McCain calls "Gotcha Journalism"

This is disgusting, like daddy standing over the little girl and almost embarrased of what she is saying. It is obviously a case of "Gotcha Journalism".

L'Shanah Tovah!

Wishing you and your family a healthy and sweet New Year!!!

Jack Cafferty say about Palin "That's Pathetic"

John McCain's Health Plan: Go to Walmart

Can you say out of touch?

The updated Great Schlep

So I have been getting a lot of traffic from the Schlep with Marla email from a few weeks back and it looks like the movement has grown. Here is a video from Sarah Silverman (a bit crass, but the point is well taken) talking about why you should participate if you have grandparents or relatives in Florida. Go to the Great Schlep for more details


The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

The surge is a tactic in the fight against terrorism, not a sustainable strategy. Perhaps Sen. McCain does not understand the difference

Does John McCain think he is Ronald Reagan personified?

Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way

Very interesting article in the NY Times from Sept 22:

A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic.
Sound familiar?

It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent.

But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United
States Treasury. And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing.

Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.

That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.

This certainly seems like a reasonable plan to me, but I am no financial expert like John McCain

Rep Marcy Kaptur is my new hero

Lets Play Wall Street Bailout,The Rules are.. Sept 23, 2008


The rules:

1.) Rush the decision

2.) Disarm the public through fear

3.) Control the playing field (hide info from the public, hold private hearings, and private teleconferencing calls)

4.) Divert attention and keep people confused

5.) The goal is to privatize gains and socialize losses

Rep. Kaptur's countergame, "Wall Street Reckoning":

They Want Mamma to Bail them Out: September 17, 2008

Joe Biden On Fire

Good to see some piss and vinegar from the Democrats

McCain has not sponsored a banking bill this Congress

By Bob Cusack - The Hill
Posted: 09/25/08 12:26 PM [ET]

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has not introduced any banking or housing bills in the 110th Congress, while Democratic rival Barack Obama has proposed five.
Both candidates are traveling to Washington on Thursday to meet with President Bush and congressional leaders to build support for a massive rescue plan for the nation’s ailing economy.

Neither Sen. McCain (Ariz.) nor Sen. Obama (Ill.) sits on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which is taking the lead in the upper chamber of molding the bailout plan.
McCain is the lead sponsor of 38 pieces of legislation during the 110th Congress, none of which have been referred to the Banking panel, according to a review of Thomas, a congressional website.
Obama has introduced 130 measures during this Congress. Five of Obama’s standalone bills fall within the Banking Committee's jurisdiction.
Obama’s legislation calls for bolstering housing assistance for veterans, amending the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 to provide shareholders with an advisory vote on executive compensation, halting mortgage transactions that promote fraud, authorizing local and state governments to crack down on companies that invest in Iran's energy sector and authorizing a pilot program to prevent at-risk veterans from becoming homeless.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), Obama’s running mate, has not introduced a standalone bill that has been referred to the Banking Committee.
Obama this summer attracted criticism when he called the Senate Banking Committee "my committee."
The McCain and Obama campaigns did not immediately comment for this article.

Terrorists and Blockbuster

You read about all these Terrorists. Most of them came here legally, but they hang around on these expired visas, some for as long as 10-15 years.

Now, compare that to Blockbuster. You are two days late with a video, and those people are all over you.

Let's put Blockbuster in charge of immigration!

“Almost all of the discussion has been about the Paulson proposal, and how we might tweak it -- not about whether there might be altogether better ways to spend such an enormous sum of cash.”

Could a Quirk in Human Brain Wind Up Costing Taxpayers $700 Billion Dollars?

This quote reminds me of a discussion I had with a local politician during our recent fight with the Board of Education. Question everything. Take nothing at face value. Don’t agree with any assumptions that a politician tells you.

We all are assuming that the government is right to bail out our financial institutions, but is there a better way to spend this money and still help the economy? Very good question

High Holiday Humor

Lets get the Jewish Holiday Season off on the right foot:

Your Urgent Help Needed

Your Urgent Help Needed
by spencer

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with atransfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has hadcrisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billiondollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be mostprofitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be myreplacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you mayknow him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the fundsas quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the namesof our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My familylawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy personwho will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund accountnumbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission forthis transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond withdetailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect thefunds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

John McCain and the Keating 5: Third Term

Is this the kind of Maverick we want in office?

My Top Yankee Stadium Memories

August 5, 1979 - My first game at Yankee Stadium ever. Three days after Thurman Munson dies and their first win, against the eventual World Series American League Champion Baltimore Orioles. We went with the family. Rode the subway from our friends house in Brooklyn. Baked in the right field upper deck. I remember the Yankee home run as Ken Singleton went back and then I lost sight of the ball because of our seats and then remember hearing the roar of the crowd.

August 10, 1995 - Double header versus Cleveland. We arrive late, since I needed to work. When we arrive, I need to go to the men's room, and Mike Stanley clubs either his second or third home run of the first day, and my friends bust my chops about missing an amazing performance since I needed to take a leak. The Yankees lose both ends of the double header.

April 9, 1996 - Opening Day, really frickin cold in the right field upper deck, above the foul pole. DiMaggio throws out the first pitch and cannot run off the field fast enough to get back to the warm dugout. Did not remember who won or lost until I checked it out on baseball-reference. I think I left in the 7th inning, because it was snowing.

May 14, 1996 - Dwight Gooden's no hitter. I was in the mezzanine section along first base, with Mike Falloon and maybe Steve Reynolds from Zisk. It was a pretty sloppy game, with walks, HBP, men on base seemingly every inning. Then in the 6th or 7th we look up and realize that Gooden has a no-hitter. The whole stadium was rocking. Probably the loudest I have ever heard it.

