Oh man, we already went over this! But, you know, that was then, well over a year ago, and this is now.

The McCain campaign made a horribly wrong video:

Here’s what we quoted ABC News as saying in our piece last July:

In addition to local schools informing kindergarteners that babies do not come from the stork, the state legislation Obama supported in Illinois, which contained an “opt out” provision for parents, also envisioned teaching kindergarteners about “inappropriate touching,” according to Obama’s presidential campaign.

That’s not “teaching kids about sex before teaching them to read.” That’s teaching them not to let lecherous old men tough their no-no place in exchange for candy. That’s a good thing

What’s worse, as as Huffington Post points out, the article McCain cites in the ad is actually worse on him than it is on Obama.

What sets this ad apart is that every article save one that the McCain camp cites as being critical of Obama’s education policies either has far more derogatory things to say about McCain himself or goes on to praise the Illinois Democrat.

In the spot, the McCain campaign references a June 2008 Washington Post editorial that called Obama “elusive” on school accountability. That same editorial, however, stated that McCain “has not been forthcoming with any detailed plan.” Moreover, when the Post editorial board revisited the subject of education last month, it found that “Obama has given the issue more attention” than McCain, whose plan was “both late in coming and still a work in progress.”

Moreover, the specific “elusive” claim is in reference to a David Brooks op-ed in the New York Times that was noted by the Post. But in that piece, Brooks was far more critical of McCain. “Obama endorses many good ideas and is more specific than the McCain campaign, which hasn’t even reported for duty on education,” the Times columnist wrote.

In its press release accompanying the ad, the McCain campaign also which states that, as a legislator, Obama “hasn’t made a significant mark on education.” The same story, however, goes on to add: “Sen. Obama may have a unique perspective among the candidates seeking the presidency in 2008. As a private citizen, he led Chicago’s portion of the Annenberg Challenge school reform initiative financed by the late philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg–an experience that shaped Mr. Obama’s perspective on the critical importance of principals and teachers.”

So the ad is not only willfully disingenuous in its assertions, but the “facts” it cites are outright lies from opinion pieces over a year old. This is not the “honorable” campaign we were promised.

The McCain campaign falsely claims that Obama voted to raise income taxes on individuals earning “as little as $32,000 per year.” Hrm, let’s see…

The McCain campaign claims that Obama voted to raise income taxes on individuals who earn as little as $32,000 per year. That’s wrong.

* The resolution Obama voted for would not have increased taxes on any single taxpayer making less than $41,500 per year in total income, or any couple making less than $83,000. The $32,000 figure is approximately the taxable income of a single person making $41,500 per year, after all deductions and exclusions.

* Obama’s vote (for a non-binding budget bill) does not change the fact that his own tax plan would provide a tax cut of $502 for a non-married taxpayer earning $35,000.

But they still claim Obama will raise your taxes. Let’s take a look:

Link

Link

Check out Obama Tax Cut and Will Obama Cut My Taxes to see how much money you will save under Barack Obama.

A lot of us have seen some version of this image floating around. Luckily, Goon Anybody debunked it for us back in August:

Factsheet

Sportsmen

Barack Obama did not grow up hunting and fishing, but he recognizes the great conservation legacy of America’s hunters and anglers and has great respect for the passion that hunters and anglers have for their sport. Were it not for America’s hunters and anglers, including the great icons like Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold, our nation would not have the tradition of sound game management, a system of ethical, science-based game laws and an extensive public lands estate on which to pursue the sport. Obama recognizes that we must forge a broad coalition if we are to address the great conservation challenges we face. America’s hunters and anglers are a key constituency that must take an active role and have a powerful voice in this coalition.

From Factcheck:

Taking the postcard’s points in turn, the first one refers to a questionnaire his campaign filled out for a community group in Chicago when he first ran for Illinois state Senate in 1996. This isn’t the first time this candidate survey has come back to haunt him — nor is it the first time we’ve written about it. At the debate in Philadelphia last month, Obama denied that his handwriting was on the questionnaire completed for the Chicago nonprofit, Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization.

He was wrong about that — his handwriting appears on a small part of the document — but he has continued to maintain that a campaign aide filled out the bulk of it, including the multipart question asking if he supported state legislation to ban assault weapons; ban manufacture, sale and possession of handguns; and require waiting periods and background checks before gun purchases. He answered “Yes” on all counts.

Obama says the answers misrepresent his position. “I have never favored an all-out ban on handguns,” he said at the Philadelphia debate.

We can’t say for sure if he did or not. We haven’t been able to find any evidence that he acted on it if he did. In the Illinois Senate, he voted for gun control, including limiting handgun purchases to one a month, but no attempts at a ban that we are aware of. And he didn’t advocate a handgun ban when he was running for U.S. Senate. Still, the reason for the answer on the questionnaire remains unclear.

