And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

Obama’s Surgeon General pick Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been a veritable fountain of bad advice during his tenure at CNN. But the only time I ever blogged about him was to question his recommendation that financially-strapped viewers cut their prescription pills in half.

At which point an astute reader pointed me to this article outlining Gupta’s financial ties to Merck. Apparently during the time Gupta was on CNN promoting Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil and dismissing the dangers of Merck’s Vioxx pills, he was co-hosting an integrated marketing program sponsored by Merck called AccentHealth.

This strikes me as very bad form for a journalist, but of course Gupta is not a journalist, he’s a television personality, and of course he doesn’t know any better. This is the problem with modern broadcast news, which eschews journalists for the so-called “experts” who supposedly know more than any real reporter could.

CNN is the real culprit here for allowing this situation to exist in the first place. This opens the door wide to corporate hegemony, or what the article describes as

the growing tentacles of a corporate agenda that seeks to control every message pertaining to its corporate brands in every venue visited or medium viewed by a consumer.

We are left with questions surrounding Gupta’s judgment and whether his ties to corporations like Merck influenced his news coverage of that company and its products. We’ll never know if Gupta dismissed the risks of heart attack associated with Vioxx out of ignorance or avarice, but we do know Vioxx got yanked off the shelves and Merck settled an avalanche of lawsuits related to the product.

This does not mean to say I am out-and-out against the appointment of Gupta to U.S. Surgeon General. Seems to me that job is mostly about PR and communication, and Gupta has proved himself adept at that. But I do think most of the media snickering over Obama’s pick misses the point. “Judge Judy for the Supreme Court?” Ha ha very funny, Jay Newton-Small. The point is not that Gupta is a television personality who may be appointed to public office--have you nitwits forgotten that Ronald Reagan was a television personality, for crying out loud?

The point is to look at what it means to be a television personality in this day and age. Oftentimes it means being a shill for corporate advertisers. Someone should be looking into this, because I’m not sure we want the U.S. Surgeon General to be on Merck’s payroll.

Just a thought.

Pastor Problems

Apparently we liberals are up in arms over the selection of Rick Warren to give the invocation at President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Overlooked in the uproar is this info from Salon’s War Room:

This time, though, the decision to get involved with Saddleback was actually not Obama's. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, run by the House and Senate, put together the program for the swearing-in ceremony. Congress, not Obama, invited Warren (as well as scheduling a musical performance by Aretha Franklin; here's hoping she doesn't reprise the 2005 inaugural performance of John Ashcroft's "Let the Eagle Soar").

Really? Maybe I'm a skeptic, but I’m calling bullshit on that one. I find it hard to believe that if Obama objected to the pastor giving the invocation at his inauguration, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies would still have overruled him.

But what do I know. Definitely worth keeping an eye on, though.

Yes, there are lots of reasons why liberals would hate this choice for the presidential inauguration--Warren’s support of Proposition 8, his anti-choice stance, giving President Bush an “international medal of peace,” plus the whole way he set up Obama with a phony ”cone of silence” deal, etc. etc. Oh, I could go on.

I have my own reasons for not liking Warren, which have nothing to do with his position on social issues and obvious partisanship, and everything to do with what I call his "bullshit driven empire.” When religion and commerce meet, I have a problem. And this strikes me as the antithesis of what Jesus preached:

The ubiquitous “celebripastor” [...] recently announced that he and Reader’s Digest have formed a “partnership” aimed at “produc[ing] an inspirational multimedia platform called ‘The Purpose Driven Connection.’”

The Plan: According to a Reader’s Digest press release, “the organizations will pool their international resources to produce and publish this Purpose Driven platform to help people who are seeking their purpose in life and wish to interact with others on their spiritual journeys.” The goal is to “provide a suite of bundled multimedia tools: The Purpose Driven Connection, a quarterly magazine; small group study materials delivered in DVDs, workbooks and downloadable discussion guides; and a state-of-the-art Christian social networking Web site.” All for a $29 membership fee.

