Jackie Strange

Jobs lost, jobs gained

2012-02-06T23:41:00.001-06:00

Who decides?

2012-02-05T09:58:00.004-06:00

This Graphic of the Day might seem to imply that abortion services, since they are a small part of what Planned Parenthood does, are unimportant to those of us who support Planned Parenthood.

Not unimportant. Critical.

Too many politicians would allow abortions only to save the life of the mother - no exceptions for rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormality. If a woman gets pregnant as a result of a rape, or a 12 year old is pregnant by her father (also rape whether violent or not), they believe that the government should force the rape victim, even a 12 year old, to live with that pregnancy for nine months and give birth to their rapist's baby. If a fetus is so deformed that it cannot survive outside the womb, they believe that the government should force the woman to carry it until it dies inside her, or to give birth and then watch it struggle and die in her arms.

This is a horrifying and cruel demand for government control of our very bodies, our hearts, our souls.

But women also need to be able to determine the course of their own lives in less extreme, but still difficult situations.

I graduated from high school with a full college scholarship. It paid for everything. Not just tuition and books, but room and board as well. It was a life-saver for me. My mother died when I was seven and when Fall came I was finally able to escape from my abusive and violent father. I had tried before. I ran away from home three times my senior year of high school, but I kept being returned to him. Children had no rights in those days. They were simply possessions of their parents. I guess I just wasn't brave enough to run off to a distant big city and try to survive any way I could. Too many street kids in cities like New York or Chicago were kids like me, desperate to escape. I had heard the stories, that many survived by prostitution and stealing. Scared that I'd end up like those kids, I knocked on doors of teachers or friend's parents late at night, in tears and hysterical. They took me back.

I got pregnant when I was 19. No idea how that happened. I was taking birth control pills and don't think I had missed any. But it happened.

I had no idea what to do. I had no home to go to. The only money I had was the $63 a month I got from Social Security survivors benefits because my mother had died. I would have lost my scholarship and been expelled from school. For being an immoral slut. Several girls I knew who had gotten pregnant had abortions arranged by their parents, but I effectively had no parents.

Finally I told a friend. He told me that he knew how to get me an abortion (an illegal one, of course) if that was what I wanted. He'd done that for his sister, who had attempted suicide when she found out she was pregnant. He was literally trying to save her life, sure that she'd try again and might well succeed the second time.

The relief I felt when he told me that he could help me flowed through my whole body. I can't describe it. I told him I'd think about it. I desperately didn't want to be pregnant, but I also knew how dangerous illegal abortions were. I could die.

A few days later, I miscarried.

About a year later, my friend told me his sister had attempted suicide again. It turned out that the infection that happened as a result of her back alley abortion had left her infertile. She couldn't accept never being able to have children. My friend and his sister had grown up in a very strict Baptist family and she believed that she was being punished for having sex, for getting pregnant. She figured that since she was going to burn in Hell for all eternity, she might as well get on with it. Why wait? Eternity is a long time.

I look at my daughter, the light of my life, and I think, if I hadn't miscarried, if I'd accepted my friend's offer of help, I too might never have been able to have children.

I don't want young women today to experience the panic and desperation that I did and I sure as hell don't want them to go through what my friend's sister went through.

We can't go back.

Abortion is complicated. But the basic principle is simple. There are as many reasons, as many personal stories like mine behind every decision to terminate a pregnancy as there are women who need an abortion.

The decision should not be the government's.

From Planned Parenthood:

Our primary goal is prevention — reducing the number of unintended pregnancies, especially the alarmingly high number of teenage pregnancies, in the United States. At the same time, to protect their health and the health of their families, women facing an unintended pregnancy must have access to safe, legal abortion services without interference from the government. Decisions about childbearing should be made by a woman in consultation with her family and doctor — not by politicians.

(bold mine)

What Planned Parenthood does

2012-02-05T09:43:00.005-06:00

(thoughts here

Why do Americans hate the media

2011-12-27T09:02:00.001-06:00

From Devilstower at DailyKos

The media -- newspapers, radio, and television -- is not made up of reporters running on a sparkling field of journalistic integrity. Those reporters are instead embedded in a machine intended to do the one thing that Mr. Keen sets as the mark of professionalism -- make money. And the way the media has chosen to make money over the last few decades is, perversely, by devaluing their own product. The clearest illustration of this can be found in three massive changes that have affected news over the last two decades: the increase in radio pundits, the establishment of the Fox News Network, and the reaction of the remainder of the media to the first two events. . . .

But the right wing talk brigade doesn't exist just to build up their own or tear down Democrats. They have, from the moment they first rolled onto the air, existed to tell you that traditional news organizations are no good. The Washington Post? Inside the beltway losers out of touch with real America. CNN? The Clinton News Network. The New York Times? Please. Do you really have to ask?

Punditry has always aimed as much artillery at the people who deliver the news as it does at those who make it. There's a very good reason for this. Before you can convince someone of a lie, you need to make it more difficult for them to check your information. If you establish from the start that NPR is communist, MSNBC and CNN are slanted, and every newspaper this side of Journal's editorial page should be printed on pink paper, then any exaggeration you deliver becomes the de facto standard. Impugning the validity of other news sources is the first job of a successful pundit. They don't seek to be your sources of information by passing along reliable news. They do so by constantly assailing the legitimacy of other sources until you're left shaking your head at the absolute ignorance of everyone but Rush/Bill/Sean/Ann.

The same principles apply to an even greater degree for Fox News. Yes, the network exists to promulgate a rigidly conservative agenda, but it can't do that without first informing you that every other source of news is invalid. Fox doesn't compete with the other networks, it sneers at them. From its motto to its non-existent boundaries between opinion and reporting, Fox exists by being an instrument of destruction to other news providers. Why do those who watch Fox News continue to believe that Iraq was involved in 9/11 despite that idea having been disproved over, and over, and over? Because Fox tells them to. Because Fox's pundits repeat the lie. Because Fox has convinced them that no other source of fact exists.

