I wrote earlier that Obama’s favorabilities have surprisingly survived this election intact, given the amount of shit that has been flung in his direction. Part of the reason is that the GOP overreached in their attacks. While arguing that he was inexperienced could’ve gained traction pre-Palin, the stuff about being a Muslim Marxist Manchurian candidate was simply, well, ludicrous.
If you want to take a look at their reasoning, I recommend the work of Stanley Kurtz over at the National Review…
Stanley Kurtz being the guy who doctored up marriage statistics from Scandiavian countries so he could claim that legal same-sex marriage resulted in the decline of heterosexual marriages and that children were being raised mostly by unmarried parents now. Over at Slate, associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and research director of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, M. V. Lee Badgett shows how Kurtz did it…
Despite what Kurtz might say, the apocalypse has not yet arrived. In fact, the numbers show that heterosexual marriage looks pretty healthy in Scandinavia, where same-sex couples have had rights the longest. In Denmark, for example, the marriage rate had been declining for a half-century but turned around in the early 1980s. After the 1989 passage of the registered-partner law, the marriage rate continued to climb; Danish heterosexual marriage rates are now the highest they’ve been since the early 1970’s. And the most recent marriage rates in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all higher than the rates for the years before the partner laws were passed. Furthermore, in the 1990s, divorce rates in Scandinavia remained basically unchanged.
Of course, the good news about marriage rates is bad news for Kurtz’s sky-is-falling argument. So, Kurtz instead focuses on the increasing tendency in Europe for couples to have children out of wedlock. Gay marriage, he argues, is a wedge that is prying marriage and parenthood apart.
The main evidence Kurtz points to is the increase in cohabitation rates among unmarried heterosexual couples and the increase in births to unmarried mothers. Roughly half of all children in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are now born to unmarried parents. In Denmark, the number of cohabiting couples with children rose by 25 percent in the 1990s. From these statistics Kurtz concludes that " … married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon," and—surprise—he blames gay marriage.
But Kurtz’s interpretation of the statistics is incorrect. Parenthood within marriage is still the norm—most cohabitating couples marry after they start having children. In Sweden, for instance, 70 percent of cohabiters wed after their first child is born. Indeed, in Scandinavia the majority of families with children are headed by married parents. In Denmark and Norway, roughly four out of five couples with children were married in 2003. In the Netherlands, a bit south of Scandinavia, 90 percent of heterosexual couples with kids are married.
That’s a higher rate then some states here in America. Mostly bible belt states. But look at this. First Kurtz gerrymanders the marriage statistics in Scandinavia by including time frames when it was declining Prior to the passage of same sex civil unions, to prove that those civil unions had an adverse affect on heterosexual marriage. In fact, after civil unions passed heterosexual marriage rates Improved. But that wasn’t enough. Kurtz also pointed out the fact that many heterosexual couples have their first kid out of wedlock, deliberately omitting the fact that they almost always marry afterward, in order to lead people to believe that there was some sort of massive population of kids living with unmarried parents in Scandinavia now. That this conclusion is absolutely false, that you can only arrive at it by concealing the fact that most parents do in fact marry after their child is born, mattered nothing to Kurtz. He had something to prove, and damn the evidence. This is what passes for virtue and morality among social conservatives.
Now he’s peddling the Obama is a marxist and/or muslim terrorist claptrap. How…unsurprising…
Mark Weigel reads a note from the kook pews, and takes it apart…line by line…
Another question yet to be resolved is whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States, a prerequisite pursuant to the U.S. Constitution. There is evidence Mr. Obama was born in Kenya rather than, as he claims, Hawaii.
What evidence? We have a newspaper announcement of Obama’s birth in Hawai’i from 1961, and we have a Hawai’ian certificate of live birth. Obama did have Kenyan citizenship until he turned 21; as the son of Barack Obama, Sr, it was automatic. And it did not negate his American citizenship.
There is also a registration document for a school in Indonesia where the would-be president studied for four years, on which he was identified not only as a Muslim but as an Indonesian.
Here’s the document. It does identify Obama as a Muslim and identifies Indonesia as his "nation of citizenship," but that’s what his parents wrote down on their seven-year old son’s school form. If Gaffney thinks this negates Obama’s American citizenship, he doesn’t understand the law.
If correct, the latter could give rise to another potential problem with respect to his eligibility to be president.
Completely false. The document lists Honolulu as Obama’s "place and date of birth."
Curiously, Mr. Obama has, to date, failed to provide an authentic birth certificate which could clear up the matter.
False. I’ll link it again. Unless Gaffney believes that the state of Hawai’i is forging documents for Obama, this is proof that he was born in Honolulu.
This is fever swamp, Vince Foster-was-murdered, Bush-blew-up-the-WTC stuff…
Yes…isn’t it. Oh…but look…it isn’t some babbling nutcase churning this stuff out from his parent’s basement…
Neoconservative pundit Frank Gaffney, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense, has bid adieu to polite society with this column on "the Jihadist vote."
Let me repeat that: Former Deputy Assistant Secretary Of Defense. These are the folks who have been running the country for the past, oh, Eight Years. The debacles that are Iraq, Katrina and the national economy starting to make sense now? Here…let me explain something to you… No…Wait… Let Them explain something to you…
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
This isn’t just the heart of the Bush presidency…it’s the heart of the republican grassroots. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore”… Actually…yes it is…
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. They are not entitled to their own facts. Lies have consequences. The erosion of trust has consequences. You can’t just keep on making things up and expect nothing to come of it… When stocks become worthless, markets fail. When the word of the people becomes worthless, democracy fails.
UPDATE: Later in the column Gaffney cites Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg, who’s filed a frivolous lawsuit against Obama on this citizenship conspiracy theory. That would be this Philip Berg.
Now, it is time for world leaders to take the lesson learned from Iraq and issue a warrant for the arrest of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney; arrest them; take them to a neutral country; try them for the murder of over 2,800 people from more than 80 countries on 9/11/01 and, when found guilty, sentence them appropriately. Jurisdiction would be proper in any of the more than 80 countries whose citizens were murdered on 9/11.
I compared Gaffney’s nonsense to 9/11 trutherism for a reason.
UPDATE II: This is pathetic: a Toledo station runs a "local hero"-type story on Berg, which puts legal documents from Hawai’i on equal footing with his fact-free claims. It’s mind-boggling. On the one hand you have a government certificate that says Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. on 8/4/61 in Honolulu. On the other you have Berg’s claim, from his lawsuit:
Obama’s grandmother on his father’s side, his half-brother and half-sister all claim Obama was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya. Reports reflect that Obama’s mother traveled to Kenya during her pregnancy; however, she was prevented from boarding a flight from Kenya to Hawaii at her late stage of pregnancy (which, apparently, was a normal restriction, to avoid births during a flight).