This isn’t Christianity, it’s merchandising, and it’s revolting.

There’s already a host of Purpose Driven crap for sale as it is. Someone overturn this money-changer’s table already.

I don't care that Rick Warren loves fetuses and hates gays, that's standard-issue with this crowd. I do think he's profiting from his soul-salvation business and that in my book is Class A hucksterism. He's a fraud and shouldn't be given the platform the Presidential inauguration provides.

No Room At The Inn

How apt for this holiday season:

Sorry, We’re Booked, White House Tells Obamas

Updated | 3:12 p.m. CHICAGO—The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on Jan. 5.

The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.

Wow, that’s so family-friendly! Keep it classy, Bushie.

SCOTUS Redux

While the Supreme Court declined to take on the last Obama citizenship petition, which Clarence Thomas brought to the court, now Justice Scalia has taken on an identical case:

Justice Scalia, by referring Wrotnowski v. Bysiewicz to committee on Dec. 12 may allow the Supreme Court to decide upon Barack Obama's status as a presidential candidate before the currently scheduled Electoral College election day, December 15.

This case is essentially similar to the case of Leo Donofrio, who assisted Connecticut lawyer, Cort Wrotnoski, in drafting it. According to Donofrio, the basis is very much the same (not essentially about the birth certificate, but regarding a foreign father) and it includes additional corroborative research and/or reasoning. Also, the history of this case is less problematic for the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) than the Donofrio case, due to a suspicious misfiling of the latter case by a New Jersey judge which may have provoked a question of standing before the Supreme Court.

Oh, fer chrissakes. Talk about your “activist judges.”

So I guess the two conservative ideologues on the SCOTUS will continue to accept petitions challenging Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President until, what? A third Bush term? Another election? Nancy Pelosi is president?

Remember when everyone was clamoring at Al Gore to concede the election “for the good of the country”? Yeah, good times, good times.

This is ridiculous. For more, read Salon's coverage of today's press conference, which appeared to be long on looney, short on sanity. If this is the crowd Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia are hoping to legitimize, I seriously question their ability to serve on the nation's highest court.

(h/t, Sadly, No!)

Supreme Court To Decide Election AGAIN?

[UPDATE]:

Looks like the petition is for real.
---------------------------------------
I bet you thought Barack Obama won the presidency and everything was on track for a January inauguration. Fools!

In an extremely unusual move, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has agreed to consider a petition challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship after Justice David Souter had already rejected the petition.

I can’t vouch for the legitimacy of this story, since its source is a publication I’ve never heard of (“ Afro American Newspapers”), but here’s the scoop:

Supreme Court To Decide Obama Citizenship

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court Friday when an eight member panel will consider a lawsuit challenging the legal status of President-elect Barack Obama.

The Afro American Newspapers first reported the story on its website Wednesday night, calling Justice Clarence Thomas' action highly unusual.

The same case was rejected by Judge David Souter earlier in the year. 

When Thomas agreed to hear the appeal he apparently broke with a court tradition of justices not interceding in cases where a colleague has ruled.

The President-elect has maintained he was born in the United States.

For some history, I blogged about this phony “birth certificate” story back in October when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit. The Afro American Newspapers story is here. Basically, some delusional wingnuts have claimed that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, all evidence to the contrary. Despite the fact that federal judges have dismissed similar lawsuits on the issue, Clarence Thomas thinks the petition deserves to be heard.

Just as an aside, did you know that the only Supreme Court justice to be impeached was Samuel Chase, who

was impeached for allegedly letting his partisan leanings affect his court decisions.

Yeah, Clarence Thomas might want to remember that.

I guess presiding over one coup in 2000 wasn’t enough for Justice Thomas. Not that I think there’s any chance this will happen, but should SCOTUS decide for some reason that Obama is ineligible to serve as our 44th President they had better be prepared for some major civil unrest as a consequence of that action. I personally will be taking to the streets, as will everyone else I know, and don’t for a second think it will be a phony Brooks Brothers riot-style action.

