Make GOTV calls from the comfort of home

Make Calls! It's beautifully simple (which worries me in that the McCainiacs will subvert the process). You just sign up and call voters and ask them to vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday. You get call lists, a script and a way to track your actions. Way to go Obama team. Keep putting people-power to work.

Gimme that old time religion

Reuters

The 23-year-old woman was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution late on Monday in front of hundreds of people in a square of the southern port of Kismayu, which the Islamist insurgents captured in August.

Stones were hurled at her head and she was pulled out three times to see if she was dead, witnesses said. When a relative and others surged forward, guards opened fire, killing a child.

“A woman in green veil and black mask was brought in a car as we waited to watch the merciless act of stoning,” one local resident, Abdullahi Aden, told Reuters.

“We were told she submitted herself to be punished, yet we could see her screaming as she was forcefully bound, legs and hands. A relative of hers ran toward her, but the Islamists opened fire and killed a child.”

The European Union’s presidency condemned the stoning.

“The EU … condemns a particularly vile execution, which the Islamist insurgents who took control of the city deliberately publicized,” it said in a statement.

The Islamists last carried out public executions when they ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for half of 2006. Allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces toppled them at the end of that year, but they have waged an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign since then, gradually taking territory back.

Ah yes, the mercy of god is so apparent by the rules he legislates in the Koran and the Bible. How can one NOT want to be a child of such a loving and merciful parent?

A little confirmation of the premise of this blog

The Nation

Everyone can hear it now. This Internet-driven, hyperactive presidential race is forcing accountability on two of the oldest tricks in politics: dog whistles and secret smears...

As a hub for intelligence, the web can enlist people in "bubbling up reports" of everything from robo-calls to US attorney firings, explains TechPresident co-founder Micah Sifry, a web activism expert who heralds the trend as a new era of "crowd-scouring" the presidency. He argues that information can whip around online with or without a political agenda. "Even without central direction, the crowd is scouring the world for interesting news and sharing tidbits constantly."...

"Thanks to YouTube--and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails-- it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed," contends Arianna Huffington, whose website pulses with a constant, two-way debate of news and opinion. "The McCain campaign hasn't gotten the message," she added, "hence the blizzard of racist, alarmist, xenophobic, innuendo-laden accusations being splattered at Obama."...

Like any other transparency measure, however, this process only enhances the potential for accountability. It does not automatically halt any conduct. It does not ensure, as Schmidt may imagine, that "Rovian" attacks are now futile--or that voters will always recoil from them. Instead, it simply means that candidates will increasingly have to answer for their code words and targeted appeals. Operatives will worry more about how a "secret" smear will play when it is exposed, since it probably will be. Attacks that turn off large swaths of the electorate, like smearing a candidate's family, will keep fading. "Rovian" ploys that hammer more vulnerable targets, however, will not be cut down by exposure alone. (Consider how the GOP has excelled by open gay-bashing, including Rove's own gay marriage strategy in 2004, with no code words needed.) So more transparency is a welcome development, but as Obama can tell you, real "change" only comes from the bottom up.

Amen and Hallelujah. We the people will change this mess of smear tactics and fear mongering. We will communicate. We will share information. We will be a part of our own democracy.

...it is by standing on the shoulders of giants...

A beautiful quote is going around like the net like here on DKos:

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk...

Martin walked, so Obama could run...

Obama is running so our children can fly!"

John McCain has finally put women's health where it belongs...

...in derisive "air quotes."

Who is Shi Sheng Hao?

Chicago Trib

Big campaign donors typically come with deep pockets and influence. But in Illinois this election cycle, no one not running for office himself has given more to the nation's federal campaigns than Shi Sheng Hao of Roselle, a virtual unknown in business and political circles.

Before September 2007, Hao's name had never appeared in the 15-year-old federal database of campaign contributors. Since then, however, his donations have topped $120,000 — including $70,100 on a single June day to Republican presidential candidate John McCain...

Donation disclosures list his occupation as a businessman with entities identified only by slightly different acronyms: ADECC, AAEC, A.A.E.C.C. On some he is also listed as president of American Chinese Entertainment Ltd.

Hao and his wife, Hsin-Ning, declared bankruptcy in 1995, at the time using the Roselle home as an address and listing as a business a firm called Asian American Environmental Control.

