PSoTD

Just curious is there's anything competitive to the Congressional and state legislator contact service Capwiz, particularly that offers the ability to plug into a web site:

Email, fax, or mail constituent letters to elected officials

zip code-to-district matching and legislative data matching, so that constituents can determine online which legislators/members of Congress to contact.

Federal and state vote scorecards and bill Information

I know some have problems with the selection of Rick Warren giving the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.

Here's a bit of a surprise: Dr. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church will give the formal invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. The good pro-life theologian first met Obama in 2006 at a Saddleback AIDS forum in California. Obama used the occasion to press the evangelical pastors present to embrace "realism" when they considered the issue; preach abstience, yes, but preaching against contraception can kill. (Here's some of what Obama said that day: "I know that there are those who, out of sincere religious conviction, oppose such measures. And with these folks, I must respectfully but unequivocally disagree. I do not accept the notion that those who make mistakes in their lives should be given an effective death sentence.")

My problem isn't the selection of Warren specifically, it's the choice of having an invocation, period. I don't believe there should be any faith-based invocation in the first place, I don't think it has much business in the formal swearing in of a President. I don't believe that selecting a religion to do this is appropriate, and when you select the religious leader, you select the religion. And being agnostic, I really don't have much interest in what Rick Warren has to say on such an occasion - I care what Barack Obama has to say.

It's not that I'm not opposed to some of Warren's public statements, because I am. But being agnostic about God puts me in the position of not feeling particularly interested in either the process of the invocation or the person chosen to deliver it. It's not much different than if somebody had been chosen to provide historical professional golf statistics as part of the inauguration - it has no application to me.

Have all Presidents had a religious leader of some sort speak at their inauguration? If not, I think that's a fact that deserves some public visibility. What did Jefferson do?

They ought to lock in George W. Bush for a worldwide tour of their locations before Payless Shoe Source does. I bet sales go through the roof! (or at least, maybe through the windows, if Bush is standing near them...)

It seems to me that somebody in the news media might be able to write an interesting story on the traffic trends of the federal government web site USAJOBS.gov....

Tomorrow it's supposed to be 61 degrees, so I think I'll practice throwing shoes at a head sized target for a while.

In this particular case, I do not understand why the individual's decision is not being respected by non-governing institutions questioning the wisdom of his actions. That position - the disrespect by non-governing institutions for the individual choice - is not worthy of respect itself. If death is inevitable within a short period of time, why can't the person dying try to figure out the best way to do it for all involved?

Is there any place where a blogger can find out the dollar value in taxes not collected for the U.S. Government for all the deductions listed in IRS Publication 529?

Apparently, it's North Dakota, sorta:

North Dakota voters Nov. 4 gave Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader his second highest percentage of votes in the nation, 1.3 percent.

If Obama wants the more progressive, more liberal, and less hawkish Democrats to coalesce more effectively to refocus the Democratic Party, there couldn't have been a better spark for that effort than to allow Joe Lieberman to keep his Senate chair. I kinda wonder if that's exactly why it happened.

If you have kids, this photo of a man grieving over his child killed in Iraq is going to hurt. Same if you don't have kids.

There's so much idiocy on so many levels going on in Iraq, blood idiocy. Blood idiocy. Flesh idiocy. Life idiocy. We convert this idiocy into statistics in an effort to measure the results, casualties and dead and dollars and time. It takes a photo to bring home the idiocy. It takes a photo to bring home the criminality of this war ON EVERYONE'S PART THAT CONTINUES IT. This is that photo.

We are still a stupid species. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can work to become a little wiser. This photo is a shock reminder of how stupid we can be, all of us, our species, when we fail to remember how stupid we are.

Sometimes emotion is the wisdom, and logic is the haze. Look at this photo, not in anger at any one person but in sadness at what we ignorantly accept ourselves in being. Look at what we're all doing in our battle of idiocies, and cry.

Very, very smart. And useful.

"On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will meet in Chicago at transition headquarters," Obama Transition spox Stephanie Cutter just announced. "It's well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality."

I think he's playing an interesting politics with Lieberman. At least, I hope so...