Fox News Network alone has done more to devalue the whole idea of news than every supermarket tabloid, every radio ranter, and every blogger combined.

If both the institutions at blame are heavily weighted to the right, that's no coincidence. Conservative dogma has long held the idea that it must discredit the press by claiming that the Fourth Estate is in fact a Fifth Column. They have depended on their ability to defame factual sources as a means of easing the way for misinformation since well before the time of Joe McCarthy. The right has successfully extended this campaign into the realm of science, convincing people that both evolution and global warming are somehow "political issues," deserving of no more attention than alternatives despite reams of evidence.

The myth of the "liberal media" came long before the blogs. Discrediting the "nattering nabobs" of the press is not a game that originated with bloggers. Every blogger I know is fully aware that we could not survive without the legwork done by hardworking, professional reporters. Bloggers are not competition to the traditional media -- though they do, hopefully, act as an occasional check on its excesses. However, even if the Internet were entirely dedicated to the downfall of existing media, it would be only one popgun in a chorus of cannons. A large part of the traditional media is dedicated to nothing less than making war on the rest. . . .

The media is working very, very hard to make sure that you don't trust the media. Professionalism defined only by dollars dictates that they chase declining ad revenues through alleys of filth. News outlets have become devoted not to providing stories that are timely and accurate, but to providing proof that their competitors are slanted and unreliable. It's devolved into a battle in which all sides lose. And the biggest loser is the consumer looking for a reliable, authoritative source of information.

The parts I bolded in the excerpts from Devilstower's post reminded me of why I continually have a deeply disturbing sense that the extreme right-wing is more like a cult than a political party. As I understand it, as new members are enticed into a cult, the first thing that must be done to ensure their "capture" into the cult is to isolate them. They must be completely separated from any source of information that would cause them to question the ideology and worldview of the cult.

Cult members are often required to cut off all communication with family and former friends. TV, newspapers, magazines, books (except for any written by the cult leader) are usually banned. The only "information" new members are allowed is the distorted view of reality provided by the cult itself.

Some cult members (often the women and the children) are permanently kept isolated from the wider world. However, it is difficult to impossible to completely isolate everyone in the cult from the outside. The men, for example, may be required to have jobs or the cult itself may establish businesses that require contact with their customers in order to financially support the cult. The truly isolated members may accidentally be exposed to outside sources. So it is necessary to install deep distrust of any information from outside the cult into the very brains of the cult members.

What Devilstower describes is how this is being done to millions of Americans through the traditional media. What started as conscious propaganda on the part of the extreme right has now spread to formerly more-or-less reliable sources of information. And the formerly more-or-less reliable sources are actively participating in their own erosion of credibility.

Scary, when you think about how dangerous the cult mentality can be and where it can lead. What's scary is not that most Americans are buying it. They aren't. What's scary are the horrors that can be unleashed in any society by a minority of "true believers" in the name of an ideology.

Priorities

2011-12-27T08:57:00.002-06:00

Larger graphic and discussion at the source Center for American Progress

Pretty funny

2011-12-13T23:42:00.000-06:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

The death penalty

2011-12-13T23:16:00.002-06:00

Cacti:

If we go from 1976, the year the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court, there have been 1,266 executions.

In the same time, there have been 133 inmates who were sentenced to die, who have had their conviction overturned on appeal, and were subsequently acquitted on re-trial, or had their charges dismissed by the State, or were granted an absolute pardon. . . .

Those numbers mean, in the past 35 years, 1 in 10 deathrow inmates was tried, found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers, and sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit.

Those are just the ones we know of. If the system could get it demonstrably wrong 10 percent of the time. There’s a good chance that there’s a similar number of cases where the accused wasn’t so fortunate.

Medicare

2009-08-16T10:34:00.003-05:00

Darksyde considers his parents:

I'm lucky. Both my parents are entering their ninth decade of life and in relatively good health. They're alive, vibrant, enjoying their golden years surrounded by legions of kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.

Thanks to Medicare, my parents have survived heart disease, diabetes, and cancer, each requiring major, life saving surgery. They’ve had cataracts repaired, hold arthritis in check, and closely monitor and treat any signs of peripheral artery disease or pending stroke. That's why today they can enjoy a round of golf, shop for Christmas presents, hug their great-grandchildren, and do all the precious things more valuable to everyone in my family than any sum of money. To say that private, for profit health insurance could never offer our clan that option is a laughable understatement.

If Fox News, Newt Gingrich, or Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the lying wingnut clowns had been around when Medicare was proposed, my mother and father would be, at best, blind and crippled in a homeless shelter due to medical costs. Probably with at least one or two of their medically tapped out adult children living in a dumpster across the street. Or, more likely, they would live only in my family’s memory. And make no mistake; this Republican war on affordable heathcare is a war on my parents and yours. It's a fundamental plank in conservative ideology and includes destroying Medicare, usually disguised by widely quoted bytes like ‘ let's get the government out of healthcare.’

. . . What’s so remarkable about my parents' healthcare battles and victories isn’t that they're unique; the remarkable thing is they are the norm. Millions of senior citizens are alive, pain free, and productive today as a direct result of a core value in the progressive movement: it's time for affordable, quality healthcare to be a right, not a privilege, for everyone.

. . . If ever there was a time when pastors and priests should be reminding their congregation that "whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me," it is here. If ever there was cause worth fighting for, healthcare reform is it. Our time is now.

What is recission?

2009-08-05T12:08:00.002-05:00

When you apply for private insurance you have to fill out pages of info about your health and any health issues/treatments you've had. You've probably had to do this. I have. This can be a source of major suckage right away. For example, when my friend Ursula was in her 30's (she's a little older than we are) she found a lump in her breast. Her dr told her that she was pretty sure it was just a fat deposit, but that she should have a biopsy "just to be 100% sure." So Ursula did. And it was a fat deposit. No worries, no further problems. But now most insurance companies won't cover her at all, and the one she finally found that would has very high premiums and deductible - and cancer treatment is excluded!

