Sting - If I Ever Lose My Faith In You

Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
You could say I'd lost my belief in our politicians
They all seemed like game show hosts to me

If I ever lose my faith in you
There'd be nothing left for me to do

This has been a really dispiriting time for many of us...and the likening of politicians and the bobbleheads to game show hosts is an apt one. Trying to sell us on merchandise by wildly over-inflating its value, even though in reality, it's not something we really wanted in the first place. But they keep telling us how great it is and how lucky we are for having won it. And boy, the White House really is going to play the game show host thing this morning, with adviser David Axelrod on three different shows. He'll be on with Howard Dean on Meet the Press (they've also has made the inspired booking of DailyKos' Markos Moulitsas and Joe Scarborough for the round table), which should make for some interesting fireworks. State of the Union will host some divergent views: NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, McCain Musketeer Lindsay Graham and Andy Stern of the SEIU. And once again, if it's Sunday, it's time for John McCain. Palin's favorite candidate will be on Fox News Sunday, no doubt to clutch pearls over the lack of comity due to that upstart Al Franken, ignoring his own similar unkindness. Consistency and integrity, thy name is never Republican.

ABC's "This Week" - White House senior adviser David Axelrod; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Mary Landrieu, D-La., Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Axelrod; Howard Dean, former national Democratic Party chairman.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Katty Kay, Howard Fineman, John Heilemann, Norah O'Donnell. Topics: Annual Holiday Highlights Show! Greatest Hits and Worst Moves of 2009! The Chutzpah Prize, Cad of the Year, and Who Surprised Us On the Upside?

CNN's "State of the Union" - Axelrod; New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The former scientific brain of Microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold, offers a new approach to solving global warming. Plus, Vali Nasr, advisor to the Obama administration, discusses a new way to fight Islamic terrorism - with capitalism.

CNN's "Amanpour" - Sir Harold Evans and Tina Brown

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

So the Christians and the Pagans sat together at the table
Finding faith and common ground the best that they were able
And where does magic come from? I think magic's in the learning
Cause now when Christians sit with Pagans
Only pumpkin pies are burning.

The delightful Dar Williams wrote this instant holiday classic for her 1996 album, "Mortal City." How can you not love the story of lesbian pagans having Christmas dinner with Christian relatives? (There's an implied subtext that Amber is estranged from her family, which is why she's visiting her uncle instead of her father.)

Dar was raised in Chappaqua, NY, and spent 10 years living in Northampton, MA, where she began to make the rounds of the coffeehouse circuit. Joan Baez was an early fan. She took Dar on tour with her and recorded several of her songs.

MyDD: Tea Baggers set their sights on Climate Change. Here's more...

Consortiumblog: Shining light on the roots of terrorism

Truthdig: Testing next year's lies today

Respectful Insolence: Hmmm...maybe I fell for Obama's liberofascist plot to poison me

The Existentialist Cowboy: The End of American Community

HOLY CRAP: Faith is no defense...How Rev Moon bought Washington...In the 'next world'... Robertson puts McDonnell in a bind...Meet John Thune...God, the Army, and PTSD...Catholic morality...I thoroughly enjoyed their evisceration...Godless billboard moved after threats...Charles Colson on Atheists...Nashville gets secular...Ted Haggard returning to revivalist racket...Postcard from God to Glenn Beck...The God Gene... onegoodmove is one of my favorite sources for Holy Crap and lots of other good stuff!

Olympia Snowe said she would vote for the Baucus bill and she did.

She has voted and the bill has passed 14-9.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the lone Republican to support the package. "My vote today is my vote today. It doesn't forecast what my vote will be tomorrow," she said, although her vote does keep her at the negotiating table and at the center of the health care reform debate. Snowe risked marginalizing herself with a no vote.

The year after both Truman and Clinton's failed efforts, the Republican Party retook control of Congress and any hope of reform faded to minority status. President Obama intends to avoid the same fate.

With the bill having officially moved through the panel, deliberations will migrate to the Capitol, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will huddle with Senate leaders to merge the finance bill with a more generous version from the health committee which passed earlier this year.

There are more votes to come in the Senate, so this thing is far from over.

And she is getting heat from the GOP for her vote and are looking to strip her of a chance at a chairmanship. Adam Green writes:

From The Hill, "Sens: Snowe may be risking a high perch on healthcare reform vote":

Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine) is risking a shot at becoming the top Republican on an influential Senate committee by backing Democratic healthcare legislation, according to senators on the panel.

..."A vote for healthcare would be something that would weigh on our minds when it came time to vote," said a Republican on Commerce, who said Snowe would otherwise be assured of the ranking member post if not for the healthcare debate.

Wow. The GOP is doing something to her that we've been asking Harry Reid to do to Holy Joe. Remember when we asked Reid to strip Joe of his chairmanship because he campaigned with McCain?

Harry told us that Lieberman is with the Dems on everything except the war?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Sunday he's still trying to keep Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman within the Democratic caucus despite anger over Lieberman's support of Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

While he has opposed Democratic efforts to end the war in Iraq, "Joe Lieberman votes with me a lot more than a lot of my senators," Reid told CNN's "Late Edition."

Here's Joe attacking the public option.