Lieberman can still help Dems, Reid says

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he's still trying to keep Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman within the Democratic caucus despite anger over Lieberman's support of Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Regardless of the headline, this praise from Reid is quite damning of Lieberman. If you go on the premise that the caucus wants to vote him out, particularly with his dance with the Republicans, then what Reid is saying publicly is likely to isolate Lieberman even further. Such praise as

"Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators."

and

"Joe Lieberman is one of the most progressive people ever to come from the state of Connecticut."

makes it a lot less appetizing for the Republicans to throw in their lot with Lieberman. The truth will be told with the caucus vote, but this sure looks like compliments designed to smell like dog crap to the Republican Caucus to me. With the goal of leaving Lieberman with no real options but to take whatever meager subcommittee chairmanship the Democrats might offer him, and a warning to shut up or suffer further consequences.

A little Chuck Todd from last Tuesday...

*** When red states turn blue: The two red states that have lifted Obama over 270 in NBC’s current electoral map are Colorado and Virginia. What do they have in common? They happen to be the two lone states Bush carried in 2004 that rank in the Top 10 in education (bachelor’s degrees or higher) and in fewest senior citizens (i.e., they’re the youngest states). Virginia also was the sole state that Bush carried four years ago that ranks in the Top 10 in median household income. Demographically then, these two states were poised to be pick-up opportunities for the Democrats. And if Obama wins them tonight, the GOP’s challenge in future presidential elections will be to find a way to win them back -- or reach 270 without them. Republicans don't have any more states they can afford to slip into the tossup/battleground column. The Democratic base in the Electoral College is getting awfully large (CA, NY, IL, NJ, New England, the Agricultural Midwest). If CO, VA, PA and MI are added in, what does that leave the GOP? And then in four or eight years, Texas will begin slipping into competitive territory. Who says Democrats ought to be in favor of scrapping the Electoral College? This may become a Republican movement.

Texas is pretty much the straw of the Republican camel's back. State and Congressional seats in Texas currently being served by Republicans ought to be a top priority for targeting in 2010, with expectations of greater inroads in 2012.

Don't wait until he jumps. Boot Lieberman already, Senator Reid, keeping him in a chairmanship will just pay poisonous dividends throughout the next session.

As a man whose name begins with the letter W, I've been disappointed with how it has been hijacked for political purposes by one of, if not the most, unpopular President in American History. Even today, if I drive around for very long in our relatively conservative geographic area, I'll see a car with one of those stupid "W" oval stickers plastered on their rear window or bumper, as if it were a vacation destination for the politically imbecilic.

Well, now that we're entering hopefully a smarter political era, it's time to rehabilitate the letter "W". First of all - the scrubbing should begin in how we refer to the 43rd American President. It can be Bush II, or George W. Bush, or whatever, but he doesn't get a letter. He hasn't earned it, and the letter "W" doesn't deserve such a connotation. And anyone that refers to him as "W" is denigrating a whole family of words and names and destinations and sounds.

I'm not sure if those who still drive cars with the "W" stickers are smart enough to figure out how stupid they look, and I'm not recommending that people take it in their own hands to remove the stickers. What I am suggesting is that advertisers do their part to try to play up happier, more successful, more intelligent uses of words that begin with W, and promote the letter. It could be winter, or Wisconsin, or wine, or Wachtovia... okay, not Wachtovia... but you get the point. They could play up the "new era of W" angle. Whatever it is - we need a national media campaign to rehabilitate the letter. It is the one letter of the alphabet that has suffered as much as America the past eight years, and it's time to help.

Seriously, there has to be a way to tie in this Facebook group to GoogleMaps so that everyone can know how close of proximity they are to the biggest political imbeciles in the nation.

I'd like to see some news from the Obama transition team about a scheduled meeting to be held in just the next few weeks with Senator McCain. I'd like it be more than a polite formality as well - I'd like Obama to announce that he's going to work closely with Senator McCain to put together a plan to cut back pork barrel spending. I'd also like an effort to come up with a generally agreed-upon definition of what pork barrel spending is for the nation.

And now that we're finally through this election, I hope that most bloggers can see the true crackpot nature of blog posts such as this and this, and realize that reading and participating in such forums is the equivalent of wanking to stick figure art, obsessed to an end and grabbing at any scrawlings available. Clearly I'm not a fan of PajamasMedia, but even they aren't this irrational.

And I think that blogs that blogroll No Quarter or HillBuzz deserve to have their rationality for such questioned.

