Slumdog Millionaire

Went to see this last night. Very well done, very good movie. Got me to thinking about two things. One is how useful hope is when it is completely unrealistic. Vast swathes of people will get behind those who go from obscurity to fame and/or fortune overnight because they see themselves in those people, and it helps them have hope of a better life. Now, most people who end up rising out of slums and horrible lives do so out of a combination of hard work, intelligence/savvy, and luck. Plenty of people who combine those things don't have quite enough of the luck or whichever to make it out anyway. Granted, winning some game shows takes a bit of hard work and intelligence/savvy, although not all, but still the chances of that happening for any individual have got to be astronomically low. It's kind of like inner-city youths hoping to make the NBA - sure, it's a worthwhile dream, but it's so unlikely that it's almost counter-productive, unless the coaches are able to translate some of that hard work into other areas. So, I guess what bothers me is setting these unrealistic hopes for people that might make them sit and hope for salvation rather than have any faith in their ability to rise out on their own and concentrate their efforts there.

Furthermore, I think it's a way that people can get really dissatisfied with the lives they have. "Oh, I'm making enough to get by, and I've got this great family, but that guy's got this incredibly romantic story and is a millionaire! Why can't I have that?" Well, the vast majority of people can't have that - especially both parts. Romantic movies with their ridiculous happy endings have this effect on people all the time - David Sedaris talked about going to see The End of the Affair with his longtime partner and how it had that effect in his book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. It's so true - it leaves people thinking that love is easy and fated and just around the corner, and super romantic and happy all the time - and makes them wonder why their pedestrian relationship isn't the same way.

The other thing that it made me think about was the extent to which Western cultural chauvinism will impact the success of this movie. I had a couple of different classes this last semester that talked about the effect that has on feminism and on human rights movements. We have a tendency to assume that we have reached the pinnacle of both women's rights and human rights, and to assume that the way we view and value treatment of women and people generally is the best way to do so. As a result, when we see things that are done wrong in other countries, we shake our heads and think we need to help them - according to Leti Volpp, we often do so while ignoring the similar problems that still exist in America. I don't know that I buy that things are as bad for women in America as they are in every other country in the world, but I do think it's interesting to note just how easy it is to accept the depictions of some of the horrible things that go on in the movie, maybe partly because we're seeing them happen in India. Our country has its share of horrors, too, but I'm inclined to think that if the movie was set here or in any other Western country (made by British filmmakers), then it would be harder for many Western viewers to take the extent of the misery and abuse depicted in Slumdog Millionaire at face value.

All in all, a great movie - but I'll still pick Milk over it.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

And Happy Hanukkah, and Happy whatever-else-you-may-celebrate!!! It didn't feel like Christmas till I was stuck in airports all day Monday, but I am glad to be home and I hope it's a wonderful season for all!

Rick Warren

I've been traveling, so forgive me for being a bit behind the ball on this (oh my many (2?) loyal readers), but the Warren thing really does bother me a lot. Obama's caught flack already for his choices of religious leaders, so I'd have expected him to be a little less tone-deaf on this particular item. Perhaps it's because I just watched Milk (GREAT movie), but it seems to me that any outrage over this from the LGBT community is perfectly reasonable and justified. I am pretty loyal to the Democratic Party, but I find it frustrating when its leaders act like they can take various minorities and suppressed groups (blacks, women, gays, etc.) for granted because they know that those groups can't really go elsewhere - the Republicans would be worse. I hope that Obama shows that this gesture does not mean any of what progressives are all worried it may mean, but even so - what I've read elsewhere is right. We should not give any semblance of credibility to people who express hateful views. Then again, Chris Matthews is still on the air, so what are you going to do?

The Electoral College

Yesterday, the Electoral College convened and officially elected Obama to be the next President of the United States of America. While that is a wow moment, certainly, because of all the historic indications of electing Obama, it also makes me think about how amazing and somewhat ridiculous it is that we still have the Electoral College operating in our democracy. The founders created the institution as part of a massive compromise in order to compensate for a lack of access to information and to find a way to ensure the smaller states were given more than their fair share, proportional to population, of a say in who was elected President.

It was a great solution at the time. Certainly, there was not the same level of access to information that there is now, in the age of the internet, and candidates could not so easily get around from state to state as they can now in order to be accessible to all voters nationwide. However, now it makes no sense. There is, if anything, too much access to information about the candidates, and voters generally do not know how their electors are chosen, much less who they are. They are voting for the candidate.