He has voted on 8 different gun issues:

1, He voted on a bill to give higher penalties for using “armor piercing rounds” in a crime. (this was considered a neutral vote). (bill passed)

2,He voted for allowing persons under 17 to sue weapons manufacturers as long as it was a suit that could be won by an adult (this is labeled Vote against gun manufacturers) (amendment did not pass)

3, He voted for a trigger lock law requiring that a trigger lock be provided with every handgun transfer. Law did not apply to private sales. The law also provided immunity from liability for those that use “secure gun storage or safety device with a handgun” (this is labeled vote against gun owners) (this bill passed)

4,He voted for a change to a bill that would actually define “gross negligence or reckless conduct” in reguards to gun manufacturers (this is labeled against gun manufacturers) (this amendment was tabled and never brought up again)

5,He voted for allowing persons under 17 to sue weapons manufacturers as long as it was a suit that could be won by an adult (this is labeled Vote against gun manufacturers) (amendment did not pass) (yes they tried twice)

6,He voted for an amendment that directed the AG to take on a new job of “determining standards to decide what ammunition is capable of penetrating “body armor exemplar”. Any ammunition (handgun or rifle) that the AG determines to be ‘armor piercing’ is added to the legal list of ammunition to be ‘armor piercing’. From that point forward it would be illegal to sell that ammo. (this is listed as against gun owners) (amendment did not pass)

7, Voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in arms act. and I quote “this bill ends current and prevents future liability lawsuits.” Yeah you cant sue a gun manufacturer. (this is labeled Vote against gun manufacturers) (this bill passed and is now law.)

8, voted for a prohibition of any Dept. of Homeland security budget from being used to confiscate guns. that would include allocations to state and local law enforcement. (this is labeled as a vote for gun owners) (this bill passed).

There you go. All his gun votes in the Senate.

Oh and just for chuckles here are a few of Mccains “against gun oweners/manufacturer” votes.

He voted against and then for the Clinton assault weapons ban.
Co-sponsored the McCain / Lieberman Gun Show Loophole Bill (never brought to vote)
Sponsored Gun Show Loophole Closing Act of 2003 (never brought to vote)
Child Safety Lock Act of 2005 (voted against gun manufacturers)

And holy shit I just don’t really know what to say about “GIVE CRIMINALS THE RIGHT TO VOTE”

No doubt by now you have seen this video. It places blame for the current economic problems squarely at the Democrat’s feet. And while don’t know enough about economics to speak as to what the fuck is going on, we have several terrific Goons who do.

So here’s how it actually breaks down. This is going to be a gigantic wall of text, but Goon infiniteseal is working on a rebuttal video for us, to be posted here once he is done.

UPDATE: Here is the video rebuttal.

First, Goon razzledazzle lays it all out:

It’s ridiculous to blame the crisis on the or ACORN or whatever. The central thesis seems to be that the government forced lenders to give loans to risky customers, when in fact lenders chose to give loans to risky customers because there was a vast amount of profit to be made. (Reasonable people can differ on whether the CRA is good policy in principle and in practice, but that’s really besides the point here.)

It works like this:

1) The global economy was pretty good, so there’s loads of extra money sloshing around that people want to invest in something nice and safe. (It actually doubled from $36 trillion to $72 trillion between 2001 and 2007.)

2) At the same time, house prices were going up.

3) So, people decide to invest in mortgages.

4) Obviously there are lots of steps from, say, an investor in Mumbai to a homeowner in Michigan, but let’s concentrate on Wall St banks with lots of money and smaller mortgage lenders operating in communities. (Not that small necessarily, Countrywide was one, for instance.)

5) Mortgage lenders sell mortgages to wannabe homeowners. Then they sell them up the chain to Big Banks (and the investors they represent) who get the rights to the income and associated risk.

6) As things continue going nicely, Big Banks are happy to get their hands on more and more mortgages. But lenders are almost running out of people to sell houses to.

7) Fine, say the banks, who have plenty more investors who want to get in on the action. Give mortgages to more people, even those you’d usually turn down.

8 ) The lenders have a field day. Usually to get a mortgage you have to prove what money you have and what your income is. No longer! Now you can just tell the lender what you earn. Sometime later, the rules are even looser and the banks don’t even ask. (The fabled NINA, No Income No Assets loan.) And to entice people in they start giving away mortgages with very low introductory rates and all kinds of exciting offers (the fabled “predatory lending practices”) to get more and more people to sign up. Don’t forget, housing prices are still going up so lots of people are figuring they can sell the house on before the higher interest kicks in.

9) Meanwhile the banks are buying these rather dodgy mortgages by the bucketload. They mix the good and bad ones up together, whatever, who cares. Credit rating agencies reckon it’s alright, though, and give them all AAA ratings. This is partly because even if a homeowner defaults, the owners of the mortgage deal get to repossess the house and sell it at a profit. Also, who pays the credit rating agency to rate stuff? The bank with the stuff to be rated.

10) Housing bubble bursts, because that’s what bubbles do.

11) Homeowners hoping to flip their property before the higher interest rates kick in can’t sell it for what they paid for it. They’re screwed, and default. Dumber people who just magically hoped they could pay the higher interest rates coming down the line? They can’t, and default. People who didn’t read the small print in their mortgage, also screwed, and default.

12) Banks start to notice all the foreclosures. They refuse to buy the dodgiest mortgages from lenders, which is bad news for lenders as they’ve just borrowed loads of money and given out some bad mortgages and now they can’t sell them up the chain. Some lenders, therefore, go bust.

