Huffington Post frontpage

The real question about Hillary is this: When people take a new look at her in the coming years, will they see the past or the future — Mrs. Clinton or Madam President? – Maureen Dowd

IT’S A classic front page from Huffington Post, coupled with a post by Jason Linkins, which details what’s been going on. There’s also another brand of “Hillsteria” that belongs to the Hillary derangement divas and jackals, the president of that club being Maureen Dowd.

It’s as if Maureen Dowd feels that since William Safire is in the grave she’s got to carry his venomous torch and channel his unhinged Nixonian legacy through her writing.

The New York Times’s Ms. Pearls has always had the oddest sort of feminism fetish. When she did her so-called relationship book, her research was gathered from people in cubicles around her or a phone call away. What she knows about marriage you could fit in a tweet. The ever acid Bush fluffer has never quite been able to understand that a married feminist like Hillary Rodham Clinton would be proud to be called Mrs. Clinton, which doesn’t take away from her rescuing the State Department from the dung heap of President W. and Dick Cheney, any more than it diminishes putting women on the map where America’s foreign policy is concerned.

And leave it to Ms. Pearls to have the ears of the “top Democrats” who “worry” about — wait for it — Hillary’s “old insecurities,” because she’s willing to do “anything to win.” Yes, bitches, it’s back to the past, though we all knew we were going to get there soon enough.

Even top Democrats who plan to support Hillary worry about her two sides. One side is the idealistic public servant who wants to make the world a better place. The other side is darker, stemming from old insecurities; this is the side that causes her to make decisions from a place of fear and to second-guess herself. It dulls her sense of ethics and leads to ends-justify-the-means wayward ways. This is the side that compels her to do anything to win, like hiring the scummy strategists Dick Morris and Mark Penn, and greedily grab for what she feels she deserves. – Maureen Dowd

Even putting aside that I laid out in historic detail what the guys did to win in 2008 in my book, it’s remarkable that the thought of Mrs. Clinton running for president again sends Ms. Pearls into orbit, wondering how any woman could be as aggressive as any man seeking the presidency.

Twisted by Hillsteria derangement, Ms. Dowd sees the man as assertive and showing conviction, while Hillary’s ambition “dulls her sense of ethics” leading her to an “ends-justify-the-means” desperation.

She won’t call Hillary an ambitious shrew who’s only in her position because of her husband and she can’t get away from him, which is why all of America won’t ever be able to see Hillary as “Madam President.” As Dowd sees it, Hillary’s forever shackled by her husband, because whatever Bill Clinton did is his wife’s fault, because a good woman controls her man.

It’s all tied up in Dowd’s gooey feminine mystique web.

Dowd coupling Dick Morris with Hillary twenty years after her president husband hired him is the giveaway of her Safiresque desperation. The comparison to Mark Penn apt only if you compare his 2008 campaign ineptitude to the Watergate burglary.

The “top Democrats” inclusion is simply a Washington – New York pastime and a golden oldie technique Ms. Pearls can’t resist. At least she didn’t start her column off with “will she run or won’t she?” that shows she’s at least a step ahead of Beltway variety vapidness.

“Greedily grab,” however, is important and gives Maureen Dowd away, thanks to Sheryl Sandberg laying out why eviscerating a woman for what a man would be applauded for doing is holding women out of leadership positions.

It also reveals why we still don’t have a female president today.

If the most qualified female politician in modern times is going to be characterized, in the New York Times no less, as being greedy for being willing to fight for the presidency, there’s little hope we’ll ever see a woman in office as long as Maureen Dowd’s brand of Hillsteria is given one whit of importance.

It’s only relevance today is to unmask the sabotage that women looking to take on top leadership roles have to combat.

Hillary Clinton is being preemptively vilified for possibly being called Mrs. Clinton if she won the presidency, when we all know what would happen if she weren’t married at all. If she had divorced Bill, can you imagine the emotional caterwauling over a divorced, wronged woman in the White House and what it would mean? Would she date or not? Can America elect a divorced woman? What message would that send to young women?

But what do we do about this woman’s ambition, should she decide to run in 2016?

How dare a woman seek the presidency with the same fierce determination of a man!

How dare a female with a resume of secretary of state, New York senator, first lady of the United States for two terms, lawyer, and on and on unapologetically demand to be taken seriously. How dare she stand up and fight for the position of president, because she believes she’s the best person for the job, just like any man.

No, we can’t have a woman running for office with the same ferocity as a man. But we especially can’t have that woman who, like any man, would do anything to win, which would worry top Democrats.

It’s all just too unladylike to imagine.

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Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there.” – Susan Patton’s Marriage Advice for College Women

THERE ARE way too many well-educated, well-meaning professional women these days giving relationship advice that simply don’t know what they’re talking about. Susan Patton is simply wrong. Getting married later is great for college-educated women. Patton’s “MRS. degree” thinking is not supported by the facts.

An “MRS. degree” was what women were once told to do when entering college. At least Patton didn’t tell the women to quit college once they found their man.

S.E. Cupp joined in and backed up Patton’s thinking, focusing on what she seems to think is an anti-feminist notion regarding marriage. Cupp joined Patton in being wrong on relationships, not only on the facts, but her ideologically based monologue on marriage didn’t even get the history on Gloria Steinem right, revealing Cupp doesn’t even know the basics on feminism either.

I’m for marriage for everyone, if that’s what the two people involved want. I was a relationship consultant at the dawn of online ads, starting with personals, back in the mid-90s, and helped many people get married, many of them feminists. I had a relationship column before most had even thought about writing on the web. It’s too bad most everyone else hasn’t done any homework on the subject.

Many feminists value marriage and want to get married. Modern women just want our marriage to be an equal one, which was the case long before Sheryl Sandberg wrote Lean In. Our careers are important and we see no reason our husbands can’t do their full 50% of everything, including domestic duties. My brother was doing that well over 30 years ago. Somewhere along the line feminism became synonymous with Super Woman.

Statistics reveal that delaying marriage is not only a good idea, it’s one of the reasons the divorce rate has steadily declined. Delaying marriage is especially good for women financially. The recent study from Knot Yet, the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, and the RELATE Institute, provides some interesting data, which has been covered from the Washington Post to Slate to the Atlantic to the New York Post and Fox News, and beyond. The goal of Knot Yet is to prevent unplanned and teen pregnancies.

Women enjoy an annual income premium if they wait until 30 or later to marry. For college-educated women in their midthirties, this premium amounts to $18,152.

Delayed marriage has helped to bring down the divorce rate in the U.S.since the early 1980s because couples who marry in their early twenties and especially their teens are more likely to divorce than couples who marry later.

Married men, however, benefit financially if they marry younger, the opposite of women.

So, Susan Patton’s advice to Princeton women is not only playing right into the stereotype, so is S.E. Cupp, whose opining from an ideological view. Ms. Patton is also playing Ivy League mom, with two sons, giving sexist advice to the Princeton female students like, “we have almost priced ourselves out of the market.”

That isn’t the problem at all. But let’s say it was. Is Patton really going to suggest that Princeton women embrace the feminine mystique, starting with walking away from financial independence and leadership roles that will sometimes mean women make more than their husbands? Is the answer from people like Patton to secure men’s financial prowess, not women’s?

The real challenge for college-educated women is that many are still trying to figure out how to have a child if they wait until later, with many deciding, even if they don’t have a husband, they should jump into motherhood without one. Single parenting for women in their 20s, is a very, very bad idea. But it is becoming the norm.

