It's nice that the most recent politician involved in "pay to play" schemes isn't from New Jersey.

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Broader medical refusal rule may go far beyond abortion
The Bush administration plans a new 'right of conscience' rule that would allow more workers to refuse more procedures. Critics say it could apply to artificial insemination and birth control.
By David G. Savage
December 2, 2008

Reporting from Washington -- The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

It also seeks to cover more employees. For example, in addition to a surgeon and a nurse in an operating room, the rule would extend to "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments," the draft rule said.

( the rest of the article )

Found this online somewhere and I have to post it because it is exactly how I feel. I've thought long and hard about cutting my friends list over politics recently and this is my one last chance to people who have been extremely negative about the election.

And they declared Barack Obama the president-elect, and said that millions and millions of people will always remember where they were when this announcement was made. I was by myself, on my couch in my apartment in Los Angeles. With a beer in reach, and after a post-election hangout with Claire and Django, which was mostly spent avoiding the election results because we're all a bit neurotic. I was alone, and the text messages and e-mails were pouring in, saying this and that. But here's the most electrifying thing to me: History was made, and I was a part of it! To come from the television, seeing beautiful speeches and tears of joy running down the faces of masses of people--people to whom this victory means and says so much. People that never thought that they'd live to see this day: the day an African-American wins the presidency of the United States of America!

To go from that, and get on Facebook and not only see horrible racist comments but also see people encouraging an assassination of Barack Obama--and this, from people who say they have morals! So I had to start removing them as "Facebook friends," because there's absolutely zero f**king tolerance for these ignorant, racist people and certainly not for people who wish death upon others. I'm not sure about the president-elect, but it is illegal to threaten the president--and rather than report these pathetic f**kers, I just removed them and I am removing all of the negativity.

( click for more )

After watching all of the people in my old hometown celebrating last night and feeling left out, Wayne and I decided we're going to DC for the swearing in.  I don't really know a whole lot about it, but I know I will be there.  It promises to be the biggest adventure day yet.

Woke up this morning feeling like I had a hangover.  Didn't get to bed until about 1 am, waiting to see a final count, to see what happened in California with Prop 8 (not happy there!) and with Congress but couldn't stay awake.

I still have that excited and proud feeling that the country is going to get better.  I know that it's not going to happen overnight and that sacrifices will have to be made but just seeing how the world's opinion of the United States got a little bit better because of the election really makes my heart swell.  That the deeply embedded racism in our country, the leftover feelings from the time of segregation, didn't stop people from voting for someone of mixed race just amazes me.  Even in my own family.  

At some dinner in my parents' house over the summer, my father said he wouldn't vote for Obama because he is black.  My dad grew up under a dictator in Spain.  Under Franco, the country was crippled and my family had it tough.  My dad became a citizen in the 1970s.  He has voted in every single election he could since then, no matter how small and always, always, always a staunch democrat.  When he told me he wouldn't vote for Obama because of race, he broke my heart.  I'm happy to report that we got his vote too by yesterday. 

Now we can bring our troops home, where they belong, and let the people of Iraq get down to the business of running their own country.  We can win the right war-- the war in Afganistan-- the real war on terror and find Bin Laden.  All of the money being spent weekly in Iraq can stop flowing out of our country and start flowing back into it. 

We went out for breakfast and Wayne and I were both famished, having been too worked up to really eat anything yesterday.  I had the little Obama button I received from Moveon.org on my sweater and when the waitress asked where I got it, I gave it to her.  Felt good. 

From breakfast we went to SIX different places trying to buy newspapers.  I wanted a USA Today and a New York Times.  No one had any newspapers anywhere.  We got a NY Post at a one gas station and a USA Today from another.  I hope my sister was able to find a Times for me.  

We came home and I crashed for a three hour nap.  I guess I was riding all that stress and tension and I just needed to collapse and regroup for awhile.  

I woke up and found a link in my email to Ralph Nader calling Obama an Uncle Tom on Fox News and the reporter goes off after the call is disconnected about how no one wants to hear that tonight.  Hear that sound?  That's Nader's career ending.  That's sour grapes. 

I just called the NY Times back issue office to be told that the hold time is 45 minutes and they'll call me back.  Yikes.