Are we still so concerned with the representation of small states in electing the President that it makes sense for us to maintain the Electoral College? Is that more important than ensuring that someone (like Gore) who wins the popular vote by a half million votes nationwide becomes the next President? Personally, I think it makes a mockery of the idea of universal suffrage and democracy. I, like many Americans, expected there to be outrage and perhaps a strong movement to abolish the electoral college after the farce that was the 2000 Presidential Election, but there really hasn't been much of a movement at all. Why? And why haven't the movements that have been started been more successful?

Blagojevich is... NOT Stepping Down?

So obviously this Blagojevich thing is a pretty ridiculous and borderline unbelievable scandal as it is. The guy sounds like he is a bit unstable as well as strikingly arrogant and corrupt. Still, though, once federal agents wander into your office and take you into custody, I think it's time to realize you've made a few serious mistakes. I hope he does sign the legislation to give away his power to appoint someone to the Senate seat he tried to sell, but I really have a hard time understanding how anybody could think that was sufficient. This and various other recent scandals just go to show how important it is that politicians understand that they are not above the law, and that they understand what the law is. I wonder if it's that these people were attracted to politics because of the power it would give them, or if the power somehow got to their heads and made them think they could get away with anything. I suppose it isn't an either/or situation, though, and that there could be other considerations as well. Still, I hope someone somehow talks some sense into Governor Blagojevich and convinces him to step down to save everyone the time, expense and hassle of an impeachment.

Top Political Scandals: No Plame-gate?

Chris Cillizza has an interesting post up today listing his top ten political scandals since (and including Watergate). I absolutely agree that Watergate is the biggest scandal of the last forty years in politics, but there is a lot in that list I can't agree with. Most notably, how is it possible that there is no mention of the whole Valerie Plame incident? That resulted in the indictment of a senior level White House official - the first time it had happened since the Grant administration well over a century ago. Although we still don't know for sure how high-reaching it was, it's still a pretty huge deal. What about torture, and Abu Ghraib? What about GITMO? What about the falsified evidence that Bush used as a basis for convincing us to invade Iraq? Am I just being overly biased and historically shortsighted? I don't think so. The Plame incident was a massive abuse of power that reached to the White House. Somehow, Blagojevich's crazy rantings and Spitzer's loose zipper seem completely inconsequential in comparison.

Rod Blagojevich is... wow.

I guess this is what I get for posting about how Republicans are always doing bad things. Not sure whether I'm more appalled by the whole scheme to sell a Senate seat, or his apparent confidence that he could get away with it. So bizarre. What country does he think he lives in? Thank God for Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzmas all over again - I'm so glad this got caught before Blago appointed someone.

Is Our Tax Code Anti-Democratic?

Our tax code is so long and detailed that no average citizen will understand it. Accountants, lawyers trained in tax, some few others - those people might know what the various provisions or proposed changes mean, and what effects they will have, but the vast majority of us (speaking as a 3rd year law student at a top school who has not taken tax) do not know, and do not have the time or energy to find out. Our government is meant to be by the people, for the people, of the people - but if we can't even understand what our government is doing, then how can it be?

The LDS Church and Proposition 8

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gave 20 million dollars to the vote yes on 8 campaign. This proposition passed 52-48 in California, taking away the right to marry that had only recently been declared universal by the California courts. I would be angry anyway at the passage of this constitutional amendment, as I am at the other states who passed it, and as I was, although not at all surprised, when my beloved Virginia passed such an amendment in 2006. However, what makes this even more than usually horrendous to me are two things: first that it happened in California, where I would instinctively have expected it to pass, and second is the involvement of the LDS church in the campaign.

The church gets a significant portion of its income from tithing its members (ie requiring that members give a tenth of their income to the church). The church chose to take 20 million dollars and give it to preventing people who love each other from being able to marry. Not to treating AIDS, finding a cure for cancer, feeding starving people around the world, or even building churches or missionary work. What possible goal could the prevention of gay marriages serve for the church? Do they really think it's going to somehow draw people into the church or better them as people? Christ's commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself. I don't even really understand opposing gay marriage, because there is no way in which it negatively affects anyone, but I certainly don't understand a CHURCH whose money should be used to promote general welfare and spirituality giving 20 million dollars to this. I feel like Rachel Maddow - I need someone to talk me down. Any offers? I want them stripped of their tax exempt status. I want to boycott them. I even want to boycott all businesses owned by Mormons until they stop paying tithing.