Anyway, that's not recisssion. Recission is when you fill it all out and then they happily take your premiums for years, but when you're diagnosed with something expensive - heart attack, cancer, etc - they pull out your original application and then comb through all of your medical records with sophisticated computer programs until they find something you didn't put on the form. At which point they say, "Aha! You didn't tell us everything! Policy cancelled!"

But of course even the most honest person in the world might not remember every single trip to the doctor for their whole life, or they might not recognize a medical term on the form for something they were treated for . . .

And then this is what happens:

Weekly address - Insurance for small business

2009-08-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

Pushback against health care reform misinformation

2009-08-04T10:34:00.001-05:00

From MLK to today . . .

2009-07-21T19:19:00.002-05:00

Beat it

2009-06-26T22:46:00.004-05:00

How did it happen?

2009-02-20T11:01:00.000-06:00

Best explanation I've seen.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

A New Day

2009-01-01T09:46:00.001-06:00

And it's a New Year. Things are looking pretty bleak lately. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed. But if we are going to have a chance of repairing the damage that's been done in the past eight years and tackling the challenges that lie ahead, we have to have hope.

Hope is important.

Hope

2008-11-05T22:14:00.000-06:00

An American Prayer

2008-11-05T12:48:00.001-06:00

Make history

2008-11-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

Mr. November

2008-11-01T11:03:00.001-05:00

OK, there's some irony in juxtaposing pictures of Obama with the lyrics, "I'm the Great White Hope." And well, I do hope (it's about hope, right) that the refrain turns out to be true.

But, The National is my current favorite band and the visuals are great, so:

Local voices in Ohio

2008-10-24T23:51:00.002-05:00

truth and hope.org created these videos. You can donate to help get these ads on the air here And check out their Mamas for Obama videos, too.

Local voices in Nevada

2008-10-24T23:49:00.002-05:00

truth and hope.org created these videos. You can donate to help get these ads on the air here. They also have some great Elders for Obama ads too.

Local voices in Missouri

2008-10-24T23:37:00.004-05:00

truth and hope.org created these videos. You can donate to help get these ads on the air here.

Best endorsement

2008-10-24T23:18:00.001-05:00

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

What's your Obama tax cut?

2008-10-22T02:31:00.000-05:00

Cpl. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, 1987-2007

2008-10-19T14:33:00.001-05:00

Gen. Colin Powell endorses Obama

2008-10-19T12:02:00.000-05:00

Chill

2008-09-20T15:19:00.001-05:00

Okay, FIRST watch this:

Now go look at this.

;-)

Confessions of a Republican (1964)

2008-09-19T21:02:00.000-05:00

Remember the Unitarian Jihad?

2008-08-08T17:50:00.004-05:00

Their manifesto started out like this and only got better from there:

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Divine Atom Bomb of Serene Freedom. What's yours?

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant"

2008-08-05T19:51:00.002-05:00

Time magazine did their homework. The Republican attack dogs, not so much.

Paris's, er, Obama's Energy Plan

2008-08-05T19:28:00.001-05:00

This is a hoot. Thing is, what she presents as "her" plan is actually Obama's plan. McCain just wants to drill, period.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Netroots for the troops

2008-06-19T21:59:00.008-05:00

I'm deleting most of the original post, since it was very long and mostly had to do with how to help with the project.

The Netroots for the Troops project is done! We ended up packing 130 boxes at Netroots Nation in Austin, and roses, jnhobbs, and I made sure they all got mailed. (The Oak Hill post office knew me very well by the time it was all done, and I knew just about everyone who works there by name. Thanks Guy, Gus, Eli, Leo, Chris, and Henry . . . you all were s-o-o-o-o helpful!)

From the Netroots for the Troops series of diaries at Daily Kos, greenies' diary:

115° in Iraq and No Complaints

Today on the radio I heard a staff sergeant and his CO interviewed about how they were dealing with the heat in Northern Iraq - triple digits every day. In their body armor it feels like 115° and there will be no respite from that in the foreseeable future.

What struck me was that there wasn't even the hint of a complaint from either of these men.

NFTT stands for Netroots for the Troops, a coalition of the IGTNT and Mojo Friday crews. With the generous support of the Daily Kos community, Netroots for the Troops is hosting a Care Packages for the Troops seminar at Netroots Nation 2008 in Austin on July 19.

Perhaps you are like lots of people - you've thought about sending a care package to the troops, but just haven't gotten around to it. Now's your chance to do something for the troops by helping to send them things they truly need.

Netroots for the Troops is holding a seminar on Saturday, July 19, 2008, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Netroots Nation 2008 on how to pack and ship troop support care packages. Participants will get hands-on experience by helping us fill care packages that will be sent directly from Austin to our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our aim is to ship a total of 101 care packages - and that’s where you come in.

Why do Americans hate the media?

2008-04-13T08:54:00.004-05:00

From Devilstower at DailyKos

The media -- newspapers, radio, and television -- is not made up of reporters running on a sparkling field of journalistic integrity. Those reporters are instead embedded in a machine intended to do the one thing that Mr. Keen sets as the mark of professionalism -- make money. And the way the media has chosen to make money over the last few decades is, perversely, by devaluing their own product. The clearest illustration of this can be found in three massive changes that have affected news over the last two decades: the increase in radio pundits, the establishment of the Fox News Network, and the reaction of the remainder of the media to the first two events. . . .

But the right wing talk brigade doesn't exist just to build up their own or tear down Democrats. They have, from the moment they first rolled onto the air, existed to tell you that traditional news organizations are no good. The Washington Post? Inside the beltway losers out of touch with real America. CNN? The Clinton News Network. The New York Times? Please. Do you really have to ask?

