Legal health procedure? No funding for you!

The current, heated debate over the Stupak Amendment is more than a little mind boggling. The amendment, voted into the health reform bill last week by the House and now sitting in the Senate awaiting its fate, would place extremely tight restrictions on abortions that could be offered through any government-run health care plans. It would also "restrict any private plan in the insurance exchange from offering abortion coverage."

In short: It's crap.

I know that abortion rights are a contentious issue in this country. But the fact remains, thankfully and despite the best efforts of hardliners, that the procedure remains perfectly legal. Private insurance plans offer coverage for it, too, which helps keep women from bankrupting or hurting themselves when abortion becomes a necessity.

But now a handful of anti-abortion Democrats and pretty much all of the Republicans in the Senate are up in arms over the idea that the much-needed and loooong overdue health reforms headed for a final vote might include funding for the procedures. They argue that we shouldn't be asking tax payers who disagree with abortion to help pay for it.

That might seem somewhat reasonable until you consider the fact that we're already asking, say, Quakers to pay taxes that go toward funding our various war adventures. In fact, we ask all sorts of people to contribute taxes toward things they don't necessarily agree with and/or use. That's how this works. So why do the anti-abortion folks think they're so damn special?

Not to mention the fact that the RNC's insurance plan for employees covered abortions up until the fact was pointed out by Politico and suddenly they needed to save face so they got rid of it. Now that's compassionate conservatism!

Police acting stupidly? NEVER!*

*Except when they do.

Jon Stewart recently (rightly) pointed out how ridiculous it is that the mainstream media has been focusing so heavily on President Obama's response to one of the final questions he received after his recent press conference pushing health care reform. After all, the purpose of the meeting was supposed to be to put heavier focus on the state of heath care in our country, an incredibly important--and often dire--issue for most, if not all, Americans.

The latest U.S. census placed the number of uninsured Americans at 45 million. 9 million of those uninsured are children. Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Three-quarters of those filings are people with health insurance (you can include my own family in that statistic). It goes on and on.

Yet despite all of that, we're bickering about Obama's comments regarding the recent arrest of Harvard history professor Henry Louis Gates at his own home, even after he had presented proper ID to police.

Asked what he thought about the situation, Obama made the perhaps impolitic but no less honest remark that the Cambridge police responsible for the arrest "acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home."

Unsurprisingly, a chorus of righteous indignation (mostly by white, conservative voices) has risen to condemn the statement and accuse both Obama and Gates of racism and anti-police sentiment.

The Village Voice has put together an excellent rundown of the frothy-mouthed antics of the rightwing blogosphere here, and I highly suggest taking a look. It does a nice job of highlighting just how outrageous and ridiculous many of the pro-police/anti-Obama arguments are (it even highlights one of the lowlights of the Wisconsin blogosphere, Freedom Eden). One choice example:

Actually, rejoined Debra Moore of Exposing Liberal Lies, that may have been Obama's plan: "Could it be a lingering resentment for white people that Obama has carried since his youth?" She asserts that his book Dreams of My Father proved that "Obama was obsessed with the issue of race. Add that to his twenty years as a student of Jeremiah Wright, and the result is one angry black man. Isn't it interesting that Obama is friends with a Harvard professor who is clearly a racist himself?" (This last bit proven, presumably, by Gates' arrest.)

But something deep down inside tells me that if police came to any of these bloggers' own homes, accused them of breaking into it, asked for their ID, and then insisted on arresting them even after they produced it for "disorderly behaviour", they wouldn't exactly shut up and take it.

And if they did--if they're so unquestioningly loyal to every police officer in the country no matter what--then where on earth do they get off calling themselves patriots? Apparently a police state is no problem so long as it's only used against their political and ideological opponents.

As imprudent as Obama's remarks may have been, I'm still inclined to agree with them. I am not a police hater, and I don't know Sgt. Crowley and therefor cannot pass judgment on his actual character. Still, based off all accounts of the incident, I can say that I think his actions were stupid. A trained police officer should better know how to deal with an instance like this. So Gates was supposedly talking back - he was being (falsely) accused of breaking into his own home and threatened with arrest even after proving he was who he claimed to be! It should be obvious, then, why he might be a little bit annoyed. Arresting him for said annoyance is ridiculous, not to mention illegal.

I have a lot of respect for cops in general for doing a job that is, by all accounts, incredibly difficult and often dangerous. There are, I believe, more fine, upstanding police in this country than not. But I'm also not so naive as to believe that no bad apples, or just apples that sometimes make poor decisions, occasionally make it onto the force.

In fact, I've dealt with them personally over my lifetime. One instance was so abhorrent that it soured me on an entire city's police force for many years, and intensely strengthened my resolve to speak up and act out on improving how sexual assault is dealt with by authorities.

Point is, like any stereotype or generalization, labeling all police officers either perfect and infallible or piggish and fascist is a fool's errand, and one that's liable to lead us toward ruin as a society.

Further, I have no idea if race played a role in this particular incident - but to write off the very possibility is to do a great, ignorant disservice to the hard lessons of our country's history. The sad truth is that we still have a long way to go before anyone can claim that the mistakes of the past have no bearing on our present. It's not "white liberal guilt" to admit to that, either. It's just honesty.

