Posts
Talk about a screwed up interview, and the sad part is that this woman was serious!
Be INFORMED
Saturday, October 25, 2008
DOJ To Probe Ohio Voter Registrations?
The Bush Crime Family strikes again!
George W. Bush late Friday asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether hundreds of thousands of newly registered voters in the battleground state of Ohio would have to verify the information on their voter registration forms or be given provisional ballots, an issue the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on last week.
The unprecedented intervention by the White House less than two weeks before the presidential election may result in at least 200,000 voters in Ohio not being able to vote on Election Day if they are forced to provide additional identification when they head to the polls.
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Bush Friday asking that he order the Department of Justice to probe the matter.
"I strongly urge you to direct Attorney General Mukasey and the Department of Justice to act." Boehner said in his letter "Unless action is taken by the Department immediately, thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of names whose information has not been verified through the procedures mandated by Congress will remain on the voter rolls during the November 4 election; and there is a significant risk if not a certainty, that unlawful votes will be cast and counted. Given the Election Day is less than two weeks away, immediate action by the Department is not only warranted, but also crucial."
Independent studies have shown that phony registrations rarely result in illegally cast ballots because there are so many other safeguards built into the system.
This shit by the Republicans is getting a little tiring. More proof that they can't win an honest election in this country.
So how much voter fraud has actually happened in the past?
For instance, from October 2002 to September 2005, a total of 70 people were convicted for federal election related crimes, according to figures compiled by the New York Times last year. Only 18 of those were for ineligible voting.
In recent years, federal prosecutors reached similar conclusions despite pressure from the Bush administration to lodge “election fraud” charges against voter registration groups seen as bringing more Democratic voters into the democratic process.
Little Hitler ( Bush ) does not want his cohorts to lose the White House because he knows it will be a very long time before another Republican lives in it. We need to see that it stays that way.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Latest Newsweek Poll: Obama 53% McCain 40%
With less than two weeks left in the presidential contest, Barack Obama continues to hold a commanding double-digit lead over John McCain according to the latest NEWSWEEK Poll. Among registered voters nationwide, Obama now leads McCain by 13 points, 53 percent to 40 percent. Among likely voters, Obama's lead is similarly strong, 53 percent to 41 percent.
In fact, Obama leads McCain in practically all of the demographic groups in this poll.
He now leads McCain in every age group, even among voters 65 and older, who choose him over McCain 48 percent to 42 percent. He leads handily among men, 52 percent to 42 percent, and among women, 54 percent to 39 percent. He now leads McCain by 46 percent to 44 percent among working class whites, a dramatic reversal from April, when McCain led him in that group 53 percent to 35 percent.
One more bit of information for you
Despite repeated attempts by the McCain campaign to raise fears about the specter of one-party Democratic rule in Washington, only 34 percent of voters say they think Obama is too liberal, while a majority, 56 percent, say they think Obama's views on major issues are "about right."
U.S. Auto Makers Cutting Jobs
This came out yesterday, but just in case you missed it..
Chrysler announced that it was cutting 1,825 jobs. The cuts are about 6% of the company's hourly workforce of 33,000.
General Motors announced that it is indefinitely suspending company matching contributions to employee 401K retirement accounts.
The Washington Post reports that Detroit automakers are pulling out of NASCAR:GM's annual investment alone was rumored to be $120 million-$140 million at the peak of its involvement in NASCAR. But it severed sponsorships with Bristol Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway this summer, and deeper cuts are promised as part of GM's $10 billion cost-savings program.
Ford officials announced yesterday that while they were extending their contract with Roush Fenway Racing -- its most decorated team in the elite Sprint Cup ranks -- they were also ending all direct financial support to teams in NASCAR's Nationwide and Truck series, considered developmental leagues. Dodge took a similar step in pulling out of the truck series, which also is losing Sears's Craftsman brand as its title sponsor at season's end.
Late Night Sarah Palin Jokes
It is Friday, so I'm bringing you some of the latest Sarah Palin jokes from the late night shows.
“Sarah Palin is taking heat because the Republican National Committee has so far spent $150,000 on wardrobe for her and her family. She spent $50,000 at Saks Fifth Avenue, $75,000 at Neiman Marcus and about $5,000 on hair and makeup. Hey, representing small town, common-folk hockey moms isn’t cheap, folks.” –Jimmy Kimmel
"Naturally the smart thing to do to solve your economic woes is to demonize the Democrats. And of course, Sarah Palin is more than happy to oblige. She's been saying that Obama hangs out with terrorists. And you know, I think the evangelical lady who's in a video getting blessed by a witch doctor, who's married to a secessionist, and can't name a newspaper -- she's right, Obama is scary." --Bill Maher"The question she keeps asking at all of the rallies is, 'Who is Barack Obama?' You know what, genius, maybe if you'd picked up a newspaper in the last year you'd know. He's the guy who's kicking your ass." --Bill Maher
"Are you excited about Sarah Palin? Well, yesterday she referred to Afghanistan as our neighboring country. Apparently, she can see bin Laden's cave from her house." --David Letterman
"In Boca Raton, Florida, yesterday, a woman who looked like Sarah Palin caused a near riot when she walked into a diner for breakfast. And after a minute or two, people finally realized it wasn't her when she started answering questions." --Jay Leno
All of these come by way of About.com
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Voter Suppression/Voter Fraud: What Can You Do About It?
Published on Thursday, October 23, 2008 by YES! Magazine
How to Stop the Rigging of Election '08
by Sarah van Gelder
Don't be fooled by all the accusations about ACORN. The real voting scandal is the voter suppression methods that likely swayed election results in 2000 and 2004, and are in process again as you read this.
Most of the news has focused on John McCain's accusations that ACORN is perpetrating a major vote fraud. The problems with ACORNs work that have surfaced involve registration, not voting. The truth is that ACORN, a group that organizes poor people, has been registering record numbers to vote: a jaw-dropping 1.3 million -- mostly low-income people, people of color, and young people.
ACORN readily admit that a tiny fraction of the 13,000 canvassers they hired turned in faulty registrations. "If they had too many mistakes or problems, we fired that person," Brian Mellor, senior counsel for Project Vote, said in an article in the New York Daily News. But the organization has no choice about turning in the faulty forms; most states require that every registration form filled out be handed over to election officials. "I personally went to the office of the Clark County [Nevada] board of elections in July and told them we're bringing these forms in, we've separated the ones that have problems," he said. "You should investigate and prosecute those you feel necessary. They told us they weren't interested." Nevada state officials raided the ACORN office in early October.
