The rally to push for healthcare reform in Seattle at Westlake Center last night was very enthusiastic.  Tons of people turned out to hear the speakers and show their support.  I could not get close enough to actually see the speakers, so I just listened and walked around the crowd to take pictures of the people and their signs.  One of the speakers was a woman who owns a small business talking about the challenges she faces to provide care for her employees, another was a minister who spoke of change and how difficult it can be and how good, affordable healthcare is a basic civil right.  But what struck me was the passion of the crowd and the uplifted mood.  People here are fired up, not angry but energized.  We are tired of the minority opposition dominating the narrative of the news media. 

At our town hall meeting the other day there were over 900 people, about 5 of whom were opposed to reform.  We had two or 3 of the nazi mustache photo carrying screamers who tried to shout down our rep but they were unsuccessful.  Pro reform sentiment is strong and people are turning out in support, but when I turn on the TV I only see town halls that are contentious.  Enough of the excessive focus on the "Obama's waterloo" set, they really just want to see failure.  They have little motivation beyond that and even fewer ideas.  It's time to take back the message.  The system is broken and we elected the President who had the best ideas about fixing it.  The preacher speaking today said it best when he spoke of times in the past when change was brewing.  He spoke of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war.  He reminded us that in those times there was also a fearful opposition using scare tactics and lies, but in the end change always won.

PHOTOS from the event are here.

 

You may have seen clip of Rick Santelli raging on CNBC about the stimulus bill and how it rewards people who have been irresponsible and doesn't offer anything for the majority of us folks that buy homes within our means and pay our mortgages on time.  His rants are annoying and overdone, but he voices an opinion that lots of people have right now.  Most of us recognize that this money needs to be spent and will benefit the majority of people in the long run but some are leery of paying to keep people in homes they can't really afford while they themselves may see only a small tax break incentive.  What about the rest of us?  How about some stimulus in the form of low interest rate incentives so we can refinance our mortgages and spend the savings?  We could use that stimulus money to subsidize very low fixed rate loans (under 4.5%) available to all of us for our primary residences. 

If the money for the housing sector went to subsidize lower interest rates on mortgages for the general public there would be savings to those who are struggling to keep their homes, for some of these folks a reduction in principal might be added if they owe more than their home is worth.  Many fewer of these homes would be foreclosed on.  People who aren't headed for foreclosure could refinance their mortgages and have extra money to spend.  Most people use refinance induced savings to spend on home repairs, autos and other things that put people to work.  Perhaps an extra bonus could be thrown in for those who buy an American made car.  And for the people who do not yet own a home a very low interest rate (fixed of course) will bring many into the home market.  They will be able to purchase homes for the first time and further boost the housing sector.  It's a win-win-win.   And for the nay sayers and stimulus haters they can simply turn their nose up and continue to complain.  Or they could embrace the plan, take advantage of it and shut the heck up.

I know. It's a gesture.  He won't be setting policy.  Obama wants to reach out to the various groups in our country.  I get that, I like that about Obama.  But the choice of Rick Warren disappoints.  At first I rationalized it and while not pleased wasn't really perturbed either.  But after learning a bit more about Warren I've become disappointed.  He is not a moderate, he is a far right winger.  His support for AIDS relief and climate control does not make him a moderate, just more palatable.  He is staunchly anti-gay.  Rachel Maddow reported today, as have some blogs, that the Saddleback Church's website states that "unrepentant gays" are unwelcome.  Unrepentant, for who but a sinner should need to repent for their evil deeds, the dirty deed of romantically loving someone of the same gender.  Rick Warren is bigoted. He openly and loudly discriminates against the minority gay community.  If his church openly rejected a racial minority he would not be given the honor of giving the invocation for President-elect Obama's inauguration.  But it's OK, because it's only the gays.

The problem is not that Obama has discussions with Warren, that he listens to him or that they might play golf.  The issue is that he has bestowed a great honor  upon  Rick Warren.  He has elevated Warren's stature and amplified his voice.  There are multitudes of holy men who emulate tolerance, who welcome those who are different and offer them teachings of Christ.  Rick Warren is not one of them. 

I know, LisB, we WON!  It is fabulous, I am so happy and I should STFU.  I will be thrilled by the inauguration and I know my eyes won't be dry.  But when the event begins and our eyes turn to God it will be a representative of intolerance who will be leading the prayer.  In choosing Warren for this prestigious ceremony Obama has cast a shadow on the joy of the inauguration for an entire minority group.  He could easily have chosen someone who would not make anyone feel excluded.  I believe Obama to be a tolerant man and his inauguration will be a joyous event for a majority of Americans, myself included.  But I'm disapointed that some will feel unnecessarily offended.

