Tag Archives: politics

Because I helped spread the myth…

10 Nov

I feel obliged to help undo it as well.

Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Prop. 8

[…] Black people are to blame for the passage of Proposition 8 here in California. It is an idea grounded in utter myth, a complete lack of knowledge about anything related to Black people’s presence in California, and just plain old scapegoating.

Hoepfully[sic], this diary will help put all that to rest, and we can get back to work trying to beat back the hateful results of Tuesday’s vote. […]

Consider this my mea culpa for the earlier post of this. I reacted to poorly researched “journalism”, and let my generally higher level of trust for foreign news sources carry too much weight. For that, I sincerely apologize. I also suggest reading this from Kathryn Kolbert, President, People For the American Way Foundation.

[…] Before we give Religious Right leaders more reasons to rejoice by deepening the divisions they have worked so hard to create between African Americans and the broader progressive community, let’s be clear about who is responsible for gay couples in California losing the right to get married, and let’s think strategically about a way forward that broadens and strengthens support for equality. […]

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What Glenn said.

10 Nov

Glenn Greenwald: Salon.Com: Orin Kerr and the responsibility of elites for the last eight years

[…] Over the last eight years (at least), we have not only crossed the line of what ought to be within the realm of reasonable, respectful debate, but we have crossed it repeatedly, severely, and with great harm to our political system and huge numbers of people. And one of the prime reasons that happened is because those with the most vocal platforms and with the greatest claims to expertise failed in their responsibility to oppose it passionately and to describe its extremism, and, instead, eagerly served as apologists for it. Those who seek now to depict their tepidness in the face of all of that as some elevated form of enlightened reason are merely illustrating one of the key mechanisms that enabled all of it to happen.

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ACLU: Actions for Restoring America

6 Nov

How to Begin Repairing the Damage to Freedom in America After Bush

Barack Obama will become chief executive of a nation that has been greatly weakened – in particular, our freedoms, our values, and our international reputation have been greatly undermined by the policies of the past eight years.

Presidents have enormous power not only to set the legislative agenda, but also to establish policy by executive order, federal regulation, or simply by refocusing the efforts and emphases of the executive agencies. The new president must use all of these tools to restore our freedoms and move the country forward.

Doing so will require determined action in the face of inevitable opposition. It will require conveying to the American people why grants of unchecked power do not actually make us safer, and why Americans must stand firm in protecting the values that at our best we have always represented and defended at home and around the world.

It will not be easy to undo eight years of sustained damage to our fundamental rights. But it can be done.

This paper lists many of the actions that the new president should take in order to decisively signal a restoration of American values and a rejection of the shameful policies of the past eight years.

The first year of any new administration is crucial and sets the stage for what will follow. The new President needs to hit the ground running and to make full use of that first crucial year.

We have grouped needed actions into those that the new president should take on day one, in the 100 days and then the first year. Those actions include executive orders as well as mandates or directives from the president to his cabinet secretaries and agency heads.

See the entire list, broken down by First Day, First 100 Days, and First Year priorities, at the link. I like what I see, and strongly support every suggested action.

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California Prop 8 and bigotry

6 Nov

The very turnout that helped Obama carry California also seems to have helped Prop 8 pass. Polls indicate that African Americans overwhelmingly supported Prop 8. It’s one of life’s true ironies that those who were victims of bigotry would support the same against a different class of people.

Barack Obama may have helped California Proposition 8 gay marriage ban pass
Around 70 per cent of the African-American voters who overwhelmingly backed Mr Obama also approved Proposition 8, helping pass the controversial ballot measure despite a small majority of whites voting against the ban on same-sex unions. Hispanic and Asian voters were split on the issue. […]

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This is a real family…

3 Nov

Something for anyone that’s still undecided on CA Prop 8, FL Prop 2, or AZ Prop 102:

My Family Is Real by Les Addison

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Sarah Palin speaks on the First Amendment

1 Nov


Per Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

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.”

Click through to read Greenwald’s complete analysis of why this hurts, if you enjoy seeing someone take the stupid people to task, and do it very well.

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Sarah Palin’s War on Science

28 Oct

The GOP Ticket’s appalling contempt for knowledge and learning
By Christopher Hitchens

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

Excellent summary of the very best reason to vote Obama/Biden. Their ideas are not necessarily the best ones out there, but at least they are not proud of their own stupidity.

via sunfell

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Tubes* lead to prison?

27 Oct

Sen. Stevens guilty of corruption charges

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was found guilty on Monday on corruption charges, a verdict that could endanger the powerful Republican’s political future and help Democrats expand their control of the Senate in the November 4 election.

Stevens, 84, was found guilty on all seven counts of lying on Senate disclosure forms by failing to report more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an oil-industry executive. […]

* Series of Tubes

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A rather terrifying proposition

24 Oct

Palin In 2012: The Argument – Marc Ambinder

Click headline for full article…

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Houston Chronicle endorses Obama / Biden

19 Oct

The Chronicle endorses Barack Obama for president and Joe Biden for vice president of the United States

After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.

Go read the entire editorial. It’s worth the time.

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