Policy and Politics
tfk | October 29, 2008Senator Pat "Memory Pills" Roberts seems to have forgotten that ethics matter for a United States Senator. After his close friend, Sen. Ted "Effing Moron" Stevens was convicted of seven different corrupt acts, everyone from John McCain to the Senate Minority Leader have called on Stevens to resign his seat.
Pat Roberts chose to buck his party, common sense, and basic ethics in standing by Stevens, saying he should not resign. His party's leader, Mitch McConnell, says that, if Stevens doesn't resign, "there is a 100 percent certainty that he would be expelled from the Senate." But Roberts…
tfk | October 28, 2008As I reported yesterday, Republican Representative Frank Wolf was being pestered by questions from volunteers with the Judy Feder campaign, and Wolf's staffers physically attacked the volunteers.
Today, the Wolf campaign apologized, sort of:
At one point in the video, as [volunteer] Kent asks [congressman] Wolf a question, the camera abruptly shakes and the videographer shouts, "Sir, please don't!" This is the moment at which both camps say [staffer Ben] Dutton struck Kent. Though you can't see it, both camps say it was with a cane.
[Spokesman Dan] Scandling said Dutton, an 83-year-old…
tfk | October 27, 2008For President: Barack Obama. 'Nuff said.
House: Barbara Lee.
In Kansas, Boyda, Betts, and Moore.
Senate: No race in California, Jim Slattery in Kansas. The Wichita Eagle, the KC Star, and just about every other serious observer of Kansas politics likes Slattery, and thinks Pat Roberts has lost touch with Kansas. It's time for a change.
Local offices: Rebecca Kaplan is really the only interesting endorsement.
Propositions:
1A: Yes. Supertrain! Kevin Drum is against it, but he's wrong. Wrong on the cost (which will be recovered through ticket sales, and given that that money would be…
tfk | October 27, 2008Beating up people with questions:
Raising Kaine explains that:
On Friday, two [Democratic challenger Judy] Feder staffers approached Congressman Wolf in a public location to ask him some questions. Two different individuals who were accompanying Congressman Wolf (staffers? relatives? friends?) assaulted the Feder staffers, as you can see quite clearly in the video. The first Feder staffer was hit with a cane and then punched. The second staffer (as you will see on the video) was pinned to a wall and forcibly held there. All of this took place in the presence of Congressman Wolf, who stood by…
tfk | October 24, 2008Wow:
Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, has long been one of the most important conservative thinkers in the United States. Under President Reagan, he served, with great distinction, as Solicitor General of the United States. Since then, he has been prominently associated with several Republican leaders and candidates, most recently John McCain, for whom he expressed his enthusiastic support in January.
This week, Fried announced that he has voted for Obama-Biden by absentee ballot. In his letter to Trevor Potter, the General Counsel to the McCain-Palin campaign, he asked…
tfk | October 22, 2008I'm a fan of ACORN, and have been for a long time. I gave to them after Hurricane Katrina, to help the New Orleans-based anti-poverty group rebuild itself and its city. I gave again last winter as I was making my end-of-year charitable donations.
I like them because they work hard for working Americans. I like them for standing up for sensible immigration policies that respect the needs of working people, regardless of their immigration status. I like them for the work they do on the Gulf Coast, an area sadly neglected by the people who are supposed to represent the area's interests. And…
tfk | October 22, 2008I've long wondered about the pseudo-debate over whether the next President should meet foreign leaders with or without preconditions. Obama has said "without," observing that the whole point of meeting with hostile leaders is to get them to agree to important changes; a meeting is not enough of a reward to compel someone to make major policy changes. McCain-Palin have been opposed, but I've been frustrated that no one ever asked for clarification of what pre-conditions they'd want to impose.
At last, Brian Williams came through for me:
WILLIAMS: — that you both have been hammering the…
tfk | October 22, 2008There's been a lot of ink spilled lately over John McCain's vicious and dishonest robocalls. Sarah Palin criticized her own campaign for running them, and Joe Biden called them "scurrilous," and calling on John McCain:
If he's really serious when he said ... that this election is all about the economy, then I say, John, stop your ads, bring down those robocalls. If it's about the economy, argue about the economy. Not about Barack Obama's character. Not about these scurrilous ads.
Up 'til now, the Obama campaign doesn't seem to have run its own robocalls, though state parties have been…
tfk | October 21, 2008Barack Obama visits some phone bankers in Missouri, and jumps on a few calls:
Throughout the nation, activists are knocking on doors, registering new voters, dialing their neighbors, and doing everything they can to see to it that the morning of November 5 is a lot more fun than Nov. 3, 2004, or November 8, 2000. Obama is taking a few days at the end of this week to visit his ailing grandmother, but people are too fired up to let the campaign lag while he's off the trail.
