NARAL - a Non-Profit activist group devoted primarily to the preservation of Women's right to access to abortions, but also to other "women's issues" - officially announced its endoresement of Barack Obama the other day.  

That seems like a rather bland and ordinary announcement, hardly worthy of notice, since Obama is clearly going to be the Democratic nominee, and thus the only remaining viable Presidential Candidate who shares their view with regard to their primary mission.  The reaction was anything but.

The first in a series of reports exploring the ramifications of a controversial state ballot measure winding its way through Colorado.

Hard-line, socially conservative activists are gearing up to enact state laws to restrict abortion since President Bush and Congress have all but abandoned the federal cause. To that end, Colorado is once again serving as a political incubator in yet another attempt to chip away at Roe v. Wade.

But for all the hue and cry, do efforts at the state level have a chance of success and what cost do they exact from the larger conservative movement in a watershed election year?

Dear Friends,

From the 2000 recount, to the debacle over delegates, Florida has a long, painful history of problems during election season.  Who’s to blame?  The Republican-Led Florida Legislature.

I am running against the Majority Whip of the Florida House  - the very person that secured the votes that got us into the latest delegate mess.  

In the last term, my opponent:

- Voted for legislation that discredits evolution and opens the door to intelligent design in school curriculum.

- Violated a woman’s right to privacy by voting to make an ultrasound mandatory prior to exercising a woman’s right to choose.

- Supported legislation criminalizing embryonic stem cell research

- Voted specifically to exclude mental and physical disabilities and sexual orientation from enumerated categories of bullying in anti-bullying legislation.

- Voted to change Florida law to allow people to take their guns to work.

Read what the Republicans Wish You Wouldn’t

Today's Daily Flipper - McCain Flips on Environment and Abortion Edition you will read:
If You Don’t Like John McCain’s Environmental Position, Just Wait Five Minutes
McCain Advisor Forced To Resign
Here Comes The Exodus
Another Installment Of McCain 2.0

Read all the detail and take action on the flip. Flip it good.

A personal story:

Although my parents are Christians, and very anchored in their faith, they aren't the type to wear their faith on their sleeve.  However, I was raised in a church environment where I was very proud of my faith, and horrifyingly militant about it.  I thought that Harry Potter was the work of the devil, I refused to celebrate Halloween, and I tried to convert my friends who were Jewish or atheist or Muslim or whatever.  Looking back on this period of my life can be a tad shameful because of the ignorance and bigotry I based my opinions on.  

I have spent a bit of time arguing amongst the community here about health care and the need for "Single Payer" the latest euphemism for socialized medicine. Now that we have two nominees that favor continuing the current model of for profit insurance companies running the system with a few minor modifications my hopes for universal care are over. Both McCain and Obama have laid out programs that will tinker around the edges but do little to improve the everyday lives of people that are consumers of  health care in America.

Rather than bemoan the facts or belabor the point  I am attempting to do something positive.  Please read the whole diary before trying to defend Obama’s plan in the comments.

(Hat tip to Think Progress) An ABC web story today says that McCain is preparing to go along with the extremist GOP position: An abortion ban with no exceptions, not for rape, not for incest, not even to save the mother's life.

With the bitter primary battle continuing to make delusional fools of the two Democrats' most partisan supporters, McCain continues to benefit from media laziness. As he basks in the myth of "the Maverick," he continues to lay out a platform that would not just prolong the Bush Administration's policies, but would truly bring the full scope of Bush's bizarre vision for America to fruition. So far, he's flip-flopped on torture, he's flip-flopped on fiscal responsibility, he's flip-flopped on his "opposition" to a permanent occupation of Iraq, he's flip-flopped on his attitude towards right-wing demagogues, he's flip-flopped on social security privitization...

Folks who are regular readers of this column know that I'm particularly focused on political links to dominionists in this column.  Today will not be an exception.

It's rather rare that I refer to dominionist preachers as literally being chunder-inducing; it's even rarer when this is literally accurate.

In the case of John McCain's present "spiritual advisor", John Hagee, the comparison is both literal and figural--right down to the "deliverance ministry" practice of upchucking the Devil (no, we aren't making this up).  Thanks in part to a successful expose by Matt Taibbi that finally blows the cover off the "private face" of neopente dominionism, we learn the vomit-induciveness isn't just figurative.

