students. Statewide, the agency suffered a 48 percent turnover rate among staff last year. The recidivism rate for inmates, Harris told the panel, is hovering around 50 percent. Yet Harris was clearly not prepared when Sen. Juan Hinojosa, a Democrat from McAllen, asked about an alleged case of sex abuse by staff members at the West Texas State School in the rural town of Pyote west of Odessa.

The incident was a particularly ugly one, though few people outside the Permian Basin have ever heard of it. Following an investigation by the Texas Rangers and the FBI in February and March 2005, two of the highest-ranking officials at the school—the assistant superintendent, Ray Brookins, and the principal, John Paul Hernandez—were accused of having sexual relations with several students over an extended period. Both men denied the allegations, but investigators collected dozens of statements from students and staff, conducted polygraph tests on students, and collected DNA samples from semen-stained carpet and furniture at the school, according to a TYC inspector who assisted with the investigation. Yet there has been virtually no mention of the case in the media since the two men resigned nearly two years ago, nor have there been any arrests. Harris told the Senate panel that the investigation was closed. He also asserted it was the agency that alerted the Texas Rangers to the case and that his staff had done everything in their power to address the problems at Pyote...

Time to go after Texas Governor Rick Perry. His inaction is criminal.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick all knew about the acts of sexual violence being perpetrated on youthful offenders at the Texas Youth Commission as early as last fall.
But none bothered to act until this week.

Of course the corruption doesn't end there, our good buddy, former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales knew at the same time as Gov. Perry what was happening and did nothing.

I guess they figure that will prevent those young criminals from ever doing anything wrong again. And sick adult men in positions of power get away with criminal behavior again. A sick fucking world we live in!

h/t McCamy Taylor at DU

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What Does this Say?

Yesterday kiddo and I were working out in the yard (believe it or not our grass is still growing – I even have a very confused Easter Lily that is ready to bloom. I have covered her at night for the last month so that she does not freeze, but we did not have our first actual frost until Saturday.) Anyhow, kiddo and I were working out in the yard and he said to me:

“My friend Anthony’s mom is a big-time Democrat too. She stays in her pajamas and blogs all day when she isn’t working too…[this was not the purpose of his story – his story was actually about Anthony's shirt] …He has a t-shirt that says ‘THINK – it’s still allowed – for now’.”

What does this say? I am still not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing or if it is just a terribly funny reality.

I did not ask him if Anthony’s mom was sick as well, I just said that he should “hook us up because we would probably get along great,” (as long as we could do it via IM and not actually have to talk to each other, or anything as radical as that.)

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Taking Bets: How Long Until it is Pulled

(Picture courtesy of Whitehouse.gov via Politico. By now, though, you can probably find it all over the web...it has been out for a few hours already.)

Dubya has never been known as "bright" - he is, contrarily, quite gullible. Not bright plus very gullible, leads to pictures that one will regret for the rest of one's life.

I saw this in Politico.

The comments led me to the definition of "the shocker." Unbelievable. When I read the definition, I too, spit coffee.

If I were in college and had the opportunity to meet the Pres and get my photo taken and the President were Dubya....I imagine that I might have done the same.

Holy Fuck.

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"This Veterans Day, U.S. Soldiers Say 'Stop the War'"

