• Del.icio.us Links

    links for 2008-11-09

    • The Romney people did it?
      Sen. McCain did not allow a nanosecond to go buy without issuing a sanctimonius, full-throated condemnation of any Republican who dared use Sen. Obama's middle name, mention Jeremiah Wright, or otherwise trash The One.

      So where is the vigorous defense of his running-mate?

      I'm sorry Obama won, but I'm not weeping that we won't have these fabulously honorable guys running the place — and running down their own — for the next four years.
      +++++++
      McCain needs to set the record straight…..

    • I talked to Steve Biegun, the former Bush NSC aid who briefed Sarah Palin on foreign policy, and he considers the leaks against her on the international stuff "absurd."

      He says there's no way she didn't know Africa was a continent, and whoever is saying she didn't must be distorting "a fumble of words." He talked to her about all manner of issues relating to Africa, from failed states to the Sudan. She was aware from the beginning of the conflict in Darfur, which is followed closely in evangelical churches, and was aware of Clinton's AIDS initiative. That basically makes it impossible that she thought all of Africa was a country.
      +++++++
      Of course it waS. All of the Palin crapola is.

      (tags: sarah_palin)
    • the scoreboard in popular referenda on such amendments is now Marriage 30, Same Sex Marriage 0. It was the fact that in the most socially liberal state in the country, whites had voted (narrowly) against the amendment, Hispanics narrowly for, and black voters overwhelmingly for the traditional definition of marriage. Amazingly, Los Angeles County, which chose Obama over McCain 69 percent to 29 percent, supported Proposition 8, with black voters in crime-ridden South Los Angeles neighborhoods like Compton voting strongly in favor, while Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Pacific Palisades were tolerantly and disdainfully against.
      So elite opinion makers had to say something about these black voters. The accounts I saw said two things: Many blacks are bigoted against gays, and the pro-Proposition 8 forces got to California's black pastors. In other words, the anti-same-sex-marriage black voters are bigoted, they are sheep, or most likely some combination of the two. No other analysis offered
      (tags: gaymarriage)
    • Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate, warned president-elect Barack Obama that he would filibuster U.S. Supreme Court appointments if those nominees were too liberal.

      Kyl, Arizona's junior senator, expects Obama to appoint judges in the mold of U.S Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer. Those justices take a liberal view on cases related to social, law and order and business issues, Kyl said.

      "He believes in justices that have empathy," said Kyl, speaking at a Federalist Society meeting in Phoenix. The attorneys group promotes conservative legal principles.

      Kyl said if Obama goes with empathetic judges who do not base their decisions on the rule of law and legal precedents but instead the factors in each case, he would try to block those picks via filibuster.
      ++++++
      The remaining GOP Senators really need to grow a pair and fight for the party

      (tags: john_kyl GOP)
    • For Trebor Healey, a 46-year-old gay man from Glendora, Tuesday's election was bittersweet.

      He was thrilled that the nation elected its first African American president. But he was disappointed that black voters, traditionally among the most reliably liberal in the state, voted overwhelmingly to ban same-sex marriage.
      +++++++++
      Obama helped Proposition 8 pass. Go figure…..

    • The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.
      +++++++
      You think?
    • Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson leap-frogged back in front of Republican Tony Strickland on Friday in their nip-and-tuck battle to represent Ventura County's 19th Senate District.

      Based on additional mail-in ballot results reported by Santa Barbara and Los Angeles County elections officials, Jackson took a 255-vote lead. With 339,259 votes counted, Jackson now leads by 0.075 percent.

      The lead could swing back to Strickland on Monday as Ventura County — which he carried in Election Day balloting — releases its next update on the 63,065 mail-in ballots that have yet to be counted. Ventura County released no additional results Friday.

      Strickland is also likely to benefit after an unknown number of late ballots are counted in the small Los Angeles County section of the district.