13) Obviously the fall in house prices means that the banks can’t cover their debts by selling off the property. Anyway, everyone starts to cotton on to the fact that bad stuff is going on. Investors start selling their share in the mortgages to wash their hands of them, and the price of them starts going down, so what the banks actually own in terms of capital is less and less and less.

14) Credit rating agencies start downgrading all these dodgy mixed up mortgages.

And then the rest is all Wall Street insider stuff. Banks and investment funds start writing-off assets, basically admitting that all these investments they have are worthless. Share prices go down so they can’t make as much money by potentially issuing more shares. Banks don’t know what dodgy-ass mortgages each other have and don’t want to loan each other money. But loaning each other money is what makes the whole system work, so institutions start falling over because they can’t operate without access to the loans.

For instance, Lehman Brothers ended up stuck with the crappiest mortgages (possibly because they were potentially the most profitable, possibly because they couldn’t find investors for them) and ended up losing $3 billion. Washington Mutual gave out subprime mortgages directly, and lost $8 billion. Merril Lynch lost $19.2 billion in a year. IndyMac was one of the biggest “lenders” and had $10.7bn of mortgages ready to sell up the chain, but suddenly nobody want to buy them, and they had to eat the losses when large numbers of them went into foreclosure. Countrywide had to eat losses, then their share price went down so they couldn’t raise money by issuing new shares, and then they had to admit that they were essentially including delinquent unpaid mortgage installments in their accounting as “assets” when in fact the mortgage payments would never arrive. Northern Rock, in the UK, was mostly fine but nobody would lend them money because OMG THEY DO MORTGAGES, had to get a loan from the government, which made everyone panic, triggered a run on the bank and got it nationalised. Netbank, usually a lender that would resell mortgages up the chain, tried to disguise their loans as safe, but when it was revealed they weren’t, were forced to buy them all back, and couldn’t find anyone else to buy them, driving them under.

So essentially some of the assets of some of the banks have? They’re subprime mortgages, and nobody wants to buy them or invest in them, making them worthless. If they truly are worthless, people lose confidence in the bank and the bank can’t access loans, their share prices tank, and the bank dies. (This is obviously circular in that the suspicion the bank might collapse is enough to make it collapse.) The government is planning on buying these subprime mortgages.

So there you have it.

Terrific, step by step instructions to a global financial crisis.

Oh, but ah ha! says Goon BaronVonBigmeat:

It’s true that only a portion of bad loans had to do directly with the CRA. But you left out the part where Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought up all those crap mortgages largely because of political pressure.

Now Goon Blinkz0rz steps up to explain why it’s not Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae’s fault:

Basically, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failing are the consequences of the fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis rather than the cause. This crisis was caused by deregulation (Gramm-Leach-Bliley) that allowed banks to have investment, commercial banking, and insurance under one roof. This led to 2 separate phenomenons. First, it allowed the banking industry to create banks that were too big to fail. The sheer amount of liquid assets controlled by these huge banks makes it impossible to allow that much money in the market do be taken down by illiquid assets such as CDOs and mortgage-backed securities suddenly losing values.

Second, it allowed banks to lend money (in the form of mortgages specifically due to the rising value of homes) and then turn around and sell the mortgage-backed securities to other investment houses. The issue becomes more complicated when you have the smaller street-lenders taking out massive loans to offer mortgages and then turning around and selling these loans as MBS’s or CBOs to pay off their initial loans. When the value of houses dropped, borrowers who either couldn’t afford their mortgages* or who depended on the equity in their home to take out a home equity loan to stave off default ended up defaulting. The mortgages that were securitized dropped in value leading to financial institutions (and more specifically investment houses) losing a significant amount of money and consequently being unable to fulfill their debts. This is exactly what happened to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That’s why, aside from the sheer amount of assets present in the market decreasing significantly, banks are so wary about lending other banks money.

*You have to keep in mind that the reason these people were able to take out these mortgages they couldn’t afford is because the lenders were increasingly more competitive with each other in order to make the most profit. This led to nina and ninja loans being actual services offered. For lenders, it didn’t matter whether the borrower could pay their mortgage because once the mortgage was securitized and sold, it was out of the hands of the lender.

I asked for some clarification, because I am a dunderhead. Again, Goon Blinkz0rz comes to the rescue:

The basic gist to refuting these articles is to note that both of these articles discuss a symptom of the explosion of mortgage backed securities trading. Because initially these securities were seen as a safe investment, GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought and sold them without reservation. Because they represented a pretty decent amount of the actual assets the GSEs own, and the concern about them devaluing was pretty low, the GSEs treated them as almost equivalent to liquid assets even though they were, in reality, pretty shadily set up.

When the housing market went bust, the CDOs that were made up of these securities devalued like crazy. Foreclosures devalued them even further. The GSEs were left with CDOs and mortgage backed securities that were, up until recently, worth trillions of dollars, but now are worth next to nothing.

Basically the greed that caused street lenders and commercial banking institutions to push NINA and NINJA mortgages on people who couldn’t afford them and then turn around and sell them as securities while depending on an exploding housing market to keep the securities’ values pumped is what caused the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not the Clinton administration suggesting that Frannie and Freddie insure and issue mortgages to lower income home buyers or the CRA in 1977.