(h/t illusory tenant)

Third party candidates and you

I have a confession to make. I voted for Nader in 2000. Having recently turned 18, it was the first presidential election for which I could vote, and to say it was a memorable way to enter the voting arena would be quite the understatement.

Thing was, I rather liked Al Gore, but at the time he wasn't presenting himself as a terribly inspiring candidate, and I was chomping at the bit for a viable third party. Plus, I didn't believe that anyone in their right mind would vote for George W. Bush. The man could barely string together a coherent sentence, had ducked out of his armed services duties, and represented what looked very much like the continuation of a dynasty--something that struck me as decidedly un-American.

Needless to say, I was terribly, terribly wrong about how the election would turn out. For some unfathomable reason, people actually did vote for George W. Bush. There were also some vote counting shenanigans, and everything combined to form the perfect storm of gross disappointment. We've been paying for that messed up election ever since.

And I've taken a lot of shit for voting Nader. That's fine, I can take it. Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of the man anymore, as he appears to be going increasingly off the deep end. Still, I will defend my decision. If there's any blame to be handed out for "splitting the vote" in 2000, it should be placed firmly on the shoulders of the "Jews for Buchanan" phenomenon in Florida, and more importantly, on a Supreme Court that decided to favor expediency over accuracy.

But back to third parties and their candidates. I was just reading about the Green Party's nomination of former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to be their presidential candidate. McKinney strikes me as a fairly solid individual, with views and goals that line up fairly well with my own. Between that and me being a strong proponent of the importance of third parties in any political system, you'd think I'd be ready to vote Green come this November. You'd be wrong.

It's no secret that I'm an Obama supporter. I also don't make it a secret that I've disagreed with some of the positions he's taken. Still, I like him and the team he brings along infinitely more than McCain. And if the 2000 elections taught me anything, it's that you should never underestimate your opponents. Thanks to the disastrous policies of the Bush administration (and, to be fair, the policies of past presidencies as well), I believe our country has little wiggle room when it comes to these next few years. Several crucial decisions and actions need to be made regarding incredibly important issues like climate change, health care, the economy and global security.

We can't take any chances this time.

That doesn't mean I plan to go out of my way to ridicule people who may choose to vote for a third party candidate. This is my choice to make, as it is theirs.

Honestly, though, I wish the third parties would focus more on local and regional elections first, working to build their bases from the ground up before attempting to tackle national office. Still, there is merit in running a presidential candidate, in that they help bring up crucial issues that the major candidates might not otherwise address. This only works, of course, if the media decide to give them coverage, and allow them into debates. Ultimately, that seems to be the biggest sticking point, and it makes the viability of third party candidates into a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. It's hard to convince people to vote for you when they don't know who you are or what you stand for, and it's hard to convince the media to give you face time when people don't typically vote for you. That's got to change.

For now, though, I'm choosing to support Obama not simply because I want to hedge my bets and avoid helping to "split the vote" - but because, after all the research I've done, he still strikes me as the best current candidate for the job. And really, instead of basing our decisions on perceived party viability, isn't that what we should all be doing?

And the band played on

I'm going to point you over to Griper Blade's commentary on the FISA debacle, because he says pretty much everything I would say, only much more eloquently.

Yes, I'm still seething about this. And I have a hard time understanding why this isn't bigger news, and why more people aren't absolutely up in arms about it. Have so many of us really become that complacent?

The ACLU, at least, has not, and have already filed a big fat lawsuit against the government for passing the bill. I urge you to at least sign on to support the action, if nothing else. This is an issue that goes well beyond partisan politics, especially since it was both Democrats and Republicans who voted to pass the amendment.

Frankly, it'd be more than a little refreshing to see people defending the 4th amendment as vehemently as they do the 2nd.

Oh and while you're at it, be sure to send a great big thank-you to the Senators who did try to do the right thing, and voted against this nonsense: Akaka, Biden, Bingaman, Boxer, Brown, Byrd, Cantwell, Cardin, Clinton, Dodd, Dorgan, Durbin, Feingold, Harkin, Kerry, Klobuchar, Lautenburg, Leahy, Levin, Menendez, Murray, Reed, Reid, Sanders, Schumer, Stabenow, Tester, Wyden.

On Wisconsin!

Wisconsin's favorite Feingold is joining forces with fellow Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) in promising to 1) add an amendment stripping telecom immunity from the FISA bill if the Senate proceeds to the legislation and 2) filibuster if necessary.

He may not be perfect (who is?), but gosh darn do I like Russ Feingold, and I'm proud to have him representing my state.

Sadly, for many of the other senators, it will take a great groundswell of support from their constituents (that's us) for this action to get them on board. Too many Democrats and Republicans are either strangely for telecom immunity or just too cowed to openly oppose it.

Urge your senators to get on board with the Feingold-Dodd decision. Get on the horn now!

This has and will continue to be an uphill battle. There's a lot of money on the line, both for the telecoms and the politicians to whom they've been contributing quite a bit of cash. Unsurprisingly:

In March, the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity. But last week, 94 Democrats who supported the March amendment voted to support the compromise FISA legislation, which includes a provision that could let telecom companies that cooperated with the government’s warrantless electronic surveillance off the hook.