October 7, 1998 - ALCS vs. Cleveland, what I like to call my honeymoon game. My father-in-law got us these tickets as a wedding gift. We had gotten married on October 4, and since Nancy did not have a vacation as a new teacher we went to the Jersey Shore for a few days. We came home via Yankee Stadium. The Yankees lost in 12 innings. Honestly, I dont remember much about this game, other than how electric the crowd was, my only experience with the playoffs in person.

June 14, 2003 - Take my father to Yankee Stadium for Father's Day. The Yankees top the Cardinals in an afternoon matinee. Andy Pettitte defeats Matt Morris

June 13, 2004 - The 2nd time I take my father to the Stadium. The Yankees shell Trevor Hoffman in the 9th with 2 homers to ties the score then go on to beat the Padres in 12 innings.

July 22, 2004 - Jacob's first Yankee game. It is killing me that he has decided to be a Mets Fan

May 22, 2008 - The last time I enter the old Cathedral. Sat with a few Baltimore Oriole fans and watched the Yankees beat Baltimore 2-1.

True Whoppers

By Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
Wednesday, September 17, 2008; A19

Economists are not generally known for their lyrical phrasing. But the other day, one told me something about the election that has stuck with me: He cautioned against succumbing to the "symmetry of sin."

This unexpected snippet of political poetry, from a Democrat advising Barack Obama, was prompted by my expressed desire to hold both campaigns accountable for their lapses from good policy and honest argument. At which point my eloquent economist invoked the lure of false symmetry.

He was peddling a self-interested, but important, point: All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency.

In the 2008 race, and especially in the past few weeks, the imbalance has become unnervingly stark. Ideological differences aside, John McCain's campaign has been more dishonest, more unfair, more -- to use a word that resonates with McCain -- dishonorable than Barack Obama's.

Both candidates are guilty of playing trivial pursuit in a serious season, campaigning from gotcha to gotcha. Obama also has eagerly taken every cheap shot -- McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, doesn't get the economy, can't count his own houses. Neither candidate is running the honest, confront-the-hard-questions campaign he promised.

McCain's transgressions, though, are of a different magnitude. His whoppers are bigger; there are more of them. He -- the easy out would be to say "his campaign" -- has been misleading, and at times has outright lied, about his opponent. He has misrepresented -- that's the charitable verb -- his vice presidential nominee's record. Called on these fouls, he has denied and repeated them.

The most outrageous of McCain's distortions involve Obama on taxes. He asserts that Obama's new taxes could "break your family budget," and that an Obama presidency would inflict "painful tax increases on working American families." Hardly. Obama would lower taxes for most households, and lower them more than McCain would. The only "painful tax increases on working American families" would be on working families making more than $250,000.

Likewise, the McCain campaign has its story about Sarah Palin, and it's sticking with it -- facts be damned. She said "thanks but no thanks" to that "Bridge to Nowhere," except that she didn't: She backed the bridge until it was unpopular, then scooped up the money and used it for other projects. More than a year after McCain began railing against the bridge, Palin, then a gubernatorial candidate, said the state should build it "now -- while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

Palin sold the gubernatorial jet, on eBay and for a profit -- except that she didn't. She didn't take earmarks as governor -- except for the $256 million she sought last year, and the $197 million wish list for 2008.

Every hard-fought campaign is in some sense a struggle between the id of political consultants driving for a victory and the superego of policy types who worry about having to govern with the consequences of campaign rhetoric. Every campaign calls on the candidate to calibrate, at some point, how far he is willing to go in pursuit of the prize.

No candidate has felt this tension so keenly, or written about it as movingly, as McCain. In his memoir "Worth the Fighting For," McCain describes the sickening sensation of renouncing his views about the Confederate flag to curry favor with South Carolina voters in 2000 -- "reading it as if I were making a hostage statement."

He wrote that his "theatrics" were designed to "telegraph reporters that . . . political imperatives required a little evasiveness on my part. I wanted them to think me still an honest man, who simply had to cut a corner a little here and there so that I could go on to be an honest president."

Sitting on the couch with the women of "The View" last week, McCain offered a litany of excuses for his conduct this time around: Obama's ads are hard-hitting, too. The tone wouldn't be so negative if Obama had agreed to more debates. McCain's own lipstick comment was different because he was referring to health care.

You had to wonder: Are there any corners left for McCain? Is there any reason to trust that a man running this campaign would go on to be an honest president?

"Plan for Change" Ad

This seems like the right tone to me

Are woman worth 77 cents on the dollar?

McCain seems to think so. It would seem McCain does not think too highly of woman in the workforce if he does not believe they are worth equal pay. Certainly makes you think...

Fundamentals

Are fundamentals of our economy strong?

The Ugly New McCain

By Richard Cohen

Wednesday, September 17, 2008;

Following his loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain did something extraordinary: He confessed to lying about how he felt about the Confederate battle flag, which he actually abhorred. "I broke my promise to always tell the truth," McCain said. Now he has broken that promise so completely that the John McCain of old is unrecognizable. He has become the sort of politician he once despised.

The precise moment of McCain's abasement came, would you believe, not at some news conference or on one of the Sunday shows but on "The View," the daytime TV show created by Barbara Walters. Last week, one of the co-hosts, Joy Behar, took McCain to task for some of the ads his campaign has been running. One deliberately mischaracterized what Barack Obama had said about putting lipstick on a pig -- an Americanism that McCain himself has used. The other asserted that Obama supported teaching sex education to kindergarteners.

"We know that those two ads are untrue," Behar said. "They are lies."

Freeze. Close in on McCain. This was the moment. He has largely been avoiding the press. The Straight Talk Express is now just a brand, an ad slogan like "Home Cooking" or "We Will Not Be Undersold." Until then, it was possible for McCain to say that he had not really known about the ads, that the formulation "I approve this message" was just boilerplate. But he didn't.
"Actually, they are not lies," he said.

Actually, they are.

McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though.

