McCain's concession speech: 'Putting lipstick on a pig'

From the Columbia Journalism Review:

Of course, McCain’s gracious concession speech is only notable because it contrasts so sharply with the sad and shabby campaign that he chose to run. Five classy minutes should not expiate several months’ worth of name calling, insinuations, and intellectual dishonesty. Honor cannot be worn like a jacket, to be slipped on and off as the situation dictates. John McCain irrevocably ceded his moral high ground during the course of his campaign, and the press should realize that one good speech doesn’t change that. Joe Klein has it right: Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.

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UPDATED: Franken trailing by only 477 236 votes of the 2.9m cast. But, Coleman doesn't think a recount is needed

Updated and Bumped: Norm Coleman's lead has been dropping all day -- and he's the guy who said a recount isn't necessary. The gap has narrowed significantly:

The latest unofficial results collected by the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office of Tuesday's vote now show Coleman with a 236-vote lead over Franken. That's down from 725 Wednesday morning.

The Secretary of State's Office website has adjusted those numbers several times since Tuesday night, most often tightening the gap. The official tally will come once the state canvassing board meets Nov. 18. Then the recount follows.

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Still proving that he's one of the biggest jerks in politics, Norm Coleman told Minnesotans that he wouldn't want a recount if he wasn't ahead. The margin in the Minnesota Senate race keeps tightening and is now at 477 votes. Franken thinks every vote should count:

Coleman declared victory Wednesday morning, when his unofficial lead over Franken stood at 725 votes out of nearly 2.9 million cast, according to the secretary of state's tally. By the end of the day, as county officials from around the state forwarded adjusted figures to the state, that margin had shrunk to 477 votes.

Early Wednesday, Franken announced his support for a recount, which would be automatic because of the closeness of the vote. He said that his campaign was investigating alleged voting irregularities at some polling places in Minneapolis and that "a recount could change the outcome significantly."

"Let me be clear: Our goal is to ensure that every vote is properly counted," he said.

That is, after alll what elections are supposed to be about -- counting every vote.

Not so true for the Republican. Coleman just oozes smarminess:

Coleman urged Franken to waive his right to a recount, saying that the prospect of changing the result was remote and that a recount would be costly to taxpayers (about $86,000).

"I just think the need for the healing process is so important. ... hopefully, you don't have TV ads during an election recount," Coleman said.

Coleman is worried about $86,000. What a fraud. Maybe he can just call his rich benefactor, the one who allegedly paid Coleman's wife $75,000.

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Thousand people protest outside Mormon Temple in LA

A good 1,000 people, by my estimate, are currently protesting outside the gates of the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles. This is in response to the Mormons bankrolling Proposition 8, which just revoked the marriages of nearly 20,000 gay newlyweds in California, instantly making their children bastards. I think the Mormons, and Utah more generally, have created a massive public relations disaster for themselves. The Mormon church has for years been bankrolling hateful and bigoted efforts to block civil rights legislation in various states. This time, it appears they finally went too far.

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People are ticked at the Mormons

For a people seeking acceptance, the Mormons sure have a way of pissing people off.

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What the hell happened in Alaska?

From Nate Silver:

Although Ted Stevens holds a small lead in Alaska and is the favorite to retain his seat, the outcome is not as inevitable as it might appear to be. Stevens currently holds a lead of 3,353 votes, or about 1.5 percent of the votes tallied so far. But, there are quite a large number of ballots yet to count. According to Roll Call, these include "at least 40,000 absentee ballot, 9,000 early voting ballots, and an undetermined number of questionable ballots".

Indeed, it seems possible that the number of "questionable" ballots could be quite high. So far, about 220 thousand votes have been processed in Alaska. This compares with 313 thousand votes cast in 2004. After adding back in the roughly 50,000 absentee and early ballots that Roll Call accounts for, that would get us to 270 thousand ballots, or about a 14 percent drop from 2004. It seems unlikely that turnout would drop by 14 percent in Alaska given the presence of both a high-profile senate race and Sarah Palin at the top of the ticket.

