Get on the phone - we want Arlen Specter as Senate Judiciary Committee chair

In 1991, after the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, I'd never have thought I'd want to help make Arlen Specter the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But I'd also never have thought I'd celebrate a landmark pro-gay ruling written by Anthony Kennedy.

We're not likely to win this one, but it's worth a shot.
-tim

***

JimberlyPickett@aol.com wrote:
From: JimberlyPickett@aol.com
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 07:49:49 EST
Subject: FRC goes BALLISTIC re: Specter's warning to Bush re: nominating pro-choicers
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

The Family Research Council is FREAKING out over Senator Arlen Specter's
warnings to Bush against nominating pro-life judges.... The following is an action
alert and a press release from the group. They encourage their members to
take action. I encourage you to take action as well. FRC wants their members to
contact Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Republican Committee Members. You
can too, and you should. They give you all the info you need in the alert
below. If you live in a state where one of the listed Senators is from, CALL! We
know FRC will have the phones ringing off the hook. Let's make sure our voices
are part of the cacaphony.

---jim


--------------------------------------------------------

Special Alert - Let the Battle Begin
To: Friends of Family Research Council
From: Tony Perkins, President
Date: November 4, 2004 - Thursday

Let the Battle Begin

In what has to be the height of arrogance and ingratitude,
Senator Arlen Specter, the man set to become the head of
the Judiciary Committee, warned President Bush against
nominating pro-life judges. This is after President Bush
campaigned for Sen. Specter over pro-life Pat Toomey and is
responsible for Specter's re-election to the Senate. While
the senator did vote for the confirmation of Clarence
Thomas, he has spent much of his public life fighting
against the confirmation of pro-life judges--including
leading the fight against Ronald Reagan's nominee to the
Supreme Court, Robert Bork. He has a history of pandering
to the aggressive abortion lobby, and a Specter
chairmanship would be disastrous. As chairman, he would
control the confirmation process of federal judges,
including nominees to the Supreme Court. He would also
determine the makeup of the Senate Judiciary Committee
staff, which would go a long way toward determining the
committee's political and judicial philosophy.

What is especially troubling about the Sen. Specter's
comments is that they come on the heels of an election that
overwhelmingly affirmed pro-life candidates and a
pro-family philosophy. With the addition of five new
pro-life senators, the Senate itself became significantly
more pro-life on Tuesday. Now is not the time to shrink
from the duty to protect the dignity of life and family.
President Bush has stated repeatedly throughout the months
leading up to the election his commitment to a culture of
life and his legacy will likely be defined in large part by
who he appoints to courts in the next four years.

Majority Leader Dr. Bill Frist has affirmed his agreement
with the President time and again regarding his
understanding of the courts, the role of the Senate in the
confirmation process, and the dignity of life. Senator
Frist and the overwhelming majority of pro-life Republican
senators on the Judiciary Committee need to stand up for
the President and the American people and oppose the
Specter litmus test. Our pro-life President and his
colleagues in the Senate MUST NOT ALLOW Sen. Specter to
determine the makeup of our courts! Sen. Specter should
not become the next Judiciary Committee chairman.

Call Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Republican
Committee Members
through the Capitol Switchboard, 202-224-3121:

Orrin Hatch
Chuck Grassley
Jon Kyl
Mike Dewine
Jeff Sessions
Lindsey Graham
Larry Craig

Additional Resources:
----------------------
Senate Judiciary Committee
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=LK04K07&f=WA04K11&t=e
--------------------------------------------

View this Washington Update online at:
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WU04K05&f=WU04K05&t=e
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

View this Press Release online at:
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR04K04&f=PR04K04&t=e

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 4, 2004
CONTACT: Amber Hildebrand, (202) 393-2100

FRC: Specter Threatens the Appointment of Pro-Life Judges

Washington, D.C. - Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who is
presumed to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year
and who considers himself a "moderate", took no time in
warning the newly reelected President George W. Bush
against attempting nomination of pro-life justices. Family
Research Council president Tony Perkins released the
following statement:

"Senator Specter needs to realize that the victories the
Republican Party had on election night were due to the
Value Voters. A clear mandate has been sent to
Washington--appoint strict Constructionists who will
interpret law, not make it. The Value Voters, who gave the
Republican Party increased majorities in the House and
Senate, clearly affected the presidential race and are owed
judicial nominations that reflect their values:
traditional marriage, pro-life. I hope to see leadership
from the President in regards to the Senate Judiciary
Committee. He must represent the people who voted for him
by standing up to these warnings from Senator Specter.

"What is especially troubling about Sen. Specter's comments
is that they come on the heels of an election that
overwhelmingly affirmed pro-life candidates and with a
pro-family philosophy. With the addition of five new
pro-life senators, the Senate itself became significantly
more pro-life on Tuesday. Now is not the time to shrink
from the duty to protect the dignity of life and family.
President Bush has stated repeatedly throughout the months
leading up to the election his commitment to a culture of
life and his legacy will likely be defined in large part by
who he appoints to the courts in the next four years.

"President Bush could potentially appoint four new justices
to the nation's High Court over the next four years. FRC
hopes to see these nominees reflect the values of the Value
Voters of this election."

-30-

View this Press Release online at:
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PR04K04&f=PR04K04&t=e

"We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States."

---Barack Obama, now Senator-elect from Illinois (who has announced that his top priority as America's most influential first-term Senator will be access to health insurance for poor people)


1) MY MORNING IN PORTLAND

I arrived at the airport this morning and an employee at the check-in desk (United - you know, one of the bankrupt ones) mentioned a vacation he plans on taking in six months, then added, "if I have a job then." The woman who checked my luggage said, "Please try to be optimistic. I have two kids to feed."

Then I bought coffee from a woman who asked how I was, and when I said I hadn't gotten much sleep, she said, "Yes, it was pretty awful, wasn't it."

Then watching John Edwards' concession speech on the airport TV, a flight attendant sitting next to me began crying and pretty soon she had tears streaming down her face. She got up and got some napkins, turned to me, and said, "I think I'm going to have to redo my makeup."


2) HOW TO REACT:

A friend of mine called today and left a really voicemail saying "Just calling to make sure you're not on the verge of suicide, to check in and shoot the shit...." I really appreciated it.

Novelist Rick Moody, on Salon:

Despair is OK for an afternoon, but it's important to remember: This is the most corrupt presidency in modern history. It's unlikely to improve. So there's lots to do.

Email from my brother:

"What a complete fucking disaster."

3) HOW NOT TO REACT (?)

The New York Times has run a story called "A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America." I understand the feeling, and I experienced the phenomenon of collective grief in public places today, and I strongly identify with the 25-year-old barmaid's observation that she doesn't know anyone who voted for Bush. And yes, it's true that homosexuality was on the ballot in Ohio and abortion was on the ballot in Florida and this, as the CBC put it, "inspired many direct voting appeals from Catholic and Evangelical pulpits." And yes, I can't stand the way the declaration that the election was a referendum on "moral values," which is, as the Washington Post points out, "basically a code phrase for abortion and gays"?

And yet - and yet, there's something so wrong about this article, and so symptomatic about the state of progressive and liberal politics in America. What happened to class? What happened to corporate power? Why does this piece report exclusively on the views of professionials, teachers, and others in the college-educated, Salon-reading, latte-buying people? Why doesn't the Democratic party wake up to the fact that people in low-wage service-sector jobs can't simply be cast as nameless doormen who give consoling hugs? Why simply cave to the religious right's efforts to cast itself as representative of the heartland?

At the Kerry party at the Oregon Convention Center last night, someone literally said to me that only those in the elite should be allowed to vote, and then today at the Portland airport someone I got into a conversation with said that he thinks only people with college degrees should be allowed to vote. I am not making this up. And on Nov. 2, I heard a long story on "Marketplace" about how for the stake of our stock portfolios we really ought to hope, above all else, that a president is selected by the end of the night.

Honestly, I think part of why Barack Obama has inspired so many people and does represent the future of the Democratic party is that in such tense times he's in a very literal sense a uniter, not a divider. Let's remember the most brilliant oration of this year's Democratic National Convention: "The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States."

Bush's new "wolves" ad

Check it out on the Bush front page. From the folks who brought you "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

It's mean to wolves. And it makes me think of Dick Cheney.

Swift Yacht Vets

Go here and view "John Kerry & The Burning Question." It's amazing.

Also fun are the Swift Yacht Vets and Pleasure Captains for Truth.

Kittens.
Posted by Hello

Thought of the day: on writing constitutions

"Men entrusted with the formation of civil constitutions should remember they are painting for eternity: that the smallest defect or redundancy in the system they frame may prove the destruction of millions."

