The Republic of T.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 9th from 15:21 to 16:50:

• TPMCafe | Talking Points Memo | Sitting On the Conservative Coffin - Polls show that the share of the population self-identifying as "conservative" continues to hold steady at around the same level as it has for years. In the latest New York Times poll, for example, 36 percent self-identified as conservative, 38 percent as moderate, and 22 percent as liberal; the reading for conservative is toward the high end of the fairly narrow range the Times poll has measured since the early 1990s. Don't these people read books!? Though I've argued ad nauseum that progressives should strive to make the "conservative" label as toxic as the right succeeded in rendering the "liberal" brand, it's becoming pretty clear at this point that it ain't going to happen. If roughly the same number of Americans are as proud to call themselves conservative after the past eight years of disastrous right-wing governance as before, those folks aren't going to be talked out of anything.
• James Love: McCarthyism with Lipstick - Like Obama, Sarah Palin missed the 60s and the Vietnam war controversies. She grew up when there was no draft, and when disco was more important than politics. She is discovering now her abilities to engage in the type of character assaults that one associates with Joe McCarthy — guilt by association. Like McCarthy, she has no real boundaries or shame.
• Dave Winer: Profiles in Cowardice - The politics of the Republicans this year has crossed the line, as Joe Biden said today, so well. When one of your supporters yells "Treason!" or "Kill Him!" in one of your rallies, in response to your words, a response is called for, yet no response came. You need to stop and say "Wait a minute — Country First asshole." We're not going to get anywhere by killing our opponents, the leaders of half our citizens. That's a civil war, Republicans — we fought one of those, and it came pretty close to destroying us. It's time to back off the precipice Ms. Palin and Mr. McCain.
• Rusel DeMaria: We the Losers - Palin has something. She has a natural charisma. She hasn't any wisdom or experience to speak of. She has a distorted world view and a vicious streak the size of her famous Alaskan pipeline, but she attracts people and can move people in a way that McCain never could. So, to me, she's dangerous, because she can incite people into a hate state. She is doing it now. The problem is, whoever wins this presidential election, we are all losers because of what McCain and Palin are doing now. Let me say that again, Joe Biden-like. We are all losers.
• Black Congressmen Declare Racism In Palin’s Rhetoric | The New York Observer - As the McCain campaign ratchets up the intensity of its attacks on Barack Obama, some black elected officials are calling the tactics desperate, unseemly and racist. “They are trying to throw out these codes,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York. “He’s ‘not one of us?’” Mr. Meeks said, referring to a comment Sarah Palin made at a campaign rally on Oct. 6 in Florida. “That’s racial. That’s fear. They know they can’t win on the issues, so the last resort they have is race and fear.” “Racism is alive and well in this country, and McCain and Palin are trying to appeal to that and it’s unfortunate,” said Representative Ed Towns, also from New York.
• David Brooks: Sarah Palin “Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party” - [Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.
• Open Left:: The Hate Machine & The Lynch Mob - As you can see, the Lynch Mob has no facts - it's not even interested in facts, nor even incoherence (or basic grammar). It is interested in fulminating and spewing hate - and hate alone. I fear for Barack Obama's safety in these final days. I really do. The conservative movement is not going to go down quietly - and with this upsurge in unbridled anger, I'm worried we're going to see some violence. I really hope I'm wrong - but I'm concerned.
• The Washington Monthly - ONLY ELITISTS CARE ABOUT PRONUNCIATION…. Barack Obama pronounces "Pakistan" correctly, with a soft "a," just like a lot of people who know what they're talking about, including Gen. David Petraeus. Apparently, having completely run out of compelling policy arguments to make, some high-profile conservatives have decided to make this their latest campaign hobbyhorse. The National Review's Mark Stein, for example, said that Obama prefers the "exotic pronunciation." He added, "[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says 'Eye-raq'." This came after the National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, "[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It's annoying." The inanity of what the right decides to whine about never ceases to amaze me. That Obama's pronunciation is accurate is irrelevant. Mispronunciation apparently makes some conservatives feel better about themselves, and raises doubts about candidates who care to get this right. "Elites" care about country names; real Americans don't.
• New America Media Blogs - “That one” is slightly less demeaning than gook, but not by much Senator John Mccain once got into hot water for his insistence on using the word gook to describe his Vietnamese captors ( and alleged torturers) during his 2000 presidential bid. After many asian groups protested, and after trying to explain in vain that he meant “gook” as a term reserved only for certain kinds of Vietnamese, Mccain finally apologized. Perhaps because the convoluted logic seems to suggest that Chink could be used only to imply mean Chinese and not all Chinese and so on. One could tell, however, the senator only apologized out of reluctance. Gook – in Korean it actually means country – was an common term used among American military personnel in the Korean and later Vietnamese theater- a derogatory word that unified the US by demeaning its enemy- and no one seemed to cared.
• Progressive Voter Guide to the Economy | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet - The past year has been especially painful for America's working majority. In August, companies' payrolls shrank for the eighth consecutive month, resulting in a five-year high in unemployment. Whoever ends up occupying the White House in January 2009 will be faced with the epic task of restoring Americans' sense of economic security. What will the next president do about energy? About the mortgage meltdown? What kind of trade policies will he put into place? Read below for the answers. We've compiled these brief issue overviews to help you make an informed choice in November.
• BBC NEWS | Americas | Challenges for changing America - Barack Obama's emergence as a presidential candidate in the US represents a profound change in the American psyche, distinguished historian Simon Schama argues in his new series for the BBC, The American Future. "Whether or not he wins the presidency, this represents an historic shift in America's self-perception," Mr Schama says.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 6th through October 8th:

• The Associated Press: Analysis: Palin’s words may backfire on McCain - Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America? In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate. Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American. But the fact is that allowing racism to creep into the discussion serves a purpose for McCain.
• Anti-Gay Bigots’ “Silent Schools” Hypocrisy - The ADF’s idea of “polite, winsome and attractive” is, incidentally, to hand out cards summarily accusing all gays of — their words — “detrimental personal and social behavior.” In any case, it is beyond perverse to suggest, as the bigots do, that highlighting the existence of a hostile environment (the Day of Silence) is the functional equivalent of creating a hostile environment (the Day of Truth).
