If you aren’t outraged, you do not know what is going on.

Go CAMBELL!!!!

How can Paulson be in a position to dictate terms to our representatives in Congress?

I was always taught that beggars can’t be choosers!

A good place to start is this primer on Republican McCain’s role in the Keating 5 ethics scandal.

Update: By the 20th of September, 2008 – All I could think of was the SNL Dan Ackroyd Julia Child skit where he’s losing blood everywhere and saying “Save the chicken livers!!!!”….It makes no sense, except in my mind really….It’s the flailing and the near faint Ackroyd is in towards the end of the skit. That’s what McCain looked like today.

From devilstower at DailyKos – a great diary on technology and McCain.

Of pending legislation, McCain is not a sponsor of the “Connect the Nation Act” – though Senator Obama is. McCain is not a sponsor of Senator Rockefeller’s call for a universal next generation broadband by 2015 – though Senator Obama is. And of course, McCain isn’t a sponsor of the “Internet Freedom Act” that would ensure net neutrality – though Senator Obama is.

Please share this.

And this!

No matter where you are, what you do MATTERS.

McCain looks to Phil Gramm:  Enron director, lobbyist, self confessed rabid ideologue who called Americans whiners, believes the recession is imaginary, and almost single handedly brought about the deregulation that is responsible for the collapse of our financial markets.

Obama looks to Warren Buffett: brilliant, self made investor who had the foresight in 2002 to warn his investors that derivaties were “financial weapons of mass destruction” and “toxic” and that the way the whole house of cards was linked that it could all come tumbling down.

Who do you want to trust with YOUR economy?

That about sums up the situation right there.

Official Obama Statement

This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.

The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It’s a philosophy we’ve had for the last eight years – one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It’s a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.

Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up – from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.

This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy. For years, I have consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market – rules that would protect American investors and consumers. And I’ve called for policies that grow our economy and our middle-class together. That is the change I am calling for in this campaign, and that is the change I will bring as President.

Get to work everyone.

Sign the Petition.

Get the message out!

Nice to know you care.

And look at how all these Alaskan women feel about Palin’s strange rise to power.

From Mudflats (Best Blog on Alaska Politics)

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

So, if you’ve been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy…Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans.

More information on the rally and the strange attempts to stop it are on DailyKos. And a lot of great photos!

What women working on domestic violence in Alaska have to say about Sarah Palin.

And women organizing, Alaska – Women Against Palin are getting threats for their views and for their efforts. One lady is clearly terrified to be on camera. A right wing radio host named Burke incited this behavior.

And the final word goes to this smarty pants!

This nation needs to wake up. NOW.

All over the net ditto heads, idiots and the likes of Jonah Goldberg are suggesting that Obama is insensitive to the fact that McCain has trouble lifting his arms due to the injuries he sustained from torture, which by the way he no longer opposes, and from the plane crash that left him in the hands of his enemy.

This is the Obama Campaign ad in question:

Here’s Mr. Goldberg finger wagging at the Obama campaign:

Does anyone know why McCain doesn’t use a computer or email? As a couple readers suggested to me, it might be because his injuries prevent it. I mean he can’t lift his arms much higher than his chest and it looks like he has all sorts of other mobility problems with them. Maybe he can’t type or use something like a blackberry. I don’t know. But I hope the Obama campaign found out before they played the granpa Simpson card on McCain. I’d hate for Obama to be mocking a veteran’s disability to score cheap points.

As a person who worked for four years in a lab focused on training adults with disabilities to use adaptive technologies, I assure you Mr. Goldberg, neither his injury, the state of the technology nor the cost were a barrier to his adoption of their use in 1990, nor in 2008.

And to the people passing this off as some explanation for why Mr. McCain is not involved in the most transformative aspect of world culture – is an insult to every one with a disability more or less affecting than Mr. McCain’s.

If Mr. McCain is like his predecessor simply incurious and uninterested in all that computers and the net offer, I wish he would just say so. I understand that he has been on committees, but I am pretty sure he slept through them, as every time he opens his mouth on the subject it is clear he has no enthusiasm or real involvement with the topic. Plenty of people, of all ages are, just not interested. However there are also octogenarians who run around the net like their grand kids. Age is not an excuse.

