FDL Book Salon: Jon Chait and “The Big
Con”

post from Firedoglake on 09 December 2007 05:00:00 PM. © Firedoglake

Jonathan Chait's book has the title "The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics." But it's about more than that. Indeed, some of the best parts of the book have nothing to do with economics.[...]

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Deep Thought of the Day

post from Eschaton on 09 December 2007 04:58:00 PM. © Eschaton

I'm wondering where the not "thinking clearly" exception to law, constitution, and international treaty exists.

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Matthews and guests lauded Romney's "Faith in
America" speech, ignored attack on "secularism"

post from Media Matters for America on 09 December 2007 04:55:10 PM. © Media Matters for America

On the December 9 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker claimed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's (R) December 6 "Faith in America" speech will help Romney's presidential campaign in New Hampshire because "New Englanders tend to respond to religion more in terms of liberty and tolerance than in terms of emotional responses." Host Chris Matthews called it "a great speech" and "the best speech of the campaign so far." However,[...]

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Over the Horizon

post from The American Street on 09 December 2007 04:49:00 PM. © The American Street

A flood of stressed vets is expectedC.W. NeviusSunday, December 9, 2007Last May, Tim Chapman was[...]

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Meet The Press: Rudy Tries To Explain Why He
Chose Cash Over Iraq Study Group

post from Crooks and Liars on 09 December 2007 04:35:48 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Download (2) | Play (2) Download (1) | Play (3) GOP presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani, appeared on Meet The Press this morning and in a stunning reversal of policy, host Tim Russert actually grilled him, asking him tough questions AND followed up. Rudy looked lost and confused at times as he bumbled, stumbled and backtracked his way [...]

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A Movement-Building Strategy-Part 3: Getting
Organized

post from Open Left - Front Page on 09 December 2007 04:24:58 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

After last weekend, and my experience at the "Moving Forward" conference that I diaried about[...]

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OH-5: Video of Rep. Tim Ryan from Weirauch Rally

post from MyDD on 09 December 2007 04:16:48 PM. © MyDD

From the diaries - ToddRep. Tim Ryan was in Bowling Green helping GOTV on Friday and Saturday, and here is some video I took from an event with the Bowling Green State University College Dems (Rep. Ryan is a BGSU alum). If you can help us by doing some[...]

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Stunning: Iowa Republican Wants Poor Kids to Go
Hungry

post from All Spin Zone on 09 December 2007 04:13:00 PM. © All Spin Zone

Gretchen Kauffman, a Republican from Iowa, was interviewed on NPR?s Morning Edition a week ago. Her remarks were generally unremarkable, until she hit on a very familiar Republican theme regarding po? folk: she makes a pretty good living, but she?s still rather have the children of po? folk go hungry than have her tax dollars subsidize feeding the rugrats at school. Let 'em eat cake, indeed.

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Making Your Holidays Low-Stuff and Low-Stress

In pulling together my tips for a green holiday season, I'm trying to keep in mind something that tempers my usual environmental fervor: Between traveling and shopping, the holidays are a pain to begin with. No one wants to be told they have to bend over backwards to be green on top of everything else.

That's why you'll find disagreement among environmentalists on how far to push people over the holidays. Some seek gradual change, others want a complete redefinition of our consumerist Christmas.

The one thing we all agree on is that you should try to give less stuff. Does anyone out there feel the burning desire for more stuff? Too much room in your closets? Not nearly enough junk lying around?

Here's just one example. Lumping sweaters, sweatshirts, and pullovers together, The Green Miles has 34 sweaters. 34! I could wear a different one every day for a month and still not wear them all. 27 of them were gifts. That collection has built up despite donating at least five perfectly good ones to the needy every year. Yet what can I expect to get 8 more of this year?

My family hasn't done very well at finding a happy medium. My dad and his friends have gone to one extreme, forgoing exchanging gifts altogether. I tried to get my mom's side of the family to not get me stuff but instead give me something I would appreciate and enjoy even more -- cookies. It worked for one year (also known as My Favorite Christmas ever) but the next year my mom chastised me for being so bossy about what my relatives could give me and it's been back to sweaters ever since.

It's with those experiences in mind that I'm a little skeptical when websites like Grist advise you to give carbon offsets as gifts. And when it comes to green gifts like the nice green box from GreenSender.com, I wonder if there's much of an audience for that. If the recipients are greenies, wouldn't they already have a reusable grocery bag? And if they're not greenies, might they feel it's a little unfestive and borderline preachy for you to give them a CFL?

So I'll start my green holiday advice with ...

GIFTS
Think about alternatives to giving stuff -- experiences, like a gift certificate to a local restaurant or theater, or consumables, like organic wine. If you know someone wants stuff, think about how to make the gift greener -- clothing made with organic cotton, or adding rechargeable batteries to that gift of a digital camera. Treehugger offers the best, most comprehensive, easiest-to-read green holiday gift guide.

