Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle. Sure never saw THAT one coming. I’ll give you a moment to recover from the shock.

Okay. So, yeah – check out what brought this about for the Mormon Church:

It looked like a stunning reversal: the same church that helped defeat gay marriage in California standing with gay-rights activists on an anti-discrimination law in its own backyard.

On Tuesday night, after a series of clandestine meetings between local gay-rights backers and Mormons in Salt Lake City, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced it would support proposed city laws that would prohibit discrimination against gays in housing and employment.

The ordinances passed and history was made: It marked the first time the Salt Lake City-based church had supported gay-rights legislation.

The Mormon church — which continues to suffer a backlash over its support last year of Proposition 8, the measure banning gay marriage in California — emphasized that its latest position in no way contradicts its teachings on homosexuality.

But the action is one of the strongest signs yet that even conservative religious groups that oppose same-sex marriage might be willing to support legal protections for gays that fall short of that.

Well, that is good news. Personally, I felt like the Mormon Church was being used as a bit of a scapegoat in CA. Sure, they supported Prop 8, but apparently, so did the majority of Californians. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but the evidence is indisputable. The majority voted for Proposition 8. Are you telling me that that many Californians could be swayed to violate their internal beliefs by the Mormons? Really? Exactly.

More about the Church:

At the same time, the church’s position has angered some of its conservative allies on social issues, prompted questions about whether public relations is its real motivation, and put the church on the spot over how far it will go on similar legislation on the state and federal level.

“This is a very good public relations response that has the additional benefit of actually representing the way the current church leadership thinks,” said Armand Mauss, a retired professor at Washington State University and scholar of Mormonism.

Some of the church’s conservative allies in the gay marriage battles, however, call it a setback. The two new ordinances make it illegal to fire or evict someone for being gay, bisexual or transgender.

Such legislation robs employers and landlords of their rights and gives legal ammunition to judges sympathetic to gay marriage, said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the conservative Family Research Council.

“It’s disappointing and I’m fearful that it reflects in part a reaction to the attacks they came under after Proposition 8 — an effort to bend over backwards to exhibit tolerance toward homosexuals in some way,” Sprigg said.

Michael Otterson, director of public affairs for the Mormon church, said Wednesday that church leaders were able to support the ordinance because it doesn’t carve out special rights for gays.

Supporting “basic civil values,” Otterson said, does not compromise the church’s religious belief that homosexuality is a sin and that same-sex marriage poses a threat to traditional marriage.

“There are going to be gay advocates who don’t think we’ve gone nearly far enough, and people very conservative who think we’ve gone too far,” Otterson said. “The vast majority of people are between those polar extremes and we think that’s going to resonate with people on the basis of fair-mindedness.”

The position is not a reversal, Otterson said. In August 2008 the church issued a statement saying it supports gay rights related to hospitalization, medical care, employment, housing or probate as long as they “do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.”

I have to admit – given the attacks on the Mormon Church, I am a tad surprised to see this is their position. Honestly, that’s more progressive than many people would believe. More than I would have believed had I not read it for myself. The way in which the Mormons have been demonized by LGBT rights activists and supporters, one would have thought the Mormons were the Devil Incarnate. Evidently not:

Church officials say the city ordinances were not discussed in the recent meetings between church staff and gay rights leaders, and that it was the mayor who put the proposals on the table.

Harry Knox, director of the religion and faith program at the gay-rights group Human Rights Campaign, said the Mormon church’s stand on the Salt Lake City ordinances could help alter the debate over gay rights.

“The church deserves credit, but that credit really comes because people have been pushing for it,” Knox said. “It’s not something thing they arrived at on their own and out of the goodness of their hearts.”

The church’s action is the latest sign of a softening among some conservative Christians toward offering some legal protections to gays.

Activists are trying to garner support from evangelicals for a federal employment anti-discrimination law that would cover gays. However, religious reaction was largely negative to a federal hate crimes act protecting homosexuals that President Barack Obama recently signed into law. Several conservative Christian groups argued that preaching against homosexuality could be deemed a hate crime under the legislation.

The Mormon church has not taken a stance on either piece of federal legislation.

Otterson, the church spokesman, said that in the case of the Salt Lake City ordinances, Mormon leaders weighed in because they were responding to a request for feedback on specific legislation.

Asked whether the church would take a stand on similar state or federal legislation, Otterson said: “The church leadership is not inclined to offer free advice where it’s not being requested.”

Well, that’s an interesting response. But the rest of it is a bit eye-opening for a church that has been completely demonized by liberals. Perhaps, at some point, they might actually have to start looking at just who it was who voted for Prop 8. I guarantee you, they weren’t all Mormons…

And speaking of religious types, it seems Donnie McClurkin, Obama’s big campaign buddy, has been out and about spewing hate against the GLBT community. Oh, yes. No doubt, Jesus told him to call us “vampires,” and “perversions.” Yep:

The last time we heard from Donnie McClurkin, he was campaigning with Barack Obama. At the Obama campaign event, you may recall, McClurkin harangued gays for over thirty minutes and proclaimed:

“God delivered me from homosexuality.”

Well, McClurkin is back. This weekend, he re-emerged spewing homophobic hate in Memphis. Rod 2.0 reports:

Donnie McClurkin ramps up the ridiculous to speak in tongues and call gays “vampires”. The infamously “ex-gay” — or should we say merely “re-closeted” — Grammy Award winning gospel singer and evangelist rants against gays, gay youth and recently out gospel singer Tonex at the Church of God in Christ’s Holy Convocation Youth Service. This happened last Saturday at the COGIC convention in Memphis.

Oh, it doesn’t stop there: I

n the first of three disgusting YouTube videos, McClurkin begins his rant against Tonex, the gospel star and minister who recently confirmed his long-rumored sexuality. McClurkin says Tonex is a “perversion” and must pray away the gay: “God did not call young people to such peversion. Society has failed him, his church has failed him … I would be homosexual to this day if Jesus hadn’t delivered.”

McClurkin also rails against against openly gay youth as “broken and feminine”: “I see feminine men, feminine boys, everywhere I go … No, don’t applaud ‘cuz it ain’t funny. It’s because we failed. I see them everywhere.”

Rod has posted the three videos of McClurkin’s rant. Check them out. It’s ugly.

Again, it begs the question: why did people in the GLBT community ever think Obama stood with them considering the people with whom he surrounded himself?

I might add, if you really want to see where the community is these days, check out some of comments at posts that have anything to do with the DNC at Gay Americablog – I know Aravosis was an Obama water carrier. He sems to have realized the error of his ways. TOo late, I know, but nothing like being scorned, right? The anger in the comments is palpable by people in the GLBT community at Obama and the DNC. Hence the latest, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Give” campaign being generated against the DNC. Oh, yeah. They are shutting down their wallets. About damn time, too, if you ask me.

That is to say, Upside Down World continues – the Mormon Church is supporting a number of GLBT rights, Obama’s good buddy is ranting against GLBT people, and the is dragging its feet. Maybe it’s because of its new leadership – Gov. Tim Kaine, homophobe. Okey dokey.

I think I need to sit down now.

“Barack Obama Sees Worst Poll Rating Drop In 50 Years”

Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April.

His current approval rating – hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle – is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.

The bad polling news came as Mr Obama returned to the campaign trail to prevent his Democratic party losing two governorships next month in states in which he defeated Senator John McCain in last November’s election.

Jeffrey Jones of Gallup explained: “The dominant political focus for Obama in the third quarter was the push for health care reform, including his nationally televised address to Congress in early September.

“Obama hoped that Congress would vote on health care legislation before its August recess, but that goal was missed, and some members of Congress faced angry constituents at town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. Meanwhile, unemployment continued to climb near 10 per cent.”

Unfortunately for Obama, the People had something to say about the legislation that would so impact each and every one of us. I bet those legislators just HATE when their constituents throw a wrench into their grand plans, don’t you?

Things aren’t just bad for Obama, though:

Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey is in severe danger of defeat while Democrats are fast losing hope that Creigh Deeds can beat his Republican opponent in Virginia. Twin Democratic losses would be a major blow to Mr Obama’s prestige.

Campaigning for Mr Corzine in Hackensack on Wednesday night, Mr Obama delivered a plea that almost seemed as much for himself as the local candidate: “I’m here today to urge you to cast aside the cynics and the sceptics, and prove to all Americans that leaders who do what’s right and who do what’s hard will be rewarded and not rejected.”

Mr Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive and multi-millionaire, is currently running even in New Jersey, which is normally comfortably Democratic, while Mr Deeds is trailing badly in Virginia, a swing state that was key to Mr Obama’s 2008 victory.

Let’s just pause for a second and soak that in – Gov. Corzine is a former Goldman Sachs exec who made a gazillion buckaroos, and Obama is stumping for him. Perhaps this is one of those moments when Obama’s minions might just get sobered up just a tad from the Kool Aide and realize that they bought a bill of goods.

It gets worse:

Mr Obama is also facing widespread criticism for his drawn-out decision-making process over what to do next in Afghanistan.

Republicans sense Mr Obama is in a vulnerable position and this week saw the return to the public stage of his perhaps most vehement opponent – Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Holy crapoli – Cheney? The man to whom we affectionately (cough) referred to as Darth Vader?? Whooey – this should be interesting:

In a blistering speech on Wednesday night, he accused Mr Obama of failing to give Americans troops on the ground a clear mission or defined goals and of being seemingly “afraid to make a decision” about Afghanistan “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said at the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

“Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

He hit out at Obama aides who suggested that the Bush administration had failed to weigh up conditions in Afghanistan properly before committing troops.

“Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

Yikes. Nothing like being called on the carpet by the president, I mean, VICE president, from the past 8 years. Ahem. I reckon Obama and his Chicago pals thought all of their blaming of the Bush Administration would silence that Administration. Apparently, they were not paying attention to how Cheney rolls over the last 8 years, either. I’m sure Obama/Emmanuel/Axelrove will come up with SOME dismissive statement about Cheney’s remarks, and still not do anything about Afghanistan, because that’s how THEY roll.

Just in case you are keeping score (or want to), the Daily Presidential Tracking Poll at Rasmussen Reports has Obama’s approval ratings at 49% as of Friday, Oct. 23rd.

But hey, these are just numbers. What are the people who formerly approved of Obama but are now sobering up saying? My good friend, Nunly, of Bad Habit fame, braved the Obamablogs, and found some mighty interesting comments by the Obama faithful. She was kind enough to leave this at my blog, and the comments in italics are her’s (she’s funny):

I went to look at AmericaBlog last night (I love to see what the Obots are up to) and thought you would LOVE to see what they think of Obama now. I’ve never seen so much whining, crying, gnashing of teeth since I told my kids they had to pay for their own car insurance.

…Aravosis has been covering the health care bill negotiations and I swear, the comments about Obama had me rolling on the floor laughing.

Here are a few of my favorite from that post. You could read the rest if you want, but they are all about the same.