Notice the distinct lack of quotes and sources? It’s because the "Obama’s African family members claim he was born in Kenya" story is an internet myth. They have never claimed that. There is no such story. Go ahead and try to find it.
An internet myth. Note that. It’s what the grassroots are saying. To each other. Among other things. Over and over. Obama is a Muslim. Obama has ties to al Qaeda. Obama is a traitor. Obama is a terrorist. So it is, that the republican grassroots take their collective consciences around behind the barn and shoot it. Anything to win, even if it means taking a running bellyflop into the gutter. But it’s not just Obama they are hurling bullshit shit at. They are taking a dump on the very flags that they are busy waving.
It’s one thing to oppose the other party’s candidate on the basis of their record. It’s one thing to oppose them on the basis of their beliefs. It’s one thing to oppose them just because you don’t like their looks, the cut of their clothes, or because the sky is blue. Fine. It’s your right. But when you spread lies you are not opposing the man. You are hating on democracy. You are giving it the middle finger. A democracy is the sum of its citizens. Corrupt yourself, and you corrupt your country. It’s one thing for the politican on your TV screen to do it, it’s one thing for the talk radio host you tune into every day to do it, but when You lie to your neighbor for political gain, you are shitting on America.
This precious democracy we all share, that was bestowed us with the blood and treasure of so many of our forebears, asks only that you treat its core value, the election, with care and attention, and give to it whatever honest consideration you can, to the best of your ability. We all make mistakes sometimes in the ballot booth. Some votes we cast we long live to regret. But the important thing is we try and are honest. With ourselves. With our neighbors. Disagree we may. Vehemently. Fine. So long as it’s honest. That is what so many good people in so many generations past have died for, so that we could do. Speak freely and honestly to each other. Persuasively. Bluntly. Calmly. Angrily. Whatever. But honestly. Because you can. Because people died to give you that freedom. That’s all American is obliging you to do every election year. Instead, you are feeding it poison.
America is dying from that poison. I hear you speak of your patriotism, your love of flag and country. Over and over again I hear it. I see you wave the flag. I see it on your front doors. I see it on your bumpers. I see you wearing it on your lapels. Fine. Swell. Whatever. You love America? Then Stop Lying. Stop. Your motherfucking lies are killing it.
[Update…] Here’s a link to Factcheck.org on Obama’s birth certificate, since the one Weigel linked to isn’t enough for the kook pews. As if…anything could be…actually… I’m sure they have a way of explaining away this too…
In fact, the conspiracy would need to be even deeper than our colleagues realized. In late July, a researcher looking to dig up dirt on Obama instead found a birth announcement that had been published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sunday, Aug. 13, 1961…
Dig it. They went looking through the newspaper archives and found the birth announcement. Of course…it’s all part of the consperacy you see…
I’ve said it before. Over and over. The shit doesn’t really start hitting the fan, until the republicans start loosing power…
LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) — Some of the anger is getting raw at Republican rallies and John McCain is mostly letting it flare. A sense of grievance spilling into rage has gripped some GOP events as McCain supporters see his presidential campaign lag against Barack Obama. They’re making it personal, against the Democrat. Shouts of “traitor,” “terrorist,” “treason,” “liar,” and even “off with his head” have rung from the crowd at McCain and Sarah Palin rallies, and gone unchallenged by them.
Everyone is starting to notice now, the frenzy of hate the republicans are whipping themselves into. From Sullivan:
To some, a president Obama is simply unimaginable. From a McCain supporter in Wisconsin yesterday:
"We’re all wondering why Obama is where he’s at. How he got here. Everybody in this room is stunned we’re in this position."
There was always going to be a point of revolt and panic for a core group of Americans who believe that Obama simply cannot be president – because he’s black or liberal or young or relatively new. This is that point. As the polls suggest a strong victory, the Hannity-Limbaugh-Steyn-O’Reilly base are going into shock and extreme rage. McCain and Palin have decided to stoke this rage, to foment it, to encourage paranoid notions that somehow Obama is a "secret" terrorist or Islamist or foreigner. These are base emotions in both sense of the word.
But they are also very very dangerous. This is a moment of maximal physical danger for the young Democratic nominee. And McCain is playing with fire. If he really wants to put country first, he will attack Obama on his policies – not on these inflammatory, personal, creepy grounds. This is getting close to the atmosphere stoked by the Israeli far right before the assassination of Rabin.
For God’s sake, McCain, stop it. For once in this campaign, put your country first.
But Garrison Keillor was right…they’re republicans first, and Americans second. And they have a history of this, which goes right back to Kennedy. When King was assassinated in Memphis, they were calling him a traitor too…
And really the unsayable. But I’ve been thinking about this McCain-Palin Obama "palling around with terrorist" idea more lately. The saddest thing about many Republicans isn’t just that they disagree with liberals on race–it’s they are largely ignorant on race. When the McCain campaign cast the spell of diabolical jingoism, they have no idea of the forces they are toying with. We remember Martin Luther King’s murder as a sad and tragic event. Less remembered is the fact that ground-work for King’s murder was seeded, not simply by rank white supremacy, but by people who slandered King as a communist.
This was not some notion bandied about by conspiracy theorist, but an accusation proffered by men who were the pillars of the modern Republican Party:
As late as 1964, Falwell was attacking the 1964 Civil Rights Act as "civil wrongs" legislation. He questioned "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed."
Falwell was not alone. These men didn’t kill Martin Luther King, but they contributed to an atmosphere of nationalism, white supremacy and cheap unreflective patriotism that ultimately got a lot of people killed. Confronted with Aparthied South Africa, men like Helms and Falwell used the same "communist" defense. While Mandella wasted away in prison, they dismissed the whole thing as a communist plot.
Let me be clear–This is the ghost that McCain Campaign is summoning. This is the Ring Of Power that they want to wield. The Muslim charge, the "Hussein" thing is nothing more than today’s red-baiting, and it is what it was then–a cover for racists. You may say I’m overreacting, and I really hope you’re right. 999,000 out 1 million times we’ll go on like normal and proceed to Election Day. But if some shit pops off, the thug and thug-mongers will not be able to throw up their hands and say "How could I have known?" Ignorance will not save them. Their stupidity is a scourge on us all.