( AP story my sister sent me:On this morning, we all want to be American  )

You know the episode of Friends where Monica and Chandler get married?  Courtney Cox runs out of her bedroom at full tilt screaming, "It's today!  It's today! It's TODAY!!!!!" 

That's how I feel today.

Because I'm a superstitious kind of animal I dressed myself carefully to avoid wearing anything at all that's red, right down to the only pair of blue panties that I own.  I asked Wayne to do the same (and that's difficult when you consider that 3/4ths of his wardrobe is Atlanta Falcons gear which is red and black).  Even the boys are dressed red free.

We just confirmed the location where we vote and I'm sure one of us will be heading there shortly.  I'll be bringing my video camera.  I can't bring my point-and-click because it's red.

It's today!  It's today! It's TODAY!!!!!

LET'S GO CHANGE THE WORLD!!!

 ETA:  Dixville Notch, NH, the first town in the country to vote, is a tiny little enclave with 21 registered voters.  They elected Bush twice and having picked a Democrat since 1968.  But at midnight, they picked Obama 15 to 6.

My sister sent me a text message tonight to tell me that Obama's grandmother died today from cancer.  The tears are flowing again while I'm sitting here typing.  I wish she could have held on just one or two more days. 

All the difference in the world for two more days.

Still, I believe in heaven and I believe that she'll still get to see her grandson make history tomorrow.  And when her body is laid to rest, the boy she raised will be the president elect.

I am a proud and patriotic American woman who lives in a battleground state.

I believe in God and a free market.

I believe in the freedom of speech and the freedom to practice whatever religion fits your belief without fear of persecution.

I believe in a woman's right to choose.

I believe in equality for all: male, female, gay, straight, old, young, white, black, red, tan, yellow or mixed. 

I want my sons to be able to attend the same university that I did or, if they have to, another school that will provide them a top notch education.

I want to be able to buy a house next year.

I want to be able to afford health care when I lose my current policy soon.

I want my friends fighting in Iraq to come home soon, alive.

I believe that it's time for America to move beyond it's history of slavery and racism.

I believe that Barack Obama cares more about the quality of my life than the profits of corporations. 

I believe I will see some tax relief under his administration.

I believe that things will be better if he's elected so that's why I will be voting for him on Tuesday. 

I've been trying really hard over the past couple of weeks to limit my political posts but I have to get something off my chest.  I've been reading about ACORN and voter fraud and every time I really start to think about the election, my eyes go glassy and I can't hold back the tears.

Call me Michelle, but I was really starting to feel proud of my country for the first time since I attained voting age.  People from the left and right were starting to come together and realize that we're in trouble and that we need real change in our government and in our lives.  Old school GOP standards were coming out of the woodwork to endorse Obama.  They still are.  But then things got uglier and uglier.  Now some girl in Texas made up a story that she was beat up during a robbery because she's a McCain supporter, going so far as to carve a shallow B into her cheek, backwards.  One of my friends reported that her truck was damaged because of her McCain sticker.  People on YouTube have started setting up webcams on their Obama lawn signs because they keep getting stolen.  First, a reporter was assaulted at a Palin rally held last Thursday at Elon College. Greenboro News & Record reporter Joe Killian was kicked to the ground by a Palin supporter as he was trying to interview protestors at the event who backed Barack Obama.

Guys, this isn't a sports rivalry.  We're talking about deciding whose is going to be the leader of the free world.

Then there's voter fraud.  The GOP is making lots of noise about ACORN and honestly, if you believe that they are committing voter fraud then you really don't understand the situation.  Breaking it down in the simplest of terms, it goes like this:

Acorn hires people to register the poor to vote.  People sometimes put phony names on the registration card.  Acorn then sorts through the cards first and flags any card that is suspicious.  So when they come across one that is for Mickey Mouse, they attach a piece of paper to it saying there might be an issue before it's submitted to the election card.  Here's a very important part of the process--- THEY HAVE TO SUBMIT ALL THE CARDS.  It is illegal for ACORN to throw away any registrations they deem suspicious.  This still isn't election fraud.  Until someone shows up on Election Day with an ID reading "Mickey Mouse" and tries to submit a vote, there is no fraud.