By age 25, 44 percent of women have had a baby, while only 38 percent have married; by the time they turn 30, about two-thirds of American women have had a baby, typically out of wedlock. Overall, 48 percent of first births are to unmarried women, most of them in their twenties. [Knot Yet]

The notion that women can have kids, have a career and do it all by themselves has somehow been forwarded as an easy thing, a positive decision that doesn’t come with consequences. Feminism never promised that we could “have it all,” and I say this as someone whose feminism was forged in the era of Gloria Steinem. We were only promised the hope of the same opportunities as men, but we haven’t even managed that, because American society can’t seem to swallow that if women are going to have equal career opportunities, but also be in charge of giving birth to the next generations, something’s got to give. The only thing left is for men to do more, which actually equates to their full 50%. It’s why Sandberg’s book has made people’s head explode.

Back to women having kids alone, from Knot Yet on Slate:

This would not be such a big deal except for the fact that many of these twentysomethings are drifting into parenthood, becoming moms and dads with partners they don’t think are fit to marry or at least ready to marry.

The part I highlighted is the money item.

Low-income women are doing the same thing! They’re having children, because they’re afraid the guy cannot measure up, including financially, but they also don’t have any positive role models for marriage. From a UCLA study:

“Why are low-income women postponing marriage but having babies?” Karney asked. “Because they don’t want to get divorced. They think if they marry their current partner, they are likely to get divorced — and couples that have financial strain are much more likely to have marital difficulties. It’s like these women have been reading the scientific journals about marriage; their intuition is absolutely correct.

S.E. Cupp also seems to be completely ignorant about Gloria Steinem’s marriage.

In 2011 Maria Shriver talked with Ms. Steinem for Interview, digging into the details of why she married when she did.

SHRIVER: What made you decide to get married for the first time at the age of 66?

STEINEM: I didn’t suddenly find marriage at 66. I have had men in my life who are still men in my life . . . I mean, David [Bale, whom Steinem married in 2000] and I wanted to be together, and we loved each other, but getting legally married had much more to do with his need for a green card— and that’s not to in any way diminish our love for each other. It’s just there would have been no other reason to get legally married.

SHRIVER: So it wasn’t that you just said, “Wow. I want to marry this man. I want to be married.”

STEINEM: No. Why would I do that? I mean, why get married at 66?

SHRIVER: Why wouldn’t you do that? People do it all the time. They say, “I’ve found this person and I want to make a declaration of my love for them and to formalize it by getting married.”

STEINEM: Well, after 66 years of not doing that, it didn’t occur to me that a piece of paper would make a difference.

SHRIVER: Did it?

STEINEM: It made only one very important difference, which is that after David became ill, he could be on my insurance.

As for Susan Patton, she isn’t interested in relationship facts on any level.

In general, couples who wait till their midtwenties or later enjoy more maturity and financial security, both factors that make it easier to sustain a lifelong marriage. [source]

Marriage is good for women and for men.

That’s especially true for college-educated women when they delay marriage.

The challenge is that women who delay marriage haven’t figured out how to fit children in, too, because statistics prove having children outside marriage doesn’t work well. If you’re a woman of means you can manage being a single parent, because you can throw money at the challenge. However, for the majority of women, fitting in children amid a career is rough, because you can’t do it without men stepping up more.

It’s really remarkable that a book like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In wasn’t written earlier. But until more high powered women started dropping out, most noticeably seen through Anne-Marie Slaughter, people hadn’t looked at the obvious. That it took a woman of means like Sandberg to urge her economic sisters to lean in, as well as those who have supportive feminist husbands, which can only help everyone else down the economic chain. This seems obvious, but it’s only made women mad, while they pick at the flaws. It’s so typical of what has dogged the feminist revolution. There always has to be one-size fits all solutions. Sandberg’s model doesn’t apply to everyone, they harp, so it’s wrong.

Until feminists and American culture shift on the basic reality that for women to be equal, while also being in charge of giving birth to the next generation, men have to step up more, we’re going to keep having the same conversation and getting nowhere.

Of course we need policy shifts, in the corporate and government worlds, but without more women in leadership this won’t happen. It’s the missing link and why Sheryl Sandberg is right when she wrote that the feminist revolution has stalled. But the answer isn’t dropping out, doing the lecture circuit, while bemoaning policy from the outside, which won’t get it done politically.

We don’t have enough women pushing the leadership barriers and sticking around once they get there to make the difference. Bailing out and asking for someone else to solve these challenges hasn’t worked for the last 30 years and won’t in the next 30, unless women who know the problem intimately are in positions of power to push the policies through.

Susan Patton’s prescription won’t change a thing and neither will S.E. Cupp’s ideological opining.

It’s not about an MRS. degree.

Men still run the world, so it should be obvious that they’re not going to get it done for women. All these years after the feminist revolution began we still don’t have career or economic equality. We have to do it ourselves. We just can’t do it alone.

Paid paternity leave, like paid maternity leave, may sound like a pipe dream, but states (New Jersey, California) and big companies (Ernst & Young, Bank of America) are increasingly offering it and financing it out of their own pocket. They have a vested interest in lobbying Congress to federalize the costs of these accommodations. And that seems only fair. After all, unleashing the full potential of the second sex benefits not only this handful of players but the entire U.S. economy, too. – LEAN IN, DAD [New York Times]

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“Norma Rae is a survivor and for the first time in her life she’s got a chance to become something more… a winner.” – Promo for “Norma Rae”

CRITICS like Anne-Marie Slaughter, but especially Maureen I-Love-My-Pearls Dowd, and others [most of whom didn't read the book or do their homework] who are blaming Sheryl Sandberg for being a billionaire Ivy League graduate, while accusing her of letting corporations and government off the hook, are missing a major point. Unless women speak up and confront their bosses and reach out to congressional representatives as well, nothing will change.

Sandberg’s got a sister in Norma Rae, Lily Ledbetter, too. She also had good advice from a man.

“First he said, ‘Sheryl, don’t be an idiot.’ Which is excellent career advice,” Sandberg said. The year was 2001. Schmidt had just become CEO of Google, when the company had fewer than 1,000 employees. “But the next thing he said was, ‘If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, get on, don’t ask what seat.’ [ABC News]

Being a charter member of the modern feminist revolution, there when it began in the 1970s, no one ever told me I could even have it all, which I’ve written about before. Choices had to be made when I was coming up. Sandberg’s another generation, younger than myself or Anne-Marie Slaughter, so it’s absolutely critical that being part of a younger generation she make the argument that women are going to have to lean in to get what hasn’t yet manifested. My hope is that Sandberg has the toughness and power to push the women’s revolution forward, which is definitely stuck, something that’s been proven by Anne-Marie Slaughter and other Sandberg critics.

Sandberg should welcome the controversy and luckily for modern women, she is. It’s better than the usual “women can’t have it all” or “we can’t have it all yet” mantra, which utilizes arguments that take the power away from women and put it in government or corporation hands, which amounts to making us all powerless, except to whine.

No one ever said it would be easy.

From the Introduction of Sandberg’s Lean In:

Women face real obstacles in the professional world, including blatant and subtle sexism, discrimination, and sexual harassment. Too few workplaces offer the flexibility and access to child care and parental leave that are necessary for pursuing a career while raising children. Men have an easier time finding the mentors and sponsors who are invaluable for career progression. Plus, women have to prove themselves to a far greater extent than men do. And this is not just in our heads. A 2011 McKinsey report noted that men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments. 14

Lean In intends to light up the Norma Rae thread in us all. Rae was powerless, until she harnessed who she was. She was in a hopelessly low paying job, until she dared to join up with a larger force to help her make a difference. She was threatened by the corporation, and The Man, but knew she couldn’t back down or she’d never get what she and others, including men, but also her children, deserved.

Obviously not everyone is Norma Rae. But you don’t have to be an Ivy League billionaire to be one. Speaking out is part of leadership, no matter the level, because leadership isn’t a class issue, it’s a matter of heart.