 

I had to be here.  Chicago is my hometown even though I live in Seattle now.  It was great to be at "Obamapalooza" with my son.  We didn't have tickets to the area where he spoke but Grant Park is huge and the masses gathered in front of jumbotron screens in the beauty of downtown Chicago to experience this historic event together.  The diversity of this city was displayed in all it's splendor.  The weather seemed to understand that this would be a night like no other and cooperated with a 70 degree day and a 50 degree night. There were tens of thousands of people all peaceful and hopeful and focused on the screen playing CNN's coverage.  We waited for the first polls to close.  In a moment of complete irony a negative ad from the GOP trust played scenes of Rev. Wright and the word hate showed on the screen.  Needless to say everybody boo'd as I frantically fumbled through my bag to get my camcorder and snap a photo (will upload that shortly). 

As the afternoon turned to evening the polls began to close and the projections rolled in.  We cheered at the percentages when for Obama and booed when they favored McCain. As states were called cheers rang out in increasing volume. The crowd grew in size as the states stacked up in Obama's favor.  At the top of each hour more polls would close and we anxiously awaited the resultant projections.  When the logo for projections came on the screen everybody stood up with intense anticipation followed by exclamations of joy upon seeing Obama's image next to a yellow checkmark in the box for state after state.  Then they called the election and the crowd went wild.  Naturally my camcorder battery died at that moment, and I fumbled for my spare.  From that point on no one sat back down.

 

We waited for the speech.  By this time I had to move around the park as my son grew antsy.  He found a spot on a paved path where he could practice kick flips on his skateboard while we waited.  I chatted with my friend of 36 years who met us there. First was John McCain's concession speech.  It was gracious as was the crowd who clapped at appropriate moments and reveled in the experience without gloating.  Then approached the moment we had all been waiting for, to hear Barack Obama give his speech accepting the will of the people and the presidency of the United States of America.  We watched CNN on the screen at the north end of the park.  There were three screens southern most screen started to play a local feed showing the stage and people started to run towards it.  Then the center screen showed the local feed and the crowd continued to drain away from the CNN feed to watch an empty stage.  Eventually the north end screen showed the stage too and people started to run back towards it to get closer and have a better view.  It was a comical moment.  We waited with anticipation and after what seemed like a long time Barack Obama entered the stage with his family and we cheered and cheered and cheered.  Then he gave his beautiful speech to a rapt crowd.  At one point someone, a man's voice, called out "I love you".  People smiled and chuckled, it's a feeling held by so many.

 After the speech ended people started to stream out of the park.  The perimeter fences had been moved to accommodate the hundreds of thousands.  The streets were closed to vehicles and a sea of people filled street after street.  There is something about seeing that, about being in it that is amazing.  I've been here before after fourth of July celebrations but this was different.  There was a calm and a joy and an energy that was unmatched.  Crowds streamed to the north and south and west.  We turned north on Michigan avenue and walked with the throngs.  Spontaneous cheers would erupt accentuating the feeling of unity, hope and happiness that was shared by all.  We've won.  All the time, work and worry has come to fruition and the future looks brighter today than it has in a very long time.

In another stunning display of ignorance Sarah Palin answers the question of what the job of Vice President entails.  During an interview with a local Colorado NBC affiliate she is asked a question from a third grader who wrote in "What does a Vice President do?"  Here is Palin's answer:

"They're in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom."

:

"This comment is all the more puzzling because this is at least the 2nd time she has said this. Gov Palin needs to re-read or perhaps read for the first time the Constitution. While the Vice President presides over the Senate, he or she is not in charge of it. Article 1 says The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided."

Many months back, when asked about the possibility of her becoming John McCain's VP choice, Sarah Palin said in an interview that someone needs to explain to her "exactly what the VP does all day".  Apparently after all this time no one has.

Please watch this report from the BBC Newsnight journalist Greg Palast titled The Theft of 2008.  At the beginning of the video a BBC anchor states that he was told by a Republican campaign staffer that it is "inevitable that his people would contest any Democratic victory". In the video Palast reports on the voter fraud/voter suppression claims of both parties as the 2008 election enters it's last two weeks.  Part 1 examines both side's claims of voter fraud and voter suppression along with a report on voters in NM finding out they were purged from the rolls and voters in MI that may be challenged at the polls based on their receiving foreclosure notices. 