It seems to be paying off:
Sen. Barack Obama has made new gains in two key counties that could tip the balance in the…
tfk | October 21, 2008My grandfather, while serving as secretary (or possibly president, my history here is ambiguous) of New York Typographer's Local 1, traveled to Washington to protest against the Taft-Hartley Act. While there, he gave a speak that called out the House Committee on Un-American Activities and one member in particular, a young Congressman on that committee named Richard Nixon. Nixon and HUAC, my grandfather proclaimed, were the really un-American ones, not the writers whose careers they were destroying.
In the Congressional cafeteria later, my grandfather was eating with other labor leaders…
tfk | October 20, 2008Even John McCain's supporters don't care for his campaign's tactics of attacking Obama with lies.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has referred to her own campaign and its supporters as "atrocious and unacceptable." She told the Christian Broadcasting Network:
If I ever were to hear that [threats to Senator Obama] standing up there at the podium with the mic, I would call them out on that, and I would tell these people, no, that’s unacceptable, let’s rise above that please.
Asked whether that denunciation included her own claim that Senator Obama has been "palling around with terrorists,” however,…
tfk | October 20, 2008While Barack Obama is lining up key endorsements from Colin Powell, major and local newspapers, and hundreds of thousands of small donors, it's worth watching the down-ticket races. Bob Geiger reviews Esquire Magazine's Endorsements. Geiger writes:
Perhaps no incumbent senator more deserves to be run out on a rail for enabling George W. Bush's shredding of our Constitution than Republican Pat Roberts. While serving for years as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Roberts gave the White House free reign while providing zero Congressional oversight. Here's Esquire: "As then-…
tfk | October 17, 2008Even as Expelled promotes itself as "the #1 Documentary of 2008," its box office take is being overtaken by Religulous (2008):
EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED
Domestic Total Gross: $7,690,545
Widest Release: 1,052 theaters
In Release: 56 days / 8 weeks
RELIGULOUS
Domestic Total as of Oct. 16, 2008: $7,622,104
Widest Release: 568 theaters
In Release: 16 days / 2.3 weeks
Note that Religulous did that with half the theaters and in 1/3 the time.
tfk | October 16, 2008
Speaking of which:
"Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush."
Votes like Bush, walks like Bush, and has no exit strategy, either.
tfk | October 16, 2008John McCain last night:
Schieffer: But even if it was someone even someone who had a history of being for abortion rights, you would consider them?
McCain: I would consider anyone in their qualifications. I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications. But I certainly would not impose any litmus test.
Kevin Drum wonders:
First, he'd consider anyone "in their qualifications." Then he says that support for Roe v. Wade would be a qualification that would cause him to reject a candidate. But then he says there's no litmus test.
What did…
tfk | October 15, 2008McCain:
Just again, the example of the eloquence of Sen. Obama. He's health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health."
Horrors. "Health." Let's mock women don't want to die, or become infertile. The reality of abortion is that many women seeking abortions plan to have children at some other point, or already have children. Mocking those women's concerns for their health is incredibly offensive.
Clearly, the exchange over McCain's dishonest and dishonorable…
tfk | October 15, 2008Shorter John McCain:
I'm such a great advocate for special needs kids that I think autism is the same as Down syndrome.
Actual quote:
"parents come with kids, children -- precious children who have autism. Sarah Palin knows about that better than most."
The rest of John McCain's debate performance roughly matched that level of sensibleness.
Bonus shorter McCain:
Barack Obama is being disrespectful to veterans in questioning the morals of my supporters who call for Obama's political assassination.
In other news, John McCain didn't have the courage to either repeat the claim that Obama pals…
tfk | October 15, 2008The campaign tells me:
This Saturday, October 18th, please join Barack Obama in Kansas City, MO, where he will talk about his vision for creating the kind of change we need.
Change We Need Rally with Barack Obama
National World War I Museum
at Liberty Memorial
Intersection of Main St. and Memorial Dr.
Kansas City, MO
Saturday, October 18th
Gates Open: 4:00 p.m.
http://mo.barackobama.com/KansasCityChange
This event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required; however, an RSVP is strongly encouraged. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
For security reasons,…
tfk | October 15, 2008
As Greg Sargent observes:
Palin's first instinct was to rebuke these "hecklers" by questioning their patriotism, suggesting completely out of the blue that they might be reluctant to show sufficient gratitude towards our veterans. But then her husband gently let her know that these people weren't hecklers at all. They were supporters who were yelling for her to speak louder.
"They just can't hear you back there," Todd told his wife. "That's why they're yelling louder."
Put aside the awful sanctimony on display here. What's interesting is how automatically Palin slipped into playing this…
tfk | October 15, 2008According to a CBS/New York Times poll, voters understand that McCain, not Obama, would raise their taxes:
If he were elected President, do you think (candidate) would raise taxes on people like yourself, or wouldn't he do that?
Obama: Would 46%, Would Not 41%
McCain: Would 51%, Would Not 38%
Given that this has been one of John McCain's attacks on Obama, it's surprising but not disappointing to see that the public sees the truth through the spin.