It is unclear to me if Mr. McCain would approve of making the sort of issue of his disability that his surrogates and supporters are. I find it entirely believable that he does not know this is happening, as he is not online, and would at the same time dissapprove of them using his disability as an excuse. Though he has used his POW history many times to misdirect the citizenry away from pertinent policy questions, questions of character, and questions about the Rove tactics of his campaign, so maybe he did approve the message that disabilities prevent you from using or understanding the interwebs.

As Mr. McCain has no coherent policy regarding people with disabilities, civil rights, health coverage, transportation and the very long list of other issues of central concern to people living with disabilities, I surmise that this is just another example of him being out of touch.

Mr. Stephen Hawking has a few words directly for Mr. McCain, his campaign and his supporters. [OK this is not actually Mr. Hawking or a clever youtuber having some fun - either way the points are dead on.]

Here are a few other people who have made use of technology to bridge the gap between themselves, their aspirations and the people around them. And a few more folks who have used technology to communicate past barriers that the non-disabled so consistently put before them.

silentmiaow a very interesting woman on youtube, who has autism. She vlogs about her life. She advocates forcefully for herself and everyone else with a cognitive difference. She uses video and computers to do so. Please watch this one to the end. It won’t make much sense to you otherwise.

Clearly, having a disability does not make McCain a competent advocate for adults with disabilities nor does it mean he respects the demands of the community of persons with disabilities.

Take a look how he responds to demands from a true advocate for the Community Choice Act.

Marly Matlin talks about the work lives of adults with disabilities and the prejudice they face.

This gentleman advocates for accessible subway systems in New York City. He uses video and is computer to do so. It looks to me like he has much less mobility than Mr. McCain, but manages to get his point across using technology.

Getting around in New York City can be daunting for someone using a motorized wheelchair or for someone with any disability. Sharing with you an experience of mine and hoping to create a discussion about accessibility. For more stuff by myself, and my two accomplices, visit the site — www.chooseability.org

So before you think you should start covering for McCain on this claim that his disability prevents him from using the intertweba, think hard about what you are saying about people with impairments. My guess is, anyone that tries to make this claim, is not disabled – and sure as hell shouldn’t pretend (suddenly) to be an advocate for the disabled. I am not insisting that there are no people out there who are barred from using the net or a computer because of a cognitive or physical disability, I just don’t think McCain has any barrier that could not be fixed with the application of technology and money. Technology is just not his thing, like a lot of people – it has nothing to do with his disability. He’s just not into it. That’s fine, but I don’t think he should be on any committee involving technology policy.

As I mentioned in another post, after Governor Palin made the extraordinary claim that because she’s a new parent of a kid with Down’s Syndrome, people with disabilities will “have and advocate in the White House.” I went off to check the McCain/Palin website to see what their policy positions were, after hearing her speech. That was about a week ago. Checked back just now (September, 13th 2008, 8:26PM EST) and there are still only two crappy paragraphs, focused only on autism. He clearly has not been listening to adult self advocates with a spectrum disorder or any other kind of disability.

Barack Obama has nine pages and has clearly been listening to adult self advocates. He clearly cares enough and has enough respect for the people and the issues that he can confidently address the topic.

“We must build a world free of unnecessary barriers, stereotypes, and discrimination …. policies must be developed, attitudes must be shaped, and buildings and organizations must be designed to ensure that everyone has a chance to get the education they need and live independently as full citizens in their communities.”

— Barack Obama

Obama on disabled vets and what we owe to the men and women that gave all.

And on McCain’s status as a vet with disabilities, though he continues to collect disability, in spite of being married to a woman wealthier than 99.98% of vets, he advocates the ‘rationing’ of health care and treatment for veterans to only those injuries sustained while in battle. It is a disgusting policy suggestion, from a man who wants for nothing precisely because he dumped his disabled wife for a wealthy much younger blond heiress.

If this pisses you off please consider making a donation to Disabled Veterans of America, an organization that should not need to exist in America.

From DAV.org

Our veteran heroes need your support! Over 37,000 men and women have been injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many face serious injuries, endure extensive recoveries and are not receiving the treatment and care they have earned and deserve.