I am one of the journalists accused over the years of being in the tank for McCain. Guilty. Those doing the accusing usually attributed my feelings to McCain being accessible. This is the journalist-as-puppy school of thought: Give us a treat, and we will leap into a politician's lap.

Not so. What impressed me most about McCain was the effect he had on his audiences, particularly young people. When he talked about service to a cause greater than oneself, he struck a chord. He expressed his message in words, but he packaged it in the McCain story -- that man, beaten to a pulp, who chose honor over freedom. This had nothing to do with access. It had to do with integrity.

McCain has soiled all that. His opportunistic and irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin as his political heir -- the person in whose hands he would leave the country -- is a form of personal treason, a betrayal of all he once stood for. Palin, no matter what her other attributes, is shockingly unprepared to become president. McCain knows that. He means to win, which is all right; he means to win at all costs, which is not.

At a forum last week at Columbia University, McCain said, "But right now we have to restore trust and confidence in government." This was always the promise of John McCain, the single best reason to vote for him. America has been cheated on too many times -- the lies of Vietnam and Watergate and Iraq. So many lies. Who believes that in Afghanistan last month, only five civilians were killed by the American military in an airstrike, instead of the approximately 90 claimed by the Afghan government? Not me. I first gave up on the military during Vietnam and then again when it covered up the death of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former NFL player who was killed in 2004 by friendly fire.

McCain was going to fix all that. He was going to look the American people in the eyes and say, not me. I will not lie to you. I am John McCain, son and grandson of admirals. I tell the truth.
But Joy Behar knew better. And so McCain lied about his lying and maybe thinks that if he wins the election, he can -- as he did in South Carolina -- renounce who he was and what he did and resume his old persona. It won't work. Karl Marx got one thing right -- what he said about history repeating itself. Once is tragedy, a second time is farce. John McCain is both.

cohenr@washpost.com

Why Experience Matters

September 16, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Why Experience Matters
By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite. The feminists declare that she’s not a real woman because she doesn’t hew to their rigid categories. People who’ve never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.

Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to take control.

And there’s a serious argument here. In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.

I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.

And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.

What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.

How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.

Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

McCain: An American Hero's Fall From Grace - Ready to Lie (No Honor)

Sarah Palin is a heartbeat away

Thanks for sendign this along Jordan. This really begins to put the Palin candidacy into a real world perspective. Not just invective and hate, but what the real possibilities are, and what is really at stake here.

Want Schools to Work? Meet the Parents.

From the Washington Post

By Sandra Tsing Loh - Sunday, September 14, 2008; B03

Come January, when the election frenzy is over and it's time to fix (again) our endlessly collapsing U.S. public education system, I can already see who'll be sitting around that West Wing conference table helping you craft your policies (aka, calculate the flow of dollars): the usual passel of political appointees, lifer administrators, think-tank policy wonks bearing white papers funded by the Gates Foundation, rock-and-rolly inner-city charter school innovators and the "social entrepreneurs." No actual public school parents like myself will have the remotest input.

Why? Because . . . haven't you heard? Parents are the third-class citizens of public education.

Never mind Washington. Even in our own hometowns, when it comes to the public school debate -- which is, as it is everywhere, tedious, grinding and forever -- we parents take our place behind the mayors, the unions and our (largely male, largely professional-pundit, largely not actually in the schools every day) op-ed writers. (Though I grant you, re not having to visit schools: It's lovely to not have one's lapidary flights of Milton Friedman free-market fancy clouded by actual contact with children, whose odors and waywardness definitely interfere with the fine crafting of opinion pieces, particularly in the mornings.)

Yea, public school parents' priorities are routinely placed below those of building inspectors, plant managers, even, given an errant bell schedule, cafeteria workers. Although, teachers are down in the bunkers with us, too. You'd be amazed how many extraordinary schoolteachers, who've served faithfully, conscientiously, daily for 40 years, just keep their heads down at this point.

Since most politicians have never dealt with U.S. public schools as customers themselves (in the same way that precious few of them put their own children in the Army), it might shock you, Mr. Future President, how poorly parents are treated out here in Public-School-Landia. You know how when you walk into a Wal-Mart or a McDonald's, someone greets you with, "Hello! May I help you?" It's startling how seldom you can expect this basic courtesy in public schools, how often we parents approaching the counter are treated as felons, or more often simply ignored by the frantically typing office-administrator-type-person. It's a peculiar thing, in this 21st century. Forget best-practice research and technology-driven classrooms. I really believe if anyone in the multibillion-dollar industry called U.S. public education were ever listening to us, improved schools would start, simply, with this: "Hello! May I help you?"

It's not that my own school district doesn't solicit parental input as to how it might serve us better. Just recently, circulating among the e-lists of us few parents who doggedly volunteer, came a memo: "The District's Division of Professional Learning and Leadership has been charged with the development of a plan for Quality Customer Service which will include professional development for all stakeholders." An initial meeting for volunteer parental representatives was set for the next Wednesday afternoon, from 1 to 3:30 p.m. That's relatively short for a weekday Los Angeles Unified School District parent meeting, whose monthly sessions for parents of students who are non-native English speakers are required to be at least three hours long. So there's Quality Customer Service for you! ( Hello! May I help you? Hello! May I help you?)

