Go Read It, Downward Dogs: Sympathy for the Wretched Politician

Dear Teahadists,

Yes, we are laughing AT you. We tried laughing WITH you, but you are sour and humorless.

Let it never be said I have no Sympathy for the Wretched Politician, however:

Don't forget to take a moment, before it's too late, to celebrate the charming lunacy of Christine O'Donnell, anti-masturbation goofnickel and all-around Tea Party hood ornament, before she slides back into total irrelevance. Do you feel empathy for poor Christine? She is trailing by double digits in the polls. She is scrambling for footing up a mountain of dumb.

This is especially apt, given the Three-Ringed Circus of Flail that was Delaware Republican senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell's showing (video) at the debate this evening with the Democratic candidate, Chris Coons.

As always, breathe.

Namaste,

Cynematic

P i l l o w b o o k

MOMocrats Facebook Page

Think It's OK to Stay Home for the Mid-Term Elections?

Think again.

H/T to Mike Kruger on Facebook.

Go Read It: The Young Guns Anti-Woman 9

If you live in certain districts in the states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Masschussetts, Tennessee, Connecticut, Michigan or Iowa, there's a possibility a Republican candidate with a pronounced, strongly anti-woman background--maybe even criminal allegations filed against him--could be elected.

Take a look at a summary of the anti-woman records of some of the GOP candidates for Congress.

One example: Republican "Young Gun" Tom Ganley (OH-13) is involved in a lawsuit filed against him by a disillusioned conservative female campaign worker alleging sexual assault and employment discrimination. It's troubling, especially when you consider the woman was a Tea Party "true believer" who seems to have withheld her accusations, not wanting to help another candidate who is pro-choice. (Incumbent Betty Sutton, the Democrat being challenged by Ganley, has no such record of sexual assault of her campaign staff, is pro-choice, and has voted in support of consumers, women, and supported the enormously popular public option as part of the health care reform bill.)

That is, Ganley's accuser is hardly a liberal with a political axe to grind, but instead a die-hard conservative who had every reason to prop up Ganley. While there's been no determination of guilt or innocence of the allegations, Ganley's involvement does raise the question: can he reasonably and impartially stand up as a lawmaker for women who have experienced those kinds of abuses? After all, what's wrong is wrong and sexual assault is wrong, no matter the politcal party of the person who committed it.

As usual, there are crickets on the right in support of the conservative woman who was mistreated and possibly assaulted by Ganley. You'd think "mama grizzlies" would speak up for one of their own. Too busy appearing on FOX tv, maybe?

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

Breaking News (Not!): President Obama is actually a stalwart moderate (But Why Don't You Know This?)

My husband liked Barack Obama way back in 2004, "Mark my words," he said, "That man has what it takes to be President, and I'll be his biggest supporter."

I listened and studied. While Obama seemed eloquent, intelligent, and bursting with potential, I was not as enamored as my husband. "I don't know," I said, "He doesn't seem that progressive, and I really think we're going to require a ton of progress when we get Bush out of the White House. The next person is going to have to be a rolling stone."

Then again, I've always leaned slightly more liberal than my husband, who, when I met him, thought the Libertarians had a pretty decent point. At the end of the day, though, we're both well-anchored realists who recognize that our nation needs government and both parties were highly invested in Big Government.

Note: I strongly believe that if we must have Big Government -- and since it seems we will regardless of which party rules -- it better be For The People. In other words, I advocate heavily for social policy. I want any legislation that restricts personal rights and freedom ousted and never again mentioned (Don't Ask Don't Tell, No Same Sex Marriage, to name a couple) and require that any social policy strictly benefit the good of us, the citizens, and ultimately of our society (improved education, consumer protections, infrastructure and security, to name a few).

By the time the 2008 Democratic field narrowed to Barack Obama, I had extensively researched him and found him all right. 

"His rhetoric is excellent, his charisma is amazing," I told my husband, "But his narrative is dreadful. His policies and positions are really middle of the road. I don't see a big changing of the horse in our future."

My husband just shook his head.