Let me smack the subtext here out into the open: they’re trying to get him killed. As recently as a few days ago I was content to believe they just wanted to lay the groundwork for the scorched earth campaign against President Obama and a democratic congress. But that’s naive and anyone of my generation should know better…really…
I still remember vividly the day president Kennedy was assassinated. I was home from school, very very sick with a flu and a high fever. I was drifting in and out of sleep with the bed stand radio on, playing soft music. I woke up, to the sound of a man’s voice saying over and over again, "The president has been shot…The president has been shot…The president has been shot…"..
Two days before President Kennedy’s trip to Dallas, right-wingers began circulating around the city some 5,000 anti-Kennedy handbills. Entitled “Wanted for Treason,” these leaflets were designed to look like a police “wanted” poster, with front and profile photographs of Kennedy’s head.
The handbills shrieked:
“This man is wanted for treasonous activities against the United States:
1. Betraying the Constitution (which he is sworn to uphold):
He is turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations.
He is betraying our friends (Cuba, Katanga, Portugal) and befriending our enemies (Russia, Yugoslavia, Poland).
2. He has been WRONG on innumerable issues affecting the security of the U.S. (United Nations-Berlin wall-Missile removal-Cuba-Wheat deals-Test Ban Treaty, etc.).
3. He has been lax in enforcing Communist Registration laws.
4. He has given support and encouragement to the Communist inspired racial riots.
5. He has illegally invaded a sovereign State with federal troops.
6. He has consistently appointed Anti-Christians to Federal office:
Upholds the Supreme Court in its Anti-Christian rulings.
Aliens and known Communists abound in Federal offices.
7. He has been caught in fantastic LIES to the American people (including personal ones like his previous marriage and divorce).”
On the very day JFK visited Dallas and died, the local newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, featured a full page, black-bordered anti-Kennedy advertisement prepared and paid for by persons affiliated with the John Birch Society, one of the most infamous right-wing extremist organizations of the 1960’s. The ad claimed to be the work of “The American Fact-Finding Committee,” in reality a nonexistent organization. Bernard Weissman, listed on the ad as the chairman of the Committee, however, did exist; he was the person who actually placed the ad. Weissman later testified before the Warren Commission. He was one of the few witnesses before that body who deemed it prudent to appear accompanied by an attorney.
The ad began with a sarcastic “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas,” a city which had been the victim of “a recent Liberal smear attempt” and which had prospered “despite efforts by you and your administration to penalize it for non-conformity to ‘New Frontierism’.” The ad then posed a series of belligerent, insulting loaded questions, including:
“Why has Gus Hall, head of the U.S. Communist Party, praised almost every one of your policies and announced that his party will endorse and support your re-election bid?”
“Why have you ordered or permitted your brother Bobby, the Attorney General, to go soft on Communists, fellow-travelers, and ultra-leftists in America, while permitting him to persecute loyal Americans who criticize you, your administration, and your leadership?”
“Why have you scrapped the Monroe Doctrine in favor of the ‘Spirit of Moscow’?”
Later that morning there were disparaging protests by right-wingers against JFK along the route of the presidential motorcade as it traveled from the airport to downtown Dallas. As the motorcade drove through the suburbs, with President Kennedy only minutes from death, an unfriendly-looking man in a business suit stood on a sidewalk in an aggressive posture holding a protest sign which screamed: “Because of high regard for the presidency I hold you JFK and your blind socialism in complete contempt.” (A photograph of this right-wing protester with his sign, taken by Dallas newspaper photographer Tom Dillard, is reproduced on p. 438 of Richard B. Trask’s Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy (1994).)
In Dealey Plaza, at the time of the actual assassination, there was at least one right-winger present publicly expressing his scorn for the president. On the sidewalk near the Stemmons Freeway traffic sign, only a few feet from the slow-moving presidential limousine during the very moments rifle bullets were slamming into JFK’s body, a mysterious man stood wearing a suit and, unlike anyone else there, holding up an open, black umbrella on this warm, sunshiny day. (The “Umbrella Man,” as this enigmatic character soon was dubbed, is visible in the Zapruder film. He also can be seen in a famous still color photograph of the assassination taken by amateur photographer Phil Willis. The Willis photo is reproduced on p. 190 of Robert J. Groden’s The Killing of a President (1993).)
The identity of the Umbrella Man remained a secret for 15 years. Then, in September 1978, a man named Louie Steven Witt appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations and admitted that he was the Umbrella Man. He told the Committee that he been there in Dealey Plaza to heckle JFK, and that he displayed the umbrella because he was under the impression that brandishing an umbrella would irritate JFK. He testified: “I was going to use this umbrella to heckle the President’s motorcade. … Being a conservative-type fellow, I sort of placed him [JFK] in the liberal camp, and I was just sort of going to kind of do a little heckling. … I just knew it was a sore spot with the Kennedys. … I was carrying that stupid umbrella, intent [on] heckling the President.” Witt denied that the umbrella he had in Dealey Plaza symbolized the appeasement practices of English Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (who often sported a black umbrella), or that the umbrella was intended to suggest that JFK was appeasing Communism the way Chamberlain had appeased Hitler. This denial is not credible. Among right-wingers, it was an article of faith that JFK’s supposedly soft, weak-kneed policies against the threat of Communism were the equivalent of Chamberlain’s futile attempts to appease Adolf Hitler.
Not even Kennedy’s death at 1 p.m. at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas stopped right-wingers from publicly displaying their loathing of JFK. As William Manchester notes in his classic The Death of a President (1967): “At 3:05 p.m., when 80 percent of the American People were in deep grief, an NBC camera panned toward a group of spectators outside Parkland’s emergency entrance and picked up a young man with a placard that read, ‘Yankee, Go Home.’” (In a wealthy Dallas suburb, Manchester reminds us, “pupils of a fourth-grade class, told that the President of the United States had been murdered in their city, burst into spontaneous applause.”) -JFK Blown Away-Hooray! – D. Wilkes, University of Georgia
If you think the McCain campaign is playing with fire you are sadly mistaken. They Are of the fire. America, and the American Dream, lives or dies depending on how many of us are left, who still believe in it, and will defend it against the mob. Democracies don’t die at the hands of foreign enemies. They die when the mob overwhelms the dream of freedom and liberty and justice for all. The gutter cannot tolerate and will not willingly endure a world, where they have to witness what free men and women are capable of when the chains are cast off, and their dreams take wing. They will burn it all down if they have to, so they don’t have to know what humanity is capable of, that they might have been…
There’s a scene in the American TV mini series, The Winds of War, where Pug Henry tells Pamala, the English woman he’s busy falling in love with, that Goering’s decision to terror bomb London, while horrible, meant he knew he’d lost the air war. He couldn’t defeat the RAF, so he turned to bombing civilian targets as a way of breaking British moral. So while seeing London in flames made it look like Hitler had control of the air, and was winning, in fact Pug told her, it was a sign of desperation. It meant he knew he’d lost the battle for Britain.
