Victory!

Election day – please vote

One day away from change

After 21 months, we’re almost there, just a few hours away from election day. As Senator Obama says, “We’ve come so far. We’ve come so close.”

He’s put together a special video with highlights of the journey and you can watch it on his site.

If you’re still unsure where to vote, you can find out here, also en espanol. If you live in New Hampshire and haven’t registered, you can do so at your polling place.

The hypocrisy of John McCain

Politicians often say one thing and believe or do another. It comes with the territory. But John McCain’s hypocrisy in his desperation to become president is breathtaking, even for a politician. And his running mate is no better.

“My friends,” he keeps saying, without giving many of us any reason to want to be his friend. Consider this fun video “My Friends, the Musical” and enjoy it while watching one example after another of the Republican hypocrisy we’re being asked to swallow this time around. Thanks, but no thanks, Senator.

Pimples on prom night

Barack Obama said Friday morning his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, is gravely ill and might not live until election day. He’s been with her in Hawaii, where he was born, leaving the campaigning to Joe Biden, Michelle Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

So how did the Repubican ticket make the most of a day without the front-runner on the scene? As Rachel Maddow put it, they had a cringe-inducing day, like pimples on prom night. This six-minute clip shows why Maddow is cable’s rising star; her ratings have doubled in one month.

Record 100,000 crowd for Obama in St. Louis

Barack Obama drew 100,000 people to a St. Louis rally today, his biggest US crowd to date. A St. Louis Police Dept Lieutenant confirmed the figure for the Wall Street Journal.

He spoke about taxes and the economy, slamming Republicans for their positions. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-MO, introduced him with harsh words for the GOP vice presidential candidate.

Referring to comments Palin made earlier this week in North Carolina about “pro-America” states, McCaskill said “We have reached a new low in America politics when a candidate dares to say that one part of America is pro-America and another part is anti-America.”

For months, Obama lagged in the polls in Missouri, down by as much as 10 points at times. The most recent Rasmussen Poll, released yesterday, showed Obama leading by 6 points, 52% to John McCain’s 46%.

Ohio racists you might not have seen

I don’t use the word racist indiscriminately, but that’s what we have here. There have been many videos online and broadcast in the past week or two of bigots and racists at McCain/Palin rallies. Nothing I’ve seen compares with this. Shame on every one of them.

It’s news footage from Al-Jazeera and the irony is not lost on me that many in the Arab and Muslim worlds hate Americans as thoroughly as some of these Ohioans hate them — and blacks. One man isn’t shy with the N word and Al-Jazeera does not bleep it out.

White sheets and hoods must be selling well where this video was shot.

Palin and the Chipmunks

See it here first. This is a new video and I’d say it’s hilarious if so much of it weren’t depressingly true. Palindrones will hate it, politically-dumb people won’t get it. We “elites” will love it. Aren’t we awful?

Hats off MistressOfTheWeb for Palin and the Chipmunks.

Rollins predicts Obama in a landslide

CROSSPOSTED FROM FOODPLUSPOLITICS.COM Ed Rollins, who led Republican Ronald Reagan to a 49-state re-election win in 1984, says the race is over for John McCain and predicts Barack Obama will win in a landslide.

On CNN, Rollins told Anderson Cooper the GOP’s fear and smear campaign against Obama isn’t working and that it’s too late for McCain to make up lost ground on the economy, the issue most people except the rabid Republican base want to hear about. Obama “has met the threshhold,” of leadership he said, recalling 1980 when Americans wanted to get rid of Jimmy Carter and did, once Reagan met that threshhold.

Rollins also sees the potential for enormous Republican losses in Congress, especially in the Senate, predicting the possibility of losing enough seats to give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. He said McCain has to give his party something to run on, needs to think about his legacy.

Palin unretouched – boo hoo

Only Murdoch’s Fox “News” would notice, let alone be upset enough about Newsweek’s cover to devote a couple minutes to it, complete with talking heads. The problem? Former beauty pageant contestant Sarah Palin is on the cover unretouched, with the sort of face every 40+ woman has without the benefit of a scalpel, a syringe or Photoshop.

Not surprisingly, Fox thinks Newsweek is showing favoritism toward Obama.

McCain: Out of touch, without a plan

The Obama campaign’s new ad.