Punditry has always aimed as much artillery at the people who deliver the news as it does at those who make it. There's a very good reason for this. Before you can convince someone of a lie, you need to make it more difficult for them to check your information. If you establish from the start that NPR is communist, MSNBC and CNN are slanted, and every newspaper this side of Journal's editorial page should be printed on pink paper, then any exaggeration you deliver becomes the de facto standard. Impugning the validity of other news sources is the first job of a successful pundit. They don't seek to be your sources of information by passing along reliable news. They do so by constantly assailing the legitimacy of other sources until you're left shaking your head at the absolute ignorance of everyone but Rush/Bill/Sean/Ann.

The same principles apply to an even greater degree for Fox News. Yes, the network exists to promulgate a rigidly conservative agenda, but it can't do that without first informing you that every other source of news is invalid. Fox doesn't compete with the other networks, it sneers at them. From its motto to its non-existent boundaries between opinion and reporting, Fox exists by being an instrument of destruction to other news providers. Why do those who watch Fox News continue to believe that Iraq was involved in 9/11 despite that idea having been disproved over, and over, and over? Because Fox tells them to. Because Fox's pundits repeat the lie. Because Fox has convinced them that no other source of fact exists.

Fox News Network alone has done more to devalue the whole idea of news than every supermarket tabloid, every radio ranter, and every blogger combined.

If both the institutions at blame are heavily weighted to the right, that's no coincidence. Conservative dogma has long held the idea that it must discredit the press by claiming that the Fourth Estate is in fact a Fifth Column. They have depended on their ability to defame factual sources as a means of easing the way for misinformation since well before the time of Joe McCarthy. The right has successfully extended this campaign into the realm of science, convincing people that both evolution and global warming are somehow "political issues," deserving of no more attention than alternatives despite reams of evidence.

The myth of the "liberal media" came long before the blogs. Discrediting the "nattering nabobs" of the press is not a game that originated with bloggers. Every blogger I know is fully aware that we could not survive without the legwork done by hardworking, professional reporters. Bloggers are not competition to the traditional media -- though they do, hopefully, act as an occasional check on its excesses. However, even if the Internet were entirely dedicated to the downfall of existing media, it would be only one popgun in a chorus of cannons. A large part of the traditional media is dedicated to nothing less than making war on the rest. . . .

The media is working very, very hard to make sure that you don't trust the media. Professionalism defined only by dollars dictates that they chase declining ad revenues through alleys of filth. News outlets have become devoted not to providing stories that are timely and accurate, but to providing proof that their competitors are slanted and unreliable. It's devolved into a battle in which all sides lose. And the biggest loser is the consumer looking for a reliable, authoritative source of information.

A more perfect union

2008-03-20T01:36:00.001-05:00

How to do the Texas two-step on Mar 4

2008-03-01T21:05:00.011-06:00

It's easy.

First step: Vote in the Democratic primary.

Second step: Go to your precinct polling place at 7:15pm Tuesday Mar 4. This is your precinct convention. If you voted early and you're not sure where your polling place is, go here to find out.

Sign in and list your preference for the presidential nominee (for Obama, of course!).

After the meeting is called to order, you can leave if you want to. By signing in, you're "counted" in the math that decides how many of your precincts' delegates for each candidate will go to your county convention.

If you decide to stay, you can vote for the delegates or you can be a delegate yourself. The people who stay at the precinct conventions will elect the actual delegates to the county conventions. Some precincts will have lots of delegates to select - and an equal number of alternates. My precinct gets 41 delegates! So we'll be needing 82 people willing to be delegates.

If you're really dedicated, also take a list of people who would be willing to serve as delegates even if they are not going to be at the precinct convention. Delegates do not need to be at the precinct convention - but they must be elected at it.

To see this bigger (so you can read the fine print) click here.

[Why do we have a "two-step" in Texas? Well, historically, delegates to the national convention from Texas were selected only by caucus at the Texas convention. To make it more democratic - to let more Texans have a say about who the nominee should be - the system was changed to make it so that 2/3 of the delegates would be apportioned based on the regular primary vote.

Those who are involved enough in Democratic party politics to go to their conventions get to vote again at their precinct for how the other 1/3 are apportioned. It's also a very democratic process - anyone who votes in the Democratic primary is welcome at their precinct convention, to "vote twice" for a candidate they feel strongly about. It's complicated, but I think it's overall a good system.

I think those who feel very strongly about a candidate, and those who are willing to work more actively in Democratic party politics, should have a louder voice in who is selected as the Democratic party's nominee.]

¿Como se Dice, como se LLama?

2008-02-29T00:06:00.004-06:00

Tough enough?

2008-02-24T01:44:00.008-06:00

I wasn't an early supporter of Obama (Dodd, then Edwards), mainly because I wasn't sure he'd be tough enough against the inevitable Republican "do not let a Democrat win anything - even if it's a good thing."

See, for example, the S-CHIP battle. As far as the R's are concerned, the name of the game is . . . it's a game, and winning isn't the most important thing, it's the only thing. The concept that we elect people to office to get things done, useful things that affect our lives, seems beyond their conception. War? It has the same reality as a football game. Yay! We're winning! Boo. You're not cheering loud enough. (Traitors.)

Would Obama be tough enough? Would he fight them hard enough? Would he be able to kick their asses into total irrelevance?

But I've come around for a variety of reasons, and now that I'm looking at him more closely, I think I might be seeing something that will actually work. Maybe. Maybe not. But attempting to "pacify" the Right-Wing is clearly futile and self-destructive. Attacking them seems to not work either - they just double and redouble their counter attacks, which even when totally dishonest and irrational, finally wears everyone down.

I liked the way Obama countered Hillary's inane "plagiarism" attack during the Austin debates by pointing out that that whole line of discussion was purely silly and immediately changing the subject to "we have real problems in this country that need solutions."

