Racism is not exclusive to the Republican party, but this election has scratched the surface of many parts of the country and uncovered some really ignorant, dark stuff just below the surface. A vote for Obama is FOR so many things, but it is also a vote against this kind of ignorance.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Sarah Palin on the First Amendment
Good article by Glen Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer, on salon.com today:
Somehow, in Sarah Palin's brain, it's a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts:
In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
Maureen Dowd recently made an equally stupid comment when she complained that her First Amendment rights were being violated by the McCain campaign's refusal to allow her on their campaign plane.
The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.
If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.
This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.
According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?
Somehow, in Sarah Palin's brain, it's a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts:
In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
Maureen Dowd recently made an equally stupid comment when she complained that her First Amendment rights were being violated by the McCain campaign's refusal to allow her on their campaign plane.
The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.
If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.
This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.
According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?
Inside the Conservative Mind
The only nice thing I can think of to say about this guy, Bill Cunningham, a right-wing talk show host, is that he's honest enough to say what, I think, many conservatives really believe. Once you understand this mindset,it is easier to understand their resistance to any public assistance programs. It's not pretty, but it is probably worth a listen.
I wonder how we'll ever bridge this gap and learn to talk to each other.
I wonder how we'll ever bridge this gap and learn to talk to each other.
Republican Programming
There was a great cartoon at the beginning of the first Bush term. An aide walks into the Oval Office and says, "Mr. President, hostile aliens have invaded our planet!" Bush says, "Looks like it's time for a tax cut."
That's what Republicans do - cut taxes and deregulate. They believe it is the solution to all problems. Now, Bush is trying to roll back more regulations in his last few months. In spite of the current economic crisis, which was caused in part by lack of regulations, he's still following his knee-jerk Republican programming.
"Mr. President, our economy is collapsing, we're in debt to the Chinese for trillions of dollars, the stock market is in a free fall, and millions of Americans are losing their savings." Bush says, "Looks like it's time to deregulate."
Here's the first paragraph of a Washington Post article today:
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The rest of the story:
That's what Republicans do - cut taxes and deregulate. They believe it is the solution to all problems. Now, Bush is trying to roll back more regulations in his last few months. In spite of the current economic crisis, which was caused in part by lack of regulations, he's still following his knee-jerk Republican programming.
"Mr. President, our economy is collapsing, we're in debt to the Chinese for trillions of dollars, the stock market is in a free fall, and millions of Americans are losing their savings." Bush says, "Looks like it's time to deregulate."
Here's the first paragraph of a Washington Post article today:
The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The rest of the story:
Whatever You Do, Don't Look at Him . . . . Or Listen to Him
This is the latest thing to pop up this week. Obama is hypnotizing us. Here's a quote from Rush Limbaugh which would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that he has an audience of 30 million who proudly call themselves "ditto heads."
"I do remember reading that the highly educated are the most susceptible to being hypnotized, so that would put me in the risk group, ladies and gentlemen. And yet, I'm going to watch Obama tonight."
"If you do watch Obama tonight, here's the sign that I want you to make for your TV: 'Do not be hypnotized. You are listening to a socialist.'"
"I do remember reading that the highly educated are the most susceptible to being hypnotized, so that would put me in the risk group, ladies and gentlemen. And yet, I'm going to watch Obama tonight."
"If you do watch Obama tonight, here's the sign that I want you to make for your TV: 'Do not be hypnotized. You are listening to a socialist.'"
Watch Bill Kristol Choke on His Own Words
Bill Kristol has been wrong about everything from the Iraq War forward, yet he still maintains his position as the guiding light of the neocons. Just another indication of their contempt for facts and reality.
Rachel Maddow Interviews Barack Obama
Rachel Maddow is rising as fast as Barack Obama. They're both doing it on the strength of their intelligence. Here's her interview with Barack Obama from last night in case you missed it.
Where are the Men in Black When We Need Them?
Just when you think it can't get any crazier . . . . stuff like this pops up. These people are like the aliens in Men in Black. They're all over the place - on the highways - in the supermarkets - they're all around us. I'm going to get one of those big guns that Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones used in the movie.
Copied this article by Alex Koppleman right out of Salon.com this morning.
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. On the other hand, Jerome Corsi, the co-author of the book that launched the Swift Boat Vets, has a new article out at WorldNetDaily claiming that in fact Obama and his grandfather used to hang out with Davis at his hot dog stand in Hawaii, which was really just a front for selling cocaine and marijuana. (Corsi's "source" for this one apparently has an uncanny ability to remember in detail just how much cocaine he was buying 33 years ago, not to mention when he bought it and who he bought it from. Very believable.)
Also, Obama has apparently been using the power of hypnosis to brainwash people into voting for him. Here's a snippet from a recent post at the blog of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing group:
Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator, captivating millions through his eloquence? Or is he deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis?