Stop the Bullying--Blog Action for National Coming Out Day, October 11, 2010

The latest suicide of a young person who was bullied about his sexuality by his classmates and acquaintances has me shaken up. Tyler Clementi's is the fourth such reported death in less than a month. And yet we continue to hear of more such suicides.

I'm stunned and horrified that two Rutgers students thought it would be "funny" to livestream schoolmate Clementi's sexual activity over the internet without his permission or knowledge, directly contradicting Clementi's request for privacy.

As a parent, I'm devastated by the Clementis' terrible loss of their beautiful, gifted son. There is nothing so heart-wrenching as parents forced to bury their child; a situation so profoundly unjust and sorrowful it goes against everything parents attempt in the simple, hopeful act of nurturing children. People of all ages recognize this grief; you need not be a parent to understand it. But I think parents feel a particular pain knowing that in some cases, their vast love and acceptance, like Wendy Walsh's for her now-dead son Seth, was not enough to counter the hate. When he came out to his mother, Wendy Walsh told Seth, "It's okay, sweetheart, I love you no matter what." I'm heartbroken that despite her abiding love, her son couldn't endure torment from his schoolmates and the deafening, indifferent silence of teachers and staff.

Ellen DeGeneres immediately made a moving and urgent plea to suicidal young LGBT people to "stick around." Be around for the changes, because society is changing--unevenly, slowly, in pockets here and there. But it is changing for the better.

Dan Savage, the popular sex-positive advice columnist, started "It Gets Better," a similar movement to reassure and encourage LGBT youth that they will find love, that with luck and perserverance and the warm support of friends and allies they will find their niche in the world.

National Coming Out Day is October 11, 2010--seven days from now. And October is Anti-Bullying Month.

I'm starting up a Blog Action that I hope everyone will join, from the parenting blogosphere, to LGBT bloggers who have already written and vlogged so movingly about homophobic bullying and the courage to come out. I know caring educators will have something to say, as will activists in the youth and feminist movements. I think we allies need to find one another.

If you've blogged a memorial about the suicides of of kids tormented because of their sexual orientation, if you have a hopeful coming out story to share, if you have resources to help people who witness bullying become the ones to stop it, please add your blog post link to the Simply Linked below. For the next seven days until National Coming Out Day, October 11, let's demonstrate that there's more love, compassion, and acceptance out there than there is cruelty and hate.

Local GOTV Report: Voter Registration at the Abbot Kinney Festival

The success of the Democratic Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign in this year's election is more crucial than ever. Guest blogger Sarah Auerswald reports on her experience in Southern California.

I did my first voter registration drive at the Abbot Kinney Festival in Venice. It’s largest street festival in Southern California and organizers had hoped to really capture a lot of new voters there.

The Democrats are aware of the reality: that people generally don’t care about mid-term elections and certainly won’t turn out to vote in the same numbers they did when President Obama was elected.

So their strategy is to make sure new voters get registered – and then empowered to vote – and to encourage people to request their own vote-by-mail ballots, eliminating any excuses like having no time to get to the polls.

I was inspired to volunteer when I heard Marta Evry speak recently. She’s a community organizer and the blogger behind Venice4Change, and she really hooked me.

She said that if Democrats don’t turn out in November, California will have Meg Whitman for Governor. And that’s all it took; I signed right up.

It was a ridiculously hot day in Venice, and of course, most people weren’t there to speak to a woman with a clipboard, but I did manage to sign a few people up – and Marta Evry had a whole team of people with clipboards there, all of whom managed to register over 300 voters.

And even though we didn’t actually register quite as many voters as we would have liked, we did of course remind people about the upcoming election.

Betsy Butler, the Democratic candidate for the 53rd district in the California Assembly (Ted Lieu’s former seat), was on hand to help, as well as one of her opponents in the primary, Nick Karno. It’s all for one and one for all now, among the Democrats. We’re uniting to see our candidates get elected.

Guest Blogger Sarah Auerswald is the blogger behind Mar Vista Mom and Sarah’s Blog.

