Tag: Open Thread

I suspect that some of you may have a passing interest in tonight’s results.

Because I have unlimited essays, I’ll post some open threads for you to express your feelings.

If you want to post your own essay about a particular item of interest please don’t hesitate to do so.  I don’t expect we’ll have to worry as much about traffic as some other sites.

I’ll be busy cranking together Overnight News Digest, so I may not be around much.

I had intended this as my Obama endorsement piece, because have no doubt I’m going to drag myself across 16 miles of broken glass and barb wire to vote for him today.

In Stars Hollow it’s not actually so bad.  I’ve only ever had to stand in a 3 person line once or twice, mostly you chat up the poll workers to keep them awake.  Now that we have optical we have 27 booths and one reader.  The Poll Watchers, both of them, say that if the ballot goes through you’re good to go.  I hope so.  I’m mostly afraid the Flair™ in the booth will be dry and I’l have to flag someone down.

There is a part of me that says bring a spare.

I’m not entirely optimistic as you may suspect.  There are people tugging the other way and it’s a big iceberg.  They’re not going to quit and neither should we.

A little victory, and part of the tugging, will take place tomorrow.

I hope at least for devastating Republican defeat- Red States hemorrhaging blue all over the map.  One party government, dead as the Whigs.  And I’ll dance on the ashes in 2010 before we toss them in the dustbin of history.  This is a mere pre-requisite.

As always we will need to hold Our Representatives accountable for their actions and the clock don’t start ticking tomorrow because I wasn’t born yesterday.  I’m not distracted by shiny objects.  Primary challenges need to begin Wednesday!  Are you better than Club for Growth or not?  You outnumber them 95 to 5!

We have to reform our Corporate Media.  This is at once the hardest and the easiest thing to fix.  It’s the hardest because of the Hypnotoad-

You watch, I know you do.  And you buy stuff too.  Lots of people ride the bus in Montgomery.  Your attention counts more than anything, by merely shifting it you can have an impact.  While I recommend more, uhhh, active actions like changing your habits and expressing your opinions most people are shy and I understand that, but it’s right there beside you.  C’mon.

What makes it the easiest thing to fix is that these preening popinjays are extraordinarily sensitive to public opinion.  These nattering narcissists are so vacuous that without the beaming sunrays of audience approval they shrivel into dust and blow away like a reverse vampire.  Complaint letters are like garlic and a boycott a stake in the heart.  Interestingly enough Bram Stoker’s Dracula was killed by the stroke of a Bowie knife.  Sorry to spoil that for you.

Have you heard about Obama’s Antie Zeituni?  Been a last minute flurry of rightwing vituperation over the leaked story that she is here illegally, as her request for sanctuary was denied.

Except the ICE has known this for a long time, yet didn’t decide to do anything about it until now, right before the election.  Oh those rascals!

Duke, over at the Sanctuary has this story down:

Obama’s Aunt is emblematic of everything wrong with immigration, both systemically and as a political issue.

Without knowing the specifics of her case it’s hard to say why in fact her status is what it is, but we do know that:

1. The authorities have know about her status for some time

2. DHS was ordered not to deport until after election

3.  The second person to leak the story came out of the Administration

4.  The timing of the story was orchestrated by Murdoch/Rove for maximum political effect.

Basically, the authorities have kept her under wraps until they could use her as a pawn for political gain.  

And here is where I see her as symbol for the whole immigration debate.  

The right wing has used 12 mil people as political pawns from the start of this current debate. If we look at everything they’ve done from passing HR4437, which they knew would never get through the Senate, to the failed CIR attempts, to the current fascists crackdowns…it’s all been nothing more than political theater. played against the backdrop of real human suffering.  

And now they wheel out Obama’s Aunt.  

They could have finished her case and deported her ages ago if that was in fact their intent. But it wasn’t. They’re intent was to keep her around to use as a pawn to whip up the base, and peel off independents.  

And is that really any different from anything else that’s been going on for the last few years to the rest of the migrant population?  

Of course not.

Thread away at will!

Well, there are other places where you may feel constrained from expressing last minute doubts that our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.

Not here!

New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana- McCain runs the table.  Heck, even Stars Hollow turns to the experienced maverick and his oh so cute and smart successor, our very own Caribou Barbie!

Sackcloth and ashes for progressive hopes and dreams.

Ah well, it’s the fight I’ve always hoped for- to the death against impossible odds.

My brewing buddy used to throw Halloween parties for my club.  He’d time them so that they happened the longest night of the year so everyone could stay an extra hour (and hopefully until morning because he’d brew up about 15 gallons).

