Well, what a year.
A year ago we were on the brink of the primary season. Hillary and Barack were the two names on everyones lips for the dems, Mit, Rudy and McCain were the republicans.
No one even speculated that John Edwards had been having an affair and had fathered a baby. We didn't know who was going to be the nominee for either party, let alone who was going to win.
My original candidate was Kucinich. He stood for everything I stand for. Deep down I knew he would never get the nomination, and by any chance he might get it, he is way to liberal to actually win. So then for me, to quote randi rhodes, it was between gucci and fendi. I went back and forth before Super Tuesday. Did I go for the candidate who gave me hope, a feeling of new direction? Or did I go with the one I had been routing for for years, did I vote for a woman? In the end, I went for Hillary. However, I did think she went too long before she conceded. In the end, I did cry during her concession speech. I was glad we could finally concentrate on one candidate. I could put all of my energies into barack. And that I did. The pins, the stickers, the websites, the blog, making calls... I did it all.
I obsessively checked my phone for a text message announcing Obama's VP pick. I analyzed the signs, I went back and forth on who would help him most. Some days I thought Hillary, others I thought Biden, some days I would even think a republican was his only choice. A few days before it was announced, "experts" said they were sure it was Biden because his sons were flying from various areas, the family was gathering... and then, at 3 am in the morning, I received a text. I still have it in my phone. "barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!" I read it, smiled, and went back to sleep. Obama-Biden it was.
I waited with bated breath for the announcements of the VP's. I feared I would have to look at Mit Romneys hair, listen to Rudy's lisp, or endure Condi. So, while I was sitting in the car in Ludlow Vermont, as Adrian ran into a floral shop to see if they sold ribbon, I checked my email on my trusty iPhone to see i had a CNN Breaking News email announcing Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate. A woman. I couldnt believe he did it. All I knew was she was the governor of Alaska. Nothing more. Immediately, I called my friend Jess "SARAH PALIN!? who the HELL is SHE?!' she said she didnt know if it was fully official. and she filled me in on the ethics violation she was being investigated for. Adrian came back to the car, and I shared the news with her. I called my mom - all had the same reactions: WHO!? No one knew what that was going to mean. Would she help or hinder his campaign? Little did we know how much she would help us...
I watched each debate with keen interest, analyzing, over analyzing. I thought some people might like the old grandpa personality.
I dreamed about the election. I dreamed about voting.
And then it happened.
And now, we embark on 2009.
The year that Bush will leave office. THe year I have been waiting for since November 2000.
May 2009 bring hope, happiness, health, safety, and prosperity.
May all that we have been fighting for start to take shape.
May the troops come home.
May we all be happy.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
it's been a busy week...
With CHristmas, there hasn't been much news - but I will say that I got my Christmas present on November 4, 2008. Let's hope it lives up to everything I hoped - not like Mall Madness, one of my Christmas presents in 1990.
Here is a lovely quote from Caroline Kennedy:
"Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth. Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I'm not saying that I am anything like him, I'm just saying there's a spirit that I think I've grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me. I think my mother … made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected. Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever. When this opportunity came along, which was sort of unexpected, I thought, `Well, maybe now. How about now?' We're starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service."
Only a few days left of 2008, and then we enter the year of the first black president.
Here is a lovely quote from Caroline Kennedy:
"Many people remember that spirit that President Kennedy summoned forth. Many people look to me as somebody who embodies that sense of possibility. I'm not saying that I am anything like him, I'm just saying there's a spirit that I think I've grown up with that is something that means a tremendous amount to me. I think my mother … made it clear that you have to live life by your own terms and you have to not worry about what other people think and you have to have the courage to do the unexpected. Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever. When this opportunity came along, which was sort of unexpected, I thought, `Well, maybe now. How about now?' We're starting to see there are many ways into public life and public service."
Only a few days left of 2008, and then we enter the year of the first black president.
Friday, December 19, 2008
HAPPY HANUKKAH AL!!!!!!!!
Franken Senate Victory Projected
Democratic challenger Al Franken finds himself on the cusp of winning a seat in the United States Senate after Minnesota's canvassing board awarded him a host of challenged votes during deliberations on Thursday.
As of 8PM ET, the Minneapolis Star Tribune projected that Franken would finish the recount process with a lead of 89 votes, positioning him to become the 59th senator caucusing with Democrats in the upcoming Congress.
According to local paper tallies, Franken currently trails Sen. Norm Coleman by a mere five votes, down from the 358-vote margin that the Republican held just last night. The Associated Press has the count even closer, with Coleman ahead by two votes. An aide to Franken told the Huffington Post that, according to the campaign's internal count, Franken has already taken a small lead.
The gains came as the canvassing board sifted through hundreds of ballots that Coleman had contested during the recount process. On Friday, the canvassing board will consider another 400 or so Coleman challenges. If the pattern remains consistent, Franken should vault past his opponent to a projected lead of approximately 89 votes, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The process by which the Senate race has come to this stage is often confusing. Coleman held an approximately 200-vote lead after the state went through a hand recount of all ballots. However, there remained approximately 1,500 ballots that one or the other campaign contested (and temporarily removed from the overall vote tally). Coleman challenged about 1,000 of these, Franken the rest.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the canvassing board considered Franken's challenges, which gave a slight gain to Coleman's lead (Franken, after all, was challenging ballots that were, perhaps erroneously, awarded to Coleman during the recount). But the Franken campaign also gained some votes during the two days; the canvassing board awarded him dozens of ballots that had been wrongfully determined to be non-votes or under-votes.
By Thursday, the canvassing board had moved onto the pile of Coleman challenges, and with it, Coleman's lead quickly dissipated. It became clear early on that the Senator had challenged many ballots simply because they favored Franken and had a minor (non-disqualifying) clerical error. The board began plowing through the votes until, by late afternoon, Franken found himself down by only five.
As it stands now, it seems likely that Franken will end this process with a lead wider than even his campaign expected. Earlier projections, from the Associated Press, Star Tribune and Franken himself, suggested that Coleman would lose the race by roughly 20 votes or less. And this tally doesn't even take into consideration the legal and political battle being waged over wrongfully rejected absentee ballots, which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled, on Thursday, should be counted.
That decision, another loss for the Coleman campaign, could mean even more votes flowing into Franken's tally, though the Court also stressed that the state and both campaigns come up with a uniform standard for identifying these absentee ballots before they are counted.
Democratic challenger Al Franken finds himself on the cusp of winning a seat in the United States Senate after Minnesota's canvassing board awarded him a host of challenged votes during deliberations on Thursday.
As of 8PM ET, the Minneapolis Star Tribune projected that Franken would finish the recount process with a lead of 89 votes, positioning him to become the 59th senator caucusing with Democrats in the upcoming Congress.
According to local paper tallies, Franken currently trails Sen. Norm Coleman by a mere five votes, down from the 358-vote margin that the Republican held just last night. The Associated Press has the count even closer, with Coleman ahead by two votes. An aide to Franken told the Huffington Post that, according to the campaign's internal count, Franken has already taken a small lead.
The gains came as the canvassing board sifted through hundreds of ballots that Coleman had contested during the recount process. On Friday, the canvassing board will consider another 400 or so Coleman challenges. If the pattern remains consistent, Franken should vault past his opponent to a projected lead of approximately 89 votes, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
The process by which the Senate race has come to this stage is often confusing. Coleman held an approximately 200-vote lead after the state went through a hand recount of all ballots. However, there remained approximately 1,500 ballots that one or the other campaign contested (and temporarily removed from the overall vote tally). Coleman challenged about 1,000 of these, Franken the rest.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the canvassing board considered Franken's challenges, which gave a slight gain to Coleman's lead (Franken, after all, was challenging ballots that were, perhaps erroneously, awarded to Coleman during the recount). But the Franken campaign also gained some votes during the two days; the canvassing board awarded him dozens of ballots that had been wrongfully determined to be non-votes or under-votes.
By Thursday, the canvassing board had moved onto the pile of Coleman challenges, and with it, Coleman's lead quickly dissipated. It became clear early on that the Senator had challenged many ballots simply because they favored Franken and had a minor (non-disqualifying) clerical error. The board began plowing through the votes until, by late afternoon, Franken found himself down by only five.
As it stands now, it seems likely that Franken will end this process with a lead wider than even his campaign expected. Earlier projections, from the Associated Press, Star Tribune and Franken himself, suggested that Coleman would lose the race by roughly 20 votes or less. And this tally doesn't even take into consideration the legal and political battle being waged over wrongfully rejected absentee ballots, which the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled, on Thursday, should be counted.
That decision, another loss for the Coleman campaign, could mean even more votes flowing into Franken's tally, though the Court also stressed that the state and both campaigns come up with a uniform standard for identifying these absentee ballots before they are counted.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
this may be wrong
but i could watch this over and over again... it might make me unamerican... but i find hit absolutely hilarious
Friday, December 5, 2008
i LIKE this idea!!!!
Maybe it is because I am from Massachusetts, but I love any Kennedy in Washington, and THIS is from the Huffington Post:
Another Senator Kennedy? The crazy speculation about Hillary Clinton's Senate seat may not be so crazy after all. A Democrat who would know tells ABC News that New York governor David Paterson has talked to Caroline Kennedy about taking the seat, which was once held by her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy. It's not exactly shocking that Paterson would reach out to one of the most highly respected public figures in New York, but this is: Sources say Kennedy is considering it, and has not ruled out coming to Washington to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.
A few years ago, the famously private Caroline Kennedy would be the last Kennedy expected to serve in Congress, but of course, she took on a much more high-profile role during the presidential campaign and, if she does it, would be more than New York's junior Senator; she'd have closer ties to the Obama White House than any of her colleagues, a direct line to the East Wing.
Another Senator Kennedy? The crazy speculation about Hillary Clinton's Senate seat may not be so crazy after all. A Democrat who would know tells ABC News that New York governor David Paterson has talked to Caroline Kennedy about taking the seat, which was once held by her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy. It's not exactly shocking that Paterson would reach out to one of the most highly respected public figures in New York, but this is: Sources say Kennedy is considering it, and has not ruled out coming to Washington to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate.
A few years ago, the famously private Caroline Kennedy would be the last Kennedy expected to serve in Congress, but of course, she took on a much more high-profile role during the presidential campaign and, if she does it, would be more than New York's junior Senator; she'd have closer ties to the Obama White House than any of her colleagues, a direct line to the East Wing.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
From the Washington Post...
Bush's Final Fiasco
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A17
As he prepares to move back to Texas, our 43rd president is the beneficiary of Bush fatigue. The nation has long since repudiated him. Americans are looking ahead to the promise of Barack Obama.
And it's lucky for George W. Bush that they are, because his handling of our plunging economy is Hooverian in both its substance and inadequacy.
Herbert Hoover, we should recall, had a program for dealing with the Depression. It consisted of lending to banks but opposing fiscal stimulus or direct aid to individuals. Which is why Hank Paulson's frenzied endeavors to prop up the banking sector and Bush's dogged resistance to assisting anybody else amount to pure neo-Hooverism.
As the 1930s began, Hoover believed that the coordinated actions of the private sector could save the beleaguered economy. It soon became apparent that the only action that private-sector businesses could agree upon was closing down factories and offices and throwing people out of work. Under immense pressure to do something, in late 1931 Hoover asked Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide funds to banks it deemed creditworthy.
By 1932, the RFC was making loans. Yet with the economy in free fall, the rate of bank failures increased until Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Having done his bit to bail out the banks, however, Hoover rested. He opposed provisions that would have enabled homeowners to hang on to their homes.
As breadlines lengthened, he vetoed a bill appropriating funds for public works on the grounds that it was inflationary and contained pork-barrel spending. Bankers would be saved; everyone else was effectively damned.
Sound familiar? The Bush administration's approach to today's meltdown is to direct all its energies and largess to lending institutions. There is, as yet, no program to help floundering homeowners renegotiate the terms of their mortgages. The president is opposed to further stimulus programs, even though private-sector investment in the United States has all but ceased.
It's becoming increasingly clear, however, that while saving the banks may limit further calamities, it doesn't really save anybody else. Even with government-guaranteed lines of credit, financial institutions are refusing to lend money. With the banks effectively on strike, an economic recovery, if there is to be one, must begin with the government injecting funds to those parts of the economy that need it most: infrastructure development, state and local governments, an alternative-energy sector. These are all programs to which Bush is firmly opposed.
In a sense, Bush's inactivity is even less excusable than Hoover's. Unlike Hoover, Bush could learn from the successes of New Deal and World War II-era programs to revive the economy. Keynes's general theory of how to defeat depressions wasn't around when Hoover was president, but it's been with us now for 72 years. What's more, virtually every reputable conservative economist, from Martin Feldstein on down, now supports a government stimulus program. But Bush, drawing on no known body of economic thought, remains opposed. (So does Republican House leader John Boehner, who seems determined to elevate stupidity to a party principle.) And with each passing day, the economic hole out of which we will have to climb grows deeper.
So where's the outrage? Why aren't demonstrators besieging the White House? Where are the "Welcome to Bushville" signs in those neighborhoods where abandoned homes outnumber the occupied ones?