Disabled American Veterans (DAV) is the leader in providing direct one-on-one assistance to veterans. With trained personnel on military bases worldwide and thousands of volunteers, DAV ensures veterans receive adequate medical treatment, provides transportation to/from hospitals for treatments, delivers relief from disasters, and educates the public about disabled veteran’s issues.

As for where technology is taking us – take a look at this bit of advanced tech. McCain is hopelessly out of touch on technology AND on disability. And he will only become more so, not because of his age, but because he is clearly disinterested in anything but war. He is a man out of step with the amazing times we live in.

In Japan they have developed technology that allows this guy to control a robotic arm and a computer with his brain, that is by simply thinking about what he wants to happen.

Updated: A great dairy at DailyKos by devilstower debunks McCain’s claims regarding his role in ushering in the Age of the Interwebs.

And just for balance – Obama’s talk at the Google.

In what scenario can you imagine that a victim of a crime would be charged for the investigation materials and procedures needed to solve the crime? A robbery? Let’s think this through…you are walking down the street. You get mugged and in the process of that mugging you are shot in the leg.

The mugger gets away and you are lying there bleeding to death, fighting for your life. Would the state ever try to charge a man for the forensics on the bullet? Or for testing the DNA of the hairs that landed on your tweed coat as you were getting the bejesus beat out of you? On what planet can you imagine being charged for the investigation into the incident which left you near death?

On planet McCain/Palin rape victims are charged for the ‘rape kits’ used to gather evidence. Both McCain and Palin support this position. What do you think women of America? Is that the world you want your daughters to live in? How about you Dad? Can you live with this?

I don’t care what party you support. You need to admit that this is unconscionable.

I hope that it is just a weird media blip and you as a group haven’t completely LOST YOUR S….T, but in case that is the situation… please comment and tell me what in the world are you thinking?????

Here’s Katha Pollitt’s take on all the claims of “sexism.”

If there were an Olympics for hypocrisy, the Republican Party would have more gold medals than Michael Phelps. And Palin would be wearing quite a few of them.

Lipstick on a Wingnut

Is this the woman you want to be the first in the White House?

Here are nearly one hundred more videos that should convince you that McCain/Palin is bad for you, your family and for women in general.

And Fox is helping spread the lies.

Spread the word. Share the videos. Do SOMETHING!

Deception is all he has left.

Here’s a few looks at what her brand of Pentacostalism is. Check in with yourself about this.
To all those women who feel like they have someone they “identify with” heading to the White House, I tell you straight, you have a deep responsibility to research this woman and her beliefs.

What is Pentacostal Dominionism?

Palin’s Demon Haunted Churches

Sarah Palin: Pentacostal

Her youth organization Assemblies of God is a coercive cult, which targets teens for recruitment. As a person who grew up in this “Church,” she has been brainwashed since she was twelve to believe she and her group were “the annointed” here to save you in these, the end times. She’s since 1992 moved to a less overt version. Now a lot of Christians are raised to think it is their job to “spread the Gospel.” I understand that, but this is not simply verbal advocacy for your belief, it goes way beyond that.

This is not “The End Times.” And I certainly do not want anyone near the big red button that would have power to deploy – a man made end to fulfill her strange messianic beliefs.

I find this woman terrifying.

Major beliefs of Pentacostal Dominism:

From George Grant, a leading dominionist writer in The Changing of the Guard, Biblical Principles for Political Action:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.

World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less… Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.

This is truly the most important election in my lifetime, and yours.

Please do your homework.

I think you will come to the same conclusion as Hilary did.

No how, no way, NO MCCAIN and NO PALIN.

As a New Yorker, still living through the aftershocks, I approve this message.

Peace to all who suffer on this day, and on any other day.
May your pain never be used to cause the suffering of others.
May you live in joy, comfort, and peace with your neighbors.

This is a great piece about the whole Obama called Palin a pig brouhaha. The people crying foul are either stupid or they are willing to lie to get what they want. I think they are both. They seem to think you the voters are collectively – a country of cretins…or to use another folksy phrase, dumber than a bag of hammers. Chozick and Swift are competing for Tool of the Year award, and need their own entries in Dickpedia. Yes, I am calling both of these ladies ‘tools.’ Both in the sense that they are as dumb as hammers and willing to be used.