Hao holds an Illinois driver's license that lists his address as the Roselle home, but property records show the four-bedroom house has been owned since 1992 by Robert and Jen Chi, and their last name is on the mailbox. Contacted at the Des Plaines marketing firm where she works, Jen Chi said she didn't want to discuss Hao, though she said she knew how to get in touch with him and would have him call the Tribune. He never did.

...and what does he want from McCain?

More racism

What a leader looks like

Here's Obama yesterday in the cold rain of PA. This is a man with determination and leadership. AP & Getty Photos

Joe says stupid stuff on Foreign Relations

HuffPo

So, Joe The Plumber was out on the trail with John McCain today, apparently giving the thumbs up to someone in the crowd who felt that an Obama Presidency would bring about the end of Israel. From Raw Story:

The Ohio plumber, who has no license and is actually named Samuel Wurzelbacher, spoke at a McCain campaign event in Columbus Monday. A McCain supporter asked if "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." JTP hardly batted an eye.


"I'll go ahead and agree with you on that," Wurzelbacher said.

It's all a part of Joe the Plumber's "Maybe I'm A Foreign Policy Expert, But Anyway, You Should Go Out And Get Your Own Opinions On Things Instead Of Listening To Mine, Even Though I'm Going To Keep Opining If You Give Me Half A Chance, And Anyway, I Don't Even Really Know What John McCain's Position Is On Anything Anyway, And Probably I Should Be Snaking A Sink Trap Or Something, Instead Of Dragging Myself All Over The Country Making Statements Which I Then Sort Of Disavow A Few Minutes Later Anyway, Who Knows?" Tour of 2008!

Ah, yes. Nothing like taking foreign policy information from an unlicensed plumber who hates social security, owes back taxes, and is really getting into his 50 minutes of fame.

Sarah says stupid stuff on science

Slate

..last Friday, [when] at a speech in Pittsburgh, Gov. Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place "in Paris, France" and winding up with a folksy "I kid you not."

It was in 1933 that Thomas Hunt Morgan won a Nobel Prize for showing that genes are passed on by way of chromosomes. The experimental creature that he employed in the making of this great discovery was the Drosophila melanogaster, or fruit fly. Scientists of various sorts continue to find it a very useful resource, since it can be easily and plentifully "cultured" in a laboratory, has a very short generation time, and displays a great variety of mutation. This makes it useful in studying disease, and since Gov. Palin was in Pittsburgh to talk about her signature "issue" of disability and special needs, she might even have had some researcher tell her that there is a Drosophila-based center for research into autism at the University of North Carolina. The fruit fly can also be a menace to American agriculture, so any financing of research into its habits and mutations is money well-spent. It's especially ridiculous and unfortunate that the governor chose to make such a fool of herself in Pittsburgh, a great city that remade itself after the decline of coal and steel into a center of high-tech medical research....

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

There sure are a lot of stupid things we spend money on in the government. Things like Corporate Welfare. Of course, Sarah won't touch those things since they have to do with the broadcasting industry and the mining industry and large campaign donations. But, silly Sarah shuns the very science that could help us all continue to live on this warming, shrinking planet.

What this election means to me

A picture is worth a thousand words of HOPE
(pix from here)

Q. How much does it cost to put lipstick on a hockey mom?

A. $11,000 per week:

Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain's presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch?

Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain's chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staffer. It was Amy Strozzi, Gov. Sarah Palin's traveling makeup artist, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday night.

Ms. Strozzi, who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show "So You Think You Can Dance?", was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone, according to the records. The campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi's payment as "Personnel Svc/Equipment."

That must be some good stuff, and here're the rest of us real Americans trying to look good on $8 mascara and $20 moisturizer. Damn, are we off base. But, as everyone knows from the FoxNoise defense of Palin, "TV is a business where you have to look good." Well fine then. But then stop selling Flalin' Palin as some sort of natural back-to-basics Caribou Barbie with good looks from good clean Christian huntin' hockeyin' livin'. Show America what it really takes to get that "natural" look.

And while we're at it, can we explain why Palin wears clothes that she doesn't own just as Sen. Stevens has furniture in his house that he doesn't own? Is there some special type of property right in Alaska whereby you don't actually take possession of a thing, nor pay for it, and yet retain FREE usage rights? And how do I sign up for that program? There's a certain '57 vette I'd love to be able to drive at will, but not own nor pay for. How do I set that up? Sen. Stevens? Gov. Palin? And here I thought personal property was a big tenet in the gospel of Capitalism. But here are Stevens and Palin using communal property. How very Marxist of them.