Kick. Him. Out.

So there's actually some kind of debate about whether we should let Lieberman stay in our caucus? Seriously? The man stood with McCain, and therefore also on behalf of the Republican party, in one of the dirtiest campaigns in history. He argues that it was a principled stand - that he was rising above party - but what that means is that his principles are that the Democrats are the wrong people to lead the country. Kick. him. out. Take away his chairmanship. We don't need him, and we don't want him. We probably haven't won the 60 seats, but even if we had, Lieberman would not matter. We will be the majority party, and Lieberman will still vote however the hell he wants to on cloture. ALL the Republicans can do to stop us on measures where the Democrats are unified is to filibuster. If Lieberman is so "principled," he will not base his votes on these issues on partisan politics, but on what he thinks is best for the country, no matter what party's caucus he joins. He was never going to be on our side anyway. We can work with him on specific votes, but he is NOT a Democrat, and should not be treated like one. He has no leverage. The further right he moves, the less likely he is to win reelection in 2012 anyway. Just, kick him out.

Unbelievable

We won. Perriello even appears to have won. I suppose we also won in 2006, and that was huge and wonderful, and in many ways unexpected. However, this feels incredible. I know that Obama and the massive Democratic majority in the House and the insufficient Democratic majority in the Senate will not be able to accomplish everything they'll set out to, they won't solve every problem, and I won't agree with them on everything they try to do. I know that there is a long way to go to fix all of the problems our country is facing, whether caused by Bush's disastrous Presidency or due to some other cause. However, there is now hope, and there will be change. Our country is now on the road to recovery.

Perriello vs. Goode

This race is beyond going down to the wire at this point. According to the State Board of Elections site, Tom Perriello leads bigoted, corrupt incumbent Virgil Goode by 52 votes. CNN has it at Perriello +80. I don't know why there is a discrepancy. This race was not expected to be this close, and Tom was certainly not expected to be ahead. I hope it stays this way.

I don't really understand what happened with the Danville voting machines, but it seems likely to me that the vote totals we're getting from there right now are not correct, simply because Obama did not outperform Tom in the rest of the district, and Tom VASTLY outperformed Al Weed's 2006 numbers, or it wouldn't be this close - and apparently the new numbers there closely match the numbers from that race, or so I've read. Nobody really seems to know what's going on with that. I think, however, that the canvassing of votes is expected to be complete tomorrow, including the adjudication and counting of provisional ballots. Absentees are supposed to have been counted already, but I don't know what effect McCain's lawsuit regarding military absentee ballots might have on this race.

I'm being driven somewhat crazy by the lack of information available about what is going on. I'm SO far beyond thrilled that Obama won, and I'm as curious as anyone else about the cabinet appointments and staff appointments and so forth, but this is a pretty big story, in my opinion, and even the local papers and blogs don't seem to know what's going on. What's more is that OpenLeft's posts are all calling Perriello the winner, as though it's decided, when it clearly won't be certain for some time.

It'll be interesting to me to see Goode calling for a recount once it's time assuming Tom stays in the lead. He just seems like exactly the type to call those asking for recounts in any other race sore losers and so forth. I suppose there's no chance he wouldn't ask for a recount if he's down in the original count, and I also don't think there's anything wrong with calling for a recount, especially if there is any reason to believe there have been any sort of irregularities. I assume, however, that the BOE is being incredibly careful in this race, since it's coming down to such an incredibly, unbelievably small margin.

Always Republicans

The newest voter suppression tactic in VA - someone's giving Dems fliers telling them that their election day is Nov. 5. It's wrong, of course - Election Day is Nov. 4th (and you should vote early if you can). This brings me to the question - why is it always Republicans? You hear these unfounded accusations of voter fraud against Democrats, but you never hear about voter suppression tactics. Meanwhile, again and again, you hear about Republican maneuvers to erase people from the voting lists, to intimidate voters, and to challenge voters on often flimsy grounds (think foreclosure lists in Michigan, where it turned out a large number of the people listed were still living in their foreclosed-upon homes). My gut reaction is to say that it's because Republicans are slimeballs and Democrats are good and honorable, and truly believe in freedom, but I know too many good Republicans and bad Democrats to really hang my hat on that. Is it, perhaps, just that the Republican voting blocs are not ones that lend themselves to voter suppression? Or that we tend to think our efforts are better spent on trying to reach out to these voters than on suppressing them, even if it's only because it's more efficient?