Denial: Not Just A River In Egypt

[UPDATE]:

Heh. I guess it could be worse. In Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shuttered a newspaper for putting Obama on the cover.

------------------------------------------
Nope, that river runs through the heartland of America, too.

While America celebrates Barack Obama’s election victory, if not for political reasons than at least for the transformation in racial equality that it represents, certain stubborn pockets of the nation remain resistant.

First we have Sapulpa, OK, where the local newspaper refused to cover Obama’s victory:

The Sapulpa Daily Herald did not report that Barack Obama won the Presidential election in its Wednesday edition.

One paragraph on the front page did report the majority of Creek County voted for McCain.

"This is not only national, but it's also local. And this is our President; he's President of Sapulpa also," said Scott Gordon.

More than a dozen protesters stood in front of the Herald's downtown office Friday morning to get answers from publisher Darren Sumner.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident, my mother-in-law who lives in rural Western Kentucky reports that their local paper did not report on who won the presidential election, either. I’d say a lot of small town newspapers, steeped in denial, just couldn’t bring themselves to report the news.

It’s even worse a little further south in Mississippi, where teachers in Puckett and Pearl won’t even let students mention the president-elect’s name.

You guys do know that whether you talk about it or not, Barack Obama is still the president-elect, right?

That Didn't Take Long

Get your Obama impeachment gear here.

Of course, you might want to wait for him to actually take office before looking for reasons to impeach him.

Reagan Democrats

They’re baaaack ... sorta. Meet the former Reagan Administration officials who have endorsed Barack Obama:

Ken Duberstein, Reagan's Chief of Staff;

Colin Powell, National Security Advisor;

Douglas Kmiec , head of the Office of Legal Counsel;

Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve;

Ken Adelman, Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under Reagan, and an advisor on the Soviet Union;

Peter Bridges, Reagan’s Ambassador to Somalia;

Charles Fried , Solicitor General of the United States;

Francis Fukuyama , advisor to Reagan on foreign policy and security issues;

Larry Hunter , Reagan's chief economist;

Terry Golden , Assistant Secretary of Treasury and Administrator of the General Services Administration;

William Ruckelshaus , EPA director, also acting director of the FBI and Deputy Attorney General of the United States;

AND

William Weld, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts under Reagan and later Massachusetts governor.

I could go on but I think this list is impressive enough.

I’m just curious what those conservative McCain supporters who still revere Ronald Reagan think they know about Obama that these folks don’t. I’m not talking about differences on policy issues, I’m talking about those folks who say they can’t vote for Obama because he’s “risky,” “Muslim,” a “terrorist,” has “bad associations with scary people,” etc.

Is there a conservative out there who really thinks that Ronald Reagan’s former national security advisor would put America in the hands of an Islamic terrorist? Are there conservatives who truly believe that two of the folks who crafted the Reagan Doctrine would endorse a Communist for president of the United States?

Is there a conservative out there who thinks that Ronald Reagan’s chief economist would endorse a Marxist or Socialist? Or that Reagan’s former advisor during summits with Mikhail Gorbachev would want to see a Communist as president? Or that all of these former Reagan advisors and officials would endorse for president someone with supposedly “the most liberal record in Washington,” instead of the Republican--a Republican who was in Congress during the Reagan years, I might add?

That just doesn’t make sense to me. But I guess the average LIV doesn’t know about all of Obama's support from across the aisle, since it's not the type of stuff you hear on Fox News. But hey, McCain has Joe The Plumber, whom McCain called his "personal hero."

But don’t take it from me. Take it from Ronald Reagan himself.

Jumping The Shark

Wow. The news coming from the fringes of Outter Wingnuttia took a sharp turn at East Wackadoodle and entered Crazyville today.

Via Salon’s War Room:

October surprise: Who's Obama's real father?

Brace yourselves, people: Barack Obama's real father isn't Barack Obama, Sr. His real father is -- wait for it -- Malcolm X.

