It's (also) the abortions, stupid

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Tuesday September 16, 2008 · 10:13 AM PDT

2008/09/16 · 10:13

This race is currently in a dead heat. Ten percent appear to be undecided, and I believe strongly that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have the integrity, record, and vision to win these votes and seal the deal (handily) in November. But as I canvass and phonebank throughout the Midwest and talk to good people still undecided about this election, one issue comes up time and again.

Abortion.

I know. This is an issue kept afloat in large part by evangelicals and social conservatives who use it as a wedge -- and as a fig leaf for bankrupt policies that that have undermined our country's stability, not to mention our democratic, pluralistic ideals. But abortion remains a serious and legitimate moral concern for many Americans, particularly Catholics in the so-called Rustbelt, who are potentially responsive to Barack Obama's candidacy but still hesitate to support him in spite of it all. They hesitate because they are concerned that a vote for Obama -- or any Democrat -- is a vote for what they fear is "abortion on demand," an absolute, unequivocal societal sanction of a practice they feel is morally abhorrent.

Chichibabin

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Monday September 15, 2008 · 9:51 AM PDT

2008/09/15 · 09:51

As we look to work through the turmoil in our financial markets, Barack Obama's speech before the leaders of Wall Street in September 2007 deserves increased attention. Obama's prescient words -- delivered right at the Wall Street high flyers who have done their part to put us in this tailspin -- remind us that the troubles of our economy are more deeply rooted in corporate greed and hyperactive capitalization than in anything else.

This is a compelling (and for undecideds out there, bite-size) excerpt from the speech, calling on those who profit from the system to stand accountable for the fate of less fortunate neighbors and fellow citizens.

Please forward it along. And ask your undecided friends and neighbors: has McCain ever raised any warning signs like this one? Does he have the wisdom and foresight to prepare our country for the long, tough road of recovery ahead? Has he stood before Wall Street and exhibited true leadership? No, no, and no.

Chichibabin

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Monday September 01, 2008 · 4:54 PM PDT

2008/09/01 · 16:54

Like many of you, my wife and I worked very hard for Kerry-Edwards in 2004, traveling to Ohio and Pennsylvania to knock on doors and get out the vote in the summer and the fall. We were enthusiastic. We were optimistic. Even my less active friends across the country assured me it was in the bag: George Bush did not deserve a second term, much less a first. Americans would see the light -- and vote John Kerry into the White House.

We all know, sadly, how that turned out.

But in the postmortem of 2004, too much focus has been paid on Kerry's mistakes, his inability to excite, the Swift Boating, the power of Bush's incumbency. Not enough attention has been paid to the truth:

We got our butts kicked on the ground.

Chichibabin

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Wednesday July 09, 2008 · 11:46 AM PDT

2008/07/09 · 11:46

This is an updated appeal in support of fellow progressives arrested for protesting against Guantanamo Bay. Please help, Kossacks!

Do you recall the famous encounter between Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson more than 150 years ago? The year was 1846, and Thoreau had been imprisoned in a cell in Concord, Massachusetts for refusing to pay a poll tax that offended his conscience. Concerned for his friend and perplexed by this act of civil disobedience, Emerson came to the jail to visit Thoreau. He didn't hold back his incredulity for long, asking, "Henry, what are you doing in there?"

To this, Thoreau responded with a question of his own, one that we should all ask ourselves today: "What are you doing out there?"

Time and again I ask this question of myself -- and cannot help but feel shame. There is an American detention camp actively offending the ideals of my country -- where the guilty and the innocent have been deprived of due process and subjected to torture -- and I have done little to nothing to shut it down.

But other Americans have. Other Americans have risked their jobs and their livelihoods to put an end to our national shame. And now they need our help.

Chichibabin

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Friday April 18, 2008 · 6:06 AM PDT

2008/04/18 · 06:06

Thanks to your helpful comments last night, this video has been shortened and updated. For those who haven't seen it yet, please head below the fold.

As rorchik points out in a new video, in the first 45 minutes of last night's atrocious debate on ABC,

$8,370,000 was spent on the War in Iraq;

$5,000,000 was added to the national debt;

250 families lost their homes to foreclosure;

and 42 more children went without health insurance.

But ABC just didn't give a sh%t about that.

WATCH below the fold.