Progressive advice for your voting questions

From Fuse Washington:

We thought it would be handy if there were an easy way to vote smart on all the races and measures on your ballot. They all have important consequences.

So we worked with 18 of Washington's leading progressive organizations to produce the Progressive Voters Guide - one-stop shopping for a highly informed recommendation about the races on your ballot.

3 Initiatives, 9 statewide offices, 2-3 State Legislators, and depending on where you live, 1 regional measure, several judges and 8-10 local charter amendments and levies. And every one of these decisions is important.

Click on the link below to use the Progressive Voters Guide. And please forward it to your friends and family. Word of mouth (or a forwarded email) is the most powerful tool in politics.

Progressive Voting Guide

Whassup?!?!??!!!

The boys have grown up during the Bush years. They've learned it's important to pay attention to a little more than the sports scores.

Nope, no hyperbole here

AP via HuffPo

Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected."

Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama [and?] administration, taxes would rise [on the wealthy\ and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms." [nope, just hype]

Separately, a group called the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission has posted a series of videos on its site and on YouTube called "7 Reasons Barack Obama is not a Christian."

The commission accuses Obama of "subtle diabolical deceit" in saying he is Christian, while he believes that people can be saved through other faiths.

But among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record, Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends.

Among the claims:

_ A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one making gay marriage the law of the land [gasp!] and another forcing the Boy Scouts to "hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys." (In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than obey). [ok, buh=bye then]

_ A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's "reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S. soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming Iraq. [not even close]

_ Nationalized health care with long lines for [non-essential] surgery and no access to hospitals for people over 80 [nope].

There must be something about evangelicals that just makes them prone to fear-based decision making. Hmmm... what could it be? What could have so influenced their world views that those world views are always seen through hate-colored glasses? Now, their god is a loving god who loves all his children but threatens them with eternal damnation should they not accept his own suicide as some sort of salvation pact. I wonder if that's it? Could it be that they believe that this loving god cast out his first two children for making ONE mistake before they even knew the difference between good and evil? Hmmm... what could make children of a loving and all-providing, endlessly patient, relationship-building god so fearful all the time. It's a puzzler.

Al-Qaeda support "impetuous" McCain

AP via HuffPo

Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message, posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site, said if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is the better choice because he is more likely to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier," the message said. "Then, al-Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

SITE Intelligence Group, based in Bethesda, Md., monitors the Web site and translated the message.

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

Dino Rossi's brand of Compassionate Conservatism

I haven't said much about the Gregoire/Rossi match-up. But here's a little something for the Washington voters to chew on. How angry is this Rossi campaign aide and why is it that he continues to call the protester "stupid" over and over? Why is it better to have a few more people working at a lower minimum wage (if that's even true) rather than a few less workers at a higher minimum wage?

McCain Supporter thinks "everybody should think this way"

From PBS' NOW series:
Really can someone just drive around "real America" with this poster and hand it out at every intersection, diner, gas station, grocery store and McDonalds?

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Why do poor people vote Republican

a new book may help to answer the question. Here is a review from Barnes & Noble and Ezra Klein

Andrew Gelman's Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State can be summed up with extreme concision: Rich people vote Republican, but rich states vote Democratic. Poor people vote Democratic, but poor states vote Republican. That's pretty weird.

I've always wondered WHY ON EARTH do lower-income voters vote Republican. It seems that Andrew Gelman has taken up this question. This is a book I'll have to get. Gelman's conclusion seems to be that when you're poor in a poor state (Mississipi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, etc.) you vote Republican because even as your state sinks into disrepair, you're more likely to vote based on cultural issues than financial ones. If you're rich in a poor state, again your state falls into disrepair, but you're willing to have the distinction of wealth preserved, rather than "spread the weatlh" which would raise up your whole state, but make less of a distinction between yourself and your poorer neighbors.

It's still a puzzle to me, but I think I'll get the book and see if I can explain it more clearly after reading it.

As for me, I'd much rather be middle class in any country in Europe than rich in any country with a great divide between rich and poor.

Finally, arrests for voter fraud begin

and no, it's not about ACORN.

The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario over the weekend on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that all signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California. His firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM, collects petition signatures and registers voters in California and other states...