Goon Fascist Funk helps me out, too:

The NYT article distinguishes between the moderate- and low-income mortgages that Clinton and Fannie Mae stockholders advocated, and the subprime mortgages which, according to that very article, Fannie Mae itself pushed for under pressure from banks, savings & loans, and mortgage lenders, not the government.

Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I think a failure to differentiate between low-to-moderate income mortgages and subprime mortgages is one of the chief errors of the “blame Clinton” crowd.

With us so far? Good. Goon Cav gets in to the nitty-gritty:

Mortgage defaults didn’t cause this crisis. Waves of personal bankruptcies and loan defaults aren’t anything new. The problem is that financial institutions won’t extend credit to each other, not just because some are carrying bad mortgages, but because their assets may consist principally of mortgages whose only known value was set by the company that owns the mortgage.

Every company has to have assets equal to their operating needs. A manufacturer has to have enough assets that are liquid (can be easily converted to cash) to buy materials and pay their employees. Commercial banks hold customers deposits and must have enough liquid asses to accommodate the maximum foreseeable withdrawals.

Financial banks provide working capital for business startups and expansions by underwriting stocks and bonds - they give the company the capital and then sell the stocks and bonds to recoup their investment. They’ve got to have liquid assets sufficient to cover stocks and bonds between their issuance and sale. Insurers who often insure stocks, bonds and business ventures have to have sufficient liquid assets to cover claims.

When one company can do all three types of financial business, a crisis in any of them can drain off liquid assets and cause a companywide failure. When the different types of financial institutions are intermingled, a crisis in one quickly becomes a crisis in all.

This was one of the primary causes of the bank runs that sparked the Great Depression. To insulate the different types of financial businesses, Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933, which prohibited doing business in more then one financial arena.

In 1999, at the behest of financial institutions that wanted a piece of every pie, Phil Gramm rammed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) through a Republican controlled Congress. This repealed the Glass-Steagall firewall and opened the door to industry wide failure, again.

Now that he’d built the coffin, Gramm nailed down the lid. In late 2000, as the Clinton administration was becoming the Bush administration, Congress was rushing to pass the annual Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act to move budget account surpluses to cover shortfalls. At the last minute, Gramm slipped in a 262 page amendment called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA). The dense and obtusely technical language was passed as part of the budget bill without debate.

This act almost totally deregulated derivatives, aka futures. Now each company that held derivatives, like subprime mortgages, was free to determine their value when calculating the value of their liquid assets, with little or no government verification. Any company that wanted to overextend itself could simply overvalue its derivatives and hope they didn’t get caught in a cash crunch.

They did. Companies who can’t meet their cash obligations go belly up. Normally, a company caught in a cash crunch borrows cash on short terms with its less liquid assets as collateral. But no one knows which mortgage assets are likely to fail and which ones’ value is overstated. So nobody loans and everything crashes.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 prohibited redlining, effectively saying that, if your bank or loan company’s market is Onondaga County, you can’t just loan money in Skaneateles and Manlius and decline all applications from the city. It didn’t require lenders to issue bad loans; pure greed did that.

CRA was passed in 1977. GLBA and CFMA were passed in 1999 and 2000. Things started to come apart in 2005. If CRA caused this, it took three decades to do it.

The CRA isn’t responsible for the over-inflation of house prices or banks bundling mortgages and selling them, that’s from the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 that basically repealed Glass Steagall.

What people who buy this shit don’t understand is that if the government was “forcing” these banks to give money to people (which doesn’t make sense but that’s what they keep saying the CRA is supposed to do) then houses would be massively UNDER-valued because banks would be fighting to give the least amount of money they could.

Instead, the repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed banks to basically sell a mortgage to whomever, bundle it up with a bunch of other mortgages, then sell that bundle as an investment that would “mature” and be worth more than what the buyer paid for it. For example, if the bank bundled up 5 $200,000 mortgages and sold it for $750,000, the buyer of the bundle would basically be assuming to make $250,000 on it when the homeowners finished paying up, which they failed to do, devaluing all those pieces of paper they’d been trading back and forth for the last decade. The bank doesn’t care, though, because they make their money back and a tidy profit off the short-term sale, it was the long-term owners of those mortgage bundles that got fucked.

The guy who made the video figures if he just throws enough shit at the audience with a “GRRRRR DEMOCRATS!” message that people will get confused and just assume it’s the Democrats’ fault. Information overload. But it’s pretty simple: Phil Gramm, McCain’s chief economic advisor, also behind the Savings & Loans scandal of the 80’s (which resulted in the biggest bank failure in history up until WaMu last week), repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999 which allowed banks to consolidate commercial and investment holdings and go wild on short-term profit by selling mortgages as investments. They overvalued every thing they had, sold it all, and then when people couldn’t pay up, every one freaked out because no one knew what anything was worth anymore, every body wrote off their investments as losses, stopped lending to each other, and then the institutions collapsed.

So you want sources, you say? Here is the best possible explanation as to the whole mess, an hour long episode of This American Life from NPR. Take the time and listen to it, and educate yourself.

Today, Senator Clinton got a little pissy about a couple of fliers…

There’s something really wrong with this, though. Let’s start with the facts.