Chichibabin

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Saturday March 22, 2008 · 7:08 AM PDT

2008/03/22 · 07:08

Who is Barack Obama?

We all know well the viral videos and emails that willfully distort Senator Obama's background and record and malign his patriotism. A number of responses have emerged on YouTube and elsewhere to try to set the record straight, but most of them attend to only one issue at a time: either the Pledge of Allegiance okey-doke or the lapel pin brouhaha, but rarely both.

This clip by rorchik covers many bases and drops a beat to boot. Check it out below the fold, and please distribute it widely.

Chichibabin

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Tuesday March 11, 2008 · 2:12 PM PDT

2008/03/11 · 14:12

One of the first times that I followed Barack Obama's work in the Senate after his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic Convention was during his 2005 trip with Senator Richard Lugar to Russia, Azerbaijan, and especially Ukraine, the former Soviet republic that took the brave and admirable step of disarming its nuclear weapons in 1996. While the objectives of their meetings in Kyiv (Ukraine's capital) and Donets'k (a prominent industrial city in eastern Ukraine) centered on issues of nuclear proliferation, Obama met with President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yuliia Tymoshenko to facilitate, along with Lugar, an additional agreement pertaining to the threat of biological terrorism that, in Obama's words, "will help Ukraine improve its capacity to diagnose, detect, and respond to public health threats by providing Ukraine with more modern central reference libraries and a network of regional epidemiological monitoring stations."

Chichibabin

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Monday March 03, 2008 · 5:11 PM PST

2008/03/03 · 17:11

I never liked Kos's campaign "to have fun" and vote for Mitt Romney in the Michigan primary. In my opinion, it just wasn't befitting a progressive movement (ideally) founded on ideals and principles instead of political gamesmanship.

Chichibabin

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Thursday February 14, 2008 · 10:55 AM PST

2008/02/14 · 10:55

This internet sensation is shocking proof of venomous Obama cultists doing cultish things like... canvassing! Wisconsin beware.

Chichibabin

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday February 02, 2008 · 10:55 AM PST

2008/02/02 · 10:55

During Thursday's debate in Hollywood, Hillary Clinton was asked not only why she voted to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq (H.R. Res. 114), but also why she voted against the so-called Levin Amendment, which would have authorized

the use of the United States Armed Forces, pursuant to a new resolution of the United Nations Security Council, to destroy, remove, or render harmless Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons-usable material, long-range ballistic missiles, and related facilities, and for other purposes.

Explaining her vote, Clinton replied:

"The way [the Levin] amendment was drafted suggested that the United States would subordinate whatever our judgment might be going forward to the United Nations Security Council. I don't think that was a good precedent. Therefore I voted against it.

Poll

41 votes Show Results

Does international law help or hinder American power?

41 votes Vote Now!

Does international law help or hinder American power?

Help

35 votes

Hinder

2 votes

Who cares?

4 votes

To Edwards supporters, an earnest question

Chichibabin

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Thursday January 24, 2008 · 1:36 PM PST

2008/01/24 · 13:36

We all know that John Edwards regrets his vote to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq (H.J. Res. 114). His willingness to say that he was wrong (unlike Hillary Clinton) is certainly admirable. What seems to have been forgotten, however, is Edwards's co-sponsorship of S.J. Res. 46, Joe Lieberman's October 2002 resolution to authorize the use of the US Armed Forces against Iraq. Along with Zell Miller, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, John McCain, and 11 others, Edwards lined up beside Lieberman to advance the legislation. S.J. Res. 46 never went to a vote as it was replaced by H.J. Res. 114, which sadly passed 77-23.

Chichibabin

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday January 22, 2008 · 5:54 PM PST

2008/01/22 · 17:54

While campaigning in New Hampshire on January 8, Hillary Clinton riffed on Bush's now infamous remark in 2001 that he had looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin and saw his soul. Her words, as reported in Reuters:

"Bush really premised so much of our foreign policy on his personal relationships with leaders, and I just don't think that's the way a great country engages in diplomacy," Clinton said to voters in Hampton, New Hampshire.

"This is the president that looked in the soul of Putin, and I could have told him, he was a KGB agent," Clinton said. "By definition he doesn't have a soul."

Clinton's comments... drew laughs from the crowd...

There you have it: Clinton mocks Bush by acting... just like him. Irresponsibly.

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