As many of you already know, AT&T gave money to the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, a viciously heterosexist organization which has fought to block local LGBT rights laws in that state. Garden State Equality has withdrawn an award they gave to AT&T in response. (I would love to know why they gave an award to a homophobic corporation like AT&T in the first place, but that's another story.)

AT&T has a history of giving money to heterosexist politicians as well. Here are some of the bigots that have received money from AT&T.

Rep. Michele Bachmann

Sen. Robert Bennett

Rep. John Boehner

Rep. Roy Blunt

Rep. Eric Cantor

Rep. Darrell Issa

Sen. John "Keating Five" McCain

Sen. Rand Paul

Sen. Pat Toomey

It's sickening that GLAAD would even take AT&T's homophobic money, much less allow themselves to be bought and doing lobbying for AT&T against queer content and especially queer activist content on the Internet. The depths to which GLAAD has sunk are sickening.

 

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is going to be running an ad fighting back against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

This is exactly what liberals and progressives should be doing. Confronting corrupt politicians, regardless of party, is the only way we are going to restore democracy and freedom to America.

Continuing Bush's tax cuts for the rich is inexcusable. It is typical of what we have experienced from corrupt rightists like Bill Clinton, who cut taxes for the rich himself by cutting capital gains taxes.



Here's the embed code if you want to run this on your blog:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

They are raising funds to run this ad.

You also can sign the petition against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

 

The game playing and heterosexist bigotry that has stopped the military ban from being overturned legislatively is sickening. Yes, I am outraged by the efforts of Republicans to continue the ban. However, I am equally outraged by the efforts of a closet Republican who pretends to be a Democrat: President Obama.

HomophObama has fought to promote bigotry, discrimination, and violence against queers on numerous occasions. The first was when he involved a woman hating and queer bashing bigot, Rick Warren, in the inauguration. I boycotted that homophobic charade of an inauguration once I knew that someone who devotes his life to promoting hatred, violence, and rape against women while promoting bigotry, discrimination, violence and murder against queers was going to play a central, and unconstitutional, role.

However, HomophObama's bigotry wasn't just ceremonial. He set the tone of his hiring practices by discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in all cabinet level appointments. Later, he had the Injustice Department make legal citations in a DOMA case that compared homosexuality to sex with animals and the dead. This administration's heterosexist amimus has been comparable to that of Rick Santorum.

HomophObama's expansion of Bush's hate based initiatives would have lead to more heterosexist discrmination in government programs under the best of circumstances. But, that wasn't enough for HomophObama who insisted in appointing heterosexist fanatics to the committees that award the grants.

Seeing what was being done to us, 200,000 queers joined the National Equality March on short notice to demand better. HomophObama's initial response was to patronize us and insult our intelligence with a bullshit speech at the so called Human Rights Campaign's dinner. The pickets by legitimate queer activists outside the dinner and the outrage among so many queer blogs reflected the views of most queers far more than the self loathing and heterosexist excuses for Obama being offered by that quisling Joe Solmonese.

When they realized that empty words would not placate a critical voting, fundraising, and volunteer block for their party, Democratiic leaders including HomophObama made a concession by allowing weak hate crimes legislation to get a vote. It was too politically difficult for even some Goppers to vote against, so it passed and HomophObama reluctantly signed it, though he would much rather queer bash us himself if he thought he could get away with it.

The next big LGBT legislative item was the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA). In terms of its substantive impact on the lives of queers, ENDA is more important than all of the other queer civil rights legislation combined. That's why HomophObama was determined to stop it.

His administration came up with a clever diversion to divert attention from the prize, ENDA. They came up with a bill that would lift the military ban only if Robert Gates, a homophobic Republican, approved it. This decision was scheduled after the elections, and was to be based on a survey of our armed forces.

The bill didn't pass, but Gates ran the survey anyway. What was the catch? Gates made sure that the survey was heavily biased in favor of continuing the military ban.

However, things didn't go according to plan. Roughly 70% of the service people returning the survey said getting rid of the ban would make no difference or be a positive thing for them. The upshot of even a survey with a strong homophobic bias was that most service people don't care either way.

Meanwhile, the military ban was losing badly in two completely separate court cases, despite all the taxpayer money being wasted on it. HomophObama chose to appeal the ruling overturning the ban, despite being under absolutely no obligation to do so. In civil cases (and all criminal cases that don't involve the death penalty), losing parties are under no obligation to appeal. They can accept the ruling. They also can try to settle with the winning parties in order to avoid a lengthy appeals process.

HomophObama insisted on appealing. Not only didn't he accept a ruling eliminating a ban he claimes that he opposes, he wasn't even willing to try to make a settlement to save face and address the phony baloney logistical objections that bigots have made to try to drag out the process indefinitely.

