New Campaign Job

Starting July 2, I will be working for Obama for America as a Field Organizer in Wisconsin. Although I do not yet know where in Wisconsin I will be located, I will find out shortly and will update my blog accordingly. I'm very excited about the opportunity.

As a disclaimer, any blogs that I have previously written and any that I write in the future are my own views. They do not reflect those of Barack Obama, Obama for America, or anyone within the campaign.

Obama Speaks Some Important Truths on Fatherhood

As Obama points out, not only does the government need to provide better support for the working class, but we all need to take more responsibility for ourselves and build the infrastructure that children need to succeed. More specifically, men need to live up the responsibilities that come with fatherhood. Obama's speech brings up some very relevant societal points.

A Perfect Description of the Republican Attack Machine

A summary of what Barack and/or Michelle Obama apparently are:

Muslim
Not a Muslim, but part of a "seperatist" church
Sexist
Radical liberal
Bitter
Plagiarist
Unpatriotic
Racist
Terrorist sympathizer

Do neocons have no ethics or shame?

Jon Stewart, well done.

A History of Anti-Sodomy and Anti-Homosexual Laws in the US

I read an interesting article discussing William Eskridge's book "Dishonorable Passions." The article summarizes Eskridges history of anti-sodomy laws and their ridiculousness and selectiveness. Eskridge discusses how Americans always have needed some boogey man to be afraid of, and now they have turned their attention to homosexuals/gay marriage to fill that void. The article (and book) is a good read and is worth checking out.

Jim Webb Talks About the Importance of the New GI Bill

With the GI Bill currently working its way through Congress, Sen. Jim Webb talked with Jon Stewart about, among other things, the hypocrisy in the Republicans' to pay for an ill-advised war, but not to support our veterans once they return home. The Bill itself would help fund a college education for American soldiers upon the completion of their military service. Is this an objectionable idea? Of course not. Yet the Bush administration has vowed to veto the Bill should it pass through the legislature, once again showing how George Bush and Republicans are only interested in support for their war, not the lives, health, and success of our men and women in service.

Do People Really Care About a Fist Pound? ...Seriously???

A Fox News anchor recently suggested that Barack and Michelle Obama's fist pound could have been a "terrorist jab." She and her guest then went on to discuss the pound, analyzing it's intricacies, meanings, and implications. - To clarify, no, this was not an article from The Onion. It's a serious (sort of) story. One can only roll their eyes at Fox news, and laugh at how out of touch they are.

The Mindless Menace of Violence - 40 Years Later

In the early hours of June 5th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel following the California Primary and his victory speech. Today, his activism, calls to serve the poor and end poverty, and his dedication to bettering the lives of citizens in this country still ring true. Most notably, RFK believed in non-violence. He spoke at the Cleveland City Club only days after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the mindless menace of violence. His words were prophetic, and unfortunately they still ring true today. I encourage you to read his speech below, and ask yourself if we still suffer from these same afflictions in our society.

This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one – no matter where he lives or what he does – can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by his assassin’s bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of the people.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence – whenever we tear at the fabric of life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we known what must be done. “When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies – to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our bothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear – only a common desire to retreat from each other – only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is now what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of human purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember – even if only for a time – that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek – as we do – nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

More Pics from the St. Paul Event

Some Pictures from Obama's Rally in St. Paul

A Perfect Example of When Concealed Weapons Don't Make Everyone Safer

The article linked describes the violence that recently broke out at Milwaukee's RiverSplash event. All I'll say in reaction is that this situation shows why Wisconsin shouldn't have legal concealed weapons provisions, and violence of this nature is counterproductive and unfortunate. When will we learn that violence is not an answer?

Is President Clinton Serious?

It looks like President Clinton and the HRC campaign have come up with a new reason that they're losing - a vast left wing conspiracy led by the media, Moveon.org, and other liberal groups. He's claiming that since March 4th, the college educated elites have been pushing her out of the race by suppressing her supporters and minimizing her momentum. He's basically saying that the upper class Obama supporters are holding down the poor, working class white folks.

This new excuse from the HRC campaign shows just how desperate they are becoming. Rather than accept the primary results in a dignified manner, they're now clinging to whining, finger pointing, and conspiracy theories. Through their sophomoric tactics, they've become the liberal version of George Bush. The Clinton campaign has regressed into the combative, personal attack driven campaign that is usually seen from the Republican attack machine (a machine that is in full force against Obama). It's disappointing to see this from a Democrat.

The frustrating part of all of this is the damage which the campaign is inflicting on the Democratic Party and on the liberal movement that has been sweeping across the country within the past few years. At this rate, the Clinton campaign will have sucked the life out of all the momentum that Democrats saw in 2006, with the worst case being an Obama loss in November. At this point, however, I wonder if HRC is even concerned about the party's fate beyond her own personal interest.