- The Genuine Principles of the Ancient Saxon or English Constitution, an anonymous Revolutionary pamphlet, Pennsylania, 1776, emphasis in original; quoted in Bernard Bailyen, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1967), 184

Polls, Manhunt, Oregon, my birthday, Gay.com, and wisdom

1) POLLS. While it's true that some polls put Bush eight points ahead of Kerry now while others show a dead heat, it's also the case that in the history of opinion polling, no incumbent presidential candidate has risen more than 1 percentage point in the final tally from his percentage in the last pre-election Gallup Poll, whereas challengers have typically received two or three points higher on election day than they did in the last poll. The conventional explanation for this phenomenon, among pollsters, is that those who remain undecided until the very last minute usually end up voting for the challenger. However, the demonstrably very high intensity of public interest in this year's presidential race introduces an unknown factor - as do the substantial spikes in registration and the massive get-out-the-vote organizations that each campaign has managed to organize. And while both parties accuse each other of election fraud and there's a decent chance this race, too, will end up in the Supreme Court, and although I sympathize with the bumper sticker that says VOTE FOR BUSH AND YOU'LL NEVER HAVE TO VOTE AGAIN, it's also true that this race will see unprecedented election monitoring. In short, to a remarkable extent, pollsters must concede that in this race, all bets are off. (It's true that opinion polls are, in a sense, a political evil; they distract attention from issues and probably contribute to the commercialization of elections. At the same time, opinion polling as a routine component of presidential campaigns has been a part of American political culture for the entire lifespan of my mother and father. It's just gotten more intense in the past decade since the invention of cable news and the 24-hour news cycle.)

My own fervent hope is that the collection of evidence that bloggers are amassing that President Bush wore some kind of earpiece, connected to a mysterious bulging contraption on his back, during one or more presidential debates, and that perhaps this is not actually such an unusual condition for Dubya at his public appearances, will become a major scandal and consume days of TV time in the coming thirteen days. (The White House claims that it was merely a case of a poorly tailored suit. Decide for yourself! Just click here to view incriminating video, photos, and analyses.)

2) MANHUNT. This is the name of Bravo's new hot reality-TV concept, "the search for America's most gorgeous male model," which I was happily able to enjoy at the gym today, where they have cable TV. The premise of the show is that forty stunningly hot young men from all over America, most of whom have never modeled before in their life, are hand-picked and brought to LA to compete for a six-figure contract with a top New York modeling agency. In the everyday lives from which they were snatched, they worked at jobs ranging from "retail sales clerk" to "law student," "real estate agent" to "construction worker."

The show has two parts, really. In Part One, the viewer meets all of the models, who are individually and as a group that's being brought together at a five-star hotel in LA for potentially quite a few weeks of grueling competition with each other. You see scenes like all the models, gathered together and hot-looking, gawking at their host, the supermodel Carmen Electra. The announcer tells you that this is a totally amazing feeling for these guys, to be right there with her - you even get to see one most-goreous aspirant say to the narrator, as if in confession, that he had a poster of Carmen on his bedroom wall back home. You see a slideshow-style presentation of each model, in which the viewer sees a very hot shirtless photo of the model on one half of the screen while the other side shows a series of bullet points, like this:

Trevor, 22


From: Sandy Springs, Utah


Retail Sales Clerk


Loves to be the center of attention

Then you get to see a few seconds of footage of the model saying something short, witty, and coy. Like, "I've always wanted to just live my life the best I can and you know hopefully give something back." Or "I've never thought of myself as a model, I'm just a college student, I just hang out with my friends and try to remember to go to class."

Go check out the models yourself; you'll see that most of them are white and have buff biceps, pecs, and abs. All but one or two have naturally smooth or one-hundred-percent waxed-and-shaven chests. A couple of them appear to be Latino and have surnames like Rodriguez; one or two looks a little bit Asian or maybe Filipino-looking. Some of them are in school studying something like Marketing, some are real estate agents, and some are baristas. One 21-year-old guy works as a batboy for the Atlanta Braves. Some of them have girlfriends; one 31-year-old Mormon most-gorgeous-aspirant has four kids. Most of them say they played sports in high school or college. A couple of them earnestly confess, during their short, witty, and coy 10-second video clips, that life is all in God's hands or that Jesus is their to role model.

In one totally fascinating case, you see an incredibly hot, African American six-feet-tall 19-year-old named Ron, who has elaborately coiffed, nearly Afro-sized curly hair. Ron's web-dossier announces that, asked "What's the one product or item you can't live without?" he replied "My hairspray and blow dryer." Ron grew up in a "broken home" in small-town South Carolina. Determined to become a male model, he worked his way up, first moving to Myrtle Beach (where gays were more accepted and he thought he could work as a model), and then (when it turned out there was no modeling work in Myrtle Beach) to New York City. Today, he is concocting plans to take the male modeling industry by storm. Asked how he would describe himself, answers, "I would describe myself as America's best male model. He also says something like, "I'm the gay one. Those straight football players can bring their testosterone or whatever, but I've got my fashion sense, and I'm counting on that to carry me through." (You can check out other elements of Ron's dossier here.)

In Part Two, this steadily dwindling group of models appear in two alternating styles of scenes, consisting of (1) various mental and physical challenges (e.g., in the episode I watched, the thirty remaining men were taken off to a remote country road, ordered to strip, and then learn how to skydive and be videotaped before, during, and after); (2) the stunning, heart-pounding melodrama of one or two or three or four of the contestants suddenly being kicked off the show by a shady modeling-industry heavyweight who appears out of nowhere and announces that unfortunately some of them are going to have to leave. One of these industry heavyweights, for instance, is a gracefully-aging fortysomething model, who, we are told, has spent the past 25 years "appearing in all the major mass magazines including the cover of GQ." ("I'm like, I'm thinking, I've never seen you," one of the model-aspirants says.) He tells us, "In some modeling shoots, you overbook the shoot, you have thirty models show up and you gotta send four of them away." This is highly, highly gut-wrenching for the models, who say things like "John, that guy was totally one of the most promising guys here. I totally can't believe that he was picked to leave the show."

Manhunt has several interesting functions. One, it provides numerous opportunities for product placements. For instance, during the trip out to the skydiving facility, the home viewer gets to see the models in little groups from a camera implanted in one of five or six shiny, black Cadillac SUVs that drive down the streets as a motorcade while the gorgeous male models, bouncing at every pothole, make banter over the question, "Where, oh where, might they be taking us?!"

Two, Manhunt provides a kind of snapshot of a range of experiences of postindustrial America. Except that the range is confined to people who admit that, yes, they get lots of compliments on their gorgeous bodies, and who've agreed to put their entire lives on hold for an indeterminate length of time while they attempt, in vicious competition, to remain on the show as long as possible and thus obtain the more lucrative post-expulsion career possible - perhaps singing pop tunes that somebody else wrote for them, or selling exclusive excerpts from their life story to media outlets. Interestingly, I have a former female housemate who might be on a reality show. I actually shared for several months a rather intimate walk-through bedroom suite. She recently completed her JD at the U of C law school, and has been weighing a number of post-degree options, including nonprofit work; some slightly more remunerative work that she would allow herself to do just until she could pay off her loans; or, if it did come through, a legal reality show that's to be in production over a couple of months this fall. I actually haven't heard, since I moved out of the co-op, whether or not she's really truly going to be on the show. But she had somehow made it far enough in the audition process that she was being flown out to LA, which meant she really had quite a good shot at getting on. I remember she said that if this did come through, she was going to be doing it in the weeks right before the November election, and that that would be kind of weird.

3) OREGON. I myself am going to Oregon next week, to spend the last eight days before November 2 canvassing against that state's antigay state constitutional amendment as part of an NGLTF "National Action," going door-to-door furiously every day from 4pm to 11pm (plus optional morning, afternoon, or late-night shifts). I'll be staying in Portland and doing my campaigning in the suburbs. Although I've never been to Portland, I actually have not one but two friends there. I've had romantic/sexual tension with both of them at one time or another, and I dated one of them for a year and a half in college.

4) MY BIRTHDAY. I broke up with Martin, who Thom called my "latest boyfriend" not too long ago, in the middle of my birthday party. Kind of a weird weekend. I mean, I still had a good time at the party for the most part, but the next day was kind of horrible.

5) GAY.COM. This just in from the "Just How Creepy Is the Commercialization of Gay Identity Going to Get?" Department. Gay.com, which has been a cultural studies journal article waiting to happen since day one, and incidentally is how I met Martin, has a new front page in which they celebrate going public (ticker name: LGBT). This means that the company has become a publicly traded firm on the NASDAQ exchange. Two photos show a huge ad for PlanetOut (the "parent company," in the "family" that includes Gay.com) on the world's largest stationary video screen in Times Square, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony with a caption explaining that the website had "celebrating its coming out party today." A banner headline says "PlanetOut Goes Public. To our community and members, thank you for your support." I'm glad to see that gay liberation has progressed to the point where the phrase "coming out" can now be used, in witty unselfconscious ad copy, to mean "becoming a publicly traded corporation."