The real issue is that Republicans don't want everybody to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.  It's how they got the Oval Office in 2000 and 2004.  Throwing away ballots by declaring them invalid, purging voter rolls, limiting the number of polling places in poorer areas.  All this is going on again.  It's already started and it makes me cry because this kind of thing isn't supposed to happen in America.   It just isn't.  

Maybe it's naive but I want to believe the best of my country.  I want to believe in the Constitution, in freedom, in the Statue of Liberty, the bald eagle and mom's apple pie.  I want to believe that the United States is a place where Voting is the fundamental basis of our country-- by the people and for the people-- and stopping any American citizen from voting makes us no better than Cuba, Russia, North Korea or Iran.  

We're so much better than that.  I listened to some audio files yesterday of messages left on the answering machines at ACORN offices filled with racial slurs, threats and more forms of ugly speech than I care to write about.  Who has time in their life to make these phone calls?  What is wrong with these people?  How do you reach a decision where you're on your drive home from work, have to stop at the grocery store to get frosting for the cupcakes you have to send to kindergarten and think, "Oh, I should call the ACORN office and threaten to kill them for ruining America!"  

Folks, it's not ACORN and voter registration groups. 

This is just rambling and I'm making myself all upset and the kids are running around like nuts, so I'm going to hit post and come back to edit later.

by Ian Gurvitz


I am a college educated, white collar worker. I live in a major American city and I love my country. Not that empty-headed, flag-waving, drop a tear during the national anthem love, but the more profound love that is based in the knowledge that, despite the abuses of power to which it often succumbs, Democracy is the one form of government that leads to the greatest good for the greatest number.

I also understand that democracy is a political system and capitalism is an economic system and while they tend to work well together, giving health care to all Americans, or lowering the taxes of less fortunate Americans, doesn't turn us socialist. It turns us compassionate. It turns us American.

I know that John McCain is waging a dishonest, dishonorable campaign, and that his pet demigoguette is not fit to give eye tests at the Anchorage DMV, let alone inherit the Oval Office. She speaks in sound bytes -- talking loud, saying nothing. I take as an intellectual affront the McCain campaign's attempt to trick the public with faux outrage over one fake issue after another. His phony high dudgeon is painfully transparent. But I know that he has no cards left to play, no strategy left to employ other than to fire up the baser emotions of the idiot vote. The morons at his rallies holding Osama Bin Lyin' signs, and shouting "traitor" at the mention of Obama's name, do not understand that the volume of their voices is inversely proportional to the subtlety of their thinking.

But the McCain campaign knows that they only need to fool some of these people some of the time; in fact, just about the amount of time it takes to pull a voting lever. Because these are not people who think or analyze. They are people who demonize. Too stupid to appreciate the confluence of factors that contribute to a political, social, or economic problem, they can be lead by a lone maniac's invective against a personified root cause. They are at home in a black and white world of good guys and bad guys. Angels and devils. Us and them.

But that is not my world. I am too smart to be fooled or frightened into giving you my vote. I will not be lead around by fear or negative emotions. I am liberal. I am smart. I am cultured. And you, Senator McCain are about to feel the righteous indignation of the thinking class.

So fuck you and the MILF.

I am Joe the intellectual.

I have a lot I need to do before 2 pm today so I HAVE TO make myself be brief.

• Is John McCain made of wax?  He's never looked older or frailer.
• I am sick of people referring to Obama as elite and professorial.  He *is* a professor!  When did being smart and educated become a bad thing? 
• Dude, get over the Town Hall meeting crap already, it's irrelevant.
• Vets are qualified to teach our kids-- MY KIDS-- because they enlisted and shouldn't have to go through the hassle of licensure, testing and certification?  I don't think so, McCain.  You just lost the vote of American teachers with that nonsense.
• Again on McCain, air quotes for women's "health" and protecting their health over that of a fetus?  Seriously, air quotes? 
• I know he had to keep his cool in the face of McCain's eyerolling but I would have liked to see Obama get a little more hardcore in his own defense.
•  Obama has never been south of the border but Palin just got her passport last year.
• I was annoyed by McCain's "See, he wants to SPEND" over and over.  When Obama ends the illegal, expensive war with Iraq, our budget will be way better, there will be money to spend on NEEDED programs.
• While McCain made every nasty face in the book, at least he didn't wink.
• Um, I thought Palin's son has Downs Syndrome, not autism.
• McCain made no apologies for nut jobs calling to kill Obama and instead defends the mob at his rallies.  Says he always corrects them but I've only ever seen it once.
• It seems to me like McCain feels it's his right or his destiny to be President.  After all, he comes from a long line of McCain's who have served and his campaign is desperate, just too desperate. If you ask me who looked presidential on the podium, it was Obama.

