Sunday Roast, August 11, 2013: They’re Both Wrong

Just this past Thursday (remember that day; a mere three days ago) Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) had an unpleasant conversation with a constituent who insisted that Barack Obama was constitutionally ineligible to be the President of the United States. She claimed to have proof in the form of some papers supposedly gathered by Arizona Bigot-Extraordinaire Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse (which I sincerely hope didn’t use a penny of taxpayer money pursuing this non-crime), but the Congressman was not interested in looking at them. He said to her (and it sure sounds like this to my hard-of-hearing ears), “I don’t even give a shit.” She tried to claim it was “a matter of law.” For his part, the Congressman’s argument was that “We had four years to take care of that,” and that because Obama was re-elected, it was a “dead issue” and “we lost that argument.”

They’re both wrong.

No matter how many times they bring it up,

The Watering Hole, Monday, February 25th, 2013: Who The Fuck is Ted Cruz?

I’ve been wondering just who the fuck this junior Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, thinks he is. I know, everyone’s been comparing him to the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, due to his disrespectful and appalling attempt to besmirch former Senator Chuck Hagel’s reputation.

The Wikipedia bio of Cruz immediately provides some clues:

Cruz served as a law clerk to William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, and J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Cruz was the first Hispanic ever to clerk for a Chief Justice of the United States.

In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz assembled a coalition of thirty-one states in defense of the principle that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. Cruz also presented oral argument for the amici states in the companion case to Heller before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

In addition to his victory in Heller, Cruz has successfully defended the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools and the 2003 Texas redistricting plan.

Cruz also successfully defended, in Medellin v. Texas, the State of Texas against an attempt by the International Court of Justice to re-open the criminal convictions of 51 murderers on death row throughout the United States.

Cruz was endorsed by David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders; the Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee; Erick Erickson, editor of prominent conservative blog RedState; the FreedomWorks for America super PAC; Princeton University professor Robert P. George; nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin; former Attorney General Edwin Meese; Tea Party Express; Young Conservatives of Texas; and U.S. Senators Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey. He has also been endorsed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum.

Now there’s an all-star lineup of right-wing idealogues (shudder.)

Jane Mayer provides more information in her piece in the New Yorker:

Two and a half years ago, Cruz gave a stem-winder of a speech at a Fourth of July weekend political rally in Austin, Texas, in which he accused the Harvard Law School of harboring a dozen Communists on its faculty when he studied there…Cruz made the accusation while speaking to a rapt ballroom audience during a luncheon at a conference called “Defending the American Dream,” sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, a non-profit political organization founded and funded in part by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Cruz greeted the audience jovially, but soon launched an impassioned attack on President Obama, whom he described as “the most radical” President “ever to occupy the Oval Office.”…He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

In a follow-up article, Jane Mayer discusses the response from Cruz’s spokeswoman (who actually responded in an interview with The Blaze-I provided the link if you want to hold your nose and dive in, the comments are psycho, too.)

And a couple of articles from Politicus.com provide some slightly more tongue-in-cheek descriptions Cruz’s recent spotlight-hogging performances.

Unfortunately, Senator Cruz has the backing of some people with deep pockets and too much power. Maybe that’s why he seems to feel that he can say anything, regardless of the truth, with little impunity. So far, the only good thing Cruz has done is to make John McCain and Lindsey Graham look almost honorable.

This is our Open thread, what’s on your minds?

Sore Losers

Created for TheZoo by Paul Jamiol
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World

The Watering Hole, Monday, November 26th, 2012: Time to Go, Senator McCain

Wave Bye-Bye Now!

As Rachel Maddow so perfectly pointed out recently, John McCain’s regular – some might say ubiquitous – appearances on so many of the Sunday morning political talkfests only serve to show McCain’s desperation to remain relevant at any cost. Unfortunately, that ‘cost’ seems to be the remnants of McCain’s respectability along with the shards of his integrity.