The answer, I suspect, is that you can only irreversibly give up on a president once. Further catastrophic failures on the president's part elicit only diminishing returns. Buchanan did nothing while the South seceded: That was it for him. Hoover did nothing as farmers, workers and middle-class America got wiped out: With that, he was beyond rehabilitation. Nixon had Watergate: Enough said. One mega-strike and you're out.
Bush, however, has had three. He misled us into a nearly endless war of choice to disarm a threat that never really existed. He let a great American city drown. And now he stands by while the economic security of tens of millions of Americans is vanishing.
Yet in the hearts of his countrymen, Bush's place is already fixed. Even before the financial collapse, he was in the ninth circle of presidential hell, with Buchanan and Hoover. At his own party's national convention this summer, his was the name that no one dared speak. And so, though his mishandling of the economy is criminally inept, he is being spared one more outbreak of public rage by two countervailing public sentiments: Americans' relief that he soon will be gone and their kind reluctance to kick a corpse.
meyersonh@washpost.com
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A17
As he prepares to move back to Texas, our 43rd president is the beneficiary of Bush fatigue. The nation has long since repudiated him. Americans are looking ahead to the promise of Barack Obama.
And it's lucky for George W. Bush that they are, because his handling of our plunging economy is Hooverian in both its substance and inadequacy.
Herbert Hoover, we should recall, had a program for dealing with the Depression. It consisted of lending to banks but opposing fiscal stimulus or direct aid to individuals. Which is why Hank Paulson's frenzied endeavors to prop up the banking sector and Bush's dogged resistance to assisting anybody else amount to pure neo-Hooverism.
As the 1930s began, Hoover believed that the coordinated actions of the private sector could save the beleaguered economy. It soon became apparent that the only action that private-sector businesses could agree upon was closing down factories and offices and throwing people out of work. Under immense pressure to do something, in late 1931 Hoover asked Congress to establish the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to provide funds to banks it deemed creditworthy.
By 1932, the RFC was making loans. Yet with the economy in free fall, the rate of bank failures increased until Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Having done his bit to bail out the banks, however, Hoover rested. He opposed provisions that would have enabled homeowners to hang on to their homes.
As breadlines lengthened, he vetoed a bill appropriating funds for public works on the grounds that it was inflationary and contained pork-barrel spending. Bankers would be saved; everyone else was effectively damned.
Sound familiar? The Bush administration's approach to today's meltdown is to direct all its energies and largess to lending institutions. There is, as yet, no program to help floundering homeowners renegotiate the terms of their mortgages. The president is opposed to further stimulus programs, even though private-sector investment in the United States has all but ceased.
It's becoming increasingly clear, however, that while saving the banks may limit further calamities, it doesn't really save anybody else. Even with government-guaranteed lines of credit, financial institutions are refusing to lend money. With the banks effectively on strike, an economic recovery, if there is to be one, must begin with the government injecting funds to those parts of the economy that need it most: infrastructure development, state and local governments, an alternative-energy sector. These are all programs to which Bush is firmly opposed.
In a sense, Bush's inactivity is even less excusable than Hoover's. Unlike Hoover, Bush could learn from the successes of New Deal and World War II-era programs to revive the economy. Keynes's general theory of how to defeat depressions wasn't around when Hoover was president, but it's been with us now for 72 years. What's more, virtually every reputable conservative economist, from Martin Feldstein on down, now supports a government stimulus program. But Bush, drawing on no known body of economic thought, remains opposed. (So does Republican House leader John Boehner, who seems determined to elevate stupidity to a party principle.) And with each passing day, the economic hole out of which we will have to climb grows deeper.
So where's the outrage? Why aren't demonstrators besieging the White House? Where are the "Welcome to Bushville" signs in those neighborhoods where abandoned homes outnumber the occupied ones?
The answer, I suspect, is that you can only irreversibly give up on a president once. Further catastrophic failures on the president's part elicit only diminishing returns. Buchanan did nothing while the South seceded: That was it for him. Hoover did nothing as farmers, workers and middle-class America got wiped out: With that, he was beyond rehabilitation. Nixon had Watergate: Enough said. One mega-strike and you're out.
Bush, however, has had three. He misled us into a nearly endless war of choice to disarm a threat that never really existed. He let a great American city drown. And now he stands by while the economic security of tens of millions of Americans is vanishing.
Yet in the hearts of his countrymen, Bush's place is already fixed. Even before the financial collapse, he was in the ninth circle of presidential hell, with Buchanan and Hoover. At his own party's national convention this summer, his was the name that no one dared speak. And so, though his mishandling of the economy is criminally inept, he is being spared one more outbreak of public rage by two countervailing public sentiments: Americans' relief that he soon will be gone and their kind reluctance to kick a corpse.
meyersonh@washpost.com
Monday, December 1, 2008
Yahoo Madam Secretary!!!!!!
Well, it is finally official!
I was driving back to NYC from MA and heard it all on the radio. I found myself unexpectedly crying. and laughing. It hits me at the oddest times. I was so proud and happy! And just hearing all of these intelligent, well spoken diplomats was so emotional for me! Each day I find a new burst of hope and a sense of calm.
Here is video of the press conference:
I was driving back to NYC from MA and heard it all on the radio. I found myself unexpectedly crying. and laughing. It hits me at the oddest times. I was so proud and happy! And just hearing all of these intelligent, well spoken diplomats was so emotional for me! Each day I find a new burst of hope and a sense of calm.
Here is video of the press conference:
Friday, November 28, 2008
This is what is wrong with America
the fact that things like THIS happen:
Wal-Mart worker dies after being bulldozed by bargain-hunting Black Friday shopping stampede
By COLLEEN LONG , Associated Press
November 28, 2008
NEW YORK - A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.
At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.
Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.
Nassau police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.
"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as "utter chaos."
Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.
Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.
Damour, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.
Police said criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store.
"The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority," said Dan Fogleman, a company spokesman. "At this point, facts are still being assembled and we are working closely with the Nassau County Police as they investigate what occurred."
Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."
"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."
Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.
___
Wal-Mart worker dies after being bulldozed by bargain-hunting Black Friday shopping stampede
By COLLEEN LONG , Associated Press
November 28, 2008
NEW YORK - A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.
At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.
Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning.
Nassau police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.
"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as "utter chaos."
Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.
Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9.
Damour, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.
A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.
Police said criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store.
"The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority," said Dan Fogleman, a company spokesman. "At this point, facts are still being assembled and we are working closely with the Nassau County Police as they investigate what occurred."
Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."
"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."
Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.
___
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Let's all give thanks that we now have a president as articulate as this:
http://abc.go.com/player/index?pn=index&show=158779&season=158778
http://abc.go.com/player/index?pn=index&show=158779&season=158778
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Giving Thanks
Now, I thanked Sarah Palin on election night for different reasons than you will see on this ad. HOwever, on this week of Thanksgiving, I do thank Sarah Palin for being herself throughout the entire campaign... here's the ad:
Monday, November 24, 2008
sad, but true..
this is from www.borowitzreport.com/
Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
Stunning Break with Last Eight Years
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tic, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."
The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
Stunning Break with Last Eight Years
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tic, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."
The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
voters for jesus
from politico:
Hillary 234, Jesus 23
The Duval County, Florida write-in tally is in, and Hillary handily prevailed over Jesus and all other rivals.
234 HILARY CLINTON
174 RON PAUL
23 NONE OF THE ABOVE
23 JESUS
21 MIKE HUCKABEE
14 MITT ROMNEY
8 COLIN POWELL
6 GOD
4 OBAMA
4 RUDY GIULLIANI
4 STEVEN COLBERT
3 DONALD DUCK
3 DONALD FOY
3 MICKEY MOUSE
3 T. BOONE PICKENS
2 BILL COSBY
2 CHUCK NORRIS
2 CONDOLEEZA RICE
2 LOU DOBBS
2 PAGO POSSUM
2 SARAH PALIN
2 SEANATOR BROWNBACK
Hillary 234, Jesus 23
The Duval County, Florida write-in tally is in, and Hillary handily prevailed over Jesus and all other rivals.
234 HILARY CLINTON
174 RON PAUL
23 NONE OF THE ABOVE
23 JESUS
21 MIKE HUCKABEE
14 MITT ROMNEY
8 COLIN POWELL
6 GOD
4 OBAMA
4 RUDY GIULLIANI
4 STEVEN COLBERT
3 DONALD DUCK
3 DONALD FOY
3 MICKEY MOUSE
3 T. BOONE PICKENS
2 BILL COSBY
2 CHUCK NORRIS
2 CONDOLEEZA RICE
2 LOU DOBBS
2 PAGO POSSUM
2 SARAH PALIN
2 SEANATOR BROWNBACK
slowly but surely...
the cabinet is getting put together:
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday.
The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle's barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat. One area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who has done representation mostly on behalf of airline-related companies over the years. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorize to discuss the matter publicly.
Daschle was a close adviser to Obama throughout the former Illinois senator's White House campaign. He recently wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to improve the system.
Organizations seeking to expand health coverage were quick to praise the selection.
"Sen. Daschle has a deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009."
Obama also announced several transition working group leaders, including Daschle, who will oversee the health policy working group. They include former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner on energy and environment and former Clinton White House adviser Jim Steinberg and Obama campaign senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice on national security.
* * * * *
Health policy wonks and universal health care advocates celebrated the move. The American Prospect's Ezra Klein called Daschle's appointment "huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform."
You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform.
Compare the choice of Daschle to Clinton's decision to task Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner with health care reform. Neither Clinton nor Magaziner had any relevant experience in Washington, either with the health care bureaucracy or with the legislative branch. [...] The choice of Daschle suggests that the Obama team has learned those lessons well.
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday.
The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle's barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat. One area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who has done representation mostly on behalf of airline-related companies over the years. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorize to discuss the matter publicly.
Daschle was a close adviser to Obama throughout the former Illinois senator's White House campaign. He recently wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to improve the system.
Organizations seeking to expand health coverage were quick to praise the selection.
"Sen. Daschle has a deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009."
Obama also announced several transition working group leaders, including Daschle, who will oversee the health policy working group. They include former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner on energy and environment and former Clinton White House adviser Jim Steinberg and Obama campaign senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice on national security.
* * * * *
Health policy wonks and universal health care advocates celebrated the move. The American Prospect's Ezra Klein called Daschle's appointment "huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform."
You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform.
Compare the choice of Daschle to Clinton's decision to task Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner with health care reform. Neither Clinton nor Magaziner had any relevant experience in Washington, either with the health care bureaucracy or with the legislative branch. [...] The choice of Daschle suggests that the Obama team has learned those lessons well.
CHENEY INDICTED
Cheney, Gonzales indicted in South Texas county
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Christopher Sherman, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 18, 10:18 pm ET
McALLEN, Texas – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on state charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under the outgoing prosecutor.
The indictment returned Monday has not yet been signed by the presiding judge, and no action can be taken until that happens.
The seven indictments made public in Willacy County on Tuesday included one naming state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and some targeting public officials connected to District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra's own legal battles.
Regarding the indictments targeting the public officials, Guerra said, "the grand jury is the one that made those decisions, not me."
Guerra himself was under indictment for more than a year and half until a judge dismissed the indictments last month. Guerra's tenure ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.
Guerra said the prison-related charges against Cheney and Gonzales are a national issue and experts from across the country testified to the grand jury.
Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.
The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.
Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize." He said he hoped Texas authorities would take steps to stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system."
Another indictment released Tuesday accuses Lucio of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's prison consulting early last year.
Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.
"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.
Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.
Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility.
In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.
None of the indictments released Tuesday had been signed by Presiding Judge Manuel Banales of the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region.
Last month, Banales dismissed indictments that charged Guerra with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.
After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.
The indictments were first reported by KRGV-TV.
___
Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Christopher Sherman, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 18, 10:18 pm ET
McALLEN, Texas – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on state charges involving federal prisons in a South Texas county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles under the outgoing prosecutor.
The indictment returned Monday has not yet been signed by the presiding judge, and no action can be taken until that happens.
The seven indictments made public in Willacy County on Tuesday included one naming state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. and some targeting public officials connected to District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra's own legal battles.
Regarding the indictments targeting the public officials, Guerra said, "the grand jury is the one that made those decisions, not me."
Guerra himself was under indictment for more than a year and half until a judge dismissed the indictments last month. Guerra's tenure ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.
Guerra said the prison-related charges against Cheney and Gonzales are a national issue and experts from across the country testified to the grand jury.
Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.
The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.
Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize." He said he hoped Texas authorities would take steps to stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system."
Another indictment released Tuesday accuses Lucio of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's prison consulting early last year.
Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.
"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.
Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.
Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility.
In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.
None of the indictments released Tuesday had been signed by Presiding Judge Manuel Banales of the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region.
Last month, Banales dismissed indictments that charged Guerra with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that a special prosecutor was improperly appointed to investigate Guerra.
After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.
The indictments were first reported by KRGV-TV.
___
Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed to this report.
this isnt related to politics but...
i am REJOICING with this news... this is from the LA times saying that REALITY TV IS DOWN IN RATINGS!!!!!!! AMERICANS ARE GETTING SMARTER NOT JUST IN POLITICS!!!!!
