Joe Biden Needs To Stop Whining

I heartily recommend the Vice President take his own advice to the Democratic base: Stop Whining.  I have a lot of respect for Joe Biden.  He’s not perfect, but he’s done some good things in his time as a public servant.  But on this issue, he needs to refocus his message.  He needs to be angry at the Republican Tea Party (love his framing on that, btw) and channel his bases’ anger toward the extremists who would destroy our democracy.

Vice President Biden, President Obama, Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Reid, among others, promised the Democratic base real and substantive change in the 2008 election.  I raised my tiny voice at the time pointing out that in the face of Con promises to wreck Obama’s presidency by fighting him for every 1/4″ the President wanted, the President simply couldn’t deliver on what he was saying.  Obama was elected and the country largely expected that real and substantive change to start taking effect.  We all knew it wouldn’t be done in 3 months, or 6 or 21.  But we wanted solid steps on the way toward the change we were told to expect.

What we got instead was largely pre-emptive capitulation by Democrats, behind the lead of President Obama, that led to months and months and months and months of false negotiations between Democrats and the Republican Teabaggers.  One party kept their campaign promise: the Republicans.  They have abused rules in the Senate to bring work in the people’s government nearly to a halt.  What repurcussions have they faced for this abuse?  None, they wear their obstructionist credentials like honor badges.

Of all the Democratic leadership, only one segment of government under Democratic control kept their promises: the House.  Nancy Pelosi has done a stunning job keeping her diverse members together when it counted most, passing literally hundreds of bills that the cowardly Sen. Reid refuses to take up, because he can’t find 1 or 2 Republican Teabaggers to cross the aisle and pass legislation that enjoys majority support from every American demographic.  Unfortunately, it is the more progressive House that will suffer for Reid’s gross mismanagement.  The House is liklier to switch control to the Republican Teabaggers than is the Senate.  The result of which, I’m afraid, will be no change in how Senate Democrats approach governance in the next session.

What the Democratic base wanted all along, V.P. Biden, is at a minimum votes on bills in the Senate.  If elected Democrats had at least shown the base they were trying to pass legislation, but couldn’t because of Con abuse of Senate rules, the Democratic base would by now be extremely motivated to crush the Republican Teabaggers at the polls in November.  If President Obama had decided to use his oversized bully pulpit to extoll the virtues of his agenda, the base would be far more motivated than is the case.  But as usual, Democratic politicians decided to run away from the Cons on issue after issue, pass a pittance of the change we were told was coming and the President chose to show Americans how much more he wanted a label of “bipartisanship” on his legacy than progressive legislative success.  And now we’re being told to “Stop Whining.”

If the Democratic base doesn’t show up this November, I honestly think the unbelievably crappy Democratic “leadership” deserves most of the blame.  The base didn’t convince politicians to run away from the issues in the face of extremist tactics and messaging.  The current crop of top-level Democratic politicians and advisers aren’t that much different than they were during the Clinton years.  Unfortunately for the Democratic base, we’re not getting results that are much different than they were during the Clinton years.  You would have thought that these numb-skulls would have learned their lesson after the debacle of the 1994 election.  They haven’t, and as such are destined to repeat 1994.  Redirect your anger toward your colleagues, V.P. Biden.  Get them to do the work they were hired and are being paid to do.  If you don’t want to do that, keep your unwanted advice on your D.C. cocktail circuit.  You risk frustrating your “base” even further and giving away needed Congressional seats to the Republican Teabaggers you say are extremists.

Boehner, Geithner, Obama and Firings

One thing I didn’t see mentioned in any of the recent discussions about Rep. Boehner’s idiotic demands that President Obama fire Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; the head of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, and other members of Obama’s economic team.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I didn’t think Geithner or Summers should have been in the administration in the first place.  Much like my warnings about the dangers the neocons posed back in 2000 when Bush was putting them in charge, the pro-Wall Streeters shouldn’t have been put in charge of an economic team for this President.  At least not if changing our economic policies and practices were on the President’s agenda.  Since they were, it was clear early on that Obama wasn’t serious about stopping the upward transfer of wealth that has characterized this nation’s last couple of generations.  Or holding the gamblers on Wall St. accountable for nearly destroying the largest economy in the world.

