I'm really tempted to make a Chinatown joke here ("My mother! My sister!") but the situation is funny enough as it is. Will he or won't he? I guess no one is sure. Now that's Leadership! Reid denies, says the AP lies!

I almost feel sorry for Burris. AFAIC, he's not really that bad, and Blogo hasn't been convicted of anything yet. Seems to me the rather lazy IL lege needs to come back from vacation and do their jobs. Clearly, making this a national issue has only made the Dem party as a whole look even more stupid and clueless.

This is likely the wrong blog to ask this kweshun, but I'm still curious. For the sake of argument, let's say Obama wins, very clearly and obviously in your own mind. And let's say that somehow, insert your own 2000 redux here, "they" (try to) take it away from him, via Brooks Brothers riots and SCOTUS foolishness and other sundry undemocratic methods. What is your response, if any? And why? How would it be different than if HRC had had it stolen from her? Or the candidate of Your Choice?

I don't think McSpain has the ground game to steal it this time; I also don't think Wall St/Telco Ave money wants Obama to lose. So honestly I'm not so worried about it. I think we'll get a "democratic" prezint next Jan. But let's say the paranoid, insane racist members of the Franchise refuse to give up power, and pull out all the tricks, and declare at 3am Nov 5 that "McCain Wins!" What do you do?

Marching? Molotovs? Sit ins? Strikes? LTEs? Turning the channel? Knitting? Nothing? Just wondering...

Math is funny. It's a mystery to people like me, but one thing I know: when they "figure it out" they more or less, you know, figure it out. That is, while there may be 'other' ways to get to four than 2+2, it's still always true that 2+2 = 4. That's how I look at a lot of polling organizations. Did you make it to 4? Were you close? Not 'now,' but 'after,' when we can all see where they went, the trends and ideas you predicted were ascendant, and how succesful they turned out to be in truth. Haw, I love some comment I just read, "this is a reality-based community." Indeed, My Friends. So which of them are here with us in RealityLand?

In the spirit of spitting on reality, let me roll with my initial impressions as a mostly non-consumer of media product, as I reviewed these numbers. I think you old-timers call this 'stream of consciousness' blogging.

First, the non-corporate media projection sites updated counts:

Election Projection: Obama 364-174
Electoral-Vote.com: Obama 364, McCain 171, 3 tied
Fivethirtyeight: Obama 344-194 McCain
Pollster.com: Obama 313, McCain 157, Toss-up 68
Real Clear Politics: Obama 286, McCain 155, Toss-up 97

I hate headcolds. Anyway, hope you all are having a good harvest. Here's some planting of the seeds of the future, yesterday, muscially speaking:

I also love the next two songs/numbers in this movie, but I figured one race-traitor lo-fi offering was enough for one night.

So I'm deep in Republican territory, showing off my black ass and wearing all my UChicago gear, this week. It's interesting. The people around here are upper class rich, but not uberrich. Out and about, here's some useless data point stuff. Because Lambert keeps stealing all my post ideas, it's the best I can do.

-What is it with skinny blonde moms with really big families? Like, poppin out a kid every year until there are so many of them it's hard to count if they're not standing still? I'm talking younger moms, obviously wealthy, the sort your average white Amercian patriarch goes for, "trophy" wives. When I was young, not many of the kids at my (private, populated by Republican spawn) school were from very large broods. But for the last few years, I've noticed more and more of these birthing-olympics moms in tony suburbs. Poor people have always believed children are their wealth, but I seem to remember a time when one of the perks of being a trophy wife is that all you had to produce was 'an heir and a spare.' Has that changed?

-The bailout doesn't seem to be popular here either.

Via Democracy Now!

Army Unit to Deploy in October for Domestic Operations

Beginning in October, the Army plans to station an active unit inside the United States for the first time to serve as an on-call federal response in times of emergency. The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent thirty-five of the last sixty months in Iraq, but now the unit is training for domestic operations. The unit will soon be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command. The Army Times reports this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to Northern Command. The paper says the Army unit may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. The soldiers are learning to use so-called nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals and crowds.

Fascism! Smell it!

Obama finally talks about the economy in his latest ad (below), which I generally think is a good idea. The substance is fine, but the framing is for shit, IMO. He still can't say the D-word or even the R-word. The problem is not Washington. It is not the "outworn ideas of the Left and the Right." It is Republicans. That is the problem. And Democrats are the solution. At least I thought that would be the Democratic message. Instead, the message is that Obama is the solution and Washington is the problem. Then I guess we should all vote against our incumbent Democratic Congressmen since they are equally to blame as the Republicans? They are Washington, no?