HomophObama's excuse was weak, to put it mildly. He said he wanted a legislative repeal instead. Yet, Obama did everything in his power to prevent such a thing in 2009 when Republicans weren't feeling so invincible. Now that the Senate had a cloture vote on repealing the military ban, Harry Reid and HomophObama made backroom deals to make sure not enough Democrats would show up to pass a cloture vote.

HomophObama isn't the only bigot deserving blame for this. Obama's fellow Republicans voted overwhelmingly for the military ban. That includes "moderate, pro gay" Goppers like Olympia Snowe and Scott Brown. Of course, people who have followed Scott Brown's execrable political career have known all along that Brown is a vicious and evil bigot, regardless of how heterosexists in the corporate media like Jon Stewart have marketed him otherwise.


Photo: Derek Bridges

Let's not forget that Cyndy's hooker, John "Keating Five" McCain parroted Christian homophobic values to justify his fight for discrimination despite the fact that prostitution is just as much against Christianity as homosexuality.

However different the specifics of HomophObama's hypocrisy on the military ban, it is just as reprehensible as that of John McCain. Both of them are nauseating Republicans who are unfit to hold a public office. Neither is fit to even be a sewer commissioner.

 

Photo: Derek Bridges

John McCain is the most corrupt politician to ever hold a US Senate seat. He also is a pathological liar and a reprehensible hypocrite. One of the most blatant examples of "Keating Five" McCain's dishonesty and hypocrisy can be found on the subject of government spending. Here's some particularly offensive nonsense from his website.

For years, John McCain has fought against wasteful and excessive spending — and leadership is needed now more than ever to curb such waste. With an agenda of bigger government and higher taxes, the current Administration and its allies in Congress have more than quadrupled the budget deficit in this year alone. In 2009, the federal government spent more than $1.4 trillion more than it actually had — growing our national debt to more than $12 trillion, much of which is owed to foreign nations. What happens when countries like China stop financing our debt? John McCain believes America’s destiny is too promising to be squandered by placing our economic wherewithal in the hands of foreign governments.

The two biggest sources of wasteful government spending are the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Yet, John McCain supports both rabidly, showing just how bought and paid for he is by Big Oil, mercenary corporations, and arms merchants. Even worse, this spectacular liar pushed for a huge and expensive escalation in Iraq instead of the vastly superior option of a full and immediate withdrawal.

No one can honestly say they are against wasteful government spending and then turn around and support and expand two wasteful and murderous wars.

McCain also has shown his utter lack of concern about budget deficits by fighting to continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich. That might make him a dutiful kept man who wants to keep Cindy happy so she won't throw him out of more houses than he can remember, but it isn't the action of someone who is against budget deficits.

"Keating Five" McCain is another big deficit, big war Republican who spews nonsense about being against deficits when he is running for reelection. Yet, he insists on policies that balloon deficits without providing even the slightest benefit to society. McCain represents everything that is hypocritical, extreme, and stupid about the GOP. Most of all, he represents everything that is corrupt in DC.

McCain may think he has distracted people with his jihad against legislation that might possibly lift the military ban against queers if Robert Gates, a homophobic Bush crime family crony, consents to it. I'm not distracted in the slightest. I know that he is just as corrupt as he is heterosexist, and I have no respect whatsoever for that piece of walking garbage.



 

Apologists for Obama's wealthcare plan for the HMOs and health insurance companies have been citing Mitt Romney's Republican wealthcare plan in Massachusetts as a "success." They just don't say who it is a success for.

Thanks to Romney's wealthcare system, Massachusetts has the highest premiums in the country. Last fall those greedy corporations raised premiums 7-12%.

Corporate greed has gotten so insatiable that the state of Massachusetts is considering loosening up on the fines imposed on people who can't afford insurance. (Boston Globe 3/12/10)

State regulators said yesterday that they will probably change the complex formula they use to determine how many Massachusetts residents face a tax penalty for not having health insurance, because spiraling costs are making coverage unaffordable for too many people.

Each year, the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector Authority board updates the formula it uses to determine whether health insurance is affordable for individuals, couples, and families and whether people in each group should face a tax penalty for not having coverage.

The state’s landmark 2006 health law requires nearly everyone to have health insurance or to pay a stiff tax penalty.

The "spiraling costs" are for insurance premiums. The costs of care haven't changed much at all. Romney's wealthcare plan has been such a disaster that even he is starting to disown it.

Keep in mind that fact that HMO and health insurance premiums have very little to do with actual costs. The costs of care provided are only a fraction of the money collected by these larcenous corporations. The only restraint on premiums is what these evil corporations think they can get away with.