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Gay-bashing election night near the White House?

Anybody have information on this?

Two guys waiving rainbow flags were headed to the spontaneous election night celebration at Lafayette Park, when they were harassed and then beaten up by a group of young/college drunk, angry, Republicans.

I know a reporter who would like to talk to the guys who were beaten up. Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman is learning there will be consequences

UPDATE: Huff Post has more:

Bolstered by a newly expanded majority, Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman on Thursday to sketch out the conditions by which the Connecticut independent could continue to caucus with Senate Democrats. But Lieberman did not accept Reid's initial offers, leaving his future in the caucus uncertain, and potentially setting off a campaign to pressure the Democratic steering committee to decide Lieberman's fate.

Reid offered Lieberman a deal to step down as chairman of the homeland security committee but take over the reins of another subcommittee, likely overseeing economic or small business issues officials said.

One of the biggest questions remaining from the election results is what happens to Joe Lieberman. A lot of us want to know. I saw Lieberman on CNN today doing a statement about how he intends to work with Obama. What an ass.

The Senate works in its own way, but it looks like the wheels are starting to turn on this one. Harry Reid met with Joe Lieberman today and issued a statement:

Today Senator Lieberman and I had the first of what I expect to be several conversations. No decisions have been made. While I understand that Senator Lieberman has voted with Democrats a majority of the time, his comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus. I expect there to be additional discussions in the days to come, and Senator Lieberman and I will speak to our caucus in two weeks to discuss further steps.

According to Josh Orton, who used to work in Reid's office and knows how to decipher these things:

where Reid's statements about Lieberman used to imply no coming consequences, i.e. 'Joe's gone off the reservations sometimes, but...' - today's statement runs in the opposite direction: 'Joe's with us on some things, but....' Reid is obviously implying that Lieberman will be punished; just because the details weren't announced today doesn't mean nothing will happen. Rather, Reid is likely working through the Senate mechanisms behind-the-scenes: walking through the complex process of Chairmanship 'musical chairs' that Ari describes here, estimating how many Dems we'll actually have in our caucus, and speaking with all of Lieberman's allies in the Dem caucus so no one goes off the reservation when a decision is announced.

So don't misread the reality - Lieberman has very little leverage in this situation and nowhere to go. He angered Obama and Reid during the campaign, and his presidential candidate lost. So Reid is taking his time, but that shouldn't be misread as indecisiveness or inaction. It just proves how little power Lieberman now has.

The National Review read the statement from Harry Reid and crazy K Lo thinks Reid is being mean to Lieberman:

Translation: I am a bully and will make Joe feel pain.

Reid is a boxer. Sounds like he, like so many of us, is pissed at Lieberman. The worst pain for a Senator is to lose a chairmanship with all its perks. Markos has a list of the Democratic Steering Committee, which makes committee leadership decisions. Those people may need to hear from us soon.

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BlueCross just cut off my prescription coverage for the year

I can't believe we live in this kind of a country.

I am self-employed. I bought, what I believe I was told, was the best self-employed health coverage I could get, from the local CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. And the bastards just tried to charge me $250 for two prescriptions I had filled last month, and paid at the time something around $20 to $40.

I called BlueCross to find out what was up. They told me that I hit my annual limit of $1500 coverage for prescriptions. $1500? First I ever heard of that one. What other little surprises are hiding inside my $340/month health insurance package? I have numerous prescriptions I have to fill between now and the end of the year (not to get into too many details, but my allergies have finally gotten to the point where they're impacting my lung capacity - and the allergist tells me that's a bad thing long-term, not being able to breathe and all). And I'm on Vytorin for cholesterol control.

So, my choice is:

A) Skip my cholesterol medicine for December, and skip all (three, I believe) of my lung/allergy medicines for the next two months, or...

B) Pay somewhere between $500 and $1000 out of my own pocket because BlueCross BlueShield has super duper double secret limits on how much prescription coverage they're going to give you.