Here goes..get your tissues out because you’re gonna laugh until you cry:

Mike_in_the_Tundra said:
I really don’t remember voting for Olympia Snow during the presidential campaign.

Montiel said:
Obama campaigned on a strong public option.

When push came to shove he ran the other way.

What does it matter now what he says – we already know who he is.

(Mary Ellen’s note: Then the following guy is trying to put the kool-aid stains on somebody else’s upper lip and throws in a little Christian bashing to finish it off.)

JohnnyG [Moderator] 10 hours ago 2 people liked this.
Even if this is proven true, the kool-aid drinkers will still ignore it. All they care about is his “historical presidency.” They’ll be more than happy to let his dirty dealings be swept under the rug. Much like how Christians view God, anything good is credited to Jesus (Barack) and anything bad is credited to the devil (Rahm, anyone else handy.)

PresPlatitudes said:
why isn’t obama pushing for the PO, instead of parading around on letterman like a vain opportunist?

(Below is my favorite comment!)

Judas Peckerwood
If Obama’s ultra-secret overarching goal for his presidency is to make the PUMAs look sane in retrospect, then all I can say is “Well played sir, well played indeed.”

(ROTFLMAO! They hate it that the PUMA’s were right!)

Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood) said:
Obviously, he was lying about wanting the public option. No money in that, after all it takes a billion to become president.

godwillsortyouout said:
For what it’s worth, in the 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain raised $8 million from people who worked for healthcare companies, including lots of executives.

Obama raised ** $19 million **. You do the math.

(They just figured that out? And HOW many times did we try to tell them that before and how did they reply? “Racist!” )

vkobaya said:
if President Obama isn’t trying to scuttle his own campaign promise

No, no, of course, he isn’t trying to scuttle his own campaign promise. No, like any card carrying Republican, he is trying to scuttle America, drag it down the tubes, destroy our nation, which he hates and despises.

I’m sick of the man. Revolted, bitter, and angry that I and so many others were played for suckers into voting for him. Would we have been worse off under McCain and Sarah Palin? Beginning to wonder. Probably would have been no different.

(More laughing…I thought “we” were the “bitter and angry” ones? Look who’s bitter now!)…

Oh, how low they have gone, just like Obama’s poll numbers. I would be more sympathetic if they hadn’t treated all of us like Pure-T crap, or demeaned and belittled Hillary Clinton at every turn, demonizing her, downplaying her vast accomplishments, the warmth, the compassion, the intellect, the experience…So, yeah, I hate it for them, but they have no one to blame but themselves for how they’re feeling now. See? Vetting the candidate really DOES matter! Wowie zowie, just like we said!! Sigh.

Well, all I can say is stay tuned – it’s bound to be interesting at any rate, right? Can’t wait to see what the coming week brings…

It isn’t just the Gay Folks who are getting a bit testy, as the video below indicates, but those of us Gay people who DID buy that Obama was going to do something for us (I don’t know what came over them) sure had something to say in the March on Oct. 10th (H/T to Logistics Monster for the video):

I came across this article by B. Daniel Blatt recently that addresses the frustrations of the GLBT community with Barack Obama, Gay Community Increasingly at Odds with Democrats. Considering the constant pandering, all talk, and no action, it is easy to see why we would be inreasingly discontented with Obama (those who were content with him in the first place, that is).

Mr. Blatt comes from a different political position than I do, and I appreciate his take here:

Perhaps the easiest thing about being a gay conservative is that we expect less from our elected leaders than do our left-of-center counterparts. Republican politicians don’t promise us the moon and stars in their campaigns, so we’re not disappointed when they don’t bestow such lofty gifts on our community once elected.

Huh. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. Interesting. He continues:

For gay Democrats, however, it’s a different story. They are repeatedly disappointed when their politicians do not follow through on the campaign pledges they make to our community.

In 1992, then-Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton promised to repeal the ban on gays in the military, but just a year later, he backpedaled on that promise. After he clumsily tried to act on that promise in the first few days of his administration, that Democrat realized he might suffer politically should he sign an executive order repealing the ban. At the time, the president’s signature was all that was required to allow gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Facing a firestorm of opposition from the military and Congress, Clinton relented and signed a supposed compromise policy, the legislation which became known as Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT). Gays could now serve, provided they didn’t self-identify as gay. Now the ban on open service is codified, requiring an act of Congress to be repealed.

This would not be the last time Clinton would sign legislation upsetting gay people who so enthusiastically backed him in 1992.

In the dead of night on September 20, 1996, after receiving the endorsement of the left-leaning gay rights organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the Democrat signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), allowing one state to bar recognition of same-sex marriages performed in a different state while defining marriage, for the purposes of federal law, as the union of one man and one woman. Although its then-leaders denounced the action, HRC did not rescind its endorsement of the then-Democratic incumbent.

Now, you know, I love me my Bill Clinton. Not as much as his wife, mind you, but still…It’s a different day now than it was even then:

Perhaps with that bit of history in mind, the current Democratic President Barack Obama thought that by currying favor with this bastion of the gay Washington, D.C., establishment, he could silence the growing chorus of criticism from erstwhile gay supporters upset by his failure to act on his campaign promises to repeal those two bills. This past Saturday, the president addressed HRC’s annual dinner in Washington where he reiterated his campaign pledges:

We are moving ahead on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. … We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country. We should be celebrating their willingness to show such courage and selflessness on behalf of their fellow citizens, especially when we’re fighting two wars. … And I’ve called on Congress to repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.

As a reminder, I severed my long-standing membership with the HRC after it endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, one a proven advocate for the GLBT community, and one who is not. Wanna guess which one is which? Yep – Hillary is, Obamais not. That doesn’t seem to have sunk in with the folks at the HRC dinner, but other people are getting it:

That may have earned him a standing ovation inside the auditorium, but it did not quiet the criticism outside. Indeed, if anything, the speech only served to increase its volume. Left-of-center lesbian blogger Pam Spaulding took umbrage at the president’s failure to offer a timeline for repeal:

The low expectations I had regarding LGBT policy were unfortunately met on that account. If you’re an activist or citizen looking for timelines, actions, use of the bully pulpit, ANYTHING that would indicate to the community that our president was serious about moving on the laundry list of LGBT issues any time soon, you would call it a fail.

Others found different reasons to call the speech “a fail.” Left-wing gay bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage said it sounded more like a campaign speech than a presidential address, with the latter offering, “Sorry, folks, nothing new to see here. Pledges, promises, excuses. Lip service.” They were not alone. The New York Times reported that one reader of the Bilerico Project quipped in a comment to that gay blog, “I could have watched one of his old campaign speeches and heard the same thing.”

And you know how much I just LOVE Andrew Sullivan (that was major snark – he has attacked yours truly a number of times, tongue in cheek nominating me for the Michael Moore Award. I suppose I could do worse.). He was a major Obama sycophant, singing his praises left and right, downright bubbly in his support of The One. THat is al to say, I have little sympathy that he is now so disenchanted with Obama. Maybe he could have done a little more research – check that – maybe he could have done SOME research into Obama before throwing his weight behind him. Just a thought.

And he is not the only Obama supporter and GLBT community member who is now frustrated with Obama:

John Aravosis of Americablog was less restrained in his reaction to the speech:

What did President Obama say new tonight? Absolutely nothing. … It is criminal that any gay rights organization would invite an embattled president to their dinner, giving him political cover for repeated broken promises and slaps in the face to our community (like the DOMA incest brief), and then get absolutely nothing in return. HRC’s actions only feed the suspicions of critics who say that the organization is more interested in fundraisers than in advancing our rights.

All in all, the evening was a disappointment, but not unexpected. President Obama doesn’t do controversy, and we, my friends, are controversy. So, the bad blood between this administration and the gay community will remain, and continue to worsen.

By this measure, the incumbent Democrat is a lot like the last Democrat to sit in the White House: both seek to avoid controversy, particularly on gay issues. And yet, in seeking to avoid controversy in the general population, Obama has further stirred the pot in the gay community. Even some of his most zealous defenders on the gay left have refused to cut him any slack for his failure to move forward on repealing DADT and DOMA.

Well, and they shouldn’t cut him any slack. Then again, IMHO, they should have pushed harder for a real advocate – Hillary – than the guy they thought was “cool,” or whatever the hell they were thinking – if indeed they were. Blatt continues:

And these outraged voices on the gay left have a greater opportunity today to make public their views than did their counterparts in the Clinton era. Many of them blog, some for heavily trafficked sites. These bloggers have prevented the voices of the establishment gay organizations from dominating the discourse (as they had in years past). When HRC’s president Joe Solmonese made excuses for the president’ s inaction, these bloggers were quick to take him to task.

Due in large part to the integrity of these gay left bloggers, a “schism,” as Spaulding puts it, has opened up between “Gay Inc. [and] the grassroots”. The blogosphere, in short, has changed everything. Gay Inc. (to use Spaulding’s epithet for the establishment gay organizations) no longer reigns supreme as the public voice of the gay community.

It has been supplemented by voices less submissive to the dictates of the Democratic Party. Blogs have given disgruntled Democrats a larger megaphone with which to express their disappointment with a party whose leaders have long assumed that gay voters would remain in their camp even if they didn’t act on their campaign promises.

And Americans have become increasingly aware that the gay community does not speak with one voice. Nor does it march it lockstep to the tune of the Democratic Party.

Sure, Obama made a small move recently and nominated Clifford Stanley, a 33 year Marine two star general (retired), to this position:

President Barack Obama intends to nominate Dr. Clifford L. Stanley as the undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness — the position within the Defense Department that oversees the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“He is likely to be the president’s key Pentagon player in the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ debate and will be critical for the president in getting military uniform buy-in,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the repeal lobby group Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

Well, that’s just peachy keen. I don’t know how long it will take to get him confirmed, but it’s just another step. Honestly – HOW much longer are we going to have to debate this horrible legislation?? Did Obama not promise to abolish DADT shortly after he took office? He has a Super Majority, for pete’s sake, and at the very least, he could employ a stay on DADT, but no (as of Oct.17, 459 service members fired under DADT).

But this is a bigger picture issue than DADT, or even DOMA, for that matter. It’s how an entire segment of the population is treated disparately that is the issue.

Along those lines, I think a number of people have started to realize that Democrats do a lot of talking, very little listening, and even less fulfilling of campaign promises made, GLBT people included. Perhaps we can learn that one has to look at more than the letter beside the name, and really look at the candidate. For instance, John McCain stood up for a friend who came out, extending his support to him. Obama, on the other hand, campaigned with, and consistently surrounded himself with, homophobes (McClurkin, Meeks, and Kmiec, to name just three). That is to say, maybe, and I include myself in this, we need to look beyond the letters beside the names, and really look at the people, their character, their words, and how they match up with their actions. Maybe then, these people who gave of their money, and their VOTE, wouldn’t be so disappointed, and frustrated, now. Just a thought.

