TN GOP out of Lock-Step With Their Party

Does the TN GOP march to it’s own drummer? Apparently, it does.

The Tennessee Republican Party “welcomed” Michelle Obama’s visit for a fundraiser Thursday with an online video that takes the Democratic presidential front-runner’s wife to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

Obama was campaigning in Wisconsin last February for her husband, Barack Obama, when she said: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.”

The four-minute video posted on YouTube is built around the remark, replaying it six times and interspersing it with commentary by Tennesseans, identified mostly by their first names, on why they are proud of America.

These are the same folks that were scolded by the RNC for their previous attacks on Obama. And, to show that these tactics are not new to the TNGOP, these are the same tactics used against Harold Ford Jr during the senate race in 2006.

Maybe one day soon these people will decide to join the human race. Note to the rest of the nation — not everyone in TN feels the same way as this embarrassing group.

Sigh.

Misogyny 2008

Ann points us to Marie Cocco’s column.

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it’s time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan “Bros before Hos.” The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won’t miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won’t miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a “big [expletive] whore” and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters — one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee’s official campaign Web site.

[...]Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven’t publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Let me add this, I will not miss the passes Obama gets for his own subtle sexist remarks, whether directed towards Hillary or a reporter (on the same day NARAL gives him their endorsement) by the media and his own supporters.

Conservative/Republican Dissonance

The three GOP losses in special elections have made GOP leaders sit up and take notice.

But Mr. McCain’s advisers said the Mississippi race underlined his intention to distance himself as much as possible from Congressional Republicans. Mr. McCain has already been openly critical of some of President Bush’s strategies.

The level of distress was evident in remarks by senior party officials throughout the day.

“This was a real wake-up call for us,” Robert M. Duncan, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview. “We can’t let the Democrats take our issues. We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.”

Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia and former leader of his party’s Congressional campaign committee, issued a dire warning that the Republican Party had been severely damaged, in no small part because of its identification with President Bush. Mr. Davis said that, unless Republican candidates changed course, they could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.

“They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall, if steps are not taken to remedy the current climate,” Mr. Davis said in a memorandum. “The political atmosphere facing House Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than it was in 2006.”

Other conservatives aren’t so nice. They are blaming the GOP leaders themselves, as well as the neocon Bushies, for destroying conservatism.

Republican leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed – or outright betrayed – the conservative voters who put them in their positions.

The result is that the party’s “brand” has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover.

The number of new Republican voters is flat while Democratic voter registration is skyrocketing.

Contributions to GOP candidates and Republican parties are way off, while donations to Democrats are setting records.

In primaries, votes for Republican candidates at all levels are running far behind the Democrats.

[...]The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed. The conservative movement has been set back 10-20 years – possibly even permanently – by politicians consumed by power, including but certainly not limited to Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, and their friends.

The media is quick to tell us all about real and contrived dissonance in the democratic party. But, we don’t hear much about the split in the GOP. And believe me, it’s there.

So the big question becomes: What are we conservatives going to do about it? It’s easy to look back and surmise how we got here and bemoan current circumstance. And while we should certainly remember history so as not to repeat it, the fact is that the only thing we can control is what comes next.

And what should come next is the abandonment of the Republican Party by conservatives.

Liberal media bias that this is not getting “reported” at it’s fullest? I think not.

Mississippi’s Childers Won Congressional Seat

Unless yoiu had your head in the sand, we all knew that Hillary would win West Virginia. The race to watch last night took place in northern Mississippi, and was only to fill the Congressional Seat for the remainder of the year. Even with all the race-baiting from the GOP and their candidate, sanity prevailed and the Democrat, Travis Childers, won.

Based on early returns, CNN projects that Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a Tuesday special election for an open congressional seat in northern Mississippi.

For Democrats, the decisive victory by Childers is the latest in a series of special-election wins for the party and provides a strong tailwind heading into the November elections. Republicans had held the seat since 1994.

For Republicans, Davis’ defeat is viewed as a possible preview for a widespread GOP thrashing in November, and it shows that trying to link local Democrats in conservative districts to Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor was not a winning strategy.

In my opinion, I am amazed that the race-baiting did not work out well, but at the same time, I am awfully glad. It gives me hope for humanity.

The NRCC are stunned (as they should be). Here’s just a clip of what to look for this fall, in GOP strategy:

Tonight’s election highlights two significant challenges Republicans must overcome this November. First, Republicans must be prepared to campaign against Democrat challengers who are running as conservatives, even as they try to join a liberal Democrat majority. Though the Democrats’ task will be more difficult in a November election, the fact is they have pulled off two special election victories with this strategy, and it should be a concern to all Republicans.