No, Rep. Boehner’s demands were absurd because he’s concern trolling.  He would much rather see President Obama seem to fall flat on his economic face than actually ensure the economy worked for anybody but the richest 1%.  Anything Boehner can appear to do to throw up roadblocks, Boehner will do.

But here’s the part I haven’t seen discussed.  If Geithner, Summers or any of the other people Boehner is calling Obama on to fire were nearly anybody but who they were, the White House would have fired them already.  Think that sounds crazy?  What happened to Van Jones?  He was an expert in his field.  But based on a right-wing manufactured controversy, he lost his post.  What happened to Shirley Sherrod?  She was successful in her job.  But again, based on a right-wing manufactured controversy, she lost that job.  Quicker than Van Jones lost his, by the way.

What, oh what do these two have in common that Geithner and Summers don’t?  Geithner and Summers are theoretically doing the job they’re being asked to do, despite the negative effects on most Americans.  What could it be?  Could it be that both Geithner and Summers are white while Van Jones and Sherrod are black?  Does anybody seriously think that if Geithner and Summers were black and Boehner or anybody else on the fringe right were demanding that they be fired, regardless of how absurd that demand was, that they wouldn’t be fired.  I sure don’t think so.

Foreign Policy & Slippery Slopes

The recent Mumbai attacks led Tom Brokaw to pose a very serious question to Barack Obama.  Obama’s response is worth examining.  Here’s the exchange:

MR. BROKAW:  I want to move now to international affairs, the war on terror. Obviously, we have all been stunned by what happened in India at Mumbai.  It is still playing out in that part of the world.  You have said that the United States reserves the right to go after terrorists in Pakistan if you have targets of opportunity.  Does India now also have that right of hot pursuit?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA:  Well, I’m not going to comment on that.  What, what I’m going to restate is a basic principle.  Number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself.  I think that’s universally acknowledged.

The acceptance of the Bush Doctrine by Democrats will continue to stymie Democrats foreign policy for years to come.  It stymied what should have been an otherwise straightforward answer by Obama.  Common wisdom inside the D.C. punditry will compare everything Obama does to Bush’s policies because Obama and other prominent Democrats didn’t speak out forcefully against them during the past six years plus.  When Democrats didn’t speak out against them, I wondered why.  Would it be because they agree with it but don’t want to be seen as similary lawless and morally bankrupt as the Cons have been?  Obama’s response tells me that that very well could be the case.

He did comment on that by stating that country’s can respond to attacks, much like the U.S. did after 9/11.  He didn’t qualify his answer to indicate that any response would arise from moral underpinnings.  His answer is disturbing.  The U.S. should in no way encourage Indian and Pakistani tesnsions to escalate.  Both have nuclear weapons.  A nuclear disaster should be avoided at all costs.  Any oblique non-response to Brokaw’s question moves the world further down a slippery slope we shouldn’t be on.  Russia recently identified the Bush Doctrine as an open door to their invasion of Georgia earlier this year.  How many cases should be allowed to happen before the policy is emphatically rejected by Obama and other future U.S. Presidents?

***

Also in foreign policy news, the planned strategic deployment of Marines in Afghanistan is likely to change.  Instead of being posted close to the Afghan/Pakistan border, some Marines will instead be posted closer to Kabul, the capital.  That’s in response to this year’s Taliban advancements through Afghanistan.  It’s a situation that deteriorates every day.  President-elect Obama won’t have enough troops available to him to sufficiently take care of events in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  One has to take priority.  To boot, Bush is leaving Obama a severely depleted military – personnel and materiel have been significantly weakened.

Official Pronouncements: Recession and Secretary of State

I’m back after some time away from blogging.  Lots of things were made official today.  We’re in a recession.  Sen. Hillary Clinton is President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of State.  There are others, but those two stand out in the news to me today.