McCain’s latest insanity is shown in his recent calls for a “Watergate-style” investigation of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice regarding the Benghazi, Libya, attack. McCain’s rabid and, IMHO, unfounded attacks on Ms. Rice (including calling her “not very bright”, and his vow to block her possible nomination as future Secretary of State) were supposedly tempered a trifle yesterday, if by ‘tempered’ one means asking for the same information from Ms. Rice, presumably sans the “Watergate-style” investigation. Regardless, McCain still will not say whether, even if he (undeservedly) receives the requested information from Ms. Rice, he would consider NOT blocking her possible future nomination for Secretary of State.

But in McCain’s interview on Fox Sunday, he shows his characteristic bungling of essential facts:

HOST: You say that you will do everything in your power to block Susan Rice’s nomination if the President decides to name her to be secretary of state . . . . Is there anything that Ambassador Rice can do to change your mind?
MCCAIN: Sure, she can give everyone the benefit of explaining their position and the actions that they took. And I’ll be glad to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with her. Why did she say that al Qaeda has been decimated in her statement here on this program? Al Qaeda hasn’t been decimated. They’re on the rise. They’re all over Iraq.

Yes, John, of course Al Qaeda is “all over” Iraq, sure they are…NOT.

In the same Fox News Sunday interview, on women’s issues, McCain had this to say:

McCAIN:… And as far as young women are concerned, absolutely. I don’t think anybody like me, I can state my position on abortion, but, to — other than that, leave the issue alone. When we are in the kind of economic situation and, frankly, national security situation we’re in.

CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): When you say leave the issue alone, you would allow, you say, freedom of choice?

McCAIN: I would allow people to have those opinions and respect those opinions and I’m proud of my pro-life position and record, but if someone disagrees with me, I respect your views.

So, that would be a ‘NO’ to ‘freedom of choice”?

Since the 2008 Presidential election, when Senator McCain foisted Sarah Palin on us, it seems that his tenuous ties to reality, and his sense of decency and honor, have rapidly strained to the snapping point. I think that we all agree (and I wouldn’t be surprised if many in the Republican heirarchy agree, too), that it’s way past time for McCain to, shall we say, spend a lot more of his time at one of his seven -or was it eight? – homes.

This is our Open Thread. Feel free to discuss this topic, or anything else that comes to mind.

The Watering Hole, Monday, September 3rd, 2012: Mitt, Mitt, and More Mitt – PLUS a Shout-at from Gramps McCain

Romney Channels GW Bush

We all know what a tactless, undiplomatic person Mitt Romney is, whether on the campaign trail (“You didn’t bake those cookies”) to his London Olympic visit and his fundraising trips to Israel and Poland. For today’s thread, I’m focusing on the viewpoints of other countries on Mitt’s abysmal diplomatic skills. Presenting a trio of recent pieces from Foreign Policy magazine regarding Mitt Romney’s “foreign policy”, or lack thereof.

First, an article by Josh Rogin which discusses Romney’s labeling of Russia as America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” An excerpt:

“Russia is a significant geopolitical foe. Governor Romney recognizes that,” Romney advisor Rich Williamson said at a Tuesday afternoon event hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative. “They are our foe. They have chosen a path of confrontation, not cooperation, and I think the governor was correct in that even though there are some voices in Washington that find that uncomfortable…” “Russia is calling itself a democracy but it is not behaving like a democracy,” he [Williamson] said. “When is the last time we have seen Russia on the side of peace? When is the last time we have seen Russia on the side of humanity?”

Hmmm, I could ask the same about the U.S.

Next, from “A Dangerous Mind” by Bruce W. Jentleson and Charles A. Kupchan, a couple of insights:

“Whereas President Barack Obama has claimed the middle ground and crafted a strategy based on principled pragmatism, Romney is following in the footsteps of George W. Bush, relying more on bluster than strategy and veering to ideological extremes….Romney’s view of the changing global landscape rests not on a sober assessment of the world that is emerging, but on the same neoconservative myths that led George W. Bush astray. Like Bush, Romney seems to fixate on the wrong threats — and dangerously inflate them.”

“It is worrying that Romney pledges to reinstate a foreign policy of reflexive toughness just four years after Bush’s assertive unilateralism left the United States mired in Iraq and estranged from much of the world… The Republicans would do better to heed the wisdom of their own Robert Gates, the former defense secretary, who has warned that a president who wants to take the nation into another major war that is not absolutely necessary should “have his head examined.””

