Hopeless Geek

 

John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama for president, dealing a major blow to Hillary Clinton
[From Edwards endorses Obama]

 

About three months too late, but good to hear none-the-less. I’d love to see these two in office together.

With your performance tonight — your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane “issue” questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters — you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it’s even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to “export democracy,” and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, “no thank you.” Because that was no way to promote democracy.
An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos | Philadelphia Daily News | 04/17/2008

Namely, Republicans in the Senate. Observe the following form letters I received:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). I appreciate having the benefit of your comments on this important national security matter.

Gathering communications intelligence is one of America’s front lines of defense in the War on Terror. As you may know, Congress passed the Protect America Act (P.L. 110–55) in August 2007, modernizing FISA to give intelligence professionals the tools they urgently need to gather information, while still protecting the civil liberties of Americans. Senator John Rockefeller introduced the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 (S. 2248) on October 26, 2007, in an effort to continue this vital work. S. 2248 would expand the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, empowering the Court to have more scrutiny over surveillance procedures and acquisitions. This legislation also increases congressional oversight of surveillance matters by increasing reporting requirements and requiring audits by the Inspector General.

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This is from my mother-in-law about her experience visiting the Obama rally in Corpus Christi, TX.

As my husband, friend, and I were approaching the Obama rally at the American Bank Plaza, I first saw a large group of my female teacher friends leaving. I asked them why they were leaving and they told me that as soon as they got out of their cars they were approached by some women and men who told them that they wouldn’t be allowed in if they didn’t have photo IDs. They were very upset about this. I asked my husband to get my substitute teacher photo ID out of the glove compartment as my friend and I made it through the crowd. We passed many women (we spoke to about 100) who were leaving for the same reason. A typical response was, “We were told not to bring our purses, but no one said anything about an photo ID and that’s where our IDs are.” They were all very upset about the situation.

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There’s a reason “second tier” candidates poll badly.

This comes from a poll on Polling Point, advertised on a website, that appears to be from Clinton wondering why people hate her.

They waste space with Gingrich, Frist, Jeb, and Allen rather than include Huckabee, Tancredo, or Paul? They clearly do not understand the current landscape. Huckabee and Paul are starting to take points from many other players and stand a good chance at upsetting elections. It would be worth knowing how people perceive her against them, I’d think.

Oh well. Things will be done as things have been done.

I decided to take a look at Newsvine again since I neglected it for so long, figuring it was too neat to last. Mostly, it’s become what I thought it would be, a site with a lot of potential and some rabid fans, but overall a lot of blah. I’ll follow it for a week or so and see if it’s changed much more than that, just to be sure.

However, they did have one very cool thing called ElectionVine, which I’ve added to the site (and listed below). They’re tracking people’s candidate interest month-over-month and site-by-site so you can see what groups are leaning which way as time progresses. Extremely cool idea. If you see the widget, be sure to give it a vote.

The twists and turns of Plame-Gate, of your precise and intricate lies that sent us into this bottomless pit of Iraq; your lies upon the lies to discredit Joe Wilson; your lies upon the lies upon the lies to throw the sand at the “referee” of Prosecutor Fitzgerald’s analogy. These are complex and often painful to follow, and too much, perhaps, for the average citizen.But when other citizens render a verdict against your man, Mr. Bush—and then you spit in the faces of those jurors and that judge and the judges who were yet to hear the appeal—the average citizen understands that, Sir.It’s the fixed ballgame and the rigged casino and the pre-arranged lottery all rolled into one—and it stinks.  And they know it.
Olbermann: Bush, Cheney should resign

bq.. Sec. 32. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. (b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

“79(R) HJR6 Enrolled - Bill Text”:http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/cgiⁱ-bin/tlo/textframe.cmd?LEG=79&SESS=R&CHAMBER=H&BILLTYPE=JR&BILLSUFFIX=00006&VERSION=5&TYPE=B

p. Heterosexual marriage is now illegal in Texas. Previous marriages are not recognized. Gays may marry at-will.

Texas politicians are fucking idiots.