Is the recession driving viewers away from reality programming?
There has been so much chatter about politics and the economic meltdown on TV this fall that it's obscured another reality: Some of the networks' biggest unscripted series have been sinking in the ratings.
New York-based ad firm Horizon Media today delivered an analysis of Nielsen Media Research data for broadcast series during the first two months of the TV season, compared with the same period last year. The verdict? Established reality-competition and game shows, including "Dancing With the Stars," "Survivor" and "Deal or No Deal," are suffering a slump almost as bad as the larger economy's.
Hardest-hit is Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?," which has shed nearly half its share of the 18-to-49-year-old demographic since last year (from a 2.5 rating to a 1.3). Among all viewers, "5th Grader" is off 35%, to 5.5 million.
Almost as bad is NBC's "Deal," with the Wednesday edition plunging nearly 29%, to a mere 8 million viewers, compared with last year. The Friday airing has performed even worse, falling 38%. ABC's "Dancing" is down 9% — despite Cloris Leachman's unlikely tenure on this fall's edition — and CBS' "Survivor: Gabon" has dropped one-tenth compared with last fall's "Survivor: China." Even Fox's "Cops," which in March celebrates its 20th anniversary, has tumbled 17%.
Now, it could be argued that all of network TV is down. But virtually all of the series that have shown improvement this fall are scripted shows. Among them: NBC's "30 Rock" (up 23%), the CW's "Gossip Girl" (20%) and CBS' "Ghost Whisperer" (8%) and "How I Met Your Mother" (12%).
So, what's up?
Part of the explanation is TV's natural aging process. Many of the reality shows currently on network schedules are, not to put too fine a point on it, old. "Survivor" is in its 17th cycle, an eternity given that TV lifespans roughly approximate dog years. "Dancing" is winding down its 7th season, the time when most series begin to show signs of wear. And efforts to pump in new blood have not been successful: Take a look at ABC's "Opportunity Knocks," which got the hook after three airings this fall.
Overexposure is also a factor. "Deal or No Deal" at one time looked like a fairly durable game concept. But multiple weekly airings, plus a daytime syndicated version that launched this fall, have beaten the life out of the show. Stashing more money in those prize briefcases, as producers have done in a bid to woo viewers, probably won't help.
And what about that economy? Well, hard times may not have any direct effect on what people choose to watch. But there's little doubt that during times of upheaval, viewers' tastes can shift. For example, the deep recession of the early 1980s may have created a fertile environment for the success of nighttime soaps about the treacheries of the rich and infamous, such as "Dynasty" and "Dallas."
Thus, at the outset of what looks to be another deep recession, the sudden success of once-suffering comedies such as "30 Rock" and "Mother" is striking. As the Dow continues to spiral down and jobs dry up, viewers may have decided that their everyday lives already contain more reality than they can bear.
Is the recession driving viewers away from reality programming?
There has been so much chatter about politics and the economic meltdown on TV this fall that it's obscured another reality: Some of the networks' biggest unscripted series have been sinking in the ratings.
New York-based ad firm Horizon Media today delivered an analysis of Nielsen Media Research data for broadcast series during the first two months of the TV season, compared with the same period last year. The verdict? Established reality-competition and game shows, including "Dancing With the Stars," "Survivor" and "Deal or No Deal," are suffering a slump almost as bad as the larger economy's.
Hardest-hit is Fox's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?," which has shed nearly half its share of the 18-to-49-year-old demographic since last year (from a 2.5 rating to a 1.3). Among all viewers, "5th Grader" is off 35%, to 5.5 million.
Almost as bad is NBC's "Deal," with the Wednesday edition plunging nearly 29%, to a mere 8 million viewers, compared with last year. The Friday airing has performed even worse, falling 38%. ABC's "Dancing" is down 9% — despite Cloris Leachman's unlikely tenure on this fall's edition — and CBS' "Survivor: Gabon" has dropped one-tenth compared with last fall's "Survivor: China." Even Fox's "Cops," which in March celebrates its 20th anniversary, has tumbled 17%.
Now, it could be argued that all of network TV is down. But virtually all of the series that have shown improvement this fall are scripted shows. Among them: NBC's "30 Rock" (up 23%), the CW's "Gossip Girl" (20%) and CBS' "Ghost Whisperer" (8%) and "How I Met Your Mother" (12%).
So, what's up?
Part of the explanation is TV's natural aging process. Many of the reality shows currently on network schedules are, not to put too fine a point on it, old. "Survivor" is in its 17th cycle, an eternity given that TV lifespans roughly approximate dog years. "Dancing" is winding down its 7th season, the time when most series begin to show signs of wear. And efforts to pump in new blood have not been successful: Take a look at ABC's "Opportunity Knocks," which got the hook after three airings this fall.
Overexposure is also a factor. "Deal or No Deal" at one time looked like a fairly durable game concept. But multiple weekly airings, plus a daytime syndicated version that launched this fall, have beaten the life out of the show. Stashing more money in those prize briefcases, as producers have done in a bid to woo viewers, probably won't help.
And what about that economy? Well, hard times may not have any direct effect on what people choose to watch. But there's little doubt that during times of upheaval, viewers' tastes can shift. For example, the deep recession of the early 1980s may have created a fertile environment for the success of nighttime soaps about the treacheries of the rich and infamous, such as "Dynasty" and "Dallas."
Thus, at the outset of what looks to be another deep recession, the sudden success of once-suffering comedies such as "30 Rock" and "Mother" is striking. As the Dow continues to spiral down and jobs dry up, viewers may have decided that their everyday lives already contain more reality than they can bear.
Monday, November 17, 2008
There is still hope for Al
This is from the Huffington Post:
Despite trailing his opponent by slightly more than two hundred votes, Democratic challenger Al Franken stands a strong chance of passing Sen. Norm Coleman during the upcoming recount, according to at least one prominent political scientist.
Professor Michael C. Herron of Dartmouth College, has put together a new study of the voting patterns in Minnesota, in the process determining that the majority of voters who cast unrecorded ballots in the Senate race were likely Franken supporters.
"If someone put a gun to my head and said, 'You have to bet,' I would bet Franken," Herron said, when reached by phone. "It won't be a wipe-out. Two hundred votes is effectively tied. We just know that, in this case, Democrats tend to [screw up their ballots] more often [than Republicans]." In Minnesota, the "intent" of the voter is considered during recounts.
According to Herron's analysis, of the 2.9 million people who went to the polls in Minnesota, there were approximately 34,000 residual voters in the Senate race. In other words, there were 34,000 more ballots cast than total number of recorded votes for all the Senate candidates.
Why the difference? A good portion of voters, Herron concludes, voted in the presidential election but deliberately did not vote for a Senate candidate. These people won't matter when it comes to a recount.
There is, however, a portion of the 34,000 who intended to vote for one of the Senate candidates but messed up. Voters were supposed to fill in the circle next to the name of the candidate they supported. Some, however, marked X's. Others circled the name itself or crossed out the names of candidates they didn't like.
This group is key to determining the Minnesota Senate victor.
In his study, Herron looked at the figures from the 2006 congressional election and the 2008 presidential election to determine which areas of the state have the most residual voters. By isolating these areas, Herron could determine which group was most likely to have wanted to vote one way but failed to cast their ballots properly.
He found that the majority of residual voters came from two, not necessarily distinct places: African American communities and traditionally Democratic communities. With the former, he theorized, there was likely a "turnout surge" -- many people went to the polls to support Barack Obama and no one else (or at least not Franken). The latter, however, contained voters who "almost certainly intended to cast a vote in the Senate race [and likely for Franken] but for some reason did not do so."
Story continues below
How big that group is, is crucial. And a way to figure it out is to first look at how Barack Obama and John McCain fared in the state.
According to Herron there was an approximately 0.34 percent residual vote rate in presidential race voting among Minnesotans. This means that of the 2.9 million votes cast for a presidential candidate, nearly 10,000 individuals wanted to vote but screwed up. There may have been people who wanted to vote in local and congressional contests, but not the presidential race. But this group is likely quite small.
In other words, there are probably somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 Minnesota voters who had clear problems filling out a ballot and likely voted in the Senate race. Many of these individuals, moreover, hailed from Democratic communities.
"Ultimately, the anticipated recount may clarify the relative proportions of intentional versus unintentional residual voters," writes Herron. "At present, though, the data available suggest that the recount will uncover many of the former and that, of the latter, a majority will likely prove to be supportive of Franken."
All Franken needs is to win more than 207 votes from this group than Coleman, and he will take over the Senate seat.
Despite trailing his opponent by slightly more than two hundred votes, Democratic challenger Al Franken stands a strong chance of passing Sen. Norm Coleman during the upcoming recount, according to at least one prominent political scientist.
Professor Michael C. Herron of Dartmouth College, has put together a new study of the voting patterns in Minnesota, in the process determining that the majority of voters who cast unrecorded ballots in the Senate race were likely Franken supporters.
"If someone put a gun to my head and said, 'You have to bet,' I would bet Franken," Herron said, when reached by phone. "It won't be a wipe-out. Two hundred votes is effectively tied. We just know that, in this case, Democrats tend to [screw up their ballots] more often [than Republicans]." In Minnesota, the "intent" of the voter is considered during recounts.
According to Herron's analysis, of the 2.9 million people who went to the polls in Minnesota, there were approximately 34,000 residual voters in the Senate race. In other words, there were 34,000 more ballots cast than total number of recorded votes for all the Senate candidates.
Why the difference? A good portion of voters, Herron concludes, voted in the presidential election but deliberately did not vote for a Senate candidate. These people won't matter when it comes to a recount.
There is, however, a portion of the 34,000 who intended to vote for one of the Senate candidates but messed up. Voters were supposed to fill in the circle next to the name of the candidate they supported. Some, however, marked X's. Others circled the name itself or crossed out the names of candidates they didn't like.
This group is key to determining the Minnesota Senate victor.
In his study, Herron looked at the figures from the 2006 congressional election and the 2008 presidential election to determine which areas of the state have the most residual voters. By isolating these areas, Herron could determine which group was most likely to have wanted to vote one way but failed to cast their ballots properly.
He found that the majority of residual voters came from two, not necessarily distinct places: African American communities and traditionally Democratic communities. With the former, he theorized, there was likely a "turnout surge" -- many people went to the polls to support Barack Obama and no one else (or at least not Franken). The latter, however, contained voters who "almost certainly intended to cast a vote in the Senate race [and likely for Franken] but for some reason did not do so."
Story continues below
How big that group is, is crucial. And a way to figure it out is to first look at how Barack Obama and John McCain fared in the state.
According to Herron there was an approximately 0.34 percent residual vote rate in presidential race voting among Minnesotans. This means that of the 2.9 million votes cast for a presidential candidate, nearly 10,000 individuals wanted to vote but screwed up. There may have been people who wanted to vote in local and congressional contests, but not the presidential race. But this group is likely quite small.
In other words, there are probably somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000 Minnesota voters who had clear problems filling out a ballot and likely voted in the Senate race. Many of these individuals, moreover, hailed from Democratic communities.
"Ultimately, the anticipated recount may clarify the relative proportions of intentional versus unintentional residual voters," writes Herron. "At present, though, the data available suggest that the recount will uncover many of the former and that, of the latter, a majority will likely prove to be supportive of Franken."
All Franken needs is to win more than 207 votes from this group than Coleman, and he will take over the Senate seat.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Cabinet
Ok, tonight on 60 minutes, Barack confirmed that his cabinet will have some republicans. It took me 10 seconds longer to type that because i had to slow down. If I were speaking it, I would have stuttered. I support and trust Barack, so I hope he doesnt appoint anyone too drastic. He is meeting with McCain tomorrow, which scares the shit out of me, but Lincoln had some of his biggest rivals and enemies in his cabinet. So I am preparing myself. My suggestion for McCain's post: secretary of justice. Why? Because Justice was served when Barack beat him IN A LANDSLIDE. I know, I am petty, I know, I am immature. I know that appointment makes no sense, but I like it. This would be my cabinet if I were president:
Vice President - I think this would be someone I don't really like because I would not see them a lot as they would be in an undisclosed location. Perhaps I will do the whole world a favor and ask Paris Hilton.
Chief of Staff - My dear cousin, Katie O'Neill. No question. The white
wouldn't know what hit it.
* Department of Agriculture - my brother Tommy, he studied plant and soil science
in college and lives in Vermont.
* Department of Commerce - Steve Jobs, he knows how to make people buy things.
* Department of Defense - Wesley Clark. Because I like him, and I can't have ALL
of my cabinet just be people I know...
* Department of Education - Mrs Allen. She taught me how to write my name, tie
my shoes, sing "good morning to you, good morning to you, we're all in our places
with sunshiny faces, this is the way to start a new day" - who better to run the
country's education department!
* Department of Energy - Al Gore. because we need to use less energy, and he is the
man to promote that.
* Department of Health and Human Services - Adrian, my dear friend who is the
person I call at the first sign of any symptom, she would be perfect for this
job as she is no-nonsense.
