Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own

Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

The result is a group of unlikely-sounding Husseins: Jewish and Catholic, Hispanic and Asian and Italian-American, from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Okla., to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago....

...Mr. Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. Hussein is a family name inherited from a Kenyan father he barely knew, who was born a Muslim and died an atheist. But the name has become a political liability. Some critics on cable television talk shows dwell on it, while others, on blogs or in e-mail messages, use it to falsely assert that Mr. Obama is a Muslim or, more fantastically, a terrorist.

“I am sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word,” Mr. Strabone wrote in a manifesto titled “We Are All Hussein” that he posted on his own blog and on dailykos.com.

So like the residents of Billings, Mont., who reacted to a series of anti-Semitic incidents in 1993 with a townwide display of menorahs in their front windows, these supporters are brandishing the name themselves....

...Mr. Obama may be more enthusiastic, judging from his response at a Chicago fund-raiser two weeks ago. When he saw that Richard Fizdale, a longtime contributor, wore “Hussein” on his name tag, Mr. Obama broke into a huge grin, Mr. Fizdale said.

“The theory was, we’re all Hussein,” Mr. Obama said to the crowd later, explaining Mr. Fizdale’s gesture....

Heh. You good kids.

Keith Olbermann mentioned this on the show last night:

Soldiers risk ruin while awaiting benefit checks

By MICHELLE ROBERTS – Jun 16, 2008

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — His lifelong dream of becoming a soldier had, in the end, come to this for Isaac Stevens: 28, penniless, in a wheelchair, fending off the sexual advances of another man in a homeless shelter.

Stevens' descent from Army private first-class, 3rd Infantry Division, 11 Bravo Company, began in 2005 — not in battle, since he was never sent off to Iraq or Afghanistan, but with a headfirst fall over a wall on the obstacle course at Fort Benning, Ga. He suffered a head injury and spinal damage.

The injury alone didn't put him in a homeless shelter. Instead, it was military bureaucracy — specifically, the way injured soldiers are discharged on just a fraction of their salary and then forced to wait six to nine months, and sometimes even more than a year, before their full disability payments begin to flow.

"When I got out, I hate to say it, but man, that was it. Everybody just kind of washed their hands of me, and it was like, `OK, you're on your own,'" said Stevens, who was discharged in November and was in a shelter by February. He has since moved into a temporary San Antonio apartment with help from Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization.

Nearly 20,000 disabled soldiers were discharged in the past two fiscal years, and lawmakers, veterans' advocates and others say thousands could be facing financial ruin while they wait for their claims to be processed and their benefits to come through.

Classy, huh?

John Cole at Balloon Juice sums up the FISA flip-flop very well:

Flame away:

“The bill has changed. So I don’t think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people.”

Before, when he accepted the compromise but promised to fight for removing immunity, it was one thing. This is a total collapse and a rapid abandonment of principle. From a voting perspective, nothing really changes. McCain is for it, Hillary would have been, now Obama is. Obama is still the better of the three on a wider range of issues.

As to whether I like it, no. I could understand the politics of supporting the filibuster and voting for the bill, but I don’t understand or accept getting out in front of this piece of shit and giving us more of the same “You can’t handle the truth.” It is a craven capitulation, and failure to support the filibuster tomorrow really is deciding the politics of fear trump “change.” We all know there are threats- the question is one of constitutionality and the Imperial Presidency. We are against it.

This was a test, and Obama is failing. It is of little solace that McCain refuses to show up and Clinton would have, too.

Obligatory Troll Protection: No, I don’t have buyers remorse, yes, he still is better than Hillary or McCain, no, I am not disillusioned (I never thought he was a flaming liberal in the first place). I am, however, disgusted, and I will caution the Obama campaign that “better than McCain” is not much of a rallying cry. We all remember how “anything is better than Bush” turned out in 2004.