There will always be women who can’t stand up, because they have no power in their job and feel oppressed, perhaps because they’re a minority or for other reasons. No one is denying this fact. However, those who have the opportunity to create an avenue to start change rolling have a responsibility to themselves and all other women to do so.

It’s how the women’s revolution got started in the first place. Progress demands we all be part of a greater drive, which is exactly what Sandberg wants to inspire.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is a terrifically bright woman who was important to the foreign policy hierarchy at the top levels. But she has to take responsibility for deciding to give it all back, because she wanted to go home. That’s her choice, but what she did after making her choice is offer the same old rhetoric that has gotten modern women exactly nowhere.

Sandberg’s book was just published Monday, so I’ve obviously not finished it yet, because I wasn’t privy to a review copy [see note below]. But in all the research and reading I’ve done on the subject prior to its publication, material I’ve already digested about Lean In, including Sandberg’s own words, minus the Lean In groups on which I don’t intend to comment, everything I’ve learned so far about her message is on the money. I’ll let you know more when I’ve combed through her book thoroughly.

When you compare Sandberg’s message to the “we can’t have it all yet” chant, which depends on outside forces being the catalysts instead of women, you likely can understand why I jumped on board so quickly. For my entire life I’ve always believed that each of us individually need to be the change in our own life, demanding what it is we want. I’ve never had Ivy League, billionaire status, but I’ve empowered myself against all odds.

“Everyone knows marriage is the biggest personal decision you make. But it’s the biggest career decision you make.” – Sheryl Sandberg

Sandberg said the quote above in her “60 Minutes” interview, something I’ve been saying for years. For career women, nothing is more critical to whether we can succeed in our life’s work. It’s something I’ve advised women over and over again when doing relationship columns. It’s why my first book was dedicated to my husband Mark, because no one has been more instrumental in aiding me in my work than he has been.

Women won’t get the treatment we deserve, the recognition, the money, or power equal to men, let alone economic equality, if we quit and go home when the sacrifices towards progress become too tough.

We’re all in this together.

An excerpt from Sandberg’s introduction is below [numbers are footnotes], a vision that makes the case that American women are the leaders the world needs and that we can no longer wait for government and corporations to react and put women in leading positions. Women must lean in and take the stage wherever we can.

The blunt truth is that men still run the world. Of the 195 independent countries in the world, only 17 are led by women. 3 Women hold just 20 percent of seats in parliaments globally. 4 In the United States, where we pride ourselves on liberty and justice for all, the gender division of leadership roles is not much better. Women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States in the early 1980s. 5 Since then, women have slowly and steadily advanced, earning more and more of the college degrees, taking more of the entry-level jobs, and entering more fields previously dominated by men. Despite these gains, the percentage of women at the top of corporate America has barely budged over the past decade. 6 A meager twenty-one of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. 7 Women hold about 14 percent of executive officer positions, 17 percent of board seats, and constitute 18 percent of our elected congressional officials. 8 The gap is even worse for women of color, who hold just 4 percent of top corporate jobs, 3 percent of board seats, and 5 percent of congressional seats. 9 While women continue to outpace men in educational achievement, we have ceased making real progress at the top of any industry. This means that when it comes to making the decisions that most affect our world, women’s voices are not heard equally.

Progress remains equally sluggish when it comes to compensation. In 1970, American women were paid 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. By 2010, women had protested, fought, and worked their butts off to raise that compensation to 77 cents for every dollar men made. 10 As activist Marlo Thomas wryly joked on Equal Pay Day 2011, “Forty years and eighteen cents. A dozen eggs have gone up ten times that amount.” 11

TM NOTE: As a way of disclosure in a sponsor-driven content world, which I wrote about Monday, I paid for Sandberg’s book “Lean In” myself, have no connection with Ms. Sandberg, and have received no benefit from writing anything about this book. Additionally, unless specifically stated, no one on this site is receiving payment for providing sponsored content.

The post What Critics of Sheryl Sandberg are Missing: Norma Rae, Lily Ledbetter Heroism appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Great sex doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes, it takes a little planning, especially if — like many Americans — you’ve been in a bit of a sex rut. Do some prep work by turning your bedroom into a love nest: Make the bed (with new, or at least clean, sheets), tidy up, light a candle or two, and queue up a sexy playlist on your iPod. If you do go out to dinner, don’t overindulge, and hit the sack early so you’re not too tired for intimacy. – Do you have great ‘sexpectations’ for Valentine’s Day?

“IT’s EVEN better when you help,” teased Lauren Bacall.

It certainly is and that goes both ways.

For guys it can often start with chocolate or flowers, maybe a single flower if you’re on a budget. For girls it really begins with making sure you actually tell your lover what you want, what you expect. Making anyone guess in this day and age is nuts.

A surprise can go both ways and not always good either.

For most, sex is on the menu, but I’d include connection and intimacy as well, especially for new couples, couples in a sex rut, or people who just want to go out and mingle. It’s actually good for your health.

That means at any age sex is a good, even important, component that age shouldn’t change. Take a cue from the video below… “Intimately involved… intimately interested…”

But please watch the sexting! Watch the temptation to let it all hang out on Facebook, which is never a good idea. Beware of the difference between being brave and being stupid, because tomorrow is another day and you don’t want to step out on Valentine’s Day and end up falling off a cliff.

As for the “Galentine” business geared to Christian singles, whatever works, but it sounds terribly over exercised to me and I spent most of my life single, a church goer, but preferred something else.

Picking a movie, having a favorite glass of wine or even bubbly, with a bit of chocolate, always did it for me. But then, I loved being single and Valentine’s Day was just another opportunity to celebrate my freedom and happiness. I’d call my hooked up gal pals to make sure they’d telegraphed to their man their sweet expectations (or sexpectations).

And, ladies, if you are completely turned off, maybe today is a good day to think about turning yourself back on.

Once Mark and I fell in love, well… many a Valentine’s Day we’re both so busy, so we celebrate early, like we did this past weekend. We’ve both got 15 hour days today, so he’ll likely crash early, because he was up at 4:30 a.m. for work, while I’m in the midst of a big project, so I am distracted and focused and humming.

It’s a commercial day, but there’s always a way to use it as an excuse to think about your life, because we all live alone, even when we’re in love, married or in relationship. Maybe the most important thing you can do for yourself today is ask yourself if you’ve got the life you want. It harkens back to my trademarked relationship column back in the mid-90s, What Do You Want?

If you don’t have what you want, do something about it. That’s an important Valentine’s Day present that will resonate well beyond today and is something only you can give yourself.

The post Valentine’s Day at the Movies… and “Sexpectations” [Videos] appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

“You Don’t Own Me” PSA -Official from You Don't Own Me on Vimeo.

WHO DOESN’T know the song “You Don’t Own Me,” sung by Leslie Gore? The movie First Wives Club helped to reignite the relevancy of the song. Now a PSA has been done for 2012, with a bunch of great gals lip-syncing to it.

Paper Magazine [h/t Garance Franka Ruta]:

Sarah Sophie Flicker got together some of her lady friends (including those mentioned above) to make a Get Out the Vote video focusing on women’s issues in this election and encouraging voters to support President Obama on November 6th. Flicker writes in an email:

A bunch of us gals, including Maximilla Lukacs, Tavi Gevinson, Alia Penner, Tennessee Thomas, Alexa Chung, Rebecca Fernandez, Leith Clark, Erika Spring, Karen Elson and I had all been horrified by the news, the repeated attacks on women’s rights, and the anti-women sentiment pouring out from the GOP generally. We decided we wanted to make a PSA.

Personally, I’m struck by the fact that we are teetering dangerously close to a situation where my daughter won’t have the same rights I’ve enjoyed my entire life and that scares the heck out of me. Women constituted 60% of last elections voters. We can win this thing. We just have to agitate, motivate, and get out the darn vote! And the best part? Lesley Gore herself endorsed the message.