Her argument with the health care flier is that it misrepresents her position by claiming she would “force” people to buy insurance. But she would, so that’s not a lie.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., this morning left open the possibility that, if elected, her government would garnish the wages of people who didn’t comply with her health care plan. “We will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it’s that or it’s some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments,” Clinton said in an appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”.

The NAFTA mailer says she said that NAFTA was “a boon” to the economy. They took that from a Newsday article, and Newsday has since clarified that that is their word and not hers, but at a press conference, Obama pointed out that the mailer had been made before that clarification.

Furthermore, she’s been stumping in Ohio, one of the most economically depressed states and one of the ones hardest hit by NAFTA, by saying she’s going to scrap NAFTA. This is funny, since NAFTA is considered by Bill Clinton to be one of the shining jewels of his Presidency. Let’s see what Tim Russert had to say about it this morning:

Thus, both mailers are factual. And she’s one to talk. Remember New Hampshire?

No, the problem here is with the completely hypocritical tone. The health care mailer went out weeks ago. Her campaign complained about it then. FactCheck.org wrote about it 20 days ago. The NAFTA mailer is over a week old. Feigning outrage as though you’ve never seen them before is a bit disingenuous.

Since when do Democrats attack one another on Universal Healthcare?

Um, well, there was that time earlier this month when your surrogate pulled a Godwin and compared an Obama ad to a Nazi march. (Predicted by Jackfruit back on December 22. He wins a cookie.) You’ve also personally repeatedly accused him of having a health plan that “leaves 15 million people uninsured.” In that video you even go on to say “Just because Senator Obama chose not to present a Universal Healthcare plan…” which sounds like an attack. There’s also these four items pulled up by the Obama campaign:

2/23/08 — Clinton Attacks Obama on Universal Health Care: Clinton Said Obama Does Not have A Plan To Provide Affordable Health Care To Everyone. “I have a plan to provide affordable health care to everyone. My opponent does not,” she said. “What that means is we will continue to leave people out, the insurance companies will continue to be able to charge outrageous rates, we will not get the prevention that we need by covering everyone.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/23/08]

2/22/08 — Clinton Attacks Obama on Universal Health Care: Clinton: Obama, Unlike Edwards, Refused To Take Political Risk And Cover Everyone. “It is not enough to say, “Let’s come together.” We know we’re going to have to work hard to overcome the opposition of those who do not want the changes to get to universal health care. You know, when I proposed a universal health care plan, as did Senator Edwards, we took a big risk, because we know it’s politically controversial to say we’re going to cover everyone. And you chose not to do that. You chose to put forth a health care plan that will leave out at least 15 million people. That’s a big difference.” [Texas Debate, 2/22/08]

2/20/08 — Clinton Attacks Obama on Universal Health Care: In “Get Real” Speech At Hunter College, Clinton Asks Who Obama Would Choose To Leave Out Of His Health Care Plan. “One of us has a plan to provide health care for every single American with no one left out, no excuses, no exceptions. I believe health care is a moral right, not a privilege and I will not rest until every American has access to quality, affordable health care, and I cannot wait until I can work with the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, our own Charlie Rangel. My opponent leaves out at least 15 million Americans. The question is who would you leave out? Would you leave out he man who called me from Northern New York who had an insurance policy that wouldn’t pay for the operation his son needs. Or the woman who called me from Long Island who couldn’t get bone marrow transplant for her daughter? Or the mom who said, what am I going to do with my son who has congenital heart problems and we don’t have insurance? I don’t want to leave anyone out. I am not running for president to put band-aids on our problems, I’m looking to solve them once and for all.” [Clinton speech at Hunter College, States News Service, 2/20/08]

2/9/08 — Clinton Attacks Obama on Universal Health Care: Obama Says “No We Can’t” On Health Care. “During a rally with nurses in Tacoma — a largely female crowd — Clinton said, “When it comes to health care, my opponent is saying no we can’t. Well, I say yes we can.” Obama has used “yes we can” in campaign speeches to deflect charges his upstart campaign can’t succeed.” [Newsday, 2/9/08]

Then there’s the fact that at the rally before the press screed, she was again comparing Obama to Bush:

“He promised change as a compassionate conservative,” she said referring to Bush, “and the American people got shafted.”

The line, delivered with a passion not always seen from the New York senator, brought the hundreds at Cincinnati State College to their feet.

“Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,” she continued.

And in the press screed she compared him to Karl Fucking Rove! And this is two short fucking days after she said:

And — and you know, no matter what happens in this contest — and I am honored. I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored.

Some in the press are wondering if this is her “Dean scream” moment. I’m wondering if she can pick a personality and run with it. Polite and considerate? Must be Thursday. Outraged and angry? Saturday. I liked the warm and caring Hillary Clinton that I saw on Thursday. I wish they’d let her out to play more often.

This flyer went around in New Hampshire in the days leading up to the primary there. It seems like it refuses to die. It continues to perpetuate the lie that Obama is pro-Abortion, because of his “present” votes. We’ve debunked that once, but if you don’t want to believe us, how about Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal.