Lieberman is a big NO on the Public Option, now calls it 'universal access' for health care. I'm NOT kidding

Lieberman has been standing in the way of health-care reform all along.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman affirmed on Tuesday what progressive health care reform advocates have long feared: At this juncture, he is likely to oppose a public option for health insurance coverage.
--
For Democrats, it was a shot to the gut -- the latest so-called centrist lawmaker from within their own party ranks speaking out against one of their most cherished aspects of health care reform. For all the angst Lieberman has caused within Democratic circles the past few years, he was supposed to be an ally on domestic issues.

He also joined the Republicans when they said they wanted to slow things down.

We want Lieberman stripped if he stands in the way of an up-or-down vote, but as usual the Democratic leadership refuses to dig in.

From Politico, "Dem leaders brush off the left":

Now, more than 79,000 people have signed a Progressive Change Campaign Committee petition urging Reid to strip the chairmanship of any Democratic senator who votes to filibuster health care reform.

The response from Reid’s No. 2, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.): "We’ve never done that. We’re not going to do that."

Durbin said the petitioners needed to "count to 60 and understand we need to be together, and there are times when we need to work out our differences."

"This is a silly and unnecessary distraction that is not going to happen — period," added a Senate Democratic leadership aide. "Given how important this is to the rest of his agenda, it is up to President Obama to help the leadership to hold the caucus together."

The GOP threatens Snowe and the Dems do nothing to the appeasers of the obstructionist right. It's infuriating.

It's all about that up-or-down vote, and it's something we need to push hard on, as Digby says:

Anyway, those last comments probably tell us where the filibuster issue is, in my opinion. The leadership aide says that Obama needs to step up to twist those arms, which one assumes from the comment, he is not doing. And Dick Durbin, who is Obama's staunchest supporter in the Senate, is basically saying that nobody's going to play hardball. So, there you have it. At least for today.

As I've been writing for a while, it's all about cloture. There's no need for them to vote for the final bill, they just need to allow their president and the people of the United States to have a simple up or down vote on health care reform. And there is a cluster of egos in the centrist caucus (not the least of whom is Holy Joe) that is getting ready to stamp their little feet and hold their breath until they turn blue unless someone, goddamn it, finally understands that they are the most important people in the world.

Please sign Adam Green's petition to Harry Reid:

I'd expect weakness from Reid and lameness from Lieberman/Bayh/Landrieu. Dick Durbin being completely unstrategic -- I wouldn't have expected that as much. Shame on him. Tomorrow, the PCCC delivers our petitions to Harry Reid telling him to get a backbone. Sign it here.

Digby writes:

One Year Ago Today
It was a privilege to be there.

RIP Teddy.

I was there too. It was awesome and Ted lit up Denver. I just heard historian Michael Beschloss say on MSNBC that when Ted was a boy he knew FDR. He saw it all and was part of so much American history.

Statement from The Kennedy Family:

“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and
uncle we loved so deeply – died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis
Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous
light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and
perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone
who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who
stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress
toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this
country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that
our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them
without him.”

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Here we go again. Another phony pro-life or should I say, anti-choice republican gets exposed in dirty dealings. He's not so much against the idea of sex as wanting the young ones for himself.

Ken Whitehouse:

State Sen. Paul Stanley (R-Memphis) will resign his chairmanship of the Senate Commerce Committee tomorrow, NashvillePost.com has learned, in the wake of the revelation that he was the subject of an attempted blackmail scheme over a sexual relationship with an intern in his office.

Nashville Post:

In April of this year, I and a group of Planned
Parenthood supporters from Memphis met with Sen. Paul Stanley in his
office. We told him about all the good Planned Parenthood does in
Memphis by providing basic gynecological health care and birth control
to teens and young people and also providing medically-accurate
sexuality education programs. I had hoped to convince him that there’s
a real need for our services, especially in Memphis, which has the
highest sexually transmitted infection rates in the nation and one of
the highest teenage pregnancy rates as well. Planned Parenthood
Greater Memphis Region tries to help young people and low income
people, almost all of whom are already sexually active protect
themselves from pregnancy and disease. Sen. Paul Stanley is my state
senator, and he made it clear at our meeting that he didn’t care about
my concerns about these issues that have a major impact in the Memphis
area and that he would not ever support Planned Parenthood.

He told us that he didn’t believe young people should have sex
before marriage anyway, that his faith and church are important to
him, and he wants to promote abstinence, blah, blah, blah. Now I
realize that when he said those things, he had already been sexing it
up with an intern and her boyfriend was trying to blackmail him with
dirty pictures. In retrospect, I think maybe Sen. Stanley meant that
he just doesn’t want young people to have sex with each other, thereby
saving the cute young things for himself. Hypocrite, anyone?

No sex for you....Is Stanley saying that after marriage you should be able to have sex with everybody?

From "Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains" (2007)

The Man From Plains makes a startling announcement:

Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.

I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

Read on...

You know, Jimmy Carter gets such an unfair rap in this country over his presidency, but this is my definition of a brave human being--taking a stand over what is right and moral not for any political calculation, but because it's right and moral.

I only wish more people would look in their heart and make the same kind of stand--one that champions equality and harmony instead of divisiveness and oppression.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

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December 08, 2008 ABC Nightline

Part 1

Part 2

November 01, 2008 News Corp Mike Huckabee