Keith Oblermann can be a bit of a blowhard sometimes, but this rant on Prop 8 is spot-on:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27652443

"I am also exercising my right to privacy, and I don't have to tell anybody who I vote for, nobody does, and that's really cool about America also." - Sarah Palin (no really, verbatim)

Apple takes an official public stance on Proposition 8:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

As someone who plans on getting married next year if it's still legal, I have a personal stake in this. I've personally given about $500 to the cause, and I've talked others into helping as well. The LDS church is putting a ton of time and money into making Prop 8 pass. It's good to see powerful organizations on the other side too, but this is going to be a close one. Give money, give time, or (at the very least) go VOTE.

"With respect to the debates, it's my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess. And I think that it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once," Obama said. A hint of a smile crossed his face after he delivered that line. He then added, "I think there's no reason why we can't be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand ... So in my mind, actually, it's more important than ever that we present ourselves to the American people and try to describe where we want to take the country and where we want to take the economy."

“What, does McCain think the Senate will still be working at 9 p.m. Friday? I think this is all political — I wish McCain had shown the same concern when he didn’t show up in the Senate to vote on the extension of the renewable energy tax credit.”

- Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania said in an interview, referring to the scheduled start time of the debate, which McCain now wants to back out of (presumably because he's not prepared to answer questions about the economy)

"I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't."



- Sarah Palin, when told that a $50,000 taxpayer-funded redecoration of her office was illegal without council approval

"It's no surprise that Senator McCain likes to bring out his 96-year-old mother Roberta, I suppose. The problem is that she is a lot perkier than he. The gentleman has had a few bad weeks, thundering in a dithery way about America's enemies, looking vaguely purposeful campaigning up and down supermarket aisles as if he couldn't remember what kind of cheese he'd been sent to buy."

- Garrison Keillor

I know many people who supported Obama because of his stance on privacy and FISA. Why is he backtracking now? I understand the political expediency argument, that this will get him points on the national security front. However, this doesn't hold water. Granting amnesty to telecoms for participating in illegal activity doesn't enhance our national security, it only weakens our civil liberties.

If you break the voters down into two populations -- those who pay attention and think for themselves and those who don't -- Barack is in the process of alienating the former. The latter is already convinced that Barack is a Muslim with an angry black wife who is intent on giving America over to the terrorists.

Just my two cents. Plus the $1200 I've donated to the campaign, on faith that Barack would stand by his principles.

I probably should have taken more time to compose this but I was on my way to a meeting. Feel free to email Bill Burton yourself to urge Obama to filibuster the FISA bill when it goes to the Senate.

For more information on Barack's backtrack on FISA:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/21/obama/index.html

The one-sentence summary of the FISA bill: it legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001.

In the short term, the gay marriage ruling is great news. We stopped by the Castro for dinner and there was literally dancing in the streets. But left to sleep on it, I'm left somewhat pensive. The reason for this is simple:

I hate being a fucking pawn.

It's true that I want to be a part of history, to be someone who got married when it first became legal. But do I want our wedding pictures to be used in right-wing propaganda without our permission? Do I want to be portrayed as an evil which is hellbent on destroying the country? The right-wing will vilify us for fun and profit and, if the protracted fight to get the Dems' nomination ruins their chances in '08, we'll be blamed by the left for spoiling the election again.

On the other hand, it's quite possible that the Republicans shot their wad on this in '04. At least some people realize now that they were duped into re-electing Bush on wedge issues such as this one. Others may be willing to hold their nose and vote against their social convictions based on foreign policy and economic views. But, most importantly, most of the swing states have already passed discriminatory constitutional amendments. There's nothing new to put on the ballot this year to mobilize voters. Massachusetts has allowed gay marriage for years and they haven't invoked Armageddon just yet.

So -- there's hope. But we have to take action this time. Serious action. We need to educate the public, build awareness, and -- most importantly -- VOTE. Don't let a permanent stain of bigotry get written into our state's constitution.

From this article (among many I've seen in the past few days, although The Economist should be a pretty reputable news source):

SIX days ahead of the North Carolina primary comes a story of real sleaze—not Jeremiah Wright-style buffoonery, but Nixon-style illegality designed to dupe and disenfranchise voters—that should surprise precisely nobody who has been following and covering this campaign. A group called Women's Voices Women's Vote (WVWV), which claims to have been "created to activate unmarried Americans in their government and in our democracy" has been placing robocalls to voters across North Carolina that seem designed to fool them into thinking they have not yet registered to vote. Many of the voters who received those calls are black. Voters in 11 states have complained about similarly deceptive calls and mailings that have been traced back to WVWV this primary season.

