Tim Russert - 1950-2008

The loss of Tim Russert is a heartbreaking story not just for those who were family members or close friends of Mr. Russert, not just viewers of Meet the Press, but for all Americans and for all those who share a passion for politics and reporting. Tim was one of few political news reporters I could watch on television and not get an urge to scold them or argue with them. Russert's reporting was always aimed at trying to uncover the truth and to get politicians to be honest about what their plans and intentions were for the country.

Russert was admirable because he was an all-around genuine person who valued integrity and commitment to truth in his reporting. One of my favorite YouTube clips is one where he reads John McCain a quote and asks him to respond to it, McCain not realizing that the quote was one that he himself had spoken years before. He wasn't an Obama-loving Chris Matthews or a right-slanted Bill O'Reilly. He was someone whom all Americans could trust as a news source, and reminded us of the importance of politics in our daily lives and why, as Americans, we should care about the political process.

Tim Russert's reporting and his involvement in covering this presidential campaign is something that is unprecedented and will never anyone else currently in the field. He would have loved to see the results of this upcoming election, and his absence will be felt in the upcoming debates and political coverage of the election leading up to November. Even though he has now passed on, the positive mark he has left on American politics and news coverage of politics have changed American political journalism forever

McCain fails to vote on GI Bill

Given the reputation that John McCain has for being a war hero, I find it very interesting that McCain missed the vote on this GI Bill. While McCain missed the vote on the bill only because he was campaigning, this should not be a legitimate excuse for missing a vote on such an important piece of legislation. John McCain has clinched the Republican nomination for president. He has from now until Election Day in November to travel across the country at rallies, dinners, fundraisers, etc. to gain support for his candidacy.

McCain has repeatedly attacked and criticized Senator Obama for his lack of military leadership and knowledge. He consistently calls Obama out for not having visited Iraq for almost two years and for not having met with General Petraeus despite Obama's pledge to meet with the leaders of other nations that have demonstrated hostility towards the United States. If McCain wishes to make these accusations and have them be valid, shouldn't he at least live up to his own commitments as a legislator and as a War Veteran to support a bill that helps those coming back from military duty to obtain a college education? It's okay to criticize your opponent, but you should at least practice what you preach and live up to your own responsibilities.


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/23/mccain_misses_vote_on_a_new_gi_bill_scorns_criticism_from_obama/

Another skeleton in Obama's closet

Recently, news has come out with the story that ties Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground who was part of a plan to use bombs to blow up the Pentagon back in the 1960s. While Obama’s ties to Ayers are not nearly as strong or as personal as Obama’s ties with Jeremiah Wright, will this second controversial figure from Obama’s past hurt his chances in the fall if he’s selected as the Democratic presidential nominee?

Obama was able to fend off the Jeremiah Wright argument fairly well, but thus far he’s only been trying to win the support of fellow Democrats for the immediate purposes of the Democratic primaries. But what will happen in the general election, when he becomes the clear (and only) main target that the Republicans and the conservative blogosphere need to focus their attacks efforts on? Here’s an article about the controversial relationship posted by the Huffington Post:

Ayers And Obama: What Is Their Relationship?
Huffington Post | April 17, 2008 11:08 AM


The Pennsylvania Democratic debate took a few nasty turns last night, as moderator George Stephanopoulos sought to inject a new figure from Obama's Chicago life -- William Ayers -- into the national discourse. Before the debate, few voters were aware of Williams Ayers, much less the nature of his connections to the the Illinois senator.

The Associated Press reports on Ayers in the debate:

Clinton said she was concerned about Obama's association with Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground who Clinton pointed out said in an interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, that he didn't regret bombing government buildings. Obama quickly responded that Clinton's husband pardoned one member of Weather Underground and commuted the sentence of another.

"Look, there is no doubt that the Republicans will attack either of us," Obama said. "What I've been able to display during the course of this primary is that I can take a punch. I've taken some pretty good ones from Senator Clinton."


The New York Times has a rundown on William Ayer's controversial past, as well as his loose ties with Barack Obama:

Mr. Ayers is listed as a member of the nine-member board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an offshoot of the Woods Charitable Fund, founded in 1941 by a prominent lawyer and telephone company executive. According to the fund's Web site, it has focused in recent years on "issues that affected the area's least advantaged, including welfare reform, affordable housing" and "tax policy as a tool in reducing poverty."

For a time, Mr. Obama was on the board with Mr. Ayers, though he no longer has a formal association with the group. At the debate, he described Mr. Ayers as "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," but "not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis." Mr. Obama said he was being unjustly linked to "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old."


The Washington Post also points out that Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's state senate reelection campaign in 2001.

Politico, who first covered the relationship into this year, reports that Obama visited the household of the Ayers in Chicago early in his political career:

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district's influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn....