* Department of Homeland Security - Javier Bardem, in character from No Country
for Old Men -no one would fuck with us if they saw him looming over the country.
eeeek! would YOU fuck with a country if you saw THAT waiting for you!?
* Department of Housing and Urban Development - Ty Pennington. He makes over
all of those houses in a week... that guy knows what he is doing when it comes
to housing and urban development. His assistant would be Bob Vila.
* Department of the Interior- Whoever is in charge of the Grand Canyon.
* Department of Justice - Denis Kucinich, because I like him and would like to
have him in my cabinet.
* Department of Labor - Kimberly Alicea - because she gave me a job when I
desperately needed one, and she, like me, believes everyone deserves to work.
* Department of State - Dumbledore. because I can do wahtever I want, I am the
president. He talks well to all, is well known, and lived to be well in his
100's. And I had to put a Harry Potter character in here... it's MY cabinet!
* Department of Transportation - Whoever would bring back the train as a valid,
economical way of travelling. I hate to fly, and I love taking the train, but
I am so limited for my train travelling! A
* Department of the Treasury - My dad! He does my taxes every year and is the only
person i trust with any of my financial questions.
* Department of Veterans Affairs - I don't know any veterans! So I guess I would
nominate the one veteran I love listening to every day: Randi Rhodes.
Of course, my advisors would be: the rest of my family I did not give a cabinet position to, and all of my other friends - Jess, Liz, etc..
Vice President - I think this would be someone I don't really like because I would not see them a lot as they would be in an undisclosed location. Perhaps I will do the whole world a favor and ask Paris Hilton.
Chief of Staff - My dear cousin, Katie O'Neill. No question. The white
wouldn't know what hit it.
* Department of Agriculture - my brother Tommy, he studied plant and soil science
in college and lives in Vermont.
* Department of Commerce - Steve Jobs, he knows how to make people buy things.
* Department of Defense - Wesley Clark. Because I like him, and I can't have ALL
of my cabinet just be people I know...
* Department of Education - Mrs Allen. She taught me how to write my name, tie
my shoes, sing "good morning to you, good morning to you, we're all in our places
with sunshiny faces, this is the way to start a new day" - who better to run the
country's education department!
* Department of Energy - Al Gore. because we need to use less energy, and he is the
man to promote that.
* Department of Health and Human Services - Adrian, my dear friend who is the
person I call at the first sign of any symptom, she would be perfect for this
job as she is no-nonsense.
* Department of Homeland Security - Javier Bardem, in character from No Country
for Old Men -no one would fuck with us if they saw him looming over the country.
eeeek! would YOU fuck with a country if you saw THAT waiting for you!?
* Department of Housing and Urban Development - Ty Pennington. He makes over
all of those houses in a week... that guy knows what he is doing when it comes
to housing and urban development. His assistant would be Bob Vila.
* Department of the Interior- Whoever is in charge of the Grand Canyon.
* Department of Justice - Denis Kucinich, because I like him and would like to
have him in my cabinet.
* Department of Labor - Kimberly Alicea - because she gave me a job when I
desperately needed one, and she, like me, believes everyone deserves to work.
* Department of State - Dumbledore. because I can do wahtever I want, I am the
president. He talks well to all, is well known, and lived to be well in his
100's. And I had to put a Harry Potter character in here... it's MY cabinet!
* Department of Transportation - Whoever would bring back the train as a valid,
economical way of travelling. I hate to fly, and I love taking the train, but
I am so limited for my train travelling! A
* Department of the Treasury - My dad! He does my taxes every year and is the only
person i trust with any of my financial questions.
* Department of Veterans Affairs - I don't know any veterans! So I guess I would
nominate the one veteran I love listening to every day: Randi Rhodes.
Of course, my advisors would be: the rest of my family I did not give a cabinet position to, and all of my other friends - Jess, Liz, etc..
Saturday, November 15, 2008
blame it on the mormons...
November 15, 2008
Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage
By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
SACRAMENTO — Less than two weeks before Election Day, the chief strategist behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called an emergency meeting here.
“We’re going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money,” the strategist, Frank Schubert, recalled telling leaders of Protect Marriage, the main group behind the ban.
The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.
As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.
“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
The California measure, Proposition 8, was to many Mormons a kind of firewall to be held at all costs.
“California is a huge state, often seen as a bellwether — this was seen as a very, very important test,” Mr. Otterson said.
First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.
Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause.
“And they sure did,” Mr. Schubert said.
Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts.
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks ranging from “walkers,” assigned to knock on doors; to “sellers,” who would work with undecided voters later on; and to “closers,” who would get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead, emphasizing that Proposition 8 was about marriage, not about attacking gay people, and about restoring into law an earlier ban struck down by the State Supreme Court in May.
“It is not our goal in this campaign to attack the homosexual lifestyle or to convince gays and lesbians that their behavior is wrong — the less we refer to homosexuality, the better,” one of the ward training documents said. “We are pro-marriage, not anti-gay.”
Leaders were also acutely conscious of not crossing the line from being a church-based volunteer effort to an actual political organization.
“No work will take place at the church, including no meeting there to hand out precinct walking assignments so as to not even give the appearance of politicking at the church,” one of the documents said.
By mid-October, most independent polls showed support for the proposition was growing, but it was still trailing. Opponents had brought on new media consultants in the face of the slipping poll numbers, but they were still effectively raising money, including $3.9 million at a star-studded fund-raiser held at the Beverly Hills home of Ron Burkle, the supermarket billionaire and longtime Democratic fund-raiser.
It was then that Mr. Schubert called his meeting in Sacramento. “I said, ‘As good as our stuff is, it can’t withstand that kind of funding,’ ” he recalled.
The response was a desperate e-mail message sent to 92,000 people who had registered at the group’s Web site declaring a “code blue” — an urgent plea for money to save traditional marriage from “cardiac arrest.” Mr. Schubert also sent an e-mail message to the three top religious members of his executive committee, representing Catholics, evangelicals and Mormons.
“I ask for your prayers that this e-mail will open the hearts and minds of the faithful to make a further sacrifice of their funds at this urgent moment so that God’s precious gift of marriage is preserved,” he wrote.
On Oct. 28, Mr. Ashton, the grandson of the former Mormon president David O. McKay, donated $1 million. Mr. Ashton, who made his fortune as co-founder of the WordPerfect Corporation, said he was following his personal beliefs and the direction of the church.
“I think it was just our realizing that we heard a number of stories about members of the church who had worked long hours and lobbied long and hard,” he said in a telephone interview from Orem, Utah.
In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons.
Even with the Mormons’ contributions and the strong support of other religious groups, Proposition 8 strategists said they had taken pains to distance themselves from what Mr. Flint called “more extreme elements” opposed to rights for gay men and lesbians.
To that end, the group that put the issue on the ballot rebuffed efforts by some groups to include a ban on domestic partnership rights, which are granted in California. Mr. Schubert cautioned his side not to stage protests and risk alienating voters when same-sex marriages began being performed in June.
“We could not have this as a battle between people of faith and the gays,” Mr. Schubert said. “That was a losing formula.”
But the “Yes” side also initially faced apathy from middle-of-the-road California voters who were largely unconcerned about same-sex marriage. The overall sense of the voters in the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Schubert said, was “Who cares? I’m not gay.”
To counter that, advertisements for the “Yes” campaign also used hypothetical consequences of same-sex marriage, painting the specter of churches’ losing tax exempt status or people “sued for personal beliefs” or objections to same-sex marriage, claims that were made with little explanation.
Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.
“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said.
The “Yes” campaign was denounced by opponents as dishonest and divisive, but the passage of Proposition 8 has led to second-guessing about the “No” campaign, too, as well as talk about a possible ballot measure to repeal the ban. Several legal challenges have been filed, and the question of the legality of the same-sex marriages performed from June to Election Day could also be settled in court.
For his part, Mr. Schubert said he is neither anti-gay — his sister is a lesbian — nor happy that some same-sex couples’ marriages are now in question. But, he said, he has no regrets about his campaign.
“They had a lot going for them,” Mr. Schubert said of his opponents. “And they couldn’t get it done.”
Mr. Otterson said it was too early to tell what the long-term implications might be for the church, but in any case, he added, none of that factored into the decision by church leaders to order a march into battle. “They felt there was only one way we could stand on such a fundamental moral issue, and they took that stand,” he said. “It was a matter of standing up for what the church believes is right.”
That said, the extent of the protests has taken many Mormons by surprise. On Friday, the church’s leadership took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling for “respect” and “civility” in the aftermath of the vote.
“Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues,” the statement said. “People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal.”
Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”
Jesse McKinley reported from Sacramento, and Kirk Johnson from Salt Lake City.
Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage
By JESSE McKINLEY and KIRK JOHNSON
SACRAMENTO — Less than two weeks before Election Day, the chief strategist behind a ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California called an emergency meeting here.
“We’re going to lose this campaign if we don’t get more money,” the strategist, Frank Schubert, recalled telling leaders of Protect Marriage, the main group behind the ban.
The campaign issued an urgent appeal, and in a matter of days, it raised more than $5 million, including a $1 million donation from Alan C. Ashton, the grandson of a former president of the Mormon Church. The money allowed the drive to intensify a sharp-elbowed advertising campaign, and support for the measure was catapulted ahead; it ultimately won with 52 percent of the vote.
As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.
“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
The California measure, Proposition 8, was to many Mormons a kind of firewall to be held at all costs.
“California is a huge state, often seen as a bellwether — this was seen as a very, very important test,” Mr. Otterson said.
First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.
Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause.
“And they sure did,” Mr. Schubert said.
Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts.
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks ranging from “walkers,” assigned to knock on doors; to “sellers,” who would work with undecided voters later on; and to “closers,” who would get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead, emphasizing that Proposition 8 was about marriage, not about attacking gay people, and about restoring into law an earlier ban struck down by the State Supreme Court in May.
“It is not our goal in this campaign to attack the homosexual lifestyle or to convince gays and lesbians that their behavior is wrong — the less we refer to homosexuality, the better,” one of the ward training documents said. “We are pro-marriage, not anti-gay.”
Leaders were also acutely conscious of not crossing the line from being a church-based volunteer effort to an actual political organization.
“No work will take place at the church, including no meeting there to hand out precinct walking assignments so as to not even give the appearance of politicking at the church,” one of the documents said.
By mid-October, most independent polls showed support for the proposition was growing, but it was still trailing. Opponents had brought on new media consultants in the face of the slipping poll numbers, but they were still effectively raising money, including $3.9 million at a star-studded fund-raiser held at the Beverly Hills home of Ron Burkle, the supermarket billionaire and longtime Democratic fund-raiser.
It was then that Mr. Schubert called his meeting in Sacramento. “I said, ‘As good as our stuff is, it can’t withstand that kind of funding,’ ” he recalled.
The response was a desperate e-mail message sent to 92,000 people who had registered at the group’s Web site declaring a “code blue” — an urgent plea for money to save traditional marriage from “cardiac arrest.” Mr. Schubert also sent an e-mail message to the three top religious members of his executive committee, representing Catholics, evangelicals and Mormons.
“I ask for your prayers that this e-mail will open the hearts and minds of the faithful to make a further sacrifice of their funds at this urgent moment so that God’s precious gift of marriage is preserved,” he wrote.
On Oct. 28, Mr. Ashton, the grandson of the former Mormon president David O. McKay, donated $1 million. Mr. Ashton, who made his fortune as co-founder of the WordPerfect Corporation, said he was following his personal beliefs and the direction of the church.
“I think it was just our realizing that we heard a number of stories about members of the church who had worked long hours and lobbied long and hard,” he said in a telephone interview from Orem, Utah.
In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons.
Even with the Mormons’ contributions and the strong support of other religious groups, Proposition 8 strategists said they had taken pains to distance themselves from what Mr. Flint called “more extreme elements” opposed to rights for gay men and lesbians.
To that end, the group that put the issue on the ballot rebuffed efforts by some groups to include a ban on domestic partnership rights, which are granted in California. Mr. Schubert cautioned his side not to stage protests and risk alienating voters when same-sex marriages began being performed in June.
“We could not have this as a battle between people of faith and the gays,” Mr. Schubert said. “That was a losing formula.”
But the “Yes” side also initially faced apathy from middle-of-the-road California voters who were largely unconcerned about same-sex marriage. The overall sense of the voters in the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Schubert said, was “Who cares? I’m not gay.”
To counter that, advertisements for the “Yes” campaign also used hypothetical consequences of same-sex marriage, painting the specter of churches’ losing tax exempt status or people “sued for personal beliefs” or objections to same-sex marriage, claims that were made with little explanation.
Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.
“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said.
The “Yes” campaign was denounced by opponents as dishonest and divisive, but the passage of Proposition 8 has led to second-guessing about the “No” campaign, too, as well as talk about a possible ballot measure to repeal the ban. Several legal challenges have been filed, and the question of the legality of the same-sex marriages performed from June to Election Day could also be settled in court.
For his part, Mr. Schubert said he is neither anti-gay — his sister is a lesbian — nor happy that some same-sex couples’ marriages are now in question. But, he said, he has no regrets about his campaign.
“They had a lot going for them,” Mr. Schubert said of his opponents. “And they couldn’t get it done.”
