One more round on the Church thing--but perhaps from another angle.  Pardon me if this thought has been posted before, but I haven't seen it.

As far as the Saddleback thing goes, couldn't Obama have pulled a Stephen Colbert/Press Club thing that night?

By that I mean, while McCain was speaking to the audience in front of him and ignoring the fact that the nation was watching, Obama was speaking to all of us.

John McNicotine is now for the tobacco lobby after years of working against it.  He not only opposes the cigarette taxes he used to support but also opposes FDA regulation of the tobacco industry after years of supporting it.  McNicotine is an ex-smoker and should understand just how addictive nicotine is, and he even acknowledged the exceptionally high death rate for tobacco users when he joked that cigarette exports to Iran were part of his plot to kill Iranian citizens.  For McNicotine to cave in to the tobacco cartel is the ultimate flip-flop:
http://www.boston.com/...

Why has McNicotine caved in to the interests of the tobacco drug cartel?  It couldn't possibly have anything to do with hiring tobacco lobbyist Charlie Black as his senior adviser.  Move along folks.  There's nothing to see here:
http://firedoglake.com/...

Now let's use the traditional Rethug "moral values" and "sanctity of life" frames against McNicotine!  There's more in the flip.

Guys, I’m getting hammered by Right Wing friends about Obama’s supposed cover-up regarding the Illinois and Federal BAIPA laws.


I hate to post a diary just to call on folks to do some fact checking, but I need answers to the following:

Here are three questions for John McCain.  They will  not be asked.

And brought to you by the New York Times (click on Glen McCoy), the sickest editorial cartoon I think I've ever seen.  

Now, I know they don't check these on-line comics.  They come automated from UClick through a contract or something.  But this cartoon is really about as close to the edge of totally unacceptable as I have ever seen.

It also points to the vicious nature of the right wing mind, and their inability to see other sides of issues.  If Obama thinks that he can work with these people he is nuts.  Even Rick Warren stabbed Obama in the back, saying after the "interview" that no evangelical should ever vote fro a pro-choice candidate.

Saturday Night’s Political Forum hosted by Pastor Rick Warren was one of the most interesting campaign events this year.    It was nice to hear someone from the right argue that it is essential that Americans (both conservative & liberal) learn to argue their viewpoints WITHOUT demonizing the other side.    In coming to terms with the idea that we are all Americans (even when we disagree) we build upon the idea that we are greater as a nation together than we are as the sum of our separate ideologies.

John McCain and Barack Obama testified before a large audience of Southern Baptists at the Saddleback Church in Orange County, California. They also used up a large chunk of prime time television.

It's not the debate that irks me a little; it's the idea that somebody's religious views are pertinent to the kind of leadership the country needs to get over the unholy mess created by our born-again President.

How about settling first on what's important in making a person "religious?" In the same way wearing a flag pin doesn't make someone patriotic, believing abortion is a sin doesn't make somebody Christian. After all, the views of fundamental Muslims and fundamental Christians regarding drinking are identical, as are the prohibitions on pork by Muslims and Jews.

I propose leaving religious debates to religious leaders and their followers and allowing the TV producers and their anchors to concentrate on the truly important rapes, murders and sporting events by which they uplift and enlighten our lives.

I used to teach college-level Composition. It wasn't something I was entirely fond of and I'm glad to be done with it (for now anyway), but one of the things I enjoyed most each Semester was teaching critical thinking skills. I asked my students to write papers on the question - "Who owns the body?" - they could choose from among several topics under that subject. Obviously reproductive choice was one of those options, but there was also the question of military drafts, personal drug use, stem cell research, in-vitro fertilization, organ donorship, etc. The topics weren't easy - the question wasn't easy. They had to argue towards the middle ground regardless of their personal opinion.

One requirement in writing the essay was to first define each extreme side. I referred to this as - following the consequences. In other words, how would our reality change if we actually enacted this particular change. What would the specific changes be? Who would be affected and how? Some students found this difficult, some had a great time and really worked out their imagination, but everyone eventually got to the point where they understood the point -- that most of the time, we tend to come to conclusions about our opinion before we ever really think about where we stand.

I see that McCain is rightfully strutfully about the fact that he 'knows' the answer to abortion and Obama doesn't.

I heard this again on Rush today. And my local right-wing radio jock.

It is so simple. Life begins at conception.

Ask the Pope. And while you are at it, ask the Pope how easy this 'simple' statement translates in social mores.

Italy is Catholic. The Pope is against abortion.