6) WISDOM. When you are trying to overcome a problem, sometimes the best thing to do is put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you just need a lot of time to yourself.

Also: Don't let developments in the political life of your nation, however appalling, get in the way of living your life. At least up to a certain point.

Letters to the editor

To the Chicago Tribune:

In explaining why you have endorsed President Bush, the Tribune draws primarily on tired Republican rhetoric casting Kerry and the Democrats as insufficiently hawkish. But in the paragraph on domestic issues, your argument goes beyond banality to the point of near absurdity. Bush would be more successful in "critical areas like public education and health care" because he emphasizes "greater competition"? I don't see how any American who's lived through the past four years can make this assertion with a straight face.

Thankfully, your endorsement this year is entirely out of step with Illinois voters. And it is out of step with the needs of African Americans, women, and gays and lesbians - in other words, the vast majority of Chicagoans - whose rights are under assault by the current administration.

---

To USA Today:

Many of us in the gay community are bewildered that anyone believes the claim of the Bush spin doctors that John Kerry somehow invaded the Cheney family's privacy by mentioning the Vice President's openly gay daughter. Indeed, among gay Americans, the hypocrisy of the Cheney family has been a frequent topic of discussion for the past four years. The Vice President accepts his daughter's sexual orientation, yet participates in an administration engaged in the most aggressive assault on gay rights this country has ever seen. It is Cheney, not Kerry, who ought to be apologizing.

---

To the New York Times:

I am appalled that William Safire has been so thoroughly taken in by the Bush campaign's assertion that it was somehow scandalous for John Kerry to mention their openly gay daughter ("The Lowest Blow," Oct. 18). It seems to me that Safire must not have any openly gay friends, or at least none that he talks about politics with, because otherwise he would be aware that Dick Cheney's hypocrisy has been a subject of frequent discussion among gay Americans ever since he was tapped to join the Bush ticket in 2000. Most of us think it's appalling that the Vice President, while accepting his lesbian daughter, has silently watched his colleagues launch an unprecedented and mean-spirited assault on gay rights. It is Cheney, not Kerry, who ought to apologize, and whose behavior offends our sense of "decency."


To the Washington Post:

Republicans say it was "inappropriate" for John Kerry to mention Vice President Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, in the third debate ("Singling Out Mary Cheney," Oct. 18). But since Ms. Cheney is not only openly gay but has worked as a corporate liaison to the gay community, it is her father, who has collaborated in trying to make his own daughter a second-class citizen, who ought to be explaining his behavior.

As a gay American, I am outraged at the Bush campaign's attempt to cloak his failures and lies in a phony concern for our privacy. Using gay rights as a wedge to polarize the electorate is unfair - and it is fiddling while Baghdad burns.

Endorsements. No shockers, but strongly worded

New York Times (Oct. 17): We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Oct. 10): The world that Bush describes, and the world as it exists, are often two different places. For example, if we lived in a world in which Saddam Hussein really did possess weapons of mass destruction and really did have strong ties to al-Qaida, and if the Iraqi people really would welcome American intervention, then invading Iraq would have been the wise thing to do. But that world is not this world, and pretending otherwise has proved a tragic mistake.

And more importantly, the swing-state Philadelphia Inquirer (Oct. 10): The choice is vivid. The stakes are vast. Our nation is threatened by jihad warriors who scoff at boundaries. It stumbles toward a fiscal ruin that will punish our children. The rules that protect our air, water and health are weaker than we know. When 45 million of our neighbors fall ill, they have no insurance card to hand to the doctor.

Ann Coulter on her book tour: "You know, I think the terrorists would prefer for the Democrats to win this one."

Health care for Saddam, but not for 45 million Americans?

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/12/iraq.saddam

"Two girls at once"

A Swarthmore classmate of mine wrote a blog for the Village Voice while working as a cocktail waitress at a strip club not far from Madison Square Garden during the Republican convention. Here's one of a number of delectable samples:

A Texas man sitting alone in front of the stage balked at the price of his glass of wine and insisted that I ask the bartender what brand it was.

When I returned with an answer, his indignation had subsided. "Why aren't you up there dancing?" he asked me, gesturing to the woman gyrating. (On the list of questions frequently asked of a strip-club waitress, this one is rivaled only by "Can we see some girls over here?") "Listen," he said, his already thick drawl slurred by alcohol. "I like buying beautiful women expensive clothes. I like taking them out to any restaurant in town." He went on, detailing his gentlemanly ways, for some time. I noticed he had a red, white, and blue ribbon pinned to his lapel.

Then he said, "I like playing with two girls at once--but that's not a requirement. If I wanted to pay for a girl to spend the night with me, I could." He wrote his cell phone number on the back of a business card. "But that makes me uncomfortable." He handed me the card. I saw the name of an energy firm.

(I get propositioned like this about once a week, but usually by couples.)

The man later told someone in the club he was a Washington lobbyist. I wondered if he would try to add a clause allowing "two girls at once" into the Republican Party's plan for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

"Can't Win": Kerry's new pre-debate spin?

Check out "Can't Win," the latest and most aggressive Kerry TV spot yet. A preview of the next debate?

http://www.johnkerry.com/tv/

Christopher Reeve

"The really tragic thing that might happen is that if, in order to save the Catholic vote, if the president comes down on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, what will happen is there will be a black market created in the face of that, and women will literally be paid to donate eggs that will later be destroyed."
---Christopher Reeve, CNN,

Congressman John Lewis

Washington, DC – Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) released the following statement today in reaction to George Bush's reference to the Dred Scott case at the second Presidential debate in St. Louis on Friday night.

"I am relieved to hear that George Bush won't appoint judges who might reinstitute slavery. But unfortunately, we expect more than this from our judges and frankly, we need more than this from George Bush.

"George Bush's Dred Scott comments underscore the fact that when it comes to the African-American community, he is completely out of touch with the issues that concern us. The President's record is appalling – his administration is the most anti-African American in a generation.

"On Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, he announced his opposition to the University of Michigan Affirmative Action program and called it a 'quota.' The day after he laid a wreath on Dr. King's grave, he appointed anti-civil rights judge Charles Pickering, who once described cross burning as a 'prank.' A new United States Commission on Civil Rights report finds that 'President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words.' And his Vice-President has admitted that he was somehow 'not aware' of the AIDS epidemic plaguing African American women.

"African Americans can't afford four more years of George Bush. We need leaders who understand the concerns facing our families and our community. We need leaders who will fight for our rights in this century."

"We have the power to change our President and come November 2nd, African Americans are going to elect new leaders. We're going to vote and we're going to vote in record numbers."

Top Seventeen debate lines

I had an interesting experience of the debate, this time around, because I watched it in a group that included a Republican soldier. And not one of those Kerry Republicans, either, like you see in the MoveOn ads.

17. Kerry: I mean, "compassionate conservative," what does that mean? Cutting 500,000 kids from after-school programs, cutting 365,000 kids from health care, running up the biggest deficits in American history. Mr. President, you're batting 0 for 2.

16. Kerry: The goal of the sanctions was not to remove Saddam Hussein, it was to remove the weapons of mass destruction. And, Mr. President, just yesterday the Duelfer report told you and the whole world they worked. He didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Mr. President. That was the objective. And if we'd used smart diplomacy, we could have saved $200 billion and an invasion of Iraq. And right now, Osama bin Laden might be in jail or dead. That's the war against terror.

15. Bush: People love America. Sometimes they don't like the decisions made by America, but I don't think you want a president who tries to become popular and does the wrong thing. You don't want to join the International Criminal Court just because it's popular in certain capitals in Europe.

14. Kerry: Mr. President, countries are leaving the coalition, not joining. Eight countries have left it.

13. Bush: I'm worried. I'm worried about our country. And all I can tell you is every day I know that there's people working overtime, doing the very best they can. And the reason I'm worried is because there's a vicious enemy that has an ideology of hate. And the way to defeat them long-term, by the way, is to spread freedom. Liberty can change habits. And that's what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq.

12. Kerry: Actually, Mr. President, in 1997 we fixed Medicare, and I was one of the people involved in it. We not only fixed Medicare and took it way out into the future, we did something that you don't know how to do: We balanced the budget. And we paid down the debt of our nation for two years in a row, and we created 23 million new jobs at the same time.

11. Bush: First, the National Journal named Senator Kennedy [sic] the most liberal senator of all. And that's saying something in that bunch. You might say that took a lot of hard work.