Mr. Otterson said it was too early to tell what the long-term implications might be for the church, but in any case, he added, none of that factored into the decision by church leaders to order a march into battle. “They felt there was only one way we could stand on such a fundamental moral issue, and they took that stand,” he said. “It was a matter of standing up for what the church believes is right.”
That said, the extent of the protests has taken many Mormons by surprise. On Friday, the church’s leadership took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling for “respect” and “civility” in the aftermath of the vote.
“Attacks on churches and intimidation of people of faith have no place in civil discourse over controversial issues,” the statement said. “People of faith have a democratic right to express their views in the public square without fear of reprisal.”
Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”
Jesse McKinley reported from Sacramento, and Kirk Johnson from Salt Lake City.
Friday, November 14, 2008
i am NOT pro ABORTION i am PRO CHOICE
this infuriates me:
SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters
By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer Meg Kinnard, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 13, 6:33 pm ET
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."
The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.
"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.
"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.
But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.
According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.
"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."
Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.
"Father Newman is off base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."
A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.
"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."
___
On the Net:
St. Mary's Catholic Church: http://www.stmarysgvl.org/
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
* Questions or Comments
* Privacy Policy
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* Copyright/IP Policy
SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters
By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer Meg Kinnard, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 13, 6:33 pm ET
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina Roman Catholic priest has told his parishioners that they should refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because the Democratic president-elect supports abortion, and supporting him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil."
The Rev. Jay Scott Newman said in a letter distributed Sunday to parishioners at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville that they are putting their souls at risk if they take Holy Communion before doing penance for their vote.
"Our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president," Newman wrote, referring to Obama by his full name, including his middle name of Hussein.
"Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exists constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ's Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."
During the 2008 presidential campaign, many bishops spoke out on abortion more boldly than four years earlier, telling Catholic politicians and voters that the issue should be the most important consideration in setting policy and deciding which candidate to back. A few church leaders said parishioners risked their immortal soul by voting for candidates who support abortion rights.
But bishops differ on whether Catholic lawmakers — and voters — should refrain from receiving Communion if they diverge from church teaching on abortion. Each bishop sets policy in his own diocese. In their annual fall meeting, the nation's Catholic bishops vowed Tuesday to forcefully confront the Obama administration over its support for abortion rights.
According to national exit polls, 54 percent of Catholics chose Obama, who is Protestant. In South Carolina, which McCain carried, voters in Greenville County — traditionally seen as among the state's most conservative areas — went 61 percent for the Republican, and 37 percent for Obama.
"It was not an attempt to make a partisan point," Newman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "In fact, in this election, for the sake of argument, if the Republican candidate had been pro-abortion, and the Democratic candidate had been pro-life, everything that I wrote would have been exactly the same."
Conservative Catholics criticized Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 for supporting abortion rights, with a few Catholic bishops saying Kerry should refrain from receiving Holy Communion because his views were contrary to church teachings.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said she had not heard of other churches taking this position in reaction to Obama's win. A Boston-based group that supports Catholic Democrats questioned the move, saying it was too extreme.
"Father Newman is off base," said Steve Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats. "He is acting beyond the authority of a parish priest to say what he did. ... Unfortunately, he is doing so in a manner that will be of great cost to those parishioners who did vote for Sens. Obama and Biden. There will be a spiritual cost to them for his words."
A man who has attended St. Mary's for 18 years said he welcomed Newman's message and anticipated it would inspire further discussion at the church.
"I don't understand anyone who would call themselves a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and could vote for someone who's a pro-abortion candidate," said Ted Kelly, 64, who volunteers his time as lector for the church. "You're talking about the murder of innocent beings."
___
On the Net:
St. Mary's Catholic Church: http://www.stmarysgvl.org/
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
* Questions or Comments
* Privacy Policy
* Terms of Service
* Copyright/IP Policy
Thursday, November 13, 2008
deep breaths
this is from the huffington post. Once again, I find myself trying not to think about things so I dont get too excited...
There are numerous reports tonight that Hillary Clinton may be under consideration for Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
From the Washington Post:
There's increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.
There's talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.
And NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports:
Two Obama advisers have told NBC News that Hillary Clinton is under consideration to be secretary of state. Would she be interested? Those who know Clinton say possibly. But her office says that any decisions about the transition are up to the president-elect and his team.
Clinton was seen taking a flight to Chicago today, but an adviser says it was on personal business. It is unknown whether she had any meeting or conversation with Obama while there.
According to CNN:
One source close to Hillary Clinton tells CNN that as of early yesterday, Senator Clinton had not been contacted by the transition team about a possible cabinet appointment. This same source tells CNN that Senator Clinton would not necessarily dismiss such an offer.
A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines, tells CNN "Any speculation about cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-Elect Obama's transition team to address."
On Monday night, while walking into an awards ceremony in New York, Senator Clinton was asked if she would consider taking a post in the Obama administration. She replied, "I am happy being a Senator from New York, I love this state and this city. I am looking at the long list of things I have to catch up on and do. But I want to be a good partner and I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is going to be successful."
And sources tell ABC News that discussions about Clinton being asked to accept the post are "very serious."
There are numerous reports tonight that Hillary Clinton may be under consideration for Secretary of State in the Obama administration.
From the Washington Post:
There's increasing chatter in political circles that the Obama camp is not overly happy with the usual suspects for secretary of state these days and that the field might be expanding somewhat beyond Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Gov. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.), Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and maybe former Democratic senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.
There's talk, indeed, that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) may now be under consideration for the post. Her office referred any questions to the Obama transition; Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to comment.
And NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports:
Two Obama advisers have told NBC News that Hillary Clinton is under consideration to be secretary of state. Would she be interested? Those who know Clinton say possibly. But her office says that any decisions about the transition are up to the president-elect and his team.
Clinton was seen taking a flight to Chicago today, but an adviser says it was on personal business. It is unknown whether she had any meeting or conversation with Obama while there.
According to CNN:
One source close to Hillary Clinton tells CNN that as of early yesterday, Senator Clinton had not been contacted by the transition team about a possible cabinet appointment. This same source tells CNN that Senator Clinton would not necessarily dismiss such an offer.
A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines, tells CNN "Any speculation about cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-Elect Obama's transition team to address."
On Monday night, while walking into an awards ceremony in New York, Senator Clinton was asked if she would consider taking a post in the Obama administration. She replied, "I am happy being a Senator from New York, I love this state and this city. I am looking at the long list of things I have to catch up on and do. But I want to be a good partner and I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is going to be successful."
And sources tell ABC News that discussions about Clinton being asked to accept the post are "very serious."
Thomas jefferson for gay rights!
i stole this from perez hilton:
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
- Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
- Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
while we breathe, we hope
ok.
I have posted things since the victory, but not my reaction. I needed time. I have been walking around in a daze since Tuesday night. Oh. My. God. I still can't believe it.
I was at my friend Naila's, there were tons of people there, in the lounge of her apartment building. I had a few glasses of wine in me, and I was feeling good, but still, I knew with the voter fraud from the past, I couldn't get too cocky. The first states called were not surprises: Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Nothing surprising. At 9:20, someone at the party got a phone call from her brother saying that FOX NEWS was reporting Ohio went to Obama. We were all abuzz, I called Jess to see if she knew anything - she didn't. Then, MSNBC announced it. Ohio was Obama's. For the first time, I really truly thought "Oh my god, we can win." But still, in the back of my mind, I wasnt 100%. 2000 screwed me up forever, as did growing up a Red Sox fan - it took them 86 years, so maybe in the back of my head i was htinking it would take that long for the dems to win.
At one point, Chuck Todd did an analysis on what states McCain would have to win in order to be the next president. With his little fingers, he highlighted states red, and went West on the map. As he went along, he made states like Colorado red, saying "let's just SAY he gets Colorado..." and concluded "it doesnt look good, he would virtually have to win every state left.." I still didn't let myself get TOO excited. At 10:59, suddenly, at the bottom of the screen (at this point we were on CNN), we saw them flash the Virginia results (previously undeclared) with a check next to Obamas name. We started buzzing. They announced it, and i saw there was 52 seconds until the West coast polls closed. I said "oh my god. California. We are going to win. Oh my god." the countdown continued, and with 0 seconds, they flashed "breaking news" and the screen switched to Baracks face with "projected winner" next to his name. The room went crazy, i jumped out of my seat, screaming and crying. I immediately called my parents - and just started yelling my dad said "palin headquarters" but all i could say was "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!" and screaming. My mom in the background was yelling. then we said goodbye, and i called Jess, again, screaming and crying. And, i was shaking. My hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, my legs were shaking. We won. After 8 years of frustration. We won. And not only did we win, but it was a black man who could do it. Everyone was crying. I then called Katie. But my call couldnt go through. I tried Adrian, same thing. The lines were jammed. Everyone was calling their families and friends. I was hugging people... it was amazing. I sent some texts because that was all i could do. A few minutes later the headline on the TV said "McCain calls Obama to concede." It was unbelievable. 11pm, and it was decided.
At first I said i would leave at 10, but then Ohio was called, so I couldnt. Then I said 11, but he won, so I couldnt. So i stayed for the speeches.
McCain was good. The best he has been for months. When he thanked Sarah Palin, I said "YES!!! THANK YOU SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!" and everyone erupted in agreement. I felt bad for him, this was his only chance. But not bad enough.
Then came Barack's speech. First, he came onto the stage. I got weepy. Then he started speaking. I was sobbing. He goddamn won. We had our first black president. We have a liberal. We have someone who speaks from his heart, who thinks with his own brain. And the speech proved it. The puppy, talking about his grandmother, the 106 year old woman, the Lincoln references... Oh. My. God. I was a basket case. When he finished, his family came out again, along with the Bidens. Oh, Joe. I said "Joe! show us those pearly whites because we won't be seeing them for a long time once you go to your undisclosed location!"
We did it.
Yes, we did.
I took a cab home that night, and couldnt contain myself "IT"S A GOOD NIGHT FOR AMERICA!!!!!!!!" i said to my cabbie, a foreigner. He couldnt help himself, and smiled. We talked about it the whole ride. I gave him a $10 tip. He said "don't worry, everything will be ok, youre right, it is a wonderful night for america, don't lose hope, you are a beautiful person and soul."
Thanks, cabbie.
I walked into my apartment, still with this feeling of surreal, i walked into my room, and started laughing. hysterically. Just laughing. I have never had that feeling before, and I dont know if I ever will. It was a landslide.
I spent a little while longer online, updating this, writing a few messages on facebook, scouring CNN, watching Al Franken's race... and smiling.
I woke up yesterday morning and immediately put on the tv. I had to make sure it wasnt a dream, that it wasnt taken away in the middle of the night. It was real.
I only had 5.5 hours of sleep, but it didn't matter. I was wide awake. Walking on the streets of New York, the air seemed lighter, lifted. I tried to catch people's eye and share something with them, but New Yorkers hadn't changed THAT much overnight!
I talked to my mom in the morning, when I was a bit more subdued than the night before. She said she can't believe she remembers Blacks not being able to vote, JFK winning, and now, Barack. She said she was happy and excited when JFK won, but she was in Junior High, so it wasn't like this for her. Unbelievable.
Today I was watching the news and there was a photo of him with "president elect" next to the photo, and I started laughing. I dont know when this feeling will subside. I hope it never does.
Finally, after years of dread, years of worry, years of frustration, I have a feeling of hope, of peace, of happiness.
Yes, we can. Yes we did.
Thank you, America.
Now let's work on getting rights for gay couples. THe one true disappointment of the night.
I have posted things since the victory, but not my reaction. I needed time. I have been walking around in a daze since Tuesday night. Oh. My. God. I still can't believe it.
I was at my friend Naila's, there were tons of people there, in the lounge of her apartment building. I had a few glasses of wine in me, and I was feeling good, but still, I knew with the voter fraud from the past, I couldn't get too cocky. The first states called were not surprises: Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Nothing surprising. At 9:20, someone at the party got a phone call from her brother saying that FOX NEWS was reporting Ohio went to Obama. We were all abuzz, I called Jess to see if she knew anything - she didn't. Then, MSNBC announced it. Ohio was Obama's. For the first time, I really truly thought "Oh my god, we can win." But still, in the back of my mind, I wasnt 100%. 2000 screwed me up forever, as did growing up a Red Sox fan - it took them 86 years, so maybe in the back of my head i was htinking it would take that long for the dems to win.
At one point, Chuck Todd did an analysis on what states McCain would have to win in order to be the next president. With his little fingers, he highlighted states red, and went West on the map. As he went along, he made states like Colorado red, saying "let's just SAY he gets Colorado..." and concluded "it doesnt look good, he would virtually have to win every state left.." I still didn't let myself get TOO excited. At 10:59, suddenly, at the bottom of the screen (at this point we were on CNN), we saw them flash the Virginia results (previously undeclared) with a check next to Obamas name. We started buzzing. They announced it, and i saw there was 52 seconds until the West coast polls closed. I said "oh my god. California. We are going to win. Oh my god." the countdown continued, and with 0 seconds, they flashed "breaking news" and the screen switched to Baracks face with "projected winner" next to his name. The room went crazy, i jumped out of my seat, screaming and crying. I immediately called my parents - and just started yelling my dad said "palin headquarters" but all i could say was "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!" and screaming. My mom in the background was yelling. then we said goodbye, and i called Jess, again, screaming and crying. And, i was shaking. My hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, my legs were shaking. We won. After 8 years of frustration. We won. And not only did we win, but it was a black man who could do it. Everyone was crying. I then called Katie. But my call couldnt go through. I tried Adrian, same thing. The lines were jammed. Everyone was calling their families and friends. I was hugging people... it was amazing. I sent some texts because that was all i could do. A few minutes later the headline on the TV said "McCain calls Obama to concede." It was unbelievable. 11pm, and it was decided.