And XStryker had a comment that showed something else I hadn't seen before:

Obama's [strategy] is hugely effective. Instead of using the Clinton strategy of offering red meat to Republicans (like Hillary's anti-flag-burning bill or her Iraq War vote), Obama remains progressive and then finds Republicans who agree with him. For example, he takes a conservative guy, Dick Lugar, with a sensible stance on foreign policy and he passes legislation to secure loose nukes, a bill previously rejected by the Republican congress during the Clinton administration. Even president Bush, who nominally opposed it, concedes and signs it. That's how things get done. He finds a conservative who is willing to speak out against his party's earmarking, Tom Coburn, and passes the Coburn-Obama bill to force congress to disclose their spending and earmarks on the internet.

Instead of moving to the center, he approaches people issue-by-issue. The Republican party includes social progressives, economic populists, and foreign policy realists. Obama's strategy is to appeal to everyone's most liberal tendency individually. Clinton, however, has a tendency to unite people against her, and her only strategy in response is to triangulate to the right. The truth is that her campaign is not very effective and lousy on strategy, which is how she managed to go from front-runner to down nearly 100 delegates.

And if she's run a mistake-ridden losing campaign for the Democratic nomination, how can she possibly beat the Republican machine in any state less Democratic than New York? Obama leads McCain in the polls because his strategy works. He appeals to both progressives and independents. All this nonsense of Obama as "center right" is willfully ignorant spin . . .

(I would add further, if she can't manage a campaign effectively, how can she manage a country? There's a reason the President is called the "Chief Executive." Because the main part of the job is to be a manager of the biggest damn bureaucracy in the world.)

. . . and . . .

The Obama campaign made a brilliant move by making Obama's website the top search response for "Obama + Muslim". They've effectively marginalized, isolated, and forced retractions out of Fox News. They had Jesse Jackson on Olbermann yesterday keeping the heat on Bill O'Reilly. Unfortunately, when you're being attacked by the Clinton campaign and the McCain campaign at the same time, you can't always draw attention to every GOP criticism by addressing directly. Once Clinton is done attacking Obama, Obama will be ready to silence McCain's attacks as effectively as he's answered Hillary's.

Visit Election Inspection for analysis, polls, and predictions!
by XStryker

Maybe we need someone who can fight smarter, instead of harder. Maybe that's the right kind of "tough."

How it works

2008-02-24T01:26:00.003-06:00

Hmmmm. This explains a lot about, well, a lot of things.

From xkcd comics.

Si, se puede!

2008-02-22T21:38:00.002-06:00

Obama addresses automakers in Detroit

2008-02-16T21:31:00.002-06:00

"I went to Detroit, I stood in front of a group of automakers, and I told them that when I am president, there will be no more excuses — we will help them retool their factories, but they will have to make cars that use less oil.”

Obama on the Issues: Energy

Obama Super Tuesday ad

2008-02-07T23:35:00.001-06:00

Yes We Can

2008-02-04T16:05:00.000-06:00

Sen. Ted Kennedy

2007-12-17T22:33:00.000-06:00

Why It matters

2007-12-17T22:06:00.000-06:00

From the Church Committee Report:

(Click on images to view larger.}

Historian Henry Steele Commager assessed the Committee’s legacy. Referring to executive branch officials who seemed to consider themselves above the law, he said, “It is this indifference to constitutional restraints that is perhaps the most threatening of all the evidence that emerges from the findings of the Church Committee.”

Our Presidents should not be able to conduct secret operations which violate our principles, jeopardize our rights, and have not been subject to the checks and balances which normally keep policies in line. - Morton Halperin, Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs

In its consideration of covert action, the Committee was struck by the basic tension--if not incompatibility--of covert operations and the demands of a constitutional system. Secrecy is essential to covert operations; secrecy can, however, become a source of power, a barrier to serious policy debate within the government, and a means of circumventing the established checks and procedures of government. The Committee found that secrecy and compartmentation contributed to a temptation on the part of the Executive to resort to covert operations in order to avoid bureaucratic, congressional, and public debate. - The Church Committee

And remember that once violated, the rule of law is itself in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its mistakes and reveal errors, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police its activities. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws. - Al Gore, address for Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2006

Sen. Chris Dodd

2007-12-17T22:02:00.000-06:00

How to create "truth" (that's actually a lie)

2006-03-15T09:14:00.000-06:00

We continue to hear calls from reasonable people of all political persuasions - Democrats, Independents, those who are uninvolved in politics but who are disgusted and despairing of the direction that our country has taken, even "traditional Republicans" who embrace fiscal sanity and competent governance - that the Democratic Party MUST start getting the message out about what is really going on. That they must counter the spin, the lies with the truth and the facts.

When they do that - most people believe - the American people will reject the disasterous neo-con experiment and throw the bums out at the polls. Then the long and difficult healing can begin.

Democrats simply must start speaking up and speaking out.

However, these demands presume that there is some way to communicate truth and facts. For the vast majority of Americans, information about what is going on in the world around them comes from traditional media - primarily television, and to a lesser extent, newspapers and newsmagazines.

If you are not given access to talk shows, newscasts, are not interviewed for articles - how do you speak out? If you are constantly shouted down, how do you speak up? If little snippets of access you are given to the megaphone that most Americans are tuned to are "balanced" by a constant barrage of lies and spin, how can you be believed?

Anonymous Liberal has been homing in like a laser on this fundamental problem, posting at Glenn Greenwald's excellent Unclaimed Territory

A Game Without Referees:

How did things come to be like this? Well, over the last two decades, the Republican political machine has engaged in a relentless and systematic assault on all of the institutions in our society that have traditionally served as checks on excessive partisanship. They have attacked the press, the judiciary, academia, even the very concepts of science and empiricism. Their goal has been to discredit and disable the referees, to politicize, marginalize, and co-opt any and all non-political institutions, and thereby eliminate any meaningful policing of political debate.

