Ten Post Round-Up: Policy of Truth

There’s a lot of vim and vinegar being slung around the internets, today.  It’s like there’s a hot political race going on…wait…my bad!

Part of the reason for all the fire and brimstone, methinks, is due to the lack of truthiness from some quarters (I won’t say where.  I will say it starts with a letter that rhymes with the letter “b” and the name rhymes with the word “sailin’”).

In today’s Ten Post Round-Up I will try to dig out the truthiness, if for no other reason than I have a policy of truth when it comes to staying informed and on top of the issues.

• Politics 101: When speaking publicly, it is probably best not to “stretch the truth”.

• With friends like these…

• This isn’t good, is it?

• Now, that’s change I can believe in!

• Limiting use of anti-depressants by young people has actually made matters worse?

• No, really…please tell me you’re surprised by this.

• Community service is no laughing matter, but apparently, some Republicans disagree.

• Remember kids: Drinking is only bad when girls do it.

• Sad proof of more Gestapo tactics at the RNC

• Old and Busted: Complaining about your opponents sexist attacks on your candidate.  New Hotness: Using that same sexism to sell your candidate to the masses. Stay classy, indeed!

(originally posted at: The Sirens Chronicles)

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Repubs screaming SEXISM is bullshit.

From a NationalJournal writeup:

Meg Whitman, a McCain adviser and the former chief of eBay, told Fox News that she thought the press was pursuing legitimate questions about Palin

*snip*

If Palin takes on the traditional role of No. 2 candidate as attack dog — and she flirted with that role in her speech — it might seem as though she was trying to provoke sexist attacks in a culture that is still uncertain how to assess aggressive women.

*snip*

An inescapable question is whether the Republicans are playing the sex card the way they sometimes accuse black Democratic politicians of playing the race card. The answer is no more straightforward with gender than it is with black-white relations. Some measure of outrage at what Palin is facing is clearly genuine; some measure of political calculation is just as real. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive. And an emotional charge like an accusation of sexism can be a powerful distraction in a campaign.

*snip*

Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown professor whose book, “You Just Don’t Understand,” was a best-seller, said yesterday that on some level women can’t escape their gender identity. Male politicians can be “neutral,” but female politicians will always be “marked” as women in people’s minds. The consequence of that, she said, is that “anything you say [as a woman or about a woman] is going to have extra meaning in it, and is going to get someone’s back up.”Because the world is the way it is, there are no clear lines to guide political discourse. “Is it sexist to talk about women’s clothing? Yes. But it tells us something about them. And the same with their hair.”

They will use this issue up until voting commences in November…take it to the bank.

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Squeakers . . .

A very close call – Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States, by a vote that was a real squeaker, restored our most basic Constitutional right, habeas corpus. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com via Memeorandum wrote the best article. It is titled, “Supreme Court restores habeas corpus, strikes down key part of Military Commissions Act.” To quote the post’s key opening and closing paragraphs:

In a major rebuke to the Bush administration’s theories of presidential power — and in an equally stinging rebuke to the bipartisan political class which has supported the Bush detention policies — the U.S. Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision (.pdf), declared Section 7 of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutional. The Court struck down that section of the MCA because it purported to abolish the writ of habeas corpus — the means by which a detainee challenges his detention in a court — despite the fact that the Constitution permits suspension of that writ only “in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.”

. . . UPDATE: Three of the five Justices in the majority — John Paul Stevens (age 88), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 75) and David Souter (age 68) — are widely expected by court observers to retire or otherwise leave the Court in the first term of the next President. By contrast, the four judges who dissented — Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito — are expected to stay right where they are for many years to come.

John McCain has identified Roberts and Alito as ideal justices of the type he would nominate, while Barack Obama has identified Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ginsberg (all in the majority today). It’s not hyperbole to say that, from Supreme Court appointments alone, our core constitutional protections could easily depend upon the outcome of the 2008 election.

Almost too close to call – by the end of the Democratic primary, it was a narrow win in the delegate count by Sentor Obama and a narrow win of the popular vote by Senator Clinton. Hillary Clinton started as the front runner in the campaign. By the end of the primary season, she had lost her lead though the race remained a squeaker. There are many guesses about why that happened. Many of her supporters believed that sexism was the reason. It is a close call according to this story from the New York Times (6/13/08) – “Media and Critics Split Over Sexism in Clinton Coverage” via Memeorandum. To quote:

Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, who says he was slow to pick up on charges of sexism because he is not a regular viewer of cable television, is taking up the cause after hearing an outcry from what he described as a cross-section of women, from individual voters to powerful politicians and chief executives.