“Second, the political environment is such that voters remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and the Republican Party in general. Therefore, Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward looking agenda that offers the kind of positive change voters are looking for. This is something we can do in cooperation with our Presidential nominee, but time is short.

Well, there are a number of conservative democrats, otherwise known as Bush Dogs, that have kept Congressional republicans in more control than they are willing to admit. Honestly, their first strategy is really fluff. It’s stuff-and-nonsense simply because someone is sporting a “D” after their name.

It’s the second strategy I believe is the one we we should really watch. The GOP’s presumptive nominee has not offered a change, no matter how much McLame tries to spin an issue, and should be pointed out each time McShame opens his mouth.

Einstein on God and Jews

Interesting letter written by Albert Einstein is being sold by Bloomsbury Auctions in London this week.

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

“No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

Interestingly, in this letter, Einstein declined the presidency of Israel.

“For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions,” he said.

“And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people.”

And he added: “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

For some reason I never quite thought of Einstein as a believer in religion, no matter what theists may have thought. Now there is a definitive answer.

Welcome to the South: Politics as Usual

Here is just a taste of what is to come from the GOP this fall, for Obama and other dems, in the south.

Hoping to hang on to a Congressional seat in a tight special election here on Tuesday, Republicans in this mostly white and very conservative district are trying to make the vote more a referendum on Senator Barack Obama than on the candidates themselves.

In advertisements and speeches, Republicans have repeatedly associated Travis Childers, the white Democrat threatening to take the seat away from the Republican Party, with Mr. Obama. Republicans say Mr. Obama’s liberal values are out of place in the district. But for many Democratic veterans here, the tactic is a throwback to the old and unwelcome politics of race, a standby in Mississippi campaigning.

Former Gov. William Winter, a Democrat, expressed shock at the current campaign.

“I am appalled that this blatant appeal to racial prejudice is still being employed,” said Mr. Winter, who lost the 1967 governor’s race after his segregationist opponent circulated handbills showing blacks listening to one of his speeches. Mr. Winter went on to win the governor’s office 12 years later.

“I had thought we had gotten past that,” Mr. Winter said. “That was a tactic that was used against me in the 1960s.”

There was only minimal outrage of the same racially-biased tactics used by Sen. Corker and the GOP in Tennessee, when Corker was running against Harold Ford Jr. That outrage came after the “call me” ad. Very little was said, nationally, about the Willie Hortonesque ad or the darkening of Ford’s picture on mailer.

The point is, for the GOP to inject racism into political races is SOP/politics as usual, at least in the south.

But there are signs that here in Mississippi, with its tortured legacy of race-based politics, the tactic may be working, particularly in a district with a comparatively smaller black population than in Louisiana, 26 percent. Mr. Childers’s campaign said his negative rating among voters has risen acutely, internal polls show a sharp narrowing in the contest, and interviews with voters indicated the supposed Childers-Obama link could influence votes.

May be working? Let me tell you, it does work. Jim Crow laws may have been overturned, but Jim Crow sentiment definitely lives on.

Show Your Papers!

the next battle in the Voter ID arena appears to be in Missouri, where “fears of illegal immigrants voting” is fueling the Show Your Papers! people.

The battle over voting rights will expand this week as lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment to enable election officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote.

The measure would allow far more rigorous demands than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card.

Sponsors of the amendment — which requires the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum — say it is part of an effort to prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process. Critics say the measure could lead to the disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship.

Exactly how many illegal immigrants actually voted?

After a 14-month investigation by state, county and federal officials, a panel concluded that up to 624 noncitizens may have registered to vote. The report came to no firm determination of whether any of those people had actually voted.

624 out of how many million, MAY have registered to vote, but no one can tell if they actually voted? Geeze louize call out the National Guard!

Shortwoman already gave the simplest solution to the Voter ID disenfranchisement,

Ok, if we *really* want to make sure that Joe Average is who he says he is when he shows up to the polling place, lets put his picture on the voters registration card, which he receives free.

Abortion as a Terrorist Attack: Welcome to the Mother’s Day Parade

On Saturday, Trinity Chapel, along with other churches and one hearse held a Fake Funeral to mourn aborted fetuses in Knox County, TN. But, even the local news can’t call the Fake funeral what it is, equating women as terrorists, they called it a Mock Funeral for “unborn babies.”