As I have pointed out before, if Obama's fines for people who can't afford the defective products of the HMO/health insurance industry are allowed to go into effect as scheduled in 2014, the result will by dramatic increases in insurance premiums. Sadly, the only restraint on outlandishly high premium prices is the ability for some people to opt out. Without that, the sky is the limit for these corporate thieves.

Obviously, Medicare for All or some other single payer plan is the only real solution to the lack of care and wildly exaggerated prices people are facing in our country. The only obstacles are bought politicians like Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, John "Keating Five" McCain, and the rest of the crooks in DC.

Photo: madhavaji

 

That certainly is the motto of the HMOs and health insurers. Here's a little video that was found by the fabulous Mauigirl on the subject.



Any healthcare legislation that doesn't give people a chance to free themselves from the larcenous and murderous HMOs and health insurers doesn't count as reform.

By the way, here's an old 2008 video with John "Keating Five" McCain saying that people should go to clinics in Wal-Mart for their healthcare.



You just can't make this shit up.

 

 

In a meeting with people wearing shabby sheik clothes and looking very serious and virtuous.

GLH: I'm Godless Liberal Homo...and I am...addicted to laughing at...Sarah Palin.

Rest of People in Room: Hi Godless Liberal Homo!

Anyway, here's another Sarah Palin parody video made possible by the addictive software at xtranormal.com.



 

At a time when Republicans are the most unpopular they have been at least since Watergate, perhaps the Great Depression, you would think that GOP party leaders would be trying to bring more people into the party. Not de facto GOP party chief Rush Limbaugh (CNN Politicker Blog 4/28/09):

Conservative host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday he isn't sorry to see Arlen Specter leave the GOP — and that many Republicans wish the Pennsylvania senator would take a few others with him when he goes.

"A lot of people say, 'Well, Specter, take [Sen. John] McCain with you. And his daughter [Meghan]. Take McCain and his daughter with you if you're gonna…" he told listeners, dissolving in laughter.

"…..It's ultimately good. You're weeding out people who aren't really Republicans," he said.

Of course, "Keating Five" McCain is one of the most corrupt people in the Senate, and his overall record is nutty rightist. He should fit in quite well in Gopperland, yet even he isn't crazy enough to satisfy the political bloodlust during this purge.

This is another reason to wonder if the Republican Party is going the way of the Whigs or perhaps the Mastodons.

 

People who thought that the GOP lost the last two elections handily must be surprised that President Obama is embracing one of the most dangerous and irresponsible GOP policies: tax cuts. It's as if McCain is in the White House.

Tax cuts have had a dismal place in our nation's economic history. The Reagan tax cuts led to the worst recession in our country since the Great Depression. Only an effort by Congress to raise taxes, led by Bob Dole of all people, got our economy moving again and helped to reelect Reagan.

Bush's tax cuts have been disastrous. The small checks for middle class and poor people did nothing to help our economy. They might have stimulated China's economy marginally, but China doesn't buy much anything from us.

Bush's enormous tax cuts for the rich have played a key role in our desperate economic situation. They contributed significantly to our government and foreign debt while doing nothing to create jobs here in the US. The wealthy used these unearned windfalls in an orgy of speculation, creating bubble after bubble (stocks, subprime mortgages, oil, gold, etc.) leading to crash after crash. Our treasury was looted to a huge extent to create money which mostly disappeared in 2008.

Now, Barack Obama actually wants more tax cuts?

A stimulus package should stimulate the economy, not slow it down. But, tax cuts will do just that. People aren't spending money because they are lusting after $500 checks. They are holding back on spending because they are afraid of losing their jobs. Only direct job creation will revive the economy.

The stimulus package also includes education, energy, and infrastructure spending with money thrown in to prevent layoffs of state and local government employees. There's even a bit for public transportation, a bit which should be much, much more. However, the beneficial effect of this spending will basically be wiped out be the damaging effects of the tax cuts.

Obama's stimulus package is a short term economic wash that vastly increases the federal debt. Oops!

Tell Obama that there should be no tax cuts in the stimulus package!

Contact President Obama Now!

 

I just saw this.

What more can I say about Republicans?

 

I don't think networks are legally able to censor political ads based on content. Taking advantage of this is the National Republican "Trust." But, they aren't too smart. They ran a racist ad about Rev. Wright on a show with a heavily liberal audience. At least they didn't run it on a dumber and more vulnerable audience, say the people who watch the falafel man, Bill O'Reilly. That might have helped John McCain.

Still, can Republicans ever be decent human beings? Have the people who run that party completely lost their humanity?

People should be embarrassed to be associated in any way with the GOP.

 

Just when you thought John McCain couldn't get more corrupt...