No need to take my word for it. Watch this short video (from a traffic camera) to get an idea of just how many people were there (and again, thanks to Logistics Monster, who was THERE, for this video link):

The thing that bugged me about the MSM reporting is that they consistently copied each other – oh, no wait – it just LOOKED that way (check out their opening lines in the articles above and you’ll see what I mean). No, it is that they consistently claimed the marchers were all Conservatives. Apparently, this was their way to dismiss the real anger and frustration people have toward this Congress, whose approval rating is LOW, something else these writers could have looked up easily, and this President, whose ratings continue to decline. They just write them off as some right-wing whackos (1.5 million or so of them), and pay no attention to their actual concerns.

And they have plenty of them. You know, concerns like the fact that the US Government now owning 61% of GM (hey, anyone want to buy a Cadillac?); or that the Obama Administration is adding $3 MILLION to the National Debt EVERY MINUTE; or maybe it’s the 32 czars – oops, make that 31 czars (see ya, Van) Obama is appointing left and right; or the Health Care Bill; or I could go on and on and on. These aren’t just Conservative concerns – these are AMERICAN concerns. But they won’t report it that way, because it doesn’t suit the meme they have created. Had they bothered to talk to some more people on the ground, they would have found out they were Democrats, Independents, and Republicans, all coming together to protest the out of control spending of this Congress and this Administration. To put it in perspective, we are $1 TRILLION more in debt since Obama took office. $ONE TRILLION. Once again, that’s not just an issue for Conservatives. That is an issue for ALL Americans.

Here are some photos of signs at the march – they came via Barbara Espinosa who sent them to Pajamas Media at THIS site. You can see more there:

This video from – of all places – MSNBC – is a fairly good synopsis (though they still couldn’t refrain from painting this as a wholly conservative movement – until the very, very end, when the reporter actually spoke the truth). I saw it at Michelle Malkin’s site while looking for an awesome photo I saw last night, which I have not been able to find again. The sign said, “We Are Not Wee Weed Up: We are PISSED!” If I find it, I’ll add it. Here’s the video:

This is but a snapshot of the day. There is so, so much more to the events of the day, the numbers of people, the calls for accountability in our government.

For those people who aren’t upset about the added $Trillion to our deficit, the takeover of GM, the unvetted czars, the $Trillion Health Care Plan, etc., etc., those people who are downplaying the size of this march, who blow it off as just some group of conservatives going off half cocked, my question is, Why the hell are you NOT upset at what our government is doing??? Bill Clinton downsized our government tremendously, Bush increased it, and now Obama is bankrupting it. Why AREN’T they upset??

Interesting. So, as long as these “journalists” claim that they don’t know for sure, but this is what they heard, they can get away with saying whatever they want about Palin or anyone. So if they couch it as, “well, golly gee, I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that she is under some serious legal investigation by one of the alphabet groups,” they can get the rumor out there – false as it is – without any recompense at all. Here’s the thing – once those kinds of statements are made, they are out there, and no amount of rebuttal from, say, the alphabet group, the bell can’t be un-rung. No one believes that part, even if it IS unusual for said group to actually come out with a statement like that. So, they have done their jobs, these bloggers and “journalists.” They get the salacious gossip out there, and then can feign no ill-will. Please. There oughta be a law…

And that governor from Alaska. Oh, can you just imagine how upset Sally Quinn would have been if she and D.C. society had had to deal with that woman?

Jeralyn is so relieved. Look at this story, “Another Bullet Dodged By Palin’s Loss” (h/t Andy):

We're not going to have Gov. Sarah Palin to kick around any more much longer, which is fine by me, since all I ever wanted was for her not to become Vice President and for people to recognize John McCain's astoundingly reckless judgment in choosing her for the ticket, but I do find this amusing and can't resist writing about it.

The New York Times recaps her final moments at the Arizona Biltmore Wednesday and last trip aboard her McCain-Palin campaign plane:

As Ms. Palin’s entourage of two dozen family members and friends boarded the plane, and aides scurried around loading diapers, bottled water and a Louis Vuitton duffel onto it, Ms. Palin darted over to the reporters, whom she regularly derided as “Barack Obama’s friends in the media” in her stump speech, to shake hands and say goodbye.

24 family members and friends? Wow, did we dodge a bullet. With Obama, we often complained he threw people under the bus. Palin, it seems, wanted to put everyone and then some on it.

Good riddance, Sarah. Had you and McCain won, watching (and paying for) your entourage for the next four years would have been as unbearable as listening to your garbled sentences.

Boy, we sure are lucky, aren’t we!

Just out of curiosity, I wonder what Lady Lynn Rothschild and Dr. Lynette Long thought of Sarah.

Lady Lynn and Dr. Lynette are unusual in their willingness to mix it up with BOTH Arkansas trailer trash and Sarah and all those, um, people on Sarah’s bus.

What does that say about Lady Lynn and Dr. Lynette?!?!?!? Goodness.

I really don’t think that Sally Quinn will be extending any soiree invitations any time soon to those two!

Sarah, you’re not the only one. I’ll reprint my story — when I was known by another name that must now not be spoken aloud — from last February, “‘Singled Out’ as Fair Game“:

At Shakespeare’s Sister, certainly one of our most erudite, and refreshingly pithy blogs, Mustang Bobby joins the brilliant blogger Digby in pondering the question that simply isn’t asked enough either by the media or by most Americans who unthinkingly buy into the fashionably negative patter about the Clintons:

Following up on the story of MSNBC reporter David Shuster being suspended for his comments about Chelsea Clinton, Digby has it right: why are the Clintons held to a different standard than every other candidate?

It hasn’t been just the self-important elite class who annoint, from on high, who meets their tight-nostriled criteria. It extended even to the White House staff. When the Clintons moved in to the White House in 1993, they “ordered that portraits of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman be hung prominently,” writes Sidney Blumenthal in his book about the Clinton presidency:

But the pictures were not put in place. The instructions to the staff were relayed again. Only after a month, and further prodding, was the order carried out. Some of the White House staf held, it seemed, a class deference to the previous Republican residents. From their upstairs-downstairs angle, patricians were being replaced by outlanders who didn’t know their place.

One of the more poignant passages I read in Blumenthal’s book on his years as a senior adviser in the Clinton White House was on a scarcely known, unreported outcome of the incessant investigations and media obsession with Whitewater:

On December 13, 1995, the Resolution Trust Corporation [created by the U.S government to oversee the S&L meltdown] released its … report on Whitewater … the result of an inquiry directed by the Republican Jay Stephens, a former U.S. attorney, and his law firm, Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro. … all fears from the White House turned out to be misplaced. The report completely and categorically absolved the Clintons–and answered all outstanding questions about Whitewater.

Why do I call the passage poignant? Because after describing the enormous relief that the Clintons felt — “they were vindicated” — Blumenthal reports that the White House sent out copies of the report to “more than 150 news organizations,” and that the Clintons eagerly anticipated the widespread reports of the extremely positive findings from a neutral agency:

Then, nothing happened. … The Wall Street Journal ran a straightforward article in its news pages. But days passed and nothing appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. No network broadcast any report. As it happened, the Post never mentioned it, and almost two weeks later, in an item in the Sunday “News of the Week in Review,” the Times published only a few lines, and somewhat misleading ones at that.

Mustang Bobby explains further:

The Clintons have always been held to a different standard than just about every other modern political family. We have the right wing to thank for that, and in a magnificent fit of attempted equalization, they say the left is just as bad about the Bush family, labeling it “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” (As is the case with all right-wing attempts at equalization, it doesn’t work. I am unaware that anyone is out there promoting a film that accuses George W. Bush of murdering his opponents.)But the question remains: what is it about the Clintons that sets them apart?

I have friends — otherwise bright, analytical people — who simply dislike the Clintons and have NO conscious awareness of the ORIGINS of their dislike, and how much their dislike has been shaped by the years and years and years of attacks from the rightwing noise machine, and has seeped through the mainstream media.

I suppose there are any number of answers, ranging from some deep-seated resentment based on a socio-economic snobbery (the Clintons were referred to as the “Arkansas HillBillies” by the wingnuts when Bill was elected in 1992) to just pure visceral hatred that reaches Shakespearean levels and is just as inexplicable: Iago never fully explains why he hates Othello.

How dare those “Arkansas Hillbillies” invade the D.C. elites’ patrician turf? Those friends of mine have no idea how, in 1992, the socialite snob of Washington, D.C. — Sally Quinn — declared the Clintons to be just not the right kind of people for Washington, D.C., and how the venom of her and other Washington insiders’ attacks have filtered throughout the press corps who, most of all, want to feel like they “belong.” These days, Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd continue the smirking, sniffing, looking-down-upon — burying the Clintons up to their necks in sand and lobbing hard rocks of verbal attacks upon them. (I’m certain that a good part of Shuster’s nastiness to the Clinton’s emanates from that pressure to fit in to the elite media.) Quinn regularly wrote Washington Post columns belittling or advising the Clintons on how they should behave. One 1992 article was subtitled, “Welcome to Washington, but Play by Our Rules.” Bill Clinton made numerous efforts, holding several intimate dinners at the White House, trying to charm the Washington elite. Blumenthal writes that he attended one of the dinners and that “every amenity available” was extended to the elite. But there was nothing that he or Hillary could say, as Blumenthal makes clear in another Sally Quinn story:

In his inaugural, Clinton honed the line he had used at Mrs. [Katherine] Graham’s. “This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization,” he said, “is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat ends us here and pays our way.” In the CBS studio in Washington, Sally Quinn, who was serving as a commentator, turned to a producer. “That’s a terrible mistake he’s made, attacking Washington. He said the same thing the other night at Kay’s and everyone reacted very negatively. I have to go on the air to say that,” Quinn said, according to the producer.

And the beat goes on.

He doesn’t seem to be having a problem. He is a cash cow. Or rather, a whole herd.

I dreamt that I heard Barrack Obama had spent $500 million dollars on his campaign to secure the presidency. Maybe I am off by a few mil. If I am, no doubt some brilliant blogger will help set me straight. I can almost always count on a diligent investigative blogger for the real facts since in the latest chapter of the world gone mad, the New York Times seems to be giving up on actual investigative reporting. At least where Barack Obama is concerned. They are more concerned with the cost of Sarah Palin’s wardrobe or Cindy McCain’s personal trials.

There’s transparency in this election season. But it mostly centers around how many usually reliable mainstream media sources are in the tank for Obama.

But here’s the thing. With this kind of money in the tank, why do I get so many emails from Barack, Michele, Joe, David and Nancy? I get them every day, sometimes several times a day. Sarah Palin had barely walked off the stage at the Vice Presidential debate when I got an email from David about what a great job Joe had done. Send money.

I guess it takes a lot of money to rig an election. All those people to bus in. All those free lunches and dinners. All those homeless or disenfranchised people to pay to register voters and get them to vote the same day when their address or identities can’t be verified. All those ACORN workers and zealous volunteers to tear up McCain and Palin signs, destroy other property and intimidate people. All those bloggers to infiltrate sites promoting freedom of speech, election reform and accountability in the media.