The 94 Democrats who changed their positions received on average $8,359 in contributions from Verizon, AT&T and Sprint from January, 2005, to March, 2008, according to the analysis by MAPLight, a nonpartisan organization that tracks the connection between campaign contributions and legislative outcomes.

Who knows what the numbers on senators are.

Even Sen. Obama is supporting the"compromise" bill, seemingly forgetting that he once pledged to oppose immunity. That's disappointing, to say the least. There's probably an argument to be made that Feingold isn't running for president, Obama is, and one's decisions invariably changes in that situation. But you know what? Screw that. One of the main reasons I suspect people are so drawn to Obama's campaign is that he's been so right-on about changing the way politics-as-usual goes down in Washington. Caving in to this so-called "compromise" - with nothing more than a "I don't like it, but I promise to deal with it later" statement to stave off criticism, is a slap in the face to his supporters.

Thank goodness for Feingold, at least, who can almost always be counted up to stand up for what's right even when it's not popular.

The smoking gun buried inside telecom immunity

I'm reading about the compromise FISA bill being debated (and soon voted on) in the Congress over at the New York Times and something in the article stands out. The fight over this bill has been over whether or not to grant immunity to the telecoms that allegedly cooperated with administration requests to place wiretaps on domestic calls without a warrant. Democrats, sadly, seem to have mostly caved in to the White House's wishes with this compromise, allowing intelligence agencies to place "emergency wiretaps" on international and domestic calls for up to a week without a warrant, if they thought it was important.

That's troubling in and of itself, but what caught my attention was this next bit:

The agreement would settle one of the thorniest issues in dispute by providing immunity to the phone companies in the Sept. 11 program as long as a federal district court determined that they received legitimate requests from the government directing their participation in the program of wiretapping without warrants.

So let me get this straight: in order to be granted immunity from prosecution, telecoms would be required to produce documentation proving that the government directly ordered them to help them with illegal wiretaps.

Not only does this imply that such orders were given, and that records of them exist, but it also appears to be a not-so indirect statement that yes, our government has been eavesdropping on its citizens in a manner that breaks the law.

We all pretty much knew this already, but this would appear to be definitive proof. Or at least, once the telcoms cough up the documentation, then there will be definitive proof.

So I can't figure out if this is just a really clever way of nailing the White House for it's flagrant law-breaking, or if it's a really clever way of getting everybody off the hook. My inner cynic is telling me that it's probably the latter--that the compromise bill being debated would both grant telecoms immunity and, by saying it's OK for intelligence agencies to wiretap without warrants for up to a week, also grant retroactive immunity to the government.

The proposal allows a district judge to examine what are believed to be dozens of written directives given by the Bush administration to the phone companies after the Sept. 11 attacks authorizing them to engage in wiretapping without warrants. If the court finds that such directives were in fact provided to the companies that are being sued, any lawsuits “shall be promptly dismissed,” the proposal says.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope that, as reprehensible as it is for the telecoms that complied with illegal orders be let off the hook, this process of proving official orders leads to prosecution of the administration officials responsible for giving them. If there's any rule of law left in this country, it absolutely should.

I won't be holding my breath, though.

War Criminals R Us

Our President, and many of his top advisers and officials, should be tried for war crimes. Period.

I can't believe I didn't hear about this story until yesterday, especially since it originally broke on Friday. But instead of reporting on this massively important revelation, the news media seem content to go nuts with the "Obama said some stuff about small town America!" line that Clinton and McCain are currently trumpeting.

George W. Bush, President of these United States, admitted to being fully aware of and supporting top level meetings held to discuss torture policy and techniques. If the Watergate break-in and cover-up was enough to start impeachment proceedings against Nixon, how is this not enough to do, at the very least, the same thing to Bush? Beyond impeachment, these admitted torture techniques are illegal under international law. They're called war crimes.

From the ABC article:

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

The reason the administration is so cocky about all of this is that they lined up several crony lawyers to justify the policies. John Yoo would be case-and-point. Yoo is the charming fellow who apparently failed to pay attention while in law school, as he went on to author several memos, on behalf of the Justice Department, that made extremely shaky, fallacious arguments in favor of the torture techniques so desperately desired by the CIA and the Bush administration.

It should be noted that these memos were later rescinded by the Justice Department (after Yoo departed), but not before countless detainees were subjected to the harsh methods approved by them. Several of these detainees died as a direct result.

But Bush will happily defend things like waterboarding, even though it was for this same offense that Japanese and German officers were tried and convicted after World War II, and even though the United States has long been a signatory to the Third Geneva Convention, which explicitly forbids the torture of POWs.

In the interview with ABC News Friday, Bush defended the waterboarding technique used against KSM.

"We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it," Bush said. "And no, I didn't have any problem at all trying to find out what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knew."

The president said, "I think it's very important for the American people to understand who Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was. He was the person who ordered the suicide attack -- I mean, the 9/11 attacks."

Those "legal opinions that enabled" them to do those things were memos like the one authored by Yoo, memos so egregious in scope that they were later rescinded and roundly criticized by legal scholars the world over.

Jack Goldsmith, who took over the Office of Legal Counsel after Yoo departed, writes that the two memos "stood out" for "the unusual lack of care and sobriety in their legal analysis."