An open letter from war resisters calls for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. On this day, Veteran's Day, we would like to express to the American public why we, veterans of the Global War on Terror, have chosen to refuse orders to reactivate into military service. We are direct witnesses to the horrors of this war, having experienced its atrocities at their source, and we have decided that we can no longer carry out these illegal and immoral policies. We believe that veterans and active-duty GIs are in a key position to stop illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops who stood against the war in Vietnam. One of the preeminent reasons for the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam was increasing dissent among the active-duty troops stationed abroad and at home. By the end of the war, there were entire units refusing to participate in combat, many going as far as outright mutiny. The United States learned a lesson from the Vietnam War: that it is unlikely, except in the event of self-defense, that regular civilians will execute the life-threatening orders that are given to them by military authority. The solution of policy makers was to create an all-volunteer force that negated the need for a draft. This translates into a mercenary force composed of America's disadvantaged: a sector of the U.S. demographic that is particularly susceptible to military recruitment for lack of other options and finding themselves with deployment orders again and again. To compensate for huge pitfalls in recruitment since the invasion of Iraq, the military has resorted to recalling former service members. This policy is known as "involuntary activation" and utilizes deactivated service members who still have time on their contracts in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR) to fill shortcomings in specific job specialties. The abuse and misuse of this policy has escalated under the current administration to such a degree that it can now only be viewed as a "backdoor draft" that targets the same disadvantaged individuals the military sought out for enlistment, namely because they are better at not questioning orders. However, we have now begun to question these orders. We are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and members of the IRR who have refused or will refuse any activation orders that would lead to us serving an unjust and imperial U.S. foreign policy. It is a prevailing notion that this refusal is unpatriotic, but we consider our actions the only choice. Not only did the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan do great harm to the people of those countries, but it undermined the ostensible goal with which the wars were begun: Instead of stopping terrorism, it has proliferated terrorism, an expectation that was predicted well before the war started. By refusing activation, we are refusing to participate in wars that serve the purposes of furthering the careers of politicians and high-ranking officers. We openly support other IRR members who follow in these footsteps. The military is a force that rules through fear of retribution for disobeying its will. In reality, more than a third of IRRs simply refuse to report to duty. Most of the rest report out of fear that the military will change their discharge status or prosecute them for desertion, but up to this point, prosecution has been rare. Members of the IRR are not under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and thus far, the military has had a practice of not prosecuting them with criminal charges unless they report in some form or function to activate. Very few willingly volunteer for activation. There can be no promise that President-Elect Barack Obama will stop the stressful and unfair techniques of back-to-back deployments, "stop-loss" or the "backdoor draft" that are damaging the psychology of veterans in irreparable ways. Nor that he will stop encouraging global violence by unlawful uses of force. It is in this vein that we turn to organizations like Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War and many other large-scale and grassroots organizations to solicit change in a largely unrepresentative democracy, and to allow the voices of the people to ring through the halls of the Capital. Benjamin Lewis, former Marine Corps mortarman, Iraq veteran, IRR recall resister, peace activist Brandon Neely, former U.S. Army Military police officer, Iraq veteran, IRR recall refuser.-- Benjamin Lewis and Brandon Neely

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Voter Suppression in Arizona

Yesterday, Mrs. Seven of Six and I voted early here in Arizona.

The Wife likes to get on me about my paranoia over voter suppression. Low and behold, "mi espousa", was almost ruled ineligible for voting because according to registration records, the year she was born didn't match her drivers license. She was born in 1957, somehow, in a week it miraculously changed to 1937. The thing is, I made sure to check last week, as per Anjha's orders, with the county recorders office to verify we were registered, at the time, all was copasetic.

The wife couldn't believe it, she told the fellow Hispanic female poll worker, "I've been voting in Arizona for 5 years now, all of a sudden there is a discrepancy with my date of birth?" I mumbled under my breath, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, "Voter Suppression!" The young poll worker made a call, then commented, "It must have been a typo." Right... we believe that.

Mrs. Seven was a little bit more pissed than usual. She ranted on, "What if I waited until election day to vote? Would they have been so kind as to make that phone call while hundreds waited in line?" Now my wife is convinced our Republi-con Secretary of State, Jan Brewer and Republi-con Maricopa County Recorder, Helen Purcell, are purging Hispanic Democratic voters from the rolls.

Then I pulled one of my high pitched Jon Stewart imitations, "Told you so!" She smacked me in the arm!

Cross posted at LEFT is RIGHT

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The Next Hail Mary?!

Everyone is wondering what John McCain will do next to get some attention on his floundering campaign. Why he would want attention, when getting people to actually pay attention to his idiocy always seems to backfire, is beyond me; but he wants it nonetheless.

Remember, a while ago, when the conventional wisdom was "if the election is about Obama, then he'll lose - If it is about McCain, then Obama will win." Remember that? I guess John McCain does not.

There has been a lot of talk about dropping Palin. The linked article talks about Palin's debate prep strategy, but there is a little gem buried in it:

For his part, Mr. Palin has worried about the frequent separation of his wife from her family, friends and Alaska staff, an adviser said. Accordingly, her family will be with her in Sedona during this week. Also, a key Alaska staffer joined the Palin operation Sunday.

(h/t to Mudflats for pointing this out.)

So, they might be laying the groundwork for Palin to drop out, due to "family considerations." This was the recommendation of the conservative pundit, Kathleen Parker, last week, who called for her to quit.