The trouble is that in politics, “the facts” alone don’t always make things clearer. Take Obama’s abortion votes. It is true he voted present several times between 1997 and 2001. But it was part of a strategy designed by Planned Parenthood. Republicans in the Illinois Senate had repeatedly tried to pass bills restricting abortion. This put Democrats in a difficult position. They wanted to vote against the bills, but worried they would be smeared by Republican opponents for opposing legislation with names like “The Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” So Obama and a group of Democrats and moderate Republicans cut a deal with Planned Parenthood. The politicians would vote present as a bloc. The bills wouldn’t get enough votes, and the pols would have political cover. Everybody would win.

Luckily, the forces of Truth and Justice and fluffy bunnies are starting to win, as a backlash comes against this flyer. Check out the video below to see how this little dirty campaign trick turned the Former President of Chicago NOW against the Clinton campaign.

By now you’ve heard that there’s a kerfuffle about race. You may be confused as to who started it and what’s been said, so let’s break it down.

OK. Saturday, January 5, there was a debate, where Senator Clinton told Senators Edwards and Obama that “we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.” Obama, the next day, began to incorporate this in to his speeches:

How have we made progress in this country? Look, did John F. Kennedy look at the moon and say ‘Ahhhh, it’s too far. We can’t do that. We need a reality check.’ Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. ‘You know, this Dream thing,it’s a false hope. We can’t expect equality. False hopes.’

Let me tell you something about hope. I do talk about hope quite a bit. Out of necessity. There is no odds maker who would have said that I would be standing here when I was born in 1961. My parents come from different corners of the planet. They separated when I was two, My father left my mother. Single mom raised me with my grandparents. Could only offer me love and education and hope.

Then Hillary was asked about it.

“I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”

This comment sparked a fervor. Voices in the African-American community found the remark disparaging of Dr. King. Now, I don’t think Senator Clinton in any way meant it the way it came across. I do not think she intended to dismiss Dr. King or the civil rights movement. But, for someone campaigning on “35 years of experience,” she should know to choose her words more carefully. Here’s my problem with what she said:

Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do…

She’s correct here. However, Johnson was able to get this pushed through a still shell-shocked Congress only because Kennedy had been assassinated. In that case, I guess it really took a Communist sympathizer with a crazy accurate shot, or the CIA and Mafia, depending upon whom you believe, to bring about equality.

That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives, because we had a president who said ‘we’re going to do it,’ and actually got it done.

Uh huh… So, what you’re saying is the women’s suffrage movement had nothing to do with giving women the right to vote. That dream became a reality because Woodrow Wilson was President, right? It had nothing to do with a 60 year movement, or with the amendment coming up every year in Congress for 41 years, or with the admission of Wyoming (which allowed women to vote) as a State, or Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 becoming the first national political party to have a plank supporting women suffrage. None of that matters, because Wilson was president when it was passed and ratified.

What a totally bizarre argument for the first serious female contender for the Presidency to make.

People were still smarting over the comments made by Bill Shaheen, so piled on to this came the MLK/LBJ gaffe (and let’s be honest, that’s what it was), and this quote by Bill Clinton:

This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Meant as a blanket dismissal of Obama’s standing, it pissed off a string of bloggers, radio hosts, politicians, and cable news shows. Bill even made a call to Al Sharpton’s radio show to “clarify.”

But feet just keep entering mouths in this case, with Andrew Cuomo saying of Iowa and New Hampshire:

You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.

The Guardian prints this quote from an anonymous Clinton “advisor:”

If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.

So that takes us from January 5 through January 10. There has been no response from the Obama campaign regarding this at this point. On January 11, we finally get a quote from spokesperson Candice Tolliver:

A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements. There’s a groundswell of reaction to these comments–and not just these latest comments but really a pattern, or a series of comments that we’ve heard for several months. Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?

On January 13, Hillary Clinton went on Meet The Press, where she stated this:

Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this.

And we’re off! Without a shred of evidence to back up this ludicrous claim, the media begin reporting that Obama and Clinton are now having “A Race War.” Obama speaks in a conference call with reporters on this issue for the first time:

Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it. And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that.

Later that very same day, at a rally in South Carolina, Bob Johnson, founder of BET, says the following when introducing Senator Clinton:

Bill and Hillary Clinton… [were] deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that… I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book.

Which brings us full circle back to what Bill Shaheen was fired for a month ago. On January 14 it’s reported that the two campaigns “call a truce,” which is stupid, because Obama was never at war.

Ridiculous.

You can follow thew whole timeline here.

Obama gave an interview regarding the McClurkin debacle to The Advocate, the leading gay rag. Some points of note (although the entire interview is worth reading):

How did this happen? Was Mr. McClurkin vetted?

Obviously, not vetted to the extent that people were aware of his attitudes with respect to gay and lesbians, LGBT issues — at least not vetted as well as I would have liked to see.

Having said that, we viewed this simply as an opportunity to have a gospel concert as part of our overall outreach, and since he was singing at a concert along with a number of other artists, as opposed to being a spokesperson for us, probably it didn’t undergo the same kind of vet that someone who was serving as a surrogate for me might have.

Does this tour mark a turning point in the campaign where you’re more focused on wooing voters than fund-raising?