UPDATE - Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican, has just extended early voting hours in his state, upsetting many others in his party. He says that the right to vote is sacred and that more will be able to exercise that right in his state with the expanded availability of early voting. Good for him - even if it is always Republicans who are suppressing the vote, at least here is one example of a Republican doing the opposite. Crist has also, in the recent past, refused to jump on the "voter fraud" bandwagon.

Divided Government

Lost in the divided government argument is the fact that we have three branches of government, not two. Right now, the judiciary is controlled by the right wing. If McCain is elected, right wing dominance over that branch will increase. Changing control over the judiciary is a much longer and more difficult process than changing control over the legislative or executive branches. If it turns out that having Dems in control of Congress and the White House is a problem, voters can change it in one election - either 2010 or 2012. If, as has been the case, having the judiciary under the control of the right wing is a problem, we have to elect a President who is on the other side and keep him or her there until enough vacancies have appeared in order to make a difference. Not just talking Supreme Court, either, but the federal courts in general. So, don't listen to the new McCain BS about divided government - even if Obama's in office eight years, the judiciary will almost certainly still be dominated by the right wing.

What if...?

So, I was thinking about the absolutely horrible choice of Sarah Palin and what a disaster it's turned out to be, and the fact that Biden also seems to have been at best a neutral pick, and it occurred to me that Obama's pick is somewhat underrated for this reason: he's not Tim Kaine. Now, I worked my ass off for the Kaine campaign in VA in 2005. Since then, I've become somewhat frustrated by his less than brilliant governing, although I admit that it is at least partly due to the ridiculous partisanship of the House Republicans. However, imagine the different reaction to the Palin pick had Kaine been the Dem VP nominee. Kaine is similarly inexperienced, although certainly still more experienced than Palin. He is similarly unknown, and therefore would have similarly unleashed a storm of investigative reporting. Part of the reason Palin's been such a disaster is that she's managed to stay in the news consistently, and too often the stories focus on her lack of relevant knowledge (although she also has her fair share of scandals, as well). If Kaine had been the pick, wouldn't he have unleashed a similar response? Certainly he's not as attractive as Palin, and he is not under investigation for abuse of power (that I know of), but... what if?

For the record: I was terrified of Obama picking Kaine for a variety of reasons, and utterly thrilled when it turned out to be Biden - not only is he not Kaine, but he's great on women's issues.

Palin and Feminism

This could be a short post. Any woman trying to hold herself up as a serious political figure whose main appeal is an ability to be attractive while winking at the camera during a debate, despite a complete inability to give real answers to any important questions represents a massive step backward for feminism in America. This post from Sullivan's blog really spoke to me, and echoes a theme I've been discussing for weeks. She really does remind me of the "mean girl" archetype, and while that type tends to be able to make headway in ways that other women often can't, because they can charm men, it's not the kind of headway that helps women generally. Women need to be able to get ahead on merits, not appearance, and that's why this choice by McCain made a lot of women I know so angry. It's claiming to be promoting women's rights by taking the pretty, charming woman instead of many women who might actually be qualified - who might actually read newspapers, know what the Supreme Court does, etc. This sort of gimmick is just tokenism, and is an insult to women everywhere. And men who are supporting her... let's just say, I agree with Sullivan's reader. If I were dating Rich Lowry... I wouldn't be anymore after what that comment revealed about his attitude.

UPDATE:

Palin regaled the cheering crowd with a story about how she was reading her Starbucks mocha cup yesterday, which featured a quotation from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

“Now she said it, I didn’t,” Palin said of Albright. “She said, ‘There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.’”

The crowd roared its approval, but according to several sources, Albright actually said, “there’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.”

“OK, now thank you so much for receiving that well—I didn’t know how that was going to go over,” Palin told the southern California crowd. “And now California, let’s see what a comment that I just made how that is turned into whatever it’ll be turned into tomorrow in the newspaper.”

These People Could Be In Charge of Supreme Court Appointments

"Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence."