Pulling an Eagleton with Palin just does not seem risky enough for McCain. He seems to like those really big, really bizarre moves, or the really slimy ones.

I have a hard time believing that even the McCain/Palin campaign would be so horrible as to force a 17 year old girl into such a disgusting ploy for media attention, but, who knows anymore. I just can't imagine that they would do that to her. That quote though, supposedly from the McCain adviser, is just too much:

“It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

Gross. It is just too hard to believe.

So, my question is, what do you think will be McCain's next big move?

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Infuriating Dickheads!

We are finely starting to get some cool mornings here in Arizona, we can open up our windows and get some fresh air. Get my "cup of Joe", sit down and read my paper, relax, turn on the tube... what do I see reported from CNN... a 2 minute segment being done on an article I just read about from the Christian Science Monitor.

What a dickhead John Roberts... reporting the story on conservative preacher dickheads who support dickhead, John McCain!

Pulpit politics: Pastors to defy IRS
Some plan to endorse a candidate Sunday, challenging federal rules that limit partisan activity by tax-exempt groups.

During sermons this Sunday, some 35 pastors across the country will tell their congregations which presidential candidate they should vote for, "

Their endorsements represent a direct challenge to federal tax law, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan political activity.

The clergy have embraced that risk, hoping their actions will trigger an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, which would then enable a Christian legal advocacy group to take the IRS to court and challenge the constitutionality of the ban.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal group based in Arizona, recruited the pastors for "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" to press their claim that the IRS tax code violates the free speech of religious leaders.

"I have a First Amendment right to say whatever I want to say, and I've never thought it was appropriate that as a pastor I could not share my political concerns with the congregation," says the Rev. Gus Booth, pastor at Warroad Community Church in Warroad, Minn.

Mr. Booth will endorse Sen. John McCain on Sunday, and has already told his congregation that as Christians, they could not vote for Sen. Barack Obama due to his position on abortion.

MIXING RELIGION AND POLITICS

For other clergy – and legal experts – this is not a question of free speech, but an act contrary to the law that could also be dangerous for religion, potentially dividing and politicizing congregations.

"This is not a free speech issue," says the Rev. Eric Williams, pastor of North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. "Any person, including a pastor, can endorse a candidate as a private individual. And if a church wants to do it, it can give up its tax-exempt status."

He and another Ohio pastor held a press conference Sept. 8 inviting clergy to preach against such partisan activity, and more than 100 pastors in several states did so on Sept. 21, says Mr. Williams.

The Ohio pastors also sent a complaint to the IRS requesting an investigation of the ADF and whether its initiative violated its charity status. They had the support of three former IRS officials who criticized the ADF for encouraging clergy to violate the law by endorsing political candidates.

According to the ADF, this is not about endorsing candidates, but about protecting religious expression and about who regulates what is said from the pulpit.

"We believe the decision about whether to address candidates should rest with the pastor and congregation, not the government," says Erik Stanley, the ADF's senior legal counsel.

This is religious speech, not political speech, because the pastors evaluate candidates in light of the Scripture, he says.

The prohibition against partisan activity by charitable groups was enacted by Congress in 1954, and the statute has been upheld in the courts. In three cases, courts have concluded it does not violate the Constitution's free speech clause, according to Robert Tuttle, professor of law and religion at George Washington University in Washington.

In a national poll released in August, two-thirds of American adults say that churches should not come out in favor of one political candidate over another. The Pew poll shows widespread agreement, including among Republicans and white Evangelicals (both at 64 percent).

Also, under the IRS rules, clergy are free to discuss any issues of public concern in their sermons, and houses of worship can engage in nonpartisan voter-registration and civic education.

PREVIOUS CHALLENGES FAILED

At various times, bills have been introduced in Congress attempting to change or repeal the rule limiting partisan activity – most recently in 2004 – but they have not passed.

The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance (IA) in Washington, D.C., sees the current initiative as part of a political strategy.

"It is not accidental that the people who want the church to take on a political identity are the people who argue there's no separation of church and state in the Constitution and that there's been a misinterpretation of religious liberty all along," he says.

In response to the ADF's initiative, the IA launched a campaign to have clergy sign a six-point pledge to uphold standards of nonpartisanship during the election campaign. Several hundred of them have done so.