No, I'm not being serious. But that is the claim being made on Atlas Shrugs, a pretty well-known right-wing blog. (How well-known? Its proprietor, Pamela Geller, has interviewed John Bolton, who served as, essentially, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations earlier in the Bush administration.)

So if you thought the paranoid theories about Obama couldn't get any crazier, clearly you were wrong. In fact, there are now so many floating around that no one can even seem to get their conspiracy theory straight. Andy Martin, the anti-Semite who was a source for one of Sean Hannity's specials about Obama, has retracted his earlier smear, when he said Obama was a Muslim; he now believes Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist, is Obama's real father.

Oh, snap! Andy Martin, you mean the kook who launched a million e-mails saying Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim by posting a “press release” on the Free Republic?

That guy?

Now he says he was wrong?

Please! I demand the immediate dispatch of thousands of e-mails proclaiming Obama isn’t a Muslim after all. Correct the record, sir!

Also, according to the right-wing “Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,” a group which opposes immunization, universal health care, birth control, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, Obama has mastered the magical voodoo mind control power known as “neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis...” Somehow the nation has surrendured its free will and been programmed, Zombie-like, to vote for Obama.

Which is so hilarious because that was my precise theory as to why so many people voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

Clearly the wheels have come off the conservative movement. Please, more crazy talk. We need more erratic “He’s a Muslim! Slap! He’s a Communist! Slap! He’s a Muslim and a Communist!” messaging. It sorta proves it’s all been one huge lie from the get-go.

I only wish they’d started this two weeks ago.

Give It Up, Wingnuts

The far right’s cockamamie claim that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president because he was born in Kenya and his Hawaii birth certificate proves it (or something) has gone down in flames:

Judge tosses lawsuit challenging Obama citizenship

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Barack Obama's qualifications to be president.

U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick on Friday night rejected the suit by attorney Philip J. Berg, who alleged that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for the presidency. Berg claimed that Obama is either a citizen of his father's native Kenya or became a citizen of Indonesia after he moved there as a boy.

Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father. His parents divorced and his mother married an Indonesian man.

Internet-fueled conspiracy theories question whether Obama is a "natural-born citizen" as required by the Constitution for a presidential candidate and whether he lost his citizenship while living abroad.

Surrick ruled that Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters."

This whole storyline is so hilarious. Someone remind me, which state is Panama? The 51st? 52nd?

Comedy gold, I tell ya, comedy gold.

I Get E-Mails

[UPDATE]:

The pastor at my church informed me that not only did he get this e-mail, but last week he got a DVD from the same group. Called "Obsession" it supposedly links Barack Obama to terrorist groups.

E-mails are cheap and easy to send, but producing and mass-mailing a DVD to clergy all around the country takes a lot of money. I would LOVE to know who is financing these people.

---------------------------
This morning I received a particularly hateful and sick piece from Rabbi Yehuda Levin and Dr. O’Neal Dozier of “the Judeo-Christian View.” I won’t link to their site, it’s that bad, but you can Google them if you’re interested. You might need to hop in the shower afterwards, though.

The e-mail is full of the usual paranoid, hysterical fear-porn that we’ve come to expect from the far-right fringe: Obama wants to expand taxpayer-funded partial birth abortion (not true), he will force states to recognize gay marriages (not true), and favors “full integration of flagrant, practicing homosexuals into the U.S. armed forces and military barracks” (OK, I have no idea about Obama's position on gays in the military but anyone who doesn’t think “practicing homosexuals” are already in the U.S. armed forces and military barracks has their head up their ass).

It’s the usual litany of right wing fundiegelical crap. But what’s interesting is that after every “do you know that Obama...” lie comes an admonishment to my pastor or religious leader! Is your pastor telling you this? Has your Rabbi said anything to your congregation? Why in heaven’s name would your priest be silent about these abominations? They even--I shit you not--imply that if one’s religious leader has not attacked Barack Obama from the pulpit, they are being reverse-racists:

Has your pastor or bishop tacitly rejected Martin Luther King's plea to judge by the content of a man's character, rather than by the color of his skin?  Is "Reverse Racism" or "White Guilt" inspiring shameful pulpit silence on the Torah, Tanakh and New Testament issues of Same-Sex Unions and Child Sacrifice?