It’s interesting to me that the National Bureau of Economic Research, the group charged with assigning official starts and ends to U.S. recessions, waited until Dec 1, 2008 to announce the beginning of this recession.  When did it begin?  December of 2007: one year ago.  What numbers did they look at in the past three months that didn’t exist in the previous nine that pushed them over the threshold?  I’m sure the 2008 election had nothing to do with the timing.  So George W. Bush presided over the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Bush’s recession has been apparent to most Americans for most of this year.  Which is the biggest reason why John McCain didn’t win last month.

CNN’s recession article upset me with this:

Many people erroneously believe that a recession is defined by two consecutive quarters of economic activity declining.

I read article after article in the past six months on CNN’s website how it was unlikely a recession had started because economic activity hadn’t been negative for two consecutive quarters.  And CNN wasn’t the only corporate “news” source that dispensed that talking point.  The fact that they ignored their own reporting is very disappointing.  I also remember articles treating most Americans as idiots when American’s confidence fell through the floor.  Citing the misleading “two consecutive quarter” talking point, economists and reporters attempted to portray Americans as out of touch with America.  We just didn’t understand what was going on with the economy.  Our economic oppressors were wrong for months and the rest of us have suffered more because of it.

Onto Sen. Clinton’s nomination to be Obama’s Secretary of State.  I don’t think it’s a good idea.  I think Hillary and Bill Clinton are in politics for themselves first and for Americans second.  I didn’t trust Hillary to be President.  I don’t trust her to be Secretary of State.  I have no specific example of what I think she’ll do to subvert Obama’s agenda at this time, something a lot of liberals online and on the radio are asking for in response to people who don’t think this was the Greatest. Idea. Ever.  I’m not sure how this really qualifies as “change”, the amorphous feel-good motto of Obama’s campaign.  Do most Presidents nominate people that didn’t run against them for office?  I think so and I think that’s happened with good reason.  I can think of a number of candidates that I would have felt more comfortable with for Secretary of State.  Those candidates could have been characterized as change agents, whereas Hillary cannot.

Actually, while I’m on the subject, what about Secretary of War Robert Gates?  Who nominated him?  George Bush!  Obama is going to keep him in place.  The main reasoning I’ve heard behind this makes even less sense than the Clinton nomination.  It seems the War Secretary needs to stay on to provide an effective transition between Bush’s policies and Obama’s policies.  Say what?  In nearly every arena, Obama’s policies will be a U-turn from Bush’s policies.  What is so challenging about the War Department that requires a continuation of failed policy enactment?  No, the truth is likely to be that Obama came under tremendous pressure to stay the course with respect to the Iraq occupation.  I expect Obama to continue to call for a reasonable cessation of the occupation of Iraq.  I would not be surprised however to hear about a change in his plans.  I hope that Iraq’s recent call for occupation forces to leave by Jan. 1, 2011 will provide strong pressure to maintain his campaign’s occupation cessation talk.  The American people voted to move in a different direction than the one we’ve been on under Bush.  Gates was a part of Bush’s direction.  There is no reason to keep him as War Secretary under an Obama administration.

Iraqi Bombings

Recent days has seen a dramatic uptick in explosions in Baghdad.

In the first nine days of November, there were at least 19 bombings in Baghdad, compared with 28 for all of October and 22 in September, according to an Associated Press tally.

The story is written from the perspective that it’s somehow amazing such things are happening, given the preceding decrease in violence across Iraq. The corporate media typically ignores the real causes of that decrease: U.S. payments to local Iraqi militias to not attack U.S. troops; ethnic cleansing throughout Baghdad that included mass movements of both Sunnis and Shiites to more “pure” neighborhoods; Moqtada al-Sadr’s temporary truce against American forces. The escalation of the U.S. occupation had little to do with the decrease in violence.

Additionally, and this is something the corporate media almost seems to get correct, the U.N. mandate authorizing the U.S. occupation is due to expire at the end of December. The U.S. is working to extend that authorization and a number of groups within Iraq are working to prevent that from occurring.

The occupation needs to end – the sooner the better. Americans don’t want to occupy Iraq anymore. Iraqis don’t want their country to be occupied anymore. Staying there serves less of a purpose than honest, intense diplomacy across the region – something the Bush “administration” has steadfastly put on the back-burner. I anticipate a different approach by the Obama administration. Having Obama’s team in charge tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.