"As a minister, I want religion in this nation to have the credibility, integrity, and authority to be a force for reconciliation and healing, for bringing a divided nation together, not contributing to further divisiveness," Dr. Gaddy says.

If houses of worship became "bastions of political partisanship, that would be a blow to the positive power of religion."

Mr. Booth disagrees, saying that "absolutely" churches should be able to engage in political activity, since the Bible calls for taking the gospel into every aspect of life.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which mails letters to churches alerting them to the IRS rules and has reported alleged violators to the IRS, issued a warning that, "Taking part in this reckless stunt is a one-way ticket to loss of tax exemption."

The IRS says its first goal has always been education on the issue. It plans to "monitor the situation and take action as appropriate."

These shitbirds want their congregation to vote for John McCain, fine, put your money where your mouth is. Doesn't matter that McCain's running mate believes dinosaurs and man walked the earth together 6,000 years ago. Pay the fucking piper... in these days of current financial crisis we need the federal coffers filled from law breaking souls.

I couldn't agree more with Rev. Eric Williams, say what you want, just be willing to give up your "tax exempt status". And a big shout out to Rev. C. Welton Gaddy for pointing out it's "political strategy" and "As a minister, I want religion in this nation to have the credibility, integrity, and authority to be a force for reconciliation and healing, for bringing a divided nation together, not contributing to further divisiveness..." YA THINK!

OK, now that I have it out of my system... I'm going back to enjoying my pleasant morning, my "cup of Joe", read the paper in peace, probably go outside and enjoy the cool breeze (70's), turn off the boob tube and ignore the infuriating dickheads!

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"(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)"

With a big hat tip to iamcoyote, the republi-con hyprocisy is in high gear. (my highlights)

MINNEAPOLIS-- As residents of New Orleans were fleeing Hurricane Gustav, top Republican party officials donned pink boas and swigged vodka shots at a wild whirl of corporate and lobbyist-paid parties this weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Many corporate sponsors and their lobbyists carried through with plans for lavish entertainment of GOP lawmakers and others despite calls from the campaign of Sen. John McCain that Republicans should tone down the convention festivities.

"We will be contacting corporations and others to ask them to be respectful of events in the gulf," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Sunday afternoon.

Yet, last night lobbyists for the National Rifle Association, Lockheed Martin and the American Trucking Association put on a raucus six-hour party at a downtown bar featuring music by the band "Hookers and Blow." There was no evidence of any actual prostitutes or cocaine.

No night off for these republi-con party animals... I'm convinced they were glad the convention got curtailed by an act of God!

And yes, after what this country has been put through for the last 8 years, I'm an intolerant liberal blogger.

One observant Democratic challenger was ready to go... as pointed out by DvilleDem at Daily Kos.

Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA), a GOP House deputy whip, was seen meeting with a group of lobbyists, who bemoaned McCain's call to tone down the parties which had already been paid for...

On the Sept. 1st Broadcast of ABC’s World News Tonight however, the Congressman can be seen arguing with reporters, fighting for his right to party.

Shuster’s opponent in the 9th Congressional district Tony Barr made the following statement. "We are saddened but not really all that shocked. At a time when the citizens of the Gulf Coast and literally running for their lives, and citizens here in the 9th District are feeling the pinch of an economy floundered by the policies of George Bush and Bill Shuster, where is our Congressman? Holding court with lobbyists who advocate the same failed polices that got us into this mess in the first place. At a time when drugs and drug related crime are the scourge of our streets, there’s Bill Shuster, partying with "hookers and blow!"

I can't wait for the pictures of this party.

UPDATE: Now we know why ATA was supporting a republi-con convention party. ATA (American Trucking Association) will support higher fuel taxes. The bastards...

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Family Values

Family values means "supporting" your 17-year-old daughter's "decision" to follow through with an unplanned pregnancy and get married. Married at 17.

Bizarre. Forced motherhood has never felt like "family values" to me.

"Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,"

"Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family," she said.

Realize "very quickly" indeed. Who is really getting "punished" in this deal? The kid who has to "grow up too quick" or the baby who has to be raised by the kid who has to grow up too quick?

UPDATE: BTW Palin opposed sex ed. (obviously)

And, Obama says stay out of it to all of us. I agree for the most part. But the hypocrisy is stunning.

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Submitted Without Comment

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