I’ve always been repulsed by the political talking point that a woman’s body is considered a “social issue.” According to whom? Men. And women who have been seduced into believing their decisions are right for every other woman.

Naming the discussion over women’s self-determination a “social issue” is how politicians get away with instituting criminally inhumane policy. It’s patriarchal at its core, an affront to women’s freedoms and right to self-determination at its foundation.

To the ladies in the video, brava, and thank you.

Alexa Chung
Alia Shawkat
Amy Rose Spiegel
Ana Calderon
Anna Fitzpatrick
Arrow and Ada
Barb Morrison
Becky Stark
Brodie Lancaster
Brooke Williams
Carlen Altman
Carrie Brownstein
Cassie Carello
Chapin Sisters
Courtney Hall
Courtney Martin
Elle Wagner
Erika Spring
Hannah Johnson
India Menuez
Judith Iocovozzi
Kate Nash
Kate Urcioli
Katy Goodman
Kime Buzzelli
Krista Bachmeier
Kristina Uriegas
Leah Siegel
Lena Dunham
Lesley Gore
Lisa Mayock
Lucy Moffatt
Madelyne Beckles
Mae Whitman
Mallyce
Maria Valencia
Meg Olsen
Melissa Coker
Mia Moretti & Caitlin Moe
Mia Lidofsky
Miranda July
Natalia Czajkiewicz
Natasha Lyonne
Petra Collins
Rachel Antonoff
Rain Phoenix
Ruby Karp
Ryan Roche
Sarah Sophie Flicker
Shae Detar
Sia
Sophie Buhai
Tavi
Tracee Ellis Ross

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“Last night I interviewed Jill Stein the presidential candidate for the Green Party on this show. And I confess right now, I should have asked her to just get out of the race.” – Jennifer Granholm, “The War Room” [Current TV]

THE ARGUMENT Jennifer Granholm makes above is a tactic that no longer fits the times. It’s used in the comments around here often. But Ms. Granholm goes further. She states that in her interview with Jill Stein this week she should have asked her to get out of the race, citing Ralph Nader as the example of what can happen. I feel for any Democrat making this plea, I do. But the only “accomplice” in electing Mitt Romney is Barack Obama.

Last night Ms. Granholm’s opening segment was on Caterpillar squeezing its union employees while record profits soar.

“A company that earned a record $4.9 billion in 2011 and $1.586 billion in the first quarter of this year should be willing to help the workers who made those profits for them,” said Timothy O’Brien, president of Machinists Local Lodge 851, which represents the strikers. “Caterpillar believes in helping the very rich, but what they’re doing would help eliminate the middle class.” – At Caterpillar, Pressing Labor While Business Booms

What Ms. Granholm misses is the underlying reason the middle class is at a crossroads in this country and they’re is no protection in sight is that politicians don’t seem to be moved to help them in any concerted or organized way, while unions continue collapsing. One reason is because the one political party that used to be there for them didn’t even nominate the union candidate in Wisconsin up against a governor who made no secret that his goal was busting the rights of workers to collective bargaining. Not even Pres. Obama could be bothered to show up in solidarity.

Jennifer Granholm’s unflinchingly strong stand on these subjects and her coverage of what’s going on at Caterpillar rings out in the deafening silence from the leader of the Democratic Party.

From labor reporter Steve Greenhouse this week in the New York Times:

Despite earning a record $4.9 billion profit last year and projecting even better results for 2012, the company is insisting on a six-year wage freeze and a pension freeze for most of the 780 production workers at its factory here. Caterpillar says it needs to keep its labor costs down to ensure its future competitiveness.

The company’s stance has angered the workers, who went on strike 12 weeks ago. “Considering the offer they gave us, it’s a strike we had to have,” said Albert Williams, a 19-year Caterpillar employee, as he picketed in 99-degree heat outside the plant, which makes hydraulic parts and systems essential for much of the company’s earth-moving machinery.

[...] The showdown, which has no end in sight, is being closely watched by corporations and unions across the country because it involves two often uncompromising antagonists — Caterpillar and the International Association of Machinists — that have figured in many high-stakes labor battles.

“Caterpillar has been a leader in the past 20 years in taking a hard line,” said Richard Hurd, a professor of industrial relations at Cornell. Last winter, Caterpillar locked out about 450 workers at its locomotive plant in London, Ontario, and then closed the factory after the union rejected its demand to cut wages by 55 percent. In the mid-1990s, the company vanquished the United Automobile Workers after a 17-month strike by 9,000 workers at eight factories; the union surrendered and accepted the company’s concession-filled offer.

No one will argue that unions have to modify their tactics and their demands in the global economic environment. But organizing workers remains the only way the middle class will be reinvigorated. Unfortunately, there is no sign that there will be a cooperative effort between unions and business, so the outlook remains very bleak.

Where was Pres. Obama’s Justice Dept. in prosecuting Wall Street crooks? He doesn’t even understand that this would have had the added political benefit of sending a message to voters that he’s their champion.

The youth vote is Pres. Obama’s canary in the voting booth. But young people are too smart to believe in more promises, so are older Democrats, with the charge of “accomplice” dragged out of the dustbin of another time hardly convincing.

Like so many others, Jennifer Granholm is not listening to what disaffected, disappointed and disinterested Democrats and progressives, but also independents, are telling the Democratic Party. (I do not include myself in this group for reasons already stated.) Republicans did the same thing and ended up with a Tea Party wing. Progressives have proven to be too tame for that so far, which is unfortunate, because they’ve aided and abetted Pres. Obama’s squishy centrism.

Ms. Granholm didn’t ask Jill Stein to get out of the election, because Ms. Stein is not the problem.

The post Jennifer Granholm: Sitting the Election Out Will Make You an ‘Accomplice’ in Electing Pres. Romney appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

IN THE GAPING MAW of our leadership vacuum stands Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates, whose resolve, vulnerability and humility inside the vortex of a man made hell revealed what nobody in Congress or either political party has shown in decades. Leadership without regard to anything but his own duty to the people, which included the cops in the eye of volcanic carnage. Over a thousand miles away, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used his voice and the power of his office to challenge the two contenders for the presidency, Pres. Obama and Mitt Romney, to do something besides talk. Don’t hold your breath.

Despite the changes over the past 13 years, Colorado law still prohibits local governments from restricting gun rights in several significant ways. Moreover, gun rights organizations have successfully fought other efforts to restrict access to guns, including blocking a University of Colorado rule prohibiting concealed weapons on campus. People in Colorado are allowed to carry firearms in a vehicle, loaded or unloaded, as long as the gun is intended for lawful uses like personal protection or protecting property. – Colorado Gun Laws Remain Lax, Despite Some Changes

What foreshadowed the calamity on Friday, in a weird instant of synchronistic scheduling, came in the closing moments of last Sunday’s “The Newsroom” episode, when a childish adult soap opera gave way to the real live drama surrounding the shooting of Gabrille Giffords in 2011. In a split second moment where decisions become destiny, the fictional news anchor Will McAvoy listened to his team and refused to follow all of the other news organizations in pronouncing the fate of Rep. Giffords, because every one of them had followed the leader, NPR, who ended up getting it wrong.

Fast forward, inconvenient facts from the New York Times:

Mr. Holmes was detained by the police soon afterward, standing by his white Hyundai. He was identified by the authorities as a former Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado in Denver, and an honors graduate in neuroscience from the University of California, Riverside. He had in the car an AR-15 assault rifle, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun, and a .40 caliber Glock handgun, said Chief Dan Oates of the Aurora police, and all three were believed to have been used inside the theater. Another Glock .40 caliber handgun was recovered inside the theater. Chief Oates said that “many, many” rounds were fired, but that there was no count so far.