10. Kerry: Let me begin by saying that my health-care plan is not what the president described. It is not a government takeover. You have choice. Choose your doctor, choose your plan. The government has nothing to do with it. In fact, it doesn't ask you to do anything -- if you don't want to take it, you don't have to. If you like your high premiums, you keep them. That's the way we leave it.

9. Kerry: Now, for the people earning more than $200,000 a year, you're going to see a rollback to the level we were at with Bill Clinton, when people made a lot of money. And looking around here, at this group here, I suspect there are only three people here who are going to be affected: the president, me, and, Charlie, I'm sorry, you too.

8. Kerry: I think John McCain called the energy bill the "No Lobbyist Left Behind" bill.

7. Audience member: Mr. President, how would you rate yourself as an environmentalist? What specifically has your administration done to improve the condition of our nation's air and water supply?
Bush: Off-road diesel engines -- we have reached an agreement to reduce pollution from off-road diesel engines by 90 percent.

6. Kerry: The Clear Skies bill that he just talked about, it's one of those Orwellian names you pull out of the sky, slap it onto something, like "No Child Left Behind" but you leave millions of children behind. Here they're leaving the skies and the environment behind.

5. Bush: So I tried diplomacy, went to the United Nations. But as we learned in the same report I quoted, Saddam Hussein was gaming the oil-for-food program to get rid of sanctions. He was trying to get rid of sanctions for a reason: He wanted to restart his weapons programs.

4. Kerry: Now, the president wishes that I had changed my mind. He wants you to believe that because he can't come here and tell you that he's created new jobs for America. He's lost jobs.

3. Bush: I wouldn't pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn't be said in a school because it had the words "under God" in it. I think that's an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights. That's a personal opinion. That's not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we're all -- you know, it doesn't say that. It doesn't speak to the equality of America.

2. Bush: Now, you asked what mistakes. I made some mistakes in appointing people, but I'm not going to name them. I don't want to hurt their feelings on national TV. But history will look back, and I'm fully prepared to accept any mistakes that history judges to my administration, because the president makes the decisions, the president has to take the responsibility.

1. Kerry: Ladies and gentlemen, the right war was Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. That was the right place. And the right time was Tora Bora, when we had him cornered in the mountains.

I'm all for class war.

Okay, Jesse's comment here raisees some interesting points that are worth arguing against:

1) The claims on both sides of the electronic voting machine question are hyperbolic. It is a serious risk, as we all realized after the Swarthmore students circulated the Diebold memos. But it's far from a sure thing that it will circumvent democracy in this election. Several of my friends are volunteering as election monitors, and if I weren't going to be canvassing in Oregon I'd do the same. Honestly, I don't mean this to sound glib, but it really is true that a lot of people died fighting for the right to vote and I think for me not to continue that fight today wouldn't feel right to me.

2) In my opinion, the history of the mass media reveals a more complicated picture than simply that of media consolidation. Yes, media consolidation is a very clear and present danger, but it's not clear to me that the condition of press freedom from censorship and self-censorship alike is today, overall, any worse than it was in 1960, or 1930, or 1900. And the fact that there are other trends, too, is demonstrated by the successful efforts of a blogger to get Trent Lott's comments about the 1948 presidential race into the mainstream media. Question: do people think the corporate control of the media is one way in which we live in a "New Gilded Age"?

3) Gerrymandering (named after, and spelled like, Elbridge Gerry) is not the same thing as intimidation and election fraud, and is more complicated. For now, I'll say only that if the overall level of voter intimidation was substantial in Florida in 2000, at the same time you have to admit that there is less intimidation than there has been in the past.

4) John Kerry is no Barack Obama. Still, he's not a DLC Democrat. He's my candidate for his record and proposals on the domestic HIV/AIDS crisis if nothing else, as I argued on p. 10 of this week's Windy City Times:
http://www.windycitytimes.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=6295

5) I'm all for class war. As I said when Queer to the Left was red-baited recently during an affordable housing debate and accused of advocating "the overthrow of the capitalist system"----where do I sign up?

Can you live with regret on Nov. 3?

That was the subject line of an email "from" James Carville I got this morning, which made me go online and give another $25 to the DNC.

I'm feeling guilty 'cause I was supposed to call Ohio and Colorado voters this week, and I just dropped the ball and didn't do it.

Edwards victory. And Martin Luther King.

Woo hoo! Who knew Dick Cheney voted against the Martin Luther King holiday?

A letter to gay Americans

October 1, 2004


DEAR ALL THE GLBT PEOPLE I KNOW,

I’m writing to remind you about three things.

First, please note that in ten states, tomorrow is the last day you can register to vote before this November’s election. In fourteen additional states, you’ve got to do it within the next four days. Find out how to register in your state by visiting http://www.michaelmoore.com/takeaction/vote/register.php.

Second, remember the political power you have as a GLBT person. A December 2003 HRC poll found that while 77 percent of respondents consider themselves “out” as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, only 32 percent talk to their parents about public policy issues, and only 46 percent talk to their brothers and sisters about such topics. In contrast, respondents were much more likely to speak frankly on these topics with casual acquaintances (57 percent) or co-workers (54 percent). More of us than ever before have family members who accept and welcome us, but this year, we need more than just acceptance.

Third, I want to remind you what a flip-flopper George W. Bush is on the question of our rights. Less than two years ago one of the nation’s largest-circulation gay magazines, Out, featured a cover story on “Straight Allies and the Hall of Shame.” Heading up the hall of list of shame was President George W. Bush:

For a second year, Bush refused to sign a proclamation declaring June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, leaving the ‘compassionate’ conservative in the dust. What’s the big deal? It’s not like we’re asking him to issue Rainbow Pride money or proclaim that Abe Lincoln was gay just because he slept in the same bed with a cute guy for four years, which he did.

Back in December of 2002, we thought Bush was against us because he wouldn’t sign a gay pride month proclamation (something that no president besides Bill Clinton had ever done). Now, he’s declared that he thinks the nation’s founding document should be altered so as to exclude us permanently from one of society’s major institutions, and most of the states either are voting on their own state constitutional amendments or they’re in the works. This represents a major flip-flop—because during the 2000 campaign, when George W. Bush was asked about same-sex marriage, he said that it was “going to be up for cities and states to make those decisions,” a position he stated on more than one occasion.

Fourth, Bush tries to hide his extremism and call himself a plain-old traditionalist, but here’s the real story. Bush has actually flip-flopped on sodomy laws, too, in the other direction. As Governor of Texas, he solemnly promised to veto any attempt to repeal an unusually harsh law, which was actually called the Texas Homosexual Conduct Law. Since the Supreme Court has now struck down that law, Bush has tried to soften his marriage flip-flop by declaring, as he did in July 2004, “What they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do. This is America. It’s a free society, but it doesn’t mean we have to redefine traditional marriage.” In other words, he’s defended his second flip-flop with his first, now that we’ve finally won the decades-long struggle to get those laws repealed. Meanwhile, he’s permitted Christian conservatives had been permitted to dictate a more extremist anti-gay section in the Republican party platform than ever before.

In short, George W. Bush is not like most straight Americans, who aren’t totally comfortable with homosexuality but don’t think the gay people in their lives should be discriminated against. Bush is much, much more dangerous than that.

If you’re not registered, go do it.

Sincerely,
Timothy ***
(Please feel free to forward freely)

Top ten lines from last night's debate

My top ten lines from last night's debate:

10. With respect to Darfur, yes, it is a genocide. And months ago, many of us were pressing for action. I think the reason that we're not saying send American troops in at this point is severalfold. Number one, we can do this through the African Union, providing we give them the logistical support. Right now all the president is providing is humanitarian support. We need to do more than that. They've got to have the logistical capacity to go in and stop the killing. And that's going to require more than is on the table today. I also believe that it is -- one of the reasons we can't do it is we're overextended. Ask the people in the armed forces today. We've got Guards and Reserves who are doing double duties. We've got a backdoor draft taking place in America today: people with stop-loss programs where they're told you can't get out of the military; nine out of our 10 active duty divisions committed to Iraq one way or the other, either going, coming or preparing. So this is the way the president has overextended the United States."

9. KERRY: "I think a critical component of success in Iraq is being able to convince the Iraqis and the Arab world that the United States doesn't have long-term designs on it. As I understand it, we're building some 14 military bases there now, and some people say they've got a rather permanent concept to them."

8. KERRY: "When we went in, there were three countries: Great Britain, Australia and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better."
LEHRER: "Thirty seconds, Mr. President."
BUSH: "Well, actually, he forgot Poland."

7. KERRY: "You know, when I talked about the $87 billion, I made a mistake in how I talk about the war. But the president made a mistake in invading Iraq. Which is worse? I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right. That's what I learned in Vietnam. When I came back from that war I saw that it was wrong. Some people don't like the fact that I stood up to say no, but I did. And that's what I did with that vote. And I'm going to lead those troops to victory."