Watch It: White House Explains Tax Cut Extension Plan in 120 Seconds

Economist Austan Goolsbee, who this month was named White House Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, took to the White House White Board to explain why the Obama Administration supports extending the Bush-era tax cuts for middle class Americans, but wants to let tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers expire as scheduled.

As a former economics writer for The New York Times and Slate, and a television veteran who has appeared on the History Channel, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report, Goolsbee is known for his knack for delivering complex economic information in simple terms, and I think he shows it in this video.

Here's hoping the White House employs Goolsbee to explain more economic issues ASAP. I'd love to see a White House White Board episode demonstrating, for example, how a shift to renewable energy would benefit the economy.

CNN, sexism and the detestable James O'Keefe

In case you've forgotten (and I truly wish I could), James O'Keefe is that odious little Breitbart protégé with a penchant for setting up people, organizations and the general public with false narratives staged in advance. His latest borders on an effort to sexually harass and possibly assault a CNN reporter, of all things.

Abbie Boudreau is an attractive, young CNN reporter who had an assignment: To report on the young conservative 'movement'. I have an issue with their framing and focus, but that's a topic for another post.

James O'Keefe hatched a plan to "punk" Boudreau with props like strawberries, dildoes Viagra and stamina pills. Here's a one-paragraph description of the "plan":

Instead, I've decided to have a little fun. Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video. This bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who comes on at five will get a taste of her own medicine, she'll get seduced on camera and you'll get to see the awkwardness and the aftermath.

My first thought after reading this plan was that James O'Keefe has some strange reading material. I shudder to think what his video consumption is. But deeper than that -- far deeper -- is his cynical, ugly attitude about women. This is a guy who strikes me as someone who doesn't have the first clue about what women are really about, and certainly has no respect for them. In the 80's he would have been the lounge lizard hitting on every woman in the room while harboring fantasies about taking three of them home at once. He's someone who has no problem lying to anyone and everyone who challenges him.

He's the date rapist type you're glad you never encountered when you were single.

MOMocrats Interview: Jim Meffert

Last week MOMocrats writer Jaelithe Judy had the chance to speak with Jim Meffert, a Democrat running for Congress in Minnesota's Third District against incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen, who was elected in 2008.

A former president of the Minnesota State PTA Board, a member of the P-20 Partnership for Education, and the the executive director of the Minnesota Optometric Association, Jim Meffert is also a father of three. 

Listen to the interview below, or read the transcript. 

Meffert_Interview_MOMocrats

Jim Meffert: I'm going to get get my wife hooked up with you guys.

Jaelithe Judy: That's great.

She's a professional musician — clarinetist — and has extremely strong opinions, on everything! Which is fantastic. And frankly, about a year ago when we were looking at getting into this, she and I would gauge where we were at with getting into the race. She was at 70% on day one; I was at about 50%. And she said, you've got to get out and do this. So she would be great to connect with.

We definitely like opinionated women at MOMocrats.

And I tell you, I don't know if you know any of my background, but, being on the board of the state PTA, and I was chair of a group called the Minnesota Children's Platform Coalition, and worked with Every Child Matters, and so I have spent my entire, my volunteer career, around strong women trying to do the same that you're doing — trying to get families involved, trying to talk about how we help families and kids, talking about parents' involvement in schools. So, anything that I can do to help you guys also, to broaden the audience and broaden the discussion, let me know, because we've got to use campaigns to do that too.

Well thanks, I appreciate that! Well, I have some questions for you if you're ready.

GO WATCH THIS TONIGHT -- 9500 Liberty: A Documentary on Immigration Reform, on MTV Networks Tonight

TONIGHT 9500 LIBERTY premieres on MTV Networks
Join filmmakers Eric Byler and Annabel Park for webcast Q&A

[Reprint of press kit materials describing the films.]

SB 1070, the racial profiling law in Arizona, has been tried once before, and it failed.

Please tune in tonight for the world television premiere of the film, "9500 Liberty" at 8 PM Eastern time, and 8 PM Pacific time on MTV 2, MTV U, and MTV Tr3s (with Spanish subtitles).

"9500 Liberty" provides a blueprint for how ordinary citizens can join together across party lines to oppose extremism. We hope our film will incite civility and make room for progress, not just the immigration issue, but on issues involving the responsible practice of democracy.

