Vote Pro-Choice

Check out NARAL Pro-Choice America’s great new get-out-the-pro-choice-vote ad!

Still undecided? Read more about McCain and Palin’s disregard for women’s health. And John McCain’s extreme anti-choice record.

Read more about Obama on reproductive health issues.

And finally, VOTE!

 

Protecting Choice…Priceless.

Keeping John McCain far away from making decisions about reproductive health…PRICELESS.

 

What If He Is?

This morning on Meet the Press, former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama.

While I lost nearly all respect for Powell when he lied to the UN in the push for the Iraq War, I gained some back today for his comments about Muslims.

I’m also troubled by what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said, such things as, “Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”Well, the correct answer is, ‘He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.’

But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’

The answer is ‘No, that’s not America.’
Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Thank you, Colin Powell, for using your voice to say what is right and what is true. And while conservatives are already spinning your words, that you endorsed Obama because of race or because McCain didn’t select you for VP, you did the right thing by using your access to the press to say something that has been needing to be said (Campbell Brown did her part, too). There truly is no other response to the demonizing of Muslims in this country than to stop doing it. Spin away, Fox News and John McCain, but you know that Powell is right when it comes to Kareem Ushad Sultan Khan and his service to this country you claim to love. So just stop it.

Photograph: Platon

Update: Powell talked to reporters outside his interview on Meet the Press and added some more good points. Steve Benen has video; here’s a highlight:

He went on to express his disgust for Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) neo-McCarthyism. “We have got to stop this kind of nonsense,” Powell said, “pull ourselves together, and remember that our great strength is in our unity and in our diversity.”

 

The Candidates’ Priorities

In last night’s debate I found it interesting how John McCain attempted to attack Barack Obama’s tax plan with his Joe the Plumber (at least it’s not Joe Sixpack, but we’re still not talking about Josephine the Waitress) example.

Check out the following chart put together by Viveka Weiley at Chartjunk.

It’s clear to me where the candidates’ priorities lie. Notice the inverse shapes of these two tax plans. Find yourself on the chart and see whose plan benefits you more.

If John McCain was attempting to invoke Joe the Plumber as a reference to middle class Americans, he’s greatly mistaken. Look at where a person making over $250,000 (as Joe said he would be) falls on the chart. He’ll be in the top 0.9% of wage earners! Coming from a man who doesn’t define people as rich until they make $5 million, what do we expect!

 

I Don’t Know People Like This

They really don’t seem to like questions.

The Sarah Palin mob: thanks to blogger interrupted

 

McCain’s Rage

Brave New PAC

 

More Hate in the Gutter

Now I know the McCain campaign has become desperate. They are getting slammed on the economy, so they’ve resorted to a last ditch attempt to smear Obama’s character. A few things about that: 1) the Wright/Ayers/terrorist claims are old and tired, 2) they promised to run a clean, respectful campaign, so they just look like pitiful liars, and 3) these smears only work with people who were already voting for McCain.

Today they seem to be reaching out to this voter, and others like him. It’s sad. But at some point we must draw the line.

So today at a rally in Florida, when Sarah Palin started talking about Barack Obama someone in the crowd yelled “kill him!” Seriously? I hope that person got singled out by the Secret Service and questioned, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Is that really how you want to win? And is this really someone we’re going to elect President? Someone who stands by while his fellow American, his fellow colleague from the Senate gets called a “terrorist” and he says nothing. A man who has his own questionable associations, but allows his running mate to accuse Obama of ‘palling around with terrorists.’ Come on, now. We deserve better than that. And our grandchildren, who are going to inherit this mess that this kind of shamelessness created, deserve better than that.

 

Palin Misquotes Albright: Damns Most Women to Hell

Today at a rally in California, Sarah Palin managed yet another misquote of a famous source. This one came off of her Starbucks cup (otherwise she probably wouldn’t have known who Madeleine Albright was).

The statement came after Palin had recounted a “providential” moment she experienced on Saturday: “I’m reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, okay? The quote of the day… It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador. … Now she said it, I didn’t. She said, ‘There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.'” (HuffPo)

But that’s not what Albright said. The actual quote is, “There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t help other women.” So she was only one word off, and some might argue that ‘support’ isn’t too different from ‘help,’ right? Maybe, but do you really want to suggest to the women on the fence that you believe they should be damned to Hell if they don’t vote for you? And is she suggesting that women should vote solely based on her gender and not on the issues that are important to us? Someone should tell her that she’s pushing independent women toward Barack Obama.

Madeleine Albright responded:

“Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden.” (HuffPo)

 

Joe Sixpack is a Woman

…and I’m not talking about Sarah Palin.

We seem to be using this generic term to refer to the “common voter,” like John Q. Public or Jane Doe.

But we are forgetting that more women than men have voted in every election since 1964. So why is it that when politicians try to associate themselves with the average voter, they don’t acknowledge that she’s a woman?

Women are not a special interest group; we are the majority! And on election day, we show up.

Women Voters in the U.S. by Kellyanne Conway

 

What Republican Leadership?

The Rachel Maddow Show

The Republican Party’s leadership apparently doesn’t speak for the Republican Party, which means it’s not really leadership.