• Is Palin Trying to Incite Violence Against Obama? | PEEK | AlterNet - Palin’s new rhetorical strategy signifies an alarming new development in the 2008 Presidential election, and one that has been not only been documented by such high profile newspapers as the Washington Post, but confirmed by the McCain campaign itself. “It’s a dangerous road, but we have no choice,” a top McCain strategist recently admitted to the Daily News. “If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.” The ‘dangerous road,’ however, is not just a generic attack on Sen. Obama’s trustworthiness or honesty. Rather, the McCain campaign has chosen to stand before campaign rallies and accuse Sen. Obama of hiding sympathies with domestic terrorists–to accuse their opponent, essentially, of being a terrorist.
• When Their Supporters Call Obama a Terrorist and Demand His Assassination, McCain and Palin Remain Silent | Video | AlterNet - I understand why McCain and Palin are going negative. The economy is falling apart around us, and they have no solutions. They are losing in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Virginia. Obama, despite McCain’s repeated claims, understands what a surge is, because he’s pulling one off right now. But the current political environment does not excuse remaining silent when a candidate for president is referred to as a “terrorist” in your presence. A desire to win does not excuse remaining silent during a threat on the life of a U.S. Senator at one of your rallies. There are no excuses for evil such as this. John McCain and Sarah Palin, the GOP and all who support them have lost all rights to legitimate argument. They are liars. They are wrong. They are evil. Yes, evil. They are one small step short of inciting violence at their rallies. They are letting physical threats go unchallenged.
• What I Learned at the Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me out | Election 2008 | AlterNet - The Palin rally, which you may have seen on youtube and TV, was held at the Home Depot ADT Tennis Stadium. Because of the surprising popularity of Mrs. Palin and easy access to free tickets, all 20,000 stadium seats, plus an overflow area were filled. I got a handful of tickets, recruited my friend Rebecca Tobias, Program Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics, and trekked on out to Carson. We scored ground level seats in the stadium from which I watched, listened and steadily bristled. When I could no longer stomach Palin’s lies and distortions, I jumped up, and at the top of my lungs, repeatedly called Palin a L-I-A-R! I was shouted down in Palinese by her 20,000 admirers, then escorted out by security. I took extra time as I climbed the steps from the ground up to the top just to keep her admirers shouting. The few minute reprieve from Palin’s lies was to me a righteous diversion. When I neared the top of the steps I turned back to Mrs. Palin and continued to call her a L-I-A-R, until I was ushered out the door. Thankfully my escorts showed me the utmost respect for they privately shared my feelings. They’re working folk. They see through Mrs. Palin.But that’s just the start of this story
• Upsetting thought of the day | culturekitchen - So let me get this straight : The US had 750 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street; a sector of the US economy which has been historically controlled by “white” or US Americans of European ascendancy. The US Congress found 750 billion dollars for them and their European and Asian investors. A bailout, by the way, that now said banks are pooh-poohing, lest the US Treasury and tax-payers find out the depths of their accounting infamies. Yet there’s no money to pay back reparations to African Americans for the evils of slavery and Jim Crow laws?
• LifeLube: the blog: Poor and Gay Aren’t Mutually Exclusive Categories - As Charles King said in a speech on World AIDS Day last year, “The reality is that AIDS is no longer so much a gay disease in the United States as it is a disease of race and poverty. And that brings to light a dirty secret about the organized and politically engaged gay community - that we are overwhelmingly white and reasonably well-off, and our movement is almost exclusively about rights for ourselves and people like us.” To address both the needs of gay men and of everyone, we need targeted case management and housing to address as both prevention and health care measures. We need to implement targeted campaigns for prevention and getting people into care. We need the government to sponsor media campaigns that can’t be ignored. And of course, we need universal health care so no one falls through the cracks. But above all, we must combat stigma and discrimination to get at the root of those problems that the government alone cannot solve.
• Palin Supporters Hurl Obscenities At Media. Tell Black Sound Man, “Sit down, boy!” McCain-Palin, Unfit To Lead - Jack & Jill Politics - Everything we need to know about John McCain and Sarah Palin is summed up by their reaction to these incidents. Their positions on health care no longer matter. Their tax policies are irrelevant. Their talking points made moot. Not only do they bring out the worst in people, but they feed the worst in people. They are basing their campaign on painting Obama as a terrorist and monster. They are cultivating prejudice, racism, fear and ugliness. America has been down this path before, and it is the exact opposite of what this country needs right now.
• The Big Payback: O.J. Simpson - Whether it’s admitted publicly or not, Black America is not found of Black men, especially sports athletes and celebrities, who choose to marry white women. To be fair, neither is white America, who has had a hatred for O.J. since his murder acquittal 13 years ago. All that withstanding, Black America still stood by Simpson’s side throughout his murder trial, assuming he’d learned his lesson. The lesson that dictates if your Black ass gets off for murdering a white woman once, you do not take your ass back out there and find yourself another white woman while turning your back on the people who had your back when no one else did. Unfortunately, for O.J., his biggest mistake was choosing to abandon the community that stood by him in spite of his indiscretions. As my Aunt so plainly put it, “he’s never been one of us. He’s always thought he was one of them.”
• Conservatives Blame People of Color for Wall Street Meltdown - NAM - Efforts on the part of some conservatives to pin the Wall Street meltdown and the $850 billion rescue tab on the backs of minority homeowners are shameless and spurious, several activists and minority lawmakers said Friday. “That is total bunk,” said Kathleen Day, spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a public interest group. “I think this is an effort by extremists who are embarrassed that their economic model of little regulation and oversight failed miserably, so they’re trying to deflect blame to the victims.”
• The Washington Monthly - McCain/Palin have reached a point where they have to decide whether whipping right-wing activists into a frenzy, based solely on lies, is the responsible way to seek national office. The Republican candidates are not literally calling for violence against their political rivals, but they’re nevertheless standing by, saying nothing, while their supporters are shouting words like “kill,” “terrorist,” and “treason” at their rallies. And given that this rage-filled hatred is in direct response to the McCain/Palin campaign lying to their supporters, now would be the ideal time for these candidates to take a look in the mirror and consider the consequences of a relentlessly negative, breathtakingly dishonest, anger-driven campaign.