Election Day Results – The Day After

A number of little snippets of interesting information are being generated.  The same thing happens after every election.  Different analyses and comparisons are performed.  Their relative importance and discussion then help to generate Conventional Wisdom.  Sometimes it’s correct and sometimes it’s not.  Here are some updated results from all manner of contests along with some analyses I’ve seen.

As of 5:30P MDT, Barack Obama has won with 52% of the national vote, compared to 46% for John McCain.  That 6% is significant.  Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and got only 3% more than Kerry in 2004.  Barack Obama has “won” 349 electoral college votes so far, compared to 162 for John McCain.  That’s called an @$$ whooping, plain and simple.  There are three areas that are not final yet: MO, NC and NE-2.  If the current leads hold up, Obama would win NC’s 15 EVs, McCain would win MO’s 11 EVs and McCain would win NE-2′s 1 EV.  That would generate a 364-174 total.  That’s more than 2-1, which is quite impressive.  Moreover, McCain won’t win a single state Kerry won in 2004, while Obama has made serious inroads across the country into states Bush won.  Those include OH, IA, IN (!!!), VA, FL, CO, NM, NV (and maybe NC).  Obama put the South and Mountain West in play.  So far, Obama has garnered 63,859,336 votes compared to McCain’s 56,377,274 votes.  Now, McCain did get a lot of votes, there’s no doubt about that.  But it’s 6,000,000 fewer than Bush got in 2004, while Obama’s total is 5,000,000 more.  That’s an 11,000,000 vote differential out of 122,000,000 cast (1/11th).  There are still votes out there to be counted, so these total will shift around for days.

Democrats so far have picked up 5 Senate seats: in NC, VA, NH, CO and NM.  Republican candidates currently lead in GA and AK (seriously?  AK voters want a convicted felon representing them?!) and MN (very, very narrowly) while a Democrat leads in OR.  Georgia could very well go to a recount.  MN is very likely to go to a recount.  AK and OR need some more votes counted.  It might take weeks to get all these races sorted out.  Even if the races break 3-1 R-D, Democrats will have 55 Senators and Republicans will have 43.  After hyping their “bipartisanship” up so much on the campaign trail, Republicans have an opportunity they really meant it.  I have no doubt those 43 Con Senators will do everything in their power to slow down or halt President-elect Barack Obama’s agenda. There is also the little annoying problem of Sen. Lieberman.  He definitely deserves to be removed from his Committee Chairmanship.  If he wants to support the Republican so badly, let him do it.  He’ll only make himself that much more irrelevant.  I should also mention the fact that a President Obama could easily tap a Senator or two to replace someone should they accept a position in his administration.  For that matter, IL and DE need new freshmen Senators.

Democrats have also picked up 18 seats in the House so far.  That gives them 254 votes right now.  A number of races still need to have all their votes counted or are waiting to occur in the next month or so.  The final numbers will wait until then.  Republicans are looking at a substantial sub-200 member caucus.  Again, substantial gains in the Rocky Mountain West were gained.  New political realities are making themselves known.

One of the interesting analyses that I’ve come across is the change in voting pattern per county between 2004 and 2008.  22% of U.S. counties voted more Republican in 2008 than in 2004.  They can be easily described: counties in AZ and AK (duh), OK, AR, LA and west of Appalachia went more Republican this year.  The remainder of the country, 78% of it voted more Democratic in 2008 than in 2004.  That’s freaking awesome!  This country is not center-right, as the corporate media and Cons would have us believe.  The country is actually moderate to left-leaning.  It’s not the country’s fault uber-Cons took over the Republican party, pushing it further and further right year after year, decade after decade.  It’s those folks who can point to Democrats and complain about how liberal they are.  When they’re that extreme right, it makes sense that Democrats are more liberal than they are.  The question is: which group advocates for policies that a majority of Americans actually support?  The 2008 election has shown us that when you engage more Americans, Democratic positions clearly match their goals.

There is plenty more to point out and discuss.  As time permits, I’ll do so.