Apparently, though, the president desired and got unlimited powers in "time of war" - something that has always been and should remain completely unconstitutional.

The counter argument usually goes something like this: "What if there's a bomb about to go off in the middle of a crowded city in about an hour, and we have the person responsible for it in custody? We need to know where it is so we can disarm it, but the suspect won't talk unless we use some of these techniques."

Outside of the television show "24", though, when does this ever actually happen? Pretty much never. Beyond that, the validity of confessions obtained through torture has been questioned and debunked time and time again. When someone's subjecting you to unimaginably horrible mental and physical pain, you're extremely prone to telling them what you think they want to hear in order to have that pain end.

These forced and often false confessions sometimes lead to the unfounded imprisonment, torture and even death of innocent people.

In the end, my main question is this: when did the climate in this country change to such a degree that we're even debating something like this? Torture is torture is torture. We, as a country, are supposed to be well above such methods. There should be no excuse, no loophole, no explaining away of the terrible shit we've been pulling in the name of "national security." Smarter, more experienced and well-trained people than I will tell you, and have been telling us for quite some time, that there are better, more humane and more effective means of gathering valuable intelligence and protecting our citizens.

Yet these voices go relatively unheard and ignored by an administration that has clearly demonstrated, time and time again, that it has no regard for national or international law, human rights, or even basic human decency.

War criminals.

These people and their disgusting ideas are a blight on our nation. How we can be more focused on some perceived Obama gaffe instead of the admission by Bush that he knew about and approved of these torture strategy meetings, I simply don't understand. I am offended as an American citizen and as a human being.

It's time to buy some plane tickets to the Hague.


(h/t Letter from Here)

Should superdelegates vote based on how their constituents vote?

Interesting potential change in the winds concerning how superdelegate Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) will vote come the convention. According to a blog post over at Daily Kos, Woolsey had originally been planning to vote for Clinton. After her district went for Obama, though, and no doubt due to various other factors, it appears as though Woolsey will now be voting Obama.

I've brought up the subject of how and why superdelegates vote, voicing my displeasure with Tammy Baldwin's intention to support Clinton even though her/my district went overwhelmingly for Obama. That is and remains my personal opinion and not official policy (nor do I particularly think it should be). It is, however, refreshing to hear about a representative who is apparently open to changing her mind, either because of what the constituency wants or due to other new developments.

Other than a few people calling her office(s) and getting "she will be voting with her district" responses, there is no official word from Woolsey (yet) on this. Something to keep an eye on, though.

(h/t to Jesse)

Let history be our teacher

Last post about national politics for awhile, I promise.

All this talk of superdelegates and the ever-increasing likelihood that neither Democratic candidate will win enough delegates to secure the nomination has got me to thinking about the past. More specifically, it's got me to thinking about what happens when a close contest is decided not by the will of the people, but by a select few.

I can think of two prominent examples of this. One of them happened in our lifetime, back in the mist-shrouded past of 2000 C.E., when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush was given the office by decree of the Supreme Court. The past eight years have been us (and the world) paying for that choice, dearly. I'm not saying Al Gore would have been a perfect and magnificent president, but there's no way a Gore administration could have been as bad as the Bush II administration has been. At very least, it's extremely likely there would have been no Second Iraq War.

The other example happened well before any of us were alive. Back in 1877, the final presidential contest was between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden. It's still referred to as one of the most bitterly contested elections in the history of the United States, mostly due to lingering animosity between the recently defeated southern states and the north. I'll let Wikipedia break it down for you:

The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed and intense presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York defeated Ohio's Rutherford Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes yet uncounted. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute: in three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was declared illegal (on account of being an "elected or appointed official") and replaced. The votes were ultimately awarded to Hayes after a bitter electoral dispute.

Many historians believe that an informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute. In return for Southern acquiescence in Hayes' election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction. This deal became known as the Compromise of 1877. The Compromise effectively pushed African-Americans out of power in the government; soon after the compromise, African-Americans were barred from voting by poll taxes and grandfather clauses.

The lesson I take from all of this? Bad things come when elections are rigged.

I'm not trying to say that the level of bad that happened with the premature end of Reconstruction will be what befalls us if a few superdelegates or back room dealings end up deciding the Democratic nominee. What I am trying to point out is that, historically, things don't go so well when the will of the people is subverted like that.

Is the majority always right? Certainly not, and that's why we have (or should have) protections in place to ensure the safety and liberty of the minority. When it comes to voting, though, the basic rule is to let citizens have their say through a vote. Anyone who works to disenfranchise, mis-lead or intimidate said voters; anyone who would secretly maneuver and offer deals to see their preferred candidate win; anyone who would do anything to alter the natural course of an election is, in my opinion, nothing better than a traitor to the ideals on which our country was founded.

So offer Michigan and Florida a chance to properly re-do their primaries, and ignore what the pundits are telling us to do and think, but if there are any back room deals made to see one candidate or another take the nomination despite what the majority of voters end up saying, there should be no tolerance for it. We ignore history at our own risk.

What's going on?

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton won the primaries in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Shortly following the news, a great hue and cry went up from the pundits and bloggers.

On the one hand, there are those (mostly Obama supporters, it seems) who claim that Clinton's dogged insistence on staying in the race and use of negative tactics against Obama will have dire consequences for whichever Democrat ends up running in the general election (although, the maths suggest it won't be Clinton).