But there's little chance that these errors will result in improper voting on election day, much less affect outcomes. According to researcher Lorraine C. Minnite, of Columbia University, a total of 24 people, across the U.S., were found guilty of voter fraud between 2002 and 2005 -- an average of eight per year.
This video features ACORN leaders and others responding to the charges of election "fraud."
This issue of voter fraud is a smokescreen designed to cover a much more serious issue with a long and ugly history: the suppression of the vote of groups that tend to vote Democratic -- especially the poor, minorities, and young people. Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said as much when I interviewed him last year.
In the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr. show that thousands of voters have been disenfranchised in key swing states, dating back to the 2000 election, and continuing today. Techniques include purging voter registration rolls in targeted districts, challenging voters, requiring excessive identification, and discarding ballots.
There are also cases where heavily Democratic districts get few voting machines, resulting in long lines, while Republican precincts in the same county are well stocked, with no waiting to vote. Reports are already coming in of scare tactics repeated from the last two elections, especially flyers and posters warning that voters will be arrested at the polls if they have so much as an unpaid parking ticket.
Then there are the infamous black box voting machines, which, computer scientists warn, can't be secured or audited. There are already reports of voting machines in West Virginia flipping Obama votes to John McCain during early voting.
This country has a long and ugly history of suppressing the votes of minorities and poor people, and today's voter suppression tactics follow in that shameful tradition.
So what do we do protect the votes now that the election is just days away?
YES! Magazine is sending out an email to thousands of our readers entitled 12 Ways to Protect the Vote. Click on this link for simple things you can do, and forward on these simple instructions for safeguarding your vote.
Here are other resources available at the YES! website. Click here for information on:
- voting and how to make sure your vote gets counted.
- how you can help protect the integrity of this election.
- the threats to our elections -- and the solutions.
Sarah van Gelder is Executive Editor YES! magazine.
New Obama Website To PROTECT YOUR VOTE
The Obama campaign has worked with the Democratic Party to build the most comprehensive voter protection program ever put in place. Volunteers and campaign staffers across the country are working to protect your rights on Election Day. We are testing voting systems, examining ballot designs, pushing to reduce lines, and expanding opportunities for early and absentee voting.
We have also been carefully monitoring the voter rolls — we are watching to make sure new registrants get on the rolls, and stay there.
Go and check the site out when you have time or if you have questions concerning your vote.
The link> http://truth.voteforchange.com/
Sarah Palin Not To Good With Geography Either
This one comes from People Magazine
Have you traveled with the kids anywhere in the lower 48?
SP: Yes. Many, many, many times. Yes. Yes. We go to Hawaii often. That's a good trip for Alaskans because it's a direct flight down there. We've been to California quite a few times. Washington State quite a few times to see relatives.
Maybe someone should tell Sarah that Hawaii is not one of the lower 48 states. Boy, is she a smart one or not? Comments like hers help us to understand why it took her four or five colleges to graduate.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
DSCC's New Ad Against Mitch McConnell
I do not usually put up to much about the state races, but, living in Kentucky part time, this race has been of keen interest to me. I for one would love to watch McConnell eat the dirt and be sent home crying to mommy. I live in this assholes district so whenever a petition online comes up asking me to write or to call my Senator's, it becomes a waste of time to do so because dear old Mitch keeps himself in lock-step with whatever Bush and his cronies attempt. Mitch is one of the Bush enablers who should be let out to pasture. The bad part about this race is that his Democratic rival is not to much better than McConnell is. This is definitely a choice between the lesser of two evils.
With all of that being said, here is the new DSCC ad on Mitch McConnell.
DSCC's New Ad Against Mitch McConnell
I do not usually put up to much about the state races, but, living in Kentucky part time, this race has been of keen interest to me. I for one would love to watch McConnell eat the dirt and be sent home crying to mommy. I live in this assholes district so whenever a petition online comes up asking me to write or to call my Senator's, it becomes a waste of time to do so because dear old Mitch keeps himself in lock-step with whatever Bush and his cronies attempt. Mitch is one of the Bush enablers who should be let out to pasture. The bad part about this race is that his Democratic rival is not to much better than McConnell is. This is definitely a choice between the lesser of two evils.
With all of that being said, here is the new DSCC ad on Mitch McConnell.
Barack In Richmond, Virginia
Nice little speech that Barack Obama gave in Richmond. Check it out.
YouTube has had an embed problem with this video once in a while, so if you cannot watch it here, then go here.
Nevada Secretary Of State Rules Against GOP Voter Objections
Another GOP voter suppression tactic bites the dust. You can, however, expect a Republican court challenge on this.
Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller today ruled that voters whose registrations were on time, but incomplete or incorrect, may cast regular ballots after correcting their applications.
The legal interpretation was a response to a letter from Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden, who argued that voter registrations that were not complete by the deadline shouldn't allow those people to vote.