Election Day Results

[Update 11:50p]: Likely my last update tonight.  I have another all-day meeting tomorrow that will be brutal to sit through if I stay up any longer.  I’m watching a couple of numbers: IN, OH, VA, NC, FL Presidential numbers.  The vote differential in these states (O-M) at this time stand at: 23,000 (IN), 160,000 (OH w/ 83% precincts reporting), 121,000 (VA), 12,000 (NC), 200,000 (FL).  If these differentials don’t change, that’s an additional 25 electoral votes (IN & NC); OH, VA, FL have been called already.  But these are small vote differentials.  The fact that these five states have likely voted for Obama is amazing.  A whole lot of blue has been painted over the country tonight.

[Update 11:30P]:

A clear trend has emerged: Coloradans don’t want to amend their Constitution.
A46: 50%-49% (N-Y)
A47: 55%-44% (N-Y)
A48: 73%-26% (N-Y)
A49: 60%-39% (N-Y)
A50: 58%-41% (N-Y)
A51: 62%-37% (N-Y)
A52: 63%-36% (N-Y)
A54: 48%-51% (N-Y) the only one so far
A58: 57%-42% (N-Y)
A59: 55%-44% (N-Y)

[Update 11:15P]: The b.s. spin by Cons has begun on CNN.  This election did not bring in a new set of conservative Democrats to Congress.  It brought in a set of Democrats that are proud of being Democrats; proud of being liberal.  America is a more liberal country than it is a conservative country.  The corporate media has, unfortunately, spun a very different story to the American people for too long.  Americans want solutions to the climate crisis, the occupation of Iraq, the economic crisis, the health care crisis, etc.  Americans tonight quite clearly rejected the failed Con policies of the past 30 years.  They want to move in a very different direction.  That means that Obama doesn’t need to cater to the right-wing extremists that have taken over the Republican party.  He should interact honestly with moderate and liberal Republicans, because they more accurately represent more Americans.  The pundits will try their darndest to move Obama to the right over the next four years.  It is up to the 3 million+ donors to Obama’s campaign and his 55 million voters (so far) to ensure he stays true to what he ran on during this election.

[Update 10:45P]: President-elect Obama had another outstanding speech.  America did not vote for fear or anger this year.  America voted for opportunity and equality.  I didn’t keep good track of the state-by-state electoral vote calculations, but Obama has 338 to McCain’s 156 right now.  Again, Obama has garnered more electoral college votes than Bush did the past two elections.  Obama has also taken the lead in Indiana, which has 11 electoral college votes as well as North Carolina, which has 15 electoral college votes.  Obama is behind in Missouri currently, which also has 11 electoral votes.  I don’t expect final results from Missouri for quite some time – tomorrow at the earliest.  They have some repressive voting rules, unfortunately.  Obama currently leads in Montana, which only has 3 votes, but would represent a major political coup if he can win there.

Senator-elect Udall’s lead is 53%-43%.
Polis’ lead is 60%-36%.
Markey’s lead is 56%-43%.  Post calls it for Markey.

Republican’s ceilings in Colorado seems to be 43-45%.

Unfortunately, Amendment 58 didn’t get passed.  If it passed, oil and gas corporations would have paid the taxes they owe to the state, instead of using a loophole to avoid doing so.

[Update 9:00P]: CNN just called the race for Obama nationally.  I cannot believe what I’m hearing.  I’ve waited 8 long years to see a Democratic President elected.  I hope this result holds.  CNN has projected 297 electoral votes for Obama, 139 for McCain.  Those 297 are more than Bush received in 2004 or 2000.  Let’s start talking about mandates, shall we?

[Update 8:25P]: Obama is up in Colorado 55%-42% with 16% of precincts reporting.  Mark Udall is up by a similar margin: 55%-40%.

[Update 7:45P]: Dropping down into Colorado, Mark Udall is performing well in early returns versus Bob Schaffer: Udall is up 50%-39% with 8% of precincts reporting.  Betsy Markey is ahead of Marilyn Musgrave 61%-39% with 31% of precincts reporting for CO-04.  So far, it’s about 93,989 votes to 61,041 votes. In CO-02, a race I worked on this year, Democrat Jared Polis is leading his wing-nut Republican opponent 67%-30% with 9% of precincts reporting.  So far, the vote totals are 36,554-16,117.  Jared is going to make an awesome Representative.