On the other hand, there are those (mostly Clinton supporters, it seems) who claim that Clinton's comeback in yesterday's primaries was a case of the voters having their say despite what the pundits were trying to tell us to do. Much like what happened with McCain's campaign after it had been pronounced dead at the end of last year.

Or maybe it's all part of the right-wing talk radio pundit conspiracy.

So which is it? Is Clinton sabotaging the Democrat's chance of re-taking the White House come November, or is she simply fighting the good fight?

Me, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I am not a fan of the underhanded tactics that the Clinton campaign has employed, nor am I a fan of the media trying to tell us who's had it and who we're likely to vote for. I enjoy the fact that this primary contest has been so fierce and not decided by the first few states to vote, but I do worry that, if it goes on much longer, it will eat into the Dem's time to formulate a strong campaign against the Republicans, whose nominee is now decided (even if a lot of them don't like him).

And of course, there's also the specter of a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket, to which Hillary herself has now given some credence. If that is to be the case, is all of the heavy-handed bashing such a good idea after all?

I'm curious to hear opinions on this, so please feel free to have your say in the comments.

Blitzed

Theatre. Rain. Snow. Hacking. Shoveling. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I managed to catch my left ring finger in the garage door, nearly breaking the dang thing off.

Quite the weekend.

I'm going to try not to bitch about the weather anymore. I'll say this and leave it at that: I'm so over this winter. Snow is lovely, snow sports are fun, but this much of the stuff, now combined with the inches of freezing rain we got yesterday, is just too much. I don't think my body can handle any more shoveling/ice picking. I'm exhausted. We all are. Screw the groundhog--bring on spring now!

Prior to this most recent weatherpocalypse, I spent my entire Saturday in the Bartell Theatre, rehearsing for Mercury Players Theatre's "Blitz Smackdown II." You can, if so inclined, read my minute-by-minute account of the thing here. As always, it was great fun to be part of this whirlwind day of theatre shenanigans. The bonus was being in yet another of Rob Matsushita's plays, which meant I got to carry a gun, get into a fight, and watch a guy get disemboweled. That Rob, he's just a ray of sunshine!

I wasn't exactly thrilled about the outcome of the night;s competition, but I'll keep my petty actor's thoughts to myself and just say that everyone did a wonderful job and I'm looking forward to the next round when I can finally help see Rob to his rightful place in the winner's circle. Ahem.

Tomorrow, the fine state of Wisconsin will hold its open primary to determine our choice for the Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The airwaves have been chock full of voices pleading with us to cast our ballots for one candidate or another, many rallies have been held, and anyone paying the least bit of attention is certainly feeling the energy.

Regardless of who you're thinking of supporting, just be sure to get out and vote tomorrow. Polls open at 7:00a.m. and close at 8:00p.m. and you can find your polling location via the City Clerk's website. Now get out there and do your civic duty!



...huhuhuh, I said "duty."

Obama-rama (part the second)

One of the perks of doing freelance work for a couple of area publications is that I get to moonlight as "press" now and again. Last night, on the eve of his victories in the "Potomac Primaries," Barack Obama swooped into Madison for a big rally and speech at the Kohl Center. Normally, the center plays hosts to sporting events and the like, and its official capacity is listed as 18,000 people. By the time they stopped letting people in, the count was a couple thousand over that, and so an overflow room was created for the extras. The place was absolutely packed (click here to watch a short video that captures the size of the event pretty well).

I came straight from work and arrived around 5:45pm, at which point I signed in, got the wand and the pat down, then received my press pass and was ushered into the "pit" out in the arena where my fellow reporter types were being housed. Our fenced off section took up one half of the arena floor, while the other half held the podium and an open space for the teeming masses. I wandered in, feeling a little lost, but soon found my bearings upon spotting a familiar face. A friend who works for one of the publications I freelance for was set up with a laptop on a folding table, readying himself for some live blogging action. Between him and a photographer friend, they gave me a basic idea of what to expect and a place to stash my jacket and bags.

I then proceeded to pull out my companions for the evening: two Nikon D70's, one with a wide-angle lens and one with a 70-200mm zoom (it should go without saying that only one of the cameras actually belonged to me, and that the other one and the zoom were most certainly borrowed). The zoom, thank God, had a stabilizer built in, so my negligence in not bringing a tripod was not an issue.

Shortly after 6pm, the first clumps of spectators began to filter onto the floor and then into the risers. I would later learn that those people who ended up on the floor had arrived first, been held inside, then passed through metal detectors before being let into the arena. Everyone in the risers had arrived slightly later and were allowed to enter without as much scrutiny. Unfortunately for these people, though, there was apparently no line control outside, so the minute the doors opened, mob mentality took over and there was a mass crush. Friends of mine who'd been waiting since 5pm ended up waiting outside longer than a bunch of people who arrived late and just decided to push their way through to the front. Hey Obama/Kohl Center organizers? Next time, be sure to invest in some bloody cattle gates, yeah?

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when the Kissers, local Irish rock superstars, played a set while we waited. I thought it was a nice touch, and their tunes fit the mood nicely. I found a place along the front fence between the press pit and the crowd space and set up shop for the evening. The fence had handy little steps built into it so that I could stand slightly above head level for better shots.