McCain/Palin and their surrogates are running a filthy campaign. They lie, they distort and they cheat. I am appalled by their tactics as well as their politics. Real mavericks? Hardly. You don’t get to call yourself a maverick while using the Rove playbook.

John McCain you have very clearly put your campaign before your country and not amount of flag waving and reminiscing about Hanoi changes that bare fact.

The Wall Street Journal also engaged in the same bullshit.

Obama is not the kind of man that runs around calling women dogs, pigs or cunts for that matter, that dog don’t hunt. (Did I just call Obama a dog?) That’s McCain’s style. Let’s run reality up the flagpole…

On Chelsea who was about 14 at the time:

“Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.”
– Sen. John McCain, speaking to a Republican dinner, June 1998.

Or when Limbaugh did call Chelsea a “dog” on his show and lied about it afterwards.

Where was this cadre of newly minted feminists then?

To Cindy McCain:
“At least I don’t plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt.”
- John McCain, 1992 campaign stop.

Where was their outrage?

Or how about when this clip was floating around.
Yes, these people are obviously valiant warriors against sexism…

Reality, I salute you!

And here’s a little more reality to salute, wherein our hero McCain rails against the Bridge to Nowhere, which Palin loved before she hated.

There’s not enough lipstick in the world for this pig…and by pig, I mean John McCain.

Political interviews are never done like this. Because it makes the questioning entirely at the discretion of the person being interviewed and their handlers. The interviewer has to be on their best behavior, at least until the last of the ‘multiple interviews’ because otherwise the subsequent sittings just won’t happen. For a political journalist to agree to such terms amounts to a form of self-gelding. The only interviews that are done this way are lifestyle and celebrity interviews. And it’s pretty clear that that is what this will be.

Here is a great post from Talking Points Memo about the “ground rules” for the first “Palin” “interview,” which would more properly be called an infomercial. It’s not reporting, It’s Charles Gibson! It’s a must read.

When will Palin open herself up to the scrutiny that Obama has received? Why does she get weeks of prep and a soft ball interviewer? Is this affirmative action for right wing nut jobs? Where is the media?
If John McCain was dead of a heart attack tomorrow….would the sane wing of the GOP say …“OK then, Palin is still our gal!” I don’t expect them to answer honestly.

We are working with Ohio election attorneys, Cliff Arnebeck, Bob Fitrakis and Henry Eckhart to find out the truth about recent information indicating that Karl Rove architected and directed a strategy to manipulate elections through the use of computers. Rove’s Cyber Guru, Michael Connell, has worked for the Bush family for over 20 years and helped Bush Sr., Jeb and Bush Jr. “win” their elections using his computer skills. Whistleblowers, including Republicans, say that several of these and other national elections have been rigged through various invisible and illegal means, including vote tabulation manipulation, improper partisan use of the Justice Department to target Democrats and uncooperative US Attorneys, and the laundering of hundreds of millions of corporate dollars funneled into fake advocacy groups directed against Democrat candidates running for public office. Ex-Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has stated publicly that Rove was the person who directed Siegelman’s rigged election and criminal prosecution. Here GOP cyber sleuth Stephen Spoonamore has stated publicly that the leadership of the GOP has been “lying and stealing elections” http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/images/Spoon_Full.wmv and doing so through computers. http://www.velvetrevolution.us/Video/SpoonPC-2.wmv

According to the attorneys, Rove’s goal with this strategy is to establish a unitary Executive Branch with a supportive judiciary, a weak legislature and a fearful press. Corporate sponsors of this strategy, such as tobacco, energy, telecom, and pharmaceutical companies are rewarded with hands off government: deregulated oversight, stringent limits on class-action damages, the stacking of high courts with pro-business/anti-consumer Justices etc. http://www.velvetrevolution.us/images/Mukasey.pdf

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/prosecute_rove/

Shop! Buttons, Mugs, T-Shirts and more!

And for the laugh I know you all need right about now

Compare to this story where a friend of Rove intervenes to ratchet down charges press NO CHARGES against the white supremacists who tried to kill Barack Obama at the DNC a few weeks ago.
No charge under domestic terrorism rules?
Cities burned when King was killed! But no Eid thinks they were, ‘aspirational rather than operational.’

one of the suspects told authorities they were “going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a … rifle … sighted at 750 yards.”