Oh Jon Stewart, you national treasure, you:

Finally! John K. Wilson writes on the Huffington Post:

This week, one attack by John McCain on Barack Obama has become an article of unquestioned faith repeatedly declared in the mainstream media: that Obama broke a promise to accept public financing in the general election. There’s only problem with this claim by the press: it is demonstrably untrue and fully refuted by the facts. Yet the mainstream press has been nearly unanimous in falsely claiming that Obama had broken a promise to take public financing.

...Even progressives fell into this trap. Rachel Maddow declared on June 20 that his stand was "a reversal from his previous position." Joan Walsh of Salon.com proclaimed that Obama "flip-flopped on campaign finance law."(Race to the White House, June 20) Nick Baumann of Mother Jones wrote, "Obama is making a politically expedient decision and essentially going back on his ‘Yes’ answer to a questionnaire that asked whether he would forgo private financing if his opponents did the same."

So what’s the truth. Below is every single case I could find reporting in the media about Obama’s comments on public financing:

1. Even in February 2007, before Obama’s massive fundraising became evident, Obama’s staffers were explicit in stating that public financing in the general election was an "option" and not a commitment.

2. The March 2, 2007 New York Times reported Obama’s campaign saying that he would "aggressively pursue an agreement."

So from the very beginning, the Obama campaign stated over and over again that public financing in general election would require an extensive agreement that went beyond merely having both parties accept the funding.

3. In response to a November 2007 questionnaire to the Midwest Democracy Network and Common Cause, Obama wrote: "My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election....If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

No one could read this answer as suggesting that Obama would accept public financing under any condition. Obama explicitly "requires" a promise by the Republican to adopt a "fundraising truce"–meaning not using the parties or 527s as a way to cheat the system.....

Go read the whole thing. It's very thorough!

Watching my DVR of Countdown, and they're talking about whether Obama will support a filibuster of the new FISA bill when it gets to the Senate.

On one hand, I do want Obama to stand up and do the right thing, because immunity for the telecom firms that just handed over our records to the government sucks.

On the other hand, I want Obama to do and say whatever it takes to get elected.

Am I just a craven cynic?

Can't say it any better than Juan Melli at BlueJersey did, so here you go:

Remember Congo, the dog that was sentenced to death last year for attacking a landscaper? The single most important issue for New Jerseyans?

Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton said the governor's office has received 10,000 telephone calls, e-mails, letters and faxes about Congo, more than any other issue since the governor took office. Corzine hasn't got involved, except to say that he's going to leave the matter to the courts.

They succeeded. Sure, the state was still unaffordable, thousands of children lacked health care and reports of corruption continued to elicit a collective shrug, but at least Congo was spared. Congratulations, New Jersey.

Congo the German shepherd attacked again -- this time a member of his owners' family.

As a result, the local couple who fought a successful high-profile campaign to spare their beloved Congo from a death sentence after he mauled a landscaper on their property last year had Congo and three of their other dogs euthanized Wednesday morning after the dogs attacked a relative visiting their home Tuesday, authorities said.

In the latest incident, Congo was one of four dogs that attacked 75-year-old Constance Ladd, the mother of one of the dogs' owners, Elizabeth James, police detective Sgt. Ernie Silagyi said Wednesday.

Ladd had puncture wounds and lacerations to the top of her head, chest and right forearm and injured her hip when she fell to the ground as the dogs pounced on her, Silagyi said.

This isn't really about Congo, nor is the purpose to point fingers or assign blame. There's nothing wrong with people lobbying their government for perceived justice. But how do we explain a state whose people will write letters and make phone calls for one dog, but ignore what are arguably much more pressing issues?

As Dennis Miller said once (before he went insane), "I've seen people step over fellow human beings lying in their own piss to spit on someone wearing chinchilla."

I concur. A little frickin' perspective, huh?

Maybe the key to winning the election this year is follow McCain around with a camera and hope he kicks a kitten...

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That's because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John's and a Kmart, will be a "pro-life pharmacy" -- meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients' rights against those of health-care workers who assert a "right of conscience" to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.

"The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience -- that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society, a Chicago public-interest law firm that is defending a pharmacist who was fined and reprimanded for refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. "Every pharmacist has the right to do the same thing," Brejcha said.