Can't you just hear the Republican Party in Nevada crying over this latest take down?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
New Obama Ad Slams " Erratic " John McCain
This is probably one of the best ads that I have seen lately.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Presidential Polling For Monday, October 20, 2008
NATIONAL POLLS
CBS/NYT: Obama 54%, McCain 41%
ECONOMIST: Obama 48%, McCain 42%
CNN: Obama 51%, McCain 46%
DEMOCRACY CORPS: Obama 49%, McCain 44%
GWU/BATTLEGROUND: Obama 49%, McCain 45%
DAILY TRACKING POLLS
GALLUP: Obama 52%, McCain 43%
ABC: Obama 53%, McCain 44%
RESEARCH 2000: Obama 50%, McCain 42%
ZOGBY: Obama 50%, McCain 44%
IBD/TIPP: Obama 47%, McCain 41%
HOTLINE/DIAGEO: Obama 47%, McCain 42%
RASMUSSEN: Obama 50%, McCain 46%
PRESIDENTIAL: STATE-BY-STATE POLLS
COLORADO--Rasmussen: Obama 51%, McCain 46%, Others 0% (McCain)
FLORIDA--Rasmussen: McCain 49%, Obama 48%, Others 1% (McCain)
GEORGIA--G.Q.R. (D): McCain 46%, Obama 44%, Others 4% (Obama)
MINNESOTA--SurveyUSA: Obama 50%, McCain 44%, Others 4% (McCain)
MISSOURI #1--Suffolk University: McCain 47%, Obama 46%, Others 1% (Obama)
MISSOURI #2--Rasmussen: Obama 49%, McCain 44%, Others 4%
NEW HAMPSHIRE--Research 2000: Obama 50%, McCain 43% (Obama)
NORTH CAROLINA #1--PPP: Obama 51%, McCain 44%, Others 2% (Obama)
NORTH CAROLINA #2--Rasmussen: Obama 51%, McCain 48%, Others 0%
OHIO #1--Suffolk University: Obama 51%, McCain 42%, Others 2% (Obama)
OHIO #2--Rasmussen: McCain 49%, Obama 47%, Others 1%
OREGON--Grove (D): Obama 52%, McCain 39%, Others 2% (Obama)
PENNSYLVANIA #1--Muhlenberg: Obama 53%, McCain 41%, Others 2% (McCain)
PENNSYLVANIA #2--Susquehanna: Obama 48%, McCain 40%, Others 3%
VIRGINIA #1--Rasmussen: Obama 54%, McCain 44% (McCain)
VIRGINIA #2--SurveyUSA: Obama 51%, McCain 45%, Others 2%
WISCONSIN--SurveyUSA: Obama 51%, McCain 43%, Others 3% (McCain)
Did John McCain Seek Donations From Russia?
You just cannot make this shit up!
From Russian News and Information Agency
UNITED NATIONS, October 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's permanent mission to the UN has received a letter from U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain asking for financial support of his election campaign, the mission said in a statement on Monday.
"We have received a letter from Senator John McCain with a request for a financial donation to his presidential election campaign. In this respect we have to reiterate that neither Russia's permanent mission to the UN nor the Russian government or its officials finance political activities in foreign countries," the statement said.
According to Ruslan Bakhtin, press secretary of the Russian mission, the letter dated September 29 and signed by McCain, was addressed to Vitaly Churkin, Russia's envoy to the UN, and arrived on October 16.
The ambassador's title was not included in the letter, and was not clear why the letter had taken over two weeks to arrive.
Enclosed was a request for a donation of up to $5,000 to McCain's election campaign to be returned with a check or permission to withdraw the money from the donor's credit card until October 24.
Individual donations to candidates' election campaigns are capped by law at $2,300, and it is illegal to accept donations from foreign nationals.
McCain accepted the $84 million in public financing available to his election campaign, and consequently cannot accept private donations. However, the Republican National Committee is collecting donations that can be used to support his candidacy in limited ways.
Legal barriers aside, the request and the official response from the Russian mission appear even more confusing in the light of McCain's overall negative attitude toward Russia.
Last year he said the G8 should exclude Russia, citing "diminishing political freedoms, a leadership dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, [and] efforts to bully democratic neighbors."
On August 12, during the brief conflict between Russia and Georgia in its breakaway region of South Ossetia, McCain said he had told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili: " I know I speak for every American when I say to him, 'Today, we are all Georgians.'''
The Gallup Poll daily tracking survey on Sunday showed Democrat Barack Obama leading McCain nationally by 10 percentage points, 52-42.
Integrity? Honor? Honest?= John McCain? I think not! If this story is true, then it is pretty obvious that the McCain campaign is desperate. McCain asking for money from a foreign government, Russia no less, is a criminal act, I think.
Another reason to keep this Republican gutter crawler away from the White House.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
An Arrest In GOP Voter Registration Fraud Case...
so let's all just drop the ACORN bullshit and get to some real voter fraud, shall we? Naturally, this fraudulent practice is coming from the Republican side of the fence.
By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 19, 2008SACRAMENTO -- The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night 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 signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.Jacoby's arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.
Several agencies had launched investigations into Jacoby's activities, including the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, which issued the warrant for his arrest earlier this month on felony charges of voter registration fraud and perjury.
This gets even better folks as it seems that this is not the first time that this has happened. It looks as if Mark Jacoby has pulled this stunt back in Tampa Florida in 2004. this scam involved having students sign petitions for various causes and them having their signatures forged to show that they had registered as Republicans when they had not. One student was even asked if she would register as a Republican after signing a petition to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
Outside the USF library, Adrienne DeVore, 20, also signed a petition to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
"Can I check Republican?" the woman said. If she did, the Republican Party would help fund their cause, the woman told her.
DeVore, a sophomore, thought that was strange because she didn't think Republicans favored legalizing marijuana.
Her boyfriend repeatedly asked the group whom they worked for. One person told him the Young Republicans. Another said they worked for a company called YPM.
Young Political Majors LLC, or YPM, is a company registered by Mark Jacoby at a Town 'N Country residence.
Jacoby appeared this summer at the election office in Gainesville with a box of about 1,200 voter registration cards. Of those, about 510 voters had switched to the GOP.
Elections Supervisor Beverly Hill spoke with Jacoby and grew suspicious. She randomly called the Republicans to verify they wanted to switch. All of them said, "Absolutely not," Hill said. "They didn't even know they had signed a registration form," Hill said.
So this sorry fuck got arrested this time around. Maybe after looking at some very long prison time, he'll spill the beans on some other illegal registration activities concerning the GOP and the higher ups.
UPDATE: A little bit more on this can be found here, and here.
Technorati Tags: Voter Registration Fraud,Mark Jacoby,2008 Election,GOP,Election Fraud,Young Political Majors
Colin Powell's Comments On " Meet The Press "
A lot has been made today about Colin Powell's announcement that he will vote for Barack Obama instead of his long time friend John McCain. I'm listing some of the other questions and comments from the show.
MR. BROKAW: Let me as, you a couple of questions--quick questions as we wrap all of this up. I know you're very close to President Bush 41. Are you still in touch with him on a regular basis? And what do you think he'll think about you this morning endorsing Barack Obama?
GEN. POWELL: I will let President Bush 41, speak for himself and let others speak for themselves, just as I have spoken for myself. Let me make one point, Tom, both Senator McCain and Senator Obama will be good presidents. It isn't easy for me to disappoint Senator McCain in the way that I have this morning, and I regret that. But I strongly believe that at this point in America's history, we need a president that will not just continue, even with a new face and with some changes and with some maverick aspects, who will not just continue, basically, the policies that we have been following in recent years. I think we need a transformational figure. I need--think we need a president who is a generational change. And that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama. Not out of any lack of respect or admiration for Senator John McCain.