• The End of Aggressive Ignorance? — In These Times - How surreal is life right now? Nevertheless, there is a war being waged now, in the waning days of the Bush administration and the campaign, against the triumph of aggressive ignorance, a fabulous term I’m stealing from my nephew. Aggressive ignorance defiantly shoves its utter lack of knowledge in your face and brays: “Facts? We don’t need no stinkin’ facts!” Team Bush has repeatedly asserted that it didn’t need to know much of anything — about Iraq, hurricane relief, science, global climate change or the corruptions of the financial sector, and that we shouldn’t know anything about these things either.
• Are Minorities to Blame for the Subprime Mess? | Newsweek Voices - Daniel Gross | Newsweek.com - Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it’s the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities? These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let’s be honest.
• Why It’s Hard to Change People’s Minds | | AlterNet - Ignorance can be educated. But what’s the antidote to misinformation? Correct information?
• FT.com / Columnists / Gideon Rachman - Conservatism overshoots its limit - The market for ideas – like the market for shares – always overshoots. Ideas become fashionable and get pushed to their logical conclusion and beyond, as their backers succumb to “irrational exuberance”. Then comes the crash. What we are experiencing now is the bust that has followed the 30-year bull run in conservative ideas that began with the Thatcher-Reagan revolution of 1979-80.
• Positive Liberty » The Problems that Human Beings Get Ourselves Into - This topic illustrates why I don’t get bloggers like Clayton Cramer who seem so obsessed with problems in gay culture (yes there are problems) that he acts like that fact alone can be used to condemn homosexuality (but we know the condemners invariably have preexisting religious convictions against homosexuality that they are trying to justify). The Clayton Cramers of the world might have a point if heterosexuals like Christopher Buckley weren’t also always getting themselves into trouble. It’s that intractable thing called human nature, especially sexual nature (see also of recent note John Edwards and Bristol Palin).
• Cyberbullying Will Stop When Adults Level With Their Kids - Mashable - No, no, none of that “my Mom and/or Dad want to be my friend on MySpace and Facebook” stuff. That’s borderline nonsense. Rather, elders need to be familiar with such services to the point that a conversation, a real-world, kitchen-table conversation, can be established about them. Some adults may have no desire to do so, but children naturally recognize this disinterest, and it only makes it less likely that if problems do occur, children will have the inclination to bring them to parents’ view. Given enough time, fixing a situation can be a major undertaking. With plenty of pills in the middle. If parents swallow some of their pride and their fear of their offspring, a psychological jump can be made there. If the jump proves successful, on the other side of the divide is trust. And trust dictates behavior.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 6th from 00:16 to 00:19:

• Positive Liberty » The Problems that Human Beings Get Ourselves Into - This topic illustrates why I don’t get bloggers like Clayton Cramer who seem so obsessed with problems in gay culture (yes there are problems) that he acts like that fact alone can be used to condemn homosexuality (but we know the condemners invariably have preexisting religious convictions against homosexuality that they are trying to justify). The Clayton Cramers of the world might have a point if heterosexuals like Christopher Buckley weren’t also always getting themselves into trouble. It’s that intractable thing called human nature, especially sexual nature (see also of recent note John Edwards and Bristol Palin).
• Cyberbullying Will Stop When Adults Level With Their Kids - Mashable - No, no, none of that “my Mom and/or Dad want to be my friend on MySpace and Facebook” stuff. That’s borderline nonsense. Rather, elders need to be familiar with such services to the point that a conversation, a real-world, kitchen-table conversation, can be established about them. Some adults may have no desire to do so, but children naturally recognize this disinterest, and it only makes it less likely that if problems do occur, children will have the inclination to bring them to parents’ view. Given enough time, fixing a situation can be a major undertaking. With plenty of pills in the middle. If parents swallow some of their pride and their fear of their offspring, a psychological jump can be made there. If the jump proves successful, on the other side of the divide is trust. And trust dictates behavior.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 2nd through October 5th:

• Fourth Wave: How many times have you seen this today? - The Palin-Fey juxtaposition is disconcerting, even for me, and I’ve been reading all the political blogs and The New York Times and The Huffington Post. I recognize that Palin is grossly inexperienced, that I do not agree with her on a single issue, that her stance on abortion frightens me, that her “tolerance” of LGBTQ “lifestyles” infuriates me, that her disregard for the environment is mind-boggling, and that her version of women’s rights is not just nonexistent but regressive. And yet, as Le Loup-garou reminds us, the association with Tina Fey’s brilliant parody still manages to make her seem funny instead of downright terrifying. Don’t get me wrong. I think satire is important. But it’s not SNL’s job to make Sarah Palin look bad or good or scary or anything. SNL is just supposed to be funny, to hold a wavy circus mirror up to our already twisted contemporary political landscape and let us laugh a bit here and there. And maybe that’s enough–to expose and magnify the inconsistencies and the incompetency and the obvious ploys that distract us from actual policies and beliefs. But the tenuous boundary between what’s funny and what’s real is something we should keep in the back of our minds while we’re guffawing over Queen Latifah as Gwen Iffil and her raised-eyebrow disbelief at Palin-Fey’s antics.
• Sarah Palin is a Bitch… there I said it. « Margaret and Helen - Who can turn the world on with her smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Well it’s NOT you girl… Look. I am going to say what everyone at CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC is thinking but is afraid to say. Governor Palin is a stupid, conniving bitch. And it’s not because she is a strong woman - I like strong women… worship them… It’s actually the opposite. She is a weak, pathetic woman who thinks big hair, winking, baby talk and self deprecation is somehow becoming of a woman who wants to lead the free world. My god, where is Margaret Thatcher when you need her!