But critics say the stores could create dangerous obstacles for women seeking legal, safe and widely used birth control methods.

"I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."

To paraphrase Al Gore from the other night, if you're a young woman who can't find birth control at your local pharmacy, you know elections matter.

"No" to Further Offshore Drilling

As predicted, Bush and McCain and their cohorts are responding to $4 a gallon gas by urging that more federal land and offshore rights be available for oil drilling. This makes no sense because:

First, the crude oil market is global. Oil companies sell all over the world. The price of crude is established by global supply and demand. So even if 3 million additional barrels a day could be extruded from lands and seabeds of the United States (that sum is the most optimistic figure, after all exploration is done), that sum is tiny compared to 86 million barrels now produced around the world. In other words, even under the best circumstances, the price to American consumers would hardly budge.

Second, whatever impact such drilling might have would occur far in the future anyway. Oil isn't just waiting there to be pumped out of the earth. Exploration takes time. Erecting drilling equipment takes time. Getting the oil out takes time. Turning crude into various oil products takes time. According the the federal energy agency, if we opening drilling where drilling is now banned, there'd be no significant impact on domestic crude and natural gas production until 2030.

Third, oil companies already hold a significant number of leases on federal lands and offshore seabeds where they are now allowed to drill, and which they have not yet fully explored. Why then would they seek more drilling rights? Because they want more leases now, when the Bushies are still in office. Ownership of these parcels would serve to to pump up their balance sheets even if no oil is pumped.

Last but by no means least, environmental risks are still significant.

So basically, there isn't enough oil to make it worth the environmental hazard; it wouldn't affect gas prices for decades; and why don't the oil companies explore the leases they already have?

There are your talking points. Go out and spread 'em. I'll be here with cocoa when you get back.

To read: Ann Woolner's Bloomberg News column about what the recent Supreme Court decision re Gitmo prisoners and their right to habeas corpus actually means:

The accused has no lawyer. He doesn't know much about the allegation against him, the evidence to support it or the name of his accuser.

Whatever proof of innocence exists probably won't make it to the three judges deciding his fate.

The rules say the judges must presume the government's evidence valid. They can consider something someone told another person, according to someone else, who was told of it by yet another person who heard it from someone claiming to have seen it with his own eyes.

Oh, and by the way, the judges can also take into account information obtained through coercion, even torture.

So it is for Guantanamo Bay detainees trying to shed the unlawful enemy combatant label given them by the U.S. military to justify their indefinite detentions. Some of the 270 detainees have by now been kept behind bars for six years.

This is what happens at their Combatant Status Review Tribunal, a process created in 2004 after the U.S. Supreme Court forced the administration to do SOMETHING to cull the innocent from the hundreds of aliens suspected of connections to the Taliban or al-Qaeda.

If, in spite of all the advantages given the government at the CSRT, the judges decide it failed to prove that the man is, indeed, an enemy combatant, the judges may have to explain why to their boss, who could order a do-over.

That's if the detainee wins that first hearing, the CSRT.

If he loses, he can appeal and get a lawyer, finally. And if the lawyer finds proof of his innocence? Too late. New evidence isn't allowed.

Oh Jon Stewart, I love you like a lovable loving loved one.

From the New York Review of Books, forwarded to me by a real-life friend. Extremely informative and detailed article about his career, how the maverick myth was born, and how the Democrats can challenge him on the issues. A must-read, folks!

Found via Jossip.com: Fight the Smears. Got friends forwarding you stupid blog posts and ugly rumors about the Obamas? Send them to Fight the Smears!

I will so be donating money to this worthy cause later today.

You know, theferrett mentioned the whole gory story yesterday. (I will not be recounting the exact terminology here, because I think this phrase should have died on the vine by now.) And yes, I'm almost willing to believe that Faux News are so lily-white and completely out of touch, that they simply thought it sounded funny and no one gave any consideration to the racist sexist (sexist!!!) connotations of the phrase.