Child sacrifice??! Are they kidding?

This e-mail was apparently sent in response to a letter Americans United For Separation of Church & State sent to clergy last week reminding them of federal tax laws related to church politicking. I have no idea why I got it, or what bizarre fundie e-mail list my name is now attached to.

It's a new twist on the old divide-and-conquer meme: it not only spreads lies, but also attacks religious leaders “for remaining silent.” Used to be religious leaders were on the side of the wackadoodles. Something seems to have shifted this election season; these two wackjobs are trying to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of the faithful if their clergy have not spread lies about a presidential candidate.

This e-mail is especially insidious because instead of contacting clergy themselves, Rabbi Yehuda Levin and Dr. Dozier are trying to get the faithful to pressure their religious leaders. The hidden message is: the big bad religion-hating government is trying to silence the "faithful majority." Here's a presidential candidate who will force child sacrifice and gay marriage on the faithful and my pastor isn't even allowed to talk to me about it!

It's a revolution in an e-mail. And it's pretty abominable.

A Word From Opie, Andy, Richie & Fonzie

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Only In America

I loved Nicholas Kristof’s column yesterday.

In particular, I loved reading this:

The other day I had a conversation with a Beijing friend and I mentioned that Barack Obama was leading in the presidential race:

She: Obama? But he’s the black man, isn’t he?

Me: Yes, exactly.

She: But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?

Me: It looks as if he’ll be elected.

She: But president? That’s such an important job! In America, I thought blacks were janitors and laborers.

Me: No, blacks have all kinds of jobs.

She: What do white people think about that, about getting a black president? Are they upset? Are they angry?

Me: No, of course not! If Obama is elected, it’ll be because white people voted for him.

[Long pause.]

She: Really? Unbelievable! What an amazing country!

What an amazing country, indeed. I’m not measuring any drapes here, but I love the message that an Obama presidency would send to the world, if we’re so fortunate as to win this election. It tells the world that we truly are the land of opportunity for everyone. It’s not just a slogan; it’s real.

America’s reputation around the world has taken a hit. As Kristof writes, we’re associated with some pretty bad stuff these days: Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and extraordinary rendition, Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the world economy.

Last time the Mister and I went to Italy, in 2005, I was shocked at the anti-Americanism I picked up, for the first time ever. Italy, remember, was an ally in Iraq. Silvio Berlusconi is a George W. Bush BFF. So I was shocked to witness Americans heckled and verbally harassed on three difference occasions. These were not “ugly Americans,” they were typical tourists enjoying a holiday. They did not deserve this treatment.

And I thought: George Bush has ruined our vacation. Kristof writes:

In his endorsement, Mr. Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, I think it’ll electrify the world.” You can already see that. A 22-nation survey by the BBC found that voters abroad preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. McCain in every single country — by four to one over all. Nearly half of those in the BBC poll said that the election of Mr. Obama, an African-American, would “fundamentally change” their perceptions of the United States.

America has some fences to mend overseas. I don’t see a McCain presidency doing that. Sending Barack Obama to the White House will send a profound statement to the world that we're ready to change.

He's Mad As Hell And He's Not Taking It

John McCain really lowered himself into the gutter by calling those phony Acorn allegations (which I railed against here) the “worst voter fraud perpetrated on the American public in 200 years” or some such.

Yes, registering Mickey Mouse to vote so someone can collect $2 is so much worse than denying an entire race of people the right to vote simply because of the color of their skin. And then orchestrating a violent intimidation campaign against those who tried to register Southern blacks to vote.

Anyway, the truth is now starting to sink in that these are all phony allegations started by the GOP in an attempt to throw as much mud as possible in the final weeks of the election. And I’m happy to see the Obama campaign isn’t going to take it:

Obama lawyer calls for investigation over ACORN charges

(CNN) – Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer called Monday for a government investigation into whether the White House is working with John McCain’s campaign to raise allegations of voter fraud, telling reporters attorney general Michael Mukasey needed to step in to ensure investigators are "not misused for partisan purposes."