My friend Kat, who I know from college and who does quite a lot of freelance writing work around town, showed up then and we struck up a conversation about the elections, the race, and trying to make ends meet through freelancing (not easy). It was good to have a familiar face nearby. I also made the friendly acquaintance of a political blogger with 2008central.net (I assume it was Angelo Carusone, since he was the one who wrote their live blog of the event?) who helped pass the time by making snarky comments with me.

There were speeches by one student and one local organizer, then a long break full of inspirational Obama videos up on the Jumbotron (including the now ubiquitous will.i.am piece), and then finally, around 8:30, Gov. Jim Doyle got up to introduce Obama. The crowd went nuts when he announced that Obama had won the primary in Maryland (they would go even more nuts when Obama announced having won all three of the Potomac primaries). Doyle is not exactly my favorite public speaker, but he did a fine job of it.

When Obama himself finally made his grand entrance, the handful of young college girls standing in front of me (on the other side of the fence) started screaming and jumping up and down like there was a dreamy movie star in the vicinity. That sort of reaction is fascinating to me, and, I think, somewhat unique to the Obama candidacy. I don't suppose McCain or Clinton elicit similar reactions from their supporters. My blogger friend leaned over to me at one point and asked, "Since when did politics become cool?" I laughed and said I didn't know, but that everything gets co-opted eventually (and hey, better the enthusiasm for this rather than, say, Ugg boots).

Obama's speech mostly echoed the same stuff he's been saying for weeks now, elaborating a bit on wanting to make college accessible and affordable for everyone interested, but that students have to earn it by giving back to their community through public service of some kind (couldn't agree more). The most amusing anecdote of the night was when he mentioned gathering support from "Democrats, Independents and yes, even some Republicans." A few people in the crowd waved their hands. "We call them 'Obamicans," he went on. "I meet them out on the road all the time. They come up to me and say (whispering), I'm a Republican, but I support you. (regular volume) And I say, (whispering again) thanks!"

Apparently, these "Obamicans" even have their own little movement with a website. They were positively chuffed over his direct reference to them last night, posting on their blog that "...we are an actual demographic and we need to be so proud of ourselves and our candidate, Senator Barack Obama, because we epitomize change. Changing party's [sic], changing our mind set, and changing our world."

That's pretty cool, if you ask me.

All told, the speech lasted just over 20 minutes, and then he spent a significant amount of time glad-handing the crowd on his way out. I couldn't help but notice the serious amount of security he's got around him. Apparently, there have been number of serious threats made against his life. That absolutely disgusts me, but I (very sadly) can't say that I'm surprised. I really wish I was, though. It sucks that, in 2008, there are still people out there so bigoted and so afraid that they would consider hurting someone based on the color of their skin (or any other superficial reason--not that violence ever has a good reason).

In the end, I was impressed by his eloquence and ability to inspire a crowd. The sheer volume of cheering and applause inside the arena was breathtaking at times. Madison knows how to turn out for an event like this. The next week leading up to the Wisconsin primary is going to be interesting, and I honestly have no clue how the state will vote. But I admit--I'm a little caught up just in the energy and history making nature of this race. Either way, the Democratic Party is on the verge of nominating a positively historical candidate for president, and it's great to be around for that fact.

Be sure to head over to dane101.com for in-depth coverage of last night's rally, including (eventually) a series of the photos I took inside.

Obama-rama (part the first)

Quite the event. More forthcoming, but for now:

1. Good speech. Hard to go wrong, though, after eight years of GWB's kindergarten level utterances.
2. A whole lotta people (about 20,000 apparently).
3. News anchors are still hilariously orange in person. HD will not be their friend.
4. I wish I actually owned the zoom lens I used to photograph this. As the kids say, it is "teh sex."

(photo credit: me, thanksmuch)

Winter Wonderland

First, I encourage you to read this post from Griper Blade, who is fast becoming one of my favorite area political bloggers. This particular piece deals with the delusion that is supply-side economics, and how Bush has been wrong about pretty much everything. It goes into detail and backs up those claims, though, so it's not just another "Blarrrr I hate Bu$h!" rant, I promise.

Now that that's out of the way, though, did anyone else head downtown this weekend to enjoy the Winter Festival/Capitol Sprints? I love that we do this. For those of you reading who might be unfamiliar with this new-ish tradition, what happens is a bunch of snow is trucked in and used to line the streets of the square around the capitol. A series of cross country skiing races and events are then held there. Several events are held nearby, too, including snowshoeing, ice and snow sculpting, and snowboard "rail jam" contests held on a giant ramp built in the middle of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. It's good times all around, and a nice way to add some color to the winter months. We finally had great weather for it this year, too, with temperatures in the high 20's, some snow flurries, and plenty of preexisting snow on the ground. I was also happy to see that a few dedicated kite fliers threw their own, mini "Kites On Ice" event out on Lake Monona.
A few friends of mine were in from out of town, so I took them down to check out some of the action. Along the way, we saw some high schoolers from around the state participating in a cross country relay race (only in Wisconsin do high schools have cross country skiing teams, I swear), and I also stumbled across a puffed up hawk perched in a low branch on the capitol grounds. Seemed like an odd place for it, but the bird looked rather content watching the goings-on.
We then wandered over to the snowboarding ramp, where a group of under-15's were trying their hands at the course. Our favorite contender was a young blond girl in a bright pink, furry coat, who was pretty damn good and confident amidst the sea of boys who dominated her age group.

