Regardless of the political motives, a little help for organizations that are already trying to help the poor and homeless, as long as there's no religious test or content, would be a big help. An example: my town has an interfaith group (membership across the spectrum from Unitarians to Mormons) running a program called Family Promise, which gives low-income folks who've just moved to town a place to stay and help finding a job and a place to live.

It's done almost entirely with donations and volunteers (the clients overnight in back rooms of churches, here in a city where there are no -- NO -- alternatives for free space), but a few hundred bucks here and there would be a big help. Programs like FP are where the rubber hits the road, and churches are in a position to deliver because of the existing buildings and the volunteer pool.

Yes, it would be great if there were affordable housing and a living wage, and those things should be part of any progressive agenda, but we are about so far from that situation as any society can be, so there's plenty of triage to be done.

Posted at July 3, 2008 8:48 AM in response to Obama's Plot to Destroy the Religious Right

This site's comment programming doesn't work very well. I clicked the above to be a reply to
Spiderpig, above.

Posted at June 4, 2008 9:24 AM in response to Hillary Campaign Downplays Reports That She Said She'd Be "Open" To Being Veep

Not to defend AP, because they've been pretty awful for the last couple of years overall, but it's a non-profit.

Posted at June 4, 2008 9:21 AM in response to Hillary Campaign Downplays Reports That She Said She'd Be "Open" To Being Veep

Agree. Colorado is practically a done deal. And, not many electoral votes there, but I think MT and AK are up for grabs, both subject to the same dynamic: with independents soured on the Repubs, Bob Barr siphons off just enough of the uber-right-wing vote for the Dem. to win. Obama could win with 40% of the vote in AK, maybe mid to high 40s in MT.

Posted at May 29, 2008 4:33 PM in response to What's Obama's Route To The White House?

No, it wasn't like this before the pipeline and the military buildup. Alaska, as Jimmy Carter said (with a slight chuckle) on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Alaska Lands Act, used to be a strongly Democratic state. Back then, any Repubs who got elected were moderate Main-Streeters (google Jay Hammond: on the cusp of the oil revolution, a populist Republican governor, and the most popular politician in AK history). (I've been wondering if Sarah Palin is auditioning to be Jay-in-a-dress.)

Please Don, we beg you, just go away. Maybe Fort Yukon will have you back. Just don't try to go back into teaching; you've done enough damage already.

Posted at April 16, 2008 12:16 PM in response to Today's Must Read

Howzabout give Florida and Michigan half their originally alloted delegates, just like the Rethugs, and divvy them 50-50 for Michigan and proportional to the actual vote for Florida.

Posted at April 4, 2008 10:22 PM in response to Obama Campaign Calls For 50-50 Split Of Michigan Delegates

I'd advise M.J. to take a deep breath and count to ten. I'm for Obama, and yet I agree with Krugman on this (although I'm mildly curious why he spends so much ink on this one issue).

But it is significant: our golden boy is not as progressive as we would like him to be, and yes, he has used conservative talking points to defend his folly of a health care "plan." Maybe that's why some folks get so upset about Krugman? He keeps rubbing out noses in a fact that isn't all that appealing about our candidate of choice? Maybe what we ought to be doing, instead of dissing Krugman, is complaining to Obama's campaign.

Posted at April 4, 2008 3:39 PM in response to Losing Paul Krugman

No comprehendo why it's wiser to do this absurd bailout of an investment bank with negative assets than to just let it die on its own. It isn't like the bailout is going to prevent the markets from panic selling; everyone knows that if the Fed thinks it has to do a stupid deal like this, most of the high-flyers of the financial system are in the tank, and it's going to happen anyway.

For the next stupid act, we'll have another big cut in the prime rate, which won't do anything for anybody except raise the price of oil and other commodities even higher. And sow the seeds of the next great bubble.

Hello, Congress? (We already know where the executive branch's head is.)

Posted at March 17, 2008 10:24 AM in response to The Fed’s Forced Marriage of Bear Stearns and J.P. Morgan

I agree that it's time, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, for Obama to start at least a partial channeling of John Edwards -- of course with the Obama brand of optimism and inclusiveness.

Posted at March 16, 2008 8:52 PM in response to Keystone State

I very much agree with Jamboree's comment.

Steve, FYI, Unitarians today do not as a group believe in an "active God." You can if you want to and still be a Unitarian Universalist in good standing, but there is no creed of that nature at all. UUism today is based on seven principles, which emphasize the inherent dignity and worth of everyone and respect for the interdependent web of existence, of which humans are a small part.

Posted at March 12, 2008 11:59 AM in response to Militant Unitarians