And they have been remarkably successful. In a relatively short period of time, conservatives have managed to convince a large segment of the population that the media, the judiciary, and even science itself cannot be trusted . . . . Beyond damaging the credibility of these institutions in the eyes of many Americans, this withering assault has actually transformed the institutions themselves.

Anonymous Liberal explains how it works:

The term "reasonable" has no objective meaning, at least in the realm of politics. Whether an idea is deemed "reasonable" has little to do with the merits of the idea and everything to do with the prevailing political climate as interpreted by our national media. GOP strategists like Karl Rove long ago realized that the national media will treat any talking point that is repeated by enough people as ipso facto "reasonable," and conversely, will treat any idea that is not repeated by a sufficient number of people as "unreasonable" or "extreme," no matter what its objective merits.

As he said last July in The Death of Political Discourse:

[Rove] realized that journalists are often lazy fact-checkers and have a tendency to repeat conventional wisdom, i.e., things they assume are true because they've heard them so many times before. This is particularly true in cases where a "fact" fits nicely within a pre-established media narrative. For example, the idea that Dan Quale was "dumb" became an established narrative soon after his arrival on the national stage. Thereafter, any story that involved Dan Quale doing or saying anything remotely "dumb," even if totally inaccurate, was quickly picked up and repeated by the mainstream media to the point where the original truth or falsity of the story was irrelevant.

Peter Daou at The Daou Report has been writing about this for some time. His point is that too many of us continue to believe that all we need to do is "tell the truth" when in fact, there is simply no way to tell it if we don't have access to the means to communicate. And that means more that simply some air time. We're up against a powerful machine that has honed its ability to shape the public discourse using the tools that have been being refined for decades by marketing experts. Marketing works by tapping into deep-seated psychological truths - the way our minds and emotions work - and ever since Freud, they have been getting better and better at manipulating us. First to sell us products - now to sell us an ideology.

From Peter Daou:

There's a critical distinction to be made here: individual reporters may lean left, isolated news stories may be slanted against the administration. What I'm describing is the wholesale peddling by the "neutral" press of deep-seated narratives, memes, and soundbites: simple, targeted talking points that paint a picture of reality for the American public that favors the right and tarnishes the left. . . .

A single storyline is more effective than a thousand stories. And a single storyline delivered by a “neutral” reporter is a hundred times more dangerous than a storyline delivered by an avowed partisan. Rightwingers can attack the media for criticizing Bush, can slam the New York Times for being liberal, but when the Times and the Post and CNN and MSNBC echo the ‘Bush stands firm’ mantra, it adds one more brick to a powerful pro-Bush edifice.

These narratives are woven so deeply into the fabric of news coverage that they have become second nature and have permeated the public psyche and are regurgitated in polls. (The polls are then used to strengthen the narratives.) They are delivered as affirmative statements, interrogatives, hypotheticals; they are discussed as fact and accepted as conventional wisdom; they are twisted, turned, shaped, reshaped, and fed to the American public in millions of little soundbites, captions, articles, editorials, news stories, and opinion pieces. They are inserted into the national dialogue as contagious memes that imprint the idea of Bush=strong/Dems=weak. And they are false.

What’s so dumbfounding . . . is that Democratic politicians, strategists, and surrogates have internalized these narratives and play into them, publicly wringing their hands over how to fix their "muddled" message, how to deal with Bush’s "strength" on national security, how to talk about "values." It’s become a self-fulfilling cycle, with Democrats reinforcing anti-Dem myths because they can’t imagine any other explanation for the apparent lack of resonance of their message. Out of desperation, they resort to hackneyed, focus-grouped slogans in a vain attempt to break through the filter.

It’s simple: if your core values and beliefs and positions, no matter how reasonable, how mainstream, how correct, how ethical, are filtered to the public through the lens of a media that has inoculated the public against your message, and if the media is the public’s primary source of information, then NOTHING you say is going to break through and change that dynamic. Which explains, in large measure, the Dems’ sorry electoral failures.

Stop Alito!

2006-01-06T01:22:00.000-06:00

Samual Alito on the Supreme Court is a prospect far beyond disturbing - it's frightening.

My letter to the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Dear Senator,

I am very disturbed by Judge Samuel Alito’s views on many issues, but perhaps most important is his apparent belief that the President should have the power to overturn or disregard the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives in Congress.

This destroys the balance of powers, opens the door to a president that can act as king or dictator, and violates everything the framers intended when they wrote the Constitution that has served our country well for over 200 years.

His view that the notion of “one person one vote” is wrong is appalling. His desire to have the government take away the freedom to make personal medical decisions like abortion is only slightly less so.

I do not live in your state, but in your role as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I feel that you represent all Americans in this matter that is so vital to the future of our country. Please vote against confirming Judge Alito to the Supreme Court.

Sincerely,

Here's everything you need to send your own:

The Honorable Arlen Specter
711 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-4254
Fax (202) 228-1229
http://specter.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInfo.Home

The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch
104 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5251
Fax (202) 224-6331
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact

The Honorable Charles E. Grassley
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5972
Fax (202) 224-6020
http://grassley.senate.gov/webform.htm

The Honorable Jon Kyl
730 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-4521
Fax (202) 224-2207
http://kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm

The Honorable Mike DeWine
140 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-2315
Fax (202) 224-6519
http://dewine.senate.gov

The Honorable Jeff Sessions
335 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-4124
Fax (202) 224-3149
http://sessions.senate.gov/email/contact.cfm

The Honorable Lindsey Graham
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5972
Fax (202) 224-3808
http://lgraham.senate.gov/index.cfm?mode=contact

The Honorable John Cornyn
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-2934
Fax (202) 228-2856
http://cornyn.senate.gov/contact/index.html

