The "Nah Nah Nah Can't Hear You!" Argument
October 27, 2008 10:12 pm

By David Sirota

The conservative movement meltdown is going into overdrive, if Peter Wehner's op-ed in the Washington Post today is any indication (the op-ed is here:) With most Republican candidates explicitly running on a platform promising a revival of Reagan conservatism and berating the supposed "socialism" of Democrats, this former Bush hack writes that "it is a mistake to assume that significant GOP losses, should they occur, are a referendum on conservatism."

It's hard to overstate how absurd this is. Let me repeat: In the stretch run of this campaign, the Republican Party has decided to make this an ideological contest between Reagan conservatism and supposed wild-eyed liberalism/socialism - and now, sensing a potentially huge loss, conservatives are now arguing that despite their decision to make this an ideological contest, "an Obama victory would be a partisan, rather than an ideological, win."

Obviously, the Right understands what's really going on in America - and is working to reinterpret that reality.

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Evangelical Leaders Using God Like a Hired Gun
October 28, 2008 1:17 pm

Christine Wicker

.....So using God like a hired gun to terrorize the town's people, the evangelical Christian mullahs are declaring that Obamageddon is at hand, using that very word and asking as the Religious Right/Republican Townhall magazine did in a September headline, "Could We Survive a Barack Presidency?"

Evangelical publisher James Strang answers the survival question by warning his readers that people who hate Christianity will take over the country once Obama is elected.

In fact, "life as we know it will end," Strang writes.

Last week Focus on the Family's James Dobson added his own doomsday predictions with a 16-page rant about evils that will befall the United States by 2012 if Obama is elected. A British commentator dubbed Dobson's list of a parade of horrors......

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One week to go: Don't get cocky or over-confident
October 28, 2008 1:52 pm

Americablog

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Video: Obama's Closing Argument
October 28, 2008 9:03 pm

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VIDEO: West Virginia Vote Flipping Caught on Tape
October 28, 2008 10:49 pm

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Erroneous DOJ assumptions:
October 28, 2008 10:56 pm

Christy Hardin Smith

......The overblown histrionics about ACORN do not surprise those of us who have been watching the RNC's election manipulation antics. For eight years White House operatives have been trying to gin up press stories about voter fraud. David Iglesias of New Mexico was one of seven U.S. Attorneys fired by the White House for their refusal to bring voter fraud prosecutions. "We took over 100 complaints," from the GOP, he told us, "We investigated for almost 2 years, I didn't find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico."

Iglesias, a McCain supporter, has, for the first time, leveled a new and serious charge: Despite finding none of the 200 voters guilty, he says the White House nevertheless ordered him to illegally prosecute baseless cases against innocent citizens, just to gin up voter fraud publicity. His refusal, he says, cost him his job. "They were looking for politicized -- for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases.".....

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Palin's Love Boats
October 29, 2008 7:47 pm

By Richard Cohen, Washington Post

....The cruises were sponsored by the National Review and the Weekly Standard, journals of significant influence in conservative circles. The ships disgorged some top conservative editors and writers, who on two occasions were invited at the governor's mansion. Almost to a man, they were thunderstruck.

What followed, once everyone returned to the lower 48, was a gusher of mush -- praise, love notes, sweet nothings and, altogether, the sort of mooning one does not usually hear from the likes of William Kristol, Fred Barnes, Rich Lowry, Dick Morris and my Post colleague Michael Gerson. In short order, important writers set themselves the task, in print and on television, of promoting Palin and, in the process, making perfect asses of themselves. They succeeded at both. ........

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Obama Ad Questions Palin as McCain Running Mate
October 29, 2008 7:49 pm

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In case you missed the 30 minute program, you can see it here:
October 29, 2008 8:18 pm

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Barack Obama Is Mr. November
October 29, 2008 9:26 pm

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Sarah Palin's War on Science
October 29, 2008 9:58 pm

The GOP ticket's appalling contempt for knowledge and learning.

By Christopher Hitchens

In an election that has been fought on an astoundingly low cultural and intellectual level, with both candidates pretending that tax cuts can go like peaches and cream with the staggering new levels of federal deficit, and paltry charges being traded in petty ways, and with Joe the Plumber becoming the emblematic stupidity of the campaign, it didn't seem possible that things could go any lower or get any dumber. But they did last Friday, when, at a speech in Pittsburgh, Gov. Sarah Palin denounced wasteful expenditure on fruit-fly research, adding for good xenophobic and anti-elitist measure that some of this research took place "in Paris, France" and winding up with a folksy "I kid you not."