And all that media time to purchase for the much touted upcoming infomercials set to run during sports events.

Yup, fraud, is indeed, expensive.

Money is a sore spot right now. As we witness the collapse of the economy, it seems more obscene than usual that any candidate is spending millions of dollars on the election. So I am confused by the Democrats, my usual party of choice.

How is it that Republican nominee John McCain, along with Democratic Senator Russell Feingold from Wisconsin have pushed for campaign finance reform and not Obama or party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? McCain and Feingold have been talking about campaign finance for a long time. They first introduced their bi-partisan bill in 1995. Talk about tenacity. I wonder what Barack Obama was doing thirteen years ago.

I’m also wondering if Obama is so concerned about the economy and sending a message of unity that we need to work together, why didn’t he head for Washington immediately as a Senator and the current leader of the party when the bail out was on the table? Why did he need to be summoned by the president?

And why isn’t he willing to honor staying within a budget that can be agreed upon by both parties? Was all this work on campaign finance reform for nothing?

I guess fraud is, indeed, expensive. As are below the belt commercials that criticize John McCain for not doing email or that question his life expectancy.

It’s true that John McCain can’t type or raise his arm very high.

Kind of tough to do when you have nerve damage after being tortured in a prisoner of war camp for five and half years.

And it’s true that John McCain has had a recurrence of a kind of skin cancer. It is a commonplace cancer that affects many Americans who go to the doctor, have it taken care of and go about their lives.

But raise the specter of technological incompetence or cancer and you can really get a bang for your buck. Through the magic of television alone, you can suggest that McCain is an old guy who is out of touch. An old guy on the verge of death.

Nice. I guess indecency is also expensive.

As more and more Americans struggle with gas prices, foreclosures and unemployment, it is understandable to want to lash out. For many the obvious target would be the Republicans, since so much of the disaster in our financial world happened under George Bush’s watch. But many Democrats were also asleep at the wheel, or so tied up in angry partisan politics that they refused to participate in substantive discussions and actions to prevent a collapse.

The buck needs to stop somewhere. How misleading that the Democrats, under Nancy Pelosi’s supposed leadership do not want to acknowledge that both parties have played a role in the collapse of the economy. What a poor example that the Democrats and Barack Obama have rejected reasonable campaign finance reform so that they can spends millions upon millions of dollars to promote his candidacy while many hardworking Americans have to choose between filling their plate at dinner time or their gas tank at the pump.

The buck needs to stop somewhere. I’m thinking, Just say No deal.

**********Truthteller asks bloggers and reporters to direct their attention to Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey.**********

Mike Robinson’s AP article entitled “Obama Fundraiser, Convicted of Fraud, Spills Beans,” corroborates what we at No Quarter have been writing for weeks: Antoin “Tony” Rezko is cooperating with federal prosecutors interested in Barack Obama. While the national media’s attention to this topic is long overdue, I am not prepared to state that it is too little, too late. I am, however, disappointed.

Also disappointing but somewhat predictable is the blogosphere’s bungled reception of Mike Robinson’s article. Of course those who have embraced Obama will dismiss the story as so much yellow journalism. One blogger claims that prosecutors are interested in Blagojevich and not Obama. But looming in the blind spot of that blogger’s necessarily tendentious gaze is Rezko’s 9 JUN 2008 letter to Judge Amy St. Eve and the reference to Obama as “Individual D” in the superseding indictment and the proffer of evidence filed by Fitzgerald and his prosecutors during the Rezko trial. Obama’s name can be printed again and again on the surface of the legal documents filed during the proceedings of the Rezko trial, but these writers with all their “naked” insight will clothe the verifiable record with their blindness. Knowledge production, it seems, has been lifted from its evidentiary supports when Democrats write about Barack Obama and Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

And yes, those Democrats include some ostensible Hillary Clinton Democrats. Seizing upon the following quotation in a Chicago Sun-Times column, one blogger believes the AP story heralds the end of the political careers of Alexi Giannoulias and Barack Obama:

Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

Stay tuned.

While Rezko was a customer of Alexi Giannoulias’s Broadway Bank, where he amassed a debt of $450,000 after writing bad checks at Las Vegas casinos, and while Giannoulias did write loans for Rezko, I do not believe one can aver with the confidence of the blogger I cite above that federal prosecutors are now focusing on Giannoulias, even if Giannoulias was tied to Rezko by his opponent during his 2006 bid for the office of Illinois state Treasurer. Allow me to be clear: Obama bundler, mobster banker and Obama protégé Giannoulias is, to be sure, embroiled in the Rezko scandal and in other aspects of Chicago politics any political observer would find unsavory, but he is not in my opinion the topic of the conservation occurring between Rezko, Rezko’s attorney and Fitzgerald’s team of prosecutors. I do admit he is grist for the mill of impetuous bloggers who desire web traffic and a controversial headline or two, however. Because I tend to rely on evidence and not on hearsay, I believe we should focus our attention on Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey, not on Giannoulias and the Broadway Bank, if we are to assign names to the financial institution about which Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times has heard “rumblings.” Although Mahajan is not known to readers of No Quarter and to the national media, I imagine they will desire more information on the unscrupulous banker once they read the information I unpack below the fold. And yes, Obama is involved, deeply involved.

My interest in Amrish Mahajan and the Mutual Bank of Harvey was picqued by this list of contributors in Rezko’s bundling network provided by the Chicago Sun-Times last March. View the second page of the document, and notice the following entry:

The data available in the Sun-Times spreadsheet is corroborated by the following data, which is democratically available at the Federal Election Commission’s website:

MAHAJAN, AMRISH
CHICAGO, IL 60607
MUTUAL BANK

OBAMA, BARACK
VIA OBAMA FOR ILLINOIS INC
12/20/2003 500.00 24020030170
04/14/2004 1000.00 24020461757

Not only was Mahajan a member of Rezko’s bundling network; his bank, the Mutual Bank of Harvey, granted Rita Rezko the $500,000 mortgage she needed in order to purchase the lot on which the Obama mansion in Chicago sits. As many of you may recall, the Obamas could not have purchased the mansion they could not afford unless transactions for the mansion and the lot closed on the same day. Obama needed to locate someone who would buy the lot, and he approached Rezko, the convicted slumlord with whom Obama toured the property before they mutually agreed to the following arrangement:

The home and lot sales closed on June 15, 2005. A land trust controlled by the Obamas bought the house for $1.65 million, and the Obamas secured a $1.32 million mortgage from Northern Trust to complete that purchase. That same day, Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, bought the side lot for $625,000. A $37,000- a-year Cook County employee, she secured a $500,000 mortgage from Mutual Bank of Harvey.

The structure of this transaction begs the following question: What bank would lend a government employee who earns $37,000 per annum a $500,000 mortgage? What bank would assume such a risk?

The Mutual Bank of Harvey, of course, for the Mutual Bank of Harvey’s President is a man who is deeply connected to the Chicago machine that backed Barack Obama. Indeed, Amrish Mahajan was one of Mayor Daley’s first political appointments in 1989, when he was named to a seat on Chicago’s Plan Commission, where he would be joined by Obama’s former boss and Rezko’s business partner Allison Davis and by Valerie Jarrett, Daley’s Chief of Staff who chaired the Commission from 1991-1995. Mahajan, in other words, worked with those who devised and profited from Daley’s failed public housing experiment in Chicago, a public housing policy Obama helped fund as state Senator and US Senator.

Rezko, according to the Boston Globe, was one of the major beneficiaries of Obama’s legislative advocacy for funding of Daley’s public housing experiment. Other major beneficiaries are Jarrett and Allison Davis. Mahajan was also a beneficiary, for his bank had made $3.4 million dollars in loans to Tony Rezko’s slum landlord business since 2002. A banker for one of the slumlords who benefitted from the Daley housing program Obama helped bankroll, Mahajan was returning a favor when he wrote a $500,000 mortgage in 2005 for the wife of one of his clients. Although Tony’s financial problems were mounting in 2005, and although Rita earned only $35,000 per annum, Mahajan underwrote the mortgage. Favors must be reciprocated, I guess, especially when one can satisfy two parties at once: the person with whom one has a complicated relationship in real estate and the politician who helped finance that complicated relationship as state Senator and US Senator.

I doubt federal investigators are interested in the Mahajans solely for their involvement in the property deal involving Obama, Mahajan and the Rezkos. The Mahajans, I believe, are the foci of their probe for many reasons.

• Anita Mahajan, the wife of Amrish, has been involved with questionable real estate deals that are the subject of federal probes with Governor Blagojevich’s wife, Patricia
• Anita Mahajan exploited lucrative no bid contracts with the Department of Children and Family Services to steal $2.1 million from Illinois taxpayers; she was charged and released on a $250,000 bond in March 2007
• “Uncle Amrish” has raised more than a half million for Blagojevich and approximately $50,000 for Mayor Daley, whose father helped launch Mahajan’s banking career
• “Uncle Amrish” also helped Obama purchase a house he could not afford

The real estate transaction involving Rita Rezko, the Obamas and Mutual Bank of Harvey is just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the Mutual Bank of Harvey seems to be at the center of all the corruption in Chicago. To quote former Donald Perillo, Chicago insurance mogul and son of the lawyer for Al Capone, in the Chicago Tribune article I cite above:

Donald Parrillo said he isn’t surprised to see Mahajan mix it up with politics and business. “He got that attitude from the Parrillo family,” the former alderman said. “He wanted to get in the game.”

And Mahajan certainly is in the game. The banker of the Chicago machine, he is also the man who wrote the mortgage for Rita Rezko that facilitated Obama’s purchase the mansion he could not afford. This is why I believe prosecutors are interested in Harvey Mutual Bank. Not only did Rezko receive loans from this institution; this bank is heavily involved in problematic real estate dealings involving Blagojevich and Obama. And if I may quote Rezko in the 9 JUN letter he wrote to Judge Amy St. Eve:

Your Honor, the prosecutors have been overzealous in pursuing a crime that never happened. They are pressuring me to tell them the “wrong” things that I supposedly know about Governor Blagojevich and Senator Obama. I have never been party to any wrongdoing that involved the Governor or the Senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people. I am not Levine, Loren, Mahru , or Winter.”

Rezko is now talking, and prosecutors are presently interested in a politically connected financial institution. I bet Obama now regrets paying Rita Rezko $104,500 for the strip of the land in the lot on which his house sits in January 2006. Acquired with the assistance of a questionable $500,000 mortgage from Amrish Mahajan’s Mutual Bank of Harvey, this lot and Obama’s desire to expand his yard by bit was the catalyst for all the investigative reports into Obama’s deep ties to Rezko. By the way, Rita’s lot is only accessible through the front gate of Obama’s home; it is not a separate property, and it was never intended to be a separate property.