Where does this culture of committee-oriented time wastage -- even for parents who work -- spring from? Here's a clue. L.A. Unified recently faced such a budget shortfall that the district was actively recruiting potential save-our-schools spokesparents to submit their resumes and come to the central offices for "media training" if selected. Cut to the bone as it is, though, next year's budget still slates a hefty $78.8 million for consultants (last year a consultant was paid $35,000 to teach our superintendent how to use a computer). And yes, I realize that I'm getting off-message by noting that our school district wastes money.. . . That's like waving red meat in front of America's seniors, who'll probably vote to cut taxes again! Even though it's not the bureaucracy, but the children who get squeezed. That's all budget cuts mean, in the end. My kids have their assemblies on cracked asphalt. Now the cracked asphalt will have weeds.
But here's the good news, Mr. Future President. In a testament to the incredible can-do American spirit (and I mean that in the most drop-dead-serious way), activist public school parents are fighting back against U.S. public education's wasteful and unresponsive corporate "professionalism." (Remember George Bernard Shaw's quip about the professions being "conspiracies against the laity"?) City by city, homegrown "parents for public schools"-style Web sites are springing up daily, little rebel force fires on the horizon. From New York to Chicago,

Seattle to San Francisco and beyond, activist parents are starting to blog their outrage over millions of education dollars wasted on non-working computer technology, non-child-centered programs and, of course, those entities whose education dollars are never, ever cut -- the standardized-testing companies.

Even more amazingly, these activist parents are partnering with their administrators, teachers and communities to help improve their struggling public schools. Which parents? Think "soccer moms." But a different kind of soccer mom. In 2008, many of us educated, middle-class, upwardly (or at least laterally) aspiring moms have the Type A personalities and obsessive maternal devotion to be soccer moms . . . but 20 years later, the times are different. What my Gen X sisters and I have inherited from the Boomers is not a better world, but a blasted public education and community landscape.

The sociological strip-mining began 30 years ago, when many of our parents' generation either pulled or bought their kids out of "bad" urban schools with high numbers of minority poor. To be fair, much of the busing back then was done with all the cultural finesse and thoughtful application of a Gang of Four program. We're not saying that we too wouldn't flee society's depleted core if we could. It's just that private schools now start at $20,000 a year and starter homes in "good" school districts cost $1.2 million. Instead of "soccer moms," then, think "soccer apocalypse moms." Picture us hurtling about not in creamy Volvos but in Mad Max/Road Warrior trash cars. Ours are the kids who will only play soccer if we personally hand-stitch the soccer ball, nail up the goalposts and put shovel to field.

Which soccer apocalypse moms -- including healthy numbers of the infamous stay-at-home moms -- are doing at an accelerating pace. Either stuck in -- or moving back into -- the cities, these women are re-gentrifying inner cores denuded after 30 years of neglect, with all the sociological complexity that entails. They're using VH1 "Save the Music" to obtain orchestral instruments. Using the nonprofit KaBoom! to build new playgrounds. They're writing garden grants, starting after-school arts and enrichment programs, forging deals with local real estate agents (at one Los Angeles school, for every parents' group referral, the agent returns $1000 to the school for beautification purposes). They're helming 5K walks down business corridors to fund elementary-school physical education programs. They're starting library foundations, 501(c)3s, "friends of" groups, booster clubs (some that earn almost half a million a year), even re-discovering that legendary old warhorse, the PTA.

We soccer apocalypse moms with "dogs in the fight" have to make do daily with what we have.

As we re-gentrify our conveniently located urban schools, our mission is to maintain a proper balance between affluent and poor children (we have to; displace any poor children and we lose our Title I funding); to give the boot to lousy teachers by any means necessary; to riddle our school board with e-mail bullets if needed (in L.A. recently, a mere 50 e-mails were enough to retain a district-wide honors orchestra program); to be the aggressive, entitled, howling, demanding watchdogs over elaborately funded programs that are clearly a bunch of hooey.

And regarding the test scores of low-income kids. Note that the one proven educational reform rarely discussed is -- here's an idea! -- developing the essay-writing skills of English-learning children by putting them into daily contact with children who are native English speakers. Note that at today's current level of racial segregation in public schools, only one in five immigrant children is likely to have even one native English-speaking friend. There is no new computer technology in the world that will solve that.

In short, these nameless, faceless parents are cheerfully (and have we mentioned it's fun?) doing the hard work of integration that no savvy political candidate wants to touch. Oh, if only on top of those millions in Gates money there would be $300 Gates micro-grants to assign one middle-class mom to each poor school. That would be enough to help each of us get a really fast version of Excel to maintain our spreadsheets for box-top collecting, field trip bus seats, jogathon miles walked and for how many dollars.

So, Mr. Future President, if you bring our PTA moms to the table in January, we really will get the job done. And of course we'll bring our own coffee. We always do.

Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer and radio commentator. Her most recent book is "Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting."

Wondering why the little man feels the need to get up so early on a Sunday morning

Let me Get this Straight.

• If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different."
• Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
• If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
• Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
• Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
• Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
• If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
• If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
• If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
• If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
• If , while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
• If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
• If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
  

OK, much clearer now.

McCain: Liar Who Won't Correct

Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic, does not understand why McCain can continue to lie:

If McCain were a blogger, he would have had to retract by now. But he's running for president of the United States, so he can say anything, lie about anything and not have to answer for it. Yesterday, John McCain lied on national television about something that no one disputes in the public record. He was challenged by the only serious journalists on television right now - the hosts of "The View" - about the large number of pork barrel earmarks Sarah Palin sought and secured as governor of Alaska, including the "Bridge To Nowhere" that Palin and McCain lied about and are still lying about in public. Here was his clear and irrefutable statement:

Palin's comments came after McCain sat for a feisty grilling on ABC's "The View," where he claimed erroneously that his running mate hadn't sought money for such pet projects. "Not as governor she didn't," McCain said, ignoring the record.

It has now been a day since McCain lied this explicitly in public. And he hasn't yet retracted his lie. This AP piece is dated as of this afternoon. Why not?

Because if he has to retract this lie, he will have to retract his multiple other lies? While the media demands that Obama respond to things he never said and never meant, McCain is not even asked to retract a bald-faced, massive, obvious, refutable lie.

In the last month, McCain has become the biggest liar in the modern history of presidential politics. He makes Bill Clinton look like George Washington.

Lipstick On A Wing Nut

From CBS News:

John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani.

Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent their careers slut-shaming teens for having sex - and blaming their parents for letting it happen.

If there were an Olympics for hypocrisy, the Republican Party would have more gold medals than Michael Phelps. And Palin would be wearing quite a few of them. It takes chutzpah for a mother to thrust her pregnant teen into the world's harshest spotlight and then demand the world respect the girl's privacy. But then it takes chutzpah to support criminalizing abortion and then praise Bristol's "decision" to have the baby. The right to decide, and privacy, after all, are two of the things Palin wants to deny every other woman, and every other family, in America. Palin's even said she would "choose life" if her daughter was pregnant from rape. Can't you just hear Bristol groaning, "Mo-om...!"

Count me as a feminist who never believed that being PTA president meant you could be, well, President. The more time we spend on dippy ruminations - How does she do it? Queen Bee on steroids or the hockey mom next door? How hot is Todd, anyway? - the less focus there will be on the kind of queries that should come first with any vice presidential candidate, and certainly would if Palin were a man.

Questions like:

Suppose your 14-year-old daughter Willow is brutally raped in her bedroom by
an intruder. She becomes pregnant and wants an abortion. Could you tell the
parents of America why you think your child and their children should be forced
by law to have their rapists' babies?

You say you don't believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what
scientists you've spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What
do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change are getting wrong?

If you didn't try to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Baker over her
refusal to consider censoring books, why did you try to fire her?

What is the European Union, and how does it function?

Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance. John Goodman, who has
advised McCain on healthcare, has proposed redefining them as covered because,
he says, anyone can get care at an ER. Do you agree with him?

What is the function of the Federal Reserve?

Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because
Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and
what did you talk about?

Approximately how old is the earth? Five thousand years? 10,000? 5 billion?

You are a big fan of President Bush, so why didn't you mention him even once
in your convention speech?

McCain says cutting earmarks and waste will make up for revenues lost by
making the tax cuts permanent. Experts say that won't wash. Balancing the Bush
tax cuts plus new ones proposed by McCain would most likely mean cutting
Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Which would you cut?

You're suing the federal government to have polar bears removed from the
endangered species list, even as Alaska's northern coastal ice is melting and
falling into the sea. Can you explain the science behind your decision?

You've suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline.
How do you know?

This Is How You Stick It To Lying Republican Hacks

Here is a good exchange. First half is kind of dull, but then it really picks up thereafter.

John McCain Explains the Bush Doctrine to Sarah Palin

Remembering Today and The Politics

Honestly, when I was on the train this morning, I decided I was only going to put this one post up today. I wanted to focus on just Reflecting on the Day. I did not think it was appropriate to spend today, of all days, participating in the partisan politics and the election. Today is the day, when we should all come together as Americans.

But then I realized, that too much is at stake this year to sit idly by for even one single day. The Republicans claim they are better at protecting us than their opponents. Are we safer now than we were seven years ago? Does our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly Iran in the future, make us any safer? Are our ports secure? Has Department of Homeland Security funds and grants been allocated to real future terrorist targets, or rather been used as pork for congress to send to their districts with no oversight? Does the fact that the sitting president and vice-president wash away our civil liberties seemingly daily in the name of protecting us, make us any safer? Does keeping enemy combatants locked up in Guatanamo Bay, for 5 1/2 years, change our international perception of defending freedom, habeous corpus and a speedy trial?

Also my inbox was just too full of this juicy Sarah Palin shit to sit and do nothing

John McCain's ads are lies, and here is the proof

McCain Interview On Palin Riddled With Errors

Sarah Palin's Verboten Book List

Updated 9/11 - 9:50 PM From CBS News

Here's what we know about Sarah Palin's interest in banning books. Time reported last week that Palin asked the Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, about the process for banning library books. Baker was reportedly "aghast" at the question. Soon after taking office, Palin, according to a New York Times report, fired Baker, and news reports from the time indicate that Palin thought Baker hadn't done enough to give her "full support" to the mayor.

Palin reversed course on Baker's dismissal after a local outcry, and later said the discussions about banning books were "rhetorical."Yesterday, ABC News' Brian Ross moved the ball forward a bit, with an interesting report.

Ross emphasized an angle I previously hadn't heard much about. Palin was elected mayor thanks in large part to the strong backing of her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, which, right around the time Palin took office, "began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called 'Go Ask Alice,' and another one written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called 'Pastor, I am Gay.'"

Palin became mayor, her church was interested in censorship, and soon after, Palin asked a "rhetorical" question about how books might be excluded from the public library. When the librarian resisted, she was, at least initially, fired.

The line from the McCain campaign has been that Palin never had any interest whatsoever in banning library books.

That seems increasingly difficult to believe.

Updated 9/11 - 3:30 PM

I took it at face value since it came from what I believed was a credible source, so I guess I can no longer do that, Thanks Kristine for calling me out (again):

From USA Today

As discussion about the controversy has spread in recent weeks, non-partisan FactCheck.org reported that a list circulating on the Internet of books allegedly banned in Wasilla was actually a copy of "books banned at one time or another in the United States" from the Florida Institute of Technology library Web page.

Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association and university librarian at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said the organization received 420 challenges to library materials last year but said he believes many more challenges go unreported.

Let's spend a few moments browsing the list of books Mayor Sarah Palin tried to get town librarian Mary Ellen Baker to ban in the lovely, all-American town of Wasilla, Alaska. When Baker refused to remove the books from the shelves, Palin threatened to fire her. The story was reported in Time Magazine and the list comes from the librarian.net website.