TRAVEL
If you have options on how to get to your destination, you'll have the lowest carbon footprint if you take the train. The next best options would be to take the bus, ride-share or drive. The worst option for the environment is to fly -- even worse than driving alone. Flying not only burns the most fuel, it delivers the emissions directly to higher levels of the atmosphere where they can do more damage.

TREE
Buy a locally-grown tree, cutting it down yourself if you can. It will make even the most metrosexual man or Carrie Bradshaw clone feel like a lumberjack. WashingtonPost.com offers a list of Virginia tree farms. This year I looked into getting a living tree and re-planting it after Christmas, but from what I've read, it's not only a major hassle, the tree doesn't stand much of a chance of survival after re-planting.

LIGHTS
Buy LED lights. They're about the same price as standard lights and will use 80-90% less electricity, saving you the cost of the lights their first year alone. For outdoor lighting, you can get solar-powered LEDs that don't even need to be plugged in.

WRAPPING
Use and reuse gift bags when you can. Look for wrapping paper make from 100% recycled content. You have my admiration and respect if you're one of those people who can carefully unwrap a present and reuse the paper on another gift, but as long as you make sure the used paper gets recycled, you're safely in the green.

HOLIDAY CARDS
Again, try to buy cards made with 100% recycled paper. As you receive cards, be sure the envelopes go into recycling; after the holidays, recycle the cards.

PARTIES
Go local and/or organic whenever you can. Avoid disposables whenever you can. If you know you won't have enough dishware for all your guests, ask a friend or neighbor if you can borrow some for the night.

HANUKKAH
... is almost over, but next year, you could consider organic Matzah.

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Huck Remains a Homophobic Bigot, Rudy Becomes One

Two statements this morning by Republican Presidential candidates demonstrate how far right the radicals have moved the GOP since 1992:

GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday he won't run from his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain...

"I still believe this today," he said in a broadcast interview, that "we were acting more out of political correctness" in responding to the AIDS crisis. "I don't run from it, I don't recant it," he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee, as a Senate candidate that year, told The Associated Press that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively...

[T]he former Arkansas governor denied those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved...

Huckabee stated his 1992 positions in an AP questionnaire in which he also called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle."

Is this an example of what Huckabee means by "politically correct?"

In the context of an election year, I ask you--here, in this great hall, or listening in the quiet of your home--to recognize that the AIDS virus is not a political creature. It does not care whether you are Democrat or Republican. It does not ask whether you are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old...

We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long. Because HIV asks only one thing of those it attacks: Are you human? And this is the right question: Are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty and they do not deserve meanness. They don't benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what God made: a person. Not evil, deserving of our judgment; not victims, longing for our pity. People. Ready for support and worthy of compassion.

As some of you may remember, that wasn’t something said at a Democratic convention. The speaker was Mary Fisher, the daughter of a prominent Republican donor who had contracted HIV from her ex-husband, and she was speaking to the GOP convention in Houston. Earlier that year, Fisher had contributed to the GOP platform:

We are committed to ensure that our Nation's response to AIDS is shaped by compassion, not fear or ignorance, and will oppose, as a matter of decency and honor, any discrimination against Americans who are its victims.

Mike Huckabee’s ignorance was inexcusable in 1992, when he was out of step with his party’s national platform. In the 15 years since, we’ve learned much about AIDS, and the stigmas and ignorance about HIV and AIDS, while still there, have somewhat faded, especially as a matter of public health and public policy. But Mike Huckabee’s ignorance is just as stunning. Note that he refused to acknowledge that he was wrong in 1992. He simply says that today he would state his view differently.

Mike Huckabee is one of the leading candidates to be rewarded by Republican voters with their nomination to be the next President of the United States.

Due to his Sex on the City scandal, America’s Playa, Rudy Giuliani, is probably done. But he knows that with the radically rightwing GOP, his only chance is to mollify the Republican base. He’s been doing that all along on issues that appeal to the GOP’s authoritarianism. He’s been speaking in code on abortion rights, by saying the would appoint justices like Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. And this morning, he essentially said "F*** you" to gays and lesbians and to anyone who rejects the incursion of religious intolerance in to politics:

Giuliani, who appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," said he did not believe homosexuality was aberrant. What is sinful are "the acts, not the orientation."

That position is essentially the position of the Roman Catholic Church and possibly other religious institutions. It’s not sinful for a man to be sexually attracted to other men, according to this view, it’s only sinful if a man acts on that sexual attraction. This from a guy who when he was kicked out of the house after cheating on his wife shacked up with a gay couple, and who for all his faults, was generally—as you would expect from any mayor of NYC—tolerant of gays and lesbians. But knowing that his only chance to get the nomination is to expand his appeal beyond authoritarianism to social intolerance, he adopted the religious language of sin to condemn gays and lesbians.

I won’t condemn Giuliani’s action with the language of sin. I’ll use the language of commerce: on issues of social tolerance, Rudy Giuliani is a whore.