Gimme Shelter from the Bridges to Babylon tour.

Here's You Can't Always Get What You Want. So true, but we can get what we need, and that's not John McCain and another 8 years of George Bush policies.

This is an open thread.

US News and World Report has an article on how Sen. John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has injected the culture wars into the election, positing that it may cost him in Independent votes.

McCain's senior advisers have themselves admitted that Palin was picked to ensure a strong conservative turnout in such decisive battleground states as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. She should also shore up traditionally Republican western states, including Colorado, which has shown signs of going Democratic. But if Palin draws too much attention to issues such as abortion, if the culture war heats up and comes to dominate discussion, there is a danger that she could weaken McCain's appeal not only to moderates within his own party but also to independents and conservative Democrats—in short, to the vast slice of American voters that decides national elections.

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who has supported both Republicans and Democrats in the past, today endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president. The chief reason: Sarah Palin.

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

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It would almost be funny if it weren't so outrageous. Republicans aren't satisfied with the willingness of some congressional Democrats to negotiate in good faith about a comprehensive energy policy that might permit limited offshore drilling (with environmental safeguards and a requirement that drilling leases actually be used) in exchange for development of wind and solar energy and reduced subsidies for oil companies.

Republicans, who threw this year's appropriations process into chaos by trying to force drilling provisions into spending bills, renewed their calls Monday for an up-or-down vote on lifting the drilling ban.

Why do Republicans believe that only bills of importance to Republicans are entitled to an up-or-down vote? Republicans have set a record in the last two years in their use of the filibuster to obstruct new legislation. Senate Republicans have filibustered something like 80 pieces of legislation in the current session of Congress. Funny how the suddenly sacrosanct up-or-down vote wasn't important on any of those occasions. [more ...]

New election year - same old GOP ballot shenanigans. Kos has the details (and an added thought from me - does this ballot require a Section 5 Justice Department preclearance?)

They're scared and corrupt, and that is a volatile mix. The full email press release from the Musgrove (D) campaign:

Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann today presented an unlawful sample ballot which buries the special US Senate race between Governor Ronnie Musgrove and interim US Senator Roger Wicker. The ballot was approved by Governor Haley Barbour. Hosemann buried the Musgrove-Wicker race below all local races near the bottom of the ballot.

Hosemann could cite no statu[t]e supporting his decision to move the race from the top of the ballot. However, Attorney General Jim Hood did cite election law requiring federal races be placed at the top of the ballot. [ . . .]

Why? To depress voting in the Senate race. Kos again:

Jews for Jesus leader David Brinker in One Day in Wasilia, responds to attacks on the speech he gave at Sarah Palin's church in Wasila. The Palins were in attendance.

The groups mission statement says:

We exist to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide.

Here are their core values. Here's what it takes to "get saved."

If you know any Jewish voters, please forward this to them. Particularly if they live in Florida. They can assess for themselves the danger of giving any voice in government to these extremist radical right groups. Update below:

Sen. Barack Obama has a strong record of support for veterans' rights, including legislation he passed and supported while serving on the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and in Illinois. Compare and contrast with that of Sen. John McCain:

• As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness.

[More...]

In an earlier post I wrote about Saturday's McCain-Palin rally in Colorado Springs, and how the candidates and speakers, while stressing the importance of Colorado and El Paso County in particular this November, failed to give even a passing nod to the evangelical social agenda. That brings to mind a larger question.

Is El Paso County, with its high concentration of evangelical and military-oriented voters, enough to push McCain to victory in Colorado in November? Taking a look at various numbers, I would say it's a close question, but unlikely. [More...]

Received by e-mail from the Catholic Democrats Communnications PAC:

An independent nationwide survey run the week of September 1, 2008, by the Catholic Democrats Communications Political Action Committee shows that nearly all the Catholic voters who voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton will now cast the vote for Sen. Barack Obama. Nearly 500 Catholics responded to the survey.

It is clear that the alleged defection of Clinton voters to McCain is not happening, " said Bill Roth, President of the PAC. "Nearly 95% of the Clinton voters now intend to vote for Sen. Obama. This repudiates the idea that Gov. Palin should somehow appeal to the Clinton voter." [More...]

Somerby reports on Olbermann:

THIS FELLOW JUST CAN’T STOP: Some “men” are born to behave this way. One fellow clearly can’t stop:

MADDOW (9/8/08): And so, you think [Obama’s] confidence is about what comes next in the campaign, not necessarily an undue confidence about where his tactics thus far have gotten him.

OLBERMANN: Well, look what he’s—he’s fought off this. He’s fought off this, you know—we found somebody at Schwab’s Drugstore in Hollywood and give her a screen test and now she’s Liza Minnelli and a star is born and we’re making her the vice president of the United States or at least the candidate on the ticket.

In this way, this fellow adorned the first few moments of Rachel Maddow’s first program! But then, some “men” are born to insult women; they keep it up to the day they die. KeithO seems to be such a guy. He’ll never stop gender-trashing Palin, even if it puts her consort safely inside the White House.

Speaking for me only

UPI editor Martin Sieff displays a surprising amount of journalistic honesty when he writes:

The cynical old adage about Vietnam is being played out in Iraq: Pull out the troops and call it victory.

That is certainly one way to look at President George W. Bush's decision, to be announced Tuesday, to pull 8,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq.

As Sieff points out, the current level of troop commitment would be unsustainable even if Iraq's nascent government hadn't insisted on a troop withdrawal. His verdict: [more ...]

In a post yesterday, I disagreed with Glenn Greenwald's post about Keith Olbermann. Today, Greenwald writes about the obligations of journalists. Greenwald writes:

[If] you posit that journalists have no obligation to do anything other than advance their self-interest, then all media criticism becomes incoherent. So what if journalists pass along McCain's lies without pointing out that they're false? So what if Judy Miller gets herself on the front page by disseminating the false war-fueling claims of unreliable sources? . . . . According to [Matt] Yglesias (and many others), they have no duty or obligation to do anything else. Their only consideration is advancement of their self-interest, and that's how it should be.

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