“It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor,” Obama says of the real estate transactions with Rezko. I wonder if now he also believes it was a mistake for him to serve as the legislator who represented and bankrolled Richard Daley, Amrish Mahajan, Valerie Jarrett, Allison Davis and the Chicago Plan Commission. But at least he and Michelle have a house, a house the Mutual Bank of Harvey, the politically connected bank that wrote loans for Rezko, helped them procure in 2005. Too bad that house will be the end of Barack Obama.

—————————————————-
No Quarter dossier on Obama and Rezko:

• Rezko, Giannoulias, Obama – Dominoes?
• CORROBORATED: Rezko Speaks, Prosecutors Interested in Obama Listen
• More Than Just a Boneheaded Mistake
• The Epistolary Rezko
• The Illinois Combine II: The DNC Moves Into Chicago
• Obama’s Gangster Mentality
• Prescience: “Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?”
• “CHICAGO MACHINE”
• The Tipping Point?
• Barack, The Truth Ain’t A Smear
• Recently Unsealed Documents Confirm Obama Heavily Embroiled in Rezko Case
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part II: Barack Obama (D-Slumlord) Is Aloof, Oblivious, Dangerous
• Boston Globe Exposé, Part I: Introducing Cecil Butler, Obama’s West Side Slum Landlord Patron
• Patrick Fitzgerald Issues Obama A Warning
• What Hypocrite Obama Should Have Discussion during His Wesleyan Commencement Address
• Barack Obama’s Candidacy as a Take on The Picture of Dorian Gray
• A Majority of One: On Losing the Democratic Base
• Ok, So Tell Us What IS Allowed
• Two Lone Voices Speak for Millions of Us
• What’ll Be Left of the Democratic Party
• It Ain’t Over: Obama MAY Have to Pay the Piper After All
• Obama to Donate Contribution from Rezko’s Iraqi Friend
• Be My Friend, Godfather
• Jaws V, Starring Barack Obama
• The Chicago Three: Obama, Ayers & Rezko
• Charlie Gibson, Will You Ask Barack about Nadhmi Auchi?
• Saddam Hussein, Barack Hussein Obama’s Hidden Real Estate Partner?
• Barack “I-Didn’t-Know” Obama
• Those Who Haunt Him
• Hillary’s Campaign Comes out Swinging
• “Nobie and Obama”
• Authorization to Use Misleading Falsehoods
• What We’ve Noticed about the Speech
• This Is for Main Street (And for the Forgotten People Barack Obama Doesn’t Know)
• Michelle Obama: “Give Us Something Here”
• Rezko Muckrakers Alert!
• The Forgotten People
• Irrefutable Proof That Obama’s Own District Was Home to 11 Rezko Foreclosed Properties
• Speak the Truth, Fallout Be Damned
• The Rezko Saga: Two Videos
• Get Your Daily Rezko Dose Here
• The Media’s Panderbears, Part I
• Sunday Scoops: Rezko-gate and Adviser-gate
• Obama’s Prime-Slime Advisors
• Good Morning, Barack! (Rezko Got Jobs for Your Staffers? Do Tell.)
• Today’s Rezko Trial Scoops (And Prosecutors on $20K Kickback to Obama)
• ABC News: Rezko $50 Million in Debt
• 312.321.2417
• (Pants on Fire!) Lynn Sweet: Obama and His Taking Questions on Rezko
• Rezko Trial: Obama May Be Witness
• Obama’s Judgment on the Eve of Judgment Day
• Truthtelling from Lanny Davis (What about “Iron My Shirt?”)
• Experience, and Experiences (of the Rezko Sort)
• No He Can’t Because Yes They Will
• More Questions on Rezko
• “Obama Bagman” in Jail
• Democratic Death Wish
• How to Buy A Mansion You Can’t Afford
• Will Rezko Blow Up Obama?
• It is “Possible” Obama Was Aware of Rezko’s Financial and Legal Woes
• 20-Year Associate of Obama Arrested
• Look before You Leap: Obama’s Mobbed-Up Allies
• Politics Is A Blood Sport
• BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 from Rezko That Obama Hasn’t Returned
• CNN on Rezko and Obama: This Is Obama’s “Slumwater”
• FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, The Slum Landlord Business
• A Dope with Hope?
• Obama/Rezko: It Comes down to Judgment
• Didn’t Obama Watch The Firm
• Steve Clemons on Tonight’s Debate
• Patrick Fitzgerald Ties Obama to Rezko Indictments
• All in for Hillary
• Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies

RezkoWatch contains even more information on Obama’s deep and problematic ties to convicted slumlord and notorious political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko.

Also listen to our NQR Radio Show entitled “READING REZKO with Truthteller and SusanUnPC”

The Obama campaign has had a deliberate strategy of calling the Clinton campaign racist and the media has allowed itself to be led along. Obama himself confessed to this strategy in the Nevada debate when shown a copy of a campaign memo directing campaign workers to use race-bating to defame Hillary Clinton.

January 27, 2008:

Please, just fuck off. Bill Clinton made exactly the right point and Obama’s defenders are playing into the worst of the Right-wing racist tropes, that there is something tainted about successful black candidates who get majority black support.

January 28, 2008:

I’ve spent a good amount of time here on this blog defending HRC against bogus claims of racism, and I’ve smacked The Golden One around for engaging in his own race-baiting, trying to milk liberal white guilt for all it is worth.

There is no person, no campaign, no victory that can justify deliberate use of racial divisions. Leave it to the Republicans to immolate themselves on the pyre of racism come November.

February 2, 2008:

Then begins the long slog towards South Carolina, with the media, the blogosphere and Obama’s campaign screaming at every turn that the Clintons are racists.

March 31, 2008:

My point here is not to promote the Clintons (though I think they deserve it), but to emphasize the way in which they are demonized by their own party. They become the embodiment of the old South, the unrepentant, segregationist South, just as northern blue collar voters who challenge the party orthodoxy are labeled Archie Bunkers.

April 5, 2008:

Here is the challenge to the Democrats – how to cease treating working class whites the eternal “Other” of the party, the roadblock to fulfilling the promise of the nation, and seriously address the ways in which the party will help all Americans live their lives with dignity.

April 28, 2008:

I have seen it put cynically (hell, I have put it cynically myself) that Obama was just promising the (mostly white) comfortable class of the party that he wouldn’t insist on looking at those nasty claims of justice if they would just elect a black dude and redeem their souls.

May 2, 2008

The assault on the Clintons has no basis in policy or political philosophy. It is an attack on uppity white trash who dares to succeed in the world without assimilating into the ruling elite, and for the added insult of being adored by the nation precisely for their common connections.

May 4, 2008:

Hannah Arendt, my favorite political theorist, has been excoriated as a racist for pointing out that integration and post-racial sociality is not such a big deal when the person being integrated is already part of your socio-economic class, remains a numerical minority within your enclave, and is no threat to your social standing or economic power.

May 6, 2008:

Obama’s campaign is certainly doing pernicious race-baiting, but mostly to initimidate critics and shame wavering white voters.

May 8, 2008:

What I’m seeing is an amplified, exaggerated perversion of the lessons, biases and attitudes I encountered in my very liberal college education, things that resonate with me in strange ways, playing on the way I learned to see the world as divided into evil whites, good whites and the oppressed Others we good whites had to free from the evil whites.

May 18, 2008:

I don’t see the Hillary campaign saying a bad word about the voters, even those who vote for her opponents. I don’t see the campaign explaining away their losses because of some flaw or failing in the voters.

May 21, 2008:

Failure to create the conditions under which vast majority of the party will have no doubts that he will serve the interests of the party and be protective of those who dissent from him will leave not just Obama but the party itself in dire straits in the months to come. Riverdaughter has a brilliant post up on The Confluence. You need to go read it all beause it is good in every regard

May 23, 2008:

I’m reading the reports on the mendacious attacks the Bogger Boyz are making on Hillary by completely perverting her comments about RFK.

Rather than weigh in on the current idiocy (which is being handled very nicely by Riverdaughter & Co. over on the Confluence. If you have not read that blog, stop, go there, read and bookmark. I’ll be here when you’re done.)

May 31, 2008:

1. I am not saying in any way shape or form that Larry Johnson is lying about the existence of some video of Michelle Obama. Please. Larry would not do that. A video of some kind exists.

2. If you read his posts closely, Larry does not claim to have seen the video in question himself. I may have missed a post where he did state this, but in the posts I have read, he does not. He was very clear that he has spoken to at least two people who do not know each other, who he trusts completely, and who have attested to the existence of a video.

September 24, 2008:

When Democratic women say “The Obama camp has run a sexist, mysogynistic campaign,” we are told we’re wrong, no such thing, there was not any sexism there, except maybe some from Tweety. When Democratic women say, “No, it’s not his race, it’s his lack of commitment to the programs that matter to us,” we are told that, no, we’re all just racist bitches, and that it’s our fault if he doesn’t win.

September 16, 2008:

The ultimate shadow of Reagan is that you don’t win by defending losers, only by securing the interests of the winners. That is the dark heart beating in the chest of the Unity Democrats. They are done with the losers.

May 2, 2008:

It is the deep guilt of the liberal upper class that we know, every last miserable one of us, that our privilege is due to centuries of white supremacy and to the informal, unspoken, but pervasive advantage our skin color and behavioral patterns gives us in this society. It is our Moby Dick, the whale we pursue obsessively through political seas, frantic to have material proof that we are innocent of the crimes of our nation.

started running the “stages of grief” trope on Hillary supporters way back in February—you know, from anger, through denial, bargaining, depression, to acceptance. It’s an easy riff to run, even for bad writers, so it’s been all over the Obama blogs

Of course this “stages of grief” narrative oozed with sexism and condescension. The subtext implied that Hillary’s female supporters, emotional at the loss, had to be given post-partum recovery time, but then they would come around and, for those hold-outs, a few reminders about Roe v. Wade would get them in line. That was the strategy throughout the summer.

McCain’s selection of Palin as vice president, exquisitely timed to halt Obama’s bounce, has dominated the news for more than two weeks. It has also radically re-shaped the race. By most reports, Obama is slightly behind McCain in national polls and, more importantly, McCain has taken the lead in the electoral college.

The panic from the Obamabots in palpable.

Let me suggest that there are 3 levels of panic.

1. Wunderwaffen.

During World War Two, Hitler forced his beleaguered arms manufacturers to produce “miracle weapons,” strange armaments which he believed would turn the war in Germany’s favor.

Like armchair generals in a losing battle, losing political campaigns have supporters who desire the Wunderwaffen, a magical weapon which can sink the other side or a proven winner who can take the reins of the campaign and guide it to victory. In 2004, while Kerry was being hammered by Bush, many pleaded for James Carville to take over Kerry’s war room and provide the message discipline from 1992. From the Democratic Underground, August 27, 2004:

I have been saying this for over a month now…I wrote Mr Carville the following email:

Mr. Carville, please save the Kerry campaign!
He is throwing out sound bites that are perfect ammo for Rove and his evil crew. You can train this man.You can save this campaign and this country. We need you Mr. Carville.