But now, in the spirit of reconciliation and progress, I am not going to carry my disgust for those two sites and the illogical writers that support it. Instead, as we move forward, I think the best course of action is to recognize the sad nature involved in both sites, and ignore it.

Congratulations, Barack, Joe, and America. Now the real work begins for us all.

It's not very good as far as results are concerned.

I've voted for one winner (Clinton, 1996) in 7 Presidential elections. My vote might be the seal of doom for a candidate. Especially if you consider that the only seal of doom greater than my vote is a Bob Dole national candidacy (0 for 2). Clinton won because Dole trumped me.

Or maybe Bob Dole was stopped by the write-in vote for Fig Bar Man...

So what does John McCain do after he loses on Tuesday?

I have a suggestion for Obama - offer McCain the administration's point person on finding "pork" and waste in government spending.

I think the Republicans are getting ready for a good cry.

Remember October 1996?

Bob Dole claimed credit Saturday for putting Democrats on the defensive over their acceptance of foreign political contributions, saying "The stone wall is beginning to crumble."

The Republican challenger pressed his efforts to link President Clinton to contributions from Asian business interests during a town-square campaign rally and in his weekly radio address."The ethical vacuum at the heart of this administration has been filled with foreign money," Dole told his radio audience.

Dole was trying to energize Republicans with campaign stops Saturday in this south-central Kentucky community and in southern Virginia, both GOP-dominated areas of states where recent polls have put Clinton ahead.

The travel came as Dole aides said internal polls found the GOP nominee beginning to narrow the gap and even move ahead in some usually Republican states where he had been behind.

Ugh. I received this email from a family member yesterday about a piece of shit article published last week:

To all of my family, friends, and acquaintances, please read this very important newspaper article. The truth comes out finally!

*Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?* /By Orson Scott Card /

/Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism. /

...

/This article first appeared in /The Rhinoceros Times /of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.

I cut out all the actual "story", it was well reported about in the blogosphere last week and is really quite a bit of nonsense. And that's not precisely the point of this post.

One of the things I am now begging ANYONE that feels they need to forward me a news article is to Google the author and any specific subject before sending. If one did, you'd find that The Rhinoceros Times is not a news"paper" of any sort - it's an online site only, and a small, very local, and very unimportant to the national discussion website at that.

Secondly, you'd find that most ordinary people probably wouldn't define Orson Scott Card as a Democrat OR a newspaper columnist. He's supported Bush, the Republican Congress, and now McCain in the last three elections. He's a Halloween Republican, dressing up as something else so he can get some attention candy from unsuspecting readers. And it's kind of hard to be a newspaper columnist if the newspaper you write for isn't actually a newspaper at all.

So, if you're going to send me an article that purports to discuss "honest reporters", please make sure the author is actually being honest with you. Card has no credibility after the "Editor's note". People should feel a responsibility to look into it before shipping it off. I don't giftwrap sewage in a candy box, and I prefer to not have lies mailed to me wrapped up in some sort of "honesty" bow, either.

It's past time for the very public Senatorial humiliation of one Deputy Dog Lieberman. This includes items such as committee assignments of one "Senate Committee on Toilets" and a provision of the worst office available. Who is he going to complain to that should give a shit?

The guy is a phony, has been a phony, will continue to be a phony. He cannot be trusted. If Senate Leadership does not publicly demonstrate this with the public distribution of the worst responsibilities and most meager benefits of Senate Office, then they are not doing their part to heal the country. Phonies must be outed so the public will remove them.

Will McCain's campaign be rather dull and lifeless over the last week, or it will it be pitchforks and torches to everything? There's not much middle ground for them now.

You can see it in the columnists. Republicans already trying to define why Obama will be elected and limit his reach. Hey Peggy Noonan - people aren't going to listen to you. Just because you weren't one of the absolute worst Republican commentators during this election cycle doesn't mean you have any credibility with those who vote for Obama. You don't.

This is the thing: If Mr. Obama wins, and governs as a moderate liberal, not veering left, not seeming to be the cap that pops off a kettle that's been boiling for eight years, but governs to a degree, at least in general approach, as Bill Clinton did—as a moderate Democrat well aware of the terrain—he may know some success. And he may be able to tamp down the insistence of the long-simmering left by the force of his own popularity, which will grow once he is president among grateful Democrats, and others. But if he goes left—if it comes to seem as if the attractive, dark-haired man has torn open his shirt to reveal a huge S, not for Superman but for Socialist, if he jumps toward reforms such as a speech-limiting new Fairness Doctrine, that won't yield success. It will yield trouble, and unneeded domestic arguments. We have enough needed ones.

