Here is is...Best, Thom

Thom,

For over 25 years, I was a registered Republican, listened to RUSH, Hannity, et al, and pretty much was lock step with the conservative platform with a few minor exceptions such as religion and other social issues. I believed that fiscal conservatism and responsibilities were the platforms for my party and personal responsibility and freedom were better supported by the Republican party.

Then came W. When George W sent us into Iraq, I remember exactly where I was and I shook my head in disbelief because I knew we were doing the wrong thing. The following 7 years made it very difficult for me to continue reconciling my personal beliefs with the party I thought I belonged to.

Enter Barak Obama. During the primaries, I remember actually telling someone that I was afraid of Barak Obama. I didn’t know a thing about him. His name was scary to me. (I am ashamed to admit this). After reading Mr. Obama’s life story and listening to his ideas and the eloquence with which he articulated them, I had a sudden change of heart. This led me on a journey which included “Commanding Heights” (the documentary from PBS which superbly explains the history of our 2 parties), listening to programs like yours and watching MSNBC on a regular basis. By the time the election got here, I was a 100% converted. I was in shock that I could have been a Republican ever to begin with.

A word of caution: This all leads me to the reason for my Email to you. I have been listening to some of your callers who are afraid that President Obama is a Manchurian candidate, etc. The truth of the matter (as I see it) is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to accomplish anything major in our system without some balance and moderation. That is what I love about President Obama thus far. His wisdom and intelligence are noticeably remarkable. I believe that being able to negotiate and invite your opponents to the table is vital to success as a politician and I am very grateful that we have this in our current President. I have found that your program and the way you express your views is quite consistent with my own.

Thank you for sharing your life with us the way you do. May you be successful and prosperous.

Don, CA

It looks like people in general aren't angry enough yet over health care to call for a public option. Even a "million-man march" on Washington isn't enough to force change.

I hope I am cynical and wrong.

Along with Ravi Batra's rather discouraging predictions this week is a story by Floyd Norris in today's NYTimes:

"High & Low FinanceCredit Relief May Not Last Long"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/economy/29norris.html?_r=1&re...

"

Bailouts and government spending do appear to have warded off Great Depression II, but the current government-supported financial system may not be enough to do much more than keep the economy breathing. In the words of Mr. Kaufman, whose prescient warnings of credit market excesses in recent years were largely ignored by Wall Street, “we do not have the financial firing power to lift this economy in any meaningful way.”

If he is right, the end of the current recession is unlikely to produce much of a recovery."

Speaking of news under the radar:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR200905...
Now we can be questioned by police without a lawyer present, and apparently the Obama administration asked for this. I am starting to believe he is a carefully crafted product (maybe a cyborg) designed to induce warm, fuzzy feelings of hope to keep us calm, while systematically continuing the corporate privatization of our govenment. The only reason they have let him make some better environmental decisions is because they have realized they won't even have a planet left to control if they keep on polluting.

Sonia Sotomayor: Her gender & ethnicity are part of a shell game to avoid talking about how she is basically a Pro-Life Corporatist. She will become the 6th of 9 Roman Catholic judges on the court. This is clearly part of a deal involving the Clintons, probably as part of Hilary's DNC concession. Nevertheless, this should be insulting to progressives and more indication that Obama and the Democratic Party are just as beholden to corporations and wealth as are the GOP.

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Republicans would be foolish to fight the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court because she is the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made.

And even though they should support her confirmation, liberals would be foolish to embrace Sotomayor as one of their own because her record is clearly that of a moderate. It is highly unlikely that she will push the court to the left. Indeed, on many issues of concern to business, she is likely to make the Chamber of Commerce perfectly happy.

In this battle, it's important to separate Obama's reasons for choosing Sotomayor from her actual record. He was drawn to her not simply because the politics of naming the first Latina justice were irresistible, but also because he saw her as the precise opposite of Chief Justice John Roberts.