In 2008, as victory becomes increasingly uncertain, Obama supporters are banking on voter registration and the belief that cell phone users are not accounted for in national polls. The same theories were trotted out in 2004 but the polls then fairly predicted the actual vote. However, there are even stranger ideas floating around Obama-land. At TalkLeft, there’s an armchair general named mmc9431 who believes that Obama should announce part of his cabinet now and turn them into roving ambassadors for the campaign:

Obama needs to come out with something very bold on his own if he’s going to have any chance of regaining the advantage.
Maybe he should announce ahead of time, 3 of his cabinet choices that would motivate his base. Sec of State, Attorney General and Sec of Treasury. These 3 could then go out and campaign of their platform. We’d have three people out there constantly pounding on issues rather than personalities.

Likewise, over at Daily Kos, Ursa Majority’s Wunderwaffen is one good television ad that will convince all the “low information” rubes to vote for Obama:

Yes, you heard it right. We need a killer ad (radio and TV) to get back onto message while shrinking McCain. And, with middle and low information swing voters, you’ve got to try to tie it all together in one digestible message. So, let’s get back to our effective messages of the post “Obama as Britney” era (i.e., McCain isn’t taking the issues seriously) and use McCain’s words and actions against him.

2. Denial

Obama supporters are now somewhere between searching for the magic bullet and denying that anything is wrong. The Kerry campaign is also rich with similar examples at a similar time in the campaign.

On September 17, 2004, almost exactly four years ago, Cartooner, at Democratic Underground, predicted that John Kerry would win in a landslide:

Call it an epiphany; call it crazy, and it’s just a hunch; but hey, A HUNCH made Quasi Modo famous…

~snip~

The economy, health care, jobs, LIES,

the messages are FINALLY STARTING TO RESONATE …

Ok… Maybe I’m an optimist; but I think Kerry will win on a
LANDSLIDE …

This campaign is also filled with delusion. A poster on Craig’s List gives Obama odds I’d like to take to Las Vegas:

Date: 2008-09-12, 12:32AM EDT
Location: new haven

He’s definitely going to win. No question.

What chances would you give him? I’d give him 100%.

3. Acceptance

The last stage is filled with sadness and recriminations.

Lentinel writes:

my heart sinks.
I lay some of the blame at Obama’s door.
As soon as he was assured of the nomination he turned South, figuratively speaking.
He voted for FISA.
He disowned public financing.
He went on preaching to evangelicals.
He waffled on his commitment to withdraw troops from Iraq.
He waffled on his commitment to the right of women to an abortion.
And, of course, he went on to treat Hillary Clinton and her supporters like dirt.

And Daily Kos’ DaveinSiliconValley has a diary titled: “Why (Sadly) Obama Will Probably Lose”

A few days ago I had a conversation with a mid-fifties nonreligious, pro-choice, Caucasian, suburban mother who thinks the Iraq war was a terrible mistake, that Bush was a terrible president, and is concerned that McCain may get us into another war, but she is “seriously thinking” about voting for McCain. I will give you a clue. She is absolutely going to vote for McCain.

I asked, given the way she feels on the issues, why isn’t she voting for Obama? She said “I don’t know.” I pressed her. She said, “I don’t trust him.” I asked why and she said “I don’t know.”

Obama can hit this lady with a thousand commercials explaining his stand on the issues and why his plans for the country are better than McCain’s plans and it will have no effect whatsoever on her vote. Zero. She is issue-proof.

What’s going on? Is it just subliminal racism? It’s not that simple.

After the 2004 election, Democrats became obsessed with psychoanalyzing the electorate. I engaged in some of this myself. Searching for answers, we read What’s the Matter with Kansas? but failed to find the answer. Believing, like DaveinSiliconvalley, that Republicans controlled the electorate with subliminal powers, we read George Lakoff’s Don’t think of an Elephant, but we found that framing issues is only one small part of winning elections. Framing can come across as patronizing, e.g., you’re pushing your agenda on the electorate instead of listening to their needs.

In 2006, as I began thinking about the next presidential cycle, I finally got around to reading Hillary’s Living History and President Clinton’s My Life. The Clintons, both policy wonks, believe that winning campaigns put forward good policies which appeal to the electorate’s aspirations. The voters do not need to be cajoled or hypnotized into voting for a candidate. The voters decide the issues and the politicians offer solutions.

The Clintons taught Democrats how to win elections. Remember, Bill Clinton was the first Democrat elected to a second term since 1936. Also, let’s not forget the magnitude of Hillary’s victories; she won Florida, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky; she won West Virginia by 40%. A few caucus states and Obama’s delegate stealing in Michigan made the difference. Let’s not pretend that Obama was the people’s choice. The primary campaign was not a decisive win by either candidate, and millions of Hillary supporters will never forgive the way she was treated by those within the Party, to say nothing of the media.

The Clintons win by offering proposals to make people’s lives better. On the campaign trail, they talk incessantly about helping working people, and they both have an unwavering commitment to the nation’s defense. The Clintons reject flowery rhetoric and use a clear communication strategy. Their strategy is effective; they know how to build winning coalitions. I have no doubt that Hillary would now be locking down battleground states on her march to the White House.

Hillary won the popular vote and nearly all the important states. She was positioned to win the General Election. Hillary, like President Clinton, built a coalition based on economic opportunity and national renewal. Obama took the nomination because he controlled much of the Party’s infrastructure: his supporters controlled the hierarchy of the Democratic Party, specifically the Rules and Bylaws Committee, and he was funded and fueled by the activist base, by groups like MoveOn.org, and he was supported by the netroots and the media.

Now that the General Election is in peril, these groups, who failed to provide the base of the Party with any reason to vote for Obama other than habit, scramble to connect with the very voters they demonized during the primary as “low information” and hopelessly bitter. No one television ad or high paid adviser can turn the tide. Let them panic.

I think that we’re shifting the political paradigm here. And if I’m the nominee, I think I can bring a lot of folks along on my coattails. You know, there’s a reason why in 2006, I made the most appearances for members of Congress. I was the most requested surrogate to come in and campaign for people in districts that were swing districts, Republican districts where they wouldn’t have any other Democrat.

A narrative was developed in the blogosphere that Obama, unlike Hillary, would be able to touch the hearts of red state conservatives and turn them into Democrats. Hillary was too polarizing, it was argued, and she would be fighting for Kerry’s states plus 1.

It was mandatory at dailykos to believe that Obama was a map-changer. A diarist from North Dakota named Ab2kgj, in a post which would be funny if it weren’t so painful, suggested that Obama had a real shot at grabbing that state:

I’ll start with ripping a part of McCain’s base right out from under him. I live in North Dakota, and I have a feeling that we will be more of a swing state than people realize. Up here in nowhereland, the reason that Republicans do so well is because of “family values,” and an automatic 15 point bump in the polls. I gotta tell ya though. I see change in the air, because we also can smell phonies a mile away, and John McCain calling us “his friends” doesn’t seem to cut it for the sensible, middle of the roaders up here.

Regardless of what Ab2kgj sees in the air, Obama is not going to win North Dakota, but that fact didn’t stop the Obama campaign from expending millions in red states.

The Obama campaign has always known that they would have a hard time winning both Ohio and Florida, the recent path to the presidency. Campaign manager Plouffe:

said Ohio and Florida start out very competitive — but he stressed that they are not tougher than other swing states and said Obama will play “extremely hard” for both. But he said the strategy is not reliant on one or two states.

Talk of map-changing was utilized by Obama in the primary campaign as a tactic to hide his real weakness with blue-collar voters. Obama and his team have shown disdain for this core group of the Democratic Party, and Obama’s “hope” message fails to offer them a compelling reason to vote for him. Anglachel explains their hostility this way:

In the minds of the liberal elite, the problems and failures of the progressive agenda could be laid at the feet of bigoted whites, the “Archie Bunkers” of the North, and the “Bubbas” of the South. And there lies the strategic fault line of the Democratic Party, the willingness of a significant portion of the party, and I’m willing to wager the majority of the party power brokers, to see the electoral problem as how to minimize the damage of the Bunkers.

Not only has Obama insulted these Democrats who live in the greater Appalachia region with accusations of being bitter and bigoted, some of his supporters inferred that voters’ resistance to Obama was because of racism. But the real problem is that Obama does not appear to offer solutions to their economic problems. Howard Fineman believes that part of Obama’s troubles now stem from the fact that he does not articulate a clear, concise economic message:

It is not enough to be for change – everybody is, or is trying to be. To make it stick, Obama needed, and needs, to put forth an easy-to-grasp grand proposal, one that would encapsulate what his central message. That tagline? That he is dedicated, body and soul, to advancing the economic interests of hard-working, average Americans. He has the makings of such a proposal – his tax cuts for low and middle-income families. But he has yet to package that, or anything else, in an easy-to-grasp, hard-number plan for voters. Instead, he’s got more of a laundry list than an actual rallying cry.

Turning their backs on the rust-belt, Obama’s team, as recently as June, looked to deep-red states:

“You have a lot of ways to get to 270,” Plouffe said. “Our goal is not to be reliant on one state on November 4th.”

Plouffe has been pitching such a new approach to the electoral map in calls and meetings, according to several people who discussed the conversations on the condition of anonymity because they were meant to be private. Plouffe confirmed the descriptions in the interview.

Plouffe and his aides are weighing where to contest, and where chances are too slim to marshal a large effort. A win in Virginia (13 electoral votes) or Georgia (15 votes) could give Obama a shot if he, like Kerry, loses Ohio or Florida.

Although it appears Virginia is still competitive at this point, Georgia is now off the table. A new poll by InsiderAdvantage says that “Obama Implodes in Georgia,” and:

Poll Position survey of likely registered voters in Georgia indicates a steep decline for the Barack Obama campaign and likely explains why the candidate is moving resources out of Georgia and into other states.

Q. If the election were held today, would you vote for:

John McCain: 56%
Barack Obama: 38%
Other: 2%
Undecided: 4%

Obama’s collapse in Georgia has been sudden and dramatic. McCain is in the process of solidifying his base, but the demographics of this collapse do not bode well for Obama, and we should expect smaller but real shifts towards McCain in the more competitive states; that has always been the danger of over-extending your resources into unwinnable states:

InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery: “This is a huge slide from what had been, in our prior surveys, a relatively close race. The reason is simple—Obama lost serious ground in virtually every demographic.

“At first glance it would seem that Obamais headed for no better than the low 40 percentile level achieved by John Kerry in 2004. But let me warn observers that in both our national tracking and surveys in other states, the biggest change has been a near parity between the two candidates among the youngest of voters.

“Should that group return to Obama and the African-American vote end up where we expect it to be, the race could be closer in November. But as of now Georgia is no longer a “leans McCain” state. As of this survey, Georgia is in the McCain column.”