Of course, Republicans would argue that it is “absolutely necessary” to attack Iran on behalf of the U.S.’s BFF, Israel.

Last (for this post, anyway), here’s a few quotes from Uri Friedman’s “Russian Press Rips Romney and His Promise of Republican Hell“:

From Pravda:

“They [the Republicans] refer to Russia as a traditional rival of the United States along with North Korea, Iran and China…. To crown it all, Mitt Romney expressed his willingness to be the godfather of the Russian opposition and organize the training for opposition activists at American educational centers.”

From Voice of Russia‘s John Robles:

“Cold war thinkers have drawn up Mitt Romney’s foreign policy stance and it does not look good neither for the U.S., nor for Russia or the free world. Continuing the rhetoric that Russia is geo-political enemy number one and promising to confront and make Russia cow to U.S. interests the Republicans have once again proven their complete disregard for diplomacy.

and

“Whether or not the Republicans are just playing for their base or are seriously proposing such policies, they have proven that they will be force for more instability and conflict in the world.”

and

“To say that Romney and his Republican brethren are a danger to world peace would be an understatement. Their “ultra-conservative” views and stances on a number of issues will bring about another era of neo-conservative subjugation for the American people and the world and their backward thinking and confrontational posturing will destroy much of the delicate compromise that has kept the world stable for the last four years.”

Consider that, according to boston.com, “Almost all of Romney’s 22 special advisers held senior Bush administration positions in diplomacy, defense or intelligence. Two former Republican senators are included as well as Bush-era CIA chief Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.” (The article doesn’t even mention John Bolton, aka ‘Worst…Ambassador…Ever.) If Romney somehow manages to win this election, get ready for four more years of Dubya.

This is our Open Thread. Nostrovia!

O/T: Don’t remember if anyone else posted this, but another old man has been rambling on at an imaginary President Obama. It’s long, and painful/aggravating to read, but…

Gaypocalypse Now..

From TPM:

Jon Stewart last night lampooned Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) on his continued stalwart opposition to repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, even after the Pentagon released its review indicating that a repeal of the ban on openly gay men and women would have little to no effect on military readiness.”McCain’s like one of them Japanese soldiers living on Okinawa in 1949, still fighting because he doesn’t realize the war ended a long time ago,” Stewart said. “And, for some reason, even though he’s been alone for years and years on this island, doesn’t like gay people.”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

TDS: It Gets Worse PSA

From The Daily Show last night:

Senator McCain, we know you’re going through a tough time with this “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing, but trust us, it gets worse.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Last night Rachel Maddow also did a segment on the views—and their are many—of John McCain. Her question at the end? Why does ANYONE listen to ANYTHING John McCain has to say on ANY subject.. Wait 5 minutes and he’ll say something different, taking a totally different stance.. The incoherence and hypocrisy demonstrated by John McCain is absolutely astounding..

Senator John McCain versus Senator John McCain

Great job of putting this segment together Rachel. Brilliant!

Rachel Maddow eviscerates Republicans for their disgusting and shameless hypocrisy

There are lies, damned liars, and then there are Republicans named Chuck Grassley, Lamar Alexander, John McCain, Orrin Hatch, and on and on and on…and oh yeah — the Washington Post.  Should we anticipate a correction?

At this point, you’re a guy on a loud speaker, scolding us to keep our voices down; you’re the speed-eating hotdog kid, telling us to go vegan; you’re a family-values, chastity-lecturing, lecher.  You’re hypocrites.  You are not making serious arguments, and you do not believe what you’re saying.  It’s dis-proven by your record.  In the case of Orrin Hatch, you are flat-out lying about the history of the tactic that Democrats are going to use to pass health reform.

…

For the Washington Post to print something like this is bizarre.  For these established, supposedly mainstream Senators to try to get away with this is an insult to everyone they’re addressing and to the media in particular.  And for us all to just let this slide and call it “politics,” is to surrender to cynicism profoundly.

SMACK!!!

Keep up the good work, Rachel!

Schmidt Ex-McCain Aide: “Urges GOP To Drop Opposition to Gay Marriage”

Steve Schmidt, a key architect of John McCain’s presidential campaign, is making his first public return to Washington a bold one.