 

Part 2 takes a look at the king of the Michigan foreclosure business, Trott & Trott, and notes that the McCain campaign shares office space with their foreclosure operation.  It also examines a bi-partisan report on election practices in the 2004 election.  The report found the GOP fears of voter fraud were unfounded and that qualified voters were denied their vote by suppression tactics, but those findings were altered by the Bush administration prior to release.  There is also a statement from a US attorney who was fired by the Bush administration for not finding any prosecutable cases of voter fraud.  Voter fraud claims are used as justification to implement suppression methods that can disenfranchise voters in large numbers.

 

Members of the Republican party are waging a campaign of misinformation regarding voter registration fraud and it's effect on our elections as they did in 2004.  We know that some paid staff of various organizations turned in fake registrations to plump the results of their efforts, but these registrations won't be verified and do not wind up on the rolls as registered voters.  By raising alarm over this the Republicans are setting the stage to challenge the registrations of American citizens by the thousands, denying many their right to vote.  At last weeks debate John McCain stated that Acorn, who reported that some of the registrations they collected were probably fake, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history ... maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."  To date cases of fraudulent voter registrations have rarely been followed by evidence of people actually casting an illegal vote.  In reality what could destroy the fabric of democracy is denying the right to vote to portions of the citizenry.  These efforts are focused heavily on poor and minority areas, those which tend to vote democratic.  If we continue to disenfranchise enough of them to swing elections to the GOP and that party also stacks the Justice Department with prosecutors that favor their agenda we will no longer be a full democracy.  We must turn out in large enough numbers to counteract the suppression tactics that await us.  Please urge all you know to get to the polls and vote! 

Here is a glimpse at the unbridled ignorance which provides fertile soil for the seeds of hate that John McCain and Sara Palin are sowing.

We've seen now that the smears and attacks conflating Obama/Ayers/terrorists have not helped John McCain in the polls, his numbers continued to slide after he released them.  The dials in the hands of focus group members showed this tactic was poorly received by independents and undecideds in the last debate .  And yet the robocalls of vicious attacks were released just yesterday.  McCain and Palin continue full throttle ahead with the smears.  This video shows the one audience these tactics work on, but these folks weren't going to vote for Obama anyway.  They have plenty of predjudice and xenophobia already.  They see McCain slipping in the polls and are becoming anxious and agitated.  What is the purpose of spewing the ridiculous insinuation that Obama "pals around with" terrorists when it's only working on these folks hence no net gain?

I'd like to call your attention to Frank Rich's op ed column in yesterday's NYT.  It is a must read.  The title is "The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama" and it is a critique of the turn to the ugly in McCain and especially Palin's stump speeches and rallies.  Rich gets to the heart of the matter and the raw and frightening malice that their campaign is releasing.  Here is an excerpt:

........what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” (note the plural noun). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops.

By the time McCain asks the crowd “Who is the real Barack Obama?” it’s no surprise that someone cries out “Terrorist!” The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family” was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.

We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

Rich's eloquent description of precisely what sentiments Palin and McCain are fostering and encouraging should be heard by as wide an audience as possible.

Tonight Sarah Palin tossed out the first puck at the home opener for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. When she was announced there were resounding boos from the crowd. Fox news (of all places) reports that at a fundraiser earlier in the day she said she knew there would be boos so she would bring Piper, her 7 year old daughter, with her to stifle them. Apparently it worked fairly well. If you watch the video of it you can hear the boos when she is first announced but immediately afterward her daughter was announced and walked out and the boos quieted. A quote from the Fox news post:

A carpet was laid down and Palin, dressed in a beige trench, walked on to the ice joined by her daughters Willow and Piper. The GOP Vice-Presidential nominee said at an earlier fundraiser that she would stop some of the booing from the rowdy Philadelphia fans by putting her seven year old daughter, Piper in a Flyers jersey. She said, “How dare they boo Piper!”

Has she no shame?