I like how Arianna Huffington put it: 
"McCain's campaign was all about experience -- until he picked Palin. It was all about putting country first -- until he picked Palin. It was all about the success of the surge -- until everyone from General Petraeus and the authors of the latest NIE made it clear that victory in Iraq exists only in McCain's and Palin's stump speeches. It was all about William Ayers -- until voters rejected that line of attack. It was all about national security -- until the economy collapsed."

Stolen from autumnwife .

Sarah Palin's Oval Office

Move your mouse all around. some things roll over. Some things click. Some things do more than one thing! A very fun time waster and it's funny too!

Last night I posted Keith Olbermann's most recent "special commentary" about John McCain and Sarah Palin's integrity lapse in not telling their lynch mob of supporters who call for the death of Obama to cut the crap.  

The sad fact is that our country has a history of violence against controversial leaders. There have been 17 attempts to kill sitting and former presidents as well as presidents-elect. Four attempts on sitting Presidents have succeeded: Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Two other presidents were injured in attempted assassinations.  We have Martin Luther King.  Malcolm X. Medgar Evers. John Lennon. Robert Kennedy.  George Wallace.

Today, the idea of violence politicians and politically active Americans hit a little too close to home for me. 

There's a story on the AP Wire that one of the Philadelphia campaign office for Obama was closed while authorities tried to learn who sent a threatening letter containing a suspicious substance to the office.

Police say a volunteer brought in the mail and opened a letter that contained the unknown substance. Officials evacuated the office, took the letter outside and called police.  A hazardous-materials crew responded, but investigators say initial tests determined that it was brown sugar.

Who the hell does something like that? First to send a threatening letter to a candidate for the presidency of the United States and secondly to add brown sugar (of all things) as some kind of weird threat? Many people in our country are not as mentally balanced as they should be and while the Republican ticket isn't advocating the violence, they sure as hell aren't doing enough to stop people from saying such horrifically scary things.

It's one thing to call attention to candidates lies.  It's one thing to point out the flaws in their policies, platforms and even their personal lives.  It is completely different to threaten the life of any person.  That the Republicans haven't stepped up to the plate underscores the desperate, power-hungry nature of the campaign and all involved.

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1:25 PM Eastern Time, today, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. During the warm-up act by a Red Meat Congressional Candidate aptly named Chris Hackett, Hackett mentions Obama and a Palin audience member shouts "Kill Him."

And Gov. Palin, as usual, does nothing about it says nothing to these thugs and psychos. She may not have heard this one. It is impossible to believe that by now she has not heard about the other ones. Her silence is deafening. Just as, Sen. McCain, you have done nothing when violence has been asserted. Correction. You have done one thing.

Asked why in real time you do not repudiate this hatefulness you act as if you are the victim. Speaking today to our NBC Station in Washington.

McCain: "Sure and I repudiated it as I have on several occasions. Unfortunately, Congressman John Lewis is an American hero who I admire who made the worst, most unacceptable statement a couple days ago that I have ever heard. He accused me and Sarah Palin of being involved in segregation, George Wallace and even made reference to a church bombing where children were killed. Senator Obama has not repudiated that statement. Senator Obama should do so immediately. Its the most outrageous thing that I have heard since in politics...it is disgraceful."

Disgraceful?

Obviously, Senator, you haven't heard your own speeches, and Gov. Palin's, and what people shout during them. And you haven't heard your state GOP Chair in Virginia, Jeffrey Frederick, giving talking points to 30 of your field-operatives heading out to canvass voters in Gainesville, Virginia. With a reporter present, telling them to try to forge a connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden to emphasize bombings and terrorism. And you haven't heard those volunteers, your volunteers Sen. McCain, shout back "and he won't salute the flag" and "we don't even know where Sen. Obama was really born."