Schmidt will use a speech Friday to Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, to urge conservative Republicans to drop their opposition to same-sex marriage, CNN has learned.

“There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same-sex marriage,” Schmidt will say, according to speech excerpts obtained by CNN. “I believe conservatives, more than liberals, insist that rights come with responsibilities. No other exercise of one’s liberty comes with greater responsibilities than marriage.”

Don’t Hand Those Clothes To Me

So, will Sarah Palin really try to run for president in 2012? Did she learn anything from the last time she ran for national office? Let’s find out with some help from The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”.

Don’t Hand Those Clothes To Me
Original music and lyrics, Sting, 1981
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2009

Young gov’nor, the subject
Of blogger fantasy
She wants this so badly
Knows what she wants to be
Inside her there’s nothing
This girl’s a prop on stage
Veep-picking, she’s so close now
This girl is half his age

Don’t hand,

Price of Presidential Helicopters Irks Senator McCain

President Obama deftly handles this issue but would McCain be complaining if he’d won the election. McCain’s complaint comes in at about 2:30.

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Palin: Bush Administration to blame for failure of McCain/Palin ticket

Governor Palin doesn’t want anybody to worry about “Troopergate” anymore, nothing to see here folks!  When she protests as much as she has on this subject, you know it should be investigated further.  Oh, and by the way, it’s business as usual again.  Palin is still going to be charging the government of Alaska a per diem to work out of her house and the state is still going to be picking up the tab for her children to fly everywhere with her.

The really bad news, we are going to be hearing more about Sarah Palin.  She refuses to fade from the limelight.

McClatchy

Palin also said she loved her time in the national spotlight and won’t rule out a run for president or vice president in 2012.

Those were some of Palin’s responses to questions posed Sunday afternoon in a wide-ranging interview with the Anchorage Daily News and KTUU Channel 2 at the governor’s Wasilla home.

Greta Von Susteren of Fox News had just finished an interview with her and was chatting with the governor and her husband in the kitchen. Moose chili cooked in the crock pot and moose hot dogs lay on the table. Palin insisted they weren’t a prop for the national media but just how the family likes to dine.

Here’s some of what she had to say:

Palin blamed by Secret Service for death threats against Obama

Not only does this make me extremely sad, but also disgusted.  I’m amazed Michelle Obama has held up as well as she has. 

We have seen time and again the pure venom that Palin spewed at these rallies – and how out of control, near lynch mob atmosphere, most of these events became.  John McCain waited way too long to put the brakes on Palin and tone down those rallies.  Because of her hateful attacks on Obama’s patriotism, it provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers. But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.

The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks. Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: “Why would they try to make people hate us?”

Alaska’s Results Raise Questions

The media can not seem to explain what the problem is in Alaska, but they can find out how much she spent on clothes and how many times she used the quote “Bridge to Nowhere.”   I think voting irregularities should rank higher than the previous two issues.  The Washington Post has the update on the ongoing questions that don’t seem to add up.

Alaskans are different. Very different.

Elections officials, party leaders and voters are wondering what happened this Tuesday in the Last Frontier, where turnout was surprisingly low and two lawmakers who have been the focus of FBI corruption investigations appear to have been reelected despite polling suggesting they would be ousted.

The final voter turnout numbers won’t be available until absentee ballots are counted, which could take at least another week. But this year’s total is not expected to eclipse Alaska’s 66 percent turnout in 2004 or its 60 percent clip in 2000. (This is especially odd given that Alaska’s Board of Elections saw a 12.4 percent hike in turnout for the August primaries, before Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was selected as the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee.)

Letterman Mocks McCain – “Straight talk express is no longer in service.”

“Attention passengers, the Straight Talk Express is no longer in service,” David Letterman opened his “Late Show” monologue Wednesday night.

The late night host, who famously sparred with John McCain after the Republican candidate canceled on a scheduled appearance, only to be caught on tape filming an interview with Katie Couric at the time he was due with Letterman, then openly mocked McCain over his loss.

“I would like to say one thing to John McCain,” Letterman said. “Listen, Senator: you don’t show up for me, America doesn’t show up for you.”

Letterman also joked about the Obama transition.

“I think I speak for most Americans when I say, anybody mind if he starts a little early? Would that be a problem?”