From Jonathan Martin's Politico.com blog

Combine that with McCain's recent condemnation of a SCOTUS decision giving GITMO detainees habeas corpus rights as "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country" (forget Korematsu, forget Dred Scott, forget Plessy), and I don't see how anyone could feel comfortable giving this pair the power to pick our next Supreme Court Justices.

Economic Disaster?

The last couple of weeks have been somewhat of a crash course in economics for me as I struggle to understand what on earth is going on, what our alternatives are, and what I would even like for our government to do about the situation. Today, the House defeated the bailout, and afterwards I discussed the implications of this whole crisis with a Republican friend of mine who knows far more about the current situation, how we got there, and so on, and I realized both that it's not all the Republicans' fault (although I still think it mostly is), and that I've actually come to understand a fair amount of what's been happening and why.

One thing that my Republican friend said that does not ring true to me is that people are not paying their mortgages because their mortgage principals are higher than their homes' values. I don't know to what extent that is true, because I have not looked into it and I'm not really sure how to. I suspect, simply on a gut level, that most people who are in foreclosure are so because they can't afford to make their mortgage payments, which is how I come to believing that it is mostly the Republicans' fault. Trickle down economics do not work. In addition, Barney Frank told me (and by told me, I mean that I saw it on TV) that the last Dem Congress before this one, in 1994, authorized more regulation of sub-prime mortgages, but Greenspan refused to exercise his authority. Yes, I realize this leaves some of the blame with Clinton. I'm ok with that. I still think it leaves most of it with the Bush administration. Which, I admit, helps me sleep at night. In the end though, I guess it doesn't really matter which party caused this - there's blame enough to go around - what matters is fixing it.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the bailout. It seems like the framework might be sort of generally wrong. We should be worried about the credit crunch, but it seems to me that giving the companies that messed up a bunch of money, and Paulson, who doesn't seem to have done much to avoid this crisis, a bunch of only mildly checked authority, is the wrong starting point. It seems to me that we should be worrying more about helping the people who are not responsible for this mess. Perhaps we should be spending the money on helping normal Americans afford to pay for gas and those mortgages that have become unmanageable, and so forth. Regardless, I think that $350 billion right now with the likelihood of giving another $350 billion is too much. We're about to have a new Congress and a new President, so I think we should be focusing on the short term, giving some smaller amount of money, and perhaps waiting for more decisive action till January. I'm just worried about what will happen. And frankly, I'm scared of what will happen either way. I'll probably be fine, but what's going to happen to the millions of Americans in foreclosure? Somehow, the silver lining that this whole crisis is catapulting Obama up in the polls is not sufficiently comforting.

The GOP and Anti-Intellectualism

Sarah Palin, reports show, attended 6 colleges in 6 years in order to graduate from the University of Idaho, currently a third tier school, with a degree in Journalism (not known to be a particularly difficult degree path at most schools). John McCain finished 894th of 899 students at the Naval Academy. Neither have gone on to pursue any further scholarship that I am aware of. So far, that's not the end of the world. Clearly, degrees from Harvard and Yale do not guarantee intelligence, let alone competence in governing, and I'm sure everyone can point to people with lesser academic credentials who are quite intelligent and successful, and even possibly qualified to run the country. What bothers me more is the way the GOP tries to paint a lack of academic credentials as an actual qualification, in and of itself, for the office of President.

In some ways, it is important for the President to be in touch with the struggles of normal Americans (which, of course, McCain and Palin aren't for other reasons), but that does not entail lacking education. There is, in fact, no way in which having a crappy education is actually a good thing, but the GOP tries to paint people with quality educations and real scholarly achievement as somehow elitist and snooty. I'm a very intelligent person who has had a quality education - no Ivy Leagues, but I went to a great college and I'm now at a top law school, so perhaps in their opinion, I'm not really qualified to talk about this, as I'm one of the snooty, well-educated people they like to complain about. I'm just not sure I understand how anyone can rationally argue that having a President with poor education isn't a bad thing, or that having a President with a good education isn't a good thing. It's a problem, not only for the immediate future, but for the long term future of our country when we start demonizing education. If we sneer at even adults who have demonstrated a love of and an aptitude for learning, how are we to expect children to ever want to succeed in school?