In the last 60 days Mr. Holmes had purchased four guns at local gun shops, Chief Oates said. And through the Internet, he bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition: more than 3,000 rounds for the assault rifle, 3,000 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition for the two Glocks, and 300 rounds for the 12-gauge shotgun. The guns were all bought legally, a federal law enforcement official said.

N.R.A. groupies are gathering, as gun safety advocates feel the wind beneath them yet again. Think Progress blares this headline in an ode to the vanquished: Expired Assault Weapons Ban Would Have Covered Rifle Used In Colorado Shooting.

It might have been convincing if they’d used “could” instead of “would,” but even then it’s absolute rubbish.

Assault weapons ban doesn’t ban assault weapons. Banning massive assault clips of tens of bullets won’t really ban them. Both provide a bromide for people ignorant of the gun lobby and firearm industry’s reach and the fact that people can also make a silencer themselves. It’s why people like my husband, a gun expert and someone who has owned some of the most fierce weaponry available, including the most beautiful sniper rifle I’ve ever seen, don’t support this type of legislation. What I’ve learned from him and studying the gun industry is that component parts can always be purchased by those knowing where to get them or just following the gun shows or reading certain newspapers.

That doesn’t mean an effort to confront the N.R.A. isn’t worthy, overdue and important, with the very “banning” efforts worth the energy, if only to send the message, rally ordinary citizens who have a right to live in this country and feel safe without being told they need to be armed. I write this as a gun owner and someone who’s fired an M-16*, as well as other weaponry and who has no intention of living without a firearm in my home ever again. As long time readers know, I encouraged my husband to get a conceal carry permit for his own safety; a man who still has part of a .22 caliber bullet in his gut from when two young thugs confronted him and shot him, an assault from which he almost died, as he was walking away from turning on a customer’s gas in what used to be known as “the projects” in a depressed area of Las Vegas. Every time one of these shootings occurs my husband feels what the recovering victims are going through and we have the same conversation. He loathes the N.R.A. and believes they are way too extreme in their politics.

The N.R.A. operates with political immunity, buying our politicians and rallying the faithful, while citizens who don’t fancy firearms are made to feel sheepish, and act cowardly as a result, while not putting their fury into action by joining one of the groups who combat the N.R.A. every day. Democrats have ducked the assault weapons ban, including Rep. Giffords, for fear of getting voted out of office and not being able to do important other works. People have a choice on whether to amass to stand opposite the N.R.A., offering voter cover for politicians who acknowledge the Second Amendment, but have evolved enough philosophically and politically to understand that in our violently modern world there should be strict enforcement, met by technological advancements like micro-stamping technology, to compel the N.R.A. to be responsible in the new world reality, instead of a chief enabler of societal violence, while marginalizing a silent majority of people who don’t arm themselves out of choice. Who’s representing their rights in Congress or the White House? Why aren’t these Americans demanding representation? Until they do in large numbers nothing will change.

History has also shown that we won’t ever stop the lone gunman determined to kill.

Naming enablers and propagandists of violence matters, like the N.R.A., which continually chooses a path of irresponsibility for capitalism’s sake, with those in the political arena far guiltier than any movie or video game. Anyone saying using the Aurora shooting for “political gains” is shameful is likely in the pocket of the N.R.A. and is employing the plan these advocates always do, which is to shame opponents and make them feel un-American for believing that the Second Amendment wasn’t intended to infringe on their rights to feel safe without being armed.

Sugue to Sean Hannity, who began his radio show on Friday by lecturing everyone not to politicize the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. By the middle of the first hour he was squealing about ABC’s Brian Ross, who made an unvetted, unprofessional snap judgment for which they were forced to apologize, because he coupled the shooter in Aurora with the Tea Party. Hannity immediately attached Ross with “the left,” because in today’s America, everyone chooses their own facts. There is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Ross is associated with “the left,” which barely exists today. The second caller on his show went on a bender, railing against Democrats, bringing the Gabrielle Giffords shooting into the mix, with Hitler brought in for dramatic affect. The next caller raised the issue of gun control in New York City.

Everyone’s reacting, while simultaneously shrugging, what can we do? Who knew? How this could ever happen in a movie theater, let alone 13 miles away from where the Columbine slaughter occurred, is just too much to contemplate. So we don’t.

Meanwhile, anyone want to bet the N.R.A. is marshaling it’s offenses, preparing to go into battle in a public campaign that will include making sure politicians know why their campaign coffers stay full and on whose side they need to be?

The Sunday, cable and radio shows ready to book their segments in timely little allotments, making sure all sides are represented, with no one today having the gravitas to actually lead the conversation with a mission of finding answers to questions and let “balance” fall where it might amid the truth. Across the board there are tortured efforts of false equivalency, as if facts and truth have sides, though today that’s the template.

A guy over at the amusingly named “Reason” site, took aim at the Brady campaign’s reaction to the shooting, then went into a defensive crouch over gun laws, which mimics a lot of reactions on the right.

Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, one of Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyite pals, whom the Washington Post called out in an op-ed yesterday, blamed the carnage on the “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs,” then wondered why no one at the midnight premiere of the movie was armed to take down the assassin. David Weigel responded. It’s why arming teachers and students remains an open campaign. Remember Virginia Tech, they say.

Now let me now get down in the gutter with Sean Hannity and his surreal interview with George Zimmerman, who’s out on $1 million bond after being charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin, through the right of a concealed carry. It’s no coincidence Hannity was the first to speak to Zimmerman, who called him after the shooting, at a time his own attorneys couldn’t reach him. In the interview, exactly as Hannity did Friday on his show, while preening about the importance of keeping politics out of the conversation, when speaking to George Zimmerman, Hannity couldn’t help but single out Al Sharpton, which not only brought politics into the discussion, but race, too, Hannity’s objective. Whether you like Sharpton or not, he’s been overtly active in racial confrontations his entire life, so anyone thinking his being on MSNBC mattered has not been paying attention. That Sean Hannity uses his show for political purposes every day, but that’s okay, reveals his unethical hypocrisy.

George Zimmerman sat emotionless as he talked, with his attorney beside him, but it was Sean Hannity who did most of the talking, leading Zimmerman in the telling of his story, which included some gobsmacking quotes. He didn’t regret anything the night of the shooting. He didn’t regret getting out of the car that fatal night. He would do nothing differently that night. He put words in Trayvon Martin’s mouth, saying the teen threatened him by saying, “You’re going to die tonight [obscenity deleted].” Alleging that Martin then went for his gun. He apologized to the Martin family, too.

Zimmerman also unloaded this obscenity.

“I feel that it was all God’s plan and for me to second guess it or judge it…” – George Zimmerman

God didn’t have a part in the planning Zimmerman’s actions or his killing of Trayvon Martin that left him alive. George Zimmerman may be found not-guilty of second-degree murder, but he’s sure as hell not innocent.

If God was the puppet George Zimmerman thinks She is, you’d have to apply this obscene correlation to the Holmes massacre in Aurora, Colorado, which is offensive on its face.

You’d have to apply it to the Gabrille Giffords shooting, Virginia Tech, Columbine and on and on.

A killer putting himself on the side of his “God,” enabled by Sean Hannity through his use of his media platforms, while he points at Al Sharpton, with the dead African American teen, the actual victim of a man with a concealed carry and a penchant for neighborhood heroism, who took his life, getting a prime time stage to say “he’s not a racist.” Oh, and he would say he was sorry if he did anything wrong, so the media should say they’re sorry to him, too. The killer turned victim by virtue of concealed carry, stand your ground, “self defense.” Not one question about why a man with a concealed carry was so irresponsible as to create the situation that had him getting out of his car to interact with Trayvon Martin in the first place.

This is what passes for “justice” in this country today, splattered across flat screens from one coast to another, while Fox News rakes in the ratings.

And people wonder why the N.R.A. is fearless?