At first I said i would leave at 10, but then Ohio was called, so I couldnt. Then I said 11, but he won, so I couldnt. So i stayed for the speeches.
McCain was good. The best he has been for months. When he thanked Sarah Palin, I said "YES!!! THANK YOU SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!" and everyone erupted in agreement. I felt bad for him, this was his only chance. But not bad enough.
Then came Barack's speech. First, he came onto the stage. I got weepy. Then he started speaking. I was sobbing. He goddamn won. We had our first black president. We have a liberal. We have someone who speaks from his heart, who thinks with his own brain. And the speech proved it. The puppy, talking about his grandmother, the 106 year old woman, the Lincoln references... Oh. My. God. I was a basket case. When he finished, his family came out again, along with the Bidens. Oh, Joe. I said "Joe! show us those pearly whites because we won't be seeing them for a long time once you go to your undisclosed location!"
We did it.
Yes, we did.
I took a cab home that night, and couldnt contain myself "IT"S A GOOD NIGHT FOR AMERICA!!!!!!!!" i said to my cabbie, a foreigner. He couldnt help himself, and smiled. We talked about it the whole ride. I gave him a $10 tip. He said "don't worry, everything will be ok, youre right, it is a wonderful night for america, don't lose hope, you are a beautiful person and soul."
Thanks, cabbie.
I walked into my apartment, still with this feeling of surreal, i walked into my room, and started laughing. hysterically. Just laughing. I have never had that feeling before, and I dont know if I ever will. It was a landslide.
I spent a little while longer online, updating this, writing a few messages on facebook, scouring CNN, watching Al Franken's race... and smiling.
I woke up yesterday morning and immediately put on the tv. I had to make sure it wasnt a dream, that it wasnt taken away in the middle of the night. It was real.
I only had 5.5 hours of sleep, but it didn't matter. I was wide awake. Walking on the streets of New York, the air seemed lighter, lifted. I tried to catch people's eye and share something with them, but New Yorkers hadn't changed THAT much overnight!
I talked to my mom in the morning, when I was a bit more subdued than the night before. She said she can't believe she remembers Blacks not being able to vote, JFK winning, and now, Barack. She said she was happy and excited when JFK won, but she was in Junior High, so it wasn't like this for her. Unbelievable.
Today I was watching the news and there was a photo of him with "president elect" next to the photo, and I started laughing. I dont know when this feeling will subside. I hope it never does.
Finally, after years of dread, years of worry, years of frustration, I have a feeling of hope, of peace, of happiness.
Yes, we can. Yes we did.
Thank you, America.
Now let's work on getting rights for gay couples. THe one true disappointment of the night.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
because no votes are in yet...
"they are throwing a lot of snowballs in hell today" - caller on Thom Hartman's show on Air America referring to all of the life long republicans voting for Obama today.
"I feel very good about what's going to happen today." - Hillary Rodham Clinton, after casting her vote
"it's like black friday, the day after thanksgiving, it's like the line at walmart." - southern woman on what the poll lines are like today.
"I feel very good about what's going to happen today." - Hillary Rodham Clinton, after casting her vote
"it's like black friday, the day after thanksgiving, it's like the line at walmart." - southern woman on what the poll lines are like today.
Lever, flag, lever
I did it.
I woke up at 4:52, fell back asleep until 6, lay there until i heard Jenn get up, got up at 6:40, was home by 7:30.
While waiting in line, one of the poll workers came over and was talking to the lady in charge of the voting machine in my line, and asked her to help check people in. He said "This line is up the wazoo!" So everyone, get ready for wazoo lines.
I walked into my booth and promptly started tearing up. As I flagged "Barack Obama Joe Biden" I had a moment. Before I pulled the lever back, I kissed my hand, then kissed his name.
Now, we wait.
EVERYONE GO OUT AND VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ps as we were leaving, we passed this girl in a john mccain shirt (which you are not allowed to wear when you are voting) and she was pulling a suitcase, marching along the goddamn sidewalk like she owned it. I said to Jenn "THAT is exactly how I picture a McCain supporter"
my shirt for the day:
I woke up at 4:52, fell back asleep until 6, lay there until i heard Jenn get up, got up at 6:40, was home by 7:30.
While waiting in line, one of the poll workers came over and was talking to the lady in charge of the voting machine in my line, and asked her to help check people in. He said "This line is up the wazoo!" So everyone, get ready for wazoo lines.
I walked into my booth and promptly started tearing up. As I flagged "Barack Obama Joe Biden" I had a moment. Before I pulled the lever back, I kissed my hand, then kissed his name.
Now, we wait.
EVERYONE GO OUT AND VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ps as we were leaving, we passed this girl in a john mccain shirt (which you are not allowed to wear when you are voting) and she was pulling a suitcase, marching along the goddamn sidewalk like she owned it. I said to Jenn "THAT is exactly how I picture a McCain supporter"
my shirt for the day:
Monday, November 3, 2008
This is it..
So here I am, just about to fall asleep, or I should say, TRY to fall asleep the night before the election. Dixville Notch is 45 minutes away for casting the first ballots of the day. They think for the first time in years, a Decmocrat may be chosen there.
The campaigns are coming to an end, with each candidate having one last hurrah in battleground states. "Undecided" voters are frantically researching online to find out which candidate they are going to vote for. Riiiiiight.
This afternoon I called several voters in Florida and Wisconsin to remind them to vote, ask who they are voting for, and if they needed a reminder of where their polling location was. Some people didn't want to talk to me, others were excited, most I just left cheerful messages for. THe energy in the room was staggering. All of us hopeful for tomorrow. All of us fighting for the same cause, trying to do our bit. I made fast friends with everyone at my table, Most were over the age of 50, women who have volunteered for months. One woman had been volunteering for 2 years. All for Barack. When we parted ways before she went down to her train, she held my hand and squeezed it and said "let's hope."
I am hoping. I am hoping for the future of this country. For the country to regain it's esteem with other countries. For foreigners not to look at us and think "how stupid" but rather "good, they got it right." I am hoping for my niece and nephews, that they can say they kind of remember the first black president getting elected, they remember their auntie meg and nan were crazy passionate about it. I am hoping that anyone who is "undecided" werent swayed by Palin and McCain showing up on SNL tonight. I am hoping that Barack Obama's grandmother is up in heaven looking down on us, knowing that in 24 hours, her grandson will be the president elect. I am hoping that someone will actually kiss me when they see my "kiss me i am voting obama biden" shirt. I am hoping that people wait as long as it takes in line to get their vote counted. I hope that everyone's votes WILL count, that there is no fraud. That the electronic machines work. I am hoping that for the first time since I have been able to vote, my candidate wins. THat my faith in America is restored. That this country isnt basing their votes on religious beliefs and fear, but on the need for change and knowing what and who is right.
Tomorrow is the day.
I dont' know when we will know the results.
I don't know what those results will be.
I can only wait.
And Hope.
Yes we can.
The campaigns are coming to an end, with each candidate having one last hurrah in battleground states. "Undecided" voters are frantically researching online to find out which candidate they are going to vote for. Riiiiiight.
This afternoon I called several voters in Florida and Wisconsin to remind them to vote, ask who they are voting for, and if they needed a reminder of where their polling location was. Some people didn't want to talk to me, others were excited, most I just left cheerful messages for. THe energy in the room was staggering. All of us hopeful for tomorrow. All of us fighting for the same cause, trying to do our bit. I made fast friends with everyone at my table, Most were over the age of 50, women who have volunteered for months. One woman had been volunteering for 2 years. All for Barack. When we parted ways before she went down to her train, she held my hand and squeezed it and said "let's hope."
I am hoping. I am hoping for the future of this country. For the country to regain it's esteem with other countries. For foreigners not to look at us and think "how stupid" but rather "good, they got it right." I am hoping for my niece and nephews, that they can say they kind of remember the first black president getting elected, they remember their auntie meg and nan were crazy passionate about it. I am hoping that anyone who is "undecided" werent swayed by Palin and McCain showing up on SNL tonight. I am hoping that Barack Obama's grandmother is up in heaven looking down on us, knowing that in 24 hours, her grandson will be the president elect. I am hoping that someone will actually kiss me when they see my "kiss me i am voting obama biden" shirt. I am hoping that people wait as long as it takes in line to get their vote counted. I hope that everyone's votes WILL count, that there is no fraud. That the electronic machines work. I am hoping that for the first time since I have been able to vote, my candidate wins. THat my faith in America is restored. That this country isnt basing their votes on religious beliefs and fear, but on the need for change and knowing what and who is right.
Tomorrow is the day.
I dont' know when we will know the results.
I don't know what those results will be.
I can only wait.
And Hope.
Yes we can.
i cant handle it.
if i cant handle it today, what the HELL am I going to be like TOMORROW!?
Good God.
i stare at the polls. I stare at the map. I read the articles.
And I still don't know what is going to happen.
I said to a friend yesterday: "I'm not nervous, but I'm not confident. I'm just waiting."
My boss emailed all of us and said that voting is more important than airfares, so take our time waiting to vote.
I will post a photo of my t-shirt for tomorrow tonight.
Oh my God. One more sleep.
I am at work and I just cannot concentrate.
Not.
At.
All.
I feel like i need a stiff drink in my hand from now until 11pm tomorrow.
Good God.
i stare at the polls. I stare at the map. I read the articles.
And I still don't know what is going to happen.
I said to a friend yesterday: "I'm not nervous, but I'm not confident. I'm just waiting."
My boss emailed all of us and said that voting is more important than airfares, so take our time waiting to vote.
I will post a photo of my t-shirt for tomorrow tonight.
Oh my God. One more sleep.
I am at work and I just cannot concentrate.
Not.
At.
All.
I feel like i need a stiff drink in my hand from now until 11pm tomorrow.
one day.
This is when we, in NYC will find out the results of each state, as long as it isn't too close to call...
Sunday, November 2, 2008
THIS WEEK.
Oh my God.
Two days.
I vowed to write every day the week before the election, but yesterday the lovely Jess was in town, and I did not have a chance to blog. The weekend of course, was filled with election talk. Yesterday, we went to the Museum of the City of New York, where there was a special presidential campaign exhibition. It was fascinating, from a display of hundreds of pins, to lincoln lanterns, to a washington flag, a Bobby Kennedy dress.. and the final spot of the exhibition - cardboard cutouts of Obama, McCain and Hillary. So we took photos - which, as soon as I get them (they are on Jess' camera) i will post.
Let's just say that when we were taking the McCain ones, a lady said "ohhh.. that's not nice..."
The polls are still changing. for good, i think. but who KNOWS.
McCain was on SNL last night. we watched him, it was fine. nothing spectacular, nothing awful. I dont think that it will give him anymore votes. Tomorrow night is the SNL election special - I am hoping for a cameo by Obama, and maybe by Al Franken! THAT would be awesome! But I am sure both of them are pretty busy-- hopefully not too busy to do a satellite cameo!
The anxiety dreams keep coming - I can only imagine what my nights sleep will be like tomorrow night.
We are winding down.
Two days.
I vowed to write every day the week before the election, but yesterday the lovely Jess was in town, and I did not have a chance to blog. The weekend of course, was filled with election talk. Yesterday, we went to the Museum of the City of New York, where there was a special presidential campaign exhibition. It was fascinating, from a display of hundreds of pins, to lincoln lanterns, to a washington flag, a Bobby Kennedy dress.. and the final spot of the exhibition - cardboard cutouts of Obama, McCain and Hillary. So we took photos - which, as soon as I get them (they are on Jess' camera) i will post.
Let's just say that when we were taking the McCain ones, a lady said "ohhh.. that's not nice..."
The polls are still changing. for good, i think. but who KNOWS.
McCain was on SNL last night. we watched him, it was fine. nothing spectacular, nothing awful. I dont think that it will give him anymore votes. Tomorrow night is the SNL election special - I am hoping for a cameo by Obama, and maybe by Al Franken! THAT would be awesome! But I am sure both of them are pretty busy-- hopefully not too busy to do a satellite cameo!
The anxiety dreams keep coming - I can only imagine what my nights sleep will be like tomorrow night.
We are winding down.
Friday, October 31, 2008
I have had a dream every night this week relating to the election. I forgot to vote, i won't be able to vote... I imagine i will NOT be sleeping on Monday night.
Last night i was analyzing an electoral map. I proclaimed that Arizona is now "pink" - Missouri was "grey" and as i was staring at it further i said "i have to stop" and promptly shut my laptop. Jenn, my roommate simply said "yeah."