MR. BROKAW: You do know that there are supporters of Barack Obama who feel very strongly about his candidacy because he was opposed to the war from the beginning, and they're going to say, "Who needs Colin Powell? He was the guy who helped get us into this mess."
GEN. POWELL: I'm not here to get their approval or lack of approval. I am here to express my view as to who I'm going to vote for.
$150 Million In September For Obama Campaign
That my friends, is a lot of money. Here are a few stats on where the money came from.
But let us not get over- confident just yet. The election is still a few weeks away and the Obama campaign, and the rest of the Democrats, need your support in order to get more seats in both the House and the Senate. We know that John McCain and the ugly Republican Party are going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for more hate mongering and lies.
As Obama himself has said...
... we haven't won yet.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Democrats,President,John McCain,Federal Elections Commission,2008 Election
Sunday Talk Show Guest Line-up
NBC's "Meet the Press" — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
This will be the show that garners the most attention as everyone is hoping the Colin Powell announces his endorsement of either Barack Obama or John McCain.
UPDATE: Powell endorses Obama! Link
ABC's "This Week" — Newt Gingrich, former GOP speaker of the House.
Watch this with a bottle of booze and some pain killers close by.
CBS' "Face the Nation" — Virginia Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; Missouri Republican Gov. Matt Blunt; former Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
"Fox News Sunday" _ Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
John McCain will still be trying to shore up support for himself from his family members. Nothing to see hear unless you need a good laugh.
CNN's "Late Edition" — Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., House minority whip; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala.; Ed Lazear, chairman, White House Council on Economic Advisers.
Technorati Tags: Meet The Press,This Week,Face The Nation,John McCain,Newt Gingrich,Colin Powell,Talk Shows
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tampa Tribune Endorses John McCain?
The title is not an actual question, because the Tribune in Tampa did endorse John McCain for President yesterday. This is no surprise to anyone who has ever read this trashy newspaper for any length of time, as we know that the Tribune is a Republican leaning rag anyway.
What is surprising is that just last week, the paper was questioning McCain and his policies that he has been spouting about during his campaign for the White House.
McCain has lost ground to Sen. Barack Obama not because Obama's ideas are superior, but because Obama believes in what he's trying to sell.
McCain is less convincing. On the economy, he promises to spend billions to keep overextended homeowners in homes they might not be able to afford. That leaves us wondering where McCain would send the bill - to the majority of homeowners who aren't in financial trouble or to our children?
On his VP pick Sarah Palin, and her tactics on the campaign trail, they wrote...
McCain has either lost control of the campaign or endorses her rough campaign tactics. With the ticket trailing in the polls, Palin's role is to excite the base, not dangerously incite it.
At a time when a mere nine percent of us tell pollsters we think the country is heading in the right direction, America needs the old McCain to lead us back on course. We need the one who appealed to our common sense and conservative instincts.
The way for McCain to win this election is to convince us he is unafraid to lose. To the old McCain, it would have come naturally.
Contrast the previous statement with yesterday's endorsement.
Hard economic times, a disappointing Republican administration and the seductive promises of a master orator are pushing America toward a European-style social democracy.
If you don't want that to happen, vote for Republican Sen. John McCain.
Obama's vision of hope shines like a rainbow, appealing but just out of reach. McCain's call to freedom and responsibility is less exciting, but you know it works.
The Tribune encourages voters to vote what they believe, not what they wish were true. The nation needs a stable leader in these unpredictable times.
So let me get this straight. The Tampa Tribune is now endorsing the man that just last week they were pretty much calling erratic and unable to control his campaign? They are now claiming that John McCain is a stable leader who is fit to be President? LMFAO!!
The better choice for a newspaper in the Tampa Bay area is the St. Petersburg Times. This paper does news right.
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,John McCain,Endorsements,Tampa Tribune,St.Petersburg Times,2008 Election
Obama Going After Fake GOP Election Fraud Claims
by drational Fri Oct 17, 2008
Per Josh Marshall:
The General Counsel of the Obama campaign is currently holding a media conference call to "Announce Major Action Taken Today To Address Illegal Conduct and Improprieties in the Sham "Anti-Fraud" Campaign Orchestrated By McCain-Palin and the RNC."
Remember Todd Graves getting replaced by Brad Schlozman in Missouri when Graves failed to aggressively prosecute ACORN in 2006?
Remember Attorney General Gonzales changing the DOJ rules on starting investigations before elections?
Remember FOX news harping on ACORN and "Voter Fraud" for the past week?
Now we come to the last ditch plan of the GOP to try to salvage this election for McCain. The AP announced yesterday the DOJ was orchestrating an FBI nationwide investigation of ACORN.
In past elections, the GOP would continue to push this issue unopposed up until the election, while their well-organized lawyers and superior finances kept the Democrats a step behind in the courts.
BUT NOT THIS TIME.
On the heels of today's Democratic Supreme Court Victory, Obama is bringing forth the clear link between the US Attorney Scandal and the present election shenanigans of the GOP, especially their use of the FBI to go after ACORN:
More Details at TPMmuckraker:
"With this voter fraud [investigation], we're seeing an unholy alliance of law enforcement and the ugliest form of partisan politics," Bob Bauer, an elections lawyer with the Obama camp, said on a conference call with reporters just now. Bauer compared the decision to launch the investigation with the US attorneys scandal, in which several US attorneys were fired for their unwillingess to pursue politically charged cases, including voter fraud, with sufficient aggression to satisfy the Bush administration.
Be sure to check out the 7 page Obama letter to Attorney General Mukasey- it is a work of art, and a strong attack on the GOP dirty tricks.
BE PROUD.
DEMOCRATS HAVE NEVER BEEN SO ORGANIZED, NOR PUSHED BACK SO HARD AGAINST GOP DIRTY TRICKS!!!!
Update:
The GOP will not give this up easily, as I believe vote suppression is their only hope of beating Obama next month. I would direct all readers to the superb coverage of vote suppression that Josh Marshall and the whole team over at TPM have done in the past 2 years. There is a lot of bacground to help you prepare to rebut the thugs out there.
Update 2:
One of the beautiful aspects of this move by Obama (IMHO) is that it brings the ugliness of the US Attorney scandal to fresh light in this election cycle.
