Why the Hate Crimes Prevention Act Should be Attached to the Defense Bill

(Also published on the Huffington Post)

Let me state this up front: I'm not a fan of the political practice in Congress of attaching unrelated measures to bills that are considered must-pass legislation. I think it's a political tool that tarnishes our government and makes a mockery of what a legitimate government should be.

As the Senate votes today on broadening the definition of federal hate crimes to include people attacked based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabilities, Democrats have attached the Hate Crimes Law to the Defense Bill, which, if you have been paying attention at all over the last eight years, is about as "must-pass" as legislation gets in today's political climate. But I don't see this as an unrelated matter the way many Republicans in the Senate do, including Senator John McCain:

"While we have young Americans fighting and dying in two wars we're going to take up the hate-crimes bill," McCain said, "because the majority leader thinks that's more important, more important than legislation concerning the defense of this nation." And later: "The Senate will pass a highly controversial, highly explosive piece of legislation to be attached to the authorization for the defense and the security of this nation. That's wrong."

What exactly defines the defense and security of a nation? I would argue that the defense and security of the nation implies the defense and security of its citizenry, of its people. Otherwise, just what exactly are we defending? Now, say what you will about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but those who have supported these wars have always defended them as our only means to fight for the right of every U.S. citizen to continue to live that life promised to us, one in pursuit of happiness. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is commonly referred to as the Matthew Shepard Act, named after a young man who was kidnapped, robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die. Defending the American people is not only a matter of fighting people far away who might one day come to this country to try once again to do us harm. It's a matter of defending our people against the small-minded, bigoted, hate-filled people already within our borders who would seek to do harm to fellow citizens.

Attaching the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to the Defense Bill in not in contradiction to what that bill should do (i.e. help those looking to defend our country and its people). Indeed, the Hate Crime Prevention Act looks to do exactly what the Defense Bill should be set up to do: defend the nation and allow its people to live freely.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put it well when he said, "If their country doesn't stand up for them, if we don't stand up for them, who will?" It is important to fight against anyone who might look to bring terror (and a crime like the one perpetrated against Matthew Shepard is most certainly terror) into the lives of people only trying to live freely. Just because John McCain thinks it's more important to defend a uniformed soldier in Iraq than a young homosexual man in Wyoming doesn't mean the rest of us have to come to that same conclusion.

The Approaches of John McCain and Barack Obama

As we saw so often during the presidential race, the approaches to foreign policy by John McCain and Barack Obama couldn't be farther apart. On the elections in Iran and the subsequent protests we see the same old, same old from Senator McCain: American tough talk that has only served to turn more people in the world against us, than it has rallied them to our interests.

In a New York Times article today (as well as many other places reporting on this story) we see what will surely come of U.S. officials taking a hard line on this issue:

"The [Iranian] Foreign Ministry, meantime, summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents American interests in Tehran, in protest of what it called “meddling” by the United States into its affairs because of statements by American officials on Iran’s elections."

There's no sense in making it seem like we are attempting to plant a pro-Western politician, as we have been known to do so often. Let the Iranian people take up the fight. When will those of John McCain's ilk realize that tough talk isn't always the best way to go about things? As John Kerry put it in a recent Times op-ed:

"If we actually want to empower the Iranian people, we have to understand how our words can be manipulated and used against us to strengthen the clerical establishment, distract Iranians from a failing economy and rally a fiercely independent populace against outside interference. Iran’s hard-liners are already working hard to pin the election dispute, and the protests, as the result of American meddling. On Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry chastised American officials for “interventionist” statements. Government complaints of slanted coverage by the foreign press are rising in pitch...

[I]f the street protests of the last days have taught us anything, it is that this is an Iranian moment, not an American one...

What comes next in Iran is unclear. What is clear is that the tough talk that Senator McCain advocates got us nowhere for the last eight years. Our saber-rattling only empowered hard-liners and put reformers on the defensive. An Iranian president who advocated a “dialogue among civilizations” and societal reforms was replaced by one who denied the Holocaust and routinely called for the destruction of Israel."

The RNC That Should Have Been

I love the editing in this clip. Just how confused and sort of pissed off McCain looks. (Thanks for sending, Molly.)

