-
Bail Out or Slush Fund?
By Laura Flanders
What do they say about history repeats? With four weeks left before the General Election of 2008, it's important to plan forward, but also to look back.
In the last few weeks of the 2004 campaign, while the Democratic party dithered over whether to pitch to Right or Left, George W. Bush pulled out every stop. For the affluent (and those aspiring to affluence) he promised more deregulation and tax cuts. For single issue theocratic types, he spouted stir-it-up talk about preserving straight white patriarchal elites. To those already drowning in a war economy with no safety net, W offered an appeal to primal instinct. At the level of advertising, tv and talk radio, the presidential race shrank to just one question: Who do you Trust? John Kerry – the flip flopper "girlie" man – or Bush, the-with-me-or-against me wartime president?
In this election like that one, the Right's ground troops were fed plenty of rhetoric. But Rove didn't rely on red meat alone. There was also cash. We've learned a lot about how GOP political operatives led by Rove politicized every tentacle of the federal government from the Defense Department to Justice. So it should come as no surprise to recall that in the weeks before the '04 election, Bush administration officials dispersed a mountain of government largesse in swing states. In the two weeks before Election Day, the administration announced $10 million for a church-based job training scheme in Jacksonville Florida, money for a long-awaited wildlife refuge in Minnesota and a national park in Colorado. Just days before the voting, the Bushies came up with $207 million to clean up drinking water in Columbus, Ohio.
(19) CommentsOctober 12, 2008
-
Mass Arrest in St. Paul on Labor Day
By Laura Flanders
New video was released this weekend of an apparently mass arrest of utterly peaceful concert goers at the SEIU Labor Day concert in St. Paul.
My personal favorite moment in the tape is an off-camera exchange. Police in riot gear have surrounded loungers in a waterfront park. They announce, "Ladies and Gentlemen, You're Under Arrest" and you hear one young woman say incredulously "Are you serious?"
Yep, I'm afraid they are.
(12) CommentsSeptember 22, 2008
-
The Bushwomen Are Back
By Laura Flanders
In selecting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain is dusting off an old GOP tool: the estrogen guard. Slap a friendly, female face on a hard core-conservative political platform, and pray that the pundits will only take pot-shots and talk about gender. It worked for George W. Bush and it just may work for Palin.
Watching Palin address the RNC from here in St. Paul, Wednesday, I could have sworn I heard Katherine Harris cheer. Remember Harris, Florida's Secretary of State in 2001, and co-chair of her state's Bush/Cheney Committee? No one did more to snag the White House for her man -- and no one was laughed and scoffed at more heartily by the media. While the press poo-poo'ed her make-up ("she seems to have applied her makeup with a trowel" wrote the Washington Post) and introduced her to the public as caricature ("Cruella de Ville",) as Florida's top election-cop, Harris purged enough voter rolls, understaffed enough voting places and ill-equipping the voting system sufficiently to guarantee election day chaos. Parodied in the press, she rose to stardom in the GOP. Come Inauguration Day 2001, Florida Republicans threw an enormous bash for the woman they dubbed "our Joan of Arc." Soon after she was elected to Congress.
So it is with Palin. While her record stinks, so does the media coverage. In place of serious discussion of her policies on the environment, on human rights, on taxes, free speech and governance, we've had five days of "Veep Pregnant Teen Shock" and there's more than enough misogyny in the mix to give the McCain camp a stick to beat any truly investigative members of press-corps with.
(12) CommentsSeptember 4, 2008
-
No Way to Woo A Woman
By Laura Flanders
The rush is on to woo women voters and the politicians and the pundits think they know the trick. Everybody from DNC chair Howard Dean to conservative pundit William Kristol is talking about sexism and why it matters. But women voters aren't stupid. If there was more than politics to all this new found-feminism we'd see policies on the table.
"I've got whip-lash" Lisa Witter, COO of Fenton Communications told GRITtv July 1. "In less than a week, the national discussion of women's leadership changed from the merits of a female president to the potential first lady's dress." Witter, who is co-author with Lisa Chen of The She Spot, told GRITtv that women voters aren't turned on by the makeover of Michelle Obama into nicey-nicey wife. "She's liked because she's strong." What's next? The cookie-baking contest?
What women want is more on policy and not just reproductive policy either, said Mia Herndon Director of Programs at Third Wave: "I'd like to hear more about urban issues, housing, transport, childcare." The war is a women's issue: women were disproportionately against the deployment, and women will be the major caretakers for injured and sick vets.
(8) CommentsJuly 3, 2008
-
Some Things Never Change
By Laura Flanders
In a huge, significant moment for America, Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee Tuesday night. It has been a race that broke barriers and trod new territory. Eight candidates started out: among them, the first white woman, the first Hispanic, and the first Vegan and the most successful bid by an African American for the top office in the land. Scores of hotly-fought primaries and caucuses later, millions of voters have been lured into the process, and thousands of new activists have been trained.
The night after the final races – the candidates thanked their supporters and swore their unending allegiance to their constituents. Senator Clinton pledged specifically, when asked what she wanted: "I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard, no longer to be invisible," It was a non-concession speech that let the air of contest – if not the contest itself live on.