Obama’s shrinking map is not a shock to Hillary supporters, but it’s ironic now that Obama will have to turn to Ohio, Florida, and, particularly, Pennsylvania to attempt to squeak out a victory, places where he performed poorly in the primaries and to the voters he and his campaign have continually insulted.

Asset, Pronunciation (US): /ˈæsɛt/ (noun) 1. any item of economic value owned by an individual or corporation 2. a useful or valuable quality 3. advantage or resource

How bad are things at TalkLeft, Jeralyn Merritt’s once erudite and inclusive blog? In a word, bad. I have to wonder if Jeralyn knows what an asset she has, or better put, had in TalkLeft and that the value of that asset is not her just own posts until recently anyway and certainly not TChris’s posts which resemble Obama campaign talking points and offer little if any analysis but rather the commentary and insight of Armando LLorens who blogs as Big Tent Democrat or BTD for short plus the comments of a once large and diverse TL membership.

What made TalkLeft special was the diversity of opinion plus the civility and order of the conversation given Jeralyn’s well-thought out rules for discussion. Insults were non-existent, threads stay on topic and while BTD and Jeralyn set off the discussion, often the greatest value came from the comments. That’s certainly a big part of TalkLeft’s asset base — its membership.

The recent mental gymnastics of Jeralyn Merritt are indeed a wonder to behold. That she is a Democrat, I do not doubt and she has long been clear that she would support the Democratic ticket even though she was fairly ardent supporter of Senator Clinton. In this assertion, she has been nothing but consistent until Senator Joe Biden’s name started popping up as Senator Obama’s running mate. Jeralyn, a criminal defense attorney and a tireless advocate for reform of the criminal justice system, balked. After all, TalkLeft is a blog about the politics of crime that morphed into more, and she began a campaign against Senator Biden’s selection. She was none too thrilled when he was selected wondering if she could support the ticket.

Her indecision didn’t last long.

Within 24 hours came the first shot across the bow: “Time to Get On Board” in which she essentially stated that:

Voting is a personal matter. Regardless of how I end up voting or not voting, I encourage everyone, particularly Hillary Clinton supporters on this site, to get on board and focus on taking the White House back from eight years of abysmal Republican leadership.

But among the TL community many weren’t ready to “get on board” and many probably never will be and so there was some pushback. And that then led to Jeralyn’s decision to limit if not quell any criticism of the Democratic ticket. Valuable members of the community were no longer welcomed. Their opinion no longer valued. An asset destroyed. It’s her blog, she can destroy it if she wants to.

But the story doesn’t really end there. BTD’s convention coverage remained strong as ever, TChris’ weak as ever and Jeralyn descended into a page six columnist with posts on parties attended, drinks drunk and hors d’oeuvres munched posting pictures of Arianna Huffington of all people. If there’s one person that many in the TL community despise it’s Arianna Huffington. Many blame her for the vitriol that infected the progressive blogosphere with her hatred of all things Clinton.

Then came Sarah Palin’s selection and TalkLeft became simply bizarre. Governor Palin was compared to Thomas Eagleton who was forced to withdraw as McGovern’s running mate in 1972 over his pyschological shock therapy treatment. It was an unfortunate and unfair comparison. Harriet Myers might have been a better one. But the low point came when she decided to run a pool asking commenters to guess when Sarah Palin would be forced to drop out. From criminal attorney to Las Vegas bookie, the career path of Jeralyn Merritt.

That prompted the learned BTD to protest.

Speaking for Jeralyn only (4.97 / 34) (#62)
by Big Tent Democrat on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:12:03 PM EST

I find this post utterly offensive.
Indeed, I disassociate myself from all of Jeralyn’s posting on Sarah
Palin.

To which Jeralyn replies:

I know you disagree (5.00 / 2) (#109)
by Jeralyn on Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 10:24:52 PM EST

Sometimes I disagree with you too. It’s good to have two perspectives.

Two and only two perspectives, I guess. It was offensive. That’s not a just a perspective, it is borne of moral principle. But for BTD the silliness and the draconian atomosphere may have become too much to handle:

A personal note –I am not comfortable with writing about this election right now. I am not comfortable with the behavior of some Democrats and Left blogs regarding Sarah Palin. Of course everyone is entitled to their own views on this and I respect that. But I am entitled to mine as well. I am going to take a break and see how I feel next week.

An asset is a hard thing to build and a terrible thing to waste, much less willfully destroy. I want my BTD, that’s the perspective worth reading on TalkLeft plus those of the commenters. Let’s hope BTD starts his own blog. I don’t always agree with BTD, but I always learn from him. BTD is the principal asset at TalkLeft. If he ventures out, they will flock.

Return to Main

Well, golly gee – at least Mike Barnacle is trying to PRETEND like he didn’t say completely assholic things about Senator Clinton when she was running. But, hey, Mike – there’s this little thing called VIDEO!!! If someone actually DOES go back after the past 20 yrs, Mike, you’ll be in there, too. GeekLove caught what you, and others of your ilk, said in this video, which really, says it all.

I think this is exactly what we can expect with Gov. Palin from the media (no, you don’t have to watch the whole thing again – it is an outstanding video, though, and I think will be mighty prescient for the upcoming campaign season. Especially the first part, though. Now, you can just hear all of these so-called “journalists” saying she should be at home with her babies where a woman belongs, dammit!):

And for even more crapola the “journalists” are about to unload is this little story from Stephen Hayes, “The Media Descend To A New Low“:

Time’s Mark Halperin has posted an advance copy of the cover of US Weekly magazine, the tabloid published by Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner. That cover shows a smiling Sarah Palin, holding her youngest son Trig. The screaming headline: “Babies, Lies and Scandal: John McCain’s Vice President.”

Wenner has contributed $5300 to Obama’s campaign since 2007.

The cover was sent to select news organizations by Mark Neschis, the head of corporate communications for Wenner Media and former director of television in the Clinton White House. An email from Neschis that accompanied the cover read: “Thought I would send over our Us Weekly/Sarah Palin cover story, on stands Friday, if helpful in your coverage. Might be useful as an illustration of how the news is playing out. (Us Weekly has 12 million, mostly female readers)”

“How the news is playing out.” That’s an interesting way of putting it. In one sense, it’s accurate. The mainstream media have been focused on pseudo-scandals about McCain’s running mate. Does it really matter at all that Palin’s husband, Todd, had a DUI in 1986? Who cares? And yet I’ve seen and heard news organizations mention — even discuss — the issue several times over the past couple of days.

The “news is playing out” that way because irresponsible journalists publish cover stories promoting “Babies, Lies and Scandal,” without any evidence of an actual “scandal.” Maybe US Weekly will publish news of an actual “scandal” by Friday, when the magazine is scheduled to hit the newsstands. But the three it mentions on its cover are not scandals. (”Under attack, admits daughter, 17, is pregnant” and “Investigated for firing of sister’s ex-husband” and “Mom of Five: New embarrassing surprises.”)

There are legitimate questions about how Palin was vetted. But many news organizations are using the vetting issue as an excuse to make insinuations about Palin’s family and her role as a mother. Instead of asking whether McCain knew that Palin wanted “an exit plan” from Iraq in December of 2006, for example, reporters are obsessing about Bristol Palin’s fiancé and whether Sarah Palin can serve as vice president and be a good mother.

It’s ironic, of course, that the same establishment news organizations consumed by such tabloid issues not long ago refused to investigate reports that John Edwards was having an affair and had a child out of wedlock. Why? The story was originally broken by the National Enquirer and deemed too tawdry to touch. And, perhaps as important, Edwards was running for the Democratic nomination for president, with an agenda favored by the liberal media establishment. (RRRA here – I do not believe the media is “liberal,” given their kid glove treatment of Bush since 2000. I do think they have shown tremendous bias FOR Obama, though.)

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Holy cow. What in the hell is the MATTER with these people?

But as low as the media has sunk, it is NOTHING compared to this article by Erick Erickson that came out last night: “Democrats Release Sarah Palin’s Social Security Number.” I kid you not. Here it is, along with an update:

The Politico has received an opposition research file from the Alaska Democrats. You can read it in PDF here (the page has moved, and is not available right now).

In the file, the Democrats have released Sarah Palin’s social security number minus the last four digits. Also tied to the information are her various home addresses.

Back in 2005, Democrats used Michael Steele’s social security number to get his credit record.

It is atrocious that the Democrats would not only seek out Sarah Palin’s social security number, but release it in opposition research to the press.

We need to know who did this. We also need to know what happened. We also need to know if it was used to bolster the Democrats’ opposition research.

When it happened to Michael Steele, it turns out the Democrats knew about it and did nothing.

They cannot not take action now.

UPDATE:

The Alaska Democratic Party says it did not release the information. From Ben Smith, at the Politico, I got this:

Our story doesn’t say that “Alaska Democrats” gave us that document. It was a document prepared for Tony Knowles two years ago. We haven’t revealed our source.

You should also note that it’s a partially REDACTED social security number. That seems relevant. If less sensational. It’s missing four digits.

Here is the key take away: Yes, the SSN is redacted and people can pay for themselves.

Now, here are additional points:

If the AK-Dems didn’t do this, who did? Obama? The DNC? Who? They’re releasing the whole thing now and letting the media make hay of it.

Why didn’t the SSN get fully redacted?

It’s ironic the party that thinks only Republicans invade privacy, invaded the privacy of Sarah Palin enough to learn her social security number and distribute it to the media.

HOLY SHIT. Could this POSSIBLY be Democrats doing this kind of thing?? Am I really that naive that this has been their MO all this time and I just did not see it? Is this the New Party of which Donna Brazile spoke, one that emulates Chicago Politics on a National Scale?? Like I said before, I am not an apologist for Sarah Palin, and I have voted the Democratic straight-ticket every single time I have voted, and that has been every single time there was an election, but this – this is so wrong on so may levels I am ALMOST speechless about it. Almost. For those who say it isn’t that big of a deal, it would be EASY to get her full social security number – EASY. It wouldn’t even TAKE that long, either. These thugs, these miscreants who would put out this information are the lowest form of pondscum. They need their comeuppance and NOW. The DNC and Obama must speak out on this.

I’m not holding my breath, though. This is now the Democratic Party that steals votes from one candidate to give to another in broad daylight, so why should I think they would feel an OUNCE of shock about this? All it does is show how completely terrified they are of Sarah Palin; how incredibly sexist they are; how much they devalue women (you should SEE all of the stories out about her – many of them focus on how she should take care of her family instead of doing what she’s doing. Funny, I don’t remember these people saying the same thing to Mitt Romney with his huge brood or ANY other MALE candidate, including OBAMA, who has children. Nope – only the women get this kind of detestable punditry.); and how thuggish they have become from top to bottom. It is disturbing beyond belief.