It is consuming me. One moment I am filled with doubt. The next, confidence. Then i read another smear against Obama and I think "oh god, what about the people who BELIEVE this!?"
I just heard on the radio that most people who are still undecided today will likely not be voting come Tuesday. Ok. Fine. So what does that MEAN!?
Voter fraud scares me too. Maybe millions more people will vote than have before, but what if their votes aren't counted?? can the republicans get away with that AGAIN this year!?!? oh god. I cant even think about it. I CANT. I CANT think about the look on Sarah Palin's face if they do indeed win.
Maybe it is because I grew up in Massachusetts, watching the Red Sox lose year after year after year. They finally started winning again, but even now, I doubt they will every year. I am not sure I will EVER have confidence in them. Maybe it all DOES stem from 2000. The abuse I endured that year is just forever ingrained in my blood.
Or maybe it is because it IS still anyone's game.
Last night i was analyzing an electoral map. I proclaimed that Arizona is now "pink" - Missouri was "grey" and as i was staring at it further i said "i have to stop" and promptly shut my laptop. Jenn, my roommate simply said "yeah."
It is consuming me. One moment I am filled with doubt. The next, confidence. Then i read another smear against Obama and I think "oh god, what about the people who BELIEVE this!?"
I just heard on the radio that most people who are still undecided today will likely not be voting come Tuesday. Ok. Fine. So what does that MEAN!?
Voter fraud scares me too. Maybe millions more people will vote than have before, but what if their votes aren't counted?? can the republicans get away with that AGAIN this year!?!? oh god. I cant even think about it. I CANT. I CANT think about the look on Sarah Palin's face if they do indeed win.
Maybe it is because I grew up in Massachusetts, watching the Red Sox lose year after year after year. They finally started winning again, but even now, I doubt they will every year. I am not sure I will EVER have confidence in them. Maybe it all DOES stem from 2000. The abuse I endured that year is just forever ingrained in my blood.
Or maybe it is because it IS still anyone's game.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
the most exciting moment of the campaign...
Well last night I tuned into the half hour Barack Obama ad, which was clearly geared toward middle class undecideds in swing states. So, obviously not to me. However, there was one moment during the ad where I felt that Michele Obama was trying to secure my vote. It was when she was talking about Barack's relationship with his girls. And she said that he tries to have special things he does with each of them separately.. and for their oldest daughter... it was READING ALL OF THE HARRY POTTER BOOKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, as if he hadn't been a complete lock before, he is even MORE of a lock for me now. I wish he would make a Harry Potter reference in a speech... like "I am Harry Potter coming to take over Voldemort who has ruled for 8 years..." I think now, besides "McCain being just too old" my nephew will have other reasons to hope Obama wins.
This morning, CNN has Missouri as too close to call!!!!!!!!!! it was "leaning McCain" before.
5 days..
So, as if he hadn't been a complete lock before, he is even MORE of a lock for me now. I wish he would make a Harry Potter reference in a speech... like "I am Harry Potter coming to take over Voldemort who has ruled for 8 years..." I think now, besides "McCain being just too old" my nephew will have other reasons to hope Obama wins.
This morning, CNN has Missouri as too close to call!!!!!!!!!! it was "leaning McCain" before.
5 days..
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
ONE WEEK
One week from today is the BIG DAY. Today as i was sitting on the train, I looked around at everyone, on a normal day, and I wondered what they will be like in a week. Will we all look at each other with knowing glances? Will we judge each other on whether or not we think the other voted? I do not know. BUt I do know that in a week I will be in high gear.
until then, I will suffer from Election Anxiety Disorder - this from The Huffington Post:
CHICAGO — Victoria St. Gelais is panicky. Tami Brewster-Barnes feels the nerves in the pit of her stomach. Steven Valentine is losing sleep as his mood rises and falls with John McCain's poll numbers.
Voters around the country, whether they support McCain or Barack Obama, say they are experiencing nail-biting, ulcer-inducing anxiety ahead of next week's election and all that's riding on it.
"I have kind of a general feeling of near panic on occasion," says St. Gelais, a 48-year-old McCain supporter in Ormond Beach, Fla. "The thought of Obama winning right now is scaring me to death. ... I'm just anxious and even a little depressed."
St. Gelais, like many, says she's not sleeping well, is watching Fox News nearly all day, and "lives on her computer," following all of the polls and the latest news. If Obama wins, she'll be devastated.
"I would equate it to a death," she says.
Although polls favor Obama a week before the election, it's not just Republicans getting the jitters. Democrats are on high alert after losing two close elections to President Bush in the last eight years.
Democratic blogger Cynthia Liu has dubbed it "Post-Traumatic Election Anxiety Disorder," with hallmarks including restless Web surfing for election information, sleeplessness and making desperate calls to undecided voters.
"It's a very high-stakes election," says Liu, a writer in Los Angeles.
Story continues below
Nancy Molitor, a psychologist in Wilmette, Ill., says this is the most anxious she has seen her patients in 20 years of practice.
"Human beings, generally we do better in periods of calm, stability and certainty," Molitor says.
And right now _ with war, a historic election and a looming financial crisis _ is most certainly not a time of calm. People are reporting trouble sleeping, edginess, irritability, and increased absences and distractions at work, Molitor says.
Add to that 24-hour cable news shows and near nonstop reporting, blogging and commenting online, and you've got a virtual stressfest for political junkies.
Elections generate so much stress because people vote out of a "very, very core place in their personalities," says Lisa Miller, an associate professor of psychology and education at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.
"It has to do with their existential view of how the world works," Miller says. "The fear is that a candidate who shares a different fundamental view of human nature is rattling."
Plus, we project all of our hopes and fears onto a candidate to protect us and keep us safe, she says _ so much so that the president becomes a "father figure."
"It certainly makes sense that the uncertainty of a parental figure could be evocative," she says.
Brewster-Barnes, a 40-year-old health-insurance company employee in Vancouver, Wash., wants to be able to tell her grandchildren that she voted for the first black president. But she also worries that Obama's racial background might turn off other voters.
So she's done all she could, including making phone calls on behalf of the campaign and donating to the cause even though money is tight.
"It was something I had to do," she says.
The election is even affecting the timing of Ray Brun's move. Currently, Brun and his family live in the swing state of New Hampshire, but they're packed up and ready to move to Kentucky _ after casting their votes for McCain, he says.
"I think our votes up here will be a little more influential," says Brun, 29.
Voting early, talking to friends or donating money are all healthy, pro-active responses, says Gretchen Rubin, a New York-based writer whose book, "The Happiness Project," comes out next year. Rubin spent a year testing every theory, study and self-help axiom on happiness that she could find.
"One thing I've learned from my study of happiness that is crazily effective is that you should act the way you want to feel," Rubin says. "We really feel because of the way we act."
When all else fails, she says, remember this: "No one's trying to ruin the country. Everybody's going to try to do their best."
Kellie Brown knows that. But the 32-year-old mom and technical recruiter in Evergreen, Colo., desperately wants Obama to be the next president. Even the polls showing him in the lead are no solace.
"I hate hearing those polls because I feel like it gives people the false thought that they can just relax and maybe not go to vote," Brown says.
What will happen when America wakes up on Nov. 5 and the results are in?
Valentine, a 19-year-old sophomore at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, says he doesn't know what he'll do if McCain loses.
"The College Republicans have given up countless hours of our time," Valentine says. "I haven't really prepared myself for (a McCain loss). I don't know what I'm going to do when the election is over."
As the race wraps up, Molitor is concerned about those who have the most emotional investment in the election.
"Some people are going to have to mourn this," she says. "This is going to be like a loss. It's going to be like a death. Some have been very passionate. It's become their life. It's become an obsession. And those people I'm worried about."
until then, I will suffer from Election Anxiety Disorder - this from The Huffington Post:
CHICAGO — Victoria St. Gelais is panicky. Tami Brewster-Barnes feels the nerves in the pit of her stomach. Steven Valentine is losing sleep as his mood rises and falls with John McCain's poll numbers.
Voters around the country, whether they support McCain or Barack Obama, say they are experiencing nail-biting, ulcer-inducing anxiety ahead of next week's election and all that's riding on it.
"I have kind of a general feeling of near panic on occasion," says St. Gelais, a 48-year-old McCain supporter in Ormond Beach, Fla. "The thought of Obama winning right now is scaring me to death. ... I'm just anxious and even a little depressed."
St. Gelais, like many, says she's not sleeping well, is watching Fox News nearly all day, and "lives on her computer," following all of the polls and the latest news. If Obama wins, she'll be devastated.
"I would equate it to a death," she says.
Although polls favor Obama a week before the election, it's not just Republicans getting the jitters. Democrats are on high alert after losing two close elections to President Bush in the last eight years.
Democratic blogger Cynthia Liu has dubbed it "Post-Traumatic Election Anxiety Disorder," with hallmarks including restless Web surfing for election information, sleeplessness and making desperate calls to undecided voters.
"It's a very high-stakes election," says Liu, a writer in Los Angeles.
Story continues below
Nancy Molitor, a psychologist in Wilmette, Ill., says this is the most anxious she has seen her patients in 20 years of practice.
"Human beings, generally we do better in periods of calm, stability and certainty," Molitor says.
And right now _ with war, a historic election and a looming financial crisis _ is most certainly not a time of calm. People are reporting trouble sleeping, edginess, irritability, and increased absences and distractions at work, Molitor says.
Add to that 24-hour cable news shows and near nonstop reporting, blogging and commenting online, and you've got a virtual stressfest for political junkies.
Elections generate so much stress because people vote out of a "very, very core place in their personalities," says Lisa Miller, an associate professor of psychology and education at Columbia University Teachers College in New York.
"It has to do with their existential view of how the world works," Miller says. "The fear is that a candidate who shares a different fundamental view of human nature is rattling."
Plus, we project all of our hopes and fears onto a candidate to protect us and keep us safe, she says _ so much so that the president becomes a "father figure."
"It certainly makes sense that the uncertainty of a parental figure could be evocative," she says.
Brewster-Barnes, a 40-year-old health-insurance company employee in Vancouver, Wash., wants to be able to tell her grandchildren that she voted for the first black president. But she also worries that Obama's racial background might turn off other voters.
So she's done all she could, including making phone calls on behalf of the campaign and donating to the cause even though money is tight.
"It was something I had to do," she says.
The election is even affecting the timing of Ray Brun's move. Currently, Brun and his family live in the swing state of New Hampshire, but they're packed up and ready to move to Kentucky _ after casting their votes for McCain, he says.
"I think our votes up here will be a little more influential," says Brun, 29.
Voting early, talking to friends or donating money are all healthy, pro-active responses, says Gretchen Rubin, a New York-based writer whose book, "The Happiness Project," comes out next year. Rubin spent a year testing every theory, study and self-help axiom on happiness that she could find.
"One thing I've learned from my study of happiness that is crazily effective is that you should act the way you want to feel," Rubin says. "We really feel because of the way we act."
When all else fails, she says, remember this: "No one's trying to ruin the country. Everybody's going to try to do their best."
Kellie Brown knows that. But the 32-year-old mom and technical recruiter in Evergreen, Colo., desperately wants Obama to be the next president. Even the polls showing him in the lead are no solace.
"I hate hearing those polls because I feel like it gives people the false thought that they can just relax and maybe not go to vote," Brown says.
What will happen when America wakes up on Nov. 5 and the results are in?
Valentine, a 19-year-old sophomore at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, says he doesn't know what he'll do if McCain loses.
"The College Republicans have given up countless hours of our time," Valentine says. "I haven't really prepared myself for (a McCain loss). I don't know what I'm going to do when the election is over."
As the race wraps up, Molitor is concerned about those who have the most emotional investment in the election.
"Some people are going to have to mourn this," she says. "This is going to be like a loss. It's going to be like a death. Some have been very passionate. It's become their life. It's become an obsession. And those people I'm worried about."
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Single digits...
yes, we are down to single digits in the countdown to election day.
THis morning, McCain was on Meet the Press. Oh my GOD is he losing it. Is it the strain of the campaign? Is it because 40 years ago today he was captured in Vietnam? Is it because he thinks his old man antics will get him the sympathy vote? I dont know WHAT it is. But this morning on Meet the Press I was reminded of the conversations I had with my grandfather not long before he died and was on all sorts of medications that made him confused.
Tom Brokaw opened by asking him if he felt like Kevin Costner from Field of Dreams or George Clooney in the Perfect Storm. IT was obvious that McCain had not seen either of those movies, or if he had, could not remember the outcome or plot of either.
When asked about COlin Powell, and how he felt about the endorsment he gave Barack Obama, McCain skirted the answer by saying "I have the endorsment of several former secretaries of state" and started naming all of them. Tom Brokaw then went on to the next question, but was interrupted by John McCain naming another secretary of state! Tom (who is friends with McCain) did NOT seem happy by this, ignored it and finished his question.
McCain was constantly not finishing sentences - mid sentence he would stop and start saying something else. Like if I were writing this and you know it goes to show that we really need to what the real problem is..." and he would NEVER finish.