Basically, this GOP tactic reminds me of the bad old days before I went to a magnet high school. It was so uncool to be good at school or do your homework that I stopped! Thank God those grades didn't end up on my application for that magnet school, or I probably would have ended up with a much dimmer future than the one ahead of me now. It's supposed to stop being cool to pick on smart kids eventually, but for the GOP, I guess it never gets old. Personally, I'd rather elect a President who is smarter than I am, rather than equally or less smart. I know that most Americans would agree with that, were they to stop and think about it for a moment. I hope they do, before November 4.

Here's Hoping

That the most recent polling for McCain is just the convention bounce. Today is the first day in a long time that I've actually been somewhat afraid that he might win. Reasons I think that would be disastrous for America:
1) Supreme Court appointees. I've already written a post about that, so I won't repeat myself.
2) Foreign policy. I am terrified of McCain's temper and how that will end up influencing our foreign policy if he wins. He is notorious for blowing up at people all the time, and we all know he basically wants to bomb Iran and stay in Iraq forever. Who knows how far he'll try to stretch our already thinly stretched military?
3) He might die in office, and Sarah Palin would be a nightmare for more reasons than I can list, but especially her crazy culturally conservative views and her apparently somewhat inept experience as mayor of Wasilla (banning books? leaving a town of 5,000 $22 million in debt? Seriously?).
4) The environment seems to me to be the most important challenge facing our country and the world today, and I'm just not convinced that McCain is sufficiently out of the pocket of oil companies and corporate America to make this the priority it needs to be in our domestic policy.
5) Health care. 45 million Americans without health insurance is ridiculous. There is no excuse for that. McCain doesn't seem to think this is a problem.
6) Nation of whiners. I know the guy who said this technically has no ties to the McCain campaign anymore, but it still seems to be the attitude of the McCain camp, and who can blame them? They're a bunch of rich old folks who honestly don't have to worry about the crash of the housing market, the increasing cost of food or the increasing unemployment rate. So they don't really worry about it, and instead just plan to continue Bush's failed policies of trying to stimulate the economy by giving tax cuts to the rich.

Sarah Palin? Thanks, McCain

It is unbelievable how this pick has blown up in McCain's face so quickly. Creationism in schools, abstinence-only sex ed, no legal abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, abuse of power, banning books, no foreign policy experience WHATSOEVER! And, the absolute best part - her ties to the Alaskan Independence Party! Her husband was a registered member until 2002 - she was apparently a member in the 90s, and even addressed their convention this year. So much for country first... This is the best thing I can remember happening in politics in years. I've been laughing for almost two days straight.

Obama/Biden 2008!

So it's Biden. Although I'm a bit disappointed that the campaign did not manage to keep a lid on things so that those of us who signed up for the alerts would actually find out first, at least it's not like they didn't try. The official announcement will still come that way, I believe, and you can't always control Secret Service leaks.

All things considered, I'm reasonably happy with this choice. It's been a long time since I gave up on my ideal candidates (Gore, Feingold), and I think this is the best of the options we'd been seeing. Biden is a bit of a loose cannon, but in a lot of ways that's a really good thing in a vice presidential candidate. He'll sound off about all the things wrong with McCain, and he'll do so in his engaging and charming way. He completely counterbalances the experience and foreign policy issues, and in fact probably beats McCain on foreign policy (well technically it's not like McCain really has a lot of foreign policy experience, but perceptions still matter). The worst the other side will be able to throw at him is probably the overblown, not entirely true, plagiarism story from 20 years ago (Keating Five, anyone?), the bankruptcy bill (which, ok, was horrible, but I imagine McCain voted for it as well), and some comments about Obama. Of course, once McCain picks Romney, I imagine we'll be able to find similar quotes. Plus, Biden's liberal. And he's great on women's issues (e.g. Violence Against Women Act). Good call, Obama.

The Supreme Court

Something that I think is being lost in the discussions about these elections is the drastic impact it will have on the future makeup of the Supreme Court. Currently, there are four right-leaning justices, four left-leaning justices, and then the swing vote, Kennedy. In the next four years, at least one of those left-leaning justices is likely to retire, and it could be as many as three. None of the right-leaning justices seem likely to retire soon, nor Kennedy. So, if McCain wins and is able to nominate new justices - even just one - the balance of the Court will swing decidedly to the right. This could cause all sorts of problems, most notably overturning Roe v. Wade. Who knows what other horrible damage a conservative court might inflict? Perhaps the right has simply succeeded in convincing the electorate that it's only left-leaning justices that "legislate from the bench," but everyone with experience in the legal system knows that it goes both ways. It seems to me that anyone out there who considers herself a moderate should be incredibly concerned at the possibility of putting McCain in office. I can only hope that the Obama campaign and the press will put more of a spotlight on this issue between now and November.