A special prosecutor is investigating similar charges against the Justice Department over the controversial dismissals of several U.S. attorneys, including David Yglesias, who said he was fired for resisting pressure to prosecute ACORN, the embattled community group at the center of a sustained Republican campaign alleging voter fraud among supporters of Barack Obama.

I hope the Obama campaign broadcasts this loud and clear. There is nothing wrong with registering poor and minority citizens to vote. There have been plenty of problems with Republican-focused voter registration drives, too.

For example, this one:

Ontario police arrest man in voter fraud case

SACRAMENTO -- 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.

Anyone know how many ACORN folks have been arrested?

Zero.

Pretty funny that the one guy arrested for voter registration fraud worked for the Republican Party!

Oh lookie, here’s another one from across the aisle:

Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations

(Oct. 13) -- Federal, state, and local officials are gathering information about allegations of voter registration fraud that were first raised Channel 8 Eyewitness News.

An employee of a private voter registration firm alleges that his bosses trashed registration forms filled out by Democratic voters because they only wanted to sign up Republican voters.

The allegations have set off a political firestorm stretching from Las Vegas to Washington D.C., and beyond. 

As with everything else in this election year, it's now become a political football being tossed between the two parties, with charges and countercharges, but at its core, there still remains the matter of registration forms that were ripped up and tossed in the trash.

A similar thing happened right here in Nashville during the last presidential election.

This kind of voter registration fraud is a lot worse than what has happened to Acorn. Because while Mickey Mouse isn’t going to show up to vote on election day, the people whose registrations ended up in the trash were expecting to vote. And if their forms were never turned in, they would be unable to do so.

Since John McCain has chosen to get down in the gutter with his Rove acolyte and participate in the mud-slinging, I fully expect he will be forced to eat his words when this and every other smear is revealed for what it so obviously is: a partisan political attack.

Easy Voter: Dennis Hopper An Obama Convert

Longtime Republican/Bush voter Dennis Hopper says he’s supporting Barack Obama:

PARIS (AFP) — Dennis Hopper, the US actor-director perhaps best known for the 1969 road-movie "Easy Rider", is praying for victory by Barack Obama in next month's elections, he said on Monday.

"I voted for Bush, father and son, but this time I'll vote for Obama," he told journalists at the opening of a show on his life and work at the Paris cinematheque.

Hopper is to be handed France's order of Commander of Arts and Letters by the culture minister later Monday.

"I was the first person in my family to have been Republican," he added. "For most of my life I wasn't on the left."

"I pray God, Barack Obama is elected," he said, criticising the current administration's many "lies."

I’m sure the last two weeks have been hard on the Ameriprise Financial pitchman.

Animal Lovers For Obama!

For the first time ever, the Humane Society Legislative Fund has endorsed a presidential ticket:

I’m proud to announce today that the HSLF board of directors—which is comprised of both Democrats and Republicans—has voted unanimously to endorse Barack Obama for President. The Obama-Biden ticket is the better choice on animal protection, and we urge all voters who care about the humane treatment of animals, no matter what their party affiliation, to vote for them.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a solid supporter of animal protection at both the state and federal levels. As an Illinois state senator, he backed at least a dozen animal protection laws, including those to strengthen the penalties for animal cruelty, to help animal shelters, to promote spaying and neutering, and to ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption.  In the U.S. Senate, he has consistently co-sponsored multiple bills to combat animal fighting and horse slaughter, and has supported efforts to increase funding for adequate enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and federal laws to combat animal fighting and puppy mills.

[...]

While McCain’s positions on animal protection have been lukewarm, his choice of running mate cemented our decision to oppose his ticket. Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-Alaska) retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation have led to an all-out war on Alaska’s wolves and other creatures. Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States.