Several dozen voters recently told The Times that YPM workers said they had to become Republicans to sign the petition, contrary to California initiative law. Other voters said they had no idea their registration was being changed.

YPM has been accused of using bait-and-switch tactics across the country. Election officials and lawmakers have launched investigations into the activities of YPM workers in Florida and Massachusetts. In Arizona, the firm was recently a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit.

Send your favorite ACORN-bashing uncle here: LA Times

New wacko meme: Liberalism = Anti-Americanism

Have the retards of the right finally "jumped the shark?" Bachmann of Minnesota, who god told to run for office and who doesn't believe in global warming, wants an investigation on members of Congress to determine who is "anti-American." In her mind, wanting more for America means that you're somehow anti-American. That's like saying a parent hates its child because they want the child to become more than it is at any particular age of childhood. Apparently, if you want America to grow and become more and more civilized, more and more open, more and more accepting, more and more mature, then you're saying you hate America.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, donate to Bachmann's opponent in the race. It doesn't matter if you only throw $5 at him. We need to stand up and say we will accept this kind of slime and intimidation and questioning of our love of our country simply because we want it to grow and mature.

UPDATE: You DO make a difference. Read the following from Bachmann's opponent Elwyn Tinklengberg to Daily Kos:

The last few hours have been nothing short of astounding. Since Congresswoman Michele Bachmann appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball earlier tonight, there’s been a deluge of support unlike anything we have seen. We are so grateful to the Daily Kos community and others who’ve sounded the alarm on Bachmann’s extremist, shameful rhetoric and pitched in with whatever they can to help end her tenure in Congress.

Our phones haven’t stopped ringing. Many have called in to say they’re sorry they can only send money and wish they could be here to help. We want you to know what a difference your funds are making and that, thanks in part to your help, we are confident that we will be able to win this race. We are preparing to get out the vote on an unprecedented scale, and with supporters like you we will have the resources we need to get the job done.

I am both hopeful and humbled at the reminder you gave me tonight – that in our country’s darkest times, it is the strength and belief and action of ordinary Americans that ultimately brings about the change we need. From the hardworking folks in Minnesota’s Sixth District to all of you: we are proud to have you on our side.

Thank you,

El Tinklenberg

DONATE PLEASE. It will change the way politics works if you can affect these races as much as the big-money PACs do. It will show people that they can't bring out the worst in us and expect to lead America.

UPDATE #2 (Sat 5:39 p.m) El Tinklenberg is up to $227K via ActBlue (from about $4k when I donated last night!) His total between ActBlue and direct campaign contributions is $488K!!!!!! Can you believe it. America lives and her promise continues.

Say it ain't so, Joe

Politico

John McCain hung his final presidential debate performance on an Ohio plumber who campaign aides never vetted.

A day after making Joseph Wurzelbacher famous, referencing him in the debate almost two dozen times as someone who would pay higher taxes under Barack Obama, McCain learned the fine print Thursday on the plumber’s not-so-tidy personal story: He owes back taxes. He is not a licensed plumber. And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president....

A McCain source said Thursday that the campaign read about Wurzelbacher on the Drudge Report, while another campaign aide confirmed that he was not vetted.

PS - a few more beauties on Joe:

1. His name is really Samuel Joseph Wurzebacher. Why go by "Joe"? Would it be so he could really symbolize the "average Joe" and "Joe sixpack" that McSame/Flailin' like to talk about?

2. Joe hates social security. He thinks he should be able to invest the money himself (yeah, 'cause that's working so well right now). He feel he already has a mommy and daddy and doesn't need the gov't to be another mommy and daddy for him. Well bully for you (Sam) Joe. But what about others w/o that mental ability. Oh, yeah, the typical republican response: fuck 'em.

Palin, if you get raped, you're welcome to carry the child to term

...some of us might want the ability to make a different choice:

Sarah unclear on the concept of lying

ADN

Sarah Palin's reaction to the Legislature's Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: "I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That's the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn't claim "vindication" with a straight face.

See Sarah, "violating a statute" is a fancy way of saying "breaking the law." How can you seriously respond, when asked if you've done anything wrong,

So no, not having done anything wrong, and again very much appreciating being cleared of any legal wrongdoing or unethical activity at all.

A governor of a state in the United States of America who doesn't understand when someone has been guilty of legal wrongdoing. Strange days indeed.