That’s the way it is with thugs. It’s when they know they’re loosing that the fight really turns ugly. I’m thinking about that this morning as I’m reading about John McCain shoving dirt in the face of the corporate news media. Nobody in recent years has had such a sweetheart relationship with the press as McCain. The alternative media has written story after story of the corporate press sucking up to McCain. And now he’s rubbing their faces in dogshit. What gives here?
One theory is that they just know they can get away with it. The Republican Noise Machine has been so successful at gaming the press and demonizing democrats that the McCain camp knows it can do whatever it damn well pleases and the base won’t give a good goddamn what the press says about it. They all get their news from FOX, and even if FOX turned against McCain the base understands that Obama is the Antichrist, is related to Osama bin Laden and/or Saddam Hussein, and anyway is a Muslim and all Muslims belong to al Qaeda and anyway Obama is the Antichrist. John McCain can spit in Brent Hume’s face and Rupert Murdoch could endorse Obama and FOX news could run nothing but Obama campaign ads and the base will vote for McCain. The economy could crash in flames and the base loose their homes and their life savings and they’ll vote for McCain. Better sleep on the streets with a republican in the white house then the Antichrist.
So much, so obvious. But what of the swing vote? Without that swing vote the republicans can’t win, and they’re not winning that vote by playing so hard to the base. If anything, they’re turning it away.
Here’s my thinking: they know they’ve lost. McCain wouldn’t be antagonising the press, he wouldn’t have picked a fundamentalist nutcase for his VP, if the party insiders knew they had a chance in hell with the swing vote. And without the swing they loose. So they’re goosing the base. Again, so much, so obvious. But look at it. They can’t win with only the base on board. But what they can do, is whip it up into such a hysterical fit of passion that, hopefully, the democrats won’t be able to govern at all for the next four years.
I think what we may well be seeing now, in the choice of Sarah Palin, and in McCain’s openly spitting on the press that has been faithfully sucking up to him for the past decade or so, is the start of the next four years of scorched earth fighting. They know they’ve lost this election and they’re laying the groundword for the next four years of destroying the Obama presidency and taking back congress. They’re laying the ground work for the "McCain was stabbed in the back by the news media" propaganda they’ll be dispensing for the next four years, to keep the press cowed and submissive. And they’re poisoning the well to prevent any shred of common ground and common purpose developing in the next four years among Americans. They don’t want the wounds to heal…they want them open and raw.
So by the time election night 2008 is over, the base will hate the rest of the nation so deeply, the only thing they’ll want for the next four years is blood. Every time President Obama appears on their TV screens, they’ll see the Antichrist. Every time a democrat opens their mouths to say anything for the next four years, the base will know they’re hearing a servant of the Antichrist. If the democrats don’t get a big enough majority in both houses to govern, it’s going to be absolute poisonous ugly vindictive gridlock.
What the rest of us have to know is winning the election is only the start of the fight. If you thought Newt Gingrich’s war on congress back in the early 1990s was ugly, trust me you haven’t ugly yet. Ask your gay and lesbian neighbors how ugly they can get. I’ve said this before…things don’t start getting really bad until the republicans begin loosing power. That’s when it hits the fan.
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 22 (UPI) — Film director David Zucker says conservatives are so uncomfortable in Hollywood that being a Republican is "the new gay."
"You sort of feel like you have to hide it," Zucker — director of "Airplane!," "Top Secret" and "The Naked Gun" — told EW.com. "When you meet, you give each other a secret look, ‘Are you a Republican, too?’ It’s the new gay."
OKLAHOMA CITY — Democrat Andrew Rice has a divinity degree and has worked as a missionary, but he is being called to account over social values in his Senate race against Republican incumbent Jim Inhofe, who is known for tough campaign tactics.
An Inhofe ad being carried on Oklahoma television stations contains anti-gay overtones, showing a wedding cake topped by two plastic grooms and a photo of Rice as a young man, curly haired and wearing a leather jacket.
Inhofe said the ad is accurate. He pointed to news stories that Rice, before he became a state senator in 2006, founded a group that opposed a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriages.
Ask the Old Gay to show you around the place Zucker… You might recognize the brand name on some of the furnishings…
Preserving Traditional Marriage
Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex “marriages” licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.
– From the 2008 Republican Party Platform
Esprit and cohesion are necessary for military effectiveness and success on the battlefield. To protect our servicemen and women and ensure that America’s Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture, and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.
– From the 2008 Republican Party Platform
Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values
Texas Sodomy Statutes – We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.
– From the 2008 Texas Republican Party Platform.
The New Gay is it? The New Gay? Rot in Hell Zucker. Go fuck yourself with a Big Tent. Republicans have turned the lives of gay Americans into a scorched earth battleground. They pushed anti same sex marriage amendments in swing states, turning gay Americans into second class citizens because they knew voting for president Nice Job Brownie might not be enough to drive their grassroots to the polls. They’ve been using the lives of gay Americans as a baseball bat to smack democrats over the head with ever since Antia Bryant showed them how well the issue played at the polls. So you and your fellow republicans are…uncomfortable…in the glamorous Hollywood social scene are you? How painful that must be sometimes…
Allegations of a sixteen-year-old high-school student beating another because he was perceived as gay have shaken up a small Kansas town.
Police officers in the small town of Tribune, Kansas – population 800 – responded to a report of an intruder at the home of a sixteen-year-old student. When they arrived they found the teen was badly beaten and his attacker had fled.
Dustin Myers was arrested Sunday and charged with attempted murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed explosive, reports the Hutchinson News Online.
Authorities say that after hearing rumors that his classmate was gay, Myers went to his home with a small explosive device with the intention of killing the teenager.
Jenna, one of the victims who requested that South End News withhold her name for safety reasons, said that she and her friends heard a group of men shouting at them from a parked white sedan. The four friends, who were walking home from a night of clubbing at the Roxy, kept walking, but before long, the four men got out of their car and started coming towards them.
According to Jenna, the perpetrators said, "Fuck you, your fucking friends are faggots," before punching her in the face. When two of her friends came to her aid, two the attackers began beating and kicking them in the face, repeatedly yelling, "Fuck you, faggots."