6. KERRY: "The president just said the FBI had changed its culture. We just read on the front pages of America's papers that there are over 100,000 hours of tapes, unlistened to. On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time."

5. KERRY: "You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad, beyond Basra. And the reason he didn't is, he said -- he wrote in his book -- because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today. There's a sense of American occupation. The only building that was guarded when the troops when into Baghdad was the oil ministry. We didn't guard the nuclear facilities. We didn't guard the foreign office, where you might have found information about weapons of mass destruction. We didn't guard the borders. Almost every step of the way, our troops have been left on these extraordinarily difficult missions. I know what it's like to go out on one of those missions when you don't know what's around the corner."

4. KERRY: "Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it."

3. KERRY: "I would not take my eye off of the goal: Osama bin Laden. Unfortunately, he escaped in the mountains of Tora Bora. We had him surrounded. But we didn't use American forces, the best trained in the world, to go kill him. The president relied on Afghan warlords and he outsourced that job too. That's wrong."

2. KERRY: The terrorism czar, who has worked for every president since Ronald Reagan, said, Invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor. That's what we have here.

1. BUSH: "We're facing a group of folks who have such hatred in their heart, they'll strike anywhere, with any means. And that's why it's essential that we have strong alliances, and we do. That's why it's essential that we make sure that we keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of people like Al Qaida, which we are. But to say that there's only one focus on the war on terror doesn't really understand the nature of the war on terror. Of course we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean, bin Laden."

Alan Keyes and his "selfish hedonist" daughter

Incredible. The 19-year-old daughter of Alan Keyes is an out lesbian.

The story was first reported here and is summarized here.

She is 19 years old. And she has her own blog where she writes about her horrible parents. The poor thing. You can see her in a photo with her dad, and in a photo with her girlfriend. From the blog of Maya Keyes: "...My aunt said something about him being the "voice of America" re: gay rights and he has been one of gay marriage's most outspoken critics, campaigning round-the-clock to make sure that people like yours truly will never be able to enjoy the same benefits he already has. Sometimes I cannot believe I am related to this man. Haha though I'm sure he feels the same way about me."

What a fucking incredible story.

Get your free condoms or..."abstinence packs"?

I recently happened to be at the Student Care Center on campus while they were having an "open house" for incoming U of C students. At this event, you could get cookies and juice, condoms and lube, or something called an "abstinence pack." I must say I did not take one of these bags, but they appeared to contain bubble bath and other small items deemed to represent attractive alternative activities to sex - together with text explaining that 35% of U of C (undergraduate?) students chose to practice abstinence in any given year.

My initial reaction was that this was a complete waste of money. Condoms are "rationed" by the Student Care Center; instead of being able to take them free from a display, you must request them from a staff member every time you want them. Packets of lube are not included in these condom packets, so you have to ask for those, too - and, actually, until this visit I didn't realize lube was available at all. Anyway, it seemed to me that, since there is absolutely no health-based reason for distributing "abstinence packs" and since condoms and lube are in limited supply, the expenditure of any Center funds on the "abstinence" items is inexcusable. Surely there is a legitimate reason to educate people about the abstinence option, and I guess to convey that "it's "OK to be abstinent," through the provision of textual materials and counseling. But free giveaway bags, just so kids with conservative values won't feel slighted when their sexually active classmates receive free goodies?

Of course, it is possible that the abstinence pack contents are supplied by some creepy right-wing campus outreach project, which would in theory absolve the university of having wasted our student health fee on these items. And I'm not planning to ask, because I think the place has changed for the better and I very much like and trust my doctor, who runs the place. But I still think the abstinence packs are, at the very least, questionable. Just because only some students need to make use of a provided resource does not mean that an equivalent must be provided for other students; in fact, it's just that kind of logic that gives multiculturalism a bad reputation.

What do you think?

Fahrenheit 9/2: Reasons to believe

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed truly significant gay rights legislation in California today, "requiring insurance companies doing business in California to offer the same health coverage to registered same-sex partners as they do to married couples" (NYT).

2. Arnold also "courageously signed an important needle-access bill this week, similar to one that was vetoed twice by his predecessor."

3. Check out the reviews of Kitty Kelley's book on Amazon.com. People by and large like the book and think the Bushes are scary and horrifying. They find the anti-Bush reviews "helpful" but not the smaller number of pro-Bush ones. As someone posted just yesterday in a review, "Seems like the anti-bush reviews are in the majority, just like it's gonna be come November 2nd!!"

4. I also learned from reading these reviews that lots of American military personnel in Iraq are seeing Fahrenheit 9/11. Woohoo!

What if 3,300 Americans had died in bombings in the last week?

Professor Juan Cole on Iraq:

President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll....

Thanks to Electoral-vote.com for flagging this.

"I fault this president for not knowing what death is"

Everyone should watch John Kerry's September 20th speech on Iraq at NYU. You probably heard, saw, or read about this portion:

The President claims [the Iraq war] is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight.

I breathed a real sigh of relief when I heard about Kerry's speech. According to the media, this is because I'm a former supporter of Howard Dean (which I am), a twentysomething who watches campaign TV spots on the Internet (which I am), and someone with a pasionate and abiding opposition to the Iraq war (which I am). But that doesn't explain why I felt the way I did when I hear Kerry speak on this issue. Even more than about that hard-hitting attack, I cared more about these passages of his speech:

It is never easy to discuss what has gone wrong while our troops are in constant danger. But it’s essential if we want to correct our course and do what’s right for our troops instead of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

I know this dilemma first-hand. After serving in war, I returned home to offer my own personal voice of dissent. I did so because I believed strongly that we owed it those risking their lives to speak truth to power. We still do....

He failed to tell the truth about the rationale for going to war. And he failed to tell the truth about the burden this war would impose on our soldiers and our citizens.

His two main rationales – weapons of mass destruction and the Al Qaeda/September 11 connection – have been proved false… by the President’s own weapons inspectors… and by the 9/11 Commission. Just last week, Secretary of State Powell acknowledged the facts. Only Vice President Cheney still insists that the earth is flat.

The speech is actually incredibly carefully crafted, accurate, and delivered well. And it's important. It's the most important political speech he's given this year by far. It was widely perceived (for instance, by Bob Herbert in that very morning's New York Times) that Kerry needed to develop a new and powerful line of attack, that he needed to invigorate his campaign and attack Bush on national security in order to win in November, and that's true.

Under present conditions, however, I even feel it's important to realize that here, political advantage is happily joined to moral advantage. The fact that Bush lied about the reason why 1,000 Americans my age, disproportionately working-class and people of color and so many of them eager to get access to an education, have died in Iraq, has been deeply disturbing to me for a year and a half now. That it was not even substantially an issue in the presidential campaign struck me as obscene, that Kerry was being told he had to focus on the economy, struck me as disastrous, the very definition of "out of touch."

E. L. Doctorow has written a powerful account of these feelings more eloquent than anything I could have written:

I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

I responded today to the email in my inbox from Hillary Clinton asking me to send another $25 to support the Democrats. I haven't gotten my fall stipend check yet, and I don't have the money at the moment, but I went online and charged a contribution because I wanted to show my support for this new tactic.

And let's bring back not only the White House, but the Senate, too.

Democrats and the 24-hour news cycle: Notes on waking up early in the morning

Published six hours ago, according to Google News, on the Washington Times website:

A veterans group opposed to Sen. John Kerry's presidential bid is initiating one of its largest ad campaigns to date with a TV spot portraying Mr. Kerry as an enemy sympathizer during the Vietnam War.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — which first raised questions about Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record — says it's spending $1.3 million in targeted battleground states with an ad focusing on what it said was an unauthorized meeting Mr. Kerry had in 1970 with North Vietnamese communists even while American soldiers were still fighting in Vietnam.

What this story doesn't tell you is that the new Swift Boat ad flips back and forth between 1970s news photos of Kerry and Jane Fonda, and declares that while even Fonda eventually apologized for her betrayal, Kerry still hasn't. Then it asks if we can afford such a betrayer-president when our country's at war (the ad ends with images of fighter planes, the grotesquely expensive, high-tech kind that have proven so useless against a growing insurgency). The ad is being run in swing states only, and it's a bigger ad buy than before.

Calling all Democrats who can spin: move it. Get your fucking asses in gear. Your website, Moveon's website, the major networks and Google News show no signs of any response on your part, let alone a counterattack. You have about an hour and a half to come up with a devastating response that will nip this story in the bud by completely demolishing it. Find a crushing, harsh response that makes Bush look bad. Talk about your work with John McCain to recover the bodies of American soldiers, and how some of them were men you'd known, and so it makes you angry. Whatever you say, make sure you get very stern and pissed-off about the fact that this is a a total lie - that part is absolutely critical. That's what Bush would do, and he'd get away with it. Try it, and you'll find you can get away with it too. I don't know - it's your job, not mine, to get this response on the air.