• ACLU Blog: Because Freedom Can’t Blog Itself: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » When Will We Learn? The Many Failings of Abstinence-Only Programming - In addition to being vulnerable to attack under the federal Equal Protection Clause, as the authors meticulously detail, these programs are also subject to challenge under state constitutions and state anti-discrimination statutes.For example, some state constitutions contain explicit equal rights amendments that require state courts to engage in a higher scrutiny of sex-based classifications than what is demanded under the federal Constitution.Moreover, many states prohibit sex discrimination in schools under either a statute that applies specifically to the public school setting, or under a statute that prohibits discrimination in public accommodations. This gender discrimination is part and parcel of an overall discriminatory scheme:by definition abstinence-only-until-marriage programs exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth because the federal definition of marriage is limited to a man and a woman.
• Palin: Another Sociopath | PEEK | AlterNet - But there’s something about Palin’s speeches and interviews that I’ve found unnerving, and this morning I finally realized what it is. She never, ever talks about the future. Ever. One would think that the mother of four children, including an infant, and the soon-to-be-grandmother of another infant, would use her “hockey mom” persona to frame her ticket’s agenda as creating a better world for her children. Barack Obama does it when he talks about his daughters. Joe Biden does it when he talks about his grandchildren. Even Hillary Clinton, a woman who Sarah Palin makes look like Mamie Eisenhower by comparison, did it. Sarah Palin doesn’t. And I think I know why. It’s because Sarah Palin doesn’t believe there is a future.
• Op-Ed Columnist - Pitbull Palin Mauls McCain - NYTimes.com - We are not a nation of whiners, as Phil Gramm would have it, but the G.O.P. is now the party of whiners. That rebranding became official when Republican House leaders moaned that a routine partisan speech by Nancy Pelosi had turned their members against the bailout bill. As the stock market fell nearly 778 points, Barney Frank taunted his G.O.P. peers with pitch-perfect mockery: “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country!” Talk about the world coming full circle. This is the same Democrat who had been slurred as “Barney Fag” in the mid-1990s by Dick Armey, a House leader of the government-bashing Gingrich revolution that helped lower us into this debacle. Now Frank was ridiculing the House G.O.P. as a bunch of sulking teenage girls. His wisecrack stung — and stuck. Palin is an antidote to the whiny Republican image that Frank nailed. Alaska’s self-styled embodiment of Joe Sixpack is not a sulker, but a pistol-packing fighter. That’s why she draws the crowds and (as she puts it) “energy” that otherwise elude the angry McCain. But she is still the candidate for vice president, not president. Americans do not vote for vice president.
• Why I Trust Barbara Lee - Jack & Jill Politics - The Congressional Black Caucus is split on this issue and they shouldn’t be. Most of them have districts that were the hardest hit by foreclosures, job losses and any other economic calamity you can think of, yet most of them voted to pass bills like the Bail out, the equally god-awful Bankruptcy Bill a couple of years ago, and they continue to vote money to fund the clusterf–k that is the Iraq War. The fact that majority ReThugs sent this bill to defeat only speaks to the fact they got bombarded with phone calls, emails and faxes from their districts, putting them on blast that if they voted to bail out Wall Street, they could pack up their offices in DC because they wouldn’t be returning for another term. Boehner can blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s speech all he wants (like a lil’ byotch blaming his mama); guess he thought he’d break into tears on camera and ruin his make up tan and eyeliner on cue. Let me not get started on what pissy lil’ whiny ass tittie babies the majority of the Republicans are and have been of late.
• This is NOT a Pleasant Man . . . - Jack & Jill Politics - Joy Behar (lol. . . yes . . . I am going to quote The View) said it best: It’s like McCain can’t distinguish between an adversary and an enemy. Obama is McCain’s adversary . . . a terrorist is McCain’s enemy. Does McCain know the difference??? Sorry, but I need a President who understands that difference. Otherwise, how should I expect McCain to work with a Democratic Congress? How can I expect transparency in government if McCain wages war on the media? Not a good look.
• Hope vs. Fear — In These Times - One thing is certain: either Senator Barack Obama’s race will prevent him from being elected president, or it won’t. I wonder about this not just as an African-American citizen and voter, but professionally, as the legislative and political director of a union that endorsed and supports his campaign.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 2nd from 12:53 to 12:59:

• Mombian » Blog Archive » Sarah Palin Almost Convinced Me - Sarah Palin almost got me. Not that I’d ever vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, but I was almost convinced that Palin had a spark of understanding about LGBT issues when she said of “one of my absolute best friends for the past 30 years, who happens to be gay,” that “She is not my gay friend, she is one of my best friends. . .” Well put. Then she blew it.
• Dean Baker: Responsibility and the Bailout: Will They Resign If It Fails? - If it is not possible to stop the bailout, how about a fallback position? Perhaps we can force our political leaders to take responsibility for their actions. Remember, we are only in this economic mess because the people who designed this bailout (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and President Bush) failed to stem the growth of the housing bubble. Rather than take responsibility for this disaster, they are demanding $700 billion bailout to patch up their mistakes. How about a commitment to take responsibility this time?
• Sen. Bernie Sanders: Don’t Make Working People Bail Out Wall Street - This country faces many serious problems in the financial market, in the stock market, in our economy. We must act, but we must act in a way that improves the situation. This bill does not effectively address the issue of what the taxpayers of our country will actually own after they invest hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets. This bill does not effectively address the issue of oversight because the oversight board members have all been hand picked by the Bush administration. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of foreclosures and addressing that very serious issue, which is impacting millions of low- and moderate-income Americans in the aggressive, effective way that we should be. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of executive compensation and golden parachutes. Under this bill, the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.
• How Does Iraq Play Into the Economic Crisis? | The American Prospect - The focus is on our unstable credit markets — but we shouldn't forget that Bush's foreign policy has exacted its own costs on our economy.
• Editorial - Show Us the Hope - NYTimes.com - At last count, six million people were expected to default on their mortgages this year and next, putting them at risk of losing their homes unless they can catch up in their payments or catch a break on their loan terms. And they’re not the only ones at risk. As prices drop, millions of people who have never missed a mortgage payment stand to lose their home equity. Leaving these Americans out of the bailout bill is unwise and unfair, but neither Congress nor the Bush administration has ever shown anywhere near the sense of urgency to rescue homeowners at the bottom of the collapse as they have for the financiers at the top of it.