"I can remember being one of a small group of people who came to Bill Ayers' house to learn that Alice Palmer was stepping down from the senate and running for Congress," said Dr. Quentin Young, a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payer health care, of the informal gathering at the home of Ayers and his wife, Dohrn. "[Palmer] identified [Obama] as her successor."


As Lynn Sweet points out, Obama's seemingly scant relationship with Ayers has been a favorite story of Fox News:

Ayers is a noted education specialist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. But to Fox News -- which has relentlessly been playing up Obama's associations with Ayers -- Ayers is an unrepentant terrorist. Obama made it seem like he barely knew him, though they both served on Chicago's Woods Fund board.
Indeed, some have pointed out that Stephanopoulos' question in the debate sounded eerily similar to a conversation between him and Fox anchor Sean Hannity held the day before the debate. From Hannity's radio show (via Think Progress):

HANNITY: There are two questions that I don't think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don't know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is - the only time he's ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying "I don't regret setting bombs. I don't think we did enough." When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I'm taking notes right now.


And Talking Points Memo has a clip from Fox News falsely claims that Ayers was Obama's mentor:


Still, the connection is troubling, if only for reasons of perception, to at least some progressives. HuffPost blogger Larry Johnson suggested in February that, "William Ayers, in the age of terrorism, will be Barack Obama's Willie Horton."

What makes Ayers so toxic is his own written record equating U.S. Marines with terrorists. Look at the beating that John Kerry took for tossing his medals over the White House fence. Ayers did not toss medals, he threw bombs. Real ones. Bombs that exploded.

Standing up for justice

After reading the famous Korematsu v. United States opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court, I was appalled at the bad logic used in the majority opinion to justify the internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII because of Pearl Harbor and the idea that American-born citizens of Japanese descent may become disloyal to the United States.

However, at the same time, I found Justice Murphy's dissenting opinion to be particularly inspiring. For someone to stand up against discrimination during a time of war is a courageous act, indeed. I would highly recommend that you read the following excerpts from this opinion. Even though the dissent meant practically nothing in terms of the immediate legal outcome of the case, it surely paved the way for future compensation of the Japanese-Americans who suffered under the injustice and cruelty that was legally imposed and judicially sanctioned by the United States.




Korematsu v. United States

Mr. Justice Murphy, dissenting:


This exclusion of "all persons of Japanese ancestry, both alien and non-alien," from the Pacific Coast area on a plea of military necessity in the absence of martial law ought not to be approved. Such exclusion goes over "the very brink of constitutional power" and falls into the ugly abyss of racism.


In dealing with matters relating to the prosecution and progress of a war, we must accord great respect and consideration to the judgments of the military authorities who are on the scene and who have full knowledge of the military facts…
At the same time, however, it is essential that there be definite limits to military discretion, especially where martial law has not been declared. Individuals must not be left impoverished of their constitutional rights on a plea of military necessity that has neither substance nor support…


…Being an obvious racial discrimination, the order deprives all those within its scope of the equal protection of the laws as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. It further deprives these individuals of their constitutional rights to live and work where they will, to establish a home where they choose and to move about freely. In excommunicating them without benefit of hearings, this order also deprives them of all their constitutional rights to procedural due process. Yet no reasonable relation to an "immediate, imminent, and impending" public danger is evident to support this racial restriction which is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights in the history of this nation in the absence of martial law.


… The main reasons relied upon by those responsible for the forced evacuation, therefore, do not prove a reasonable relation between the group characteristics of Japanese Americans and the dangers of invasion, sabotage and espionage. The reasons appear, instead, to be largely an accumulation of much of the misinformation, half-truths and insinuations that for years have been directed against Japanese Americans by people with racial and economic prejudices -- the same people who have been among the foremost advocates of the evacuation. A military judgment based upon such racial and sociological considerations is not entitled to the great weight ordinarily given the judgments based upon strictly military considerations. Especially is this so when every charge relative to race, religion, culture, geographical location, and legal and economic status has been substantially discredited by independent studies made by experts in these matters.


…No one denies, of course, that there were some disloyal persons of Japanese descent on the Pacific Coast who did all in their power to aid their ancestral land. Similar disloyal activities have been engaged in by many persons of German, Italian and even more pioneer stock in our country. But to infer that examples of individual disloyalty prove group disloyalty and justify discriminatory action against the entire group is to deny that under our system of law individual guilt is the sole basis for deprivation of rights. Moreover, this inference, which is at the very heart of the evacuation orders, has been used in support of the abhorrent and despicable treatment of minority groups by the dictatorial tyrannies which this nation is now pledged to destroy. To give constitutional sanction to that inference in this case, however well-intentioned may have been the military command on the Pacific Coast, is to adopt one of the cruelest of the rationales used by our enemies to destroy the dignity of the individual and to encourage and open the door to discriminatory actions against other minority groups in the passions of tomorrow.