But you're running a teensy bit late. You have about 90 minutes before it will be "drive time" in middle America, that block of time during morning rush hour when radio listenership is at its peak. On the east coast, it's already seven o'clock. Get it together now.

9/20/04

Dear Friends,

Enough of the handwringing! Enough of the doomsaying! Do I have to come there and personally calm you down? Stop with all the defeatism, OK? Bush IS a goner -- IF we all just quit our whining and bellyaching and stop shaking like a bunch of nervous ninnies. Geez, this is embarrassing! The Republicans are laughing at us. Do you ever see them cry, "Oh, it's all over! We are finished! Bush can't win! Waaaaaa!"

Hell no. It's never over for them until the last ballot is shredded. They are never finished -- they just keeping moving forward like sharks that never sleep, always pushing, pulling, kicking, blocking, lying.

They are relentless and that is why we secretly admire them -- they just simply never, ever give up. Only 30% of the country calls itself "Republican," yet the epublicans own it all -- the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and the majority of the governorships. How do you think they've been able to pull that off considering they are a minority? It's because they eat you and me and every other liberal for breakfast and then spend the rest of the day wreaking havoc on the
planet.

Look at us -- what a bunch of crybabies. Bush gets a bounce after his convention and you would have thought the Germans had run through Poland again. The Bushies are coming, the Bushies are coming! Yes, they caught Kerry asleep on the Swift Boat thing. Yes, they found the frequency in Dan Rather and ran with it. Suddenly it's like, "THE END IS NEAR! THE SKY IS FALLING!"

No, it is not. If I hear one more person tell me how lousy a candidate Kerry is and how he can't win... Dammit, of COURSE he's a lousy candidate -- he's a Democrat, for heavens sake! That party is so pathetic, they even lose the elections they win! What were you expecting, Bruce Springsteen heading up the ticket? Bruce would make a helluva president, but guys like him don't run -- and neither do you or I. People like Kerry run.

Yes, OF COURSE any of us would have run a better, smarter, kick-ass campaign. Of course we would have smacked each and every one of those phony swifty boaty bastards down. But WE are not running for president -- Kerry is. So quit complaining and work with what we have. Oprah just gave 300 women a... Pontiac! Did you see any of them frowning and moaning and screaming, "Oh God, NOT a friggin' Pontiac!" Of course not, they were happy.

The Pontiacs all had four wheels, an engine and a gas pedal. You want more than that, well, I can't help you. I had a Pontiac once and it lasted a good year. And it was a VERY good year.

My friends, it is time for a reality check.

1. The polls are wrong. They are all over the map like diarrhea. On Friday, one poll had Bush 13 points ahead -- and another poll had them both tied.

There are three reasons why the polls are b.s.: One, they are polling "likely voters." "Likely" means those who have consistently voted in the past few elections. So that cuts out young people who are voting for the first time and a ton of non-voters who are definitely going to vote in THIS election. Second, they are not polling people who use their cell phone as their primary phone. Again, that means they are not talking to young people.

Finally, most of the polls are weighted with too many Republicans, as pollster John Zogby revealed last week. You are being snookered if you believe any of these polls.

2. Kerry has brought in the Clinton A-team. Instead of shunning Clinton (as
Gore did), Kerry has decided to not make that mistake.

3. Traveling around the country, as I've been doing, I gotta tell ya, there is a hell of a lot of unrest out there. Much of it is not being captured by the ainstream press. But it is simmering and it is real. Do not let those well-produced Bush rallies of angry white people scare you. Turn off
the TV!
(Except Jon Stewart and Bill Moyers -- everything else is just a
sugar-coated lie).

4. Conventional wisdom says if the election is decided on "9/11" (the
fear
of terrorism), Bush wins. But if it is decided on the job we are doing
in
Iraq, then Bush loses. And folks, that "job," you might have noticed,
has
descended into the third level of a hell we used to call Vietnam. There
is
no way out. It is a full-blown mess of a quagmire and the body bags
will
sadly only mount higher. Regardless of what Kerry meant by his original
war
vote, he ain't the one who sent those kids to their deaths -- and Mr.
and
Mrs. Middle America knows it. Had Bush bothered to show up when he was
in
the "service" he might have somewhat of a clue as to how to recognize
an
immoral war that cannot be "won." All he has delivered to Iraq was that
plasticized turkey last Thanksgiving. It is this failure of monumental
proportions that is going to cook his goose come this November.

So, do not despair. All is not over. Far from it. The Bush people need
you
to believe that it is over. They need you to slump back into your easy
chair
and feel that sick pain in your gut as you contemplate another four
years of
George W. Bush. They need you to wish we had a candidate who didn't
windsurf
and who was just as smart as we were when WE knew Bush was lying about
WMD
and Saddam planning 9/11. It's like Karl Rove is hypnotizing you --
"Kerry
voted for the war...Kerry voted for the war...Kerrrrrryyy vooootted
fooooor
theeee warrrrrrrrrr..."

Yes...Yes...Yesssss...He did! HE DID! No sense in fighting now...what I
need
is sleep...sleeep...sleeeeeeppppp...

WAKE UP! The majority are with us! More than half of all Americans are
pro-choice, want stronger environmental laws, are appalled that assault
weapons are back on the street -- and 54% now believe the war is wrong.
YOU
DON'T EVEN HAVE TO CONVINCE THEM OF ANY OF THIS -- YOU JUST HAVE TO
GIVE
THEM A RAY OF HOPE AND A RIDE TO THE POLLS. CAN YOU DO THAT? WILL YOU
DO
THAT?

Just for me, please? Buck up. The country is almost back in our hands.
Not
another negative word until Nov. 3rd! Then you can bitch all you want
about
how you wish Kerry was still that long-haired kid who once had the
courage
to stand up for something. Personally, I think that kid is still inside
him.
Instead of the wailing and gnashing of your teeth, why not hold out a
hand
to him and help the inner soldier/protester come out and defeat the
forces
of evil we now so desperately face. Do we have any other choice?

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

The soul-searching of the so-called liberal media

"Who would have thought that we would hit the lottery with CBS News?" So said a Republican strategist on ABC's Nightline this evening. In short, a network that apparently (this was news to me) has a liberal reputation has blundered badly, with the upshot that the Republicans now look better than ever.

The CBS document scandal, in which the type specifications of 1970s typewriters play such a stunningly critical role, has taken a deeply disturbing turn. Somehow, the underlying story - that the President has continually denied the plainly obvious fact that he did not complete his Texas Air National Guard service - has been totally buried.

I just spent an hour of my life watching ABC's Nightline; maybe this is not news to those of you who routinely watch network news programs, but it turns out that the US media's incredible, insatiable need to promote the fantasy of its own liberal bias.

Here is the sequence of stories that Nightline ran tonight, each in capsule summary form:

1) The CBS scandal has raised very serious questions about whether CBS - and all of us in the media - have a deep and abiding liberal bias.

2) John Kerry has "taken off the gloves" on Iraq, even though he's "taken off the gloves" many times before; will it work on the voters this time?

3) The Bush campaign has discovered that it's far more effective for the President to attack Kerry directly than for his surrogates to do so - just check out the following extensive array of clips of the President attacking Kerry!

The CBS document scandal feels like yet another story that should work in Kerry's favor, but that the Dems have totally lost control of. Meanwhile, we progressives seemingly can't shut up about what a fuckup our candidate is. This Salon commentator really made me stop and think:

What would really be a story is a Republican behaving with the same lack of discipline endemic among Democrats just now....The liberal tendency to assume the fetal position upon hearing any bad news not only creates a damaging psychological environment for those who indulge it, but also repels undecided and independent voters who are seeking strong, confident leadership. Nobody wants to join a team that obsesses more about losing than winning.

So let's remember: John Kerry is one of the Senate's most distinguished members, he is a talented campaigner, he has chosen a great vice presidential candidate, and George W. Bush is highly vulnerable - especially since things in Iraq are going so fucking badly.

There are three debates ahead. And in the strange, strange war of expectations, let's repeat this mantra every day: George W. Bush has never lost a debate.

Candidates in drag

I have my friend Scott to thank for these gems.


Bush


Cheney


Kerry


Edwards

(If anyone knows where these come from or objects to their being posted on my blog, please feel more than free to get in touch.)

Sneaky sneaky

I thought I'd check out some of the other liberal 527s besides Moveon.org. However, I mistakenly typed in www.americacomingtogether.org instead of www.americacomingtogether.com...and discovered that the former address redirects your browser to georgewbush.com.