Law enforcement sources told Maass that one of the suspects “was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative.

Organize some hippies, get seven years. Threaten to kill the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, walk. What is wrong with this picture?

Remember this little gem?

These predate the GOP’s attacks but still worth seeing.

What indeed is a community organizer?

I don’t think we’ll ever see Palin working in East Palo Alto.

The Yellow Bike Project in Austin.

Superstar Community Organizer -  Majora Carter – Speaking at TED on her work greening the South Bronx, the neighborhood where she grew up.

Resurrection of the Willie Mae’s Scotchouse, after the big flood.

Murderball!

And of course, the guy who’s trying to organize the American community Barack Hussein Obama.
If you are not happy with the way the GOP has chosen to attack the best people in our neighborhoods, schools and cities…please DONATE TODAY!

Tell the nasties at the GOP, you’re done with the same old stuff. If you don’t have money or a job – or even if you do… sign up to help make calls, talk to people – get a taste of community organizing yourself. Go to the site now. The campaign makes it easy as pie to get involved – and to organize your community.

Once you start it’s hard to stop. Not only is it the right thing to do, it feels amazing to connect your life with the lives of people around you to make the changes you all want and need to see. All you need to be is open and willing to help. THIS is what Obama is talking about when he says “be the change you want to see in the world.” That’s how Gandhi put it – and you know how much responsibility he handled.

And what’s this business about “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” I don’t know why those in the Grand OLD Party have such a hard time understanding that concept. It seems to jibe pretty well with that whole ‘responsibility’ thing, you flap your jaws about all the time. Then again, I’ve noticed these GOP speech writers don’t use language like normal people.

They turn good things to salt, and poison into profit.

You know what Miss Tubman said:

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they’re shouting after you, keep going.

Don’t ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.

Thanks for the reminder Hilary. And thanks for organizing those 18 million cracks!

And Rudy… I can’t find a community in NYC that liked ya, sure as hell not the firemen.

What would you know about community organizing in the first place?

Not a damn thing.

And Sarah, just because you ain’t gettin’ paid, doesn’t mean you don’t have any ‘responsibility.’

After I graduated from UC Berkeley I spent four years teaching adults with disabilities how to use technology. My guess is you would have slashed that program, like you did in your state.

Like someone in a video above said,

Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin are governors.

And don’t get it twisted. Barack never compared himself to Jesus.

You just stepped in a giant national moose pie of your own making. As YOU said being the Mayor of Wasilla population 5000+ voted in by about 600 people - It’s not rocket science.

Don’t miss Obama’s response!

vs. Sarah Palin’s opportunistic use of her new son as a mere talking point. It’s not clear that she slashed funds. She moved budget items around. I am still looking for information on the Alaska Challenge Youth Academy where shifted money. Can a person with disabilities that made use of services and programs in Alaska tell us more? I am not convinced that having a 4 month old with Down’s Syndrome suddenly makes you an able advocate for the disabled. It sounds nice but in reality it doesn’t always work out that way.

I say this as a person who has disabled family members, and as a person having a few to deal with myself and as a person who for four years after graduating was a worker in a computer lab for adults with disabilities. We served people with all kinds of disabilities, physical, mental and those resulting from brain injury. It was an incredibly diverse classroom, including people who had strong support systems and people who were homeless due to the pressures of living with a disability. My life did not teach me that the non-disabled in my family or anyone’s became competent advocates for children OR adults with disabilities. It may mean you are more sympathetic, it may not.

It doesn’t mean you automatically understand the perspective of a person with a disability or disabilities much better, or that you advocate for independence, autonomy, civil-rights and community living for adults living with disability. Ask any adult with disabilities you know.

I don’t see in Palin an immediate ally. I see her as a newbie and -potential- ally.

Also, if you go to the McCain-Palin site there is no section addressing disabilities, with the exception of two paragraphs on autism. There are a lot more people in the disability community than just our friends with autism, Mr. McCain. Iraq Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq give him a D on veterans issues, which of course, includes the treatment of veterans returning with serious injuries, disabilities and VA issues.