From McCain Keating Five:

While many Americans are scrambling trying to line up refinancing mortgage to stay in their homes, John McCain is busy taking campaign donations from the law firm of convicted felon Charles Keating, one of the masterminds of the Savings and Loan Scandal of the 1980’s that cost taxpayers $500 billion. Keating was convicted on over 70 felonies while running the Lincoln Savings and Loan. John McCain played a major part in the scandal, and 20 years later, he still doesn’t have the common sense to realize he did anything wrong and is still benefiting financially from his relationship with Keating.

OpenSecrets.org reports, “In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain’s 2008 campaign.”

The country is in a recession, and McCain keeps taking donations from criminals who almost cost McCain his cushy job in the Senate 20 years ago.

The corporate media keep censoring the story about "Keating Five" McCain's enormous corruption, just as they downplay the stories about Sarah Palin's corruption. Many corporate noise machines even present these two sleazebags as "reformers." It's getting Orwellian.

If this wasn't repugnant enough on its face, there is evidence that bundling was involved, a way of increasing that law firm's impact. More from OpenSecrets.org:

In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain's 2008 campaign. All but two of the contributions came in July, and all but three of those July donations were logged on July 31, suggesting they were delivered at the same time. As with any bundle of campaign contributions, it's difficult to determine which donor was the "bundler," the person who solicited the contributions on the campaign's behalf. McCain's online roster of bundlers, which purports to name any individual bundling $50,000 or more for the campaign, does not associate any of McCain's major fundraisers with the Keating firm.

I wonder how many other embarrassing bundlers are missing from the list, which is generated by the "Keating Five" McCain campaign. The level of dishonesty from these people is sickening.

Interestingly enough, the list of bundlers just has names. It doesn't say who these people work for.

If John McCain had even the slightest amount of integrity, he would return this dirty money and apologize.

 

I've already projected Obama the winner, but I thought it would be fun to guess the outcomes on a state by state basis.



I made this with Yahoo! Political Dashboard. You can go to the interactive version of this scenario. Once there, you can see their pollsters' guess or make up your own scenario.

My guess: Obama 354 - McCain 184

Going roughly from West to East, North to South, here are the states where I should probably explain things a bit.

Montana - Obama
Ron Paul is on the ballot in this state. The only poll I've seen that includes Paul showed Obama ahead. McCain has had a narrow lead in other polls. Montana is gradually shifting from red to blue generally. If Obama does well on the east coast, some demoralized McCain supporters will probably stay home.

Nevada - Obama
Obama has narrow leads in most polls. Early voting gives the Obama campaign the edge they need to win.

Arizona - Obama
This is a state where a lot of people lost money in Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings. "Keating Five" McCain lost a lot of ground quickly after the banking crisis, which serves as a major reminder of the S&L crisis that McCain helped to cause. Arizona is another state that is shifting away from the Goppers. Most importantly, Obama is leading in early voting.

Colorado - Obama
Obama's lead in that state keeps growing. The Democratic Party has become the majority party in most state politics.

North Dakota - "Keating Five" McCain
The state will be close, but the absence of Ron Paul on the ballot will keep Obama form winning there like he should in Montana.

Missouri - "Keating Five" McCain
I think this is another close state, but the influence of religious fundamentalists will be enough to tip it to McCain.

Arkansas - "Keating Five" McCain
Early voting will make it closer for Obama than the polls are saying, but not close enough.

Indiana - "Keating Five" McCain
This state will be close, but with early voting only in some areas, McCain will probably squeak through. I don't think Indiana is quite ready to kick its addiction with voting Republican quite yet.

Ohio - Obama
Most polls show Obama ahead. Angry voters who were upset by election irregularities and GOP corruption cost the Goppers a governor and a senator in 2006. Obama voters will be more motivated. More importantly, early voting will counteract the effects of racist and ageist voter suppression in that state.

Georgia - Obama
The polls show a narrow lead for McCain, but the enormous lines of African Americans waiting for early voting tell another story. This looks to be a close victory for Obama.

Pennsylvania - Obama
This will the third election where the Republicans will have had hopes of winning that state. This will be the third time in a row where the Goppers will be disapointed.

Virginia - Obama
Obama has been ahead in the polls, and an NAACP lawsuit has forced the stae to eliminate some of the barriers to voting for African Americans. There are a lot of government employees in Virginia that will lose their jobs if McCain were to carry through on his threats to cut gummint spending.

North Carolina - Obama
Record early voting trending heavily Democratic will more than make up for GOP voting machine fraud in that state.

New Hampshire - "Keating Five" McCain Obama
The map is correct. My typing was in error. McCain sure wasted a lot of time in a state with four electoral votes that is solidly Democratic. Oops!

Florida, Florida, Florida - "Keating Five" McCain
We know that in any honest election, Obama would win just like Gore and Kerry did. There is no reason to think that this election will be any less dishonest in that state. Even early voting there won't make up for massive voting machine fraud, illegal voter suppression, and other GOP election fraud.