James Holmes, the shooter identified in the Aurora slaughter, is a guy in the social media age who was called an “online ghost” by Mashable editor Lance Ulanoff. Holmes obviously plotted and planned the massacre, methodically booby-trapping his apartment so thoroughly that SWAT didn’t dare enter the door, while evacuating the surrounding neighborhood. In Aurora, bomb experts have disabled a tripwire and an incendiary device rigged to blow on entry, but they’ve got a long way to go.

God doesn’t plan these things, human beings out for blood do.

If you looked at Memeorandum on Friday, the listing of what was trending was filled with right-wing attacks on ABC News that were earned, as well as finger-pointing at “the left,” but the Tea Party is undeserving of becoming the news or the “victim.” They’re a group who has applauded the actions of open carry at political rallies, so there is photographic proof that they’re one of the enablers of threats and violence in our society, though not all Tea Partiers are to blame. There was one single, solitary article challenging leading politicians on guns. By even lauding Bloomberg’s efforts I’m sure someone will bring up his Wall Street ties and what that evilness means, even if it has nothing to do with his efforts on illegal firearms.

From Sean Hannity inserting himself and methodically manipulating the media coverage in the Trayvon Martin murder case to Michele Bachmann’s McCarthyism to ABC’s Brian Ross’s amateur mistake that wrongly tied the Tea Party to the Aurora shooter, juxtaposed against John Sununu saying he wished Pres. Obama would learn to be an American, which was followed by Mitt Romney reciting the word “foreign” multiple times in a speech in reference to the President’s policies, the picture being painted of this country should embarrass us all.

But it won’t. The same political system that has failed us immeasurably, we count all the ways day after day, will limp along throughout this election year, with partisan pom poms distracting people from the inevitable mind numbing outcome that renders results that are always the same: less representation of the people.

When people try to move outside the corrupt political system to challenge the status quo that’s killing this country, because Democratic and Republican leaders have led us to this fate, they’re vilified and arrogantly lectured that everything will be their fault if –insert your favorite candidate here– is not elected. Few stop to consider or try to understand the message these people are sending to partisan fans. They couldn’t possibly have something to say, a clue to what’s gone wrong. The partisan never stops to think that if the politicians offered actual solutions for the people they wouldn’t be losing voters. Independents, squishy as they are because they can’t see any leadership worth supporting, have been the canary in the American democracy mine for decades. Maybe gun safety advocates will start pressuring politicians to do something, so instead of guns being a third rail, as Eliot Spitzer calls it in the video at the top of this column, it will be an issue on which people hinge their vote, so that more independents are created from disaffected Ds and Rs, so something starts to really shift. Because as much as Republicans are in the bag for the N.R.A., Democrats aren’t any better, with the outcome clear.

Twelve dead in Aurora, Colorado, with at 59 wounded and that’s not counting the damaged hearts and minds.

An unarmed African American teen shot dead by a citizen with a concealed carry craving hero worship, instead of leaving the situation to the police.

A teen opens fire in Chardon, Ohio, killing and wounding students.

A shooting rampage at a California Christian university over a tuition dispute.

A teen in Texas turns a gun on a fellow student, with the police having to “take him out.”

A 9-year-old boy brings a .45-caliber handgun to his elementary school and it discharges from inside his backpack, critically wounding another kid.

Another from the Fox News list: “A 6-year-old boy accidentally fired a gun inside Ross Elementary School in Houston, Texas, injuring himself and two other children.”

A 15 year-old shoots another student Martinsville West Middle School in Martinsville, Ind.

In 2006: Eric Hainstock, 15, took a shotgun from his father’s gun cabinet and a .22-caliber revolver from his father’s bedroom to his school in rural Cazenovia, Wis., and fatally shot the principal.

March 21, 2005: With his own .22-caliber handgun, and his grandfather’s Glock handgun and 12-gauge shotgun, Jeff Weise, 16, shot and killed his grandfather, a policeman and his grandfather’s girlfriend at their home, then went to his high school, also on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota, and fatally shot eight people, including himself.

April 24, 2003: James Sheets, 14, shot and killed principal Eugene Segro in the crowded cafeteria at the Red Lion Area Junior High School in south-central Pennsylvania before killing himself. Police determined that Sheets used a key to take three guns from his stepfather’s gun safe.

May 26, 2000: Nathaniel Brazill, 13, killed his English teacher at Lake Worth Community High School in Lake Worth, Fla. According to police, Brazill stole the .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol from his grandfather’s house.

Feb. 29, 2000: A 6-year-old boy from Mount Morris Township, Mich., killed classmate Kayla Rolland, also 6, at Buell Elementary School with a .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun left in an open shoebox. The boy and his mother had been staying at the home of his uncle and his uncle’s friend, Jamelle James, 19. James, who kept the gun in the shoebox, spent 2 1/2 years in prison after pleading no contest to involuntary manslaughter.

The examples above are from one Fox News link. Suck on that, Second Amendment advocates, of which I’m one, except I draw the line at enabling violence promoters, which includes the N.R.A., politicians who pledge allegiance to that group, and any media personality who does their bidding.

Americans just keep going ’round and ’round in the hamster wheel of recurring events, with our yearly tragedies multiplying and bringing moments of silence, prayers and split second moralizing how it’s not guns or politics or men, and it’s certainly nothing that could be wrong with American policies or that people can do something about this.

In God we trust, so it must be “God’s plan,” which is as good an excuse as any to keep from looking at our society, which just keeps spinning further out of control, in a country that can’t feed it’s poor, employ its people, or solve our nation’s problems.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

We’re addicted all right. Addicted to violence against each other, ourselves, our planet, our “enemies,” our friends, our environment, the very world that sustains us and there’s no evidence anywhere that enough people want to get off the merry-go-round we’ve been on for decades to change the direction in which we’re hurling.

Into this stepped Aurora Police Chief Daniel Oates. He reminded everyone of what’s possible in a leader. Watching Gov. John Hickenlooper, whom former Gov. Bill Owens called “the father of Colorado today,” while he worked mightily to frame the words from a mind muddled from lack of sleep, we were seeing a man off script, speaking from the heart and praying the people would translate his message as he barely begins to bring his state back from death’s grip.

The nation watches.

But what will people do about it?

“The gun prohibition people tried to use Gabrielle Giffords and the Trayvon Martin case to get their cause going again, and weren’t particularly successful with that,” he said. At the state level, he added, having fought pitched battles over gun rights since the 1980s, “we’re at a reasonably well settled point,” and “the legislature is not that interested in opening it up again.” Mr. Volokh said the fragmentary information available so far about Mr. Holmes and the attack did not make a strong case for reform. [The New York Times]

*Correction: The weapon referred to here was a registered full-auto M-16, not an AK-47.

Bumped from June 21, 2012.

The post Guns, ‘God’s Plan,’ and Leadership appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

“Rick Doblin has done a lot for the field, but he is more of a populist,” Grob says. “We need careful and controlled scientific studies showing the efficacy of these drugs so funding can continue.” Broader awareness of these sorts of end-of-life psychedelic studies could be good for everyone, the researchers say. “If insurance companies knew about our outcomes, they might get a lot more interested in what we’re doing here.” Griffiths continued: “When you make people less afraid to die, then they’re less likely to cling to life at a huge cost to society. After having such a transcendent experience, individuals with terminal illness often show a markedly reduced fear of dying and no longer feel the need to aggressively pursue every last medical intervention available. Instead they become more interested in the quality of their remaining life as well as the quality of their death.” – How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death, by Lauren Slater

It’s the 21st century, but enlightenment is a long way away.

We were better off and on the launching pad to a higher plain back in the 1960s. Even Richard Nixon believed in national health care and that was over 4 decades ago.

You’ve got to wonder when America will ever grow up. Watching the current bottom-feeder generation of politicians, it doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon.