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Star-Stuffed PSA: Get Five Friends To Vote (VIDEO)
October 29, 2008 10:51 pm

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The Religious Right's Fear of Obama's Economics
October 30, 2008 10:10 pm

By wilkyjr

Frank Schaeffer, the son of religious right patriarch Francis Schaeffer, has written a kiss- and-tell book about his father and the movement. Frank despises what the movement became claiming his father would have also. One point Frank makes in the work is about Rich DeVos who is called a far-right financier of the movement. DeVos started Amway. I recall church members, neighbors and denominational workers seeking to enroll me in the program. There were grand stories of surgeons and lawyers who left their practices to sell Amway products because they were making so much money. You were supposed to be able to retire in a few years if you found the right faithful laborers to be below you in your corporate empire.

The truth of Amway is that it was mostly a pyramid scam. DeVos and family amassed numerous wealth and funded religious right empires and governor races in places like Michigan. The folks down the line in the pyramid mostly got nothing for their efforts. Religious right pastor Charles Stanley was famous one time for telling people he often offered Amway kits to needy families who came by seeking benevolent help. The prospect of wealthy Stanley selling poor people Amway kits in his office was a picture many found offensive and Stanley never mentioned it again, even though he often spoke at Amway rallies. In Chris Hedges' recent book on the religious right, he mentions that James Kennedy, the Florida mega pastor who bordered on theocracy extremes, was partially funded by Devos.

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Josh Marshall: Closing the Gap?
October 30, 2008 10:17 pm

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James Dobson's 'Letter From 2012 in Obama's America'
October 30, 2008 10:52 pm

Jim Wallis

James Dobson, you owe America an apology. The fictional letter released through your Focus on the Family Action organization, titled "Letter From 2012 in Obama's America", crosses all lines of decent public discourse. In a time of utter political incivility, it shows the kind of negative Christian leadership that has become so embarrassing to so many of your fellow Christians in America. We are weary of this kind of Christian leadership, and that is why so many are forsaking the Religious Right in this election..

This letter offers nothing but fear. It apocalyptically depicts terrorist attacks in American cities, churches losing their tax exempt status for not allowing gay marriages, pornography pushed in front of our children, doctors and nurses forced to perform abortions, euthanasia as commonplace, inner-city crime gone wild because of lack of gun ownership, home schooling banned, restricted religious speech, liberal censorship shutting down conservative talk shows, Christian publishers forced out of business, Israel nuked, power blackouts because of environmental restrictions, brave Christian resisters jailed by a liberal Supreme court, and finally, good Christian families emigrating to Australia and New Zealand.

It is shocking how thoroughly biblical teachings against slander--misrepresentations that damage another's reputation--are ignored (Ephesians 4:29-31, Colossians 3:8, Titus 3:2). Such outrageous predictions not only damage your credibility, they slander Barack Obama who, you should remember, is a brother in Christ, and they insult any Christian who might choose to vote for him.

Let me make this clear: Christians will be voting both ways in this election, informed by their good faith, and based on their views of what are the best public policies and direction for America. But in utter disrespect for the prayerful discernment of your fellow Christians, this letter stirs their ugliest fears, appealing to their worst impulses instead of their best.......

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Christian Right Prays to the Golden Calf
November 1, 2008 9:08 pm

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Republicans - Watch Out! Blacks Are Voting!
November 1, 2008 9:12 pm

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What Does "Spread the Wealth" Really Mean?
November 1, 2008 9:14 pm

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How to Protect Your Vote and Spot Dirty Tricks
November 2, 2008 9:13 pm

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No Currency Left to Buy the Big Lies
November 2, 2008 9:48 pm

John Cusack

......So we have laws that allow borrowing money against derivatives -- basically a bet between two people who create nothing without collateral. They leveraged the public financial health on something you wouldn't be allowed to do in Vegas. It illustrates the corruption that has become institutionalized through deregulation and a culture of predatory greed. Alan Greenspan testified that he was shocked: business didn't regulate itself. The common good was not achieved by greed. Naomi Klein read him the definition of crony capitalism and asked if it fit the description of the Bush administration's relationship to its favorite corporations:......

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