In a functioning democracy, the process of elections is even more important than the outcome.

From After Downing Street 11/1/08 (hat tip to Mark Crispin Miller)

An Open Letter to Senator Obama and the Democratic Leadership:
On Election Night, DO NOT CONCEDE!

“Eight years is too much” is how Barack Obama explained why we must win the coming election and begin to restore America. But, even if we receive the most votes, will we win the election?

DO NOT CONCEDE!
Both of the last two elections were conceded by the Democratic presidential candidate. The 2004 election was handed to George Bush while votes were still being counted in closely-fought Ohio. While the 2000 election was contested to the Supreme Court, it too
was ultimately conceded to Bush “for the good of the country.”

Some good.

Numerous politicians, investigators and authors, including Robert Kennedy, Jr., agree the 2004 election was stolen, not only in Ohio but in several other battleground states. Tactics included purging of legitimate voters and the use of nefarious voting software--but when even these actions did not yield the required numbers, Republican election officials simply changed the vote tallies in several states, all without a peep from the Democratic Party.

DO NOT CONCEDE!
In the time since the last general election the public has learned much about these scandals, which have led some states to reject electronic touchscreen voting (and which caused the infamous Diebold voting machines corporation to hide behind a new corporate
name,) yet the Democratic Party seems to have learned nothing.

THREE STRIKES AND WE'RE OUT!
If we cannot afford another Republican administration, we cannot afford a third concession in the face of election fraud. Already there is evidence of massive fraud such as voter purging and caging of Democratic voters, and “flipping” of votes in early voting on electronic touchscreen machines. It is reasonable to once again expect further manipulation on election night by some Republican operatives and election officials, as was seen in 2004; should we also expect our Democratic Party leaders and candidates to repeat history, by once again conceding in the face of such blatant fraud? Senator Obama, we need you, our Party and all candidates to stand firm, come what may on election night. You ask us to work for you, contribute to you--and to have your back; we ask that you promise to have our back: We ask that you PLEDGE TO STAND FIRM, AND NOT CONCEDE THE COMING ELECTION in the face of election irregularities, no matter how long it takes to contest such fraud, while there remains any doubt as to any part of the process. Be assured, Democratic voters will be more--not less--energized if we see you promise to stand firm.

Senator Obama, if there is any reason to contest the election,
DO NOT CONCEDE!

Signed: (Titles for identification purposes only)
Gore Vidal, Author
Bob Fitrakis, Professor of Political Science, Columbus State Community College, Attorney; Editor of The Free Press (freepress.org)
Harvey Wasserman, Senior Editor, FreePress.org, Author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth
Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, Author of Fooled Again, How the Right Stole the 2004 Election
Tim Carpenter, Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Mimi Kennedy, Chair, National Advisory Board, Progressive Democrats of America
David Swanson, Co-Founder, After Downing Street
Eric Bauman, Chair, Los Angeles County Democratic Party
Garry S. Shay, Member, Democratic National Committee (CA)
Lead Chair, Rules Committee, California Democratic Party
Jo Olson, MD, Co-Chair, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party
Mal Burnstein, Co-Chair, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party
Marcy Winograd, Executive Board representative, California Democratic Party, 41st AD, Former Chair, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles
David Earnhardt, Filmmaker, “Uncounted: The New Math of American Elections”
Don Goldmacher, Chair, Election Integrity, Progressive Caucus, California Democratic Party
Michael Jay, Progressive Democrats of America, Special Projects, Former Delegate, California Democratic Party, 42nd AD
Sheri Myers, Director, “Wake Up and Save Your Country"
Robert A. Feuer, Former Chairman, Stockbridge, MA Town Democratic Committee
Thomas Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Region 3 Vice Chair, Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chair, Irish American Caucus, California Democratic Party
Howard Jennings, PDA-Virginia, State Co-Coordinator
Sarah Stott, Chapter Chair, PDA-Virginia
Lisa Pease, Co-editor, “The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X”
Cindy Asner, Former Delegate, California Democratic Party, Member, National Advisory Board, Progressive Democrats of America
Julie Lopez Dad, President, Santa Monica Democratic Club, Chair, 41st AD Committee, Los Angeles County Democratic Party
Dr. Bill Honigman, PDA California State Coordinator and Orange County Chapter Leader, Delegate, California Democratic Party, 73rd AD
Linda Milazzo, Senior Editor, OpEdNews.com, Blogger, Huffington Post
Rady Ananda, Senior Editor, OpEdNews.com
Jan Baumgartner, Managing Editor, OpEdNews.com
Cheryl Biren-Wright, Managing Editor, OpEdNews.com
Sherry Healy, Co-Founder California Election Protection Network, Coordinator, Election Defense Alliance
Laura Bonham, Summit County, UT Democratic Party Chairperson
Albert E. Fairchild, Retired Foreign Service Officer
Dorathea Peters, Precinct Captain, Alexandria, VA Democratic Committee

 

The "Keating Five" McCain campaign has been so desperate to smear Obama rather than give people reasons to vote for their candidate. This desperation has gotten so intense that they have people saying that Barack Obama is a "radical Muslim" in one statement and that Obama is a "Marxist" in another.