NEW YORK – A fugitive has been convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of a gay man on a New York City street in 2001.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says John McGhee was convicted Wednesday. He says McGhee fled to London after 35-year-old Edgar Garzon died on Sept. 4, 2001, of injuries suffered in a street assault.
Garzon was attacked after leaving a gay bar in Queens on Aug. 15, 2001. Trial testimony showed the victim and McGhee had exchanged words before the assault.
On Thursday, a judge upheld the first-degree murder charge against the man accused in the July 16 bludgeoning death of 18-year-old transgender woman Angie Zapata, née Justin.
Allen Ray Andrade, 31, faces various felony charges in Zapata’s death. Public defender Annette Kundelius argued that the murder charge should be reduced to second-degree, saying that Andrade was driven to kill Zapata after she smiled at him, saying "I’m all woman," after he discovered her male genitals.
"At best, this is a case about passion," Kundelius said. "When [Zapata] smiled at him, this was a highly provoking act, and it would cause someone to have an aggressive reaction."
Phone calls between Andrade and his girlfriend show anti-gay bias and disregard, though he did acknowledge making "a mistake." "All gay things need to die," Andrade said in one conversation, adding that there was "no use crying over spilled milk" in trying to put the murder behind him.
All gay things need to die… Sorry to hear that it’s hard to be a republican in Hollywood Zucker. Try being a gay teenager in Kansas during an election year you gutter crawling maggot.
Damn…and I used to like some of your comedies too. Especially Airplane. But you just stopped being funny. You’re really just an asswipe aren’t you? And asswipe comedy has its own special flavor…
Zucker and some of his fellow Hollywood Republicans — including Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper — collaborated on the upcoming movie, "An American Carol" EW.com characterized the movie as "Hollywood’s first unabashedly right-wing comedy."
"An American Carol" — written by Zucker, Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman — is the story of an anti-American filmmaker who tries to abolish the July Fourth holiday, and is visited by the ghosts of famous Americans who try to get him to drop his plan.
Dickens would have ripped you and your republican fat cats a new one Zucker. Oh…wait…he did…in that story of his you’re plagiarizing for laughs…
"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I’m very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can’t go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides-excuse me-I don’t know that."
"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.
"It’s not my business," Scrooge returned. "It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
And a bit more emphatically…
"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."
"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."
"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Scrooge hung his head to hear his wn words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.
"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child."
…
"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!"
"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. "Look here."
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.
"They are Man’s," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
So let me get this straight Zucker… You’re going to take A Christmas Carol and turn it into a right wing comedy. About an "anti American" (that would be a liberal and/or democrat…right Zucker?) film maker who wants to abolish the Forth of July. Oh Ha ha ha… And Republican is the new Gay. They say that all comedy holds within it a nugget of pain. But watching a man rot away from the inside isn’t funny.
The facts are hard to dispute; indeed, the historical record is now so stark that diehard Republicans are probably starting to wonder if there is a curse…. Democrats have outperformed Republicans by almost any measure of economic achievement (GDP growth per capita, unemployment, inflation, budget deficits)…. Thanks to the profligacy of the current administration… average Federal spending as a fraction of GDP… under Republican Presidents now exceeds that under Democrats over the measured period…. The pattern holds up when the span of historical analysis is extended farther back in time… using stock returns to measure economic performance…. (Data are available on my web page, at http://econ.jhu.edu/people/ccarroll/opinion/CapitalismAndSkepticism.)
An economist’s natural inclination is to say that there’s no point in pondering why Republican performance has been so dismal, because the question cannot be answered with the rigor demanded by professional respectability. But as the tenure of George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush shudders to a calamitous close, history seems to require that we try to give an answer.
That answer can’t be found by drilling down (so to speak) into the specific policy proposals of the two parties, which over the years have evolved in ways too arbitrary to permit any meaningful generalization. Nor are there any clearly identifiable differences in doctrine that should translate into a reasonable expectation of better economic performance under one party or the other….
Maybe capitalism works better when its excesses are restrained by skeptics than when true-believers are writing, interpreting, judging, and executing the rules…. Maybe… capitalism works better when it is being held accountable to some external standard…. [F]or better or worse, the defining manifesto of the latter part of the age was Milton Friedman’s Capitalism And Freedom. But that book’s power derived partly from its fierce independence from the orthodoxies of its time…. The book for the new epoch has not been written yet, but I have a proposed title: Capitalism and Skepticism…
I think what needs to be understood here is that the true-believers are merely the useful idiots. Yes, the republicans are awful for the economy. But so what. But they’re great for the billionaires. Look at it this way: under democrats blue collar workers and the middle class grow and prosper. Big business does well, but its CEOs don’t generally become super rich. They still get rich, just not buy entire third world countries rich. Under republicans, unions are busted, the middle class shrinks and many businesses, large and small, suffer. However, many other folks become fabulously wealthy. Even as the companies they once ran go belly up, and their investors loose their shirts, these people shoot into the ranks of the fabulously wealthy. You have to figure that from their perspective, things worked out just fine.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, and the fabulously wealthy may be a lot of things, but they’re not crazy. If they keep supporting the republican party despite its pretty consistant track record of wreaking the economy, there’s probably a reason for that. A healthy economy really only benefits the blue collar and middle classes. The uber rich need neither a healthy economy nor a healthy democracy to get even richer. In point of fact, healthy economies and healthy democracies usually get in their way.
Chutzpa: Conducting state business via your personal email account to get around state government email retention policies, then complaining that your privacy was violated when hackers uncover your little scheme.
Priceless: You support Bush’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.
The entire financial system is practically collapsing and they’re lamenting the possibility of more regulation. I don’t think the sports/referee metaphor is perfect, but it’s probably good enough. People who prattle on about "the free market" are usually too stupid to have a clue how complicated and pervasive the "rules" had to be to to get a well-functioning modern market system: sophisticated concepts of contracts and enforcement, property rights, legal entities, proper accounting, bankruptcy, limited liability, etc… etc…, did not descend from the heavens but were, in fact, created.
Dig it. For those of you still willing to prattle on while Rome burns that regulation is the antithesis of freedom and destructive of property rights and free markets, please bear in mind that the power to enforce a contract is a kind of government regulation. And yes, as a matter of fact, government has always distinguished between good contracts and bad contracts. Like for example, if you sign a contact with a hit man to kill someone and they just run off with your money instead…no, you can’t sue them for breach of contract. If you talk a four-year old into signing over all their income for the rest of their adult lives in exchange for a nice cookie, no, you can’t enforce that one either. Which probably does bother a lot of lenders.