      Among votes already counted, Strickland leads in Los Angeles County by 14.5 percentage points.
      +++++++
      Flap would rther be Strickland than Jackson at this point. Almost all of Santa Barbara County has been counted

    • Daniel Ginnes carried a banner declaring: "No More Mr Nice Gay." Brian Lindsey held up a sign billing Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as a "prophet, polygamist, paedophile." Hundreds of others simply chanted: "Mormon scum."

      More than 2,000 gay rights protesters marched on a Mormon temple in Los Angeles on Thursday, throwing the church and its followers on to the front line of the battle over California's decision to ban same-sex marriage.

      Earlier this week, 52.5 per cent of voters in the supposedly liberal state decided to back Proposition 8, a ballot measure that adds 15 words to the constitution, saying that: "Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California."
      +++++++
      What about the Catholics, Muslims and Jews who supported Proposition 8 that restored the traditional definition of marriage?

      (tags: gaymarriage)
    • Utah's growing tourism industry and the star-studded Sundance Film Festival are being targeted for a boycott by bloggers, gay rights activists and others seeking to punish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its aggressive promotion of California's ban on gay marriage.

      It could be a heavy price to pay. Tourism brings in $6 billion a year to Utah, with world-class skiing, spectacular red-rock country and the film festival founded by Robert Redford among popular tourist draws.

      Gay rights activist John Aravosis, whose well-trafficked AmericaBlog.com is urging the boycott, is unapologetic about targeting Utah rather than California, where voters defined marriage in the state Constitution as a heterosexual act.
      ++++++++
      Utah will survive and there will be counter-boycots against companies like Apple Computer who support gay marriage

      (tags: gaymarriage)
    • After enduring three days of brutal postmortem attacks, Sarah Palin and a group of Republicans who worked with her during the presidential race are pushing back hard against claims that she was a “diva” who helped tank John McCain’s campaign.

      "I never asked for anything more than a Diet Dr Pepper once in a while," Palin told reporters as she returned to the governor’s office Friday.

      She said she “never forced anybody to buy anything for her” — a reference to the $150,000 in clothes and makeup the RNC purchased.

      And, as the Associated Press reports, she lashed out at unidentified GOP sources who told Fox News that she didn’t know that Africa was a continent and couldn’t name the parties to NAFTA.

      Palin said it was “cowardly” for people to make those charges anonymously.
      ++++++++
      McCain needs to make a statement……still

    • Las Vegas As she dealt one losing hand after another at Mandalay Bay's $10 blackjack tables early Wednesday evening, Trisha, a chatty dealer from Bloomington, Minnesota, changed the subject from cards to Barack Obama.

      "Ohhhh ya," she said in a sing-songy northern plains accent, "me and my girlfriend are going to go to the Inauguration. It's so exciting. Did you watch that speech? Oh my God! Do you think he just made that all up as he went along? Oh my God! He's amazing!"

      A businessman from Nashville, in town for a convention, rolled his eyes. "That's how Obama won," he whispered. The dealer did not hear him.

      "It's just so exciting," she said, preparing to go on.

      "Let's not talk about it," said Michael Goldfarb, taking a long sip from his Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks.
      ++++++++
      Post-McCain campaign in Las Vegas. Did Goldfarb not know it was a crap shoot anyway?

    • In serious conversations among Republicans since their election debacle Tuesday, what name is mentioned most often as the Moses, or Reagan, who could lead them out of the wilderness before 40 years?

      To the consternation of many Republicans, it is none other than Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.

      Gingrich is far from a unanimous or even a consensus choice to run for president in 2012, but there is a strong feeling in Republican ranks that he is the only leader of their party who has shown the skill and energy to attempt a comeback quickly.

      Even one of his strongest supporters for president in 2012 admits it is a "very risky choice." But Republicans are in a desperate mood after the fiasco of John McCain's seemingly safe candidacy.

      Republicans seem chastened by the failure of seeking moderate, independent and even Democratic votes. They are ready to try going back to the "old-time religion."
      +++++++
      If Obama has a good first year it won't be Newt