Oops!

Now, it would be difficult to be a true Marxist and embrace any religion. However, one might note that Marxism has become less pure over the centuries and that it can be possible, though internally inconsistent, to be a religious Marxist. These days, there are even Marxist nationalists, despite Marx's contempt for nationalism. Many have adopted a "cafeteria Marxism" similar to "cafeteria Catholicism" that leaves power mad, rightist Catholics like Joseph Ratzinger in a tizzy.

However, Radical Islam is a religious belief that tolerates no impurities. To be an Islamic fundamentalist, you have to reject all philosophies that threaten Islam, including Marxism, which is based on the view that religion is the "opiate of the masses." (Being a non-Marxist atheist, I can note that the rich are far from immune to religion's opiate effects.)

This is a basic difference between an political/economic doctrine like Marxism or objectivism and a fundamentalist religion. You don't go to Hell if you think that Marx got point 20,320 wrong. If you think that Mohammed got point 923,901 slightly off, you burn forever in the fundie mindset.

Personally, I'm voting McKinney because I'm a liberal and Obama agrees with McCain on more issues than he agrees with liberals. However, I think people who support all candidates need to fight the ignorance and stupidity that pollutes our politics and our culture.

 

Image: earthpro

Telemarketing employees tend to be the most economically vulnerable people. When they refuse to read a script because it is too dishonest and sleazy, you know the script was really, really bad.

From TPM Election Central (Hat tip to Ten Percent)

Dozens Of Call Center Workers Walk Off Job In Protest Rather Than Read McCain Script Attacking Obama
By Greg Sargent - October 27, 2008, 5:18PM

Some three dozen workers at a telemarketing call center in Indiana walked off the job rather than read an incendiary McCain campaign script attacking Barack Obama, according to two workers at the center and one of their parents.

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

"They walked out," Williams says of her daughter and her co-workers, adding that they weren't fired but willingly sacrificed pay rather than read the lines. "They were told [by supervisors], `If you all leave, you're not gonna get paid for the rest of the day."

The daughter, who wanted her name withheld fearing retribution from her employer, confirmed the story to us. "It was like at least 40 people," the daughter said. "People thought the script was nasty and they didn't wanna read it."

A second worker at the call center confirmed the episode, saying that "at least 30" workers had walked out after refusing to read the script.

"We were asked to read something saying [Obama and Democrats] were against protecting children from danger," this worker said. "I wouldn't do it. A lot of people left. They thought it was disgusting."

This worker, too, confirmed sacrificing pay to walk out, saying her supervisor told her: "If you don't wanna phone it you can just go home for the day."

The script coincided with this robo-slime call running in other states, but because robocalling is illegal in Indiana it was being read by call center workers.

Representatives at Americall in Indiana, and at the company's corporate headquarters in Naperville, Illinois, didn't return calls for comment.

This shows the utter contempt that the GOP and "Keating Five" McCain have for the voters. I suspect that the voters have caught on that their intelligence is being insulted for political gain. That is part of why McSlime is so far behind.

 

On February 9, 2008 I said that it looked like Obama would win the Democratic nomination. Given the Clinton/Obama tie on Super Tuesday, what should have been Clinton's best day, I didn't see how Clinton could win.

Now, I'm going to take an even smaller risk by projecting that Barack Obama will win the 2008 election. I'm fairly certain also, that Obama will win by a big enough margin that even massive election fraud like the GOP committed in 2004 will not be able to overturn the results of the election.

Here are the factors that have led me to that conclusion.

National Polls
Obama leads in all the polls listed today on PollingReport.com. This pattern has held up for quite a while.

Statewide Polls
In my previous posting, I mentioned that "Keating Five" McCain is even seeing his lead shrink in Arizona, his home state which most projections show as safely GOP. This follows a pattern of McCain having varying degress of trouble in several formerly red states such as West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Indiana, Georgia, and North Carolina. Obama has solid leads in Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia. Obama could win without either Ohio or Florida, both of which are up for grabs too.

Here are the latest electoral vote counts from two sources that include leaning states in their counts.

ElectoralVote.com - Obama: 375 McCain: 157 Ties: 6

Wikipedia - Obama: 352 McCain: 172 Ties: 14

More cautious sources consistently have Obama over the 270 electoral votes needed to win with plenty of electoral votes in the toss up categories. I should point out that pollsters say they are taking cell phone only voters (who favor Obama) into account properly, but I'm skeptical.