Poor Judgment

Another Conservative for Obama

Any rationally thinking person can see the game John McCain is playing. If I were a conservative (especially one with strong religious beliefs) or a woman I would be offended by his attacks on my intelligence. That is apparently how this guy, Wick Allison, feels. He has a column in his magazine, D, that addresses why he feels Obama is the better presidential candidate. The article is titled "A Conservative for Obama." Read it here>>>

It's refreshing to hear from conservatives who aren't buying McCains BS, especially from one who used to be on the board of directors of the National Review, a magazine that I am not all that familiar with, but in which today this idiotic story was published as the main feature on its home page. Really? If that's the type of nonsense you lead with, I don't feel much of a need to go any deeper.

(Thanks for sending the article, Molly)

John Cusack and Chris Farley

In an article in the Huffington Post yesterday John Cusack had some insightful and scathing things to say about the McCain/Palin ticket taking the horrid and criminal tactics of the Bush/Cheney years to a whole new level. Scary thought, but one that's becoming easier and easier to imagine the more and more these people talk...and by talk, I mean lie. Can you imagine looking back two years from now if McCain is president (or maybe it would be at his funeral when president Palin is being sworn in) and thinking, "Wow, I sure wish W was still president"? I can. I had no idea that this threat existed. I thought we had seen the worst.

But, you're probably wondering just what Chris Farley has to do with any of this. Well, here's a bit from Cusack's piece at HP:

Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.

Remind you of something?

Customer: But why do they put a guarantee on the box?

Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me.

(From the 1995 movie Tommy Boy starring Chris Farley)

Replace "customer's" with "country's" and "daughter's" with "economy's" and I think we have a pretty dead-on description of what we've had to deal with and what we will continue to deal with if we let McCain/Palin shit in a box and stamp it with the Bush seal of approval, the same seal of approval that, as Cusack put it, allowed for "a fuck of a lot of innocent people die." All the while being branded and guaranteed as the right thing to do.

John McCain Rips Sarah Palin

John McCain, Oct. 21, 2007 (discrediting the experience of former NYC mayor Giuliani and former Massachussets Gov. Mitt Romney):

“I need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.”

Check out Eyeteeth for Sarah Palin ripping John McCain.

The Facts About John McCain's "Education" Ad

Here is everything you need to know about that obscene ad that John McCain put out a couple of days ago. From FactCheck.org.

My favorite parts:

The bill, which would have allowed only "age appropriate" material and a no-questions-asked opt-out policy for parents, was not his accomplishment to claim in any case, since he was not even a cosponsor – and the bill never left the state Senate.

Even if we wanted to argue about the merits of the bill, which I would be more than happy to do, as would Obama (which he did against Alan Keyes' same accusations in 2004), it's not even something that he could take credit for!

And this:

The last quote used in McCain's ad is attributed to the Chicago Tribune and says that Obama is "a 'staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly.' " This is actually from a piece by Steve Chapman, former associate editor of The New Republic and contributing writer to Slate and the conservative publications The Weekly Standard and The National Review. The piece isn't a Chicago Tribune editorial at all, though it's made to appear that way in the ad. And Chapman, none too pleased about how his opinion piece was featured in the ad, responded in a Sept. 10 Tribune blog entry with this:

Chapman: ... the ad itself doesn't bother explaining how the candidates differ on school vouchers, the subject of my column. Instead, it insults our intelligence by expecting us to believe that Obama thinks kindergarteners should be taught how to use condoms before they're taught to read. Right. And Joe Biden eats puppies for breakfast.

They continue to just make things up. It's unbelievable.

616 Votes to Win the 1996 Mayor's Election in Wasilla, Alaska. I Bet Obama Talked to That Many People In a Couple of Days Back in the Windy City

I have to admit that I have not finished watching Palin's speech from last night; I was simply too pissed off by what I was watching to take it all in one shot. I did, however, listen long enough to hear her joke about Obama's experience as a community organizer, which pissed me off more than anything up to that point.

Here's a response sent out from the Obama camp today that I agree strongly with.


From David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America:

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack's experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Let's clarify something for them right now.