Olbermann & Hayes: Palin / McCain War Heats Up

Nov. 6: The Nations Chris Hayes talks about recent allegations by some GOP insiders about the rift between the McCain camp and the Palin camp.   Keith is calling them the Republicannibals.

As this war heats up, Palin who has not been home even a full day, is getting requests from Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, Larry King and others, that want to do post-election interviews. 

Palin had been expected at her office in Anchorage but later notified her staff that she wouldn’t be showing up after all. She stayed at her home in Wasilla, located 40 miles to the north, but was expected in her office on Friday, spokesman Bill McAllister said.

“The intensity of all the interest is amazing. Everyone wants to talk to her,” he said.

Fox News: Colmes Nails Joe the Plumber for Being on Welfare

Joe the Plumber hates spreading around the wealth and says that is stealing; but as Colmes points out he was on Welfare.  Joe the Plumber’s argument is that he paid into it.  What Joe the Plumber is not looking up or is ignoring; the fact that social security and welfare are both government programs designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life.   The very idea that he is condemning, he has taken advantage of.

Fox News: Sarah Palin Unaware Africa Is A Continent

Now that the 2008 election is over, reporters are spilling all the juiciest, and previously off the record, gossip from the campaign trail. Much of it is about the infighting between Palin and McCain’s staff, as Newsweek’s treasure trove of post-election gossip reveals. However, perhaps one of the most astounding and previously unknown tidbits about Sarah Palin has to do with her already dubious grasp of geography.

According to Fox News Chief White House Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked “a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency,” in part because she didn’t know which countries were in NAFTA, and she “didn’t understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself.”

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The Biggest Winners & Losers Tuesday

The obvious winners are Barack Obama, Congressional Democrats, all the volunteers that worked hard to make this dream a reality and the progressives that wanted this change so badly.

Politico has highlighted the winners and losers of this campaign election.  I agree that the verdict on the victors will come not from a single night of election returns but from the actions the winners take to remedy the nation’s economic ills and extricate it from two long and costly wars.

Losers

President Bush. The  worst President in history.  The debt, deregulation, the two wars, and his unpopularity helped doom John McCain who voted for Bush policies 90% of the time.

Steve Schmidt. McCain’s main strategist was brought in after a shake-up to hammer Obama hard every day, and he did that with gusto, hatching the highly effective “Celebrity” ad equating Obama with Paris Hilton. Schmidt’s mid-campaign testosterone boost turned off independents, young voters and women. Meanwhile, the base never believed the Arizona senator was one of their own – even when Schmidt succeeded in persuading McCain to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Rudy Giuliani. America’s mayor began the year as the Republican front-runner by making the case for the big-tent GOP approach. He ended it as a caustic Republican attack dog at a time when GOP partisanship has turned off the very independents Giuliani initially attracted.

Bill Kristol. The former Republican White House aide-turned-New York Times columnist was one of the loudest voices in favor of invading Iraq. And he was among the first to suggest Palin could be McCain’s savior. It proved to be a brilliant move. For about two weeks.

Attempted Sabotage Foiled in Deerfield Beach, Florida!

This is sad that this kind of tactic is still going on.  TMZ is reporting that Deerfield Beach, Fla. which is one hour south of Palm Beach had 400 people waiting to vote at 6:15 a.m. this morning.  All were waiting for the polls to open at 7:00 a.m and this is what they found.

There is one voting machine to accommodate all of them.

The area almost entirely African American. Many of the people never have voted before. One woman was 101 years old. She was wheeled into the polling place and on her way out she said that before she died, she wanted to vote for a black man.

Olbermann: What if Obama had campaigned like McCain?

Raw Story

In a Special Campaign Comment, Keith Olbermann invites viewers to imagine how Barack Obama would be fairing in the election if Obama made the mistakes, contradictions, gaffes, Freudian slips, and hypocritical pronouncements that John McCain make throughout the campaign.

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Obama’s first win of election day – Dixville Notch

This is the first time since 1968, that a Democrat won the little town of Dixville Notch, NH.  Obama racks up his first win by 15-6.  This is a charming story by Alex Koppelman about the McCain aides celebrating their first victory almost a year ago, starting with the tiny town of Dixville Notch, N.H.