. . . Mike Barnicle, a panelist on MSNBC, said that Mrs. Clinton was “looking like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court.” Tucker Carlson, also on MSNBC, said, “When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs.”

The establishment news media were faulted too. The New York Times wrote about Mrs. Clinton’s “cackle” and The Washington Post wrote about her cleavage.

Ken Rudin, an editor at National Public Radio, appeared on CNN, where he equated Mrs. Clinton with the actress Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction.” “She’s going to keep coming back, and they’re not going to stop her,” Mr. Rudin said. He later apologized.

Call it like it is – Whether it was sexism or something else that caused Senator Clinton to lose the contest, even those of us who did not vote for her owe her a great deal of credit. This list of credits owed from Tapped sounds reasonable: “Seven changes we owe Hillary Clinton.” Her accomplishments include: being a front-runner who stood for women, forced talk about sexism, united Democrats on Iraq, figured out health care, engaged everybody until the end, provided national security leadership, and broadened the question of Progressives and race. I believe that Senator Clinton will keep her word and help Democrats come together.

Calling for Unity, Action Day – The Democratic party has been working to maintain party unity from the beginning, though those efforts occasionally got derailed. But now is the right time to call again for closing ranks and working together for a victory in November. Democracy for America says they have a plan:

Everyone from Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton to Howard Dean and Speaker Pelosi are asking for Democrats to unite.

Now is the time to take the next step. Together, DFA members across the country will turn words into action on June 21. We will start the process of bringing Democrats together by reaching out to our friends and neighbors and asking them to unite for a progressive victory in November.

Squeakers cause anxiety. Two such as the SCOTUS decision and the Democratic primary remind us of what is at stake for the country this year. If we remain focused on the goals of the party to win Republican contests to be decided in the fall, we need not be overly anxious about the other squeakers as they come along.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

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A word on misogyny…

First let me say, I am not supporting Obama..but I sure as hell am not supporting HRC either.

Allison Benedikt has written a wonderful OpEd for the Village Voice on Hillary, her supporters and her campaign. It tackles that pesky subject of misogyny very well m’dear reader and I encourage…yea I demand that you read it. Tell me then what you think of it. Just a small blurb of it to get you interested:

Next comes Arianna “No Fear” Huffington, suffering from a strain of short-term memory loss that seems to be going around, to declare: “The greatest triumph of Clinton’s campaign-a complete triumph-is the example she has set for the next generation.”

Currently pregnant with the next generation, let me just say this: There is no greater wish that a mother can have for her daughter than that she will exploit poor people, obliterate Iran, and win rigged class president elections, Putin-style. (Mom, I won 100 percent of the vote!)

I love her!!! Look, as a woman that has fought against sexism my entire fucking life and I might add, the first woman to hold the job as Project Manager on a NASA subcontract in the 80’s….I know how fucked up it is to be female and expect to be treated the same as males…and yet not be treated the same. I had to be better at my job than they were, work longer hours and make less money than they did. My husband divorced me because he was tired of me living at the office..I sacrificed my personal life for that fucking job..and I would probably do it all over again.

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The 14 Characteristics of Fascism continued..

Continuation of our series on the 14 Characteristics of Fascism and how BushCo uses them. The first Essay in this section was incorrectly labeled as Part 4 Sunday. It is of course Part 5. -Dusty

PART V: RAMPANT SEXISM

(Women at Risk: The Dangers and Consenquences of a Christian Republic)

Section 2

So what does this have to do with the Bush Administration and fascism? Consider this. In many ways the attitudes of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis are mirrored in the most fanatical of Republican constituencies: The Radical Christian Right, which is hardly Christian nor right about anything. Only radical.

FACT: “The administration requested $546 million for domestic violence programs in fiscal 2007, a decrease of $20 million–or 3.5 percent–from the amount appropriated in 2006, the anti-violence network’s figures indicate. The amount does not include any funding for 21 newly enacted programs, the largest of which is a $50 million program that provides services for survivors of sexual assault.” [6]

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