If you listen to these jackasses yap, yap, yapping about how evil government regulation is, and you find yourself thinking that they’re not so much arguing for limited government as anarchy, you’re almost right. Their ideal government can be summed up in two words: Money talks.
As John McCain’s manufactured "lipstick on a pig" story was taking flight last week, Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball, kicked off the hour by teeing up the story. In a note to viewers that telegraphed his disdain for the lipstick controversy, he announced that during the show, he’d share his own thoughts "about how, with a troubled economy, crumbling bridges, rail and roads, a failing educational system, a war that is now going on for five years, and an uncertain American economic future, we’re sitting here talking about lipstick."
Later, he complained the story was "an insult to the intelligence of our democracy."
Did you hear the media are mad? According to Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post, the press is angry at McCain for his patently untrue lipstick attack ("It’s false. It’s ridiculous"), and they’re seething over how Sarah Palin keeps telling her demonstrably false Bridge to Nowhere tale even after members of the media pointed out her stump-speech applause line was a lie. (A "whopper.")
During the past week, virtually every major news outlet has produced welcomed, hard-edged fact-checking pieces about how the Republican ticket goes far beyond bending the truth and just plain snaps it out on the campaign trail.
In the past, that kind of truth-telling would have embarrassed campaigns and likely caused a dramatic change in the rhetoric. But what do McCain and Palin do in response? They pretty much ignore the press and its critiques.
Writing on The New Republic‘s website, Eve Fairbanks spelled out the conundrum, capturing the dumbfounded realization that spread through the press corps. It’s like that scene in a movie when the superhero realizes his unique power (for the press, it’s collective indignation) has suddenly been rendered useless:
Reporters demolished the claim that the Palin opposed the Bridge to Nowhere, and yet the McCain campaign insolently still uses it. Writers dismantled the McCain campaign’s untrue assertion that Barack Obama compared Sarah Palin to a pig yesterday, and yet the campaign put out an audacious ad featuring the ridiculous allegation, presumably on the assumption that Real Americans don’t care what the elite press says anyway.
Instead of recoiling, the Republican ticket seems to have adopted a post-press approach to campaigning in which the candidates simply don’t care what the press does or says about their honesty. More to the point, the candidates don’t think it will matter on Election Day.
They may be right. And that’s the media’s fault. They’ve reported their way right into the margins. Submerged in trivia and tactics for the past 18 months, the press, I think, has damaged its ability — its authority — to referee the campaign.
For the past 18 months? How about for the past several decades. They absolutely hated Bill Clinton, and it wasn’t anything to do with his policies, which actually left the nation with a budget surplus and a healthy employment outlook. It wasn’t that Clinton lied about anything. It wasn’t Clinton’s character flaws. If lies and poor character were problems for the news media they’d have been all over Bush during the 2000 primaries. But they fucking worshiped him. Oh no…it was the bubba factor. Picture beltway pudit David Broder huffing that Clinton "came in and trashed the place and it wasn’t his" and then review his nearly eight years of Bush worship you see all there is to see about the news media.
Proof? Let’s go back to the pissed-off Matthews for a perfect example. Raise your hand if, in the past six months, you’ve seen an entire episode of Hardball devoted to discussing our "troubled economy," the sad state of America’s transportation infrastructure, the failings of our educational system, the never-ending war in Iraq, or the "uncertain American economic future."
Matthews claimed those are the key issues that face our country and, by implication, are what are important to this campaign. Yet Matthews hosts a cable news program that pretty much refuses to discuss those issues.
Remember, Matthews is part of the same Beltway press crowd that told news consumers Hillary Clinton’s laugh was extremely important and needed to be analyzed for clues about her true character, that John Edwards’ haircuts raised serious doubts about the man’s candidacy, and that Barack Obama’s bowling score spelled trouble on the campaign trail.
And it wasn’t that long ago that the campaign press stressed how important it was that John Kerry windsurfed and that Al Gore spent time as a politician’s kid growing up in a Washington, D.C., hotel. These were issues of paramount concern for the media.
And now they’re shocked, shocked, to discover the republicans know they can lie through their teeth and nobody cares anymore what the press has to say about it. You fuckers sold out America to the rats, and now there isn’t anyone left to speak truth to power but the grass roots bloggers and web masters that you’ve been helping the rats vilify, because you were more worried about defending your jobs more then keeping the American dream alive.
You could have seen what these people are ages ago, if you’d just cared one whit to look. Gay and lesbian Americans have been seeing it for decades. Yes they lie. Yes they don’t care who knows it. The lies aren’t meant to fool anyone. They’re war cries meant to whip themselves up for the fight. They’re the bloody flag waving in the wind. They’re spit in the enemy’s face. And the enemy is all of us…every one of us who thinks that the promise of liberty and justice for all belongs to us too. For decades your gay and lesbian neighbors have known that they hate us. For decades we have seen how that hate trumps every other value they claim to hold. Now you know they hate you too. They hate everyone who isn’t in the gutter with them. Because anyone who rises their head above the gutter reminds them of everything they are not. They want to bring it all down, so they won’t have to know what brave and decent and moral humanity looks like. You didn’t want to see it. You didn’t care enough to do your godamned job and look it squarely in the eye and call it for what it is. You cared about your jobs more then you cared about your country. You sold America out to the rats. Rot in hell.
Jeff Frankels Weblog | Views on the Economy and the World: [F]or the last 40 years, rhetoric notwithstanding, Republican presidents have pursued policies… farther removed from the ideal of good… economics than have Democratic presidents. This is especially true… [of] the textbook version…. But… it applies even to the “conservative economics” version that puts priority simply on small government. The criteria underlying this generalization about Republican presidents are:
Growth in the size of the government, as measured by employment and spending.
Lack of fiscal discipline, as measured by budget deficits.
Lack of commitment to price stability, as measured by pressure on the Fed for easier monetary policy when politically advantageous.
Departures from free trade.
Use of government powers to protect and subsidize favored special interests (such as agriculture and the oil and gas sector, among others)….
Republican presidents have since 1971 indulged in these five departures from “conservatism” to a greater extent than Democratic presidents. The name I would give to this set of departures… is neither “liberal” nor “conservative” but, rather, “illiberal”…
To which DeLong Adds:
Real conservatives take note: you will never have a party until you kill the Republican Party, and replace it with something new. You should start now, for all of our sakes.