Candidate Obama promised to keep a hands off policy on medical marijuana outlets. His alter ego, Pres. Obama, has done the opposite.

From Rolling Stone in February 2012, Obama’s War on Pot:

…Back when he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that medical marijuana was an issue best left to state and local governments. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” he vowed, promising an end to the Bush administration’s high-profile raids on providers of medical pot, which is legal in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

But over the past year, the Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi­agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana. With more than 100 raids on pot dispensaries during his first three years, Obama is now on pace to exceed Bush’s record for medical-marijuana busts. “There’s no question that Obama’s the worst president on medical marijuana,” says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “He’s gone from first to worst.”

It’s not all that surprising, but is just another example of the untrustworthy nature of politicians, Barack Obama just being the latest among them.

There is no medical reason to keep marijuana out of the hands of the sick or dying.

What this is about is money.

There isn’t a national politician today who will man the line against moneyed interests on behalf of we the people. Neither Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would dare, both of whom are fueled by the same elite few who control the levers of financial power.

The same reason Pres. Obama did a back room deal with big Pharma, as well as private insurance companies, on health care. It comes down to the issue of no vision, no courage, no larger concept of health care beyond 20th century medicine that is stuck in antiquated means of treating symptoms, while never going beyond, which should include offering a better quality of living for the sick.

I talked about my own journey through an athletic injury recently for Zocalo Public Square, when I utilized a trio of alternative therapies to navigate stratospheric pain, with acupuncture finally showing me the way up and out. None of the alternative avenues were covered by health insurance.

“Sugar Blues” was written decades ago, yet it was some sort of scandal that “60 Minutes” recently did a report that sugar kills. This is not news. We’re stuck on stupid where our own health is concerned, because people won’t even accept that much of it depends on our own lifestyle, behavior and actions.

Doctors aren’t trained on nutrition and prevention, because there’s no money in it. Women face the same challenges with doctors at mid-life, with bio-identical hormones a mystery to most doctors, while being out of reach for many and not covered by insurance. But they offer a sparkling way through the toughest life gateway a girl faces, which threatens her very sexual nature. It’s not a coincidence that marriages falter when women are going through the thunder road hormone journey, while men are desperately clinging to their flagging machismo. Men face similar struggles, but as easy as it is for them to get Viagra, testosterone cremes are equally available.

However, these life chapters are separate from life threatening illnesses or terminal diagnoses.

The first step out of this hamster wheel is medical marijuana. But people actually still believe marijuana is a gateway drug, with infotainment cable shows parroting popular anecdotes made for people who are scared of their own shadows. Gateway drug hocus-pocus is the most preposterously ignorant assumption the uninformed weed trackers have today.

Remember when Rep. Ron Paul was made a laughing stock for his comment on heroin? He was on to something about personal liberties and drugs, with legalization and regulation the answer, even if heroin isn’t the most effective example, unless you’re recovering from invasive surgery and you’re in the hospital and need to mask the post-op pain. We need someone with the courage of Ron Paul, but who also has the integrity of a liberal to acknowledge libertarianism in the modern age also requires a government safety net, because of the corrupt nature of the global economy and concentrated wealth. Someone who is equally respectful that women’s individual liberties cannot be abridged by either ideology, religiosity or out of convenience.

Now comes a fascinating and enlightened article in the New York Times

Grob and his colleagues are part of a resurgence of scientific interest in the healing power of psychedelics. Michael Mithoefer, for instance, has shown that MDMA is an effective treatment for severe P.T.S.D. Halpern has examined case studies of people with cluster headaches who took LSD and reported their symptoms greatly diminished. And psychedelics have been recently examined as treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.

Despite the promise of these investigations, Grob and other end-of-life researchers are careful about the image they cultivate, distancing themselves as much as possible from the 1960s, when psychedelics were embraced by many and used in a host of controversial studies, most famously the psilocybin project run by Timothy Leary. Grob described the rampant drug use that characterized the ’60s as “out of control” and said of his and others’ current research, “We are trying to stay under the radar. We want to be anti-Leary.” Halpern agreed. “We are serious sober scientists,” he told me.

Being “anti-Leary” is always the first step, because if you aren’t take seriously the game is over. As an anti-Leary libertarian, though his philosophy is misogynistic, that’s one thing Ron Paul offered that scared so many zombie Republicans and Democrats, though he remains naive that a safety net in the modern era isn’t foundational to a humane society.

Time Magazine did a story on ecstasy back in 2000, with a section tucked into it that pointed to the same types of properties the Times article is pointing to today.

Sue Stevens, the woman who took it in 1997 with her husband Shane–he has since died of kidney cancer–learned about the drug from a mutual friend of hers and Doblin’s. She believes e helped Shane find the right attitude to fight his illness, and she helps Doblin advocate for limited legal use. Soon his association will help fund the first approved study of MDMA in psychotherapy, involving 30 victims of rape in Spain diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In this country, the FDA has approved only one study. In 1995 Dr. Charles Grob, a ucla psychiatrist, used it as a pain reliever for end-stage cancer patients. In the first phase of the study, he concluded the drug is safe if used in controlled situations under careful monitoring.

Raves, dance clubs and the drinking crowd have taken the healing properties of drugs like ecstasy and MDMA, even marijuana, out of the health equation and put the marketing in the hands of establishment fogies, big Pharma, the government and politicians who don’t care about quality of life for people in the throes of dealing with their own mental crises, and even their very mortality. These same people hounded Dr. Kervorkian through the end of his life, even if all he was doing is helping adults manage their own passing, the most personal of decisions.

The story in the Times is important. It talks about alternative medicine and healing when dealing with the most humbling moments of our life.

When you look at our politics, however, whether it’s Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, as well as the people elected to Congress, there’s absolutely no evidence that an enlightenment epiphany is on the horizon. There is no one with the ethical fortitude to speak for people facing life-shattering illnesses or their own mortality, helping them get options beyond the conventional, which offer no relief in the process of healing or death, let alone a quality of life that allows a person to go out with dignity and grace, with a little laughter on the side.

The post Beyond Timothy Leary and Valley of the Dolls: Psychedelic Drugs and Healing in the 21st Century appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

So much for keep calm and carry on, what Joe Scarborough proclaims to be his motto.

It was the weirdest one-on-one back and forth with a high profile talking head imaginable. It makes high school look mature. It began with a Joe Scarborough blast of venom and didn’t let up until he’d finished unloading.

Just because two people follow each other on Twitter doesn’t give anyone special privileges to assume something that hasn’t been mutually agreed upon. If you want to be off the record, make sure that’s been established.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday. – McConnell: GOP Will Fight To Let ANY Employer Deny Birth Control Coverage

Pres. Obama’s contraceptive mandate has made Republicans lose their minds. They’re in full panic over the prospect of Obama and the Democrats handing women their own Social Security. The demographics of it have them reeling.

Criticizing the elite media is tricky business in Washington, D.C. But media is one of the things I cover. This isn’t a secret. The Hillary Effect, my recently published book, lays out the media’s role during the 2008 election season, as well as recounts Hillary’s 20-year rise.

When you have a conversation with someone in my business it’s on the record unless specified otherwise. I don’t know how anyone could think otherwise. DMs or Direct Messages on Twitter are simply between two individuals following each other; they’re also in writing and a record of the conversation. I talked to no one who disagreed on these facts.

This all began when I cited Joe Scarborough from his show on February 9, in context and accurately, after he made an outrageous comparison on Pres. Obama’s contraception mandate. You can see the discussion starting at around 6:50 in the video above.