This is scary. I haven't been unusually sick this year. Yet I've already reached my limit of coverage. What do people do who are actually really REALLY sick? Who come down with cancer, or HIV, or some serious months-long illness?

In the end, I'm fortunate. I can spend $1000 out of my own pocket to try to ensure that my lungs don't collapse at the age of 60, and to ensure that I lessen the chances of having a heart attack shortly thereafter. But what kind of health care system do we have when you're told you're buying the best plan you can get, and the bastards have so many loopholes in the unintelligible fine print of the contract that you literally have no idea what your plan is, no idea what is and isn't coverage, no idea what limits you face on an annual basis or a lifetime basis. (I have a law degree from Georgetown and I can't make heads or tails of my coverage.)

And oh yes, there are lifetime limits on your insurance. Did you know that? Chris wrote about a friend of his, who had great insurance, and whose family member got some horrible disease (cancer, I think), and hit their "lifetime limit" on their insurance - mom just got a little too sick. Sayonara, baby - the insurance company told them - we've already paid too much for you, now go away and die. Next!

Our health care system sickens me. I got to France and get sick, and have to get a chest x-ray, and I make the appointment that morning, go in that afternoon, wait 2 minutes in the office before they take me in for the x-ray, and 15 minutes later the doctor is going over my x-ray with me, and I'm out the door 20 minutes after I walked in. Total cost? 45 euros (about $55 to $60 bucks). Oh, and I had to go to the general practitioner doctor first - it was she who recommended I get the xray (it's really expensive, she told me - ha!). Total cost for the doctor visit? 20 euros (25 bucks). A visit to your general practitioner and then to the chest x-ray guy for around $70. This is the "socialism" that Sarah Palin and the Republicans keep whining about. If that's socialism...

I should have gotten my prescriptions when I was in Europe. It just sickens me, the system we've created. What do people do who can't afford to pay when BlueCross hits it hidden stingy limits? What do people do when they can't afford insurance at all, like the taxi driver, with a wife and kids, who I was talking to the other day?

Honest to God, I imagine a world in which in 20 years I'll be fleeing to Europe for my health care coverage because my own country will have become, already has become, one big greedy uber-corporation. When Republicans start getting sick, and they find out that their super-duper coverage isn't so super duper after all, then we'll see the system change.

These people make me sick.

Note from Jacki: We have a unique opportunity right now to change this sick system once and for all. Stories like John's are why I left TV altogether and chose to move into health care reform. As many of you know, I work with HCAN - which is a growing coalition of unions, netroots activists, women's groups, doctors, nurses, and think tanks - working to win a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all in 2009. John posted earlier about helping SEIU keep health care on the map. We're part of this online campaign, and the goal right now is keep the momentum going. If you too have had enough, help us keep this issue up top. Help us get the message out that fixing health care is fundamental to fixing our economy. Help us squash insurance company greed once and for all. Obama signed on to our campaign a month ago. So did Biden. And Rahm. And about 150 members of Congress to date. We've got a huge fight ahead. You better believe the insurance and drug lobbies will come out swinging. It's ok to get mad. But then come get even. Read the rest of this post...

Huge turnout led to record vote totals

Record breaking turnout led to record breaking vote totals.

According to Ben Smith, "Obama won more votes than any president in history."

According to Fired Up! Missouri, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan got more votes than anyone who has ever been on the ballot in that state.

Impressive. Must be true for some other candidates, too.

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The dirt on Palin is coming out

It's avalanche time.

As a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s now-imploded campaign tells the story, it was bad enough that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska unwittingly scheduled, and then took, a prank telephone call from a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France. Far worse, the adviser said, she failed to inform her ticketmate about her rogue diplomacy....

But behind those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Ms. Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008.

As late as Tuesday night, a McCain adviser said, Ms. Palin was pushing to deliver her own speech just before Mr. McCain’s concession speech, even though vice-presidential nominees do not traditionally speak on election night. But Ms. Palin met up with Mr. McCain with text in hand. She was told no by Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, and Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s top strategist.

