A quick thought

Without going into the complexities of the situations, I wonder if the feds would have been so quick to bail out the banks if their workforce was unionized.

 

Let’s Go, Kid!

As a boy, I’d hear my grandfather and my parents talk about “those kids” playing baseball, and think “wow, they’re twenty-eight years old — how can they talk about them like they’re so young?”

But they’d talk about them, and in the same breath mention how good they were, and what they’d already done — and also how far they had to go, and how much they had to learn. I didn’t understand that, then.

Now I’m forty-six and I talk about “those kids” in the major leagues, as if they were still in grade school. (Even the one or two who are as old as me or older 🙂 I guess it happens to all of us, some time or other.

I had a moment like that recently, when someone mentioned Barack Obama was born in 1961. So was I, but five months earlier, so I guess I can call him “that kid” 🙂

He’s already done plenty, just getting to where he is: US Senator and candidate for President of the US. He’s made a lot of good promises (getting out of Iraq as soon as reasonably feasible, cutting taxes for those who need it most, and his tech policies), but he still has a ways to go (endorsing full marriage rights for everyone, fully restoring the Constitution, and exposing and prosecuting the criminals who have been in charge the last eight years).

And, getting back to the baseball thought, there is one very clear comparison. There was one player who always had to be twice as good as the rest just to be considered equal; who was not allowed to blow his cool even once; who was practically guaranteed to be a Hall of Famer — but who was required to play up to Hall of Fame standards lest his election be called “tainted” and worse.

Jackie Robinson was an honest Hall of Famer. He played up to his exceptional talent, and proved Branch Rickey correct in his assessment of his temperament. He came to epitomize the Dodgers not just for what he was in terms of his skin, but he accomplished on the field.

That kid running for President has a chance to do all that and more. The other guy is a washed-up might-have-been. Let’s get out there on Tuesday and give the kid his chance.

 

Who Knew?

In today’s Washington Post (via CBS):

On the defensive across the country and staring down an election that could see them reduced to an ineffective minority in the House and the Senate, congressional Republicans are offering a new argument to voters: the danger of single-party rule in the nation’s capital. [emphasis mine]

This would be hysterical, except for the six years the Republicans spent being the single party in power from 2001-2007, and the damage they’ve done to the US Constitution, our international reputation, the middle class, and the credibility of the government during that time. And, oh yes, the deregulation that set up the current financial crisis.

If you ever want to laugh and cry at the same time, read that quoted paragraph again, and try to take it seriously.

 

Las Vegas = Not So Fun(ny) City

The Republican Party has long used the politics of fear and hatred to achieve its goals, all the while blaming “a few bad actors” as often as they can.

Here are a few more bad actors, expressing what’s come to be the mainstream views of the Republican Party outside a McCain/Palin rally in Las Vegas. They came upon a group of 10-20 Obama/Biden demonstrators outside, and reacted.

Unfortunately, while it would be good to say that these views are “un-American” (thanks, Joe McCarthy and Rep. Bachmann, it seems that they’re becoming more and more the Republican CW.

Watch it here for yourself.

 

The Face of Proposition 8

California’s Proposition 8 reads:

ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. Provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Fiscal Impact: Over next few years, potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in the several tens of millions of dollars, to state and local governments. In the long run, likely little fiscal impact on state and local governments.

Its backers — largely the homophobic Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons, to most of us) in neighboring Utah — would have us believe that this is a nurturing act, supportive of marriages as happy and clean-cut (by virtue of being heterosexual and monogamous) as the ones we saw in 1950s sitcoms.

This is the reality of Prop 8, though. A woman on her way home saw a bunch of pro-Prop 8 types and a few counterdemonstrators, so she got out her phone and started taking video. Having turned off her phone to approach after a particularly ugly confrontation between an angry pro-8 woman and a man who was against it (and who stayed calm while the woman got in his face), she was approaching when the pro-Prop 8 types threatened her (“Get that shit out of here. I’ll knock it out of your hand.”).