About ten months ago, John McCain’s aides were celebrating what they knew would become the first step in their victory over Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary, when the results from tiny Dixville Notch, N.H., trickled in a little after midnight.

Cafferty – How Long Will You Wait In Line To Vote?

Dawn from Florida on Cafferty’s blog answered:  My husband and I waited 2 1/2 hours to vote early.  About one hour into the wait, my husband started getting antsy and wanted me to remind him why we were wasting our time.  I just looked at him and said “George W. Bush.”  That did the trick.  Many great responses!

Amy Goodman interviews Mark Crispin Miller

The Raw Story

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman talked to Mark Crispin Miller about a Republican contractor who has been required to testify about his connection to possible fraud concerning the 2004 presidential election. Crispin Miller points to reporting by RAW STORY to help explain the details of why this Republican contractor, Mike Connell, could be so important.

The full transcript of Mark Crispin Miller’s interview is available here.

This testimony that Mark Crispin Miller refers to is connected to this previous post from earlier today.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Muse’s Monday Menagerie

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We are down to the wire with one more day before the 2008 election!

This is such an important year, and it is my fervent hope that Americans all over this nation go out and make their voices heard in the voting booths!

I live in Oregon where we vote by mail, and my vote was cast last week.

The polls look fantastic for Obama today!!

If the final USA Today/Gallup poll is any indication, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has achieved his widest lead in the presidential race to date. [..]

[..] No candidate behind in the Gallup poll at the end of October has ever won the presidency. [..]

[..] Obama leads in six states that went for Bush in 2004. 

Obama is also ahead in the Washington Post ABC poll (11 points), the CBS/NY Times poll (13 points), and the CNN poll (7 points). [..]

For updates on voting problems being reported around the country, check BradBlog.

Today’s ‘menagerie’ starts out with an excellent article called “It Is Now Absolutely Crystal Clear That Republican Rule Is Dangerous and Authoritarian” by John Dean. Here’s a snippet:

Republicans rule, rather than govern, when they are in power by imposing their authoritarian conservative philosophy on everyone, as their answer for everything. This works for them because their interest is in power, and in what it can do for those who think as they do. Ruling, of course, must be distinguished from governing, which is a more nuanced process that entails give-and-take and the kind of compromises that are often necessary to find a consensus and solutions that will best serve the interests of all Americans..

If you read nothing else in this post, please read this excellent article by Dean. 

From The Nation, and John Nichols: Obama and the Better Angels of Our Nature

As Election Day finally arrives, it is right to speak of hope – a hope that America’s Democrats, independents and Republicans will again embrace the better angels of our nature and support the candidacy of another young Illinoisan so overwhelming that he can secure his claim on the presidency of a nation that is so ready to begin anew.

Amen to that!

Last night was the debate for the two men running for the Senate in Minnesota: Al Franken(D), Dean Barkley(I-P) and Norm Coleman(R). Lots of fireworks from the start..
Here is the live-blogging. MPR and the StarTribune have more on this tense debate.

The New York Magazine does a feature article on Rachel Maddow.

From Politico, an article on the “scant findings” of fraud (or lack of findings) regarding ACORN.

From Truthout: Tomorrow by William Rivers Pitt

It has been a long and terrible time since tomorrow mattered as much as it does today…

From The New York Times: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner by Frank Rich.
Also from The New York Times: The Republican Rump by Paul Krugman.

Juan Cole of Informed Comment writes: The Coming McCain Military Draft.

From Truthdig, Constitutional Scholar (and Republican) Bruce Fein writes Keeping the Supreme Court in Check.

And don’t miss this excellent article on CommonDreams by John Cusack: No Currency Left to Buy the Big Lies

Andrew Sullivan finds the best inspirational songs..“Democracy!” 

Sail on, sail on 
O mighty Ship of State! 
To the Shores of Need 
Past the Reefs of Greed 
Through the Squalls of Hate 
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on. 

It’s coming to America first, 
the cradle of the best and of the worst. 
It’s here they got the range 
and the machinery for change 
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst. 
It’s here the family’s broken 
and it’s here the lonely say 
that the heart has got to open 
in a fundamental way.