Now, the media is supposed to be fare and balanced. Does that mean that Barack Obama will be on next week? Just 2 days before the election? Or does Colin Powell's endorsment count as one for Barack?
I don't mean to be negative - but like Stephanie Miller always says "it is Barack Obama's job to take the high road, it is our job to take the low road."
We have 9 days to wake up america.
THis morning, McCain was on Meet the Press. Oh my GOD is he losing it. Is it the strain of the campaign? Is it because 40 years ago today he was captured in Vietnam? Is it because he thinks his old man antics will get him the sympathy vote? I dont know WHAT it is. But this morning on Meet the Press I was reminded of the conversations I had with my grandfather not long before he died and was on all sorts of medications that made him confused.
Tom Brokaw opened by asking him if he felt like Kevin Costner from Field of Dreams or George Clooney in the Perfect Storm. IT was obvious that McCain had not seen either of those movies, or if he had, could not remember the outcome or plot of either.
When asked about COlin Powell, and how he felt about the endorsment he gave Barack Obama, McCain skirted the answer by saying "I have the endorsment of several former secretaries of state" and started naming all of them. Tom Brokaw then went on to the next question, but was interrupted by John McCain naming another secretary of state! Tom (who is friends with McCain) did NOT seem happy by this, ignored it and finished his question.
McCain was constantly not finishing sentences - mid sentence he would stop and start saying something else. Like if I were writing this and you know it goes to show that we really need to what the real problem is..." and he would NEVER finish.
Now, the media is supposed to be fare and balanced. Does that mean that Barack Obama will be on next week? Just 2 days before the election? Or does Colin Powell's endorsment count as one for Barack?
I don't mean to be negative - but like Stephanie Miller always says "it is Barack Obama's job to take the high road, it is our job to take the low road."
We have 9 days to wake up america.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Why I Love Joe Biden...
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Friday that Republican John McCain would need a Halloween costume to convince voters that he would depart from the policies and divisive politics of President Bush. "I know Halloween is coming, but John McCain as the candidate of change? Whoa, come on," Biden said during an outdoor rally in the capital city's downtown. "John McCain and change? He needs a costume for that. Folks, the American people aren't going to buy this.
- from the Huffington Post
- from the Huffington Post
Friday, October 24, 2008
this. is. SICK.
From Mediamatters.org, this is an article about how a lot of the RIght Wingers are saying Barack Obama is in Hawaii to pick up a FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE, and NOT to visit his sick grandmother! THESE PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!!!!!!!!
here is the article:
Conservative media figures allege Obama's Hawaii trip is about discredited birth-certificate rumors, not his ailing grandmother
Summary: Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerome Corsi suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, in addition to FactCheck.org and a Hawaiian Health Department official, even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, has reportedly determined that the birth certificate provided by the Obama campaign is authentic.
Conservative radio hosts Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh and Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi -- who appeared as a guest on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show -- suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, as Media Matters for America has documented, the Obama campaign posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its "Fight the Smears" website and reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." A Hawaiian Health Department official also reportedly confirmed to PolitiFact.com that Obama's birth certificate is valid, and even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, reported in an August 23 article that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."
On the October 23 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh said:
Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later? See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so.
Limbaugh later added:
When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet. And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place.
During an appearance on the October 22 broadcast of Liddy's radio show, Corsi said:
I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate.
Corsi later added:
I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.
As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously claimed that the Obama campaign "refuses to release the original birth certificate," even though WorldNetDaily -- where Corsi works as a staff writer -- has debunked the claim.
On the October 22 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage stated that "[t]here are people arguing that Obama is headed back to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative, but to fudge the birth certificate in question" and said moments later, "There is intense national interest on the Internet about his citizenship, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii?" Savage subsequently became more definitive, stating:
Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate.
He later added: "And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you."
Savage also directed people to his website to "look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake." Savage's website currently has a copy of the birth certificate Obama has posted on its "Fight the Smears" website along with a headline stating "Could this be the REAL reason Obama is heading to Hawaii?" The headline links to a post by Andy Martin on Martin's Contrarian Commentary website. Martin stated in an October 20 press release: "Monday (today) we petitioned the Hawai'i Supreme Court to order Obama's secret birth records released. How did Obama respond? He suddenly discovered that his grandmother, who had supposedly been released from her hospital a week ago, when he showed no interest in her, needed his immediate attention. Cool, calm, collected Obama suddenly suspended his campaign and headed for Hawai'i."
From Savage's website:
From the October 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: By the way, I'd like to be a little inquisitive than the average reporter out there and observe that we have not -- we've been hearing and reading for at least three days now that Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, and that he's going out to rush to her side in Hawaii. Now, if he's already won the presidency, why hasn't he already gone to Hawaii? Why is he not already there? What's he waiting for? If she's deathly ill, this is the -- I'm just -- I'm pretending to be a reporter here. You know they'd ask McCain these questions. If Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, why has this been announced days ago, and he's only going now or tomorrow or whenever it is? Now, I understand, folks, Snerdley's got-- he's buried his head in his hands -- I understand this, my friends -- anything said about Obama is gonna be turned into an unfair, racist attack on the man, but I -- am I not asking the obvious questions? Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later?
See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so. And I'm just -- you know, you've got a deathly ill grandmother, you are going to rush to her side a few days from now. When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet.
And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place. There are a lot of people now that are starting to speculate and be curious about this. I don't know. Let's say, for example, that somebody does come up with proof that Obama -- something's screwy with his birth certificate, and something's screwy about the fact that he's allegedly a natural citizen, American citizen but may not be, dual citizenship, born in Kenya, who knows, there's all kinds of stuff out -- so what? What's gonna happen this late in the campaign? Do you think, if it's proven, that they're gonna dump him? That's not gonna happen. But there's still -- these are just questions that I have. I mean, look at, I -- both of my parents have died, and when I was told that the end was near, bam, I got there fast as I could, and I didn't announce to the audience, "I just got word my father's soon to be passing away, in four or five days I'm gonna go to Missouri. In the meantime I will not leave you here on this radio program." These are just natural questions. I think any inquisitive reporter -- I know the risk I'm running here by raising all of this, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't do that.
From the October 22 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: We're gonna raise the question of why Obama is headed to Hawaii. He certainly wouldn't take the time out to visit an ailing grandmother all of a sudden -- it is for other reasons, it is being speculated across the Internet that he was born in Kenya and he is not a U.S. citizen. Now, this originated with a Democrat who filed a lawsuit, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and a big donor to the Democrat [sic] Party -- filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya and that he is not a U.S. citizen and not qualified to run for the presidency. There are people arguing that Obama is headed to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative but to fudge the birth certificate in question.
[...]
SAVAGE: There's an October surprise that could brew, and that's built around Obama's secretive trip to Hawaii coming up momentarily. There's intense national interest on the Internet as to whether or not he's an American citizen, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii, and it was started by a Democrat who filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya. And you gotta read -- you gotta look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake.
[...]
SAVAGE: Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate. That's correct. That is correct. 1-800-449 -- but please go to MichaelSavage.com and look at the alleged birth certificate. Look at it very carefully.
[...]
SAVAGE: And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you. Something's wrong with this picture, and we're gonna talk about it in the next hour. Carla in New York, if you make it fast, fire away on The Savage Nation.
CALLER: OK, first of all, as far as the trip to Hawaii, the reason he needs to go there is he's lost the lawsuit by not -- by having no one show. He needs to get to that house, the grandma's house. Those documents, the Kenyan documents are in that house. The other thing is that he has had four identities.
From the October 22 edition of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show:
LIDDY: Bring us up to date on the latest findings.
CORSI: Well, Mr. Liddy, I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate. I'll be in Honolulu for the next few days. I don't expect to be detained in Honolulu the way I was in Kenya.
[...]
CORSI: I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.
— H.D., G.L., & N.T.
Posted to the web on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:13 PM ET
here is the article:
Conservative media figures allege Obama's Hawaii trip is about discredited birth-certificate rumors, not his ailing grandmother
Summary: Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerome Corsi suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, in addition to FactCheck.org and a Hawaiian Health Department official, even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, has reportedly determined that the birth certificate provided by the Obama campaign is authentic.
Conservative radio hosts Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh and Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi -- who appeared as a guest on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show -- suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, as Media Matters for America has documented, the Obama campaign posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its "Fight the Smears" website and reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." A Hawaiian Health Department official also reportedly confirmed to PolitiFact.com that Obama's birth certificate is valid, and even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, reported in an August 23 article that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."
On the October 23 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh said:
Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later? See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so.
Limbaugh later added:
When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet. And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place.
During an appearance on the October 22 broadcast of Liddy's radio show, Corsi said:
I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate.
Corsi later added:
I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.
As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously claimed that the Obama campaign "refuses to release the original birth certificate," even though WorldNetDaily -- where Corsi works as a staff writer -- has debunked the claim.
On the October 22 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage stated that "[t]here are people arguing that Obama is headed back to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative, but to fudge the birth certificate in question" and said moments later, "There is intense national interest on the Internet about his citizenship, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii?" Savage subsequently became more definitive, stating:
Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate.
He later added: "And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you."
Savage also directed people to his website to "look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake." Savage's website currently has a copy of the birth certificate Obama has posted on its "Fight the Smears" website along with a headline stating "Could this be the REAL reason Obama is heading to Hawaii?" The headline links to a post by Andy Martin on Martin's Contrarian Commentary website. Martin stated in an October 20 press release: "Monday (today) we petitioned the Hawai'i Supreme Court to order Obama's secret birth records released. How did Obama respond? He suddenly discovered that his grandmother, who had supposedly been released from her hospital a week ago, when he showed no interest in her, needed his immediate attention. Cool, calm, collected Obama suddenly suspended his campaign and headed for Hawai'i."
From Savage's website:
From the October 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: By the way, I'd like to be a little inquisitive than the average reporter out there and observe that we have not -- we've been hearing and reading for at least three days now that Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, and that he's going out to rush to her side in Hawaii. Now, if he's already won the presidency, why hasn't he already gone to Hawaii? Why is he not already there? What's he waiting for? If she's deathly ill, this is the -- I'm just -- I'm pretending to be a reporter here. You know they'd ask McCain these questions. If Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, why has this been announced days ago, and he's only going now or tomorrow or whenever it is? Now, I understand, folks, Snerdley's got-- he's buried his head in his hands -- I understand this, my friends -- anything said about Obama is gonna be turned into an unfair, racist attack on the man, but I -- am I not asking the obvious questions? Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later?
See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so. And I'm just -- you know, you've got a deathly ill grandmother, you are going to rush to her side a few days from now. When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet.
And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place. There are a lot of people now that are starting to speculate and be curious about this. I don't know. Let's say, for example, that somebody does come up with proof that Obama -- something's screwy with his birth certificate, and something's screwy about the fact that he's allegedly a natural citizen, American citizen but may not be, dual citizenship, born in Kenya, who knows, there's all kinds of stuff out -- so what? What's gonna happen this late in the campaign? Do you think, if it's proven, that they're gonna dump him? That's not gonna happen. But there's still -- these are just questions that I have. I mean, look at, I -- both of my parents have died, and when I was told that the end was near, bam, I got there fast as I could, and I didn't announce to the audience, "I just got word my father's soon to be passing away, in four or five days I'm gonna go to Missouri. In the meantime I will not leave you here on this radio program." These are just natural questions. I think any inquisitive reporter -- I know the risk I'm running here by raising all of this, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't do that.
From the October 22 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
SAVAGE: We're gonna raise the question of why Obama is headed to Hawaii. He certainly wouldn't take the time out to visit an ailing grandmother all of a sudden -- it is for other reasons, it is being speculated across the Internet that he was born in Kenya and he is not a U.S. citizen. Now, this originated with a Democrat who filed a lawsuit, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and a big donor to the Democrat [sic] Party -- filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya and that he is not a U.S. citizen and not qualified to run for the presidency. There are people arguing that Obama is headed to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative but to fudge the birth certificate in question.
[...]
SAVAGE: There's an October surprise that could brew, and that's built around Obama's secretive trip to Hawaii coming up momentarily. There's intense national interest on the Internet as to whether or not he's an American citizen, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii, and it was started by a Democrat who filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya. And you gotta read -- you gotta look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake.
[...]
SAVAGE: Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate. That's correct. That is correct. 1-800-449 -- but please go to MichaelSavage.com and look at the alleged birth certificate. Look at it very carefully.
[...]
SAVAGE: And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you. Something's wrong with this picture, and we're gonna talk about it in the next hour. Carla in New York, if you make it fast, fire away on The Savage Nation.
CALLER: OK, first of all, as far as the trip to Hawaii, the reason he needs to go there is he's lost the lawsuit by not -- by having no one show. He needs to get to that house, the grandma's house. Those documents, the Kenyan documents are in that house. The other thing is that he has had four identities.
From the October 22 edition of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show:
LIDDY: Bring us up to date on the latest findings.
CORSI: Well, Mr. Liddy, I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate. I'll be in Honolulu for the next few days. I don't expect to be detained in Honolulu the way I was in Kenya.
[...]
CORSI: I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.
— H.D., G.L., & N.T.
Posted to the web on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:13 PM ET
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