Meanwhile the Washington Post is calling Bush's silence on the worsening situation in Iraq "deeply irresponsible and potentially dangerous".

California has finally begun to treat the porn industry's failure to use condoms as an occupational health issue.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has frozen funding for the Ryan White Act and other AIDS programs.

Louisiana has decided to amend its constitution to ban not only gay marriage but any recognition of domestic partnerships. Fuckers. Gays are taking the state to court, since this patently forbids a group of people from entering into certain contracts. Canada just looks better and better.

Drag outlawed at pride parade

1, Restlessgeist has some excellent comments on the Kerry campaign.

2. The story on polling has gone from unanimous support for Bush to a divergence between one poll showing Bush substantially ahead and three others, also conducted this week, showing the race is once again a dead heat.

3. The DNC's new ad nicely packages together Bush's sunny, wildly out-of-touch pronouncements on Iraq and on the economy. This is an excellent tactic. In a certain way, it actually tries to draw out Americans' perception that Bush doesn't understand their economic problems, and use it to reframe their perception of him as commander-in-chief.

4. Meanwhile, the controversial new MoveOn ad has drawn the ire of the Bush administration, but as Kerry's people have said, they really can't have it both ways on the 527 issue. The ad hits hard, and it genuinely does raise the possibility of generating backlash if it is perceived as "unpatriotic." That said, the liberal 527s need to take those kinds of risks. They seem to have learned something from Swiftgate. And, in all honesty, controversy means free headlines.

5. Disturbingly, Johannesburg police are outlawing drag at this year's gay pride parade.

"McGreevy...should un-resign"

1. Food for thought from HRC's (wholly laudable, in my view) effort to turn this year's National Coming Out Day into a DNC promotion:

In December 2003, the HRC Foundation conducted a public opinion poll that found while 77 percent of respondents consider themselves “out” as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, only 32 percent talk to their parents about public policy issues, and only 46 percent talk to their brothers and sisters about such topics. In contrast, respondents were much more likely to speak frankly on these topics with casual acquaintances (57 percent) or co-workers (54 percent).

2. From Rex Wockner's column in the Sept. 15 Windy City Times (the issue is not yet online):

Golan Cipel, the self-described straight guy who says NJ Gov. James McGreevy repeatedly put unwelcome moves on him, will not sue for sexual harassment after all.

All that's left of this story, then, is that McGreevy came out as gay and admitted he had an adulterous affair with a man.

In post-Clinton 2004, that's no reason to resign.

McGreevy should tell us the full story of why he's resigning, or, if the affair is the whole story, he should un-resign.

One possibility: McGreevy and Cipel were actually boyfriends (and Cipel isn't straight) at the time McGreevy hired Cipel to work for him in a job that Cipel reportedly was unqualified for. That could provoke a resignation.

Of course, McGreevy has not told us who his affair was with and Cipel claims to be a molested straight guy, so I could be connecting dots that aren't even on the same page. Talk to us, James.

3. A phoned-in comment to the lgbt Houston Voice: "Gays supporting George W. Bush is like chickens supporting Colonel Sanders."

As ever, it's too close to call.

Electoral-vote.com now projects Kerry as likely to win more electoral votes than Bush - but, significantly, Florida is one of three states in which the candidates are polling as exactly tied (the others are Maine and Nevada), which means that the projection does not give its votes to either candidate. In any case, if Bush takes Ohio and Kerry Pennsylvania,m then neither candidate can win without Florida. Put another way, whoever takes two of these three states will be the next President. Using a somewhat more problematic methodology in which no state is interpreted as exactly tied, and in which Bush wins Florida and Pennsylvania but not Ohio, Electionprojection.com is predicting a Bush win.

It appears that Kerry must continue to work very hard to win Ohio and Florida - not exactly news - and that he must also hold on to a very teensy lead in Pennsylvania. Protecting the rights of voters of color in places like Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Miami is going to be absolutely critical. In addition, it would also be good for him to pull ahead in Maine, a state he once expected to win easily but where Bush has pulled even. In addition, there's evidence that far more overseas ballots will be cast this year than ever before, and this largely unknown group could actually decide the election.

All of the above is, of course, barring election fraud.

I'm mulling over taking a trip to Ohio to help with canvassing and other Kerry activities sometime before I go to Oregon on October 26. Anyone who might be interested in joining, please get in touch!

Mark Morford has a cute column in the SF Chronicle headlined, Who The Hell Is "Undecided"? And why do so many election polls leave you angry and stupefied and drunk?

"Must" reading!

Today's blog entry is "must" reading.

1. Dr. Thomas Coates of the David Geffen School of Medicine and the UCLA AIDS Center (woohoo gay philanthropy!) has written an extremely important op-ed in the Baltimore Sun on Bush's domestic HIV/AIDS policy, an overlooked deadly Bush lie (full text is available without a login at Jimberly's blog):

Imagine that you have been diagnosed with brain cancer. Your neurosurgeon recommends several strategies. Because you have confidence in a doctor, you go forward, but your cancer gets worse. And then you discover that your surgeon treated you using techniques not backed by scientific evidence.

Worse, you learn that the scientific evidence for the interventions the doctor implemented have been proved ineffective or even harmful.

Public health malpractice is what the U.S. government is practicing. Public health requires the same adherence to scientific evidence as does clinical medicine.

The Bush administration proposes that $270 million, nearly one-third of its domestic HIV/AIDS prevention funding, focus on abstinence. Draft regulations published in the June 16 issue of the Federal Register require the censoring of any government-funded content that is even vaguely "sexually suggestive" and require that all materials include information on the lack of effectiveness of condoms.

Relatedly,

here's me at the RNC, with my sign about Bush's abstinence-only sex ed rules.
Posted by Hello)

2. Read this encouraging, if not entirely believable, propaganda just received from MoveOnPAC:

Though you'd never know it from the TV news, a close look at the polls shows that the Republican convention was actually a bust for the President. According to the Gallup polling agency, Bush's bounce was "one of the smallest registered in Gallup polling history, along with Hubert Humphrey's two-point bounce following the 1968 Democratic convention [and] George McGovern's zero-point bounce following the 1972 Democratic convention . . . Bush's bounce is the smallest an incumbent president has received."[1] Bush's speech received slightly worse ratings from voters than John Kerry's, and according to the same Gallup poll, a remarkable 38% of voters said the convention made them less likely to vote for Bush.[2]
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/login.aspx?ci=12922
[2] http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=183679

3. Bob Herbert in today's Times:

...A lot of other Republicans have similar views about the vote in areas with large African-American populations. Most blacks vote Democratic. If those votes can be suppressed, Republicans benefit. And there is increasing evidence that a big effort to suppress the vote among blacks and some other heavily Democratic voting groups is under way, which is why it is important to keep the following phone number handy:

1-866-OUR VOTE.

5. If you can, please contribute to No on 36, the group working to defeat Oregon's antigay constitutional amendment this November. Read here about why gay donors nationwide are choosing to focus their energies on Oregon.

6. I was blogging in numbered-lists before Julie Russo was!

The dead.

1. Go look at their pictures.

2. Regarding the man who sent them to their deaths, my dad's written this letter:

Dear Editor:

By now it has been proved beyond all doubt, and not contradicted by the White House, that in 1972 George W. Bush avoided taking the physical exam normally required by his National Guard status. Surely a simple question is now in order, one which could be readily answered by consulting the appropriate records: as of that date, did National Guard physical exams include drug-testing?

--David Winter

1 percent tip on $4500 worth of free drinks? Tacky, tacky, tacky

"On this date I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination...as ordered"
--Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, 8/1/1972

"Since we've graduated from college, we're looking around for something to do for the next few years ... kind of like Dad."
--Barbara Bush, 22, speaking at the RNC, 8/31/2004

"If it was Bush's sons or daughters fighting that war over there, instead of standing at the Republican convention, I think it would have been different."
--Pam Lois (whose stepson, Private First Class Tim Brown, 21, died in Iraq in 2003), 9/3/2004

"They [and their entourage of about 25] drank $4,500 worth of drinks — bottles and bottles of vodka....Then, having been comped all the alcohol, they left a $48 tip. We thought 1 per cent was kind of outrageous, considering they are the president's daughters."
--An employee of New York City nightclub Avalon on Jenna and Barbara Bush, 9/4/2004

Iraq: No mission accomplished (or even explained), a thousand Americans dead, and no end in sight

It's being reported that US military deaths in Iraq have just surpassed 1,000. As the Associated Press nicely put it, "US military deaths in the Iraq campaign passed the 1,000 mark yesterday, with more than 800 of them during the stubborn insurgency that flared after the Americans brought down Saddam Hussein and President Bush declared major combat over." The LA Times brings us the latest night-is-day, 1984-style pronouncement from the Pentagon: "Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cast the death toll as evidence that the United States was aggressively engaging terrorists around the world."