I'm sure you'll find your own personal favorites among the classics Palin wanted to protect the good people of Wasilla from, but the ones that jump ed out at me were the four Stephen King novels (way to go Stephen, John Steinbeck only got three titles on the list), that notorious piece of communist pornography "My Friend Flicka," the usual assortment of Harry Potter books, works by Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain (always fun to see those two names together), Arthur Miller, and Aristophanes, as well as "Our Bodies, Ourselves" (insert your own Bristol Palin joke here), and the infamous one-two punch of depravity: "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Little Red Riding Hood." But the cherry on the sundae, the topper, is Sarah Palin's passionate, religious mission to clear the shelves of the Wasilia Public Library of that ultimate evil tome: "Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary." That's the one with "equality," "free speech" and "justice" in it.

Go over to your book case and take down one of the books you'll find on the list (I know you've got a couple) and give it a read in honor of the founding fathers. Then tell me I'm not the only voter who doesn't want this woman within thirty feet of the United States Constitution.

Sarah Palin 's “Book Club”

• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess


• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle


• Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden


• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner


• Blubber by Judy Blume


• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley


• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson


• Canterbury Tales by Chaucer


• Carrie by Stephen King


• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller


• Christine by Stephen King


• Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau


• Cujo by Stephen King


• Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen


• Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite


• Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck


• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller


• Decameron by Boccaccio


• East of Eden by John Steinbeck


• Fallen Angels by Walter Myers


• Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland


• Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes


• Forever by Judy Blume


• Grendel by John Champlin Gardner


• Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam


• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling


• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling


• Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling


• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling


• Have to Go by Robert Munsch


• Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman


• How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell


• Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain


• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou


• Impressions edited by Jack Booth


• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak


• It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein


• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl


• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence


• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman


• Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm


• Lord of the Flies by William Golding


• Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein


• Lysistrata by Aristophanes


• More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz


• My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier


• My House by Nikki Giovanni


• My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara


• Night Chills by Dean Koontz


• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck


• On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer


• One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn


• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey


• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez


• Ordinary People by Judith Guest


• Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective


• Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy


• Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl


• Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz


• Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz


• A Separate Peace by John Knowles


• Silas Marner by George Eliot


• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


• Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs


• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain


• The Bastard by John Jakes


• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger


• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier


• The Color Purple by Alice Walker


• The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth


• The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs


• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck


• The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson


• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood


• The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder


• The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks


• The Living Bible by William C. Bower


• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare


• The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman


• The Pigman by Paul Zindel


• The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders


• The Shining by Stephen King


• The Witches by Roald Dahl


• The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder


• Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume


• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee


• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare


• Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff


• Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

More Palin Links

Sarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush - Arrianna Huffington

Did Sarah Palin wrongfully push to have her ex-brother-in law fired? Was she really against the "Bridge to Nowhere?" Did she really sell Alaska's plane on eBay, or just list it on eBay? Did she actually have any substantial duties commanding the Alaska National Guard?

The correct answer to all these questions is: who cares? Which isn't to say these aren't valid questions, or that Palin and the McCain camp aren't playing it fast, loose, and coy with each of them. The point is that Palin, and the circus she's brought to town, are simply a bountiful collection of small lies deliberately designed to distract the country from one big truth: the havoc that George Bush and the Republican Party have wrought, and that John McCain is committed to continuing.

JH - DAMMIT, she right

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message -Gloria Steinam

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Sarah Palin grants an interview to ABC News

Palin has not granted an interview since she was questioned by People magazine after she was introduced as McCain's surprise choice as running mate. Her interview with Gibson is the only one scheduled so far.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis has said that Palin will do more interviews "when we think it's time and when she feels comfortable doing it," saying that "she's not scared to answer questions."

JH - Why are they not letting her interview? So they can make sure that she stays on message of course

The McCain-Palin Lies and the Neil Armstrong Principle

Paul Begala: The McCain-Palin Lies and the Neil Armstrong Principle:

If John McCain and Sarah Palin were to say the moon was made of green cheese, we can be certain that Barack Obama and Joe Biden would pounce on it, and point out it's actually made of rock. And you just know the headline in the paper the next day would read: "CANDIDATES CLASH ON LUNAR LANDSCAPE."

Why doesn't somebody call Neil Armstrong? He's been there. Or go to the Smithsonian and open the glass case that contains a piece of the moon. The moon is a rock. That's a fact, Jack.

Facts are indeed stubborn things, but the McCain-Palin lies are more stubborn still....

But facts ought not be debatable. The media have an obligation to point out when a politician is lying about a matter of fact, but the right-wing attack machine has so cowed some of them you can almost hear them moo. Steve Schmidt, McCain's top dog, is a brilliant and audacious strategist. His candidate has had the most favorable press coverage of any politician of the last century -- fawning, adoring, sycophantic press coverage. And yet he is brutalizing the press, waterboarding them into pretending that whether Gov. Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere," or hired an Abramoff-connected lobbyist to secure massive earmarks are somehow debatable.

The real debate is over whether the media will be vigilant watchdogs, sounding the alarm when McCain and Palin lie, or fall back to the role they've played for most of McCain's career: lapdog.

Schlep with Marla for Obama

Subject: Schlep with Marla for Obama (Pam, thanks for passing this along)

Dear Family and Friends,

Like many of you, I woke up last May to a New York Times headline that read, "As Obama Heads to Florida, Many of It's Jews Have Doubts." The article reported that it's not all Jews in Florida who have been slow to support Obama - it's the elderly Jews.

The Times article got me thinking about how to change the minds of elderly Floridian Jews - people near and dear to my heart. By the end of the day it had come to me: THEIR GRANDCHILDREN. If there is anyone a Jewish grandparent will listen to it's their (brilliant, gorgeous) grandchild. I wrote up a couple of pages of ideas for a marketing campaign, sent it to everyone I knew, and within a few days I was on the phone with a friend's (Jewish, brilliant, gorgeous, recently engaged) son who has a (big) job at a (big) ad agency in New York City.