Being right way ahead of his peers

Maybe that's why Krugman won the Nobel in economics. Here is prime Krugman from 2005, calling this economic mess we're in. He was roundly criticized as being an economist who "no matter how well the economy performs, Krugman’s bitter vendetta against the Bush administration requires him to hunt for the black lining in a sky full of silvery clouds."

So the news that the U.S. housing bubble is over won't come in the form of plunging prices; it will come in the form of falling sales and rising inventory, as sellers try to get prices that buyers are no longer willing to pay. And the process may already have started.

Of course, some people still deny that there's a housing bubble. Let me explain how we know that they're wrong...

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has become deeply dependent on the housing bubble. The economic recovery since 2001 has been disappointing in many ways, but it wouldn't have happened at all without soaring spending on residential construction, plus a surge in consumer spending largely based on mortgage refinancing. Did I mention that the personal savings rate has fallen to zero?

Now we're starting to hear a hissing sound, as the air begins to leak out of the bubble. And everyone - not just those who own Zoned Zone real estate - should be worried.

Liddy:McCain :: ??:Obama

Media atters

Let's start with Bill Ayers, since the news media have spent much of the week obliging McCain's efforts to make him the focus of the campaign. As an activist in the 1960s -- when Barack Obama was a young child -- Bill Ayers was a member of the Weathermen, a group of radical activists who launched a series of violent demonstrations and bombings in protest of the Vietnam War. Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago and a school reform advocate. During Obama's first campaign, Ayers hosted a coffee for him, and the two men have served together on the board of a school reform effort funded by a foundation chaired by Leonore Annenberg, who has endorsed John McCain. The New York Times concluded that Obama and Ayers "do not appear to have been close," and Obama has denounced Ayers' actions as a member of the Weathermen.

A search* of the Nexis database found that more than 4,500 news reports so far this year have mentioned Obama and Ayers -- more than 1,800 this week alone.

Now: G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy served four and a half years in prison for his role in the break-ins at the Watergate and at Daniel Ellsberg's psychologist's office. He has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary." He plotted to kill journalist Jack Anderson. He plotted with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt in order to thwart an investigation. He plotted to firebomb the Brookings Institution. He used Nazi terminology to outline a plan to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 GOP convention. And Liddy's bad acts were not confined to the early 1970s. In the 1990s, he instructed his radio audience on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents ("Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." In case anyone missed the subtlety of his point, Liddy also insisted: "Kill the sons of bitches.") During Bill Clinton's presidency, Liddy boasted that he named his shooting targets after the Clintons.

What does Liddy have to do with the presidential election? As Media Matters has noted:

Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled, "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07," includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

McCain even backed Liddy's son's congressional bid in 2000 -- a campaign that relied heavily on the elder Liddy's history.

To sum up: John McCain is "proud" of his "old friend" Gordon Liddy -- an old friend who plotted to kill one of the most respected journalists in American history, and who urged listeners to kill federal agents and advised them on how to do so. McCain campaigned for Liddy's son, and Liddy has even hosted a fundraiser for McCain at his home.

So McCain's relationship with Liddy is pretty much a direct parallel to Obama's relationship with Ayers. Except that McCain and Liddy have apparently spent time together more recently than Obama and Ayers. And Liddy's extremist activities continued well into the 1990s, at least. And Liddy says he and McCain are "old friends," while The New York Times says Obama and Ayers aren't close. And Obama has never said Ayers adheres to "the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." Other than all that, it's a direct parallel.

Zakaria on the silver lining

Newsweek

Wall Street will also need to change. Paul Volcker has long argued that the recent spate of financial innovation was nothing of the kind: it simply shuffled around existing resources while contributing few real benefits to the economy. Such activity will now be reduced significantly. Boykin Curry, managing director of Eagle Capital, says, "For 20 years, the DNA of nearly every financial institution had morphed dangerously. Each time someone at the table pressed for more leverage and more risk, the next few years proved them 'right.' These people were emboldened, they were promoted and they gained control of ever more capital. Meanwhile, anyone in power who hesitated, who argued for caution, was proved 'wrong.' The cautious types were increasingly intimidated, passed over for promotion. They lost their hold on capital. This happened every day in almost every financial institution over and over, until we ended up with a very specific kind of person running things. This year, the capital that remains is finally being reallocated to more careful, thoughtful executives and investors—the Warren Buffetts … of the world."