Were there ever any "real" conservatives? Well…I guess Goldwater was one. But here’s the problem: Real or not, this is what conservative ideology gets you. Small government means no regulation of big corporations, of big money. When big corporations, and big money become more powerful then government, they will simply turn government to their own ends and that leads right back to "big government", just not big government in the people’s interest. So you end up with all the points Frankels makes above, even if you started from a sincere belief in "small government" ideology. When money becomes more powerful then the law, money inevitably becomes the law.
So. No fiscal discipline because big business doesn’t want discipline, it wants its profits and it wants them now. Fed monetary policy becomes whatever big business wants it to be at whatever moment in time it wants it to be that. Free trade is out because if big business hates anything more then regulation it’s competition. And…special interests? When you have government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich, the common folk are the special interest group. And when big business takes over the nation’s news media, it gets kinda hard to find out just how deeply the corruption has taken root. All you see, is the spectacular meltdowns. Iraq. Katrina. The Dot-Com bust. The Housing bust. How big was that deficit again?
That’s what small government ideology gets you. When money becomes more powerful then the law, money becomes the law. Anyone who seriously thought (as I did once) that the way to keep government honest and the economy strong was to cut government down to the bone should be, after decades of republican dismantling of the New Deal, if they are honest, thoroughly disabused of that notion. A government that is smaller then money will never resist the corrupting power of big money. That is what we are seeing now. The moment, the instant the regulatory boundaries were taken away, corruption began running wild. Money does not self regulate.
Some of the people pushing the small government ideology didn’t reckon on that. But probably, most of them did. They talked up free markets, but they weren’t interested in freedom. They wanted the money. It’s easier to get when the law can be bought off. You keep a market free the same way you keep the streets safe to walk at night. It takes a rule of law, backed by impartial justice. There is no safety, let alone freedom, where the police work for the crooks, upholding laws that were written by crooks, for crooks.
And one more thing: morals. The people crafting the laws we all live by need to be people who understand that stealing is wrong. That lying is wrong. That cheating is wrong. Wrong because sooner or later the bills come due, and while Jesus may forgive you, reality is a hard assed motherfucker.
In China now, they’re undergoing an upheaval in the baby formula market. Children are dying after being fed baby formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t carelessness. It wasn’t neglect. It was greed. Melamine, a chemical used in plastics, contains a concentration of proteins which make it useful for hiding the fact that the milk in baby formula has been diluted. Profits are always higher, when there is less product in the product.
“I just wanted to take a second to come by and pay my respect and the campaign’s respect to your organization and to your group,” said Schmidt, who many view as the new architect of the Republican Party. “Your organization is an important one in the fabric of our party.”
In his brief remarks, Schmidt weaved in a personal anecdote about his lesbian sister and her relationship to him, his wife, and his children. “On a personal level, my sister and her partner are an important part of my life and our children’s life,” he said. “I admire your group and your organization and I encourage you to keep fighting for what you believe in because the day is going to come.”
The Log Cabin members there in attendance immediately began questioning him on McCain’s record on gay equality, pressing him repeatedly on his stance on same sex marriage. Finally concluding that they’d come there looking to see a leader and they didn’t.
Hahahahaha…. No. Actually, that was a high school student in Concord New Hampshire, speaking directly to McCain himself…
William Sleaster, a student at Concord High School rose to ask McCain a question about gay rights and, ultimately dissatisfied by the answer he received from McCain, told the Republican presidential contender that he’d come looking to see a leader and didn’t.
McCain first answered the high school student by talking about his support for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the military’s policy regarding gays, and about his belief in the sanctity of marriage.
“Discrimination in any form is unacceptable in America today,” McCain said.
“I understand the controversy that continues to swirl around this issue,” McCain said. “That debate needs to be continued.”
Sleaster pressed on. “Do you support civil unions or gay marriage?”
“I do not,” McCain answered. “I think that they impinge on the status and the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”
“So you believe in taking away someone’s rights because you believe it’s wrong?”
“I wouldn’t put that interpretation on my position, but I understand yours,” McCain said diplomatically.
Sleaster went on to ask another question about how to help the working class in America, which McCain fielded by talking about the country’s need to figure out education and health care, and to secure the environment.
Sleaster indicated that he wanted to follow up again.
“You have one more? Go ahead you’re doing good,” McCain encouraged.
“I came here looking to see a leader,” Sleaster said. “I don’t.”
The assembled students murmured, and a teacher started to step in.
“I understand,” McCain said. “I thank you. That’s what America is all about.”
…and Homeland security immediately began tapping his family’s phones and intercepting their emails. I sure hope that poor kid doesn’t need any student loans to get himself through college. Anyway…here’s what the Log Cabin members actually did. They…uhm…cheered as Schmidt rose to the defense of Sarah Palin…
“You saw one of the great speeches in the history of political conventions last night by an accomplished governor of a state who has just announced herself as a major force in the Republican Party in her own right, and I think the other side this morning, when you consider the backlash that is likely to occur after all the vile filth that’s been thrown at her, they ought to be sitting on the other side saying, Oh – My – God,” Schmidt said to the cheers of some 50 attendees.
Vile filth…??? You mean…like this…?
Like…this…?
This…maybe…?
That kind of vile filth? Meanwhile the Log Cabin cheered for the lady who tried to eliminate domestic partner benefits in her state by referendum when she couldn’t get it via the courts, and told the Eagle Forum in a 2006 questionnaire that her No. 2 priority as governor would be "preserving the definition of ‘marriage’ as defined in our constitution." They cheered.
If sixteen year old William Sleaster had been there to see it, he might not have bothered challenging McCain on his gay rights positions. If we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one will stand with us.
The Log Cabin Republicans: Breathing new life every election year into Truman Capote’s saying, that a faggot is the homosexual gentleman who just left the room.
You Knew What He Was When He Clawed His Way Back Into The Senate With Republican Support
So…Joe Lieberman, the Last Honest Man In The Senate, gives a speech at the GOP convention, in which he says, among other things…
When others were silent, John McCain had the judgment to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq. When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground,
John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion and support the surge, and because of that, today, our troops are at last beginning to come home, not in failure, but in honor!
To support the charge, the McCain campaign has cited Obama’s vote of May 24, 2007, against an appropriations bill that included funding for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (and passed, 80-14).
So was that a vote "to cut off funding for our American troops on the battlefield"?
Not primarily.
Obama was fighting at the time for a requirement that President Bush begin to bring the troops home from Iraq. The bill in question did not include such a requirement, and that is why Obama voted against it. Obama said at the time that he wanted to fund the troops, he just didn’t want to fund the particular military strategy that the bill would enable.
“We must fund our troops," Obama said at the time. "But we owe them something more. We owe them a clear, prudent plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else’s civil war."