My idea is about to become a reality: A campaign is underway to help Senator Barack Obama become president, by educating and changing the minds of Jewish voters in Florida. (I know that I don't have to remind you of the importance of this swing state). Our messengers will be their own beloved grandchildren, who, like us, recognize the importance of an Obama victory. The campaign is called THE GREAT SCHLEP.

TheGreatSchlep.com website will target, engage and activate Jews 18-24 years old - the Facebook generation. A viral internet campaign will allow the Jewish young people, a.k.a. Schleppers, to communicate with and meet other Schleppers. Then, on Columbus Day weekend (October 10-13), Jewish kids from all over the United States will schlep to Florida to spend the weekend with their grandparents, a.k.a. Bubbie and Zadie. Organized dinners at Chinese restaurants, pool parties, rec room discussion groups, etc. will faciliate intergenerational pro-Obama discussions. The kids will arrive in Florida with the facts about Obama-- facts that will counteract the false rumors many of their grandparents have heard.

I'm writing today to ask for your financial support of this project.

So, Marla, WHO is ORGANIZING the GREAT SCHLEP?

The Jewish Council for Education & Research (JCER), a political action committee, was created to develop and disseminate information to voters around the issues of concern to the Jewish community. Its premier initiative is JewsVote.org, a campaign that supports core public values, including cultural liberalism, a strong but not beligerant foreign policy, and support for Israel. The website provides users with a range of tools to increase support of Obama, including personal emails and videos. JewsVote.org is where the iPhone meets the local kosher deli. The target market for the site is middle-aged Jews. JCER was founded by Mik Moore and Ari Wallach, two smart, young movers-and-shakers in the Jewish community.

TheGreatSchlep.com is a JCER initiative that will appeal to younger Jews. Its goal will be to give them the tools they need to persuade their grandparents, both on-line and in person, to support Obama. Because not everyone will be able to make the trip to Florida, the site will allow kids to do "virtual schleps" over the course of the election cycle. They will be able to send their grandparents video-grams, and they'll be asked to sign pledges to call their grandparents frequently during the weeks leading up to the election.

Marla, I'm on Board. Where do I SEND MY CHECK?

Click on the attached pdf that says Donor Card. Fill that in, and send your (whopping) check -- campaign laws allow you to give up to $5,000 -- directly to JCER. Remember, JCER is a PAC, which means it is INDEPENDENT of the Obama Campaign. This means that the money you give to the organization will NOT apply towards the maximum contribution you can make to the Obama campaign.

And if I SEND a Check, What Will it be Used for?

The money will pay for the websites, travel scholarships for Schleppers, Florida events (the Early Birds are cheap!), travel for organizers, Schlepper persuasion materials, advertising, marketing, and general Schlepper Support. Donations to JCER are NOT tax-deductable.

Well, Marla, I Still Have a Few Questions. Do you Have Answers?

Of course. I have attached to this email a couple of documents that go into more detail about JCER and its founders. And of course, feel free to call me with any questions or concerns.

Marla, Can I do ANYTHING in ADDITION to DONATING MONEY?

Yes. Forward this email to as many people as possible. The more money JCER brings in for The Great Schlep, the more schleppers and their grandparents we'll reach. And remember:

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE JEWISH TO SUPPORT A SCHLEPPER.

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

Marla

JCER contact info:
Ari Wallach , Co-Executive Director
Jewish Council for Education and Research
ari@jcer.info
p: 646.202.2846
Marla contact info:
E. Marla Felcher, Ph.D.
325 Harvard Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 441-9714 (phone)
(270) 517-6038 (fax)
mfelcher@comcast.net

Ear Mark Reform? ...And Pigs Fly

Holy PORK batman... You are gonna need A LOT of lipstick for that much pork "my friends"...Jabe Bloom

Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics

And the news just keeps on a coming, this time from Bloomberg:

Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate sent a signal that he would end business as usual and cronyism in government. Her record shows the Alaska governor engaged in some of the same practices she and McCain now condemn.

Palin's office approved a state job for a friend and campaign aide with whom she shared a land investment, financial records and interviews over the past two weeks show. She hired a former lobbyist for a pipeline company to help oversee a multibillion-dollar deal with that same company.

She named a police chief accused of harassment to head the state police. And she sent campaign e-mails on her city hall account while serving as mayor of Wasilla -- conduct for which she later turned in an oil commissioner on ethics charges.

These incidents raise ``some serious questions about her judgment and serious questions about her standards of ethics in public service,'' said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington. Suggesting a real estate investment partner for a job ``may be acceptable in Alaska; it would not be acceptable in Washington, D.C., a place whose norms she wants to change.''

So I just caught up on the Daily Show from the past 2 weeks, and once again find the satire bordering on absolute brilliance. Here are just a few samples:

If anyone does not believe that a McCain presidency is not going to be a lot like the past 8 years. Watch this starting around 4:30 and see what I mean. It is absolutley pathetic that the speech writers cannot come up with any new themes or new catch phrases or anything else new after a miserably failed presidency.






The fact that McCain has completely sold out every single principle that he might have once had, speaks novels:

Why kind of democracy is this?

From Yahoo


LEBANON, Ohio - John McCain took a risk in picking little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, but now the campaign's playing it safer. She's sticking to a greatest hits version of her convention speech on the campaign trail and steering clear of questions until she's comfortable enough for a hand-picked interviewer later this week.


More than 40 million people tuned in last week to listen to the speech from Palin, the 44-year-old first-term governor whom McCain announced as his surprise vice presidential pick just days before. Since then, that basic script is all anyone has heard from her publicly, and her only interaction with the media was a brief conversation with a small group of reporters on her plane Monday — off the record at her handlers' insistence.


Associated Press reporters were not on the plane, but an aide told the journalists on board that all Palin flights would be off the record unless the media were told otherwise. At least one reporter objected. Two people on the flight said the Palins greeted the media and they chatted about who had been to Alaska, but little else was said.