CNN has called LA and KS for McCain.  No surprises.  Still no path toward success with PA and OH being called for Obama.

[Update 7:15P MST]: A number of states have been called.  I’ve been tooling around on interactive sites so far tonight while watching CNN, which is doing a pretty good job overall.  A couple of early calls, in my opinion, which I’ll get into later.  I’ll start with states called for each candidate.  Obama has: ME, NH, VT, RI, CT, MA, NJ, MD, DE, NY, NJ, IL and PA.  I can’t believe they’ve called PA already.  I expect Obama to win it eventually, but I’d like more actual votes to come in.  Oh well.  McCain has: SC, KY, TN, OK.  That’s it.

Obama has had some additional states called: MI, WI, MN, and DC.  No surprises there.  McCain got some more also: AL, AK, and WY.  Right now, Obama’s electoral vote lead is 175-52.  Obama needs 95 more votes.

CNN gave McCain ND.  I wouldn’t have done that.  Obama was polling very well in ND for a Democrat, coming up with right around 50% of the vote in a traditionally deep-red state.  It’s not going to make much difference in the electoral collage, but it’s a big swath of red that could change blue.  We won’t know until all the votes are counted.

—–

I’ll update this as the afternoon shifts to evening.  Polls likely just closed in portions of IN & KY.  A number of states’ polls could close within the hour.  I haven’t yet heard of any news reports of polls being ordered to stay open later.  I’m also not aware of any long lines in the eastern states.  If you haven’t voted yet, get out there and get it done!  Nothing is set in stone until you make your own voice heard.  I voted early.

11/3/08: Election Eve

Tomorrow (still 11:10P MST) is Election Day, 2008.  It’s been a long, hard slog getting here.  I’ve been more involved with elections at multiple levels for a couple of years now.  Barack Obama won’t be the perfect President.  Mark Udall won’t be a perfect Senator.  And on down the line.  But in each case, the Democratic candidate is better than their Con counterpart.  Conservatism has failed.  The worst part to that truth is it will take unimaginable work to correct the mistakes of the past 30 years.  That work will be made all the harder by Cons who will continue to bleat about their failed policies.  Cons will invoke fear and smear everybody in their way in a constant barrage starting Nov. 5, no matter what tomorrow’s outcome is.

I want Obama to win the election.  I want Democrats to expand their majorities in both the Senate and House.  I want the government to take serious steps to address climate change, which I consider to be the absolute most important issue we’ll face in the entire 21st century.  I know the Cons would continue Business As Usual, which will destroy the planet as we know it.  I hope Democrats take the necessary action.  It will be my effort and the effort of countless others to ensure they do.

I think Obama will win.  The question at this point, I think, is by how much.  By what percentage will he beat McCain?  What will the popular vote total differential be?  How many electoral votes will he garner?  How effective will the Cons’ vote suppression techniques be?

Tomorrow will likely see the beginning of a new era.  I can’t wait for it.

Look at the Language

As Republicans at every level across the country find themselves behind, and in some cases way behind, their Democratic opponents, they’re resorting to increasingly violent outbursts that are clearly based on their narrow worldview.

Those outbursts have unfortunately become familiar to all of us: racial tensions obviously underlie attacks against Barack Obama; ideology forms the basis of attacks on economic policies (even if R’s have become schizophrenic about them).

Races in Colorado are no different.  They merely have their own unique facet of the larger worthless rock that the Republican party represents.  I read an article covering Sarah “Socialism” Palin’s visit to the rabid Republican base found in Colorado Springs.  One piece of language in that article caught my attention.

Here is the Rocky Mountain News article.  Here is the quote (emphasis mine):

“This race for the presidency – and my race for the Senate – is all about one thing: It’s about whether we choose freedom and liberty or bureaucracy and bondage,” [Bob] Schaffer told a cheering Colorado Springs crowd.

Schaffer has said some incredibly stupid things this election cycle.  His campaign manager (perhaps the real candidate, depending), Dick Wadhams, has a resume chock full of campaigns whose candidates all too willingly share their … fringe views with potential voters.  But including the word “bondage” in a description of what the presidential race is about while one of the candidates is half-African is particularly tasteless.  It was not included by accident, either.