The US Attorney scandal was ONLY moved forward because of Dem electoral victory in 2006, and it very much hurt Bush... He lost his Attorney General (Gonzo) and most of the top brass of the DOJ, as well as part of his legal/political team (Rove, Miers, Taylor). McCain was relatively unscathed by the scandal, but by making ACORN be a dominant part of his strategy, he is now subject to guilt by association with the vote suppression-obsessed republicans who directed the scandal.
As Marcy Wheeler summarizes the Obama letter:
Shorter Obama campaign: Republicans are already under criminal investigation for this stuff. Don't let them get away with the same kind of criminal conduct again.
In retrospect, I believe the Obama camp has been sitting on this move for weeks to let the GOP get deeper and deeper invested in crying "vote fraud".
Just brilliant.
Update #3
This issue was featured on MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olberman. None other than Bob Bauer, Barack's general counsel and the author of the Obama attack on GOP fraud, was present to define the facts. There is no doubt that the democrats are synched here.
Stay tuned folks, we got some live wires fighting for us.
West Virginia Voters Using Corrupted Voting Machines?
We all knew that it would not be long before the stories about machines picking the wrong candidate would surface.
At least three early voters in Jackson County had a hard time voting for candidates they want to win.
Virginia Matheney and Calvin Thomas said touch-screen machines in the county clerk's office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates.
"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain," said Matheney, who lives in Kenna.
Calvin Thomas, 81, who retired from Kaiser Aluminum in Ravenswood in 1983 and now lives in Ripley, experienced the same problem.
"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.
"The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican," Thomas said.
Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said, "When we received a call about this, we immediately called the county and told them to recalibrate the machines to make sure the finger-touch [area] lines up with the ballot.
This my friends is what I call election fraud made possible by both the Republican Party and the makers of the electronic voting machines. You will soon hear such bullshit as " software glitch " or whatever, but that is not true.
Remember the last two Presidential elections? All of these software glitches always favor the Republicans and never the Democrats. That is not a glitch, that is theft. Only two options with the software. The stuff has been hacked and programmed to switch votes to the Republicans, or the machines are programmed to switch votes in the first place.
Keep an eye on your vote, people. Take a camera phone with you and get a picture of your vote (s). We cannot allow another theft in a Presidential election, especially this one.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Obama Gets Endorsement From Chicago Tribune
This is a rather surprising and a very big endorsement coming from the Tribune as they have never endorsed a Democrat for President of the United States.
On Nov. 4 we're going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.
The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party's nominee for president.
We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.
That is three great endorsement for Friday, the first one being from The Washington Post, and then from the...
We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.
The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.
Our nation has never before had a candidate like Obama, a man born in the 1960s, of black African and white heritage, raised and educated abroad as well as in the United States, and bringing with him a personal narrative that encompasses much of the American story but that, until now, has been reflected in little of its elected leadership. The excitement of Obama's early campaign was amplified by that newness. But as the presidential race draws to its conclusion, it is Obama's character and temperament that come to the fore. It is his steadiness. His maturity.
The Tribune endorsement is surprising especially since they endorsed John McCain back in the primaries.
UPDATE: Obama has also been endorsed by the Chicago Sun-Times
Our endorsement for president of the United States goes to Sen. Barack Obama, Chicago’s adopted son. He has the unique background, superior intellect, sound judgment and first-rate temperament to lead our nation in difficult times.
In all fairness, I should note that John McCain was endorsed by.......NOBODY
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Washington Post,Chicago Tribune,LA Times,President,2008 Election,Endorsements
President Barack Obama?
If you listen to or even read the latest comments from the bigger newspapers or the cable news shows, except for FOX, then you know that most are saying that after the last debate, John McCain might as well go home to Arizona.
I feel the same way myself, but, I've watched these elections still be lost do to some crap such as " the Bradley Effect " and whatever. I think that the Bradley effect is just a lame cover for Republican election left, so don't celebrate the Obama victory yet people. It ain't over till it's over.
That said, here are a few words from Ruben Navarrette Jr. from CNN. He's basically talking about how Obama beat McCain like he was his bitch in the last debate.
Make no mistake, Barack Obama is one cool customer. Now, after the last debate, it seems all but certain that the Iceman cometh to the White House.
In this week's match-up, Obama snatched the gloves out of McCain's hands and slapped him silly with them. I suppose the hope was that Obama would get rattled and make a mistake. But Obama doesn't get rattled or make many mistakes.
Obviously, it takes a lot to get under Obama's skin. McCain sure tried. Maybe this is the guy we want negotiating with world leaders. Maybe after eight years of George W. Bush stubbornness, on the heels of eight years of Clinton emotiveness, we need to send out for ice.
So how did the voters who watched the debate like McCain?
In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, 70 percent of debate watchers found Obama more likable. Only 22 percent said that about McCain.
I really do hope that Senator McCain's White House hopes are dashed to no end. The man is not likable and he has no honor, as we've since since he was nominated by the Republicans. John McCain took the drastic step of selling all that he was in order to be the next President and this country does not need someone as low as McCain in the White House. George Bush was enough for us and so too are the rest of the Republicans.
" Joe The Plumber " Says He'd Get Tax Cut With Obama's Plan
Even this far right Republican had to finally admit that he would get a tax break under Barack Obama's tax plan. I'm betting that the McCain campaign is now wishing that they had never introduced this plumber guy. McCain might have done better if he had gone with " Hanna the Hooker " or someone like that. But then again, maybe he has.
Listen to Joe...
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Barack Obama Gets Washington Post Endorsement
I do not care for the Post all that much, but endorsing Barack Obama for the President of the United States is big coming from them. The paper does give valid reasoning behind their choice, and they also point out why they believe that John McCain is not fit to be our next President.
Barack Obama for President
Friday, October 17, 2008; A24
THE NOMINATING process this year produced two unusually talented and qualified presidential candidates. There are few public figures we have respected more over the years than Sen. John McCain. Yet it is without ambivalence that we endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president.
The choice is made easy in part by Mr. McCain's disappointing campaign, above all his irresponsible selection of a running mate who is not ready to be president. It is made easy in larger part, though, because of our admiration for Mr. Obama and the impressive qualities he has shown during this long race. Yes, we have reservations and concerns, almost inevitably, given Mr. Obama's relatively brief experience in national politics. But we also have enormous hopes.
Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building. At home, we believe, he would respond to the economic crisis with a healthy respect for markets tempered by justified dismay over rising inequality and an understanding of the need for focused regulation. Abroad, the best evidence suggests that he would seek to maintain U.S. leadership and engagement, continue the fight against terrorists, and wage vigorous diplomacy on behalf of U.S. values and interests. Mr. Obama has the potential to become a great president. Given the enormous problems he would confront from his first day in office, and the damage wrought over the past eight years, we would settle for very good.
The first question, in fact, might be why either man wants the job. Start with two ongoing wars, both far from being won; an unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan; a resurgent Russia menacing its neighbors; a terrorist-supporting Iran racing toward nuclear status; a roiling Middle East; a rising China seeking its place in the world. Stir in the threat of nuclear or biological terrorism, the burdens of global poverty and disease, and accelerating climate change. Domestically, wages have stagnated while public education is failing a generation of urban, mostly minority children. Now add the possibility of the deepest economic trough since the Great Depression.
Not even his fiercest critics would blame President Bush for all of these problems, and we are far from being his fiercest critic. But for the past eight years, his administration, while pursuing some worthy policies (accountability in education, homeland security, the promotion of freedom abroad), has also championed some stunningly wrongheaded ones (fiscal recklessness, torture, utter disregard for the planet's ecological health) and has acted too often with incompetence, arrogance or both. A McCain presidency would not equal four more years, but outside of his inner circle, Mr. McCain would draw on many of the same policymakers who have brought us to our current state. We believe they have richly earned, and might even benefit from, some years in the political wilderness.
I am somewhat saddened that the Post did not mention Bush's wrongheaded policies of illegal wiretaps and the screwed up Protect America Act. The paper did make the correct endorsement in choosing Barack Obama!
One more piece of the article.
OF COURSE, Mr. Obama offers a great deal more than being not a Republican. There are two sets of issues that matter most in judging these candidacies. The first has to do with restoring and promoting prosperity and sharing its fruits more evenly in a globalizing era that has suppressed wages and heightened inequality. Here the choice is not a close call. Mr. McCain has little interest in economics and no apparent feel for the topic. His principal proposal, doubling down on the Bush tax cuts, would exacerbate the fiscal wreckage and the inequality simultaneously. Mr. Obama's economic plan contains its share of unaffordable promises, but it pushes more in the direction of fairness and fiscal health. Both men have pledged to tackle climate change.
One very important difference between the two candidates...
The next president is apt to have the chance to nominate one or more Supreme Court justices. Given the court's current precarious balance, we think Obama appointees could have a positive impact on issues from detention policy and executive power to privacy protections and civil rights. Read More...
McCain will not concern himself with our privacy rights or our civil rights if he is allowed to choose members to the Supreme Court.
Barack Obama: Does He See The Full Picture?
Most of the time I usually have an article with either nothing but praise for Barack Obama or I am dissing John McCain and the rest of the Republican group.
Something a little bit different for you from TomDispatch.
Tomgram: Mike Davis, Casino Capitalism, Obama, and Us
Recently, while traveling in the West, I had lunch at a modest-sized casino set in a wild, barren-looking, craggy landscape. On the hills above it spun giant, ivory white, modernistic windmills, looking for all the world like Martian invaders from War of the Worlds. I hadn't been inside a casino since the 1970s -- my mistake -- and the experience was eye-poppingly wild. Venturing into its vast room of one-armed bandits and other games was like suddenly finding oneself inside a giant pinball machine for the digital age, everything gaudily lit, blinking, pinging, flashing, accompanied, of course, by a soundscape to match.
It was (as it was undoubtedly meant to be) strangely exhilarating, riveting, totally distracting, and a curious reminder right now of just how distracting "casino capitalism" -- as Mike Davis calls it in today's post -- really has been. For years, with all the economic bells and whistles, all the mansions and yachts, all those arcane derivatives, all the high-tech glamour and glory, with Americans pouring into the stock market (or at least their pension plans and mutual funds doing it for them), you could almost not notice the increasingly barren, rocky world outside the American casino. You could almost not notice the shrinking of real value, of actual productivity in this country. These last weeks, Americans -- those who weren't already outside, at least -- have been rudely shoved into the real world to assess what their value (personal, national, global) actually is.
The next president will look out over a new, far less dazzling, far more forbidding landscape. Mike Davis, author most recently of In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire, who is little short of a national treasure, offers his own incandescent view of the landscape, presidential, economic, and otherwise, from the ledge at the edge of the canyon. (While you're at it, check out a podcast of Davis discussing why the New Deal isn't relevant as a soluton today by clicking here.) Tom
Can Obama See the Grand Canyon?
On Presidential Blindness and Economic Catastrophe
By Mike DavisLet me begin, very obliquely, with the Grand Canyon and the paradox of trying to see beyond cultural or historical precedent.
The first European to look into the depths of the great gorge was the conquistador Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. He was horrified by the sight and quickly retreated from the South Rim. More than three centuries passed before Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers led the second major expedition to the rim. Like Garcia Lopez, he recorded an "awe that was almost painful to behold." Ives's expedition included a well-known German artist, but his sketch of the Canyon was wildly distorted, almost hysterical.
Neither the conquistadors nor the Army engineers, in other words, could make sense of what they saw; they were simply overwhelmed by unexpected revelation. In a fundamental sense, they were blind because they lacked the concepts necessary to organize a coherent vision of an utterly new landscape.
Accurate portrayal of the Canyon only arrived a generation later when the Colorado River became the obsession of the one-armed Civil War hero John Wesley Powell and his celebrated teams of geologists and artists. They were like Victorian astronauts reconnoitering another planet. It took years of brilliant fieldwork to construct a conceptual framework for taking in the canyon. With "deep time" added as the critical dimension, it was finally possible for raw perception to be transformed into consistent vision.
The result of their work, The Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon District, published in 1882, is illustrated by masterpieces of draftsmanship that, as Powell's biographer Wallace Stegner once pointed out, "are more accurate than any photograph." That is because they reproduce details of stratigraphy usually obscured in camera images. When we visit one of the famous viewpoints today, most of us are oblivious to how profoundly our eyes have been trained by these iconic images or how much we have been influenced by the idea, popularized by Powell, of the Canyon as a museum of geological time.