On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Ms. Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said....

One of the last straws for the McCain advisers came just days before the election when news broke that Ms. Palin had taken a call made by Marc-Antoine Audette. Mr. Audette and his fellow comedian Sebastien Trudel are notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state.

Ms. Palin appeared to believe that she was talking to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, even though the prankster had a flamboyant French accent and spoke to her in a more personal way than would be protocol in such a call. At one point, he told Ms. Palin that she would make a good president some day. “Maybe in eight years,” she replied.

And this is why all of our collective mockery of Palin made a difference. We all, collectively, set the McCain campaign up for a civil war that surely hurt their chances at victory. Read the rest of this post...

Help SEIU make health care a priority

SEIU is organizing a blog-wide ad campaign to help ensure that health care stays at the top of the agenda for the next administration. Check out the page they've set up, and join the battle. Read the rest of this post...

ABC: Rahm Emanuel will be Obama's Chief of Staff

Lots of speculation about this today. ABC reports it's a done deal. Via email:

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel Accepts Job as Obama's Chief of Staff, ABC News Has Learned
[12:47 p.m. ET]

Jake Tapper at ABC has more.

CNN confirmed, too:

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AP calls North Carolina for Obama

North Carolina is blue. 364 Electoral Votes:

President-elect Obama has won North Carolina, a symbolic triumph in a state that hadn't voted for a Democrat in more than a generation.

The Associated Press declared Obama the winner Thursday after canvassing counties in North Carolina to determine the number of outstanding provisional ballots.

That survey found that there are not enough remaining ballots for Republican John McCain to close a 13,693-vote deficit.

North Carolina's 15 electoral votes brings Obama's total to 364 — nearly 100 more than necessary to win the White House. Missouri is the only state that remains too close to call.

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LAPD appears to beat pro-gay demonstrator repeatedly on film

This was at last night's pro-gay protest last night in Los Angeles. The BBC got the video.

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Why is the Sundance Film Festival taking place in the Hate State of Utah?

UPDATE: Our friend Brent Andrus, who is a lead donor to Prop 8, in fact runs a series of hotels, including (big surprise here), Courtyard Marriott, Fairfield Inn Marriott, Residence Inn Marriott, and Spring Hill Suites Marriott. Never, ever stay at a Marriott again. It's clear that what people have been whispering about Marriott for years is true. It's not just some independent company. It's part and parcel of the Mormon Church and their bigoted agenda.



It's time we held Utah accountable for the hate and bigotry it gladly exports to the rest of our union.

Mormons from Utah dumped millions into Prop 8, the anti-gay proposition in California that just passed - they are personally responsible for revoking the marriages of nearly 20,000 gay couples. This is not the first time the Mormons went beyond their borders to promote hate and intolerance of gays and lesbians - it's been happening for years. The Mormon church regularly intervenes around the country to promote hatred, bigotry and discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans. Enough is enough. The Mormon church, and its associated businesses, are free to foment discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans, but we are also free to stop frequenting the businesses of those who would make our children bastards, and we their parents second class citizens.

It's time to stop funding those businesses and individuals who promote hate. And let's start with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It's high time Sundance found a better state to party in than the seat of the Mormon Church. Sundance is THE gathering of liberal Hollywood. The last place it should be is in Utah. Robert Redford, are you out there?

Let's start with one donor in particular:

Brent Andrus of Huntington Hotels in Park City, Utah gave $20,000 to Prop 8 on October 16th, 2008.

I've done some Googling and I'm having a hard time finding exactly which property or properties Mr. Andrus owns. Perhaps someone from Sundance needs to ensure that neither Mr. Andrus nor his hotels are in any way involved in the Sundance Festival, including guests staying at his businesses. UPDATE: We have our answer, see the top of this post.

And then Sundance needs to start looking to move the festival. All of you who know someone who knows someone in the industry need to weigh in with the Sundance organizers, and those attending, to ensure that Utah and the Mormon Church pay a price for the bigotry they embrace and export.