It was quite a shindig, the peak was about 150 one year when we were politicking.  He was an audiophile and invested thousands of dollars in a CD based dj sytem, mixer, amps, speakers- so good I can still hear the difference between the first and second plays on vinyl.

But you can play CDs a hundred million times exactly the same so- I’ve DJed many Lincoln/Reagan dinners and eaten well (well eaten at least) for free at them, but I’ve never been able to get Republicans to dance after the event.

They can’t wait to get the fuck out of there.

Before dinner you’d play  something that was low and sounded vaguely hip.  We had hours of Steely Dan.  During dinner instrumental new age and after?  For the first few years I’d try, but after that I knew there wasn’t an instant hit that could keep them from their cars.

At the Halloween party we had people in costumes dancing and hooking up, what can I say.  We had to have a woman who was psychotically fixated on me carted off by the police one year.  This led to my brief torrid affair with the nurse who raised Siamese cats and dachshunds and daughters.  She (the nurse, pay attention) thought I was too serious about her and dumped me before Christmas but it all worked out in the end.  She married a biker and is very happy she tells me when she and I and her husband (who I knew before I knew her) meet on ceremonial occasions.

But that was simply one year among many.  We were relentlessly dance oriented at the party, to the point of limiting seating so people were forced to get up and circulate.  Tons of food.  No party games.

At the very first, or one of the very first ones we made the mistake of setting up video game stations and playing videos.  People grabbed the nearest couch.  I’m not sure I was at the last one, but I can understand why my brewing buddy stopped hosting them.  Attendance was down and we’d long since ceased having an agenda.

Logistically big parties are a bitch- 3 or 4 days of work.  I’ve been part of a lot of them come to think of it, one interesting one not a lot of people who know me know about is Gerald’s Party in Binghampton.

Gerald was my next door neighbor in Syracuse and he was kind of a weird dude who kept exotic pets (python, tarantula, monitor lizard).  He didn’t have a car and I did and he wanted to go to this party in Binghamton.  Big.  Live band was arriving Friday, he knew them and we could all crash the night before.

Well, I had a Friday night party, but I told Gerald I’d drop him off and pick him up and he was like- dude.

The Saturday part was quite splashy enough for my tastes.  The band was good and everbody loved them.  I recognized some friends of Gerald’s I’d met the day before so I didn’t feel left out.

I dunno, my inner Emily tells me there is just something classy about a party with a live band.

This is an open thread.  Chat away.  Please do not rec the open thread.

Over at Zuky, Kai has posted part 2 of Time to Throw the Traders Out the Temple.  He has an interesting take on the economic situation we find ourselves in:

A potential catastrophe – or perhaps a historic opportunity – is unfolding in glacial slow motion before our befuddled eyes. Corporatist media prefer to reduce the situation to an infantilizing superstitious battle of bulls vs. bears, as though the stock market consists of imaginary stuffed-animal friends and whichever side we believe in with more fuzzy fervor will magically win. But to me the story of financial crisis and rippling economic disruption is a serious matter not because of what happens on Wall Street, but because of what it could mean for broad swaths of the planet for years to come

He does bother to define what he calls “economy:”

When I talk about the economy, I’m not talking about finance; I’m talking about human activity which produces and distributes social value, from food and shelter to laughter and beauty. Of course, our modern economy is inextricably entangled in the constructs of post-industrial capitalism. But the way things are need not constrict our envisionings of the ways that things could be better. And I think now is a particularly compelling moment for progressives to make the argument that things could be better.

The Open Thread Is NOW OPEN!  Ta da!

No.

“Is that a real question?” Biden continues.

“That’s a question.” West said.

With a chuckle, Biden firmly tells West, “He is not spreading the wealth around. He’s talking about giving the middle class an opportunity to get back the tax breaks they used to have.”

“We think middle class tax payers should get a break, that’s what we think,” Biden added. “That’s a ridiculous comparison with all due respect.”

The dKos diary is based on Blue Tidal Wave and you know how these things are.  I have no experience with them as a source, but I only deal in the most reprehensible rumors anyway.

The boycott controversy has been on all day on Faux.  I’m surprised to find so little on the web except the Recommended diary from dKos because in my humble opinion it’s a big deal.  I saw somewhere that Drudge agrees, but dang if it turns up on teh Googles.

Hmm… more diligent research suggests this is a source-

Obama campaign cuts off WFTV after interview with Joe Biden

posted by halboedeker, Orlando Sentinel

Oct 24, 2008 11:12:15 AM

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

Still, I’d be very interested in meatier sources because Faux is frothing at the mouth ACORN style.