Money
Obama has a huge lead in money going into the final part of the campaign. Obama's Internet fundraising lead also provides him a cushion. If McCain starts to surge back in the polls, literally millions of panicked Obama supporters will give more money.

Early Voting Favoring Obama
In states such as Ohio and Florida where minority neighborhoods have had insufficient polling places and machines, early voting inherently favors Obama by counteracting the GOP's most potent form of voter suppression. There are other indications that early voting is helping Obama, aside from the fact that the GOP tried to block it in court in Ohio. From the Los Angeles Times 10/25/08:

Reporting from Washington -- Record numbers of voters across the nation are casting ballots before election day, including high proportions of Democrats and African Americans in some of the battleground states in what appears to be a promising sign for Barack Obama.

In the 32 states that allow people to vote before Nov. 4 without a special excuse, election officials report heavy turnout as the presidential campaign reaches its frenzied last days. That's not surprising in a campaign that has received round-the-clock attention. But it also reflects the intensive efforts of campaigns competing to bank votes before election day.

A Declining Economy
If you have been living in a cave or something, I should tell you that the stock markets have crashed globally. Snark aside, we seem to be entering the second phase of the economic crises, with stocks declining now primarily due to expectations of a global recession led by the US. Peoples' retirements are in serious trouble, and the likelihood of a deeper recession hurts McCain, who spent the primary season trying to make himself sound like the second splatting of Bush. Additionally, polls don't take into account the declines in the stock market and the general US economy over the next week because nobody knows how much worse it is going to get.

The AWOL Rapture
The failure of the much anticipated Rapture to appear in the time around the year 2000 has reduced the fervor of the Christian Right, fervor which keeps declining. I've yet to read about any pollster modifying estimations of "likely voters" to take into account that fewer Christian fundamentalists will be participating than in previous years. The dismal failure of the administration of a fundie like Bush can't be helping to energize the flock much either.

Newspaper Endorsements
I've always been amazed how much newspaper endorsements influence undecided voters. Here's the count from Editor and Publisher as of this weekend.

Obama over McCain by 160-59

Adding insult and injury, Sarah Palin's home state's biggest paper, the Anchorage Daily News, endorsed Obama yesterday.

Grassroots Organization
I thought I'd be ornery and include one of the most important factors at the end. Barack Obama has been the first presidential candidate since I can remember to recognize the importance of grassroots organizing, much less pull it off. It will be interesting to see how much of Obama's own grassroots machine will stay intact after the election is over.

Independent organizing on Obama behalf by MoveOn.org and other centrist and progressive organizations is finally comparable to that of the Christian Taliban. This provides a critical area where Obama leads Oscar the Grouch.

 

If Arizona was not "Keating Five" McCain's home state, one would expect it to be hotly contested. It is sandwiched between California, solidly Democratic, and New Mexico which is been leaning Obama in this campaign.

It looks like Arizona is a swing state now in spite of it being John McCain's home state.

From the Arizona Daily Star (hat tip Pollster.com):

"It's not just here, look at the entire intermountain West," said Arizona State University political pollster Bruce Merrill. "New Mexico, Nevada, the whole West has moved significantly from strong red to purple."

A statewide poll taken by Tucson-based Democratic pollsters Carol and Pete Zimmerman two weeks out from the election suggests McCain's lead over Obama falls within the margin of error: 43.5 percent to 41.5 percent, with 10 percent of likely Arizona voters undecided.

Merrill is conducting a similar poll this weekend and predicts that the economic downturn will have narrowed McCain's advantage from the 8-percentage-point lead he enjoyed in a previous poll.

That isn't the only Arizona poll which shows McCain has problems there. From PolitickerAZ.com:

"Importantly, this survey represents a dramatic shift from our last survey in mid-September wherein McCain then led Obama by 14-points, 40 to 54 percent," reads the memo from Andrew Myers and Lisa Grove.

Their firms, Myers Research and Grove Insight, conducted the poll on behalf of Project New West, the Denver-based Democratic strategy group, and included 600 likely voters. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 4 points.

The poll finds that the contest "is an absolute dead heat" among early voters, with Obama edging McCain 47 to 46 percent. According to the results, 34 percent have already cast their ballot through early voting. Among those who haven't voted yet, McCain is up over Obama 49 to 42 percent.

These are Democratic pollsters, so some caution should be taken. However, even if their margins are off a few points, Arizona does appear to be in reach for Obama.

Somebody could accurately point out that Gore won in 2000 without winning his home state, but the electoral college math already strongly disfavors "Keating Five" McCain. He doesn't need to be fighting for his home state at this point.