Sarah Palin: Maverick to Nowhere

This stuff just writes itself. Was she vetted at all by McCain and his team?

Time Magazine on Sarah Palin

Mayor Palin: A Rough Record

But in the first major race of her career — the 1996 campaign for mayor of her hometown, Wasilla — Palin was a far more conventional politician. In fact, according to some who were involved in that fight, Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors.

Sarah Palin Alaskonomics

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey. Although Palin praised John McCain in her acceptance speech as a man who puts the good of his country ahead of partisan politics, McCain pretty much proved the opposite with his selection of a running mate whose main asset is her ability to reignite the culture wars. So maybe Governor Palin does represent everything that is good and fine about America, as she herself maintains. But spare us, please, any talk about how she is a tough fiscal conservative.

Are Evangicals really sold on Palin?

Lost in the stampede of social conservatives to embrace Palin this past week is the fact that she is culturally outside the mainstream of Evangelicalism. Over the past few years, a growing number of Evangelicals have been consciously distancing themselves from the more extreme stands of the Christian right. They live in the suburbs, hold graduate degrees, and while they might not want their children reading certain novels, would be embarrassed by attempts to ban certain books from libraries, as Palin is reported to have briefly considered while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. They don't attend churches where speakers charge that violence against Israelis is divine punishment for the failure of Jews to accept Jesus, as happened at one of Palin's churches two weeks ago (though Palin has now issued a statement saying she does not agree with those views). And they would disagree with Palin's decision to use her line-item veto as Governor to slash funding for an Alaska shelter that serves teen mothers.

Michelle Obama Has a Rabbi in Her Family

Capers Funnye, Leading Black Israelite, Is Aspiring First Lady’s Cousin

By Anthony WeissTue. Sep 02, 2008

While Barack Obama has struggled to capture the Jewish vote, it turns out that one of his wife’s cousins is the country’s most prominent black rabbi — a fact that has gone largely unnoticed.
Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential nominee, and Rabbi Capers Funnye, spiritual leader of a mostly black synagogue on Chicago’s South Side, are first cousins once removed. Funnye’s mother, Verdelle Robinson Funnye ( born Verdelle Robinson) and Michelle Obama’s paternal grandfather, Frasier Robinson Jr., were brother and sister.

Funnye (pronounced fuh-NAY) is chief rabbi at the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in southwest Chicago. He is well-known in Jewish circles for acting as a bridge between mainstream Jewry and the much smaller, and largely separate, world of black Jewish congregations, sometimes known as black Hebrews or Israelites. He has often urged the larger Jewish community to be more accepting of Jews who are not white.

Funnye’s famous relative gives an unexpected twist to the much-analyzed relationship between Barack Obama and Jews in this presidential campaign. On the one hand, Jewish political organizers, voters and donors played an essential role in Obama’s rise to power in Chicago, including some of the city’s wealthiest and most prominent families. But the Illinois senator has struggled to overcome suspicions in some parts of the Jewish community, including skepticism about his stance on Israel and discredited but persistent rumors that he is secretly a Muslim.
Funnye, who described himself as an independent, said he has not been involved with the Obama campaign but that he has donated money and was cheering it on.

“I know that her grandfather and her father and my mom and all of our relatives that are now deceased would be so very, very proud of both of them,” Funn ye told the Forward.
Michelle Obama and the Obama campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Funnye told the Forward that he has known Michelle Obama (born Michelle Robinson) all her life. His mother and her father, Frasier Robinson III, enjoyed a close relationship, and Funnye said he saw Michelle several times a year when they were growing up, mostly at family functions and on occasional visits to her house.

“Her father was like the glue of our family,” Funnye said “He always wanted to keep the family
very connected and to stay in touch with each other.”

Funnye, 56, said he and Michelle, 44, were not especially close growing up, but he remembers her as “energetic and smart and very caring.”

The two fell out of touch when they grew older and went their separate ways but then reconnected years later when Michelle Obama was working for the University of Chicago and Funnye was leading a local social service organization called Blue Gargoyle. Funnye also worked with Barack Obama, then a state senator, who came and spoke at events for the organization.

When Barack and Michelle Obama married, Funnye and his family attended the wedding.
Alhough Funnye’s congregation describes itself as Ethiopian Hebrew, it is not connected to the Ethiopian Jews, commonly called Beta Israel, who have immigrated to Israel en masse in recent decades. It is also separate from the20 Black Hebrews in Dimona, Israel, and the Hebrew Israelite black supremacist group whose incendiary street harangues have become familiar spectacles in a number of American cities.

Funnye converted to Judaism and was ordained as a rabbi under the supervision of black

Israelite rabbis, then went through another conversion supervised by Orthodox and Conservative rabbis. He serves on the Chicago Board of Rabbis.

Funnye’s relationship with the Obama family was reported in the Chicago Jewish News in an article dated August 22. A Wall Street Journal article in April reported that the aspiring first lady had a cousin (whom the paper mistakenly referred to as a second cousin) who is a prominent black rabbi but did not mention Funnye by name.

The rabbi’s familial connection with the Democratic presidential nominee is also a matter of common knowledge in Funnye’s synagogue.

“He really jumped on everyone’s radar after the 2004 convention,” Funnye said. “That’s when some people said, ‘Isn’t he related to you or something?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s married to my cousin, and she’s making him everything that he is.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

This has been verified on Snopes:

Anne Kilkenny
August 31, 2008

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she is like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin is kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor h as her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a fiscal conservative. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though; borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million.

What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1 Million for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted tevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon=2 0streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.


CLAIM VS FACT
Hockey mom: true for a few years

PTA mom: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

NRA supporter: absolutely true

Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).

Pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

Pro-life: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

Experienced: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

Political maverick: not at all

Gutsy: absolutely!

Open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

Has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

Greenie: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

Fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

Pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

Pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

Pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

Pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS
I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin is selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90s.