Palin engineered a campaign of shooting predators from airplanes and helicopters, in order to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. She offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals, even though Alaska voters had twice approved a ban on the practice. This year, the issue was up again for a vote of the people, and Palin led the fight against it—in fact, she helped to spend $400,000 of public funds to defeat the initiative.

If you love animals, then you will do your part to make sure Barack Obama is elected with the strongest electoral mandate we’ve seen in eight years.

And check this out: Bark Obama: A blog for cat and dog bloggers who support Obama!

Ralph Stanley 4 Obama

Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley has endorsed Barack Obama. Check out the radio ad he cut:



Hey John Rich! Suck on this!

American Morans, V.3

When your opposition is this stupid, I'm not sure if we should be all that worried.

Noted a concerned neighbor:

"If you're going to attract attention, at least make sure your spelling is right," Rice added, referring to Lacasse's misspelling of the word "Muslim."

As a former copy editor, I couldn't agree more.

Et Tu, Obama?????

ZOMG.

Is that a Detroit Red Wings Jersey???!!!!!!

This gives me pause. A Red Wings fan for president??!!! Never!!!!

Just kidding. I'll overlook Obama's lapse in judgment this once. But when he comes to Nashville for the second debate next week, I'd better see a Nashville Predators jersey in his hands!

Return Of The Wedge Issue

[UPDATE]: Heh. The New York Times agrees with me. Imagine that.

Okay, folks. If you liked the culture wars, you're gonna love seeing them drag on for another four years. War on Christmas, beeyatches!!!!!
--------------------

Last night’s speech by John McCain was so lackluster, it took real effort to keep from switching to, oh, I dunno, a World Series of Poker rerun. As one commenter at Eschaton posted, “the crowd went mild.”

And what was up with the green screen? Have they learned nothing?

John McCain has already been overshadowed by Sarah Palin. I’ve had fun taking potshots at Palin this week: the puppy killer, the slutty daughter, the podunk town she ran that is supposedly the perfect proving ground for the White House. But she’s a far more effective speaker than McCain, prompting more than one person to wonder: At what point will Palin drop McCain?

Ouch.

But really what Sarah Palin has done is bring the evangelical base back into the voting booth. And along with them come those rancorous, divisive social issues. Karl Rove is ecstatic. 

I really didn’t think this election would be about gays and abortion; I mean, after eight years of this crap who isn’t sick of being hammered over the head by an issue that has absolutely no bearing on jobs, gas prices, healthcare, the mortgage crisis, or any of the other real issues affecting people’s daily lives?

Aren’t we sick of being manipulated by divisive social issues? Haven’t we had enough of that crap?

Apparently not. At least, the Republican Party doesn’t seem to think so.

And here’s where I see an opportunity for Barack Obama. The whole point of the “Yes We Can” message was to say, let’s move past the politics of divisive wedge issues and work together to solve the real problems challenging American families.

Here’s an excerpt from Obama’s January 27 speech after he won the South Carolina primary:

It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together. We are here tonight to say that that is not the America we believe in.

Yes, my friends, that is change we can believe in. And that is not what I’m hearing from the Republican Party these days.

Adding Sarah Palin to the ticket did not offer any change from the past four years. To the contrary, it showed us that if elected, the debate of the next four years will look exactly like that of the past eight: more wrangling over “activist judges” and Roe v. Wade, more rancor over funding for abstinence-only education and who’s wearing a flag pin (and by the way, last night John McCain was not).

We can expect more Dr. David Hager-type appointments to key posts affecting women’s health, and more Monica Goodlings in the Justice Department. Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in a dress, so if you’ve liked debating gay marriage while American jobs are shipped to China and India, then by all means go right ahead and support the GOP ticket.

As for me: I’m sick of these stupid distractions. I’m sick of Rove-style wedge issues that allow the corporatists in Washington to raid our treasury and undermine our economy.

So, my advice to Barack Obama is: get back on message. I’m sick of politics as usual, wedge issues, gays-guns-and-God. Surely I’m not the only one.