In 2000, McCain eviscerated Bush during a debate because the Texas Governor refused to endorse allowing exceptions for rape, incest and the mother's life in the GOP's anti-choice platform. In 2007, during a town-hall debate in Des Moines, Iowa, McCain again reiterated that he wanted to change the party's platform to reflect these exceptions. Let's be clear: Not only did McCain support changing the platform, he used it as a campaign issue and as a means of building his image as a maverick willing to buck the national party.

This "principled" stand will join many other "principled" stands, apparently, in the trash heap since McCain has become the presumptive Republican nominee. ABC News reports that he is dropping his demand to change the platform.

On the flip...

In yesterday's post, we described some of the more...ah...unusual and disturbing public statements by John McCain's supporter and advisor John "Turn Iran Into A Glass Parking Lot For Jesus" Hagee.

Today's post is a little different.  Instead of focusing on Hagee directly, we're going to focus on the sorts of stuff that are not in the public eye--namely, that Hagee runs a weekend "Jesus Camp" for grownups that was successfully infiltrated--and escaped from--by Matt Taibbi, reporter for Rolling Stone.

What Taibbi reports on is illuminating--and horrifying, if old news to us survivors.  I also will give commentary on just how these tactics are used as a form of thought reform.  Hopefully it gives you a better perspective on why this sort of stuff must be actively resisted politically by anyone.

Much noise has been made re Barack Obama's former association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

A limited amount of noise, though worrisome enough, has been made of Hillary Clinton's association with Doug Coe, leader of the secretive "Family" group.

What has gotten surprisingly little coverage in the press--especially compared to the coverage of Obama and Wright (I'll grant the lack of exposure re Clinton's association because "The Family" is so darn secretive and only one person is really writing about them)--is John McCain's association with no less than John Hagee--a guy who thinks gay people are responsible for Hurricane Katrina, that reproductive rights caused the 11 September terror attacks, and wants to use the State of Israel and the world's Jewish population as a trigger for Armageddon.

Read on, and educate yourself...

Everyone has been so distracted by the election that no one has been paying attention to single issues -- and by this single issue I mean abortion and reproductive justice.

Well, while we were sleeping,  The Family Research Council plans to present Bush with a petition next Monday from 80 pro-life groups with the request he extend the global gag rule on abortion domestically via Executive Order.  The gag rule will be tied to Title X funds and will prohibit clinics that receive money to provide reproductive health care to the poor to even discuss abortion as an option with their patients, likely regardless of socioeconomic status.

Are you horribly awake now?  I wasn't sleeping but I wish I was dreaming.

That dastardly patriarchy has been at it again.

Way to go, Canada.

I am a resident of the 6th Congressional District in Michigan.  I am trying to collect 1,000 signatures by May 13, 2008 so I can have my name placed on the August primary ballot.  I have no money or political ties.

In the past two days McCain went for the trifecta, playing the phony Ayers card, Hamas card and the Wright card.  So much for a respectful campaing on the issues.

"By sinking to a level that he specifically said he’d avoid," said an Obama campaign spokesman, Hari Sevugan, "John McCain has broken his word to the American people and rendered hollow his promise of a respectful campaign."

I on the other hand made no such promises. It is time to remind everybody of John McCain's, and the Republcian party's, ties to terrorists.

1. John McCain has been an Arizona politician strongly supported by mainstream and conservative business and development interests in that state. They have over the years met with him, endorsed him, done fundraisers for him and given him money.

2. John McCain from the beginning of his career has a solid anti-abortion record. Over the years people associated with anti-abortion groups have met with, endorsed him, done fundraisers for him and given him money.

So perhaps somebody who has EVER supported John McCain, has sometime EVER been associated with either of these two separate Terrorist circles:

Now that the McCain campaign has decided that Ayers is a legit story, it is time to remind everybody of John McCain's, and the Republcian party's, ties to terrorists.

John McCain has been an Arizona politician strongly supported by mainstream and conservative business and development interests in that state. They have over the years met with him, endorsed him, done fundraisers for him and given him money.

John McCain from the beginning of his career has a solid anti-abortion record. Over the years people associated with anti-abortion groups have met with, endorsed him, done fundraisers for him and given him money.

So perhaps somebody who has EVER supported John McCain, has sometime EVER been associated with either of these two separate Terrorist circles:

"In five days, I did not observe a forced abortion or meet anybody who had any knowledge of them," he said, adding that no subsequent examples were ever brought to him.

So goes the report at today's TPM here:
what forced abortions?

Yet another hippo-crite mascarading as a Conservative Family Values candidate.

He took a vacation to the Marianas with Black Jack Abramof, seeing wonderful factories, filled with happy smiling people. Except without that sappy song.