I recognize why this has attracted attention in the LGBT community, [but] in terms of our overall campaign strategy, it’s just one among multiple things that we’ve been doing in South Carolina. People in South Carolina listen to gospel music, so we have organized some gospel concerts. Black folks in South Carolina frequent barbershops and beauty shops, so we’ve had a barbershop–beauty shop strategy. And by the way, I can’t vouch for the opinions of every barbershop and beauty shop owner in South Carolina. But that is where people go, and so we’ve organized a particular way of reaching out to African-American voters in the barbershops and beauty shops. So this is just part of an ongoing strategy with multiple parts.

Furthmore, Think On These Things had a terrific write up:

There is no way to unify this country if people on both sides refuse to be in the same space as those with whom they disagree. It is fine to disagree and be vocal about your disagreement, but you absolutely can’t make progress without even talking to each other. Both sides need to stop being intolerant and threatened by those who are different from them. We need more Rick Warrens on the conservative side and Barack Obamas on the progressive side.

Which would have made everyone happy if McClurkin himself wasn’t such a dickhole. We were, largely, willing to forgive and get along, until this:

Tonight there was a small vigil of about 15 or 20 gays and lesbians, who stood quietly across the street as people filed into a big auditorium here for the last of three campaign-sponsored concerts (and the only one to feature Mr. McClurkin). The whole controversy might have been forgotten in the swell of gospel sound except Mr. McClurkin turned the final half hour of the three-hour concert into a revival meeting about the lightning rod he has become for the Obama campaign.

He approached the subject gingerly at first. Then, just when the concert had seemed to reach its pitch and about to end, Mr. McClurkin returned to it with a full-blown plea: “Don’t call me a bigot or anti-gay when I have suffered the same feelings,” he cried.

The Obama camp did a daring thing: They invited a Grammy winner to sing in their concert, and, when presented with his anti-liberal views, stood by him, proclaiming he, too, could be a part of the tent. Those of us on the outside looking in applauded, hesitantly, this position. McClurkin did not need to defend himself here, in what should have been a venue supporting Obama and not veering off in to personal speaker opinions. You’ll get no argument here.

However, this especially is not Obama’s fault, as Goon Oracle so well pointed out:

Christ. McClurkin is not a spokesman for Obama’s candidacy. Let’s get that straight right now, shall we? He was invited, among other gospel performers, to sing at an event, not give a rousing let’s burn the faggots speech. If this hadn’t been blown into this big huge dustup the man would likely have just gotten on stage, sang his little song, and left. Giving him the chance to have the ‘last word’ as it were, was probably not the best idea, but I don’t think anyone expected him to go into a half hour rant about it when all he was supposed to do was fucking sing. For all we know he promised them to do just that then couldn’t resist hogging the spotlight.

As far as this getting the base/Kos all in an uproar, Kos is becoming seriously known for eating its own because of the purity tests. As far as Kos being right about Obama being in some kind of death spiral, I’ll remind you this is the same blog that had all but anointed Howard Dean the Democratic candidate even when the polls started to turn. One might charitably say they have blinders on. As for the rest of the base, don’t forget a large chunk of said base is blue-collar union workers, who are not exactly gay tolerant as a group. To pretend that every single Democratic or even Democratic primary voter is a frothing PFLAG member is being… optimistic, to say the least, especially in places like Iowa, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. Sad to say, but gay rights are still not quite as high a priority as they should be in the party, a few very vocal members and some party convention planks nonwithstanding. I don’t think voting-wise this is going to hurt Obama much if at all, and it may even help him among the religious left of the ‘pray the gay away’ persuasion who otherwise support things like birth control, national/universal health care, peace in Iraq etc. Let’s not forget how many states just passed same-sex marriage bans and the Democratic crossover votes that helped them pass.

Am I saying this is right or fair or proper? Hell no. It sucks people are still voting on the ick factor when so many more important things that actually affect them are up for grabs. However that same ick factor is going to make this a relative tempest in a teapot. Regardless of how many gay folk are raising hell about it, they are still very much a small minority with limited support even within the Democratic party (remember when Bill Clinton promised gays they could serve openly in the military and then reneged with Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell? Yeah, forgive my irony, but the gays have been taking it in the ass from the Democrats for a long time. A huge stink was raised about that too but come ‘96, I didn’t see a whole lot of Homos For Dole buttons, you know what I mean?)

I think the smartest thing he can do at this point is just shut the hell up about it, not hire McClurkin to sing again, and vette his performers for, if not perfectly aligning views, at least the ability to not go off on rants about them while on stage for other purposes.

We could not agree more.

On October 20, it came to our attention that the Obama campaign was planning a gospel concert series in South Carolina. It came to our attention because people got their panties in a wad over the inclusion of Donnie McClurkin.

Who? one might rightly ask. Donnie McClurkin is a Grammy Award winning gospel singer, a preacher, and an “ex-gay.” That’s right — after being repeatedly raped as a child by various male family members, McClurkin believes he was able to pray the gay out of himself. Incidentally, he also told Ebony Magazine in 2001 that prayer cured his leukemia.

Whatev.

I thought Goon theblackw0lf handled this one well:

[Obama’s]also done quite a bit for Rick Warren, because even though Obama believes some of Rick’s beliefs are too conservative, Rick has also done quite a bit for combating poverty and aids, and Obama supports him and helps him in those areas.