Guess which Democratic candidate WVWV's founder and president, Page Gardner, has donated $6,700 to (hint: it's not Barack Obama). Guess whose election campaign Joe Goode, WVWV's executive director, worked for (hint: it was in 1992, and it was a winning campaign). Guess whose chief of staff sits on WVWV's board of directors (hint: it was the president who served between two Bushes). And guess whose campaign manager was a member of WVWV's leadership team (hint: it's Hillary Clinton).

It's an odd story: a recording of someone named Lamont Williams calls voters to tell them a voter-registration packet is on its way. It's unclear whether anything arrives; what isn't unclear is that the call is well after the registration deadline. It's not too hard to imagine this call coming to an unsophisticated voter (and let me make this clear: I am in no way saying black voters, who seem to have received the lion's share of the calls, are all unsophisticated; I'm simply positing a scenario), and that voter becoming confused. Perhaps he thinks he's not registered, and calls his state's board of elections who tells him it's too late so he stays home on election day. Perhaps the board of elections doesn't know what he's talking about, and he gets frustrated and stays home, assuming he's unregistered.

In 2004, Rob and I went to Nevada and canvassed Democratic houses, clearing up a mis-informative mailing stating that voters' polling place had changed. Others there had to deal with organizations which would run "non-partisan" voter registration drives and then throw away Democratic registrations.

In this case, this voter fraud has closer and more documented ties to the candidate. It's difficult to say whether Hillary had anything to do with this directly (although I would suspect she probably didn't), but does this "get her elected at all costs," combined with the jingoism, patronizing, and fear tactics she's used, really make her more "electable?" If there's any campaign that has the balls to attempt to beat the Republicans at their own game, it's Hillary's. But, with a sitting Republican president with the highest disapproval rate ever and a weak candidate like McCain on the other ticket, do we need to play these games? And if we're playing them between two Democrats, are we disenfranchising the very voters we're going to need in November?

I don't usually watch Ellen's show, but I admire her for her speech here about the shooting of Lawrence King.

Watch the video...

Life imitates art.

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks

"Each year, as we watch the State of the Union, we see half the chamber rise to applaud the President and half the chamber stay in their seats ... Imagine if next year was different. Imagine if next year, the entire nation had a president they could believe in."

-Barack Obama

If you have 30 minutes to spare, you should really watch this.

Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states]…that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call carried over the massive fiber-optic links of sixteen separate companies routed through AT&T’s Internet hub in San Francisco—hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications—have been…copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale by means of multiple “splitters” into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.

If true, that constitutes one of the most massive violations of privacy in American history.

And it would be inconceivable without the size and resources of an AT&T behind it—the same size that makes Mike McConnell fear the corporations’ day in court.

If reasonable search and seizure means opening a drug dealer’s apartment, the telecoms’ alleged actions would be the equivalent of strip-searching everyone in the building, ransacking their bedrooms, and prying up all the floorboards. That’s the massive scale we’re talking about—and that massive scale is precisely why no corporation must be above the law.

On that scale, it is impossible to plead ignorance.

As Judge Walker ruled, “AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.”

Watch the speech...

scha·den·freu·de
–noun
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.
[Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy]

And, yet another Republican bites the dust, albeit long after-the-fact this time.

"What time do all the results start coming in? Because he goes to bed early."

-- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, explaining that the president may not catch all the news from Iowa before turning in for the night tonight.

You can't make this up:

But because there was so little advance notice for the event held by Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy FEMA administrator, the agency made available an 800 number so reporters could call in. And many did, although it was a listen-only arrangement, The Washington Post reported Friday.

It said that at the news conference itself, some FEMA employees played the role of reporter, asking questions of Johnson — queries described as soft and gratuitous.

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from a person the Post said was an agency employee, not an independent journalist.

Read more...

Normally I don't repost Mark Fiore cartoons but this week's is pretty good:

http://markfiore.com/

This guy makes a good point; in order to see what someone's real policies could be, you need to look at who is advising them. This was especially true in 2000, when Bush was being advised by Karen Hughes, Karl Rove, and Paul Wolfowitz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfel3twH0w