But why am I talking about geology? Because, like the Grand Canyon's first explorers, we are looking into an unprecedented abyss of economic and social turmoil that confounds our previous perceptions of historical risk. Our vertigo is intensified by our ignorance of the depth of the crisis or any sense of how far we might ultimately fall.
Weimar Returns in Limbaughland
Let me confess that, as an aging socialist, I suddenly find myself like the Jehovah's Witness who opens his window to see the stars actually falling out of the sky. Although I've been studying Marxist crisis theory for decades, I never believed I'd actually live to see financial capitalism commit suicide. Or hear the International Monetary Fund warn of imminent "systemic meltdown."
Thus, my initial reaction to Wall Street's infamous 777.7 point plunge a few weeks ago was a very sixties retro elation. "Right on, Karl!" I shouted. "Eat your derivatives and die, Wall Street swine!" Like the Grand Canyon, the fall of the banks can be a terrifying but sublime spectacle.
But the real culprits, of course, are not being trundled off to the guillotine; they're gently floating to earth in golden parachutes. The rest of us may be trapped on the burning plane without a pilot, but the despicable Richard Fuld, who used Lehman Brothers to loot pension funds and retirement accounts, merely sulks on his yacht.
Out in the stucco deserts of Limbaughland, moreover, fear is already being distilled into a good ol' boy version of the "stab in the back" myth that rallied the ruined German petite bourgeoisie to the swastika. If you listen to the rage on commute AM, you'll know that ‘socialism' has already taken a lien on America, Barack Hussein Obama is terrorism's Manchurian candidate, the collapse of Wall Street was caused by elderly black people with Fannie Mae loans, and ACORN in its voter registration drives has long been padding the voting rolls with illegal brown hordes.
In other times, Sarah Palin's imitation of Father Charles Coughlin -- the priest who preached an American Reich in the 1930s -- in drag might be hilarious camp, but with the American way of life in sudden freefall, the specter of star-spangled fascism doesn't seem quite so far-fetched. The Right may lose the election, but it already possesses a sinister, historically-proven blueprint for rapid recovery.
Progressives have no time to waste. In the face of a new depression that promises folks from Wasilla to Timbuktu an unknown world of pain, how do we reconstruct our understanding of the globalized economy? To what extent can we look to either Obama or any of the Democrats to help us analyze the crisis and then act effectively to resolve it?
Is Obama FDR?
If the Nashville "town hall" debate is any guide, we will soon have another blind president. Neither candidate had the guts or information to answer the simple questions posed by the anxious audience: What will happen to our jobs? How bad will it get? What urgent steps should be taken?
Instead, the candidates stuck like flypaper to their obsolete talking points. McCain's only surprise was yet another innovation in deceit: a mortgage relief plan that would reward banks and investors without necessarily saving homeowners.
Obama recited his four-point program, infinitely better in principle than his opponent's preferential option for the rich, but abstract and lacking in detail. It remains more a rhetorical promise than the blueprint for the actual machinery of reform. He made only passing reference to the next phase of the crisis: the slump of the real economy and likely mass unemployment on a scale not seen for 70 years.
With baffling courtesy to the Bush administration, he failed to highlight any of the other weak links in the economic system: the dangerous overhang of credit-default swap obligations left over from the fall of Lehman Brothers; the trillion-dollar black hole of consumer credit-card debt that may threaten the solvency of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America; the implacable decline of General Motors and the American auto industry; the crumbling foundations of municipal and state finance; the massacre of tech equity and venture capital in Silicon Valley; and, most unexpectedly, sudden fissures in the financial solidity of even General Electric.
In addition, both Obama and his vice presidential partner Joe Biden, in their support for Secretary of the Treasury Paulson's plan, avoid any discussion of the inevitable result of cataclysmic restructuring and government bailouts: not "socialism," but ultra-capitalism -- one that is likely to concentrate control of credit in a few leviathan banks, controlled in large part by sovereign wealth funds but subsidized by generations of public debt and domestic austerity.
Never have so many ordinary Americans been nailed to a cross of gold (or derivatives), yet Obama is the most mild-mannered William Jennings Bryan imaginable. Unlike Sarah Palin who masticates the phrase "the working class" with defiant glee, he hews to a party line that acknowledges only the needs of an amorphous "middle class" living on a largely mythical "Main Street."
If we are especially concerned about the fate of the poor or unemployed, we are left to read between the lines, with no help from his talking points that espouse clean coal technology, nuclear power, and a bigger military, but elide the urgency of a renewed war on poverty as championed by John Edwards in his tragically self-destructed primary campaign. But perhaps inside the cautious candidate is a man whose humane passions transcend his own nearsighted centrist campaign. As a close friend, exasperated by my chronic pessimism, chided me the other day, "don't be so unfair. FDR didn't have a nuts and bolts program either in 1933. Nobody did."
What Franklin D. Roosevelt did possess in that year of breadlines and bank failures, according to my friend, was enormous empathy for the common people and a willingness to experiment with government intervention, even in the face of the monolithic hostility of the wealthy classes. In this view, Obama is MoveOn.org's re-imagining of our 32nd president: calm, strong, deeply in touch with ordinary needs, and willing to accept the advice of the country's best and brightest.
The Death of Keynesianism
But even if we concede to the Illinois senator a truly Rooseveltian or, even better, Lincolnian strength of character, this hopeful analogy is flawed in at least three principal ways:
First, we can't rely on the Great Depression as analog to the current crisis, nor upon the New Deal as the template for its solution. Certainly, there is a great deal of déjà vu in the frantic attempts to quiet panic and reassure the public that the worst has passed. Many of Paulson's statements, indeed, could have been directly plagiarized from Herbert Hoover's Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, and both presidential campaigns are frantically cribbing heroic rhetoric from the early New Deal. But just as the business press has been insisting for years, this is not the Old American Economy, but an entirely new-fangled contraption built from outsourced parts and supercharged by instantaneous world markets in everything from dollars and defaults to hog bellies and disaster futures.
We are seeing the consequences of a perverse restructuring that began with the presidency of Ronald Reagan and which has inverted the national income shares of manufacturing (21% in 1980; 12% in 2005) and those of financial services (15% in 1980; 21% in 2005). In 1930, the factories may have been shuttered but the machinery was still intact; it hadn't been auctioned off at five cents on the dollar to China.