So after all that talk of the new, and constituents and change and choice. It brings one up short to be reminded, so soon, that some traditions remain the same. After all that competitive racing, on the day after the final primary both Clinton and Obama headed to the same place, over to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee whose annual convention has long been Washington's top bi-partisan pledge fest. Between June 2-4, Sen. Clinton, Obama and McCain will speak, as will Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell. Races like candidates come and go, but some things never change.
(14) CommentsJune 5, 2008
-
Hillary-Lovers
By Laura Flanders
From primary season, let's move to secondary season; from the singular to the plural.
For as long as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been battling it out for the Democratic nomination, the spotlight's been on them: their qualifications, their promises, their baggage. According to a Pew Center study, in the first half of last year, only three percent of campaign coverage focused on issues. This year, that's stumbled to a pathetic seven percent. It's no surprise.
Feminists say the personal is political. In our privatized economy neoliberals say it's strictly personal. Your troubles, your chances, the way you're treated, it's all unique to – and determined by – you! So we're told. It's a convenient way to take systems of wealth and power and privilege out of the picture and a happy-for-some way to eradicate history. We've privatized prisons and health-care and education and war and we do the same to our politics and our politicians. It's all about them.
(24) CommentsJune 4, 2008
-
Who's Crying Now?
By Laura Flanders
Oh the democracy of it all. To listen to the members of the Rules and By-Laws panel at today's meeting of the Democratic National Committee, you'd believe that when it comes to respecting voters, their choices and election fairness, the Democrats are a stand-up bunch of rule makers: the very model of a modern democratic institution.
Oh how we forget. The year was 2007 – the same year that the Party's Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling set forth the rules now at the core of the delegate befuddle. The place was a courthouse in Washington DC. where independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader was suing the Democrats for blocking him from getting on the 2004 presidential election ballot in 18 states. Those being sued included Democratic nominees John Kerry and John Edwards, DNC officials and a group called the Ballot Project -- which, when it came to Nader's candidacy, might more accurately have been called the anti-ballot project.
"The lawsuit was to help advance a free and open electoral process for all candidates and votes," said Nader last year. "Candidate rights and voter rights nourish each other for more voices, choices and a more open and competitive democracy." Somehow I doubt that those words are reflected in the guiding principles of the Party's Commission on Presidential you-know-what.
(36) CommentsMay 31, 2008
-
It's not Only Oprah
By Laura Flanders
It was 12 degrees and icy in Des Moines Saturday when (according to the campaign), over 18,500 people attended a Barack Obama rally with Oprah Winfrey.
If they fill the arena in Manchester, Sunday, the O team will have attracted as many as Justin Timberlake or -- gasp -- Neil Diamond. The Union Leader's already predicting "one of the largest events in New Hampshire primary history."
Some want to give Winfrey all the credit: "There's that awe factor," a spokesman for the venue told the Union Leader. "It's Oprah, one of richest people in the world, coming to Manchester."
(57) CommentsDecember 8, 2007
-
Obama Be Bold: Break with a Backer on Torture.
By Laura Flanders
Senator Obama wants to stand out. How about standing up against torture, not in Gitmo -- but in Chicago?
Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers serving under him stand accused of torturing some 200 mostly African-American men in custody in the '70s and '80s. In 2002, after a criminal investigation, four who had been sentenced to death and spent over a total of 70 years behind bars on false confessions extracted through torture were pardoned, Governor Ryan issued a moratorium on executions and a package of reforms was passed.
Running for US Senate, Obama was rightly proud of SB15, his piece of that package: "I sent twenty-five pieces of legislation to the Governor's desk, including landmark videotaping legislation of interrogations and confessions, the first in the nation."
(12) CommentsOctober 29, 2007
-
Party Game
By Laura Flanders
Democratic game-players: find fault with libertarian Radley Balko on Hillary Clinton.
"Bill Clinton ordered more U.S. military interventions than any other post-WWII administration, and there's no reason to think any of them were over Hillary's protestations." There was one protestation: when it came to Kosovo, military leaders hestitated (correctly predicting ethnic cleansing.) Clinton writes that she called Bill from Africa: "I urged him to bomb."
Balko (an editor at Reason,) raises no complaint about Clinton's private healthcare plan, but on civil liberties he lists: "Hillary Clinton voted for both the Patriot Act and its reauthorization. She voted for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. She voted to loosen restrictions limiting the federal government's ability to wiretap cell phones. In the past, she has supported a robust role for the federal government in enforcing "decency" standards in television and music…" He quotes open-source advocate Lawrence Lessig: "Of all the Dems, I would have bet she was closest to the copyright extremists. "
(23) CommentsOctober 9, 2007
News & Analysis »
- Atrios
- Arts and Letters Daily
- The Caucus
- Campus Progress
- Crooks and Liars
- The Daily Gotham
- Daily Kos
- FAIR
- Feministe
- Feministing
- Firedoglake
- Glenn Greenwald
- Gothamist
- In these Times
- Hendrick Hertzberg
- Huffington Post
- Matthew Yglesias
- Media Matters
- Mother Jones
- My DD
- New York Review of Books
- Openleft
- Pam's House Blend
- Political Wire
- The Progressive
- RaceWire
- Real Clear Politics
- Roberto Lovato
- Romenesko
- Swing State Project
- Talking Points Memo
- Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Tapped
- Tech President
- Tompaine
- The Washington Note
- Wonkette
RSS