John Scalzi has, of course, given it a lot more thought and written a better article on it than I could ever have. And it has the best title on the block. (Which, again, I won't be writing out here so I don't get Google-linked to some bizarre racist site.) The title is NSFW, unless your office allows wild random laughter at your desk.

The thing I love about these righties is they just can't admit when they're wrong. They can't just say, "Oh, God, sorry!" And then we can all move on. No, they have to try to convince you that they were completely in the right, torturing logic all along the way.

Although I almost hope this kind of nonsense continues. If they keep picking on Michelle Obama, they might sway the women who felt Hillary was being attacked. And if they keep publicly freaking out about OMG THE OBAMAS R LIKE SO BLAK!!! they'll show themselves for the irrelevant idiots they are.

You want specifics for the 2008 campaign? Here you go: a breakdown of how much each of the candidates' policies would affect your tax bill. Ganked from theferrett.

And just like I said, under President McCain, Hubby & my tax bill would be at least $2000 less. Still goes down under President Obama, but not as much as McCain.

Finally, we have something that's fair and balanced.

From Talking Points Memo:

Obama Says He's Partnering With Elizabeth Edwards On Health Care

By Greg Sargent - June 9, 2008, 1:42PM

Obama's speech in Raleigh launching his economy tour is underway, and towards the end, during a discussion of health care, he drops a surprise aside that wasn't in the speech's prepared remarks:

"By the way, I'm going to be partnering with Elizabeth Edwards, we're going to be figuring all this out."

More on this when we can establish the details.

Late Update: The key political context here, of course, is that back in April, Elizabeth revealed that Obama's health care plan wasn't her favorite. Enlisting her as a public voice on health care could obviously help with the Obama camp's outreach to women and help win over skeptics in general.

Late Late Update: For an idea of just how effective Elizabeth Edwards might be as a surrogate on health care for Obama and against McCain, take a look at this take-down by Elizabeth of McCain's plan.

I think Elizabeth Edwards is mega-cool, and if she can campaign for him, she'd be excellent! (Her health permitting, of course, Gods willing.) And hopefully this might help smooth the waves with the Clintonites. Pleeeeeeease God.

For all you die-hard feminists who feel you must vote for McCain instead: this is the kind of man you're supporting. From the Daily Mail:

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later....

...In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage....

...But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

Jill Porter from the Philadelphia Daily News puts forward the pro-Bama vote argument perfectly!

I HAVE a suggestion for the enraged Hillary Clinton supporters who plan to vote for John McCain to protest her failure to win the nomination.

Try this instead: Proceed to the kitchen, select a knife and plunge it into your chest.

Same difference.

Only you won't be taking the rest of us with you.

Yes, this from a fervent Hillary Clinton supporter.

Voting for John McCain is like holding your breath until you die to punish your parents - a really shortsighted act of self-destruction.

If McCain wins, your children will continue to be killed in Iraq. Your family will continue to be without health care. Your employer, the hedge-fund tycoon, will continue to pay less taxes than you do.

If McCain wins, self-righteous hacks in state legislatures will decide whether you or your daughter have to carry a fetus to term, even if you or she could die in the process.

Is that the kind of world you want to live in? ...

... "No one who embraces Hillary Clinton's values and accomplishments could seriously support John McCain for president," said Kathryn Kolbert, the Philadelphia lawyer who argued the 1992 Casey abortion case before the Supreme Court. She now heads People for the American Way.

"When Clinton supporters understand what it would mean for them and their daughters to live with a Bush-McCain Supreme Court for the next 20 years, the idea of backing McCain will be unthinkable."...

Please God, people, really, think about what you're doing.

I just suggested this to Hubby: why not offer Hillary Secretary of Health and Human Services, in the future Obama cabinet?

Sure, it's not as glamorous as State or Justice. But she seems truly passionate about people's health and welfare, particularly for children. She could do a lot in this position, even more than in a Democratically-controlled Congress.

So does she want fame, or does she really want to make a meaningful impact on the lives of millions of Americans?