Lies and Liars

Why is it that the right always seems to lie more than the left in big elections? Or really just in general. I know I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure that we don't publish crap like the new Corsi book and then do massive buys so that it gets put at the top of the bestseller list. Perhaps we might stretch the truth a little, but McCain's Olympics ad has an outright falsehood about Obama's tax plans. Not to mention his hypocrisy in creating ads that make McCain appear to be a champion of renewable energy when he's missed every vote on the subject this year, and is promoting more drilling above all else as the solution to our energy problems.

What ticks me off the most about all of this is that I believe it is the media's job to expose this kind of dishonesty for what it is, and in this election cycle, the media has not performed that job at all. It is unthinkable that the media gives anything like a chance for Corsi and his ilk to peddle his lies as something that even deserves debate. It is even worse that when McCain started passing out tire gauges labeled "Obama's Energy Plan" the press laughed about it. Every article about that should have said that not only was that a complete mischaracterization of what Obama said, but that McCain was in every way wrong to suggest that Obama's solution would not in fact save more gas than McCain's drilling plan would provide. Not to mention that the media has done a horrible job of explaining the fact that this off-shore drilling idea would solve absolutely none of our problems for at least 7 years, and then would still probably only take a couple of cents off the price of gas, at perhaps horrendous environmental costs. I can accept that other people have different views about things like how much we should pay in taxes and what services the government ought to provide, but what I can't take is when people have different views about what the facts are. It is dishonorable for politicians or crazy propagandists like Corsi to spew these lies, but it is worse that journalists do not expose these lies and do their duty to the American public. Presenting both sides is not unbiased reporting when one side is flat out lying.

Olympics

I LOVE the Olympics. When they are going on, all I want to do is watch them and read about them. I've been like that about the Olympics since I was a little girl. I used to choose competitors' names for spelling words in elementary school. I screamed when Michelle Kwan fell in the 2002 Winter Olympics, and to some extent I'm still not over the fact that she never won an Olympic Gold. Other favorite past Olympians of mine include Victor Petrenko, Brian Boitano, Katarina Witt, Alexei Namoff, Dominique Dawes, Bonnie Blair, Michael Johnson, and the Dream Team. I even follow curling during the Winter Olympics.

This year is no different in terms of my love for the Games - I screamed when Alicia Sacramone fell on the floor routine in the women's gymnastics team competition, I've been cheering on our swimmers like crazy (almost broke my heart when the women's relay team didn't win the gold for the first time ever in the 4x200 free relay), and of course I've been thrilled with Michael Phelps's performance so far.

However, I have noticed something different. You'll notice that I've listed several foreign athletes among my favorites above. This year, I have realized that I haven't cheered on a single foreigner. I just want the Americans to win, and I even cheer against the other athletes, particularly the Chinese (who are ahead of us in the medal count!). I was almost happy when the Chinese gymnast fell off the beam, although I did feel bad when I saw her face. I've thought about this, and I think the reason for it is that I've seen almost no human interest stories or commentary about any of the foreign athletes. Perhaps this is just due to what I've happened to watch, but I seem to remember in times past that while the majority of stories were about Americans, there were plenty about foreign athletes, particularly from poorer countries. For whatever reason, I think it is a shame. The point of the Olympics is to bring us together as a world community and compete peacefully and in a friendly way. I feel like I am betraying the Olympic spirit when I cheer against the other countries' athletes, probably because I am. I'm not sure if this is just a personal problem or whether it's indicative of a change in Olympics coverage. Hopefully, this feeling will change, and perhaps there will be more stories soon about non-American athletes.

In the meantime, go Phelps, and go Nastia and Shawn!

Introduction

I'm writing this blog as an outlet. I could just comment on other people's blogs and news stories, but this way I don't have to wait till someone else writes a story about something before I can anonymously express my views all over the internet. Patience has never been one of my virtues.

I am a Democrat and I love politics. I am not religious, but I think I place a high emphasis on morality. I love America, but I think that our society has a lot of problems. In this blog, I plan to express my views on these problems - what they are, why they are, how they can be fixed. Obviously I don't have all the answers, but it almost never hurts to talk about things.