• TPMCafe | Talking Points Memo | The Almost-Done Deal, and the Era of Angry Populism - While more Americans are coming around to "supporting" the bailout bill, the vast majority still hate the idea of bailing out Wall Street. They're for the bailout bill now only because they fear that a failure to pass it will have worse consequences — drying up credit at a time when Main Street is struggling. But make no mistake: America is mad as hell. They resent what they perceive as extortion by the Masters of the Universe.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 29th from 12:37 to 14:03:

• WoodMoor Village Zendo: Counting on Greed - It strikes me that the crisis we are seeing unfolding before our eyes, not just on Wall Street by the way, but everywhere this financial crisis reaches, signals something that ought to be clear to Republicans and Democrats, and any other political ideologue: we can't count on greed to get to compassion, kindness, social justice, etc. And yet, counting on greed has been the underlying assumption of so much economic policy and social tinkering. To be sure, Capitalism might require competition and a certain mercenary attitude, but I also think along with Herman Daly, Paul Hawken, and David Korten, that we can work to build wealth rather than just profit, that we can be successful (individually and socially) without making everything just be an exercise in greed.
• The Bilerico Project | Palin’s Religious Affiliations — Time to Ask the Hard Questions - Is it too much to ask show-hosts on prime-time TV news to do their jobs? They should ask Palin questions like: "Is it true that you're associated with revivalist pentecostal elements who are training a so-called Joel's Army to take dominion over the U.S.?"
• Broken Down. / Queerty - It must be so easy being an anti-gay social conservative. Rather than analyzing cause and effect, all they have to do it point a finger at the lavender set. Remember how we "caused" Katrina? Well, the same can be "said" about Washington Mutual's collapse last week.
• MichaelMoore.com : The Rich Are Staging a Coup This Morning …a message from Michael Moore - Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies — who must soon vacate the White House — are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.
• Palin Problem by Kathleen Parker on National Review Online - As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion. …Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. …Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.” …If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
• The Numbers . . . - Jack & Jill Politics - Cautiously optimistic . . . that’s how I’d characterize Obama’s chances at this point. Obama has a lead and it’s growing. The trends are in his favor. That, coupled with increased voter registration bodes well for the blue team. Again . . . it’s ours if we want it. Which is why I stand by my slogan for the 2008 campaign: This ain’t the time to get cute.
• Feministe - In defense of the sanctimonious women’s studies set. - Yeah, you read that right: A politician is creating economic incentives for poor people to have fewer children, and for rich people to have more. I support making sterilization and all other form of birth control free and accessible, so that they truly are voluntary — but paying poor women $1,000 to tie their tubes doesn’t sound like “voluntary” birth control to me. It sounds like coercion. And it sounds like racist coercion.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 18th through September 23rd:

• Bush can share the blame for financial crisis - International Herald Tribune - Still, the White House, in the view of critics, fostered a free-market hothouse in which these excesses were able to flower. It avoided regulation of banks and mortgage brokers, leaving much of that work to the Federal Reserve, which, under Alan Greenspan, showed little appetite for regulation. By the time Bush's current Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., proposed an overhaul of regulations governing the financial sector in April, the storm was already brewing.
• Racism and the Race - The race boils down to racism. All things being equal, Barack Obama would win the presidency hands down. Unemployment is at a five-year high. Wages are shrinking. The stock market is in the doldrums. The home foreclosure crisis has shattered the dreams of millions of Americans. Health care costs keep rising. Food costs keep rising. Tuition costs keep rising. The price of gasoline hit record highs this summer. We’re in the midst of two wars that aren’t going very well, despite the premature declarations of victory in Iraq. And three out of every four Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. This should be a banner year for Democrats, and by all accounts, it will be—at least down ticket. But it also should be at the top of the ticket.
• Where’s the Relief for those Facing Foreclosure? - With the feds prepared to throw a trillion dollars of our hard-earned money to prop up Wall Street and the investor class, is it too much to ask them to do something for the people who are the real victims of this mess? I’m talking about the people who’ve already been forced into foreclosure or those who are just about to be. I mean, if the government is going to back the mortgage securities, why doesn’t it just pick up the mortgages itself, and let people stay in their homes.
• How We Became the United States of France - TIME - This is the state of our great republic: We've nationalized the financial system, taking control from Wall Street bankers we no longer trust. We're about to quasi-nationalize the Detroit auto companies via massive loans because they're a source of American pride, and too many jobs — and votes — are at stake. Our Social Security system is going broke as we head for a future in which too many retirees will be supported by too few workers. How long before we have national health care? Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.
• The Bilerico Project | Sarah Palin would rather let 100 rapists go free than let one woman use contraception - It's getting pretty obvious where Sarah Palin's values lie, and it's not with protecting women's freedom, financial conservatism, or bringing violent offenders to trial - it's with making sure that no woman can use contraception or get an abortion.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 17th through September 18th:

• The BRAD BLOG : Mark Crispin Miller: Why They Chose Sarah Palin - To understand how Team McCain intends to get away with stealing this election, we must recall how Team Bush got away with it four years ago. (Those aren't two different teams.) The plan for stealing this contest has everything to do with the ostensibly surprising choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP. Here's why…
• House of Race Cards | Views | TheRoot.com - We've seen all this before, in every Republican campaign since 1964, and we're seeing it again, and none of that should surprise us. The surprise would be if the better angels of our nature prevail and the cynical strategy is rejected. That would be a shock, all right, and, yet, it could still happen. In fact, I think it will. That's because white America, like the rest of America, is changing.
• Passionate Prose — Letters to the Editor: How racism works - What if John McCain were a former president of the Harvard Law Review? What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class? What if McCain were still married to the first woman he said “I do” to? What if Obama were the candidate who left his first wife after she no longer measured up to his standards?
• Sarah Palin and the Wrong Way to Battle Sexism | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet - There's a big difference between identifying sexist acts and undermining patriarchy, the system of power and privilege that reinforces and grounds particular stories about how men and women should behave, how sex and gender should be expressed, about who is rational and who is emotional, who's a "fighter" and who's a "babe." These narratives are refracted and reinforced by the media and by people speaking from podiums, most certainly, but they aren't the work of a few bad eggs.