In 1978, a law was passed in Italy which set forth the regulations governing the procedures for obtaining an induced abortion.  According to this law, all women are eligible to request an abortion during the first 90 days of gestation for health, economic, social, or familial reasons.  To obtain an abortion, the woman must have a certificate attesting to the state of the pregnancy from her general practitioner, or a private physician or a public maternal-child health clinic. The abortion is performed free-of-charge at either at a health care structure in the National Health Care System or in a private structure contracted and authorized by regional health authorities.

link

Hopefully that title got your attention.

As many of you know, the fascist 527s are readying their post-convention smear that Obama supports American women who "kill little babies."

The coming attack is one which the Obama camp needs to be readying.  The attack is coming, it will be especially vicious, and Obama must be ready to act like a guy from south Chicago.

I've been canvassing in Northern Virgina every weekend for the past few months and have run into quite a few people who are purely single issue voters on abortion.  Many of these people are otherwise Democratic voters and so I have tried to persuade some of them, when I can.  Below is my response, which I have been working on for some time and have had some success with.  Please let me know what you think and help me improve on it to make it more clear.

Here's my opening statement and question:

"Hello, my name is Todd Smyth and I'm a neighborhood volunteer and we are talking to people about our Democratic candidates in Virginia, Barack Obama for President, Mark Warner for US Senate and Jim Moran for US Congress.  We are asking people if they know yet who they will be supporting in November?"

Here is the common pro-life objection:

"None of your candidates are pro-life and I'm a pro-life voter."

My friends, I'd like to tell you, the voters of America, that I'm for friendly drilling off our coast and maybe even in Alaska, just as my GOP friends are.  

Republican presidential nominee John McCain said Congress should come back early from its month-long recess to consider lifting federal restrictions on off-shore domestic oil drilling.

My friends, I'm also for other friendly energy sources.  But, my friends, I haven't had a chance to vote on renewable energy legislation legislation in a while.

nytimes.com — Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time.

I saw Barack Obama and John McCain on TV last night with Rev. Warren at his Saddleback Church.  It was an interesting program, and I was glad to see Senator Obama appearing before an audience, most of whose members presumably will vote against him.  It shows that Obama does not want to write off segments of the population where he might not be popular, and that he plans on being the president of all the American people.  Of course, all new presidents make that claim, but most (George W. Bush being the most obvious example) don’t mean it.

So we get this big to-do about the Saddleback forum, about how we were going to get an evenhanded conversation with both candidates.  First we hear that the "cone of silence" was more like a waffle cone of silence.  And now there's this: Rick Warren turned around today and bashed his "friend" Barack Obama, implicitly comparing him to a Holocaust denier, and saying the democrats don't get people of faith.

An amazing amount of simple factual truth has not dawned upon many of us or is generally actively denied since we all have a strong tendency to believe only what we want to believe, what we feel we must believe, what we have been manipulated and indoctrinated into believing, what we think will win favor with important others if we believe it, what we believe is good and proper to believe, and/or what we have a compelling emotional need to believe, and to resent and defend against acknowledgment of anything that threatens or runs counter to such belief - all in the service of believing that we know we are "right" - so "right" that everyone else in the world should think, feel, and behave just like us, and be made to by force if necessary.

• Trouble is, no matter how fervently one believes that one knows what one merely believes, one merely believes it and one might be wrong - very wrong.

While there has been, and will continue to be controversy over the Rick Warren "Civic Forum"-- the battle of spin -- who won and why -- will go on for a bit. Since what everyone acknowledges was at stake here -- the contest for conservative Christians of various sorts, especially white evangelicals -- it is useful to see how the leaders of the Religious Right are spinning it. Below is the text of a press release I received this morning, outlining the views of Religious Right leaders stemming from a press teleconference.

As the press release indicates, this is a preview of what who we may see and what they may say on Fox News, among other places,

How low will the right wing in this country sink?

For those of you who don't think that we need to sharpen our attacks and educate the country on John McCain bringing out EVERYTHING on the man and his wife's shady past then think again.  It is obvious John McCain and the GOP is desperate and willing to lie, cheat, and steal their way to the election.  Why?

1.  The future of the Supreme Court lies in the balance

2.  A McCain win will cover up any subponeas that the Dems will lever against Bush and company

3.  A McCain win will continue Bush's legacy and save him from disgrace

4.  A McCain win will firewall the majorities we make up in the Congress

5.  A McCain win will solidify the growing descrepancy between the rich and the poor by dissolving the middle class

6.  A McCain win is good bolsters the Oil and Gas companies power over any progress in alternative energy (thus saving the planet).

Now for you disgruntle on the fence Democrats listen to this:

I am generally an optimist, but there are days when as a minister and an advocate, I feel discouraged, especially when I'm being attacked from either the left or the right.But there are signs that we are moving towards a world of sexual justice.