I saw a lot of people out enjoying the festivities, including quite a few of my fellow Madison Flickr types. My only regret is that I didn't get out onto the lake to check out the kites, and that I don't ski (yet). It would have been fun to have taken a spin around the capitol.

The bigger story, plus picking nits

It feels like a cop-out to simply post a link to someone else's article without adding much in the way of your own thoughts on the subject, but sometimes there's really not much to add. Sometimes the article just sums up my feelings so well that all I need to do is point at it and say, "Yeah, that's it."

"Economic Disaster Longtime Coming" via Firedoglake

Meanwhile, stateside, the Assembly just passed the emergency contraception bill, with 16 Republicans bravely splitting ranks to vote yes. Save a somewhat predictable dick move by Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) that will keep the bill from going to the governor's desk (where it will likely be signed) until the full Assembly reconvenes in February, final passage seems likely. This is great news.

As a side note, there was one quote in the article that grabbed my attention:

The director of legislation for a group that opposes abortion and birth control, however, said in a statement that those who voted for the bill "flouted both their moral duty to protect pre-born children and their legal duty to protect conscience rights." Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin said the vote "is cause for great frustration and anger in the pro-life community. This is a day that will be long remembered."

Pre-born? That's right up there with pre-pregnant, which is how our wonderful CDC now categorizes every woman, regardless of whether or not she ever intends to actually have a child. The term is so loaded, so presumptuous, that it becomes nearly impossible to speak out against it for fear of immediately being called a baby hating whack-job. Look, health guidelines for women should simply encourage all of us to be, y'know, healthy, for our own sake. If we then choose to become pregnant (or just do so by accident), it stands to reason that we'll already be living a lifestyle conducive to a healthy pregnancy. But to call all women "pre-pregnant" is to essentially call us nothing more than baby machines, whose main duty to the country is to produce future citizens (whether the message is intended or not).

Screw that noise. And screw this "pre-born" nonsense, too. If you want to debate the issue of abortion, please do, but don't couch it in such ludicrously loaded terms so that you can launch substance-free attacks against anyone who disagrees with you.

P.S. Besides, terms like "pre-born" and "pre-pregnant" sound way too much like "pre-clear," which is what those wacky Scientologists call everyone who hasn't paid them lots of money yet. Do you really want that association on your back?

An important message then, and even more now

On this day in 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address to the nation as president. He (and his speech writer) included some very prescient, slightly jarring, and very important messages in that speech, and it seems to me that its content becomes ever more important as we face the conflicts of our day. Have a look for yourself:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

...

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

During the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many fast frustrations -- past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of disarmament -- of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war, as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years, I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

...

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration: We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its few spiritual blessings. Those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibility; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; and that the sources -- scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made [to] disappear from the earth; and that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

That damn hippie!

But it is that message and those goals, greater than Eisenhower or any one person's presidency, that we should continue to aspire toward achieving. I find it interesting that a man who fought a world war and lead what was then the most powerful country on the planet would understand and give voice to such a message, especially in the midst of one of the most oppressive and fear-mongering eras in our nation's history. Those words coming out of the mouth of a long-haired activist in the late 60's would have been written off as idealistic nonsense and not the words of a respected president. And it should be noted that our current leadership seems to have absolutely no understanding of the warnings issued by Eisenhower (and others). We have come an awfully long way to slide so far backwards.

How is this OK?

Mike Huckabee, a fairly recently legitimized candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America, recently made the following statements to a crowd of supporters in Michigan:

"I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards, rather than try to change God's standards."

How is that an acceptable thing for a candidate for the highest office in the country to say/want? May I reiterate something that I think might just be relevant?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Ring familiar? Yeah, that's the first line of the first amendment to the Constitution. I happen to believe that it's pretty damn important, and one of the core standards that has helped our country to become one of the most prosperous places on Earth. There have always been those who have worked to dismantle these, our most fundamental rights, but it seems to me that these efforts have increased quite a bit in recent decades. Huckabee may just be the next logical progression of this type of religious fanaticism, but I can't be the only one to draw parallels between that kind of rhetoric and that of the radical Islamists calling for the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate. Apparently Huckabee and his ilk don't quite catch the (horrifyingly ironic) similarities.

The crazy past, present and future of Ron Paul

Oh my. Oh my, my, now this is juicy. Normally, I'm not a terribly big fan of The New Republic, but one of their reporters, James Kirchick, has gone and done something that quite a few people have been chomping at the bit to do for quite some time: he's dug up old editions of Ron Paul's newsletter. You know, the one that included bits about blacks being inferior? The ones that Ron Paul didn't really want anyone to see during his dark horse run for the Republican nomination? Yeah, those.

Thanks to the resources of the libraries at the University of Kansas and our very own Wisconsin Historical Society, Kirchick was able to find and now publish these rambling newsletters. It will be very interesting to see how Paul's most rabid followers, many of whom claim to be liberals, react to the things written about in these newsletters. Kirchick explains:

...with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.