In his September 2005 speech explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama argued that 95 percent of court cases are easily settled on the basis of the law and precedent. But in "those 5 percent of hard cases," Obama said, the "legal process alone will not lead you to a rule of decision" and "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart."

And that is where Obama found Roberts wanting. The young senator insisted that Roberts "far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak" and "seemed to have consistently sided with those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racial discrimination in our political process."

Obama believes Roberts's subsequent behavior on the court has justified his initial suspicions. He hopes that Sotomayor will be the anti-Roberts, a person whose experience growing up in the projects of the South Bronx will allow her to see life and the quest for justice in a way Roberts never will.

Conservatives -- particularly those who run direct-mail outfits and want a big court fight -- would love the decision over Sotomayor to hang on Obama's call for judges who show "empathy." They would cast her as a dangerous activist willing to bend the law to produce the results she wants.

They want to turn Obama's argument on its head and claim that Sotomayor would show bias in favor of those who share her background -- and never mind that they dismiss such assertions when they are raised with respect to white, conservative, male nominees.

The problem is that this approach is untrue to who Sotomayor has been and has little relationship to the decisions she has actually rendered as a judge. News accounts from the 1990s consistently described her as a "centrist" in her politics. Her lead sponsor when she was first named as a judge, the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was hardly a conventional liberal. Obama may have found himself an empathetic judge, but she practices her empathy from the middle of the road.

A careful analysis of her record by Business Week, for example, concluded that she is a "moderate on business issues" and would fit the court's current alignment on such questions.

She also upheld a ban on federal funds going to family planning groups that provided abortions overseas. Sotomayor wrote that "the Supreme Court has made clear that the government is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds."

Dan Gilgoff, on his excellent "God and Country" blog, points out that Sotomayor also ruled in favor of a group of Connecticut antiabortion protesters who asserted that police "used excessive force against them at a demonstration." He concludes that her "thin record on abortion is most likely a relief" to pro-life groups. In picking her, Obama sent another signal that he is serious about seeking common ground on abortion.

Liberals should not take the bait of the right-wingers by allowing the debate over Sotomayor to be premised on the idea that she is a bold ideological choice. She's not. But if conservatives succeed in painting this moderate as a radical, they will skew future arguments over the court. In fact, liberals should press Sotomayor on her more conservative decisions on business issues, an area in which the current court already tilts too far right.

As for Republican senators, they have to ask if it's worth alienating Latino voters to wage a fierce battle against a woman who is, from their point of view, the best nominee Obama was likely to give them.