The Honorable Sam Brownback
303 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-6521
Fax (202) 228-1265
http://brownback.senate.gov/CMEmailMe.cfm

The Honorable Tom Coburn
172 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5754
Fax: 202-224-6008
http://coburn.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

The Honorable Patrick J. Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-4242
Fax (202) 224-3479
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-4543
Fax (202) 224-2417
http://kennedy.senate.gov/contact.html

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
201 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5042
Fax (202) 224-0139
senator@biden.senate.gov

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-3841
Fax (202) 228-3954
http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html

The Honorable Russell D. Feingold
506 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5323
Fax (202) 224-2725
russell_feingold@feingold.senate.gov

The Honorable Herbert Kohl
330 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-5653
Fax (202) 224-9787
http://kohl.senate.gov/gen_contact.html

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
313 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-6542
Fax (202) 228-3027
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/contact/webform.cfm

The Honorable Richard J. Durbin
332 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
Ph. (202) 224-2152
Fax (202) 228-0400
http://durbin.senate.gov/contact.cfm

New Orleans is being abandoned. Please help.

2005-12-07T16:54:00.000-06:00

Originally posted at BooMan Tribune by kansas.

[kansas] I received this today from Julie Smith, a well-known mystery writer from New Orleans and a long-time friend of mine. She has given me permission to share it with you. I'll let Julie talk now.

Dear Friends:

We're in a panic down here, the second in three months. (You know what the first one was.) Somehow or other--I really can't think how--aid to Louisiana, rebuilding our levees, treating us like any Americans in trouble has become a political issue. It shouldn't be. Some of us are Democrats and some are Republicans, and we're all in it together.

I've just learned the right-wing political pundits have begun taking us on--Rush Limbaugh in particular--with a ton of misinformation and vitriol. On the other side, there was 60 Minutes, with its shocking one-source documentary.Where all that's coming from I really have no idea.

I honestly can't believe anyone could question of whether to appropriate money to rebuild our levees (and the rest of the city).

We're an American city. We deserve to be treated as such. What makes us different from any other one?

Crooked politicians? We've had them in the past, but we don't particularly now. So has your city, whatever it is. If this is what it's about, it's a smokescreen. Oversight can be built in to any spending plan, and it should be. What responsible legislative body wouldn't include it?

Or is it about the concern that we just shouldn't have built a city here? Tulsa was flooded and it recovered. Anchorage had an earthquake and it was rebuilt. If The Big One hit San Francisco, there's no doubt in my mind anyone would debate rebuilding.

The Times-Picayune wrote "they act as if we wore our skirts too short and invited trouble." That about sums it up. What's happening here? I've never been so bewildered.

The point of this letter is that we need you to write to your Congressmen (and women) to get us help.

I'd also like to clear up a little misinformation I understand is circulating. Here are things I keep hearing:

1. New Orleans is a toxic waste dump. It isn't. Some chemicals have been found in some of the soil, but there are no alarming reports.

2. There are plenty of jobs, but no one wants to do them. This one is particularly galling--there's no place for anyone to live! Workers are camping in the parks and living in RV's. Not everyone can do that, and anyway, it's illegal. This is a huge problem, and it's not going to get solved without a lot of help from all branches of government.

3. The state misspent money that was supposed to go to levee repair. But the Corps of Engineers is a federal agency! One variation has it that the money was spent on casinos. The only reason we have casinos is to bring in tax revenue. We don't spend money on casinos--we depend on them for money.

4. Our public officials are so stupid we deserve to be deserted. You know, they're really not--and we don't. They're not Rudy Giuliani, (and don't we wish we had him!)--they're just ordinary people of slightly -above average intelligence from a backwater state, who never in a million years thought they'd be called upon to do this kind of a job. They're overwhelmed. It's too big for them. Would yours be any better? Would Giuliani? Consider this--9/11 knocked out 16 acres. Katrina and Rita together devastated 23,000 square miles. 9/11 was over--even the searching--in the amount of time the government took to even get some rescue units in here. Three months later, we're still a shell of a city. New York didn't lose 80 per cent of its land mass and 85 per cent of its population. Giuliani never had to evacuate an entire city. Who knows if even he would look good in our circumstances. And if you don't personally like our mayor and governor, since when do we punish citizens for making poor choices, anyhow? (Besides, you should have seen the other guys.)

5. Things are not getting back to normal here. Actually, the situation is quite dire. Things aren't bad for us personally, but we still don't have mail service or a landline phone. Try living that way. We don't mind because it's little enough, considering. Most-- not a little, but MOST of the city still has no electricity and no gas. Families are split, there's no place to live, schools haven't reopened. Hardly; anyone's come home because they can't--they have no homes, not even FEMA trailers. and no faith that the levees will be rebuilt.

Please, please take a minute to write your Congressmen and senators. If you can, even send the letter below out to your mailing lists, and ask other people to do it. Your help would be so much appreciated. What follows is a "friends and family letter" (as you can see, I wrote my own.), a letter for lawmakers, and a list of addresses. Many thanks for any help you can offer.

Julie Smith

Click here for Julie's sample letters and for addresses (links) for your letters to your representatives. Thanks for helping.

Republicans vote to cut food stamps

2005-10-28T21:36:00.000-05:00

So with fuel prices set to skyrocket this winter, meaning lots of people will be having trouble keeping themselves warm, Republicans want to make sure they're hungry too. Straight party-line vote (of course). Oh, and how long can we fund the war on Iraq with the money saved by tossing 300,000 people off the food stamp rolls? 68.5 hours.

From Reuters:

House panel votes $844 million cut in food stamps
Fri Oct 28, 2005 5:17 PM ET
By Charles Abbott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On a party-line vote, a Republican-run U.S. House of Representatives committee voted to cut food stamps by $844 million on Friday, just hours after a new government report showed more Americans are struggling to put food on the table.