• CQ Politics | Political Insider - Obama vs. Palin - If you want to know why Gov. Sarah Palin drives liberal Democrats crazy — and is helping Sen. Barack Obama raise money at a record pace — here's an excerpt from an viral email making its way around the country.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 12th through September 15th:

• Drilling Mania | NDN Blog - At the root of the primitive appeal of drill, drill, drill is a desire to return to our oil-soaked past. While Americans seemed ready to flirt with renewables, with push coming to shove, they have sought the safety and security of the girl who brung us to the party: oil. There is only one problem with this desire to return to the inexpensive, American produced oil and gas of our past. It is fantasy.
• Daily Kos: Small Town Values - When you look at something like the web page of Levi Johnston with it's proud declaration of being a red neck and it's joyful talk of "kicking ass," you're looking at a culture that's sick. When a candidate for vice-president denigrates the value of community service, you're looking at a culture that's sick. When you drop in on a GOP meeting and find boxes of "Barack Waffles" decorated by racist stereotypes and buttons bearing phrases like "If Obama is president, will we still call it the White House?" you're looking at a culture that's sick. It's sick, partly because it's a culture that's based on the assumption that some Americans are more equal than others, partly because it's a culture that denigrates education and achievement, partly because it's a culture that prefers convenient fictions to uncomfortable facts. But mostly because it's a culture that's forgotten what small town life teaches most clearly — that none of us can make it on our own, that we have to depend on our community for both acceptance and support, and that the best way to ensure that the community will be there for you is by being there for others.
• Truthdig - Reports - Palin Falls Short of VP Standards - Consider this parallel: Does anyone believe that if McCain were president and had selected Palin under the 25th Amendment to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency Congress would have confirmed her? Not likely. In fact, it is even less likely that McCain would have even attempted to do so, for he would have embarrassed himself. While the Constitution does not expressly set forth qualifications for the vice presidency, it strongly implies them — and Palin falls short.
• Truthdig - Reports - For Palin, It’s a (Christian) Man’s World - Sarah Palin may be a governor and a vice presidential candidate, but in the hyper-masculine world of the Christian right, she is subservient to a male hierarchy that claims to speak for God.
• Country First — In These Times - Republicans have simply taken the famous parable to heart — the one about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels. As a political strategy, it’s not stupid. Following the Bush-DeLay-Abramoff era, many Americans rightly think Republican politicians are scoundrels. And so those politicians are trying to make sure “this election is not about issues,” as John McCain’s campaign manager said this week, but about a hideous hypernationalism only Joe McCarthy could love. Employing flag pins, war stories and Bible-thumping social conservatism, former P.O.W. McCain and Christian fundamentalist Sarah Palin hope their red-white-and-blue phantasmagoria will hypnotize America into voting Republican.
• t r u t h o u t | A Palin Theocracy - Given McCain's age and state of health (his medical file was nearly 1,200 pages long), Palin would indeed be a heartbeat away from becoming president. But what would a Palin administration really look like?
• Cousin John, where did you go? - St. Petersburg Times - A part of me is made very sad to write this article. As I've said, my family has followed John's life and career with no absence of pride. If there ever were a Republican we might consider voting for, it would have been my cousin John. But, as he continually demonstrates in this campaign, my cousin John is long gone. "Straight talk" has been replaced with "flip-flop." Saddest all, this is the same man who, when campaigning in 2000, told a crowd of supporters, "I don't think Bill Gates needs a tax cut. I think your parents do." My parents, John, need some help after the economic destruction Bush has wrought in the last eight years, but it's clear you're not the one who'll give it to us. America's working families no longer recognize you, nor does your own.
• Op-Ed Columnist - She’s Not Ready - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com - For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol.” Ms. Palin may be a perfectly competent and reasonably intelligent woman (however troubling her views on evolution and global warming may be), but she is not ready to be vice president.
• This is Your Nation on White Privilege | Red Room - For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help. White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
• Palin and the Bush Doctrine - The central fact is that coherence, clarity and rationality were not, in fact, what sold the Bush doctrine in the first place. I don't mean to the PNAC crowd or the national security establishment that included Condi, Colin and most of Congress. I mean to the press and public. They were won by lies, dissemblance and the entirely emotional appeal to USA FIRST at all costs–that and the costs of treading against it. So, even if Palin looked like a moose in headlights, even if she eventually confused preventive and preemptive war–it might not matter. Palin ultimately hit the right emotional notes–the same rah-rah points that secured the Bush doctrine in the first place. 1) Islam=evil; 2) Defend the country at all costs. Duty before actual security; 3) the President is right and has to be trusted and supported.
• The Washington Monthly - The big deal about the Bush Doctrine was that it changed our position radically. We used to affirm, along with all other countries, a right of what has normally been thought of as preemptive war: the right to respond to an imminent attack against us, when we have credible evidence that it is imminent. When a country is obviously on the verge of mounting an invasion or a strike against us — when its troops are rolling towards the border, or its missiles counting down — we have never thought that we had to wait for that country to actually attack before we did. But we did once claim this right only in response to evidence of an imminent attack, not to a general sense that another country was in some way threatening. The point of the Bush Doctrine was to change that: to say, as Bush said at West Point: "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long." It was, basically, the acceptance of preventive war: war waged not in response to evidence of an imminent attack, but in response to the possibility that a country that was not attacking us now might attack us at some point in the future.
• Michelle Haimoff: The Divided States of America: One Nation Under Two Gods - If we can't get agree on the major issues because we think we are saving each other (and what better intention is there than that?), then we will never be ideologically or theologically compatible as a country. We're trying to colonize each other when the only way to respectfully coexist is to compromise.
• Diana Meehan: Myth America - A moral reformer who's a fundamentalist? A politician who's absent from the office a lot? A crusader who doesn't tolerate dissent? This is George W. Bush. Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in lipstick, hairstyle and heels. That's her myth.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 11th from 17:06 to 17:30:

• Greg Mitchell: Losing a Friend on 9/11 — And the Losses Since - It's always amazed me how so many people out in Middle America — and so many politicians — could invoke 9/11 to sell or accept war, torture, wiretapping and all the rest yet the citizens most opposed to all of those measures had experienced 9/11 and the human loss more than anywhere else, here in the New York area. Now even more families mourn even more lives lost in Iraq. One reason most New Yorkers opposed that war: We actually had more reason than others to learn about the facts of the attack and who did it to us.