Next up: Marriott Hotels. It's Mormon owned. Stay at a Marriott and you finance the repeal of your own civil rights, and those of your friends and families. Spread the word, never ever stay at a Marriott Hotel ever again. More on Marriott's extensive holding later. Read the rest of this post...

More on the anti Prop 8 lawsuits

From Gloria Allred:

On May 15, 2008, after we waged a four year long legal battle we finally won a landmark victory in the California Supreme Court for same gender couples who wished to marry in California.

Last night, opponents sought to reverse that decision with Proposition 8 in which they once again sought to restrict legal marriage to a man and a woman. That Proposition appears to have passed by a narrow margin.

As a result, today we will file a writ with the California Supreme Court on behalf of Robin Tyler and her spouse, Diane Olson, challenging its constitutionality on several grounds. In our case in May, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Equal protection clause in our California Constitution protects the rights of lesbians and gays to marry the person of their choice and the court, for the first time, recognized homosexuality as a "suspect classification" under the equal protection clause of our state constitution, thereby requiring a strict scrutiny test which test was not and cannot be met (the court so held) in marriages limited to a man and a woman. Prop 8, if it passes, conflicts with the equal protection clause. If marriage is now limited to straight couples and excludes gay couples then it is inconsistent and in conflict with the equal protection clause. We will argue to the court that Prop 8 is a disguised revision to the constitution which cannot be imposed by the ordinary amendment process, which only requires a simple majority. We believe that then the court must hold that California may not issue marriage licenses to non-gay couples because if it does it would be violating the equal protection clause as straight couples would have more rights by being allowed to marry than gay couples.

If Prop 8 had said that the California constitution was amended to limit marriage to people of the same race only, would that be constitutional under our state constitution? Of course not as it would violate the equal protection clause and the seminal case of Perez v. Sharp which the Supreme court decided sixty years ago.

We will also argue that Prop 8 improperly revises the Supreme Court’s recent opinion defining the constitutional fundamental right of marriage The state constitution provides that revisions to the constitution requires a 2/3 vote of the legislature or the convening of a state constitutional convention, and a proposition requiring only 50% is not available to the electorate to accomplish the revision to our equal protection clause.

Lastly, the constitutional requirement of separation of powers, we will argue, does not permit the use of the Proposition format to remove and /or circumvent the judiciary in determining the interpretation of what is or is not a fundamental liberty right and who is and who is not protected by the equal protection clause.

The apparent passage of Prop 8 in California has been a heartbreaking experience for our clients, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, and millions of other same gender couples who have married or wish to marry in California and throughout the nation. All they have asked for is equal rights under the law and equal respect and dignity for their families and their committed relationships.

Our law firm is honored to continue this great civil rights battle for them. We will never give in and we will never give up. We will continue to be the change we wish to see in the world and we will never have another season of silence until same gender couples enjoy the same rights as non-gay couples on this green earth.

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“'Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America,' Rove said."

I've been thinking back to four years ago -- and how desolate we all felt following Bush's re-election. It was right around then that John asked me to start writing on AMERICAblog, which is the thing that saved my sanity. For months following the election, we were forced to deal with the deification of Bush and Karl Rove. In February of 2005, at a gathering of conservatives, Rove explained what the 2004 elections meant for the future. Read it with glee, because everything he said has proven to be wrong. Everything:

“The next time one of your smarty-pants liberal friends says to you, ‘Well, he didn’t have a mandate,’ you tell him of this delicious fact: This president got a higher percentage of the vote than any Democratic candidate for president since 1964,” Rove said.

In 2004, Bush was reelected with about 51% of the vote. In 1976, Jimmy Carter received just more than 50%, and in the two times Bill Clinton was elected, he received less than 50% of the vote. Independent Ross Perot was on the ballot both times.

Bush is the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be reelected while his party gained seats in the House and Senate, Rove said.

But he also cautioned his conservative supporters that they must not become complacent with the 2004 victory.