Techniques of trance induction include extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion. Hypnotists often have patients count. In a speech after the primaries closed, Obama said: “Sixteen months have passed (paused)…Thousands (pause) of miles…(pause)…Millions of voices….”
Obama actually said at one time: “a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”
You will not choose to vote for Barack: you will “have to.” It is not a logical choice, but rather one directed by a mystical (subconscious) force.
Copied this article by Alex Koppleman right out of Salon.com this morning.
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. On the other hand, Jerome Corsi, the co-author of the book that launched the Swift Boat Vets, has a new article out at WorldNetDaily claiming that in fact Obama and his grandfather used to hang out with Davis at his hot dog stand in Hawaii, which was really just a front for selling cocaine and marijuana. (Corsi's "source" for this one apparently has an uncanny ability to remember in detail just how much cocaine he was buying 33 years ago, not to mention when he bought it and who he bought it from. Very believable.)
Also, Obama has apparently been using the power of hypnosis to brainwash people into voting for him. Here's a snippet from a recent post at the blog of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing group:
Is Barack Obama a brilliant orator, captivating millions through his eloquence? Or is he deliberately using the techniques of neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a covert form of hypnosis?
Techniques of trance induction include extra slow speech, rhythm, tonalities, vagueness, visual imagery, metaphor, and raising of emotion. Hypnotists often have patients count. In a speech after the primaries closed, Obama said: “Sixteen months have passed (paused)…Thousands (pause) of miles…(pause)…Millions of voices….”
Obama actually said at one time: “a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”
You will not choose to vote for Barack: you will “have to.” It is not a logical choice, but rather one directed by a mystical (subconscious) force.
What's Wrong With Spreading Wealth Around?
I will be so glad when November 5, gets here. Every time I start feeling good about the polls and start to envision a Obama presidency, I remember that this country voted for George Bush a second time after they had seen him, listened to him, and experienced the effects of his policies for four years. It could happen again, and I can't relax for another five days. Never underestimate the stupidity and shallowness of the American voter.
McCain's last ditch effort to label Obama a socialist and a marxist is an indication of the mental laziness of the audience to which they're appealing. After the bank bailouts, if you're going to label one person a socialist, then you must label us all socialists . . . if you have any kind of intellectual honesty. You can't condemn Obama for "spreading the wealth" after you know the facts about Palin's redistribution of wealth in Alaska. And what's wrong with spreading a little wealth around, if it means . . . .
-everyone can have decent health care . . .
-a college education is within reach of anyone who wants it . . .
-singe mothers have access to dependable child care so they can earn a living . . .
-more public funds are available for finding new sources of renewable energy . . .
-narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest paid people un companies by a few percentage points?
-getting this country out of the financial black hole that we're in.
That's a question that hasn't been asked.
How can the Republicans consistently get so many people to vote against their own economic self-interest? The people at McCain's and Palin's rallies are not wealthy, yet they boo on cue at the mention of "spreading the wealth." They cheer on cue at the mention of "creating wealth." I honestly believe that they don't have any idea of what those two concepts mean.
We need to have a good discussion on socialism, marxixm and capitalism. A place to start is the dictionary:
cap·i·tal·ism – an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
so·cial·ism – a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
Marx·ism – the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, esp. the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.
McCain is setting himself up as the defender of capitalism against socialism - a tired old Republican argument. One of his heroes, Teddy Roosevelt, described what Obama is doing - he said his main job was to defend capitalism against the capitalists.
McCain's last ditch effort to label Obama a socialist and a marxist is an indication of the mental laziness of the audience to which they're appealing. After the bank bailouts, if you're going to label one person a socialist, then you must label us all socialists . . . if you have any kind of intellectual honesty. You can't condemn Obama for "spreading the wealth" after you know the facts about Palin's redistribution of wealth in Alaska. And what's wrong with spreading a little wealth around, if it means . . . .
-everyone can have decent health care . . .
-a college education is within reach of anyone who wants it . . .
-singe mothers have access to dependable child care so they can earn a living . . .
-more public funds are available for finding new sources of renewable energy . . .
-narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest paid people un companies by a few percentage points?
-getting this country out of the financial black hole that we're in.
That's a question that hasn't been asked.
How can the Republicans consistently get so many people to vote against their own economic self-interest? The people at McCain's and Palin's rallies are not wealthy, yet they boo on cue at the mention of "spreading the wealth." They cheer on cue at the mention of "creating wealth." I honestly believe that they don't have any idea of what those two concepts mean.
We need to have a good discussion on socialism, marxixm and capitalism. A place to start is the dictionary:
cap·i·tal·ism – an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
so·cial·ism – a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
Marx·ism – the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, esp. the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.
McCain is setting himself up as the defender of capitalism against socialism - a tired old Republican argument. One of his heroes, Teddy Roosevelt, described what Obama is doing - he said his main job was to defend capitalism against the capitalists.