Volcker has also argued that the highly complex financial system was not nearly as stable as people believed and that far-reaching efforts were needed to regulate and stabilize it. Now these issues will get attention at the highest level. The fear on Wall Street is that a Democratic administration would overregulate. But look at who is advising Barack Obama—Buffett, Volcker, former Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. It is more likely that what will come from their efforts will be a better-regulated financial system that, while producing less-extravagant profits, will be more stable and secure.

The financial industry itself is likely to shrink, and that's not a bad thing, either. It has ballooned dramatically in size. Curry points out that "30 percent of S&P 500 profits last year were earned by financial firms, and U.S. consumers were spending $800 billion more than they earned every year. As a result, most of our top math Ph.D.s were being pulled into nonproductive financial engineering instead of biotech research and fuel technology. Capital expenditures went into retail construction instead of critical infrastructure." The crisis will stop the misallocation of human and financial resources and redirect them in more-productive ways. If some of the smart people now on Wall Street end up building better models of energy usage and efficiency, that would be a net gain for the economy.

Amen. Finally someone says it. A job is not a job is not a job. All that brain power wento to Wall St. in the 80s, 90s and 00s because that's where the BIG money was. But moving paper really doesn't help the economy, at least not as much as inventing better solar systems and more efficient batteries. Maybe if we can come out of this mess in a sensible manner with a good and intelligent president, we can finally start to reallocate the minds toward the common good, instead of the individual golden parachute.

Just "Wow"

From here.

I've gone from being so proud of America at the DNC for finally nominating someone not old and white; to being terrified for Barack after seeing the McSame/Flailin' vitriolic mobs; to remembering the pride and promise of Obama again today.

You go sir. The old ideas will die, but they will go kicking and screaming. In the end though, the fear-based ideas will go and make way for a better America.

Ugly Angry People Calling Names

(sorry, that's supposed to be a riff on Shiny Happy People Holding Hands). But this crowd waiting to get into a McCain/Palin rally is anything but shiny or happy. They seem so incredibly angry. They are standing in line at midday. Across the road there are a few Obama supporters who you can see at the end of the video. The McCain supporters keep yelling to the Obama supporters "Get a job!" even though they themselves are apparently attending a rally, which presumably is not their job. Where are their jobs? Why is it OK for them to be off the clock, but not the Obama supporters? Then they start spouting their mind implants from Limbaugh et al re:ACORN. ACORN's been in the news a lot lately, at least on the right-wing "news". They are apparently the fall-guys for the entire world-wide financial crisis. It has nothing to do with unregulated credit default swaps, nothing to do with writing insurance instruments with no reserve requirements, nothing to do with a comlete lack of regulation. No, of course, it's the fault of the brown people and the do-gooders. If these McCain/Palin supporters would just read, just a little, and inform themselves. But they remind me of the Germans pre-WWII. Just looking for scapegoats. Just looking for someone to blame their misery on instead of looking in the mirror.

Progressive jobs vs. regressive jobs

Here is a blog post that I stumbled on through Robert Reich's (former secy' of Labor under Clinton and one hell of a genius economist) blog.

Now that Reaganomics and quasi-laissez-faire capitalism have been thoroughly discredited as they should be having brought the world the greatest financial crisis in almost a century, now is the time for the US economy to be fundamentally restructured. Hopefully, this will happen if Obama and the Democrats win in the upcoming elections. There are three primary areas or sectors that need attention: (1) financial services, (2) health care and (3) the military-industrial complex. These three sectors provide the bulk of the jobs in the US economy and hence are large contributors to GDP. However, they need to be reduced. How, you say, can you reduce jobs in a recession throwing even more people out of work? Well it can be done if you provide jobs in other sectors, and the only entity (contrary to Reagan's mantra - "Government is the problem, not the solution") that can oversee this process is government...

One person's waste and inefficiency is another person's job. But in the long run isn't it better to have a cost-effective, well run health care system that provides quality health care to everyone at the minmum cost? Sure, but this will reduce jobs and GDP. I have argued elsewhere that a reduction in GDP can be a good thing. There are all kinds of components of GDP that are really bad for society as a whole. To name a few: the cigarette industry, the casino industry, the oil industry in the sense that it contributes to our trade deficit and pollutes the environment, the bottled water industry, the fast food industry. Many of the very components of GDP that produce the most jobs have negative effects on our health and/or our environment. What to do? Well the alternative is to create jobs in industries that are beneficial to human well-being and beneficial for the environment. That isn't going to just happen spontaneously or by virtue of laissez-faire capitalism or by people seeking their self-interest or higher profits. It can happen with oversight and planning...