Two pieces of gay news deserve to be circulated. In ruling that state's "defense of marriage" law violates that state's constitution, a Washington Judge has ruled that "homosexuals are a suspect class," meaning that discrimination against them requires a high level of legal scrutiny. He also confirmed that marriage is "a fundamental right." This case will probably be combined with another recent case when it is sent to the state's high court.

The Log Cabin Republicans, pathetically, have finally decided not to endorse President Bush's re-election. One does wonder what was holding them up. Amazingly, they have denounced John Kerry's "flip-flops" on marriage - "referring to statements that Mr. Kerry opposed same-sex marriage but also opposed amending the federal Constitution to ban it." This confirms my view that "flip-flop," in this campaign, is a term used by people who can't grasp complex ideas to describe the cognitions of those who can.

Congressmen want to de-fund behavioral research on HIV/AIDS

These people are stunning. Congress's inaction in the '80s wasn't enough - we must continue to make sure nobody finds out how to stop the HIV/AIDS pandemic...?


TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY

On Wednesday, September 8, Congress is expected to begin debate on the FY 2005 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill, which funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Last year, an amendment by Patrick Toomey (R-PA) offered to the bill would have rescinded funds from five specific grants that had been reviewed for their scientific merit and approved for funding by the NIH. The majority of these grants examined different aspects of sexual development and behavior and sought to inform public health interventions for HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The amendment failed by only two votes.

While the amendment was defeated, some in Congress continue to express interest in eliminating federal funding for individual NIH grants they find objectionable, even though the projects are within NIH's mission and have gone through the established system of scientific review. During this week's debate on the bill, an amendment may target sexual behavior research or other areas of scientific inquiry, including basic behavioral research on identity, motivation, and personality. We hope that you will take a moment to call your member of Congress to express your support for NIH.

Condoms unavailable in 95% of America's prisons.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

What's today's reason to dispatch Bush?

Oh my God this is amazing. Daily reasons to dispatch Bush. They are so well-researched, well-written, hard-hitting. Probably not hard-hitting enough for the imaginary "swing voters," but they could be compressed into sound bites.

Kerry gets the best advice in the world

Former President Bill Clinton, in a 90-minute telephone conversation from his hospital room, offered John Kerry detailed advice on Saturday night on how to reinvigorate his candidacy, as Mr. Kerry enlisted more Clinton advisers to help shape his strategy and message for the remainder of the campaign. (NYT)

I'm glad John Kerry is getting advice from the #1 magician in American politics. I was, in fact, totally dumbfounded in the closing couple weeks of Al Gore's 2000 campaign that he was too proud to let Clinton campaign with him.

But beyond the question of whatever advice Clinton might give him, this story is the absolute best possible lead campaign item for today's Monday morning paper. The Times was the first to break the story, but its structure indicates that its basic contours were shaped by Kerry staffers. It's a great story for a number of reasons:

- it makes Kerry, not Bush, the lead story on the Monday following the RNC

- it links Kerry very strongly to America's most popular Democratic politician

- it changes the story from "the Kerry campaign is in trouble and searching for a new direction" to "John Kerry is getting the best advice in the whole wide world" (and Kerry managed to change the story in a quick, decisive way that bodes well for the coming weeks)

- it's got the added drama of Clinton being in his hospital bed (some have mused that Clinton's going into the hospital for bypass surgery and perhaps pushing Bush's convention off the front page is a very, very nice turn of events for the Dems)

- most importantly, it sets up future media coverage detailing "John Kerry's sharper attack on Bush" and discursively creates a break between Kerry's unfortunate August and the remainder of the campaign

- the story also repeats several variations on "Mr. Kerry's aides emphasized that this was an expansion of the staff for the fall campaign and did not represent another upheaval of the Kerry campaign" - which is obviously just window-dressing, but saying it over and over is still a good idea.

I also love that today's Washington Post quoted a retired math teacher in Norristown, Pennsylvania, as saying that "jobs, health care, the environment and not lying are the important issues" in the presidential race. I just love the idea that "not lying" has become an issue. Maybe the Kerry campaign should take it up. As in, "John Kerry and John Edwards - stronger on jobs, health care, the environment, and not lying."

In other news, unfortunately my home state of Michigan is going to to have an antigay state constitutional amendment on November's ballot. The hastily formed Coalition for a Fair Michigan is going to do its damnedest, but we have less of an organizing base in Michigan than in many states. Please contribute! Also, check out the website of Citizens for the Protection of Marriage and note that the country coordinators' phone numbers are listed on the website. As a private citizen, please call up these volunteers who have chosen to make their names and numbers public, and have a conversation with them about what gay people's rights mean to you.

Finally: check out some wonderful lines from Big Whicker Ventriloquist about the prospect of waking up and realizing that "George W. Bush is still in your bed...."

It's NOT the economy, stupid!

Note: Like John Kerry's campaign (or so I hope), this blog is being reorganized. Please note that my previous list of linked blogs is gone; if you have a blog and it's no longer listed, please do drop me a line and let me know its address.

Some thoughts.

1. The Kerry campaign has an uphill battle in the coming weeks. Kerry is up to the challenge; Iowa was only the latest demonstration that he is a true fighter (no pun intended), and is likely to adopt a new and better strategy soon.

2. They should run ads with Bush promises from the 2000 campaign. Especially about health care. Run these thousands of time in Ohio.

3. Or run ads about John Aschroft's lack of interest in pursuing terrorists in the summer of 2001.

4. The Swift Boat affair offers a lesson to the left-liberal 527 organizations: lie, lie, lie, and lie again. I personally would like to see TV ads aired of New Yorkers bitching about the air quality after 9/11 and the Bushies' lies about it and threats to their health, but there are so many ways that Bush can be attacked. We need massive blitz of truly vicious attack ads against the President, or we'll be stuck with him. Political scientists have shown time and time again that negative campaigns work.

5. When push comes to shove, Americans want someone who'll keep them safe from the terrorists. Why on earth so many of them think GWB is up to the task is truly beyond me, but clearly they do. Kerry needs to come up with an aggressive line of attack on this issue. And he needs to have some sort of "plan," not so elaborate as to make folks wonder why he didn't announce it earlier, yet significant enough to call into question whether Bush's performance is all it could be.

Bush's spotty record on terrorism

To the editor:

Dan Balz writes that although many Americans wonder whether Bush cares about domestic issues, "few doubt his willingness to act and act aggressively in the face of terrorist threats" ("Domestic Questions Remain," 9/3). This view is selective, at best.

No one doubts that Bush, as the author of a new doctrine of "pre-emptive" invasion, does not flinch from war-making - but aggression alone will not protect us. The administration showed no interest in fighting terrorism despite specific warnings in the summer of 2003, and the Iraq war and occupation have so overstretched American troops that we are left poorly prepared for further threats. Bush also caused offense worldwide by loosening the safeguards that could have prevented Abu Ghraib.

As I watch the Republicans exploit the anniversary of September 11, I recall my father's dismay that Bush didn't even visit New York until three days after September 11. President Clinton, he said at the time, would have found a way to get there by nightfall.

"letting 45 million americans go without health care"

From John Kerry's remarks at a midnight rally tonight in Ohio, according to an email from his campaign:

Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit. That's the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And it's not going to change. I believe it's time to move America in a new direction; I believe it's time to set a new course for America.

Finally.

on behalf of girlie men everywhere

**********************************************
NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE
MEDIA RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:
Sheri A. Lunn - Director of Communications
202-641-5592
Roberta Sklar - Press Secretary
917-704-6358

http://www.TheTaskForce.org

**********************************************

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

On behalf of "girlie men" everywhere I'm perplexed. Last night
while you were speaking at the Republican National Convention,
you said, "To those critics who are so pessimistic about our
economy, I say: "Don't be girlie men.""

I've never known girlie men to be pessimistic about much of
anything. Think of our leading girlie men icons - Liberace, Paul
Lynde, Charles Nelson-Reilly, Freddy Mercury, Nathan Lane, and
Harvey Fierstein - all hopeless optimists, smiling and fighting
on in the face of adversity.

Oops. Now I get it. You simply misread the teleprompter. You
obviously meant to say, "To those critics who are so pessimistic
about our economy, I say: "BE girlie men." I look forward to
someone in your office setting the record straight, so to speak.


All the best,

Matt Foreman
Executive Director National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

***************************************************************

UPDATED protest pix

pix are here
click on RNC protest pix

"very good chest, very good arms, well hung, cut"

Thanks to Matt P. and Ian: go listen to the audio personal ad of the Republican Virginia congressman and Federal Marriage Amendment backer who's just resigned after being "outed."