Washington Post Condemens McCain's "As Hominem" Attacks
Friday, October 31, 2008; Page A18
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.
Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.
Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.
Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.
Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Another Good Reason to Vote
My son, Patrick, sent me this little gem. It's subtle, with a powerful message hidden behind the humor.
Your neighbors are voting. You're not. That could be a problem. A video for North Carolina voters, by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies) and Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, SNL's "TV Funhouse").
Your neighbors are voting. You're not. That could be a problem. A video for North Carolina voters, by Dave Willis (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies) and Scott Jacobson (The Daily Show, SNL's "TV Funhouse").
Palin's Version of Socialism
In Alaska, residents pay no income tax or state sales tax. They receive a yearly dividend check from a $30 billion state investment account built largely from royalties on its oil. When home fuel and gas costs soared this year, Palin raised taxes on big oil and used some of the money to boost residents' checks by $1,200. Thus every eligible man, woman and child got a record $3,269 this fall.
She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.
"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.
Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:
"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."
In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":
"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."
She also suspended the 8-cent tax on gas.
"We can afford to share resource wealth with Alaskans and to temporarily suspend the state fuel tax," she said at the time.
Much as Obama explains his tax hike on the rich as a way to help people who are struggling, Palin's statement talked about the energy costs burdening Alaskans:
"While the unique fiscal circumstances the state finds itself in at the end of this fiscal year warrant a special one-time payment to share some of the state's wealth, the payment comes at a time when Alaskans are facing rising energy prices. High prices for oil are a double-edged sword for Alaskans. While public coffers fill, prices for heating fuel and gasoline have skyrocketed over the last six months and are now running into the $5- to $9-a-gallon range for heating fuel and gasoline across several areas of the state."
In an interview with The New Yorker last summer Palin explained that she would make demands of a new gas pipeline "to maximize benefits for Alaskans":
"And Alaska we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs."
Obama's Letter to a Second-Grader
Thanks to my son, Patrick, for sending this along:
October 30 2008
WEST HARTFORD -- When Amy Mondschein dashed into Solomon Schechter Day School last Thursday, the head of the school and her son's teacher were waiting. The Enfield resident, whose son is a second-grader at the Jewish day school, was running late that day. Was she in trouble?
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-flatobama1030.artoct30,0,7881722.story
October 30 2008
WEST HARTFORD -- When Amy Mondschein dashed into Solomon Schechter Day School last Thursday, the head of the school and her son's teacher were waiting. The Enfield resident, whose son is a second-grader at the Jewish day school, was running late that day. Was she in trouble?
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-flatobama1030.artoct30,0,7881722.story
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Obama Too Smart For F#@K Pig Strategy
Some think Karl Rove is the father of dirty politics, but it's been going on for a long time. Lyndon Johnson once instructed his campaign manager to run an ad saying that his opponent f#@ks pigs. The campaign manager objected, saying that nobody would ever believe that. Johnson said, "I know. I just want to see him deny it."
Obama's not getting sucked into denying the ridiculous slurs against him. He's just laughing them off. Good strategy. Don't give them the pleasure of watching him deny that he's a socialist, communist, muslim, or terrorist.
Obama's not getting sucked into denying the ridiculous slurs against him. He's just laughing them off. Good strategy. Don't give them the pleasure of watching him deny that he's a socialist, communist, muslim, or terrorist.
76 American Nobel Laureates Endorse Obama
From Salon.com - October 29, 2008
In a strongly worded letter, 76 of the most distinguished scientists in the country endorsed Barack Obama for President. While praising Obama's "emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness," the laureates' blasted the Bush administration for its disdain for science:
During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.
Among those signing the letter are all three of the Americans who won science prizes in 2008: Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego who shared the prize in chemistry, and Yoichiro Nambu, of the University of Chicago, who won the prize in physics. Chalfie has recorded a YouTube video of his endorsement, as well.
While the letter that the Nobel laureates signed does not actually mention John McCain or Sarah Palin, the chemists, physicists and physiologists can't have been impressed by the GOP candidates' recent scoffing on the campaign trail at a major grizzly bear study and important fruit fly research.
In a strongly worded letter, 76 of the most distinguished scientists in the country endorsed Barack Obama for President. While praising Obama's "emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness," the laureates' blasted the Bush administration for its disdain for science:
During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.
Among those signing the letter are all three of the Americans who won science prizes in 2008: Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego who shared the prize in chemistry, and Yoichiro Nambu, of the University of Chicago, who won the prize in physics. Chalfie has recorded a YouTube video of his endorsement, as well.
While the letter that the Nobel laureates signed does not actually mention John McCain or Sarah Palin, the chemists, physicists and physiologists can't have been impressed by the GOP candidates' recent scoffing on the campaign trail at a major grizzly bear study and important fruit fly research.
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