Now here's the GOP I've come to know and loathe. After that recycled Alan Keyes bullshit I was worried that this country had fallen so far that the GOP couldn't even manufacture a decent smear campaign. But I see now that other GOP fundamentals remain strong:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

So it's been bothering me for a long time now: what is it going to take? This country has tolerated the travesty that is the "Drug War" for decades; ok, I grok that as it's "only" brown and black and poor people who suffer AIDS and rape and death as a result of imprisonment. This country has also come to sleep in and miss the fact that we're bombing/shooting/raping/killing brown non-xtians in a war of choice; again, I sort of understand as that war is far away and not often on teevee, from which most people construct their 'reality.' Obama, unlike MLK, felt the need to surround himself with 000s of "security" folk in a mass grouping of fellow democracts; I guess that's a statement on how far we've (not) come since the glory days of the Civil Rights movement. But St. Paul? MN? Some of you do/have lived there; you must know how gentle and "neighborly" most of MN really is, and how infrequently it's upset by security theatre. Amy Goodman got arrested. I guess that's not surprising or worthy news to most people. But gosh, I really do wonder what it will take. Armed camps? Mass arrest of suburbanites? Shooting xtian babies and their moms?

Wake up America. Or rather, how do we wake up America? That whole logic of "I was not a [x], so I didn't speak up when they came for [x]" is starting to seem like so much more than distant memory. Is it just me? Video (one of many from the links)

Mostly, I'm very proud that this website has not joined in the woman-bashing trend that is the so-called "progressive" blogosphere's response to news of Palin's various family issues. Like Sean-Paul, I agree that her family's private issues are not worthy of my attention. Her Hypocrisy? Wingerism? Cronyism? Yes, let's talk about that. But leave her kids out of it. Period. SP speaks for me:

It's a private family matter. Leave it be. And leave Palin be. What McCain wants more than anything is to discuss Palin, not McCain.

If McCain wins, I guarantee you that Palin will not be Cheney to McCain's Bush (heh). People here have defended pro-Iraq war Hillary for many legit reasons, including the sexist crap she endured during her run. Let's not all make ourselves fools and hypocrites now. Palin sucks, for many reasons. The behaviors and failures of her family: not among them.

No, that's not what I'm saying. But recently, Obama lost an intellectual heavy hitter, our friend Mr. Newberry. SN's got his detractors, but one thing no one ever says about him is that he doesn't understand economics. A sample:

The blame lies, of course, with two groups: the monetary authority for its decision to accept all of the risk from the bad debt of the last decade, and hand out fresh money in return, without taking any direction over the resulting financial entities. These entities, of course, flooded the money into the pockets of those in possession of the company.
The write downs obscure how buy outs, golden parachutes, and assorted swap deals have prevented any major reorganization on Wall Street or globally. The same bankers who got us into this mess, by and larger, are still in charge.

The second group, of course, is the fiscal authority of the US. Namely the Rahmite Congress, unconvinced of the existence of a recession but willing to engage in their favorite pass time of handing out subsidies to the middle class to consume. The checks sent out were, as I said at the time, partial rebates on the inflation tax for some, who proceeded to do exactly what should have been expected: namely, they spent it on goods that were inflating. What Rahm should have done was just written a check to the oil companies of the world for 150 billion dollars, because that is exactly where all of that money ended up.

The problem here is that the progressive and Democratic spheres have embraced - the supply side economics of Reaganism - so long as their right to fuck is not going to be gutted.

Just got an email with some blogs from a friend I trust on such matters, and I thought I'd share, for those of you looking to do oppo research.

Mudflats. Newer, but high quality.

Progressive Alaska by Phil Munger, who's worked with FDL and other progblogs.

Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis who was a credentialed blogger in Denver.

Kodiak Konfidential which looks a little on the silly side, but why not?

OK, fuck all that html; it's Labor Day, dammit. You can copy and past the rest:

I hope you can forgive me, despite my undeserving nature, for some unspecific and overly personal posting of late. I'm going to try to correct that, and here I'll start.

Resolved: Palin was a hit out of the park sort of choice for McCain and his team.

Why do I say this? I have many reasons, and I'm perversely glad and disturbed by his choice. Lemme share some reasons and links which may help you understand.

Palin in the eyes of one gardeners' community. You'll laugh, cry and hurl as you read it, but hopefully, also learn something of why I was nonspecifically asking recently for less groupthink in PB2.0. Sometimes, I fear we all forget that there are many people in America who think about politics, but so very few who think as we do. This is not the only thread I've read about Palin that is very different from the ones I've read in my usual daily travels.