First of all, quit the 7-year-old's labeling tactic, we all know you don't believe it. Secondly - don't tell the candidate that wins by a considerable margin to avoid unneeded domestic arguments. Tell the people that just had their domestic policies shoved up their ass by the people at the ballot box - that's right, the Republican Party - to avoid them. BTW, if you look around your Republican Party these days, you'll notice that 90% of their campaigning is just that - unneeded and worthless arguments.

Well, the Republicans are desperate enough to run a guy for Congress who clearly doesn't understand what policies can help the middle class. Besides, I bet there's going to be a lot of leftover "Joe the Plumber" crap that could be used in a campaign...

Maybe in 2010 the Republican Party should recruit and ONLY run plumbers named Joe for Congress.

One of my little irritants about political campaigns is about the use of political signs - particularly, the yard sign variety that gets placed on unimproved property and relatively open spaces such as parks.

Political campaigns must adopt permission marketing in regards to placement of signs. I know that volunteers and advocates get excited and want to get the word out about their candidate as much as possible, and having that trunk full of signs emptied is easier to do if you don't get permission from the landowner.

But you have to. Our neighborhood has three parks, and we have a policy that all signs are removed if permission is not requested. There's another policy, which is that political campaign signs are not allowed to be posted on the park property. Which means there will never be a campaign sign given permission to be posted there.

So when I find a campaign sign there, it's immediately taken down. It's a dereliction of both responsibility and courtesy to post signs without permission, and it actually makes the candidate look bad to the property owner or manager.

I see these signs planted just off the roadside of empty fields and woodlands as well. Was permission requested? Somehow I suspect not.

I, for one, would like to see him run for President, if only so he can have his half-baked opinions stuffed back so they can be fully cooked to mediocre. Half-baked mediocrity is only accepted in the realm of talk radio.

Now I know when it was that Mom took us to the airport to see Bobby Kennedy.

The potential of an Obama victory over McCain on election day becomes more "realistic feeling" with every day that goes past with Obama leading significantly in the polls. This leads Republicans, particularly Republican bloggers, to try to find ways to discredit the evidence and/or change the reality in a way that will keep their readers hopeful on the election results. This week we've seen an evolution of "the polls could be changing, the polls could be wrong, the polls are wrong" posts from these folks, and no doubt we'll be seeing more of the same for the next few weeks. There's no way that statisticians and professional polling organizations could know as much as joe ordinary republican blogger. No way!

But as that "real feeling" starts to sink in deeper amongst both the bloggers and their readers, their reactionary blogging is likely to become more desperate. I'm sure that next week we'll start seeing weather report blogging, with focus on the ten day forecast for swing states, particularly in big cities. Could be a major rain storm in the DC area that will cut down voter activity in the Virginia suburbs? Could be hail in Philadelphia? Snowstorm in Denver? Locusts in St. Louis!

It'll get more desperate later next week. I'm sure that somehow the late night drinking of east coast college students for the Monday Night Football game between Pittsburgh and Washington could end up swaying the election as they are feeling too sick to vote. By election eve, look for

CHUDs Attacking Precincts in Florida!!!!!

on some Pajamas Media site near you.

What is the reasoning for giving houses of worship tax-exempt status again?

but I will question his reasoning as to why McCain might be moving up in Zogby polls...

McCain's strong performance at the Alfred E. Smith charity dinner in New York City Thursday, combined with his appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman Thursday night, may have had a positive effect.

I guess maybe they'll lead now after Sarah Palin's performance on SNL? Bizarro...

I think I read where the CW says that this election, at most, could be a 4 point win in total votes, either side, because of the split of the nation.

The tax code, once you get past some sort of flat rate tax, is ABOUT REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH AND RESOURCES. Credits, deductions, exemptions - someone doesn't pay here, someone over there pays more, the bottom line is that this is restructuring wealth in this country. I doubt I've heard one conservative complain about Obama's comment that doesn't ALREADY RECEIVE THE BENEFITS OF A TAX CODE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. Anyone know who gets most of the credits and deductions and exemptions? Is it the wealthy?