No adequate reason is given for the failure to treat these Japanese Americans on an individual basis by holding investigations and hearings to separate the loyal from the disloyal, as was done in the case of persons of German and Italian ancestry…
I dissent, therefore, from this legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessarily a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Gay marriage receives wider recognition

New York to recognize gay marriages

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Gov. David Patterson of New York has told state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they are legal, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.


New York agencies have been told to recognize same-sex marriages performed in places where they are legal.

The governor's legal counsel told state agencies in a May 14 memo to revise policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California and Massachusetts as well as Canada and other countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry, said Erin Duggan, the governor's spokeswoman.

The memo informed state agencies that failing to recognize gay marriages would violate the New York's human rights law, Duggan said.

The directive follows a February ruling from a New York state appeals court. That decision says that legal same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions are entitled to recognition in New York.

"This was in direct response to a court ruling," Duggan told CNN. "Just to make sure all the state agencies are on the same page."

Duggan says that the court's decision was consistent with the findings of several lower courts in New York State.


Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriages in 2004, and gay couples need not be state residents there to wed. However, then-Gov. Mitt Romney resurrected a 1913 law barring non-resident marriages in the state if the marriage would be prohibited in the partners' home state.


Subsequent court and agency decisions have determined that only residents of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Mexico may marry in Massachusetts, unless the parties say they plan to relocate there after the marriage.

New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey and Connecticut permit civil unions, while California has a domestic-partner registration law. More than a dozen other states give same-sex couples some legal rights, as do some other countries.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/29/nygay.marriage/index.html


While New York has not made it legal to perform marriages, it has said that it will grant recognition to same-sex marriages that have been made official in other states and countries. This is one more step towards recognition of same-sex marriage at the state level within this country.

But will gay marriage ever be safe from the the threat of legal opposition or legislative/judicial reversal? When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom granted same-sex marriages back in 2004, they were quickly annuled by the state. Even with the apparent legalization of gay marriage in the state of California, the California Supreme Court still has an opportunity to intervene. California will officially be granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginnng on June 17th 2008. However, the Court will have until June 16th to review their decision and possibly overturn their prior action.

Many people have been excited about these recent developments in California and New York, but will same-sex couples ever be able to live without the fear of knowing that their marriage may soon be invalidated? While we have moved towards a much more tolerant view of homosexuals in American society, these victories for the LGBT community must unfortunately be celebrated with caution.

Gas prices....LOL

I saw this video on CNN last weekend while I was sitting inside a McDonalds at Lake Arrowhead, and I thought it was pretty funny. At the same time, though, it's ridiculous how high gas prices have gotten. I still remember traveling cross-country on a roadtrip when i was about 10 years old and seeing places that had gas prices under $1.00/gallon.

Why is it that the executives at the big oil companies such as Exxon-Mobil and Shell have been making record profits in recent years while gas has become less and less affordable for all Americans? It's pretty scary to think about what gas prices will be like in another 10 years. Will we eventually reach $7, $8 per gallon? How bout $10 per gallon?

If there's one thing I really like about McCain, it's got to be his Summer Gas Tax Holiday. Too bad summer doesn't last forever though :(

Obama’s Memorial Day slip-up

I must say, this is a pretty big embarrassment for the Obama campaign. In a Memorial Day speech, Obama claimed that his uncle was one of the liberators at Auschwitz during WWII as a member of the American military. One big problem with this statement: The Americans were not the ones to liberate the soldiers at Auschwitz. Rather, it was the Soviet Union that liberated this particular Nazi concentration camp. If Obama’s uncle really was at Auschwitz, that means he must have been a member of the (Red) Soviet Army.

The Obama campaign released an official statement that cleared up some of the confusion, correcting some of the details that Obama elaborated on. First of all, it was not Obama’s uncle, but his great uncle that served during World War II. Secondly, Obama’s great uncle was part of the liberating army at Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.

These slip-ups are bad for Obama, especially because it shows his possible insensitivity to the Jewish community. To make a historical error that is also closely related to his personal history is never a very good thing. Everyone gets their facts mixed up sometimes, but when you’re giving a formal speech for a momentous occasion such as Memorial Day, you should probably get your story straight first.

At the same time, I think you need to cut him a little slack when you look at the bigger picture of this election. It’s not like Hillary made any claims about arriving in Bosnia under sniper fire, right? Surely McCain hasn’t done anything bad such as to suggest that the Iranian government is training Al Qaeda (insert sarcasm here)?

Scott McClellan's book: too little, too late

In his new memoir that came out recently, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says that Bush relied on an aggressive political propaganda campaign instead of the truth to manage the war. He said that his policies almost guaranteed that the use of force would be the only option in Iraq.