McLellan Blasts Bush Administration and "Culture of Deception"

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McLellan is releasing a new book chronicling his time in the Bush White House. Among other topics, McLellan discusses how he, along with the rest of the administration, went to Washington to change it, but ultimately ended up contributing to the "culture of deception" that existed. He goes on to discuss the lead up to the war in Iraq, getting caught up in the White House bubble, and the secrecy and compartmentalization surrounding the Vice President's office. The book is certainly worth checking out.

Although few of McLellan's comments are new, it is so incredibly damning for them to have come from a former member of Bush's inner circle. To hear these allegations from a man that was, between 1999 and 2008, the quintessential "Bushie" must lend credibility to his claims. McLellan's words also reiterate the recounts of other former Bush administration officials such as George Tenet, Richard Clarke, and Douglas Feith; men who were condemned by the Bush administration, but now have their criticisms validated by the memoir of yet another former staffer. The only difference is that this time it comes from a man with that had direct access to the President.

Not surprisingly, the Bush attack machine is responding by doing what it does best - attack the messenger. From Karl Rove to Dan Bartlett to Ari Fleischer, the only comments you heard in response to McLellan's book yesterday were attacks on his character and on him personally. Just this morning Bob Dole called McLellan a "miserable creature." Unfortunately, this has become the Bush (and Republican) motto when it comes to defending itself. Rather than discuss the charges of the book (or the issue at hand), they attack who the message is coming from. This nonsense is no different than their slander of John McCain in the 2000 primaries, the Swifboating of John Kerry in 2004, or the numerous attacks they've leveled on opponents of their policies. I guess when you don't have a basis to argue the issue, you might as well stoop to the lowest rung possible and kill the messenger.

Please tell me all Repub's don't think like this

Uber-conservative commentator Charlie Sykes made the argument in his blog that because of smoking bans, more people are dying of drunk driving. *scratches head* This logic is so baffling I'll just let the column speak for itself. Here's a gem that you can sift through:

By comparing data from a variety of locations around the United States where laws requiring smoke-free bars exist with locations without bans, economists Scott Adams and Chad Cotti found a relative increase in fatalities caused by drunk driving following ban enactment.

While the results at first seemed surprising to Adams, a UWM assistant professor of economics, and Cotti, now at the University of South Carolina, literature on consumer behavior suggests an explanation: Smokers are willing to drive longer distances to an establishment that allows smoking.

I'm only wondering if this is really the new Repub. talking point to combat the smoking bans. I mean c'mon, seriously?

Obama Demonstrates a Commitment to LGBT Issues

Dale Carpenter, in his article in The Bay Area Reporter articulates perfectly what makes Obama the superior candidate when it comes to LGBT issues. While Obama and Sen. Clinton are similar in their stances and legislative abilities, Obama soars over HRC when it comes to his commitment to advancing gay equality. Carpenter writes:

Neither Obama nor Clinton is perfect on this score. Obama campaigned last fall with a homophobic minister. Both hesitated when confronted with the remarks of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace that DADT is justified because homosexuality is immoral. As if testing the political winds, they denounced Pace only after Sen. John Warner (R-VA) flatly declared that homosexuality is not immoral.

Nevertheless, Obama speaks movingly of gay equality, and not just before gay audiences. He has raised the issue among white farmers and in black churches, where the message is both unwelcome and needed.

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, rarely raises the issue on her own, never does so before unfriendly audiences, and seems reluctant even to say the word “gay.”

Obama “gets it” in a way that no previous candidate for president has. Part of this is generational, but it is nonetheless real.

On commitment: strong advantage to Obama.

The Next VP?

Assuming Barack Obama ends up with the Democratic nomination, the next question to be answered is "Who will be Obama's running mate?" How about Jim Webb? He had an interesting interview with NPR this week, and among other topics, they discuss a possible VP nomination. Personally, I love the idea. Webb represents strong military experience, centrist appeal, and "blue collar" Democrats. He is also someone that is part of the new Democratic party (as opposed to old, establishment Dems that have been the party leaders for the past two decades) in that he understands the diversity of the US and the challenges the country faces in a 2008 mindset.

Get Well Teddy

Off to the side of my blog, I have always displayed a picture of former Senator and presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy, a man whom I have always idolized and held in the highest regard. His brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, has served the country in the same spirit that he served. The news today of Sen. Ted Kennedy's malignant brain tumor has been both shocking and disheartening to all Americans. Since 1962, Sen. Kennedy and his family have fought for those in our country that have not had the voice to fight for themselves. He has advocated for children, the underserved, healthcare for all citizens, and innumerable other causes which have made the United States a better place. His undying spirit and commanding oratory have been staples in the US Senate over the past 40 plus years.