Obama does have a section on is site, and addresses the issues our family has struggled with for decades very well. He displays the acumen of someone has thought about and discussed the issues facing disabled people – with actual real adult disabled people. That’s a huge difference. It’s one thing to be sympathetic and its another to carry the program developed by disabled activists forward. He’s not perfect, but at least he lists disabilities with all the other critical issues we face. If you don’t think that is critical, please note that 70% of us will be disabled for some or all of our lives.

CLICK HERE FOR Obama’s specific proposals and his connection to the disabled community.

I wish Palin well with the process and the journey of raising Trig and defending her sons interests in education, science and autonomy. She’s new to the battle though and has a LOT to learn.

Cross posted on DailyKos (more discussion there)

And another great DailyKos diary here

“Hey, don’t say anything against Marge Gunderson. Sarah Palin is NO Marge Gunderson.”

Update from the Vagabond Scholar – more details.

“She asked me if I would object to censorship, and I replied ‘Yup’,” Emmons recounted Saturday. “And I told her it would not be just me. This was a constitutional question, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would get involved, too.”

We do not presently have the list of books Sarah Palin tried to have banned from the Wasilla Library.

“She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

Time Magazine Palin: A Rough Record

Will someone in a position to ask, ask Sarah Palin for that list?

Also, can we ask Sarah Palin if she would give her seal of freedom of thought to the list below?

This is a list of books that conservatives have tried to ban across the country. For more information
go to the American Library Association – and remember Banned Books Week is September 27 – Oct 4

SHOW your ire Hot Librarians Against Palin!

For a thread where librarians are digging more diligently than I on this subject please see links in comment below.

Books Sarah Palin wanted to Ban from the Wasilla Library

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Add in that she wants creationism taught in science classes, she seems determined to continue the devolution of the American school system, in order that American student can be even less competitive internationally.

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/09/fbi-wanted-obama-plotters-charged-but.html

If you’re white (supremacist), you’re all right.

Refreshing honesty from major Republican strategists!

And here’s Rove and O’Reilly on all the Palin controversy.

Also is it time to consider an honorary sisterhood for Sean Hannity and Dick Morris? Please watch for full consideration of these two fine warriors against the Patriarchy!

Ron Paul has a totally separate convention. The Nevada delegation is sending two groups, one for Ron Paul and one for McCain. Bob Barr is doing surprisingly well in the polls.

What gives?

Freedom of the Press? Gone.

For those unfamiliar with her work, the woman getting thug handled below is internationally renowned journalist Amy Goodman who anchors a show called Democracy Now

Also apparently Olbermann has been assigned somewhere besides the RNC.

I hope you are as appalled as I am.

“The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite,” said James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family. “But all it really means is that she and her family are human.”

“It’s a challenge, and I just think we have to deal with it,” said Katon Dawson, the Republican chairman of South Carolina. “But it’s just not going to hurt her. This is a family problem that people have.”

And so is infidelity but that didn’t stop you from getting into Bill and Hillary’s marriage, or John Edwards’? Our privacy and our families are not your concern it would seem when it comes to gay marriage, gay kids, gay adoption, sex education, choice and reproduction, as well as birth control.

It’s nice to see we are all on the same page now. Privacy is GOOD. Choice is GOOD. Keeping this sort of thing between the people that are involved GOOD.

Welcome to America, land of the free and home of the brave.

Now, get out of my bedroom, get out of my doctor’s office, get out of my relationships, get out of my pharmacy and get out of my uterus.

Promise?

Yeah. I’m not holding my breath.

Thank you.

(Obama is appalled by this message and did not approve I am sure.)

I am not going to attack Trig. Why would I?

Am I going to attack Sarah Palin. Damn straight I am. Why?

Because at this very trying time in Bristol’s life, Sarah wants us to respect her choice and her privacy.

I agree that’s the right thing to do.

So Sarah – Does that mean you will respect the privacy and the choice of OUR daughters in their most dire moments?

No, you will not. Mrs. Palin, you cannot have it both ways. Either this choice is private and a ‘family’ matter, or the state can intervene to impose YOUR values on me.

Which is it?

You believe that even in the case of rape or incest, Christian fundamentalists should make the choice for our daughters. You would force them to bear the pregnancy resulting from rape, resulting from incest.