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

And it's no surprise that, after eight years of George Bush, millions of people have found that by coming together in their local communities they can change the course of history. That promise is what our campaign has been about from the beginning.

Throughout our history, ordinary people have made good on America's promise by organizing for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it's happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America.

Meanwhile, we still haven't gotten a single idea during the entire Republican convention about the economy and how to lift a middle class so harmed by the Bush-McCain policies.

It's now clear that John McCain's campaign has decided that desperate lies and personal attacks -- on Barack Obama and on you -- are the only way they can earn a third term for the Bush policies that McCain has supported more than 90 percent of the time.

But you can send a crystal clear message.

Enough is enough. Make your voice heard loud and clear by making a $25 donation right now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/fightback

Thank you for joining more than 2 million ordinary Americans who refuse to be silenced.

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

And check out this story breaking down all the lies Palin and McCain and their cronies are passing off as their talking points.

Who Is Sarah Palin?

It's becoming abundantly clear that not even the man who chose this woman as his running mate can answer that question, having met her only once or twice before offering her the position. McCain's decision to choose Palin as his running mate is like a child who can't get his way and frustrated by that fact pouts and says fine, do whatever you want: "But I want my buddy Joe Lieberman. I can't have him?!?! Fine you just pick it then, I don't care."

Here is some useful information about the person Republicans want as their future VP, someone who apparently they believe could step up on Day 1 and handle the responsibilities of the presidency. Screw what they said before, it's a new ball game, and experience is not, apparently, as important as they have been claiming it is:

MSNBC

Yahoo News

Frederick Lane at Guernica

Robert Reich at Guernica

MoveOn.org

John McCain's Disingenuous Years

The other day I was discussing my thoughts about John McCain (as I find myself doing often these days) with someone who is still on the fence and who has obviously been affected by the smear tactics used by Republicans against Barack Obama (read a fantastic short piece about this matter from Robert Reich that recently went up on Guernica). This person is one of the many who doesn't necessarily vote Republican or Democrat; he believes that neither party--or anyone in politics for that matter--has his best interest in mind. He groups them all together as one lump of disingenuous, to use his word, assholes. I can't necessarily disagree with that sentiment. I do think there is a tremendous amount of self-interest in any political endeavor. And this won't ever drastically change while we are under a strictly two-party system. There are just too many political moves one must make when adhering to a certain dogma, to which a number of other people have hitched their wagons. That being said, on this point I argued that in this particular election we at least have an option who is drastically different than any other in recent memory. I do not need to give Barack Obama's life story here, since he has done so already in a book and many others have given shortened versions elsewhere. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that that story is radically different than the upbringing--and in some cases it's more like breeding--of many of our current politicians. He is not a Clinton, a Kennedy, or a Bush (Full disclosure: I will count myself among the camp that now considers John McCain a third Bush). I told my discussion partner that if he actually wanted to cast a vote in November for someone different than what he has seen, then there is really only one choice. (To this person's credit, in my eyes anyway, he does put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, having voted for both Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura. An attempt anyway to jettison the two-party system.)

But this whole discussion isn't why I am writing this. What I have been pondering lately more than how Obama is different than those who have come before is just how far John McCain has come to being exactly the same, or worse, than those who have come before. What sparked my interest most in this discussion I was having was my discussion partner's statement that at least John McCain was "genuine," to which I replied, "I may have said the same thing eight years ago." Now, eight years ago I was a junior in college and maybe more worried about a creative writing class, the lacrosse club, and which party I was going to attend on a Friday night than about the senator from Arizona. That is to say, my political interests didn't get fully piqued until the nominees for both parties were already in place, so I wasn't fully aware of all the skullduggery that led to G.W. being awarded that nomination. But it does seem to me that at least back then John McCain stood for something. Even if what he stood for wouldn't always have fallen in line with my beliefs, he seemed to stand behind his own thoughts and opinions. His indictments of Bush in those days were scathing, to no political gain. But these last years have been nothing but a political ploy on the AZ Senator's part. Once McCain knew he could not beat Bush he started, slowly at first and now full steam ahead, to put his ducks in a row for this very moment, for the chance to be President of the United States. Beliefs be damned, the man only wants one thing. That title is his only desire, and apparently his only reason for anything he does right now. I see no other way to explain how someone who was courted by the Democrats four years ago to jump ship and run as Vice President with John Kerry could fall so in line with the Right's agenda, other than, as Robert Reich puts it, the ends justify the means. What I have seen from John McCain over the last eight years does not strike me as actions I would attribute to a "genuine" person.