Stepping back a bit and being imaginative: is Palin a good choice? Here's why I think the answer is "yes."

[update: fixed the link, sorry about that] Fear and Loathing (or not) in Denver:

Another pause. Then: "If Obama wins, I just hope that black people don't start thinking they're superior."

You all can hate on me for this, but I really wish we could discuss this more here. If this doesn't hook you, try this, from the same post:

overcome all the fuzzy directions and vague instructions and claw our way past the security staff, shove our way past the Google lounge and up the diggit staircase and down the YouTube corridor...into a hectic room full of rude people with laptops. As a software guy, it occurs to me that I've never seen a room with so many computers and so few Asians. In fact, it seems to me that the blogger pool is considerably less racially diverse than the mainstream media. The overwhelming whiteness of this crowd really can't be exaggerated.

Via Talk Left, Jim Clyburn defended his trashing of the Clintons today by trashing Al Gore, repeating the GOP lie that the Willie Horton attack on Dukakis began with Gore instead of the Republicans (and how nice of him to once again absolve the GOP of its racism while falsely condemning a Democrat).

So for those counting at home, the Democratic Party has agreed that:

1) Hillary is a monster who will say anything to win;

I'm sorry it's taken several days to find a blog that says something like this:

Here are a few things that I will not be doing in Denver:

I'm not going to cheerlead for the Democratic Party. I'm sure the oratory will be stirring and the energy and emotion infectious; we'll have to see if I get swept up in a political Hallmark moment, but I somehow doubt it. The Democratic Party has simply spent too many years killing the romance with corruption and backstabbing to rekindle the faith with a few bright roses and sweet promises. We've got some long-term work to do in order to make things okay.

I'm not going to pretend to be a reporter or pundit. I'm a progressive activist and agitator, an anti-racist anti-corporatist anti-imperialist Asian American writer, a universal human rights advocate, and a generally ornery observer of media, culture, and politics, who somehow happens to be attending the DNC. If I were forced to name a journalistic role model for this trip, I'd probably have to go with Hunter S. Thompson, though I hesitate to mention him because nobody, nobody, can live up to that legacy.

I'm not going to declare that "we" are "taking back" the Democratic Party or "reclaiming our democracy" because I don't believe that those things were ever really mine in the first place.

I sincerely hope everyone is on the same page as I am. Which is to say: I've been thrown out of better parties than this. Seriously, is this Event an example of "the democratic process of a republic of laws," or a great, big, dope consuming, cock-sucking extravaganza? It's hard to tell from the "progressive" blog coverage. Hint: bloggers who are there should not be dazzled by 'exclusive' party invites. They're so easy to get if you're Hip, and bragging of such reveals how lame one really is if one speaks of it. Real Players are otherwise oriented, discoursively. Figure that out, liberal bloggers, and the Powers will start taking you seriously. Until then, you're nothing more than minor star-fuckers, and Little People bought off by cheap teevee-grade bbq. yo.

Heh, I won't tell you where I heard it, as it is out there on the Intertubes and you can find it yourself with a little effort. And I'm posting because one of my sort of in-the-know friends didn't poopoo it when I ran it by him. What would you say to "Vice-President Feingold?" The rumor goes that all the other names you're hearing are a distraction/diversion and that Obama really prefers Russ, but wants to vet him quietly.

The Obama camp is filled with many different kinds of people, but not all of them are wholly addicted to "consultant-logic." They know that many of you here, and elsewhere, are already very unhappy with him and may go as far as withdrawing your support althogether, as very publically, some already have. Feingold would be a significant olive branch to progressives, no? Also, the bitterness between the BHO and HRC camps seems to be proving real and lasting, and it's always easiest, when choosing whom to screw over, to pick feminists. But anyway, beyond being a wonderful dream to someone like me (I enjoyed Russ as my Senator for a time, he's the Real Deal), it makes sense in a darkly ugly yet realist sort of way. Feingold is a kind of assassination-insurance for Obama; kill him and you get a real progressive in charge of the country. I bet that idea scares the master class a lot. Anyway, consider this a silly Sunday post entirely not based on anything significant or fact-related.

Darcy is One of Us. So it's nice to start my Friday with this bit of excellent news, which must mean even more to her since the destruction of her home in a fire. Way to go, netroots! HA

Burner kicks Reichert’s ass in July
by Goldy, 08/07/2008, 9:49 PM
Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert released their July fundraising totals today in advance of WA’s August 19 primary, and as reported by Postman (or maybe Emily Heffter, I’m kinda confused) it wasn’t even close.