Deadline day – register to vote online

This is the final day in some states for voter registration; others follow soon. No matter who you support, please register and then exercise your right to vote.

Rock the Vote offers this simple form for registration online via email.

Biden and Palin on Roe v Wade

So Katie Couric’s still got some Palin up her sleeve. Tonight, she asked Alaska’s Precious Snowflake and Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden about their positions on abortion. The transcript follows, but it does not do justice to the full weight of Precious Snowflake’s inability to name even one Supreme Court case other than  Roe versus Wade. Not even the ones we learn about in grade school.

The Palin video is here at CBS and prepare to be amazed — and scared. It really is as bad as we’ve heard. At least she didn’t say, “I’ll get back to ya.”

Katie Couric: Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good decision?

Joe Biden: Because it’s as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours. What does it say? It says in the first three months that decision should be left to the woman. And the second three months, where Roe v. Wade says, well then the state, the government has a role, along with the women’s health, they have a right to have some impact on that. And the third three months they say the weight of the government’s input is on the fetus being carried.

And so that’s sort of reflected as close as anybody is ever going to get in this heterogeneous, this multicultural society of religious people as to some sort of, not consensus, but as close it gets.

I think the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment … offers a right to privacy. Now that’s one of the big debates that I have with my conservative scholar friends, that they say, you know, unless a right is enumerated – unless it’s actually, unless [it] uses the word “privacy” in the Constitution – then no such “constitutional right” exists. Well, I think people have an inherent right.

Couric: Are there Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?

Biden: You know, I’m the guy who wrote the Violence Against Women Act. And I said that every woman in America, if they are beaten and abused by a man, should be able to take that person to court – meaning you should be able to go to federal court and sue in federal court the man who abused you if you can prove that abuse. But they said, “No, that a woman, there’s no federal jurisdiction.” And I held, they acknowledged, I held about 1,000 hours of hearings proving that there’s an effect in interstate commerce.
Women who are abused and beaten and beaten are women who are not able to be in the work force. And the Supreme Court said, “Well, there is an impact on commerce, but this is federalizing a private crime and we’re not going to allow it.” I think the Supreme Court was wrong about that decision.

Couric Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?

Sarah Palin: I think it should be a states’ issue not a federal government-mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I’m, in that sense, a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it’s no secret that I’m pro-life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that’s what I would like to see, um, further embraced by America.

Couric: Do you think there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

Palin: Well, let’s see. There’s, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …

Couric: Can you think of any?

Palin: Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I’m so privileged to serve, wouldn’t be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.

Vicious, threatening mail for criticizing Palin

Kathleen Parker, the conservative columnist who wrote last week that Sarah Palin is out of her league and that if BS were currency, Palin could rescue Wall Street by herself, has gotten “vicious, threatening” mail because of her view.

Writing in today’s Washington Post about the reactions to that column, Parker says,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn’t, I should “off” myself.

To those who accused her of not being a “true” conservative, she replies,

But what is a true conservative? One who doesn’t think or question and who marches in lock step with The Party? The emotional pitch of many comments suggests an overinvestment in Palin as “one of us.”

Pointing out, correctly, that both sides are partisan and we have become a partisan nation, Parker offers this observation:

Anyone who dares express an opinion that runs counter to the party line will be silenced. That doesn’t sound American to me, but Stalin would approve.Readers have every right to reject my opinion. But when we decide that a person is a traitor and should die for having an opinion different from one’s own, we cross into territory that puts all freedoms at risk.

Everyone, she says, is to blame. I agree.

Compared with most European nations, ours is still an adolescent but that does not mean we need to remain mired in our national adolescence. It’s past time to move beyond political puberty but unfortunately for us — and the rest of the world — it won’t happen this election cycle. And we are all the losers for that.

Define “fair and balanced”

They “report”, they decide.

Murdoch’s Fox News Channel never ceases to amaze. If anyone has any doubt about the right-wing bias of that channel — and I know there are some who insist it’s fair and balanced, but they’re probably not open to watching this and considering another opinion — just watch this clip. It’s from a stand-upper in Pennsylvania, where a Fox reporter asked for a show of hands for McCain and Barack Obama.

Listen for the fair and balanced “reporter’s” use of the word split and for chuckles, watch the lady in the back who slaps down the guy’s arm.

Hat tip to NewsHounds.