I have two initial reactions to hearing about this book. First of all, is this really some sort of revelation that nobody really ever thought of in the first place? Of course not. While it may be a big deal that McClellan has publicly published this material, it shouldn’t seem like the accusations made by him against Bush are anything new. We all know that Bush lied to us, and we know that his administration was deceptive in their marketing of the war and their efforts to drum up public support for armed intervention in the region.

But my second observation is, why did Scott McClellan wait so long to come out and say this? If he knew what was going on and knew that the American public was being intentionally deceived by President Bush, why didn’t he speak out when it mattered most? Sure he would have lost his job and he would have become very unpopular among many Republicans, but he also lost his chance to be a true American hero and to stand up for justice and truth at a time where the people of America put their blind faith into what the Bush Administration was telling us about the war. Good for you, Scott McClellan, for coming out with this news. Unfortunately, you’re about five years too late.

Should FL & MI be allowed to go to the convention?

Florida and Michigan both violated Democratic Party rules when they moved up their primaries. The parties were notified beforehand that they would be punished for taking any action that went against the policies put in place by the DNC, yet these two states decided to move up their primaries anyway. So what should happen to them?

Personally, I believe that there are other ways to punish the party itself than to discount all of their votes in the presidential primaries. Why should the voters in these respective states be punished for actions committed by only a few top leaders within the state’s party organization? Isn’t it rather anti-Democratic to disenfranchise all of these voters because of an act that was completely out of their hands?

Surely there are other ways to punish the state party leaders. You could impose fines on them, or give the leaders suspensions. Even worse, you could remove them from their positions or give them demotions. But to discount millions of votes by law-abiding citizens? This simply doesn’t make sense to me, especially in a country where voter participation is already so low.

Race or Gender: Which is the bigger barrier?

With a woman and an African-American as the two remaining Democratic candidates for President, there has been much talk about the obstacles that both femals and African-Americans have had to overcome throughout history. Many people would probably argue that race relations have etched a much deeper scar into this nation's surface. Slavery persisted in this country until 1865, and even then there was a shift from chattel slavery to wage slavery during the Reconstruction era. While African-Americans had to endure slavery, (white) women did not face quite as extreme discrimination.

On the other hand, look at the times at which official voting rights were granted to each of these respective groups. African-Americans received the right to vote after the 15th Amendment was passed. Women, however, did not receive this same right until 1920, over a half-century later. So while the initial conditions of servitude endured by slaves were worse, they actually gained equal voting rights much faster than women did.
Throughout this election, there have been remarks made by people in the media and even by other politicians that seemed to attach negative connotations with the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman. At the same time, any hint of racism towards Barack Obama has been generally looked down upon and taken as a much more severe offense than any anti-feminist remarks or gender discriminatory commentary about Senator Clinton. Does the fact that people can get away with snide remarks about Hillary's womanhood while Obama's "blackness" remains off limits point to gender as being a more difficult barrier to be overcome in this country? Or is the fact that racist remarks are taken with more severity point to the fact that racism is still a more sensitive issue and a more prevalent problem in American society? I would venture to guess that much of this might have to do with the fact that there generally have not been as many hate groups such as the KKK directed towards woman. While women are often seen as inferior and have been throughout American history, they have not suffered the same kind of individual hate speech as African-Americans have. So what remains the more sensitive issue, and which issue is the one where the least progress has been made?

"Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

Alright, so John McCain says that he was kidding around about this, but is this something you really should be joking around about? Watch these next two videos in sequence and see what you think:






You'd think that with such a sensitive issue, McCain would be more careful not to offend anyone or imply something he didn't mean. Is this really the guy we want for president?

2008 Electoral Projection Site – a personal favorite

Given the fact that it appears Obama will clinch the nomination for the Democratic ticket in November, I think this website is particularly interesting and possibly a little disappointing to many of the Obama supporters. Fivethirtyeight.com has an extremely detailed and up-to-date analysis of match-ups between Obama/McCain and Clinton/McCain for possible outcomes in the November election.

Though Obama currently has more of the popular vote and more delegates to the Democratic convention, it appears that Clinton actually enjoys a huge advantage over Obama in a head-to-head comparison against McCain. Clinton enjoys a slightly larger percentage of the popular vote in a match-up against McCain, as well as nine-point higher winning percentage among all states and a 15-vote advantage in the electoral college. For a party that seems almost ready to have an official front-runner and nominee for the 2008 Presidential Election, this may be slightly disturbing news.

Of course, one must consider that polls are often inaccurate and unreliable to begin with. However, with such a consistent advantage that Clinton enjoys over Obama in comparison to McCain in so many different national polls and in the national poll of polls, is Obama doomed in November should he receive the nomination, or will his slight lead over McCain be enough to help pull him through? You’ll have to check back for more on that in November.




http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/