Rep. Dave Reichert, the two-term Republican incumbent, raised $115,474 during July, compiling $929,113 in cash on hand.

Democratic challenger Darcy Burner raised more — $350,837– during July, and reported having almost $1.5 million in the bank.

So I can't tell you why, but let me pose it as a hypothetical, because someone I know is going to try it in real life soon. What, if anything, do you believe Little People like us, can do to pressure Obama to remain true to progressives Democratic values, right now? When I say "Little People," I mean all of us who 'only' have several dozen to thousands of readers, or dollars, or connections- in contrast with those of the big Playahs, who have millions of those things.

I know a lot of you have chosen not to vote for Obama in the fall. That's your right, for all that I don't agree such a choice is constructive. But pretend with me: if you could march up to him right now and say, "Stand up and fight, publically and proudly, for [fundamental progressive value/issue X] right now, or else!" what would the "else" part be? Beyond, "or you won't get my vote in the fall or contribution during the campaign."

As you probably know, Obama gave an interview to "Relevant," a Christian magazine in which he said that prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain an exception for the health of the mother, but that:

[He didn't] think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.

Given that the current law governing late term abortions includes mental distress mental health as one of the health exceptions, this would be a significant narrowing of abortion rights.

I'm jumping on this announcement by candidate Obama, because I hope to subvert the impulses of some of my fellow Fellows and some of our readers to make of this moment a chance to accuse Barack Obama of being a liar, breaking a promise, not really being about reform, undermining efforts to reform our increasingly broken system of elections, and other ways not to like Obama that I'm not clever enough to even think of.

You don't need to go there; the VRWC is way ahead of you. As Roy notes, there is high comedy to be had in the deep disappointment of the McCain campaign, the Republican Party, and their right-winger supporters, most of whom have bellowed long and hard against any sort of limitations on the financing of political campaigns. Of course that was when they were the ones rolling in money.

Yes, I know, McCain has been an advocate, of sorts, and a sponsor, of sorts, of campaign finance reform, but when Obama states, as he does in the video message in which he announced his decision, that the entire system, including the so-called reforms of it, by which we finance our elections is "broken," he's right.

Here is as much of what Obama says on the video that I could get off the story as it appears in the NYTimes and Reuters:

You don't have to click on the icky WaTimes link, here's the funny part:

Tom DeLay will vote for John McCain but the former House Republican leader said his wife, Christine, is planning to vote for Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr.

Ha-ha!

Anyway, I hope Dems do more to convince Real Republicans that the only True Conservative Choice is Barr. After all, as we heard so much of in the primary, real conservatives know that "McCain is too liberal." Remind a conservative friend today.

Today is an interesting and important day to remember, especially this season:

On June 12, 1967, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a married couple named Loving – he was white, she was black. They lived in Virginia and had violated the southern state's law against inter-racial marriage. The high court's decision made interracial marriage legal in all 50 states. Today, the Loving decision is celebrated as an important victory for multi-culturalism and democracy.

With temperatures topping 35 degrees centigrade, it wasn't just the music that was hot at the 5th annual New York City Loving Day Celebration, one of several such events around the country.

Kathleen and David and their two cocoa-colored children were among the estimated 1000 people gathered under a big tent along New York's East River. The group included many interracial couples like them.

Kathleen and Dave Graham, and their children Max and Miles are a healthy interracial family. Kathleen says she is grateful that the Lovings helped pave the way for their freedom
"There are a lot of people who had to fight really hard so we can be legally married," says Kathleen. "We can own property, we can have the kids and we don't get hassled about it. We're normal now."

It's late for me. I'm really tired, and sick. Still, I'm kicking myself. Bigtime. "Snow," a crack den regular, ran for the Dem primary Senate seat tonight in SC, and is within 2K votes of victory, as of this moment. I'm too tired and lazy to give you links, but he's the "Mike Cone" in the race. Look him up. Short Verision: one of Our Own can win, if only we would join in trying and help in a meaningful way. I suck, because in his case, I didn't, not enough. I'm so sorry about that, Snow. Seriously. I've always loved your stuff and I am so hating on myself right now for wasting so much time on races that didn't matter, and/or in which voices like mine made no difference. That could've been another story in your case/race, and I salute you for not expecting people like me to do more for you. You showed such Class. You were smart, and I'm a hypocrite. Good show, win or place, however it works out by the morn.

Seriously, peeps. We're all closer than we think. Snow won't win (or goddess bless us, he will) but he came damn close. Think about what that actually means.