On the other hand, we shouldn't disparage the miracles of contemporary market technology. Casino capitalism has proven its mettle by transmitting the deadly virus of Wall Street at unprecedented velocity to every financial center on the planet. What took three years at the beginning of the 1930s -- that is, the full globalization of the crisis -- has taken only three weeks this time around. God help us, if, as seems to be happening, unemployment tops the levees at anything like the same speed.
Second, Obama won't inherit Roosevelt's ultimate situational advantage -- having emergent tools of state intervention and demand management (later to be called "Keynesianism") empowered by an epochal uprising of industrial workers in the world's most productive factories.
If you've been watching the sad parade of economic gurus on McNeil-Lehrer, you know that the intellectual shelves in Washington are now almost bare. Neither major party retains more than a few enigmatic shards of policy traditions different from the neo-liberal consensus on trade and privatization. Indeed, posturing pseudo-populists aside, it is unclear whether anyone inside the Beltway, including Obama's economic advisors, can think clearly beyond the indoctrinated mindset of Goldman Sachs, the source of the two most prominent secretaries of the treasury over the last decade.
Keynes, now suddenly mourned, is actually quite dead. More importantly, the New Deal did not arise spontaneously from the goodwill or imagination of the White House. On the contrary, the social contract for the post-1935 Second New Deal was a complex, adaptive response to the greatest working-class movement in our history, in a period when powerful third parties still roamed the political landscape and Marxism exercised extraordinary influence on American intellectual life.
Even with the greatest optimism of the will, it is difficult to imagine the American labor movement recovering from defeat as dramatically as it did in 1934-1937. The decisive difference is structural rather than ideological. (Indeed, today's union movement is much more progressive than the decrepit, nativist American Federation of Labor in 1930.) The power of labor within a Walmart-ized service economy is simply more dispersed and difficult to mobilize than in the era of giant urban-industrial concentrations and ubiquitous factory neighborhoods.
Is War the Answer?
The third problem with the New Deal analogy is perhaps the most important. Military Keynesianism is no longer an available deus ex machina. Let me explain.
In 1933, when FDR was inaugurated, the United States was in full retreat from foreign entanglements, and there was little controversy about bringing a few hundred Marines home from the occupations of Haiti and Nicaragua. It took two years of world war, the defeat of France, and the near collapse of England to finally win a majority in Congress for rearmament, but when war production finally started up in late 1940 it became a huge engine for the reemployment of the American work force, the real cure for the depressed job markets of the 1930s. Subsequently, American world power and full employment would align in a way that won the loyalty of several generations of working-class voters.
Today, of course, the situation is radically different. A bigger Pentagon budget no longer creates hundreds of thousands of stable factory jobs, since significant parts of its weapons production is now actually outsourced, and the ideological link between high-wage employment and intervention -- good jobs and Old Glory on a foreign shore -- while hardly extinct is structurally weaker than at any time since the early 1940s. Even in the new military (largely a hereditary caste of poor whites, blacks, and Latinos) demoralization is reaching the stage of active discontent and opening up new spaces for alternative ideas.
Although both candidates have endorsed programs, including expansion of Army and Marine combat strength, missile defense (aka "Star Wars"), and an intensified war in Afghanistan, that will enlarge the military-industrial complex, none of this will replenish the supply of decent jobs nor prime a broken national pump. However, in the midst of a deep slump, what a huge military budget can do is obliterate the modest but essential reforms that make up Obama's plans for healthcare, alternative energy, and education.
In other words, Rooseveltian guns and butter have become a contradiction in terms, which means that the Obama campaign is engineering a catastrophic collision between its national security priorities and its domestic policy goals.
The Fate of Obama-ism
Why don't such smart people see the Grand Canyon?
Maybe they do, in which case deception is truly the mother's milk of American politics; or perhaps Obama has become the reluctant prisoner, intellectually as well as politically, of Clintonism: that is say, of a culturally permissive neo-liberalism whose New Deal rhetoric masks the policy spirit of Richard Nixon.
It's worth asking, for instance, what in the actual substance of his foreign policy agenda differentiates the Democratic candidate from the radioactive legacy of the Bush Doctrine? Yes, he would close Guantanamo, talk to the Iranians, and thrill hearts in Europe. He also promises to renew the Global War on Terror (in much the same way that Bush senior and Clinton sustained the core policies of Reaganism, albeit with a "more human face").
In case anyone has missed the debates, let me remind you that the Democratic candidate has chained himself, come hell or high water, to a global strategy in which "victory" in the Middle East (and Central Asia) remains the chief premise of foreign policy, with the Iraqi-style nation-building hubris of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz repackaged as a "realist" faith in global "stabilization."
True, the enormity of the economic crisis may compel President Obama to renege on some of candidate Obama's ringing promises to support an idiotic missile defense system or provocative NATO memberships for Georgia and Ukraine. Nonetheless, as he emphasizes in almost every speech and in each debate, defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, together with a robust defense of Israel, constitute the keystone of his national security agenda.
Under huge pressure from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats alike to cut the budget and reduce the exponential increase in the national debt, what choices would President Obama be forced to make early in his administration? More than likely comprehensive health-care will be whittled down to a barebones plan, "alternative energy" will simply mean the fraud of "clean coal," and anything that remains in the Treasury, after Wall Street's finished its looting spree, will buy bombs to pulverize more Pashtun villages, ensuring yet more generations of embittered mujahideen and jihadis.
Am I unduly cynical? Perhaps, but I lived through the Lyndon Johnson years and watched the War on Poverty, the last true New Deal program, destroyed to pay for slaughter in Vietnam.
It is bitterly ironic, but, I suppose, historically predictable that a presidential campaign millions of voters have supported for its promise to end the war in Iraq has now mortgaged itself to a "tougher than McCain" escalation of a hopeless conflict in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal frontier. In the best of outcomes, the Democrats will merely trade one brutal, losing war for another. In the worst case, their failed policies may set the stage for the return of Cheney and Rove, or their even more sinister avatars.
Mike Davis is the author of In Praise of Barbarians: Essays Against Empire (Haymarket Books, 2008) and Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (Verso, 2007). He is currently working on a book about cities, poverty, and global change. You can listen to a podcast of Davis discussing why the New Deal isn't relevant as a solution today by clicking here.
Copyright 2008 Mike Davis
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