Here’s the video she took and posted. Spread it far and wide, so we can see the true, ugly face of Proposition 8 and its supporters:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about "The Face of Proposition 8 on Vimeo", posted with vodpod

Via Cherie Priest

(edited to add attribution)

 

No apologizing for the truth

I see where radio host Ed Schultz, connected to the Obama campaign called John McCain a “warmonger”, while speaking at a North Dakota Democratic Party event. Schultz is apparently connected to the Obama campaign, but was not asked to speak at the event by the campaign, but by the party.

McCain is calling on Obama to denounce Schultz, and unfortunately, the campaign has caved and done so.

That’s a mistake. McCain, who has called for a near-unending war in the style of the current Administration, is a warmonger, and the world needs to be reminded of that at every opportunity. Speaking plainly never hurt anyone (see NY Governor David Patterson as an example), and by allowing McCain to deflect this statement of truth now, it becomes much harder to keep it attached to him later.

 

More Projection, Please

Apparently Dear Leader believes it’s a bad idea for legitimate leaders to be seen in the public company of tyrants:

Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castro, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him.

Someone ought to mention that to the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, or other countries the next time their leaders sit down with our tin-pot tyrant.

January 20, 2009 cannot come soon enough.

 

Yawn

So Ralph Nader’s running for President again.

It’s a shame he’s not serious about it. If he were, he’d have been involved in government for the past four — eight — years since he played spoiler to the 2000 election (granted, he wasn’t the only reason for the Republican win, but he was one of them). If he were, he’d have built an organization over the past four — eight — year, making it clear that he was serious about building things, rather than stepping in to take power. If he were serious, he’d have been out front, taking stands, instead of trying to sneak in and take votes.

No, Ralph Nader’s not serious. I just hope he doesn’t turn into a serious issue again this time around. The country barely survived his first shot of sand to the gears, and we can’t take another.

Edit: Jill says exactly what I meant, far better than I did here. Go read.

 

Cojones. Now or Never, Reps.

GWB is asking — no, demanding, as is his wont — that Democrats in the House fold their cards and turn tail the way the Senate Dems did (with lots of funding support from the corporations whose asses need to be covered to save his own; thanks, Senator Bought-and-Paid-For Rockefeller and all your unpatriotic like). He tells them that he won’t approve a mere extension of the current FISA law, nor will he sign a revision that doesn’t include retroactive immunity for the telecoms that criminally aided and abetted his unconstitutional push to make this a Soviet America. As usual, he’s lying, saying that failure to amend FISA will preclude the Administration from wiretapping suspected foreign terrorists. It won’t, and he still has 72 hours after placing a tap to have it approved.

And yet, resistance is coming from an unexpected but welcome quarter — Steny Hoyer, an erstwhile Bush Dog, says that there may not be time to resolve the differences between the House (no retroactive immunity) and Senate (criminal actions OK) bills before the current law expires at the end of the week.

Here’s hoping the House tells Preznit Chimpy that he’s had more than enough toys from the toy store, and that he can’t have any new ones — play with what you have, little boy.

As usual, call your Representative, and then sign the Firedoglake petition asking the House to stand firm against the encroaching tyranny now made blatant by the crooks in the White House.

 

Making the Obvious Even Clearer

ThinkProgress points out Time‘s Mark Halperin making the choice easy between Saint John the Pretender and whomever the Democrats wind up nominating. Halperin says, on Faux News, that GWB believes “that McCain would be the best to carry forth his agenda.”

An agenda that includes cutting taxes on the wealthy, excusing them from criminal prosecution, validating the Nuremburg Defense for members of the intelligence services who use torture at the behest of their bosses, preemptive invasions of countries based on repeated egregious lies, cutting off funds to medical clinics that provide contraceptive information because they include information on abortion among their materials, and official endorsement of Intelligent Design materials being sold at National Parks is a good way to turn the US into a Third World country even faster than we’re already headed there.

I don’t care who the Democrat is (though it’s a damned shame the media forced the best of them, Edwards, out of the race). You couldn’t get me to vote for McCain if you waterboarded me.