Rove, appointed White House deputy chief of staff last week, told a gathering at the Conservative Political Action Conference that Bush was committed to the members’ ideas of fostering morality and values, including protecting the culture of life for every human person – a goal that generated applause from the crowd at the Ronald Reagan Building.

“Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America,” Rove said, adding that more needed to be done.

He also said the administration was committed to spreading democracy across the Middle East and reforming and modernizing Social Security, healthcare, public education and the tax code.

“Those who oppose this agenda are in a difficult position,” Rove said. “They’re attempting to block reforms to systems that almost every serious-minded person concedes need reform.

Those who opposed that agenda are now running the country. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Yes, it really happened. We have a new president. Every time I hear someone say "President-elect Obama," I smile. But, man, does he have a full plate. This country is a mess on almost every level. Huge challenges. Huge. But, this is our time to show the country and the world that, with the right leader, we can solve our problems.

Also still dealing with the ramifications of Prop. 8. The final votes aren't in, but it's very hard to accept.

Anyway, there's a lot to do.

Let's get started...

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Obama celebrated here in Barcelona!

I was hoping to make it to see this beach but my schedule became crazy on Monday, so for now, it's just a CNN link to this very cool project.

Barack Obama sometimes gets ribbed for his outsized ideas, like the massive stage built in Denver, Colorado, to accept the Democratic presidential nomination. But an artist in Barcelona, Spain, has outdone even the candidate himself.

The artist has created a gigantic face of Obama sculpted from gravel and sand, covering nearly 2.5 acres (1 hectare) of Barcelona beachfront before the U.S. elections.

"The size of the piece is intrinsic to its value," the artist, Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, said.

"Obama's personality -- his youth, personal history and message of a new politics -- has fused with the historical moment to create someone larger than life," says the artist's dossier about the work, titled "Expectation."

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How the world views the Obama victory

This is a good overview and inline with what I see and hear myself. People are suddenly ready to look past the last eight years of disgraceful policies and move on. After 2004 few Europeans could believe that the US could vote for change, especially with an African American candidate. Over and over Europeans would always jump on that issue, telling me how racist America really was. The problem of racism has obviously not been solved but we've made progress and have set the model for other countries who are also facing racial divides. What's also interesting is the brief clip of Condoleeza Rice and what the election mean to her. Read the rest of this post...

Election night with over 70 million TV viewers

Even here in Barcelona, I was impressed to see so many stations (was it 3 or 4?) with coverage throughout the night. I flipped channels until around 2 AM or so and the local channels were still discussing every inch of the campaign and showing interviews and updates from Chicago and Arizona. On Wednesday morning the talk for the Americans over here was all about the election results but the same was true of the EMEA folks that I met. Even they talked about shedding a few tears as they watched Obama speak. I have not yet read any statistics for overseas yet but won't be surprised if similar ratings were experienced as well. It looks as though all news outlets did well, or at least almost all of them.

Joelle took Champagne to the office to toast with her coworkers and they ended up talking about the results and what they meant for the US and for France. That discussion went on for an hour, people were so excited. What an amazing day. Read the rest of this post...

From Athens, Greece

From my friend, and Greek blogger, Panayioti in Athens:

Congratulations John! Obama did it!
Much like the american people, a lot of us around the world have invested a lot of hope in him. I hope many of the people that participated in the campaign continue to participate in politics and are allowed and welcome to do so. The Change has not happened yet, but it CAN happen how, starting from today!

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On homophobia and racism

Reader Bryan writes:

This was a very bad thing that Prop. 9 passed. And from the exit polling data I read alst night via Andrew Sullivan, it looks like African Americans were instrumental in passing Prop. 8 with 70% saying they voted for it. When is someone going to address the bigotry in the black community towards gay people? Gay people need to openly point the finger and say it's not okay to be bigots just because you are black and have suffered yourself! Please talk about Prop. 8 very few blogs are.

I'm glad Obama won, but how come it's expected of me to rise above the anti-black bigotry I was raised with, and go vote for a black man, but then black people can go vote to enshrine bigotry into law and no one challenges that?

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