About 350 cars donning crosses passed down Gay Street Saturday in what is being called the largest funeral procession in Knoxville.

Organized by Trinity Chapel Church, the funeral procession is for unborn.

“It was a symbolic gesture of mourning and grief which was real for us for the 3,100 children that were aborted in Knox County,” explained Steve Fatow, Senior Pastor at Trinity Chapel Church.

Well, I was there, not in the procession, but set up along Church Street to get a few pictures of the fetus people — the folks that feel that fetuses are more important than the already living women and children.

As you might be able to tell, I missed the beginning of the procession but caught up around the middle or so. Cars, trucks, SUV’s, some with a single person in the vehicle, or loaded with their kids. I saw a lot of older couples and a lot of men. Some drove their business vehicles

Some cars were spewing clouds of pollution (camera phone didn’t capture the gray clouds).

I honestly couldn’t tell you if there were actually 350 vehicles, but it took about 30 minutes to get the “procession” out of the Coliseum parking lot. And even if there were 300-350 vehicles, that is far less than the 500 vehicles that was anticipated. And, where I was situated I did not see any opposing protesters (I am still hoping some were present).

Unlike other abortion demonstrations, this one did not have signs or shouting. Only cars could be seen and heard.

That is because, the pastor says, the purpose was not to spark a debate.

Rather, I believe it was to shut out debate. A vehicular equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and singing, “la, la, la, la, la…I can’t hear you.” And according to the local paper, there weren’t any opposing protesters, other than myself, that is.

What is missing from the news reports is the rhetoric contained on the processions website.

When anyone loses someone it is very natural to grieve and to mourn. This is important to the healing process. Knoxville, TN loses approximately 3,100 babies a year through abortion. On May 10th 2008, we will have a funeral procession for those we have lost as a result of abortion and to extend mercy and healing to mothers, fathers and relatives of the unborn.

On September 11, 2001 the United States of America lost 2,792 lives in the terrorists’ attacks on New York City, the Pentagon, and Flight 93. Ever since that horrifying day, our Nation has taken different moments in time to mourn, grieve,and remember. Knoxville loses approximately the same number of lives each year through abortion. It’s time to mourn…it’s time to grieve…it’s time to heal.

Did you catch that linkage to 9/11? Some folks may think that it’s just making a point in numbers, but I am here to tell you the equating of the two is much more heinous, if we look back at our legislative fetus people’s most recent stunt over the misogynist SJR127. It is equating abortion as a terrorist act. It is a perfect example of how these extremist pastors tell the news one thing, and their followers another. And that is not so far-fetched an idea as you may think, when people are having discussions on how women should be treated criminally if they have an abortion.

The Best Countries to Be A Mother and Child

Save the Children has issued their annual Mother’s Report Card.

Save the Children, a U.S.-based independent global humanitarian organization, today released its ninth annual Mothers’ Index that ranks the best — and worst — places to be a mother and a child. The Mother’s Index, highlighted in the organization’s State of the World’s Mothers 2008 report, compares the well-being of mothers and children in 146 countries, more than in any previous year.

Nordic countries sweep the top rankings of the best places to be a mother, while countries in sub-Saharan Africa dominate the bottom tier. Sweden tops the list, while Niger ranks last among countries surveyed. The United States places 27th this year, one slot down from last year’s ranking.

The US is dropping the ball, putting women and children’s lives at risk. Note some of the differences between the top 10 countries and the bottom ten countries:

The top-10 countries, in general, have very high scores for mothers’ and children’s health, educational and economic status, while the 10 bottom-ranked countries are a reverse image, performing poorly on all indicators.

Conditions for mothers and their children in countries at the bottom of the Index are bleak. On average, 1 in 21 mothers will die in her lifetime from pregnancy-related causes. More than 1 child in 6 dies before her fifth birthday, and roughly 1 in 3 suffers from malnutrition, and only 3 girls for every 4 boys are enrolled in primary school.

Overall, about 500,000 women will die of pregnancy-related deaths world-wide this year, partly due to lack of even basic health care.

PS in 2006 Save the Children ranked the US the 10th best country to be a mother and child. You can see we’ve made a huge slide downwards.

Pregnancy Announcement and Mother’s Day

The woman that has decided to grow her own army for God is once again pregnant. But it took Mother’s Day, a day that has been convoluted from it’s original meaning, for the announcement to be made.

Duggar said she’s six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they’ll keep having children as long as God wills it.

That reminded me of a previous mother’s day post I had written.

I have just one question: Is this what the white-male dominated societal concepts believe other women are supposed to aspire to?