The Republic of T.

(If They Could Turn Back Time, Pt. 2)

When I heard Rand Paul’s statement about the civil rights act, I had a sense of deja vu. Not only that I’d heard them before, but that I run into the peculiar conservative phenomenon they represented: wanting have it both ways on an issue when conservative “values” are “repulsive to the mainstream,” and to most people’s sense of decency. It usually happens when they’re caught saying what they mean, and then claim to have been misunderstood, “taken out of context,” or merely speaking in a “hypothetical” sense.

Until Rand Paul though, I’d only ever heard it spoken aloud on the subject of marriage equality. At the time, it was Sen. John McCain’s response to a question about marriage equality, saying that he was fine with same-sex couples having “private ceremonies” but against marriage equality.

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If nothing else, this election revealed how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.

Yes, there’s the irony of celebrating the historic election of Barak Obama while simultaneously mourning the passage of Proposition 8 and the other anti-gay ballot initiatives in Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona. But this started way before November 4th. It started, this time, with a decision — conscious or not — by the McCain campaign to play to the basest of its base.

I said to myself at the time that, whether McCain won or lost, there would be a price for that tactic; one that John McCain would be among the last to ever have to pay. As president, there would have been no way he could have united the country. And even in the aftermath of his loss, we will continue to live with the belligerent bigotry and racism he and his running mate stirred up from their bottom-of-the-barrel base.

The evidence? The rise in hate crimes in the wake of the election.

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OK. Not that we didn’t already know this, but they have none.

Leaving no potential avenue of attack unexplored, the Republican National Committee has decided to bash Barack Obama over his October visit to see his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.

Of course the visit itself is not being criticized, but rather the way the campaign paid for the nominee’s unscheduled detour. On Monday afternoon, the RNC blasted out a complaint from the California Republican Party charging that “Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use” for the trip. That proposed issue for the FEC to investigate is one of five violations alleged by California Republicans in their complaint (which you can read in its entirety here).

“Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund,” said California Republican Chairman Ron Nehring in a statement Monday.

And then there’s the question of class…

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I just dare you to watch this and not feel something.

He didn’t say it in so many words, but I’m willing to bet that Charles Alexander has thought to himself at some point, “I never thought I’d live to see the day…”

To understand the reason for his emotions about this election, you have to understand the context.

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Last week I ventured into the "spreading the wealth" discussion with a post attempting to unpack one aspect of why even some people who might be helped by the kind of economic policies Obama is proposing are against them anyway. It was a rather long post, so I wrapped it up without getting into another aspect of the debate that I alluded to briefly and hoped to get back to in another post.

Never mind that it takes an utter lack of an “irony gene” to speak of “steal-from-the-rich,” when only after the taxpayer-funded $1 trillion bailout of the financial sector that got us into the current economic mess — welfare for the wealthy, essentially — was passed has Washington started talking about a stimulus package for the rest of us. It takes Joe himself to bring it on home.

While the McCain/Palin campaign attempts to whip people into a lather with a liberal use of the "socialism" label, invoking fears of a wealth transfer, it’s easy to forget that a huge wealth transfer has been underway for a while and is going on even now. We call it "the bailout."

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I’m with Liza. I’m totally going to see this.

OK. It’s not the cast I would have chosen. Who cares? This looks totally worth getting a babysitter for.

And now, just for fun….

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Damn. It’s 9:21 p.m. on a Friday night. Nobody’s reading blogs right now, but I gotta run with this.

Not just abuse of power, but unlawful abuse of power. Well, what can I say?

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At least he didn’t say “That boy,” but he was just one word off. I heard it, and I saw it. I saw it first, actually, during the first debate when McCain refused to look Obama in the eye.

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Ed.Note: I’m at home with Dylan today, ’cause he has a case of the “scoots” (as I call them), and I haven’t looked at the news today. So this post, which has been sitting in draft format since last night, may be

The murmuring started shortly after McCain announced that he wanted to postpone the first presidential debate. But, at least in my office, the references were made jokingly. Because we were certain that after pulling one fairly obvious stunt, the McCain campaign wouldn’t pull another blatantly obvious stunt, like canceling the V.P. debate. We were wrong.

McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there’s no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

In this scenario, the vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin would be rescheduled for a date yet to be determined, and take place in Oxford, Mississippi, currently slated to be the site of the first presidential faceoff this Friday.

Or, maybe I was the only one who was joking about it. Surely the McCain campaign doesn’t think they can get away with it. But, all things considered, I guess I can’t blame them for trying.

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If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry. Thanks to my husband, I got a laugh out of this.

I read him his headline: “Palin Open to War with Russia.” His response: “Then she should go.”

In her first sit-down with a national news media outlet since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin responded to a series of specific questions about foreign policy and national security with a series of general answers that put her firmly on the side of doing “whatever it takes” to protect the nation. And she left open the option of waging war with Russia if it were to again invade neighboring Georgia and the former Soviet republic were a NATO ally.

“We will not repeat a Cold War,” Palin said in her first television interview since becoming Republican John McCain’s vice presidential running mate two weeks ago.

Palin told Charles Gibson of ABC News that she’d favor including Georgia and Ukraine, both former Soviet republics, in NATO despite opposition by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Asked whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the country was part of NATO, Palin said: “Perhaps so.”

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I can’t wait to hear how LCR explains this away. Via Queerty comes more specifics on the story about Sarah Palin inquiring about banning books from the public library while mayor of Wasillia.

In her first public statement since Palin was named the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Mary Ellen Baker said today, “I simply do not recall a conversation with specific titles,” Baker told ABCNews.com.