Personally, I get tired of politicians having to distance themselves from certain groups because they might hold a controversial opinion. It just seems to me that by doing so we’re limiting our ability to combat certain social ills. Because while there might be groups that believe homosexuality is a sin or even against gay marraige, they might also care about fighting aids, poverty, and global warming.

And that should have been that, as we moved on to filibustering FISA, Mitt Romney being an ass and support from The Butter Cow Lady.

But no. No no no. It had to become a “campaign crisis” as Hillary’s pocket constituency, The Human Rights Campaign, got all grumpy.

According to sources, HRC offered various suggestions to the Obama camp to avoid criticism by the group, among them dropping McClurkin from the gospel act.

Oh, yes, I remember that great line from his DNC speech: “There is not a red America or a blue America, but The United Stated of People Who Already Agree With Us.” Obama stated his position very well on October 22:

“I have clearly stated my belief that gays and lesbians are our brothers and sisters and should be provided the respect, dignity, and rights of all other citizens. I have consistently spoken directly to African-American religious leaders about the need to overcome the homophobia that persists in some parts our community so that we can confront issues like HIV/AIDS and broaden the reach of equal rights in this country.

I strongly believe that African Americans and the LGBT community must stand together in the fight for equal rights. And so I strongly disagree with Reverend McClurkin’s views and will continue to fight for these rights as President of the United States to ensure that America is a country that spreads tolerance instead of division.”

He then added an openly gay minister to open the show that McClurkin will be performing at.

ArchPundit then made a really good point about all of this:

The real point here is that Democrats have two constituencies that often disagree with one another. One, African-Americans, compose a socially conservative demographic who are more anti-gay than the average member of the population. The GLBT community is a strong supporter of Democrats as well, but they find that many African-American religious leaders who back Democrats have offensive ideas about gay people. That’s true. Lots of black preachers say such things. Does that mean none of them can be associated with a Democratic Campaign?

And no one makes a stink when Hillary Clinton stands with Harold Mayberry.

So here’s the nitty-gritty: The entire point of the Obama campaign is inclusiveness, which includes people he himself and his other supporters may not agree with. If that’s not your thing, he’s not your candidate. But to repudiate him for standing by his matra of inclusiveness is retarded. Since Obama’s central plank is, in fact, uniting the country, is ending the divisions that separate us, we’re all going to have to learn to play nice.

It’s the same thing that happened a few weeks ago regarding Tom Coburn. Yes, Coburn has some despicable social stands, but that doesn’t eliminate the good he has done in government. Yes, McClurkin holds some despicable views, but that does not mean we shouldn’t include him and try to change his mind.

Goon Sub Par adds:

What’s different about Obama is that he will get up in front of a group of southern black Christians and tell them they are wrong on GLBT issues. He will get up in front of gay groups and talk about how they need to work with and educate the black church population, not ignore, ridicule, and hate them. It really is inspiring.

Oh, looky, a Joint Letter from the African American Religious and LGBT Leadership Teams. These guys get it.

We believe that Barack Obama is constructing a tent big enough for LGBT Americans who know that their sexual orientation is an innate and treasured part of their being, and for African American ministers and citizens who believe that their religion prevents them from fully embracing their gay brothers and sisters. And if we are to confront our shared challenges we have to join together, build on common ground, and engage in a civil dialogue even when we disagree.

And there you have it. You can (erroneously) believe Obama is a bigoted gay-hater, or you can (correctly) believe he’s reaching out to two disparate groups in an attempt to get them in the same tent.

This post is long, so I will finish with a final quote from Goon drscience:

As tempting as it is for us to exploit long-awaited political advantage and start our own “agree or fuck you” mentality after languishing under Bush, it’s not the campaign Obama’s going to run. There is a serious divide among the religious black community and homosexuals, and he hopes to establish a civil discourse and start mending the issue through humanization and empathy, rather than taking the easier road by calling Pastor McClurkin a nutball and possibly squeezing a few sound-byte votes out of the conflict. If I wanted that Rovian 51% split I wouldn’t be supporting Obama.

In the Let’s Parse The Word “Is” catagory, we bring you the controversial FISA bill.

On October 17, the Senate Intelligence Committee reached an agreement with the White House to give telecom companies imunity from the shit they turned over to the NSA. They did this illegally, because Bush asked pretty pretty please, but, as we all know, ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

On October 18 Chris Dodd said he would filibuster and put a hold on this bill. That same day, Obama said this:

“I have consistently opposed this Administration’s efforts to use debates about our national security to expand its own power, whether that was on the Iraq war, or on its power grab to curb our civil liberties through domestic surveillance programs. It is time to restore oversight and accountability in the FISA program, and this proposal — with an unprecedented grant of retroactive immunity — is not the place to start.”

MoveOn and other groups then asked that he be explicit. An hour and a half later, they had an answer:

“Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it.”

However, this, apparently, was too explicit. By saying this bill he was called “chickenshit” and it was demanded that he “support a filibuster of any bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecoms amongst few others.

Because stating that if the bill comes out of committee including the immunity he disagrees with he will veto it is apparently not good enough, he had to say it again.

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

That’s right — in politics, it doesn’t count unless you say it twice. And really loudly.