Jobs can be created in one sector while being destroyed in another. As long as a job is created in a more benign sector for every one destroyed, I would argue that progress is being made. The Hindus have gods of creation and gods of destruction, Shiva and Vishnu, and somehow these gods create a balance. Both creation and destruction are necessary. What we need is a balanced economy, and to get there some jobs have to be created and others destroyed. In this process greater unemployment and welfare benefits should be granted so that the poor suffer the least, contrary to the usual scenario in times of great change. Basic standards of living should be guaranteed and maintained with government support if necessary. The "least of these our brethren," the homeless, should be cared for and not treated with benign neglect as they are now. However, the wealthy may have to sacrifice their yachts and mansions. I advocate a wealth tax, a tax on assets over $10 million to provide funding and balance the budget. The wealthiest 400 families have added $680 billion to their assets in the last 8 years. Now it should be their turn to pay some of it back in return for the mess that they primarily have created and are responsible for.

Exactly, GDP is not a meaningful indicator, as discussed before. Jobs need to be created whose end products are not ICBMs, but rather healthy and happy and informed citizens. I don't care if Halliburton makes a few billion. I just want them to make the few billion doing some good in the world, instead of creating implements of death. [And of course, I want them taxed at progressive rates ;*)]

More word clouds

From the Second Debate. You know, the one with the grumpy guy and "that one."

First Obama, who THINKS a lot:


Then McCain who, not surprisingly, KNOWS a lot:


Thanks to Kos for the pix.

"I won't be buried under their (USA) damn flag"

...quick, who said that? Jeremiah Wright? Not even close. The founder of the Alaska Independence Party with which Sarah Palin has numerous connections?

Psssst...McCain is pro-forced birth....Pass it on

In the US, "folksy" trumps brainy

The Guardian

We are now several weeks into the weird humiliation that the Republican party inflicted upon us Americans with their choice of Sarah Palin as their nominee for Vice-President. Here we are, at as precarious a crossroad as history is ever likely to offer up, yet there stands Sarah Palin regurgitating George W Bush's 'good guys-bad guys' baby talk. I despair.

When I hear her failing to recall the name of a single newspaper she'd ever read, I feel willing to offer up my teenage son as a sacrifice to the Republican party; he could serve in her stead with so much more fluency. When she prattles smoothly yet non-responsively to questions about the war, economics or foreign policy - or when she brightly changes the subject altogether - I want to weep.

Palin is a never-ending train wreck of ignorance, inconsistency, outright contradiction and sneering. During her debate with Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden, she chatted up soccer moms and hockey moms, her mom and her pop and, by golly, yours too. She winked and she dimpled and 'goshed' and 'doggoned' it. She gave a 'shout-out' to some third graders in Wasilla, promising 'extra credit' for staying up to listen.

Everytime I hear this woman speak, I grow more offended that McCain and Rove believe that Americans are so stupid that they can foist anyone upon us and we will not even notice the insult. And, so far, I guess they're right.

Palin, also, on the debate, and then also, you know, sort of also analyzing, like, also

The woman sure likes to say "also" a lot. Here's a word cloud of Sarah's debate responses. The size of the word indicates its frequency in responses.

The word clouds are courtesy of DailyKos who also has one for Biden if you're inclined to review.

There are also a few sites that have analyzed syllable length and sentence length. Here's another. Not surprisingly, Sarah is the long talker. Her sentences are much longer than Joe's. Unfortunately length does not necessarily correlate with coherence.

Financial Crisis Made Easy

Hint, hint, John McCain was FOR deregulation before he was agin' it

The best meme out of this compilation is the idea of seeing regulation and the costs associated with it (take note die-hard capitalist) as a kind of insurance premium against financial debacles such as the one we are currently in the midst of.

Personally, I think we should pay for any bailout with tax increases and the bulk of those increases should start with incomes over $2,000,000 per year. If we're gonna pony up, then let's pony up. Let's not "stick it on the tab." That's what got us into this mess in the first place. Let's pay as we go. And let's have the fattest cats pay first.