We are not attacking Bristol. My heart goes out to her. I wish she had had the confidence and control to go get birth control when she needed it. I truly wish you had been vetted, because if you had Bristol would not be in this position. You put her there, you and John McCain.

I wish her a happy and healthy baby, and a quick fade into obscurity.

But you have used both Trig and Bristol to shove your choices down our throats.

Sarah Palin you opened that door with your politics, not with your choices and the commendable choice of Bristol.

And as Hilary was fond of saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And I would ad, don’t put your kids in the kitchen in the first place.

And to Obama. I understand why this is painful for you, too. I understand why you want us all to ‘rise above it.’ But frankly, you are not in danger of having your right to privacy, bodily integrity and choice taken away. If Palin wins that’s exactly what will happen to your daughters, to me and mine.

I honestly hope that what looks like a lovely trusting open beautiful relationship with their parents continues. But as you know tweener fairy tales have a way of turning into real life stories. It’s happened for the Palins in spite of being good homeschooling Christians. I truly hope your girls would never be too worried about embarrassing Dad to come forward and get the care they need, sort out what they want. But that’s what will happen to poor and rich girls all over America. The result will be dead daughters, hopefully not yours. We’ve been there before. We know what happens.

We all agree that we share the common goal of eliminating abortions. However, a lot of fundamentalists are against birth control, and wish to redefine birth control as abortion. Where does Sarah Palin stand on those proposals and where do you? These two things do not go together. Finding common ground is possible, but we have to be honest about what it will take to get there. And honesty about the complexities and gut wrenching choices all parents and teen women face would be a start.

It would serve us all if we got a real about it.

Leave Bristol Alone – Yes. But Mom’s politics are fair game.

And on a particularly nasty note (added 9/2/2008):

By Paul Kane
ST. PAUL — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.

[more]

…..now that’s Compassionate Conservatism….apparently some can believe in.

For the rest of us, it’s the rot at the core of the Conservative cause.

If we are going there, then Obama and McCain should give smart women with glasses and asses a real choice…

I want Obama and John McCain to jello wrastle for the affections of smart short be-speckled snark-tastic bi – coastal women everywhere….

and mail me when the odds are settled so I can call my bookie.

On his piece on Obama, wherein he talks about his worries that Obama’s words must be precisely chosen because of what he calls the Butterfly Effect, the Butterfly Effect is something else – but no matter. He doesn’t mind confusing people.

I have another comment there under Cityzenjane regarding a claim of presumptuousness that Tapper makes which is completely unfair and biased. He argues that because Obama said he may if elected be meeting with world leaders for the next 8-10 years, that Obama seeks to repeal the 22nd amendment and run for a third term. Given that ex-Presidents routinely work with foreign leaders on efforts long after their Presidency and often hand in hand with their rivals ( a la Pappy and Bubba), Tapper is making a complete asshat of himself.

He goes on to criticise Obama’s inability to speak like a robot, with programmable precision.

My comment- which wouldn’t post follows:

Also is the man articulate and polished, or a consistent gaffer? He’s been roundly noted as being the most eloquent speaker we have seen in 50 years, to which people like you responded that he was ‘pretentious.’ And now after a year on the campaign trail, you’ve noticed that, like most humans, he pauses to think and says …umm when speaking off the cuff. It seems to me the man is damned every time he opens his mouth. Which is funny because his predecessors grasp of English and his phony Texas accent went unnoticed all these years. When Bush pauses we all wait anxiously to see if the beginning of his utterance has any relation to the end of it. Often it does not.

And when did this become such a concern, as we have had two Bush Presidencies? The first, when famously Pappy’s sentences needed to be diagrammed regularly so people could understand what the hell he was talking about and, the second, when no diagram any living man could make undo the slasher job GW did on the English language.

Seriously. There needs to be a public scoring system for pundits (because this certainly isn’t journalism)..whereby we the citizenry can get a how wrong was he/she scorecard to help us judge whether or not you are worth paying any attention.

Also – you don’t seem to watch the Youtube much…please spend some time watching the Gobbledeegook Express mutilate not only language but reason. The cool thing about that is you can play it over and over until the reality sinks in. I don’t expect you to ‘report’ on it – as that’s not really what you do.