• denialism blog : Another anniversary - I fear for this anniversary. Like everyone else, my memories of 9/11 are vivid. It is a shared experience for Americans, but as time goes on, it is losing its shared meaning. Some of this meaning will, I'm sure, continue to be shunted into political ends, even more so with the election coming up. I have no interest in 9/11 "Troofers", the conspiracy theorists who have all kinds of outlandish ideas about the attacks. I don't need them—the real truth is more frightening.
• Paul Rieckhoff: Seven Years Later: Why Is There Still A Hole at Ground Zero? - New York is the city I love most in the world. I lost friends on 9/11. I pulled bodies from the rubble there. I, along with almost two million other troops, were sent to war because of what happened there. And I am sick and tired of walking and driving by it and seeing a stalled construction site.
• Steve Rosenbaum: The 9/11 Generation - I don't remember JFK's assassination. I have a dim memory of watching a blurry TV when we took our first step on the moon. But on 9/11 I can tell you precisely where I was, what I was doing, and what I thought and felt. So can you. You and I are members of the 9/11 Generation. Your children and children's children will think of you that way.
• Can Any Candidate Clean Up Bush’s Massive Post 9/11 Mess? | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet - The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called Global War on Terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably. To acknowledge that failure is to confront an urgent national priority: to scrap the Bush approach in favor of a new national security strategy that is realistic and sustainable — a task that, alas, neither of the presidential candidates seems able to recognize or willing to take up.
• 9/11…Seven Years Later | culturekitchen - Seven years ago today, I was sitting in the same place, the NYU medical center (though a different part of the building). It was here in the NYU medical center that I heard the planes hit the WTC and wondered what those sounds were. It sounded like exactly like a semi-truck going too fast down the highway and hitting some bumps…that is what the 9/11 attacks sounded like. I looked up both times I heard that noise, looked out over the FDR highway and East River of NYC, saw nothing but the usual traffic, thought nothing more about it. It was only much later that I realized I had heard the planes hit. My wife was under the WTC in the subway when the first plane hit. She knows this because the people who got on the next stop were in shock, in tears…they had just seen it happen. Not on TV, not hearing it second or third hand. They had just seen a jumbo jet slam into the WTC…live. My wife was among the first to know it happened because she heard about it from witnesses who were getting the hell out of there.
• The Bilerico Project | 9/11 Remembered: A Flight Attendant’s Story - It all started normally enough. The crew of 6 (four flight attendants and two pilots) met for the early morning flight, expecting a short trip to Tampa and back. The plane was full of people, mostly bleary-eyed from having to make it to the airport on time. We did a quiet, low-key service, chatting with the few passengers who were awake, then went to our respective galleys to rummage up some breakfast for ourselves. Then it happened.
• Pam’s House Blend:: Remember - So many lives lost in an act of terrorism, so many more lives lost in an unnecessary military action that had nothing to do with that day of horror.
• Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Remembering 9/11 and Moving Forward - It is not simply 9/11 that needs to be remembered. We also need to remember the politicization of 9/11 and the polarizing narrative which followed, locking us into endless conflict, a war on terror which has wrought further terror worldwide and which has severely damaged our standing worldwide as an honorable, compassionate nation. As we were all victims of 9/11, so we have become victims of the interpretation of 9/11. Our government's external response to 9/11 was to attack a nation which did not attack us. Indeed on the first anniversary of 9/11, the Bush administration issued a well-publicized stern warning to Iraq which was part of a campaign to induce people to believe Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
• at-Largely: It’s 9/11! Bring On the Death Porn! - As a New Yorker, while that day and weeks and months that followed will always be with me, I'd long grown numb from the Bush administration's and Republicans Party's branding of 9/11 for their own despotic aims: an America in which democracy has been gagged, waterboarded and renditioned to a dank faraway cell for its own protection, while our "heroic" protectors of freedom fight against a noun — terror — and something that's been around since the dawn of time — terrorists. For a brief moment, however, during the Republican National Convention's "9/11 tribute" film, I was viscerally reminded of the lengths to which our current leadership will go to terrorize their own citizens into handing over their liberties for another four years. I watched the towers fall again, that deceptively blue sky, the dust and smoke and people running for their lives. An impeccably edited piece of GOP death porn.
• Robert Koehler: An Embedded Prayer - Do we know yet that we must move, as a nation, to a new dimension of discourse and understanding, not just politically but in all ways? Do we know yet that there is no security in militarized fear? I would wish, at least, for a president, and a media, who understand this and have the courage (the faith) to stand up to the institutional interests that thrive on such fear. Without this, we have . . . the war on terror.
• Open Left:: 9/11: Citizenship, Service and Politics Matter - The greatness of America is that we can fight over this day, over the sacrifice and the shame. The challenge of America is that it will take a real accounting of what our leaders have done in our names. It's not the exploitation of fear that is wrong; fear is a powerful motivator and in some ways it is always the motivation behind how humans behave. It's not the politicization of national security that was wrong, politics never stopped at the water's edge, that was a fantasy held by irresponsible Democratic politicians. It is the sheer theft and murder made explicitly tolerable by George Bush and his Republican mafia, and the enablers in the press and in some parts of the Democratic party. And when you juxtapose that with the greatness of those public servants - teachers, doctors, soldiers, diplomats, police - and their sacrifice for our rights as Americans and as humans, it becomes clear that the meaning of 9/11 is that politics and citizenship matters.
• New Statesman - Our murderous comedy of errors - Try to laugh, please. The news is now officially parody and a game for all the family to play.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 8th through September 10th:

• Robert Scheer: She’s Clueless, He’s Worse - Ignorance is bliss, which perhaps explains Gov. Sarah Palin being so confidently wrong about the root cause of the federalization of most of the nation’s mortgage market. But what is Sen. John McCain’s excuse? Both act as if the financial meltdown of the U.S. economy has nothing to do with the policies of the political party they represent–but she at least may not know any better.