WORLD TELEVISION PREMIERE
Sunday Sept. 26th
8 PM ET, 8 PM PT on
MTV 2, MTV U, & MTV Tr3s (with Spanish subtitles)

Ceci n'est pas une Sarah Palin Presidential Campaign Video

So today I saw this:

That swelling music. Those billowing flags. Those crowds of adoring, hopeful followers. That leader's hair, blowing gently in the winds of change . . . is it any wonder the political punditsphere has been atwitter all day about this latest SarahPAC video's strong resemblance to a campaign ad? A campaign ad of the presidential persuasion?

Sure, the video is titled "Tea Party" not "Sarah Palin 2012" but for a video ostensibly about a grassroots populist movement there sure are an awful lot of dramatic, compelling shots of an individual. Shots that happen to capture said individual being adored by crowds and speaking authoritatively at podiums. 

And then there's that one shot of a guy wearing a Vets4Sarah.net t-shirt and holding a sign that reads VOTE.

I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin'.  

Dear Women Who Shop at Wal-Mart: We Need More Advocates in Congress, Wouldn't You Agree?

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post wrote a post called "Tough Love for Obama." It's a quick read.

Marcus writes:

I spent a fascinating evening last week listening via video hookup to focus groups, 30 women in all, in three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Missouri and Colorado. These were, literally, Wal-Mart shoppers -- the retail giant sponsored the discussions -- screened to exclude committed partisans of the left or right and split evenly between 2008 supporters of Obama and John McCain.

Insurers Announce End of Child-Only Insurance Policies

If you think this week is a time for celebrating as the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act going into effect this week, think again.  For you skeptics (myself included!), today comes the announcement from several major insurers that they will drop certain policies that would cover children who have pre-existing conditions rather than comply with the new law and lose money for their shareholders.

Yeah, that's just the kind of country we apparently live in.  I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop in the not-entirely-unexpected insurance story I call, "Is Anyone Surprised?"

Read more about it:

Washington Post: Some Insurers Halt New Child-only Policies

Wall Street Journal: Some U.S. Health Insurers To Stop Selling Child-Policies

NPR: Health Insurers Skirt New Requirements

Forbes: Do Health Insurers Have a Moral Obligation to Sick Children?

Politics Daily: On 6-Month B-day of Health Law, Will Patient Protection Win it Some Love?

Image by Joanne aka PunditMom.

Go Read It: Elizabeth Warren, Newly Appointed to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Wrote a piece for Blogher on Warren's appointment by President Obama. It's just the facts, ma'am.

But because we're all about good times here at MOMocrats, here's a little country-rap to celebrate in your living room. "Stand up if you feel me!"

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

10Questions for 2010: You Ask the Candidates, They Respond

You're probably starting to think about the November 2010 midterm elections now. Have you ever complained about how bad some moderated candidate debates were? Questions that made no sense or had nothing to do with your concerns, or responses that wandered off into set talking points? If you live in one of these 11 states--Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania--you can put questions directly to candidates who'll represent you and the people in your district.

Through a partnership with our friends over at the Personal Democracy Forum, MOMocrats.com readers can now ask questions of candidates in our local races via text or video. Here's how 10Questions.com works:

Anyone can post a question (video or text), anyone can vote those up or down (one vote per question per IP address), anyone can embed a question, a race, a state, or the entire country via a fully functional widget, on any website they want. To post or vote on a question, you just need a Google Account, as the site is powered by a souped-up version of the Google Moderator question platform (and for which we are grateful to our technology partners Google and YouTube.) No personal user information is being retained, though the site will allow anyone to view where questions and votes are coming from geographically, and to track the daily up-down voting on any question.

If you live in one of these 11 states, you can urge others to vote up your questions with a click at 10Questions.com through September 21, and then the questions with the highest number of votes will be put to the candidate. They'll issue a video response on October 14 which will be posted on YouTube.

Then, you can vote on and discuss whether or not you thought the candidate answered the question.

This puts you in charge instead of the pundits. Nice change of pace, right?

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.