Republicans this election season have been left to run with what remains of their base: those most prone to their fear-mongering.  They have to pander hard to those who are most scared of foreigners with different skin color, to those who think they’re frightened of “socialism”, to those who are scared of anything resembling change.

Thus, we see Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s rant about pro- and anti-american members of the House, which smacks of McCarth-ism in all its depravity.  Thus, we see Rep. Robin Hayes challenging Bachmann to go even further with her hate speech by saying “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God”.  Thus, we see Bob Schaffer using the word bondage, pushing the buttons of racists in an effort to invoke feelings of victimization among his extremist base.

Schaffer, McCain, Palin, Bachmann, Hayes and the rest of the loonies on the right are letting voters know exactly who they really are.  They’re offering up continual proof of their fringe attitudes.  Unsurprisingly, they’re still bleating about the “bias in the librul media”.  Despite their best efforts over the past 30 years, 50-70% of Americans aren’t as extreme as they want them to be.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Around the Blogosphere 10/21/08

Matt Stoller did an analysis of League of Conseration Voters endorsement patterns of incumbent Democrats and Republicans.  The result: it looks as though Democrats must reach a higher lifetime LCV score to receive an endorsement than Republicans.  Does LCV include Republicans, even though their voting patterns aren’t as strong as Democrats, just to appear bipartisan?  Is there a similar trend with other single-issue advocacy groups?  CONservative groups aren’t shy about discriminating against Democrats.  Think of the NRA.  A Democrat would have to be very conservative before the NRA endorsed them in a race.  Now think of NARAL.  They continually endorse Republicans that are anti-choice.  The progressive movement needs to do some serious self-examination moving forward.  A progressive agenda cannot be fought for and enacted when advocacy groups get behind people who don’t believe in that agenda.  LCV asks activists for money.  Activists would do well to keep track of how LCV operates when deciding whether or not to donate.  A table of Colorado officials can be found after the fold.  The LCV Scorecard can be found here.

Sarah Palin is a super-socialist.  She’s touring the country trying to scare voters into believing Barack Obama is a socialist because of his tax policy.  What kind of tax policy does Sarah Palin believe in?  A policy that dispenses tax money from oil and gas drilling to Alaskan citizens.  Is that oil and gas exclusively sold to Americans?  No, it’s sold overseas.  The rest of America then pays more for oil and gas that we buy from overseas.  So mainland U.S. consumers are paying more at the pump to give every Alaskan a $3,200 check every year.  There’s no way I’m voting for this hypocrite.

I’m voting for Barack Obama in spite of Colin Powell.  Powell continues to demonstrate he’s more interested in power than standing up for what he believes.  If Obama was behind in the polls, I doubt very seriously Powell would have endorsed him.  Powell wants Obama’s ear.  I hope Obama doesn’t give it to him.

Vote for McCain.  The last 10 seconds are hilarious!

Talk to your parents about McCain.  Some really clever videos are being produced this election cycle.

Proponents of “drill or bust” purposefully leave out an important part of reality.  In ten years time, off-shore drilling, for instance, will produce ~200,000 barrels of oil per day.  OPEC is holding an emergency meeting this Friday (three days from now) and they’re proposing to cut current production by 2,000,000 barrels per day.  OPEC wants oil to cost $70-$90 per barrel, which this year meant $3.00-$4.50 gas in America.  Any gain in supply from the U.S. will be met with cuts in supply from OPEC.  There will be no cut in oil or gas prices if we drill more.

Do you enjoy “Are You Smarter Than a 5th-Grader?”  Sarah Palin shows she can’t answer a 3rd graders’ question.

How “green” is your bathroom?

How the Banksters Made a Complete Killing Off the Bailout is a good article.  Much was made in the corporate media about how strong the oversight over the Bailout was going to be.  I didn’t trust that it would be there and the details in this article validate that view.  The Democratic-led Congress is going to own the fallout from the financial crisis.  I really hoped they would make a hard push for tough oversight.  They still can…