The Moderate Liberal

Ever since I was a kid, I heard talk about the cycle of poverty. If only they would work harder, stop looking for a handout, then the poor could obtain the middle class.  It seems so simple and easy to be middle class, especially when you are middle class yourself; all you have to do to pick yourself up is look for a job, then work hard at it.

Yet, millions remain in poverty. Breaking the cycle of poverty, in practice at least, has never been quite so simple as the conservative dogma that blames the poor.

Now, researchers have determined what the poor have known all along; that the very situation of poverty places children at a much greater disadvantage than previously thought.  Are you ok with this?

So you want to know why the Republican Party is the big loser this election? You need even more proof about just how out of touch with America? Well, here’s it is…

In George, Rep. Paul Broun actually said in an interview with The Associated Press that he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

Where was Paul Broun when George W. Bush set up secret overseas prisons, implemented torture and suspended habeas corpus. NOW Broun is worried??

AP reported that Obama’s comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado regarding an idea for a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation’s foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps “to renew our diplomacy.”

The people of the U.S. state of Georgia should be ashamed.

Expect more idiocy like this, since after the last election the Republican Party now has fewer moderates than ever before. Paul Broun is a lunatic. Lets hope the people he represents will give him a good ass whoopin’.

Yes we did, America!
God Bless and keep President Obama.

Good luck, America.

I hope your boss is understanding enough to let you take off 4 hours to stand in line to cast your vote.
I hope your electronic voting machine registers your vote.
I hope your voter registration hasn’t been thrown out.
I hope you won’t be intimidated or “challenged” by Republican poll nazis.
I hope you you won’t be forced to fill out a provisional ballot.
I hope you won’t be sent away because there are no more paper ballots.

Be resolute!
Cast your vote!
Stand your ground.

Get there early. Bring your I.D.

Don’t walk away until you are heard. Stand up for yourself, and stand up for all of us.

Good luck, America!

1. The halving of gas prices since September from $4 to near $2 per gallon has made “drill baby drill” irrelevent. Indeed, Republican Rep. Michelle Bachman (MN) has already claimed victory and moved on. But as an issue that will motivate right leaning Independents and centrist Republicans to vote, its now an impotent issue.

2. Racism ain’t what it used to be. Thats not to say there still isn’t work to do, but these days Americans are more interested in the quality of your ideas than the color of your skin. Thats a downer for McCain, whose “Joe the Plumber” was heard on MSNBC last week saying he would vote for a “Real American.” As opposed to what, Joe? A black American?

3. Obama is simply the better candidate, who ran a better issues focused campaign. He changed all the rules of campaign finance and was able to overcome McCain’s 25 year headstart with a better organized campaign, funded by smaller donors. He stuck to the issues. He showed himself to be the more stable, rational, centrist, predictable, calm, and vibrant candidate.

4. Al Qaida will not launch a spectacular attack between now and election day, per the Republican wet dream. And if they did, it wouldn’t matter — Obama would still win because it would show that Republicans have failed to protect the country and can’t be trusted to do so in the future.

5. Because women are not that stupid. McCain thought women would flock to Palin, simply because she has breasts. He thought that she was answer for Clinton supporters, simply because of her gender. She was a lousy pick for so many reasons that I won’t take those easy pot shots.
But everyone knows that now. She has been vetted, and the vets don’t like her.

And a bonus reason…

6. There is no Bradley effect. “Wealthy Republicans are very anxious about taxes,” Jamie Wasserman, a psychotherapist with a practice on the Upper West Side and in Montclair, N.J., told the NY Times of her patients. “They are not pretending to vote for the black man.”

I’ve been silent on the this blog, choosing along with the rest of you to just sit on the beach and watch this tsunami come ashore. 

In a life full of years that just seem to meander by, 2008 is one which I am not soon to forget. It was the year, first of all, that I have seen my investment portfolio sliced in half.

It is also the year that I will witness the first Black Man in American History to be elected President. But more than that (much more), this is the man that I truly believe is going to set a long overdue progressive direction for America.

Obama has given me hope.  And soon he will need to deliver on that promise. 

While other politicians, namely Republican, offer hope with one hand and snatch it away with the other, Obama is different.  While we expect the typical politician to engage in a flourish of election year promises, Obama is offering the sort of hope that is much more personal. We have invested the future of our children in Obama (and by the look of his $150m haul in September, we’ve also invested the shattered vestiges of our 401k retirement accounts in him as well).

If Obama doesn’t deliver, he will inflict a very pesonal hurt upon America. We have placed hope in Obama like we have NEVER placed hope in a Presidential candidate in my lifetime. 

I for one believe he will deliver.  He must deliver.

Go Obama, Go!

Sorry, but I just couldn’t wait. Today, at 10:00 am central time, absentee voting opened in Minnesota, and I was right there, first in line (actually the only one in line). 

I know that the first vote cast in my county for the 2008 Presidential election  (and probably the first vote cast in the state of Minnesota) was cast for Barack Obama.

So at 10:01 am, the popular vote in Minnesota stood at Obama 1, McCain 0.

I have been dying to cast my vote since 2004.  The past few months have been so very painful, just waiting for that one tiny chance that I have to impact the result.  My 1/200 millionth impact on this election (the most important in US history in my opinion) has been effected.

I’ve never done this before, but I wanted to cast an absentee vote because I plant to be available for the Obama campaign in North Dakota on election day, driving little old Democratic ladies to the polling places. I have the day scheduled off work.

Although I went into cardiac arrest shortly after the Republic National Convention when McCain bounced as high as a superball, never once did I doubt that voters would eventually see the Real McCain and come back to Obama. I’m just simply floored at this moment at how far ahead Obama is.  We certainly can’t take anything for granted as the Republicans vomit their vitriolic hatred over the airwaves.  They will try everything, and stop at nothing.

I have become so cynical of Republicans that I expect amazing tricks to come.  I wouldn’t be surprised if John McCain feigned at heat attack and had to step off the ticket at the last second, to be replaced by Mitt Romney or Paul Harvey Jr. 

But nothing is going to stop us from taking back America. No way, no how, no McCain!

Does John McCain really know what he is saying?  Today while attending the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota he either knowingly or unknowingly volunteered his wife Cindy for the Miss Buffalo Chip beauty pageant, which is well known by attendees to feature topless and bottomless pageant hopefuls.

Either John McCain didn’t know about the pageant, in which case we now know he will say anything to anyone to get elected, or…

he did know about the pegeant, and joking or not, we now know that he condones such things, and therefor does not have the moral terpitude to be the President of the United States.

Which one is it, John?

I suppose Cindy would fit in well with the Sturgis drug user crowd.

I’ve been reading Al Gore’s “The Assault on Reason.”  Al puts forward many excellent theories and examples of the degradation of our public discourse.

Today’s news is about as degrading as it gets:

In Knoxville, TN, Jim D. Adkisson was apparently frustrated over being out of work and had a “stated hatred” of the liberal movement. So he entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children’s performance Sunday and shot people.

Its a shame that our political discourse today must occur in a “news” environment that includes hate radio and hate television (read: Fox News), where if you are what the hate mongers label as a “liberal,” then you are the purported source of all their angst and personal failings.

Hate radio kills, make no mistake about it.