A taste of her own toxic medicine

Kathleen Parker, the conservative columnist who once said:

Here’s a note I got recently from a friend and former Delta Force member, who has been observing American politics from the trenches: “These bastards like Clark and Kerry and that incipient ass, Dean, and Gephardt and Kucinich and that absolute mental midget Sharpton, race baiter, should all be lined up and shot.”

is dealing with a bit of the old karma these days. Parker was one of the first conservatives to complain about Pain's interviews with Gibson and Couric. Well, the wingnuts will be having none of that! They apparently have been piling the hate mail on Ms. Parker for affronting their darling girl Palin. And now, after spewing hate for years and encouraging others to question their enemies' patriotism, loyalties and even humanity, she has the gall to cry "foul" and expect a little sympathy. She writes:

…when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one’s own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk.

Boo-frickin-hoo Kathleen. As ye reap, so shall ye sow. Perhaps now might be a good time for all the pundits of hate to stop fostering these types of discussions for the good of us all. It is finally time after 28 years of partisan and "identity" politics for us all to start to find compromises and get rid of the "my way or the highway" mentality espoused by Bush, Cheney, Gingrich, Delay, Limbaugh, O'Reilley, and many many others primarily in the Republican party.

Dictating the Terms

From Arianna:

Over the past 30 years Americans have been bombarded with sermons evangelizing for the free market religion of the right and the supposed correlation between unregulated markets and progress. In the process, the American people have been demoted from citizens to consumers, and sold a bill of goods (rather than a Bill of Rights) about how the almighty market was the essential foundation of democracy.

In the course of selling us on buying, the market-worshippers shredded the modern social contract, the hard-fought consensus that had emerged since the New Deal that ordered our political priorities and expressed both our communal concern for the most vulnerable members of society and our disapproval of huge inequalities. We were now supposed to believe that all could be left up to the soulless, self-correcting calculus of supply and demand. Government involvement was an anachronism, regulatory oversight an impediment.

The last few weeks have demolished that notion. In the battle over the proper role of government, the forces of the right, the high priests of the church of the Free Market - including Bush, Paulson, and the Masters of Wall Street - have suffered a monumental defeat. So why are we allowing them to dictate the terms of their surrender?

Why indeed? All I've ever heard is that markets rule! Boo-yah. So, in this case I see two possible outcomes: 1)Step back and let the thing implode, thereby "allowing the market to correct itself" OR 2) Pass some sort of bail-out ON PROGRESSIVE TERMS.

The answer from Congress should be, "YOU WERE WRONG. Here's how it's gonna go now..." We should pack this thing with help for the middle and lower classes, raise the top tax rates, NO TAX CUTS, no more help for the wealthiest. Why are we worried about getting more Repubs to support the bail-out. Screw 'em. THEY WERE WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING. Dems need to step up and own this bill, if they're going to pass one at all. Get progressive reforms in there. This is a once in a century opportunity. Or step back, and let the chips fall where they may.

Biden Beware

Rambin' Joe may be about to get pwned:

Sarah Palin’s recent abysmal interviews are a canard. She is not the vapid, seemingly naïve and inexperienced candidate we have been led to believe. The bar of expectation has been deliberately lowered so low that once in front of the debate lectern, she will stun Biden with her slick, pat answers, leaving him flustered and trampled by the hockey mom turned-governor from Alaska.

Sound far-fetched or ridiculous? It’s not. Allow me to explain why.

Sarah Palin is sandbagging. She is intentionally appearing inept, and at times, outright vacuous and bungling. But she is downplaying and misrepresenting her political skill, guile and debating ability in order to deceive the Obama camp. This was an outright calculated, premeditated ploy in order to lull Sen. Joe Biden into a false sense of security. All of Palin’s botched interviews were done with wily aforethought – they were red herrings and glib stagecraft to hustle Biden.

Forget the static currently being transmitted by conservative lackeys feigning consternation over the Palin pick. I have recently watched several video clips from her debates, when she ran for Governor of Alaska in 2006, and she is far more adroit, astute, and shrewd during these debates than recent interviews suggest. In fact, she is a cunning, clever, and crafty woman who knows how to disarm people with her charm and then coldly go in for the kill shot.

I wouldn't doubt it. The Repubs know that the news cycle is short and stories step over other stories at an amazing rate. The "Sarah is stupid" meme can easily be trounced by the "Sarah is a star" meme. And I wouldn't put it past the Rovian leaders of the McCain campaign to realize this and let Sarah "take a dive" in the interviews just to get even more star traction in the debats.