About 300,000 Americans would lose benefits due to tighter eligibility rules for food stamps, the major U.S. antihunger program, under the House plan. The cuts would be part of $3.7 billion pared from Agriculture Department programs over five years as part of government-wide spending reductions. . . .

Antihunger activists said hunger rates were up for the fifth year in a row, so the cuts were a mistake.

"It is hard to imagine any congressional action that is more detached from reality," said James Weill of the Food Research and Action Center.

"Cutting food stamps now is a scandal," said David Beckman of Bread for the World, pointing to losses from hurricanes. [ed. note. No shit.]

The House plan would also cut U.S. crop supports by $1 billion, land stewardship by $760 million, research by $620 million and rural development by $446 million. . . .

North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy complained that 40,000 children would lose free meals at school because of that provision.

"You have not even come clean that kids are going to lose school breakfast and school lunch under this," he said. . . .

A new Agriculture Department report found 38.2 million Americans "were food insecure" in 2004, an increase of nearly 2 million from the previous year. Tufts University food economist Parke Wilde food insecurity "now equals the worst levels" since recordkeeping began a decade ago.

USDA said 11.9 percent of households, "at some time during the year, had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources."

And did you catch the part about the $760 million dollar cut in conservation programs and another $446 million for rural development? Rural areas are some of the poorest in America. They could use some more help. But no, a few rich people might have to do without their tax cuts if we help out hungry people, conserve the land, and help people in rural areas get themselves out of poverty. Can't have that now, can we?

Shut down Gitmo!

2005-07-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

The Center for Constitutional Rights is mounting a campaign to shut down the Guantanamo prison camp.

It’s time to shut down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay once and for all. Guantánamo has become a symbol world-wide of the Bush Administration’s arrogant disregard for the most basic of human rights.

In a hard-hitting editorial on Sunday, June 5, The New York Times wrote: “The best thing Washington can now do about this national shame is to shut it down. It is a propaganda gift to America's enemies; an embarrassment to our allies; a damaging repudiation of the American justice system; and a highly effective recruiting tool for Islamic radicals, including future terrorists.”

Please contact your representatives in Congress and tell them the time has come to shut down the Guantánamo prison camp once and for all and to end the Administration’s policy of indefinite detention in any facility without due process of law.

Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pennsylvania) will be holding hearings in June on the treatment of the detainees, and Senator Joseph Biden, (D-Delaware) has proposed an independent commission to investigate the situation.

CCR has long called for an independent special prosecutor with the power to prosecute the human rights abuses being committed in our name as Americans. And now we’re calling for the immediate closing of the Guantánamo prison camp.

Find your Senator at this web site and follow the links to their email contact forms and ask them to support shutting down Gitmo. Here's the link to find your Representative in the U.S. House. Or use this email form at the CCR web site to send your letters.

Center for Constitutional Rights also has pdf files of the flag above for printing out to use for stickers or flyers (they even tell you what you need to buy to make stickers on your printer!)

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at DemFest

2005-06-23T20:51:00.000-05:00

It was an incredible weekend at DemFest here in Austin. This morning was Grassroots Training 101 - brilliant, common sense "how-to's" from two campaign managers and a candidate. Our blogger's caucus Friday afternoon was packed and the speakers, especially TX State Rep. Mark Strama, lined up by othniel were great. Being able to hang out with folks like Jeffrey Feldman (sole proprietor of the Frameshop), Barbara Radnovsky (our next Senator from Texas - woo hoo! - go Barbara!), listen to Molly Ivins and Glen Maxey tell hilarious stories about life as a liberal in Texas . . . . wow.

But I can't put it all in one diary, and others of our group (the Austin Kossacks - here's roses diary which includes links to more) will surely be posting some too, so I'd just like to say a few words about Jesse Jackson, Jr tonight.

to read about what he had to say click here.

Taking action: Daring to venture into the real world

2005-04-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

Over at Booman Tribune diane101 expressed her concern

. . . that we are wasting away the time when perhaps we could be actually doing something, become a force of change.

Nanette added

Sometimes people need to just take small steps at first, or settle into a zone that suits them and then they are able to utilize the skills that they have to make a difference.

Which got me to thinking - maybe one thing a blog can do is to help each other take those first small steps out into the world of political action. This is never going to be for everyone - there is lots to do and "getting out there" is only part of it. But I think a lot of people who spend time with the blogs can do this - but they don't know how. Or they're shy. Or they think they don't have anything to contribute. Except for the terminally gregarious, it can be hard. Perhaps by sharing our stories of how we got started, and by keeping each other posted on our progress, more of us will find a way to dare to venture "into the real world."

So I'll start. To read the rest, click here.

Austin’s Peace March

2005-03-19T23:16:00.000-06:00

My best friend fought cancer for eleven years. The last time we had a quiet “best friends” conversation – I’d gone over to her house because I was worrying more about her. So thin. Weaker. Harder to keep the pain under control. As I sat on her bed, my boyfriend called – “It’s started. The war.” We turned on the TV. She said, “That fucker. I can’t believe he really did it.”

She died two weeks later. Two years without my best friend and two years of a pointless, horrible war. Her death couldn’t be helped. She fought. Medicine did all it could. But how many have died for this mistake – this lie, this war?

The email I sent to my friends about the march on Saturday said, “Well, I guess we never learn. Isn't it deja vu all over again? I've always said that I wasn't really an activist against the Vietnam war, but that I'd show up if there was a protest. Well, there'll be one next Saturday (different war, same insanity), so . . .”

[All of the really good photos - like this one - were taken by my friend Rick. McMurtry one after the jump is spectacular, isn't it?]

to jump, click here.

Why I do this . . .

2005-02-13T13:51:00.000-06:00

There are so many terrible things happening in our country now, it's hard to know where to start. But if there is one thing that won't let me stop talking politics, obsessing politics, emailing, reading, commenting, and now this blog . . .

. . . it's this.