• Can Progressives Love Obama? | | AlterNet - Disappointed as some progressives may be, Obama has not made a dramatic shift to the center: He’s always been more centrist, cautious and compromising than many of his supporters — and critics — have wanted to admit.
• Beyond the Ballot: Young Black Men and Voting - NAM - Despite record numbers of young and new voters in this historical presidential election, voter disenfranchisement remains an issue for many young black men
• Homeless Court Advantage — In These Times - Many criminal charges against the homeless stem from their homelessness: loitering, sleeping on the sidewalks, drinking or urinating in public. Once cited, they don’t have a mailing address to receive summonses if they fail to pay the fine. That means a single infraction can often mushroom into multiple summonses, resulting in an inability to secure a job and housing.
• Feminism Without Feminism — In These Times - With Pit Bull Feminism, you have the appearance of feminism—alleged Superwoman, top executive and mother of five—with a repudiation of everything feminism stands for and has fought for. By now most of us know Palin’s resume: adamantly anti-choice even in the case of rape or incest, anti-environment, staunchly pro-gun, for censorship of books, anti-sex education, and, reportedly, a passionate advocate for the aerial hunting of wildlife in Alaska.
• The Bilerico Project | Top Ten Problems with the Gender Identity Disorder Diagnosis - This is my personal list of the most egregious problems with the current Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis. While far from comprehensive, it is perhaps a starting point for dialogue about how harm reduction of gender nomenclature might be possible in the DSM-V.
• The Bilerico Project | What Governor Palin Needs to Know About ‘Love’ - Governor Palin needs to know the truth about Love, and America’s parents and families need to know what Governor Palin thinks about harmful, anti-gay conferences that preach an anti-gospel doctrine of changing our kids, rather than embracing them.
• Vagabond Scholar: With Thy Father’s Permission - One of the great myths social conservatives truly believe is that if everyone just minded their place – that place to be determined by social conservatives, of course – everything would be just fine. It feeds naturally into the “electing someone like me, competence be damned” approach that Palin satisfies, just as George W. did before her.
• Citizen Crain: Log Cabin’s McCain mistake revisited - Just as I expected, Kevin has made by far the strongest argument I’ve seen anywhere in favor of the Log Cabin endorsement of McCain-Palin. His general point is that the decision was necessary for Log Cabin to retain any influence within the Republican Party, and to preserve access in a McCain White House.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 5th from 13:17 to 13:24:

• Mike Lux: Different Than My Small-Town Values - Many of my family and friends in small-town America are Republicans, but they're generally not this kind of mean Republican. The modern Republican party likes to call itself the party of Reagan, and Reagan did remind me of a lot of those small-town folks I know and liked- I disagreed with their politics, but they had a friendliness and warmth that I appreciated. Palin and the modern Republican party reminds me a lot more of Nixon, with that dark, resentful streak, more likely to stick a knife in their neighbor's back than give them a helping hand.
• t r u t h o u t | Angry Amateurs - There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God."
• What World Does The Republican Party Live In? | NDN Blog - I have watched the coverage of the Republican Convention for three days now and I have two main observations: 1) they have not presented a single proposal, just snide remarks (clever ones, but merely snide remarks all the same) and 2) the crowd is older and all white. Such a homogenous crowd is simply not reflective of the reality of the United States of America - watching and listening to the Convention makes one thing abundantly clear: the Republican Party is so very, very out of touch with the country they claim to put first.
• Open Left:: McCain’s America - When Sarah Palin speaks in bitter tones of mockery towards those who disagree with what the American government has done over the last eight years, this is the kind of America she wants to create. This is the story of the election, right here. Fences, barbed wire, and national guard troops in a progressive city, a story ignored by the press.
• The Anti-Republican Republican Who Is Really a Republican - Never in recent American history has the candidate of a party seeking to maintain its hold on the presidency seen its candidate so aggressively dismiss the legacy of the incumbent commander-in-chief and his allies.
• Truthdig - Reports - Memoir Politics - Talk about role reversal. The Republican Party, which scoffs at the nonsense of “identity politics,” has staked everything on the compelling life stories of its presidential and vice presidential candidates. The Democratic Party, ever conscious of the diversity of modern America, is doing everything it can to blur the lines of race, class and gender.
• Truthdig - Arts and Culture - Robert Christgau on America’s Secret Fundamentalists - Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power” examines a group of politically engaged Christians far more secretive than Robertson or Falwell. Sharlet establishes that since the end of World War II, the Family, aka the Fellowship, has exerted its influence in an impressive and frightening array of mostly dire events.

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 4th from 15:09 to 16:06:

• Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community - After last night we now know what the major and minor themes of this campaign will be. Not that it was totally unexpected but the Republican trump cards will be the same ones they've employed throughout their last 8 years of power: fear and hate.
• Box Turtle Bulletin » “A Personal Attack on Myself and My Family” - What a telling example of the mindset that the anti-gay Culture Warriors have created in our country. The existence of my family is considered a personal attack on theirs. Even suggesting that they not put funds towards harming my family is a threat to their family.
• A Post-Rational Society? — In These Times - After a slow start because of Hurricane Gustav, the convention in St. Paul, Minn., has turned into an anti-Obama hate-fest with a nearly all-white gathering laughing at and mocking the nation’s first African-American presidential nominee of a major party. However, beyond the pulsating contempt visible on the faces of the GOP delegates, many of the nasty attacks on Obama – as well as the effusive praise for the Republican ticket – were blatantly false, as if testing the depths of American gullibility and bigotry.
• Pharyngula: This is how we will lose - Palin is a stalking horse for failed social and economic and military policies. We don't want to get drawn away from the important message of defeating those bad policies by the temptation of cheap shots at her appearance and sex, especially because those cheap shots make her look like a sympathetic victim and help advance the Republican agenda.
• AP: Attacks, Praise Stretch Truth At GOP Convention - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
• Feministe » “Officer’s sexuality no longer confusing”–Atlanta Journal-Constitution article - Back to the old argument Second-Wave feminists wrestled with, that sometimes prompted purges and other ideological slugfests (and I was there, so I know): How much of gender is biologically determined?