Palin has acknowledged she twice raised the issue in 1996 of how books could be removed from the shelves, but said it was only a “rhetorical question” and that she did not ask for any books to be banned.

Palin’s church at the time, the Assembly of God, had been pushing for the removal a book called “Pastor, I Am Gay” from local bookstores, according to the book’s author Pastor Howard Bess, of the Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, Alaska.

“And she was one of them,” said Bess, “this whole thing of controlling information, censorship, that’s part of the scene,” said Bess.

Here’s where I’m confused. How does This add up to being “inclusive”? OK, she has “gay friends” but doesn’t want “gay books” in the library? And did she have “gay friends” when she was mayor? Did they say anything to her about this? Do Republicans’ “gay friends” ever say anything to them about stuff like this?

If so, it apparently doesn’t do any good. (That the books weren’t banned says more about the character librarian and the integrity of the process than about how much of either quality Palin possesses.) And if not, why not?

Let me start by saying that I’m going to give the Log Cabin Republicans the benefit of the doubt that they choose their party and their candidate based on their political philosophy and not just their positions on LGBT issues. I said as much in a comment on a post at Independent Gay Forum that, to me, didn’t seem to extend the same courtesy to those of us at the other side of the political spectrum.

But obviously, if your vote is determined by gay issues, it’s going to go to Obama/Biden. If you think Obama is better for gays but worse (or even dangerously worse) for the country, than voting for McCain/Palin does not make you a self-loather (though Obama’s LGBT devotees will certainly tar you, endlessly, with that brush).

As I said in my comment, I’ll make a deal with the LCR and gay conservatives: I won’t characterize you guys as self-loathing if you don’t characterize LGBT Democrats and progressives as mindless, one-issue voters. After all, none of the people I know or talked to in Denver are supporting Obama/Biden soley on the basis of their positions on LGBT issues, but because we think that McCain/Palin is worse (or even dangerously worse) for the country on a whole range of issues from the economy to health care and foreign policy. It just happens that one candidate/party is better on LGBT issues than the other

Which brings me, belatedly, to LCR’s endorsement of the McCain/Palin ticket.

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Wow. Just…wow.

Rough Transcript after the Jump

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I haven’t had time to write anything about McCain’s VP pick, because I’ve been at home with Dylan — who’s apparently cutting his top front teeth, which makes him really irritable — since yesterday (daycare is closed), and probably won’t have anything to post today for the same reason. I do have a couple of posts I’m working on which, with nay luck, will get posted before the end of the week.

In the meantime, I have a question.

Which is worse. That McCain’s choice of Palin was essentially a roll of the dice? Or that after a vetting process that started in May and encompassed 21 names (though the vetting team only arrived in Alaska one day before the announcement, and McCain met her only once before making the offer) and she really is the best they could do?

One. Heartbeat. Away.

It ain’t quite Willie Horton. We’ll have to wait for the general before we see anything close to that. But this ad is definitely in that ballpark.

Now, I’m still not supporting either Clinton or Obama in the primaries (though I’ll settle for whichever of them the Democrats nominate). But this doesn’t make me feel any better about Clinton.

This makes me feel slightly better about Obama.
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In many ways, when it comes to the presidential primaries, I feel like I “don’t have a dog in this fight.” But it’s interesting to me that some people are already declaring the Democratic primaries a two person race. And, apparently, to some gay voters the candidate’s differences on DOMA are “minor.”

As Georgia voters prepare to head to the polls on Feb. 5 to take part in what’s been dubbed Super Duper Tuesday, when more than 20 states hold their presidential primaries, many local gay leaders are speaking out with public endorsements.

With Hillary Clinton fresh off a crucial win in New Hampshire and Barack Obama still riding on his win in Iowa, local gay voters acknowledge they are torn between the two.

Both Democratic presidential candidates claim nearly the same stance on gay issues such as repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as well as providing legal protections for gay couples. But John Edwards, also a strong gay rights supporter, seems to have lost his footing in the race, according to University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock.

In a race where none of the “leading” candidates support marriage equality, and the candidates who do support marriage equality get almost no support in terms of contributions or votes, the matter of repealing DOMA becomes—or should become—more important.

current events, elections, family, gay rights, politics

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This is interesting. Isn’t it?

I grabbed that shot yesterday. It’s the results of an online poll at the Democratic Party of Virginia’s website. Granted, it’s an online poll, so it’s not anywhere near scientific.

But it’s still interesting that Dennis Kucinich beats out Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. What’s even more interesting is that the poll is still open.
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One video is worth another.

This is a voice you won’t hear during the upcoming presidential debate on ABC.
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I know I’m all kinds of late with this. (Gimme a break. I’ve got a newborn in the house. It’s either a miracle or a sign of serious addiction that I’m blogging at all.) And he’s not my first choice as a candidate. But, damn.

Even if he doesn’t win the nomination or the oval office, Thursday night Barack Obama stepped into history, and basically took the rest of the country with him.

Someone asked a co-worker of mine yesterday, “Did you ever think you’d live to see the day?” Well, I was pretty sure I would. (And will.) But last night was a pleasant surprise, not to mention inspiring.

Like I said, he’s not my first choice as a candidate, but I can see what draws people to support him.

No big surprise here. I stumbled on to GlassBooth.Org [via Living the Scientific Life] and took their quiz, which basically matches you up with three candidates from the current presidential field whose positions are most similar to your own. Here’s what I got.

Sure, these quizzes are often overly simplistic, and don’t ask enough questions. (This one was interesting in that it asked you weigh a list of issues according to their importance to you.) But for what it’s worth, the results for me are pretty accurate.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to see how well matched I am with the rest of the Democratic field.
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