Clearly Obama wanted to provide funding for the troops — just not the president’s military strategy.
If, by voting against funding for a strategy he opposed, Obama voted to "cut off funding for the troops," then so did almost every Republican in the Senate — and Lieberman himself — when they voted against a $124-billion appropriations bill on April 26, 2007, that would have funded operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also required Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. (McCain missed the vote on that bill, which passed 51-46 and was subsequently vetoed by Bush.)
What part of honor involves lying through your teeth Joe?
This from Glenn Greenwald, who is on fire here. Maybe you are aware, if not utterly disgusted, at how abjectly the democrats capitulated on telcom immunity for illegally spying on American citizens. Maybe you’re aware of how the immunity bill not only gave the telcoms immunity for illegally spying on us, but made it even easier for Bush to keep spying on us without having to bother with all that getting a warrent and other forth amendment do-wah. Maybe you’re wondering how democrats can be such absolute wusses when it comes to fighting Bush’s abuses of power. Maybe your wondering why democrats don’t really seem to care much about protecting and preserving our precious democracy. Maybe this will enlighten you…
Last night in Denver, at the Mile High Station — next to Invesco Stadium, where Barack Obama will address a crowd of 30,000 people on Thursday night — AT&T threw a lavish, private party for Blue Dog House Democrats, virtually all of whom blindly support whatever legislation the telecom industry demands and who also, specifically, led the way this July in immunizing AT&T and other telecoms from the consequences for their illegal participation in the Bush administration’s warrantless spying program. Matt Stoller has one of the listings for the party here.
Armed with full-scale Convention press credentials issued by the DNC, I went — along with Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher, John Amato, Stoller and others — in order to cover the event, interview the attendees, and videotape the festivities. There was a wall of private security deployed around the building, and after asking where the press entrance was, we were told by the security officials, after they consulted with event organizers, that the press was barred from the event, and that only those with invitations could enter — notwithstanding the fact that what was taking place in side was a meeting between one of the nation’s largest corporations and the numerous members of the most influential elected faction in Congress. As a result, we stood in front of the entrance and began videotaping and trying to interview the parade of Blue Dog Representatives, AT&T executives, assorted lobbyists and delegates who pulled up in rented limousines, chauffeured cars, and SUVs in order to find out who was attending and why AT&T would be throwing such a lavish party for the Blue Dog members of Congress.
Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party’s purpose was, why they were attending, etc. One attendee said he was with an "energy company," and the other confessed she was affiliated with a "trade association," but that was the full extent of their willingness to describe themselves or this event. It was as though they knew they’re part of a filthy and deeply corrupt process and were ashamed of — or at least eager to conceal — their involvement in it. After just a few minutes, the private security teams demanded that we leave, and when we refused and continued to stand in front trying to interview the reticent attendees, the Denver Police forced us to move further and further away until finally we were unable to approach any more of the arriving guests.
It was really the perfect symbol for how the Beltway political system functions — those who dictate the nation’s laws (the largest corporations and their lobbyists) cavorting in total secrecy with those who are elected to write those laws (members of Congress), while completely prohibiting the public from having any access to and knowledge of — let alone involvement in — what they are doing. And all of this was arranged by the corporation — AT&T — that is paying for a substantial part of the Democratic National Convention with millions upon millions of dollars, which just received an extraordinary gift of retroactive amnesty from the Congress controlled by that party, whose logo is splattered throughout the city wherever the DNC logo appears — virtually attached to it — all taking place next to the stadium where the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming he will cleanse the Beltway of corporate and lobbying influences, will accept the nomination on Thursday night.
Sometimes I wonder if things really are getting more corrupt these days, or if we’re just seeing more of the corruption because of the grassroots media that has emerged during the Bush years. In any case, the above isn’t to my mind so much an argument against voting for democrats too, as for paying more attention to local elections, because congress is an aggregate of many local elections. I strongly doubt that the voters in the districts represented by the Blue Dogs approve of having their phones tapped, let alone giving the tappers a free pass in exchange for millions of dollars to run a convention.
We need to break the republcan grip on power in Washington, so they can’t do any more damage then they’ve already done to the courts, to the economy, to civil liberties at home and America’s moral stature abroad. But we also need a grassroots effort to get more people elected who want to serve the people, not the corporations. Because the corporations don’t give a good goddamn about democracy, let alone about America. All they see is their bottom line. We need better democrats.
Ecuador is debating a new draft constitution and Pope Ratzinger doesn’t much like it. The new constitution, which goes to the voters on September 28, among other things guarantees the rights of same sex couples. Consider that here in the land of the free and the home of the brave we’re busy taking those rights away one state at a time. Some say the new Ecuadorian constitution also concentrates too much power in the office of the current President, who is a socialist. But that’s not what Ratzinger’s men are busy complaning about…
Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil criticized the draft charter for including what he called ambiguous abortion laws and granting the same benefits to same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples.
"A union between homosexuals is not a family," Arregui said in a news conference Monday. "We’re going to request that the entire Christian conscience takes note of the nonnegotiable incompatibilities of this constitution with our faith." He also said the proposed document is "leaving the door open to the deletion of a new baby."
Just ignore that little bit of translation awkwardness…the new constitution doesn’t explicitly ban abortion outright and that’s a problem for the Archbishop. But what’s unacceptable to him, is that it gives same sex couples the same rights as opposite sex couples. To him that is a nonnegotiable incompatibility with his faith.
Luckly for Ecuadorian gays, their president isn’t afraid to throw the religious argument right back at the haters…
President Rafael Correa has defended a new draft Ecuadorean constitution that grants same-sex couples the rights of marriage, El Telégrafo reported Aug. 1. The document faces a popular vote Sept. 28.
Speaking in the city of Monteverde, Correa said: “Jesus of Nazareth never preached hatred, homophobia or segregation; instead he knew to say, ‘Love one another.’
“It is false that (the draft) is recognizing as family the union of homosexuals. What we are doing is recognizing the dignity of all people without discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, etc.”
“Let’s hope, now that there’s been so much talk about moral incompatibilities between the new constitution and the Gospel, sometimes utilizing falsehoods, that we also can talk with equal force about the profound incompatibility of the social situation — of that inequality, of that existing social injustice — with the Gospels,” Correa said.
Emphasis mine. This is why John-Paul furiously tried to stamp out liberation theology in South America. It’s one thing to preach to the poor and the outcast. It’s another thing entirely when they start preaching back at you.
Lifted from Fred Clark’s blog, Slacktivist, which you should read more often…
"You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists."
-G.K. Chesterton – The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare.
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