Beyond politics, Sen. Kennedy's distinguished honor has gained him the respect and love of Senators and Representives, regardless of political party. Colleagues and citizens alike have described him as a man of great courage and steadfast dedication, a man that is willing to cross party lines to compromise in order to pass legislation that would otherwise remain stuck in Congress. Sen. Kennedy has become a living institution in the Senate. His public service has been unmatched in American history. On this day I hope for Sen. Kennedy's healthy recovery and pray that we all can once again see him advocating for the people he has so diligently served in his term as a US Senator.

Get well Teddy.

What would a study break be without a crazy Bill O'Reilly video?

The State of the Primary

In two words, it's over. And when you look at what has been said by pundits and experts over the last two months, it's really not very surprising. With a few exceptions, all of the contests that have taken place since Wisconsin and Hawaii have come down just like the experts have said they would (and, coincidentally, the Obama campaign). Following election night here in the Badger state, I said that to get back in the race HRC needed to win, and win big, in places like Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. While she did pull out victories in each of these states(well, a pseudo-victory in Texas), her margins have not been great enough. With the exception of Pennsylvania, a state that has a Democratic Party structure conducive to HRC, she has not made up any substantial ground on the lead that Obama has built. Even on primary night in Ohio and Texas, the delegate count the following morning stood with virtually the same distance between HRC and Obama.

This pattern has got to be troubling for her campaign, and as Barack inches closer and closer to reaching the magic number of 2,025 delegates, HRC's margin for error grows razor thin. While the prognostications in March have had many of the primary contests accurately laid out, the results have now validated these predictions. Seeing the elections that have taken place over the past month, a month in which Obama has been held to standards Zeus could not meet, HRC's campaign is all but over. Granted, there is no official nominee yet and Obama has not yet gotten the required delegates, but the electoral math makes HRC's task nearly insurmountable at this point.

Oh, and could we please get back to discussing the issues!!

Second Amendment Case Before the Supreme Court

Sitting before the US Supreme Court currently is a case that will redefine how gun control laws are enacted and enforced in this country. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the High Court is reconsidering its interpretation of the 2nd Amendment for the first time in 68 years. Regardless of your stance on the issue, I urge you to read more about the case and understand the issues being addressed. Here is one link (of the many that are available) with information about the case: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/court-agrees-to-rule-on-gun-case/

The case has been argued, and there will likely be a ruling sometime in the near future. So what should happen? Without turning this into my senior thesis paper, I'll share a few thoughts. As much as I usually carry the banner for curtailing the prevailance and use of firearms, the DC gun ban is simply too broad. The law does not provide any exceptions for off-duty law enforcement officers. It also does not allow for any provisions by which citizens can protect their homes. While a similar law with such provisions (or close to) would be useful and much more reasonable, the case before SCOTUS presents a law that is not narrowly tailored enough to pass its constitutional requirements. I applaud the District of Columbia for its intentions, and indeed I agree with their motives, but they must provide a more through law. After the case is ruled upon (most likely coming down against the District), they should reexamine the law and draft one that provides the necessary exceptions and provisions, thereby eliminating the claims that the law is too broad-sweeping.

I am guessing the Court's decision will end up somewhere around 5-4 (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy), and hopefully their opinion is not a blanket rejection of DC's attempt at decreasing gun violence within the city. If that happens, my hope is that the city revises the law to take into account the situations in which an all-out ban on firearms (unless unloaded and disassembled) is unreasonable. A law such as that could pave the way for other cities to follow, eventually changing cultural attitudes in the US and lowering the number of guns in society.

Pennsylvania Primary

In the past month of Primary season in what is becoming the Batton Death March to the White House, the Democratic Primary has descended into a spiral of ridiculousness, rivaled only by the writing on CSI. Upon completion of this post, I will follow up shortly with one of substance, dealing with an issue of real significance (unlike the bickering that has been going on in the Keystone state). However, I feel it is necessary to point out the absurdity that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (although to a lesser degree) have brought to the campaign for the presidency. It has gotten to the point where I have simply lost interest. When I hear of the latest "scandal" or "attack," the story registers no emotional value and I sort-of nod my head at the TV, my eyes a bit glazed over and a blank stare crossing my face. Is this a bit cynical of me? Perhaps. But in reality, this campaign has strayed so far from anything resembling a substantive debate that it doesn't deserve my attention (or anyone elses for that matter) at this point. The fact of the matter is that Obama remains clearly ahead, and barring an apocalyptic collapse, he will be the next nominee for President from the Democratic Party. If HRC wants to contest this, fine. But until the two candidates start talking about the things that matter, like the issues involved in small town poverty or health care or the country's direction, I will choose to occupy my time with something of greater value (watching old reruns of Crossfire perhaps?).