Sen. McCain, these people are speaking for you! And how dare you try to claim Congressman Lewis was linking you to Gov. George Wallace's segregation. He was linking you, aptly, to Gov. George Wallace's lynch-mob mentality.

"As public figures with the power to influence and persuade," said Congressman Lewis, "Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

Sen. McCain, your supporters, at your events, are calling Obama a terrorist and traitor and are calling for him to be killed. And yet you keep bringing back these same rabid Right Wing nuts to deliberately stir these crowds into frenzies. And then you take offense when somebody who remembers the violence in our political past, calls you on it. You, sir, are responsible for a phalanx of individuals who are shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are some things to respect and honor about you, Sen. McCain.

But on this, you're not only a fraud, Senator but you are tacitly inciting lunatics to violence. If you want to again grand-stand and suspend your campaign here's your big chance. Suspend your campaign now, until you, or somebody else, gets some control over it and it ceases to be a clear and present danger to the peace of this nation.

I like the little email that I get from People Magazine every day telling me what's going on in the lives of celebrities. I remember crying over the vows spoken by Ellen and Portia during their wedding and I was genuinely as happy for them as I am for my friends when they choose to get married.

It seems like a good time for me to write about equal marriage rights for gay people, especially when we're choosing new leaders for our country and both candidates won't step up and acknowledge that who you have sex with shouldn't matter at all for any reason. Too many states have propositions on the table to ban gay marriage and nullify those marriages that have been formed while the practice is legal. These propositions deny every day Americans who are just like you and me from having EQUAL rights under the law.

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Intolerance should be legislated against. Just like voting rights have been granted to all citizens instead of just white landed males. Just like people who are killed based on their skin color are charged with a hate crime.

So PLEASE, if there is a gay marriage initiative on the ballot in your state, please vote for EQUAL rights and vote to give gays the SAME rights as everyone else! Vote NO on Prop 8 in California! Vote NO on Prop 102 in Arizona! Anywhere you are, vote to give gays and lesbians the same rights as everyone else!

Normally, I am not a fan Philly sports--- the Eagles, The Phillies and the Flyers.  Philly fans are generally rowdy and  overbearing, however, last night, they won me over by booing the hell out of Sarah Palin when she appeared on the ice to drop the first puck.


Apparently, when Fox news aired the story, they called it a "mixed reaction" and took out the booing.

Also, in related news, she was found guilty of abusing the power of her office and giving her husband unparalleled access to the governor's office.  I hope Todd Wooten sues the hell out of her administration.


ETA- Weeks later it's come out that apparently the owner of the Flyers had tape of crowds cheering piped in to block the sounds of booing.  It didn't work.

Is anyone with me that Elizabeth Hasselbeck is a short-sighted, spin-regurgitating, easily-led bucket of stupid? 

I've been up to my neck in politics all day.  Still upset and crying over the ridiculous bailout that's going to cost all of us-- every person in the USA, adults and children, $2500.  I just watched Bill Maher and they discussed a point that I think has been sorely missed in all of the election nonsense and economic crisis and gloom and doom and fear and patriotism that's going around this year.

It all comes back to 9/11.  Really.

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Instead, we've let the terrorists do exactly what they intended when they took those planes and flew them into a couple of buildings in New York City.  They've crumbled our economy.  We let it happen.  We cheered for shock and awe.  The politicians are still touting that the surge worked even though it's known that it wasn't the surge but some new highly classified techniques that have improved the situation in Iraq.

I stayed up til 2 am watching a replay of the debate after I got home from scrapping at a friend's house. Here's a quick rundown of my impressions:

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She is embarrassing to me, as a woman.  That McCain tapped her as a substitute Hillary is offensive because Hillary in an intelligent leader who knows how to deliver a strong message or idea without having to be snarky, sarcastic, cutesy or condescending with a down-home affectation. You betcha that Sarah doesn't even get my vote for Miss Congeniality.

This still cracks me up...

So let's let Sarah and John know that the women in this country aren't stupid and that we can see through their rhetoric and "verbiage" about equality.