In a blog post entitled "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting For Obama" on The Daily Beast Christopher Buckley states that he will vote for Sen. Barack Obama in the upcoming election.  Christopher Buckley is the son of William F. Buckley, conservative author and founder of The National Review.  It will be the first time he has ever voted for a Democrat.  Mr. Buckley made is declaration on The Daily Beast rather than in his regular column on the back page of The National Review after watching extreme hate mails come in by the thousands to Kathleen Parker.  Parker published a scathing editorial critical of the McCain/Palin ticket unleashing an avalanche of angry emails, one which suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a dumpster. 

Here are some quotes from Mr. Buckley's post:

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

And

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books. Imagine. He is also a lefty. I am not. I am a small-government conservative who clings tenaciously and old-fashionedly to the idea that one ought to have balanced budgets. On abortion, gay marriage, et al, I’m libertarian. I believe with my sage and epigrammatic friend P.J. O’Rourke that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it all away.

But having a first-class temperament and a first-class intellect, President Obama will (I pray, secularly) surely understand that traditional left-politics aren’t going to get us out of this pit we’ve dug for ourselves. If he raises taxes and throws up tariff walls and opens the coffers of the DNC to bribe-money from the special interest groups against whom he has (somewhat disingenuously) railed during the campaign trail, then he will almost certainly reap a whirlwind that will make Katrina look like a balmy summer zephyr.

Buckley is quick to point out that he remains true to his conservative viewpoint but notice how he does his best to align them with his decision to support Obama.  Hath Hell frozen over?

It's a beautiful poem from the comedy icon of Monty Python fame that perfectly captures the essence of Sean Hannity.

Ode to Sean Hannity
by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

A commenter of an Anchorage Daily News article just posted the text of an email he received today from the McCain/Palin campaign.  It contained a petition to the Alaska state legislature to stop the Troopergate investigation.  The email requested the recipient to print it, sign it, get others to sign it and drop it off or fax it to the McCain/Palin Victory 2008 headquarters.  The commenter would like to get the word out that he/she received this so I am posting a copy of the comment here.  You may want to call or fax that office yourself and let them know what a dirty campaign you think they are running.  Here is the comment:

j_edgar_hoover wrote on 10/06/2008 05:04:56 PM:

This is the text of a e-mail I just received. These SCUM think they are above the law. If you disagree give them a call and let them know. Pass this around as much as you can.
McCain-Palin/Victory 2008 Alaska Headquarters 307 East Northern Lights Boulevard Anchorage, AK 99503 Daytime Phone: (907)338-7708

"This is your chance to help Gov. Sarah Palin!!!

Below is a petition to stop the State Legislature's partisan Walt Monegan investigation. This investigation is intended to do nothing more than politically smear our governor to influence the Presidential race.

Please print it out, have your friends and neighbors sign it, and return it as soon as you can. You can turn them in either by dropping them by the 24 hour mail slot at our Victory office (307 E Northern Lights, Anchorage) or by faxing them to 907-276-0425.

The deadline to turn the petitions in is tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct. 7th) at 12 Noon sharp!!

We know this is short notice, but we want to give everyone one last

The clip has finally emerged of the rumored cringe moment when Sarah Palin is asked by Katie Couric what supreme court decisions, other than Roe vs Wade, she does not agree with.  This is part of a VP question and answer side by side comparison that Couric is presenting as part of her VP series of interviews, Biden's response is shown first.  Do you think Sarah has an answer?

A short while ago as John McCain was finishing up a speech his left eye twitched a couple of times.  When he turned from the podium and was confused which way to go first turning to his right to exit, then turning around and going the opposite way, then standing still for a moment until an aide showed him the way.  Some speculation on medical reasons this may have happened has been posted on the americablog.  Video of it has also been posted of it.

A second Anti-Palin rally took place in Anchorage on Saturday.  This one was a "Hold Palin Accountable" rally in opposition to the stonewalling of the Troopergate investigation and drew around 1000 people, a huge crowd by Alaskan standards.  In fact, the only other rally that attracted that many people in state history was the Women Against Palin rally that took place two weeks ago.  

On Saturday protesters shouted "Recall Palin" and called for the removal of Attorney General Talis Colberg. The Alaskans at the rally want to make sure their state legislators don't allow the McCain campaign to completely derail the investigation.  The investigators report is due out on Oct. 10.  "This report needs to be released. Not just for us ... it needs to be released for all those people in the Lower 48 who are going to make a decision on Nov. 4," said Democratic blogger Linda Kellen Biegel.

I find it curious that there isn't a peep about this anywhere in mainstream news outlets and blogs. Let's hope that these Alaskan citizens' voices are heard by their legislature.