 

No, the title of this posting is not a joke. There are serious reasons to think that there is something more going on than incompetence in the McCain campaign.

The most recent oddity is the McCain campaign's bizarre claims that a center-right Democrat like Obama is a socialist. When I first heard this stuff, a question popped into my mind. Is McCain running against Obama or does he think he is running against Eugene V. Debs? You might say that McCain knows he will lose, so he will feed as much red meat to the GOP base to build turnout and try to protect as many GOP House and Senate seats as possible. In any case, this will just sound weird to most undecided voters.



If this were the only bit of strangeness, I would have left it at that. But, where he has chosen to campaign has been really bonkers. Why have I seen McCain and Palin spending so much time in New Hampshire, which only has four electoral votes and was pretty much a lock for Obama anyway? On the cable news, I've seen more appearances of theirs in NH than in any one of the following states: CO, VA, MN, or MO.

That is weird.


The center of McCain's political universe.

The McCain campaign's fascination with Iowa is pretty out there too. McCain shunned Iowa during the caucuses. That alone would give McCain a huge disadvantage against any Democrat, considering how much Iowans zealously assert and protect their privileged status in the presidential nomination process. Add the fact that Obama built and maintained a huge grassroots network in the state, and you have solid Obama territory.

The focus on Pennsylvania as McCain's last hope is just plain goofy. Republicans went on and on about winning there in 2000 and 2004, but they lost there both times. Given how bad the economy is, a Bush lover like McCain should have punted there and focused elsewhere. Yet, this is where McCain is going apeshit? Even if he somehow managed to pull off an amazing upset in Pennsylvania, the time and money spent will cost him other states whose combined electoral votes will be considerably more than the 21 that Pennsylvania might remotely offer McCain.

McCain's demeanor during his campaign appearances is not that of someone who is determined to be president. His speeches seem phoned in. When Republicans are nice to him, he seems to be happy and relieved, but his speeches are lifeless. McCain's debate performance was incredibly far from presidential in a year where people are incredibly worried about themselves, their families, their friends, and their country.

When the strongest quote the corporate media could find to promote McCain was, "I am not President Bush," you know that McCain and his speechwriters are slacking big time.

Then, there is the whole Palin thing. Why would McCain pick a governor who was under investigation by a legislature run by the GOP? Republicans almost never seriously investigate other Republicans. This should have set off major alarm bells. Also, it is difficult to imagine that any remotely competent political consultants wouldn't have vetted Ms. Palin enough to know that she has supported independence for Alaska. (Photo at right by triciaward)

It would be easy to understand why McCain would want to let somebody else be president at this point. McCain has staked his political reputation on continuing the Iraq War indefinitely. Yet, it will be nearly impossible to get our economy going well at all, much less for the majority of Americans who have faced bad times since 2000, unless we stop wasting borrowed money on that same war.

Republican policies on deregulation and global warming also pose huge economic threats to this country. (McCain differs with Bush significantly on global warming rhetoric, but only marginally on global warming policy.) McCain should know that encouraging drilling on our coasts won't make jack difference in oil prices and that one large oil spill in Florida or California could send shockwaves through our already devastated economy.

Also, let's be real. McCain is very old. The demands of the presidency take an enormous toll even during the best of times. These are far from the best of times. Maybe McCain has realized that being president, especially now, is beyond his capacity of endurance.

It really looks like McCain is punting the whole thing to Obama, hoping that Obama will be the Hoover our country may be stuck with rather than him. Obama will need to be much more like FDR if he hopes to be reelected in 2012.

 

Electoral vote counts seem to be the Internet flavor of the month. Some, like CNN, consider states tossups if things are even close. Others, like electoral-vote.com, give counts based on where states are leaning.

Wikipedia is the most volatile, basing their projections on the latest poll for each state only. They also happen to have the most in depth state polling info I've seen yet on one site, and the polling data appears to be updated the most rapidly.

The problem is that, even so, some of the polling data is getting kind of old. From Wikipedia, you can learn about the freshness of the polling data for the following states.

Arkansas (6)
Rasmussen Reports - September 22: Barack Obama 42% John McCain 51%

Kentucky (8)
Rasmussen Reports - September 30: Barack Obama 42% John McCain 52%

South Dakota (3)
American Research Group - September 19-21: Barack Obama 39% John McCain 55% Other 1%

Another state where polling might be stale is Alaska, where the most recent survey was before Palin was found guilty of ethics violations.

Rasmussen Reports - October 6: Barack Obama 40% John McCain 55%

If the polling in these states were more recent, one could have more confidence in the idea that these states are strongly for "Keating Five" McCain. However, the mood of the country has shifted further from supporting the GOP since Wall St. started to tank. If these states have tightened up, McCain may be in even deeper trouble than the corporate media are letting on.