But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

The article (and the excerpts from the newsletters) is well worth a close reading. Among other things, they and Paul's own public actions point to his support for the Confederacy (and possible continued support for secession), his bigotry toward blacks, Jews and homosexuals, his view that the end of apartheid in South Africa was the "destruction of civilization," his hatred of Martin Luther King Jr., his admiration for former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, David Duke, and the list goes on and on.

Any half sane person should have already been able to see through Paul's bullshit, but once a person has had the opportunity to peruse his archives, I see no further excuse to support him or his candidacy. Unless you're a racist, homophobic, xenophobic clod, that is.

Look, I understand that some of Paul's more public positions against the war and such are very appealing. But please do a little research before you throw your full, zealous support behind the man...or anyone for that matter. No one's perfect, sure, but there's a spectrum of decency that people fall on, and Ron Paul is pretty damn far down near the bottom. Even you crazy hardcore libertarians can do better.

An open letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. Obama,

I watched and listened to your Iowa victory speech last night with great interest and optimism. You (or your speech writer) hit the nail on the head when you said, "I know you didn't do this for me. You did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas: that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it." Because while you yourself are an inspiration--your story, your ideas, and, so far, your actions--the reason you won the Iowa caucus has less to do with Obama the man than it does with Obama the idea.

We the hopeful optimists of this country have endured eight years of demoralizing defeats. We have been tricked and forced into unjust wars. Our leaders have passed laws we did not want and ignored us when we called for laws that were needed. The beauty and sanctity of our own home, our planet, has been repeatedly violated and desecrated. Those who were supposed to guide our country into a more prosperous and secure 21st century have instead used their powerful positions for their own personal gain, ignoring some of the most important and basic tenets of our Constitution. They laughed at the idea of checks and balances, of those who would hold them accountable for their misdeeds, doing all they could to shelter some of the most heinous lawbreakers our government has ever known.

Our leaders have destroyed our beloved country's reputation worldwide, reigned down terror and bloodshed in our names, killed many and turned even more against us. In what was perhaps the greatest betrayal and most disgusting act so far this century, they used the events of September 11, 2001 simply as a means to grow their power and influence.

So it is from these catastrophes of governance that we the weary people of the United States turn to someone like you for guidance, for help finding the light again. This is no exaggeration, no hyperbole, no attempt at melodrama for the sake of getting attention. We really are at our wit's ends. And we really, really need a leader who will help bring about the change that's so desperately needed not just in our own country, but world-wide.

I have no illusions about you being a perfect human being or even a perfect politician. Even our greatest leaders were riddled with the faults of humanity: infidelity, prejudice, infirmity, etc. But it was their ability to relegate those things to their private lives alone, keeping them far away from how they made public decisions (or perhaps as motivation to make those better public decisions), that made them great. Most importantly, it was their recognition that one person alone does not an effective government make. Understanding that no one person can know everything there is to know about anything, they brought a whole team of talented and dedicated people with them to the White House to help out. And they listened.

What we need now is a whole new team, individuals uncorrupted by the habits and influences of past administrations. Part of the problem with the current president is the unsettlingly large number of former Nixon administration officials still serving under him. If ever there was more proof of people not learning from past mistakes, the Bush White House makes it difficult to remember.

Mr. Obama, if you would be our next president, I can only plead that you never forget the promises you make to the hopeful, exhausted people who will put you there, that you never forget where you've come from, and that you always remain willing to put in the extra long hours and effort to make sure every voice gets heard and that the right thing gets done.

We are more than ready for change. We demand it.

Best regards,
-Emily Mills
Madison, WI, USA

P.S. Please come to Wisconsin. I'd like the chance to hear you, and the other candidates, speak before this whole thing is said and done. We will happily bribe you with cheese that is far superior to anything California can produce.

WWCD?

Iowans are headed to their local caucus headquarters tonight, getting ready to shuffle about from one room to another in an interesting and slightly antiquated display of choosing a candidate. Personally, I think the whole thing is completely over-hyped, and more than a little annoying.

The caucus itself wouldn't be so bad (hey, every state needs to have a nominating procedure) if it weren't for the constant jockeying for position between Iowa and the other states for the position of first caucus/primary in the nation. If they push things much further forward, we'll be having them in a completely different year from the actual elections. As it stands, this whole messed up process is already mucking up how we elect our leaders in this country. The people of Iowa shuffle their way to a nomination and thus influence the votes of their impressionable fellow citizens in other states--people who might have been inclined to throw the lever for a more impressive but, say, second-tier candidate but are now convinced that they're unelectable and will instead settle for the uninspired old white guy picked by the first three states to vote.

I have an easy solution for all of this. We ask ourselves: what would Cthulhu do? Frankly, the answer would probably involve a lot of earthly destruction and human sacrifice. But the way I figure it, we take the good and discard the bad: destroy the primary system, but leave out the baby eating. Everybody wins.

Used to be, the major party's national conventions really were a place for candidates to prove their mettle and win the nomination. Nowadays, the candidate is all but picked and primed by the time the convention rolls around. Heck, they're pretty much agreed upon well before half of the states even make it to their primaries. And that, ladies and gentlemen, really does make the baby Jesus cry (because we saved him from Cthulhu's merciless clutches).