By the way, Senators Clinton, Murray, Cantwell, Boxer, et. al, Rep. Pelosi, et. al, and Governor Gregoire – you need to speak out against this rampant sexism directed at Sarah Palin, and you need to do it NOW. The DNC and the media are taking women back 40 years with these blatant attacks on women. The DNC used to be the party for women. Now, it has become the Party that attacks women – for being women. I never thought I would see this kind of treatment at this point in my life, but unfortunately, I was sadly mistaken. All I can say is I have to hope that when Obama loses this November, there will be a full-fledged housecleaning of the DNC and some of the Congressional Democrats who were the worst offenders this season.

In the meantime, whoever exposed Governor Palin’s SSN, whether it be anyone affiliated with the Demcorats or not, has sunk to a low I never thought possible. The media has sunk to a new low in terms of women. The DNC is going right along with it. And they need to stop. Now. NOW.

What happens when human decency ceases to exist in our country? I’m sure you’re wondering if I’m going to go off into some kind of religious tangent, but I’m not. This has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with being…human.

This is how this post came about. While trying to catch up on all that I missed while out of town, I began perusing some of my favorite haunts. I missed most of the political news while I was gone, the entire Democratic National Convention, and only heard small bits of information about McCain’s pick for VP while I was driving home from Georgia. So, I thought the best place to get “real” news was on the blogosphere from fellow Democrats.

Much to my dismay, I found many of the blogs writing about Sarah Palin, McCain’s pick for Vice President.

I must admit, I didn’t know all that much about her when her name was announced. Personally, I really didn’t care who McCain picked as long as it wasn’t Rudy Guiliani. Anyway, what I saw being spread around the progressive blogosphere just made my head spin. The rumor mill is grinding and it’s making a very ugly sound.

RUMOR: Sarah Palin’s youngest child, Trig, is not her baby but her daughter’s baby.

Watching this rumor grow since this morning with blogs adding “Updates” as the day went on made me wonder what has happened to this world…no, to be more specific, it made me wonder what has happened to the Democratic party. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a good fight as long as it is on policy. I love a good policy fight, the more details the better.

Below is a video that I saw on Dusty’s blog, It’s My Right to Be Left of Center. I love seeing Dusty around the blogosphere, she’s straightforward and doesn’t pull any punches, my kinda blogger.

At first I wasn’t going to watch the video, I knew it would be just a repeat of everything I’ve been reading all day, but decided that I can’t ignore it and be expected to make an informed comment. So I did my homework, and was glad I did. I have no idea who the guy was that made that video but he gave the impression that he was on some kind of secret mission…blackclothes, dark room, and the all important black stocking hat.

There were so many holes in his “reporting” that it was laughable. For instance, stocking hat guy made a big deal about Palin’s daughter taking five months off of school because she had Mononucleosis. He claimed that he had a “severe” case of Mono once and he only missed ten days of school. Really? It sounds to me like he didn’t have such a severe case of anything but the flu. I’m sure he didn’t go to any trouble to find out exactly why she missed school or check any sources, he just left it hanging there so anyone can “just use their imagination”.

Black stocking hat guy also stated that no one in her office knew she was pregnant….not one. I’m not sure how many people were asked this and by who, but let’s assume that he actually did his job as a rumor mongor journalist and asked those who worked with her, and sure enough they ALL said that none of them knew. How does that explain this, an article that I saw on No Quarter that wasn’t even addressing this issue but is important to this post? Read below and check out the link:

Elizabeth Eubanks (she is featured in the picture with Governor Palin and Piper) of Polar Teachers & Researchers Exploring $ Collaborating (Polar TREC) was waiting to return home when she had a chance meeting with none other than Governor Sarah Palin and her daughter, Piper. Elizabeth had much to say about Palin.

Of course I had to check out the “Hottest Governor in the US” and quickly turned to see her pregnant (she has since had her baby) with bags and daughter in tote. Then it struck me as odd. Why is the Governor of Alaska in the airport and preparing to get onto my commercial flight?

I questioned PolarTRECer Craig Kasemodel an Alaskan resident. He let me know that Governor Palin sold the corporate jet after securing her official Governor position.

Governor Pallin said she would sell the jet because it was impractical and that the Alaska state inventory would be relieved of this debt. The jet was sold on EBay to Larry Reynolds for 2.1 million dollars.

On another blog that I read today, the so-called “evidence” that Governor Palin was never pregnant and that her baby belongs to her daughter is so crazy that I can’t believe it is being taken seriously. Exhibit A: a picture of Sarah Palin with her husband and other children are on stage for the announcement of Sarah Palin as VP pick. Newborn baby Trig and older daughter Bristol are missing. Yup, that’s it, that’s the “evidence”.

Now, I don’t know how many of you out there have more than one child, but I have four and they are each 5 to 6 years apart from each other. That means that when my last child was born (a son) he had three older sisters, one in high school…she was about 16 years old when he was born. There were times that I chose not to bring my baby son to an event or a gathering and my daughter happily volunteered to stay home with him. There were times when he wasn’t feeling well and again, she would offer to stay with him so I could go to an appointment. No conspiracy…just a family doing what families do…helping each other out. There was never a question from anyone as to who the mother of my child was.

But this is the most important point I’m trying to make. Putting aside the rumor mill that is swirling around Governor Palin, I had tried to point out to the bloggers who had these stories posted that there are so many other ways to vet Palin other than trying to spread rumors about her family members…especially a small baby with Downs Syndrome and a teen aged daughter. Needless to say, that angered a few of my blogger friends and a few people I don’t even know. One comment made by Karen Zippdrive (I’ve never run into her before today) was particularly disgusting.

Down Syndrome, my ass.
I prefer the more accurate term, “drunken teenage mother fetal alcohol syndrome.”

Yeah, I said it.

Like I said, when human decency disappears, what’s left? Karen Zippdrive didn’t appreciate my calling her remark asinine, and I still hold to what I said, it was asinine. Karen Zippdrive calls herself a journalist in her profile…no self respecting journalist, hell….no self respecting human being would make a statement like that.

Other such so-called evidence that was presented by a person commenting on this story, “Ever sine (sic) I read your post this morning about the baby, I have been reading about it. It seems very “fishy”. I saw a clip of the family on a campain(sic) stop, and Bristol was carrying the baby. she bent down and gave the baby a very “motherly” kiss.”

Now, please tell me what a “motherly” kiss is? I didn’t know there was a difference and dammit, what will my neighbors think if I give my grandkids a “motherly” kiss! Will they start spreading rumors that I am really their mother and not their grandmother? Does ANYONE see the insanity in remarks like this? And this is coming from Democrats…Progressive Democrats??

Another comment, “Check out the Internets, all aflurry over the fact that Trig is not her son but her GRANDSON. She never carried the baby apparently…but her daughter missed 5 to 8 months of school recently, with “mono.”
Heh”

Now it’s up to 8 months that she was out of school? The longer this story is out there, the more the story is embellished, which is what happens with rumors.

While discussing this on Dusty’s blog, I tried to point out that these kind of tactics, spreading unfounded rumors about a child who has Downs Syndrome and a teen aged girl goes against all common decency. Her reply (and I give her credit for her honesty) was,

“Common Decency is lost during a Presidential Election m’dear, If the Rethugs weren’t so high and mighty about their cough…family values…this wouldn’t be an issue most likely.

As I have said before, we must play the game as they do…its the only way to do it. “

So, is that what our Democratic party has become…the party of no common decency? Since when did Progressive bloggers turn into a bunch of tabloid journalists? I thought we were the ones who were going to report nothing but the truth? We certainly were great at slamming the “Rethugs” for their dirty tactics and swiftboating, and now this is what the new Progressive wing of the Democratic party wants to become?

As a lifelong Democrat who has voted a straight Democratic ticket for more years than I want to admit, this is very disturbing to me. I may not be voting for the Democrat nominee this year, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to our party. I thought that Obama’s supporters have been clamoring for “Change” from the old status quo…the old Washington politics? Obama said, “ We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Is this the change that you seek? The opportunity to destroy the reputation of a teen aged girl? To spread rumors about her with abandon all because Sarah Palin is too much of a threat to Obama winning the Presidency? Is it worth doing that to an innocent family member of a Vice Presidential candidate?

Human decency….”Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage . . . to listen to his own goodness.” (Pablo Casals)

I may piss off a lot of bloggers out there for my take on this story, but I have to be true to myself and my blog because I will not compromise my ethics to please others. I’m not being sanctimonious, something I was accused of earlier today by Karen Zippdrive. I’m trying my best to be a decent human being who cares for all kids, even if their mother happens to be the Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican party. I might also say that I would be equally appalled if anyone went after Obama’s children in such a vicious manner.

Unless there is positive proof that this story is true, going after Sarah Palin via her teen aged daughter and infant son is taking the low road, and I’m sorry if anyone is insulted by that remark. It may cost me some blogger friends, but you know what? That’s ok… because friends don’t let friends lose their humanity.

Welcome back, Divine Democrat!

Their behavior during the campaign was so far from being progressive that I’ve concluded that they’re not actually progressives — at least not of the New Deal, progressive government heritage. Indeed, Markos proclaims himself a libertarian Democrat, meaning he’s well-off and politically correct.

Regarding the Silence of the Bloggers while the media performed a misogynistic bloodletting on Hillary, Big Tent Democrat writes:

[Digby] KNOWS why [media bias] was not covered by most of the Left bogs until the ABC debate – for the same reason the Media’s bias, sexism and misogyny was not covered by the blogs – because they loved it when it was against Hillary Clinton. The Left blogs failed in the primaries and it is time they owned up to it and why – when it was smears, sexism and silliness against Clinton, all was well. Look at Keith Olbermann for crissakes. Their complaints about McCain favoritism in the Media, to the extent it exists, now rings hollow. Their credibility had been shot long ago.

Now Digby is endorsing attacks on McCain. Does she want to go after his tax policies? How about Iraq? Is it his abortion stance? No, it’s not about policy. Here’s the plan she endorses:

Why not concentrate on character critiques that have some real grounding in reality? Just to give a few examples:

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McCain is old and gets confused occasionally.
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McCain is running an ugly, smear-based campaign.
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McCain has a legendarily short fuse.
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McCain is annoyingly self-righteous.
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McCain’s straight talk has evaporated in the face of his need to win evangelical votes.

How to go after McCain and promote a progressive agenda? Ageism. He’s running a “smear-based campaign” (read: he’s racist). Nice coming from a group that allowed (and participated in) Obama’s race-baiting of the Clintons. And please don’t call McCain “annoyingly self-righteous,” while Obama lectures Americans to learn Spanish — a language he does not speak.

The “progressive” bloggers’ desire for power — not a progressive agenda — has turned them into modern day Bolsheviks. There is nothing progressive about race-baiting, sexism, and ageism. The sooner Obama is defeated and these cranks fade away, the better.

PUMAs need to start formulating a vision for a post-Obama Democratic Party, one which I hope is focused on providing opportunities for all Americans regardless of race, sex, or age.