Crossposted at Guernica

He Said What?

In the same interview with Katie Couric that I posted about yesterday, John McCain actually said the following:

If Sen. Obama had had his way, we'd of never had the surge. And we'd of been out of there last March.

Correction, sir: If Sen. Obama had had his way, we'd actually never had this war. And we'd never have been in Iraq. If we're going to talk about issues of the past rather than looking at how the hell to fix what's going on, when will these people realize the right Past to look at?

John McCain Gets It Wrong...Again

This is getting absurd. Every time you look John McCain has said something completely untrue. Whether it's referring to an "Iraq-Pakistan border" (see video below) or speaking of Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed in 15 years.
















Now he's getting wrong the one thing that his bid for president is based on: his superior knowledge of the war in Iraq. He's either lying or just has no working knowledge of the events of this war. He claims that the Anbar Awakening was a product of "the surge" of American troops into Iraq, which was announced on January 10, 2007, four months after the Awakening began.

John McCain and others who share his mindset on Iraq claim to want the Iraqi people to step up and take control of their country. They are constantly trying to blame the Iraqi people for being incapable of doing so. However, when news comes out that may actually point to success in that country coming as a result of the actions of its own people, McCain and company still want to claim all the credit for the American troops. It is yet another indication of these people's true desire for that region: a presence of U.S. troops in the Middle East for, well, who knows how long, in order to keep American control over the region. This is not about the Iraqi people having control of their country. It never has been.

The funny thing about this is that Katie Couric says to McCain:

"Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias."

She did not say that Obama totally discredits the surge or claims it was worthless. And still, rather than simply agreeing that the Awakening and the surge together have made for decreased levels of violence, he chooses to distort the facts and attempts to once again scare the American people in doing so (read: no one in Iraq is keeping the peace except U.S. troops).

He's either a liar or incredibly stupid. I don't look for either of these qualities when deciding who should be president.

Delusional

I'm reading about General Wesley Clark's comments about John McCain's service in Vietnam and how it doesn't necessarily translate to the capability to be president. Seems to make sense, right? Someone can certainly be highly praised in one aspect of life that does not translate into success in other aspects, right?

Well, the mainstream media have been quoting everything out of context and performing all of the usual tricks that make them mainstream. I've read a couple of articles where, instead of giving the whole context of one of General Clark's comments, the "news" sources have chosen just to print this: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." It does sound like an attack like that. But here's the whole exchange:

[BOB] SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences, either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean...

CLARK: Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Clark was simply responding to the fact that, yes, you're right, Obama has not ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. But is that how we are to choose our presidents? How many presidents have ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down? Seriously, I want the numbers.

When is the media going to stop pandering like this? Why can't people just accept that certain things, even if you don't want to hear them, may just be true. Being a POW does not qualify you to be president. It's just a fact. Maybe community organizing in Chicago doesn't either, but I'd rather put my stock in that kind of experience.

Now, before I forget why I even started this post: Delusional. In my reading about this story I came across this quote from Senator Joseph Lieberman on Yahoo News:

``I hope Barack Obama goes to Iraq,'' Joseph Lieberman, an independent U.S. senator from Connecticut, said on the CBS program today. ``And frankly I hope he changes his position. Because if we had done what Senator Obama asked us to do, for the last couple of years, today Iran and al-Qaeda would be in control of Iraq. It would be a terrible defeat for us and our allies in the Middle East and throughout the world.''

Then I remembered something I read today in the June 30th issue of the New Yorker. Dorothy Wickenden quotes from a speech that Obama gave back in 2002:

“I don’t oppose all wars,” Barack Obama told a few hundred Chicago protesters, adding:

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars."

How about if we did what Barack Obama suggested six years ago, Mr. Lieberman? Where might we be then?

These people re-write history as they go.