ejdionne@washpost.com

You know, I don’t think Thom realizes just how offended many would-be African-American and Latino listeners woud be, not just by his sidelining of their issues and concerns, but by this going on and on and on trying to put on a level plane the “civil rights” struggle of gays, lesbians, and to a lesser extent white women (who, by the way, represent by far the largest demographic in colleges and universities, and have the lowest unemployment rates, while black men are at the opposite end of both spectrums). In regard to gays, we are talking about behavior, not revulsion on sight. Non-whites cannot conceal the aspect of appearance that excites bigotry—it’s out there front and center.
Civil rights? About what—gay marriage? This pales in comparison to the kind of bigotry racial minorities and especially Latinos today must endure. While Thom was tearing over the some children’s book that is nothing more than a gay activist’s political agenda, yesterday I wrote about how one school district is teaching “tolerance” toward minorities. And variations of this kind of “tolerance” is happening all over the country.
While the (white) gay community flexes its political and media muscle, and the same media allows a smorgasbord of talking heads full vent of their anti-Latino venom (with or without Sotomayor as a target), we must ask the following:
Who is more likely to be the target of harassment, brutality and lethal force by police—racial minorities or gays?
Who is currently the target of a “civil rights crisis” in the South, where many whites seem nostalgic for the Jim Crow era—Latinos or gays?
Whose “IQ” is being questioned by Tom Tancredo, and her hard work called “affirmative action” by Pat Buchanan—Sotomayor or a pick-em of successful white gay celebrities and public officials? It’s odd, but no matter if you do what whites tell you do—get an education, keep your nose clean, work hard—it still isn’t enough to be accepted as anything other than an undeserving token (unless, of course, you are Clarence Thomas, or the only job available is President).
And what group is being scapegoated for every national ill from lack of jobs to cultural degradation? It isn’t the gay community, is it?
Of course no one is a “pure” victim. Take for instance Bonnie Bleskachek, lesbian and former fire chief of Minneapolis. She was recently demoted for discriminating against heteros and giving preferential treatment in hiring and promotion to gays and lesbians, or those who associated with them. And then there is Laine Lawless, former "high priestess" of some lesbian pagan group called the "Sisterhood of the Moon," and now full-time anti-Latino immigrant fanatic, and was, according to e-mails obtained by the SPLC, in contact with neo-Nazis, suggesting ways to harass anyone who might be "illegal" in the fashion that follows:
• "Steal the money from any illegal walking into a bank or check cashing place."
• "Make every illegal alien feel the heat of being a person without status. ... I hear the rednecks in the South are beating up illegals as the textile mills have closed. Use your imagination."
• "Discourage Spanish-speaking children from going to school. Be creative."
• "Create an anonymous propaganda campaign warning that any further illegal immigrants will be shot, maimed or seriously messed-up upon crossing the border. This should be fairly easy to do, considering the hysteria of the Spanish language press, and how they view the Minutemen as ‘racists & vigilantes.’"
I used to live in Capitol Hill, more-or-less the gay and lesbian epicenter of Seattle. I generally don't pay much attention to what people are doing unless they offend me by acting on their stereotypes and prejudices, but I can tell you that when these folks want to call attention to themselves, they mean to offend. I viewed one of their “take back the night” marches—mainly an excuse to take to the air and offend as many people as possible—and I must say I never heard or seen more hate-filled rhetoric in one place (although admittedly I’ve haven’t seen or heard a KKK rally recently). I found a poster that listed the sponsors of the march; “radical” and “dike” seemed to be included in the name of every organization, such as they were. Hardly the stuff to inspire civilized discourse.
I think it is offensive to make any comparison of the racial minority and Native American experience in this country with the (white) gay and lesbian experience in this country. Everything is relative, like sick is to being dead.

Once again Thom hit the nail on the head when he itemized the multiple precedents of looking the other way. Obama is a moderate, and as such he will always differ to precedent unless he has no other choice and there has always been a double standard for the ruling class.
A majority of Americans are already on intellectual overload trying to understand the economic crisis and can’t begin to fathom human rights issues unless someone is violating theirs.

One is born gay or straight, being an evangelical Christian is a lifestyle choice

what is this gog and magog stuff that they say bush believes in?

Why do not people understand being gay within the context of transitory genes / evolutions- serving ancillary functions for the survival of all. For example, someone wants to commit suicide, but they sit down with Uncle Ed and his partner Bob- have a great mind expanding conversation, and continue with life.

Thom, I know the term "Democrat Party" is one of your pet peeves, but maybe the Republicans who do call our party the Democrat party are the byproducts of No Child Left Behind?

English 101:

"Democratic Party" is a proper noun and any other such term is wrong. If the term "Democratic Party" were not a proper noun, the grammatical usage of the term "democrat party" would be correct, e.g. "shoe store," "school bus," "peace movement," "Senate election," etc. An argument in favor of the usage of "democrat party" is that Americans commonly speak of "the Iraq war" rather than "the Iraqi war" but the term as a proper noun has not yet been thoroughly determined. If the term "Iraq War" were to become a proper noun, it would be correct, but otherwise, would need to be "the War in Iraq" or else "the Iraqi War."

Or maybe the Republicans are just stupid?

Ooops . . . 'banded 'shoulda been 'banned.'

Bad fingers. Bad. Bad.