“… I think women should be deacons as well as men. But if the federal government, if the Justice Department offers a mandate ordering Southern Baptists to make women deacons, I would be the first to say get the hell out of our business.” – Joe Scarborough (9 February)

While Mr. Scarborough is talking you can see Mika Brzezinski start to question in her own mind what he’s saying, then after he finishes she blanches and replies:

“…This is not a parallel.” – Mika Brzezinski

Joe shot back, “It is a parallel, too.”

Obviously, it’s not. In fact, it’s not even close to a parallel, because the only thing the Obama administration made very clear from the start is that all churches were exempt from his new policy. I’ll let you attorneys argue over why Scarborough decided to bring up a federal female deacon mandate, because it makes absolutely no sense.

After citing Scarborough’s quote in my column, I analyzed the situation like this:

That quote tells you all you need to know about this debate.

Scarborough’s quote above is a good example of the disingenuous nature of the argument being made by religious conservatives. It is one of the most preposterous falsehoods said yet. That Joe Scarborough chose to say it and then defend it reveals how low Republicans will go to make a religious point even if it’s false.

Calling him out on his quote and my analysis of it precipitated 23, 140 character DM exchanges over the weekend, initiated by Joe Scarborough. Oh, and the conversation was ended by Scarborough, too. But only after he was done venting in his final DM outburst. He then un-followed me, take that!

I’m crushed. Really.

Below are the first 2 DMs from Scarborough, no hello, just an attack out of the gate:

Here’s my first response:

Invoking Glenn Beck, we both sound like idiots.

Another one from Scarborough:

Later I even played my Harry card.

I thought it was humorous and Lord knows this travesty needed it.

Everybody makes mistakes and there’s no crime in it. Admit it, correct the record, move on. What you don’t do is dig in. I also don’t understand why in the world Joe Scarborough found this so important that he had to go off over the weekend in a string of insulting DMs.

It’s just too weird for words.

Ms. Brzezinski had challenged him, but the difference with me was that in a one-on-one* conversation I wouldn’t yield the point, because whoever Joe Scarborough thinks he is he is not beyond criticism when he’s wrong.

There was enough misinformation flying over the contraceptive mandate, with the Obama administration not helping at all the way they rolled it out.

I stand by what I sent in my tweet on this column that also included the link to it:

Pres. Obama Knew Firestorm Was Coming on Contraception Mandate. A stunningly dishonest quote from @morning_joe

My last DM to Scarborough, once again bringing it back to the issue, which he wouldn’t addrress.

Mika blanched too when u said it bcuz it was wrong. I called u on it & u won’t admit you were wrong. 1stAmend goes BOTH WAYS, to workers too

16h
Don’t know why u name-call, digg in, epithets instead of admitting what u said was wrong. Ego a dangerous master. Honesty requires humility

He didn’t like that anymore than he liked my Harry Truman witticism.

So now Joe and I both have one less Twitter follower and I won’t be bothered with rude DM rants on my weekend from him, including one coming in at around 4:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.

“Morning Joe” is one of the few shows that acquitted themselves well during the ’08 primary fight, which I cover in my book The Hillary Effect. It’s how I became a regular viewer to the show.

Joe Scarborough plays a nice guy on “Morning Joe” pretty well.

When he’s in alone and you’ve called him out on something he said and he won’t admit he’s wrong, he goes into the old Lee Atwater – Newt Gingrich-style right wing attack playbook. Never admit you’re wrong, because the other person always is, ignore the facts and just keep attacking.

From Scarborough’s “Glenn Beck-like extremism” invective to “those right wing freaks who tried to trample on Muslims’ rights this summer at Ground Zero,” I was the villain. I’m not even sure what the hell he’s talking about on that last Ground Zero Muslim thing and I’m not sure he does either. It makes as much sense as his fantasy federal mandate for female deacons analogy.

Joe Scarborough can be one person on “Morning Joe” and another person when dealing one-on-one with someone in new media, that’s his prerogative.

But he really should change his graphic “Keep Calm and Carry On,” unless he’s trying to be ironic.


TM NOTE: The conversation was one-on-one not “private.” There was no agreement by anyone to keep it off the record or otherwise. Someone high profile doesn’t get to abuse the privilege of simply being followed on Twitter by launching into an insulting tirade with the expectation of “privacy” without first having the grace and respect to say he or she wants the conversation to be off the record. I have no special relationship with JS. We followed each other on Twitter. This is also not the first DM rant I’ve exchanged with Scarborough. I sought advice on the subject and I stand firm that my decision was correct and stand by it unflinchingly.

The post Joe Scarborough’s Weird DM Twitter Rant Invades My Weekend appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Would we be any worse off with Stephen Colbert as president? I doubt it.

Politifact has watched the video “(repeatedly!)” and has a moment to moment tick tock rundown. They’ll get to analyzing it later. John Hinderaker takes out after Rick Perry, Think Progress and others. [update]…and now Glen Kessler has bestowed on “King of Bain” the dreaded 4 Pinocchios. The CNN Money article below dissects “When Romney Came to Town.”

To be clear, none of this is to suggest that Romney and Bain didn’t make some very real mistakes, or that they shouldn’t be criticized for situations in which they profited from financial engineering rather than from company growth. But the Winning Our Future PAC goes beyond that, intentionally obscuring the record in a way that makes such honest discussions more difficult. And for that, Winning Our Future deserves some scorn of its own. – CNN Money

What it doesn’t say is that even though the film casts Mitt Romney as the evil capitalist Ken doll, let’s not pretend this guy is standing alone in these practices. If we come out of this believing Romney’s the only bad guy, while Democrats smack their chops with glee that they now have him right where they want him, America deserves to go keep fumbling along financially, because long-term, slow pain with no solutions may be the only thing that will one day wake people up.

It’s a mistake to see the 28-minute video above and think this is just about Mitt Romney. He rightly earns the role of diabolical villain in the video, but what he represents is why Occupy Wall Street rose up in the first place. Romney’s a master at playing the Wall Street system, which even the film above stipulates is facilitated by investment bankers who helped Mitt Romney and others like him work the current system that collapsed in 2008, caused the current unemployment rate, but also the hollowing out of the American middle class that started a long time ago.

There’s a reason Rudy Giuliana went off on Newt Gingrich and it’s because this video exposes the entire American financial wagon train that is the foundational tenet of the Republican Party. It also strips bare the primal scream of Rush Limbaugh and his right-wing rabble who lie to Americans every day saying they, too, have a chance to be Mitt Romney.

It would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous, because some people are so desperate today they’ll buy anything if it has even half a chance of getting them out of the financial hole they’re in. Rush Limbaugh is actually just as guilty as Mitt Romney.

It’s all lies and our entire political system is bankrolled by it, with the person who can best hawk the marketing of the American Corporation picked and put in charge. However, it’s not this person, the president, who actually is in charge of anything. It’s the wise men of Wall Street (women are never let near the controls for long) who hold the power and they’re tucked inside and rarely seen.

The Mitt Romneys in our business and investment class can no longer be bothered with creating, building or envisioning anything any longer. It’s been this way since the ’80s and before. That people are suddenly shocked and shrieking that the middle class is losing it’s core, seen through the job loss and devastation in this video shows how lost we are, how morally bankrupt our society has become. There’s a whole other class below the middle class that’s been growing for years, including under Pres. Obama, who he hasn’t addressed once, except to announce he’s pulling their heating oil subsidies. The poor now has company, but don’t think anyone, least of all the Mitt Romneys, intend to do anything about it.

Mitt Romney didn’t begin the gutting of our manufacturing sector or the gambling with investors money. If he wasn’t running for president we wouldn’t be having this conversation and had he not gone after Newt Gingrich none of this would have surfaced until Obama reelect got him as an opponent and started unloading and unpacking Mitt Romney’s very successful business career, which even an Obama adviser, Steve Rattner, said this week was exemplary.

“Fair is fair. … But I think these attacks are unfair. I think Mitt Romney, not only had a very successful career throughout business, but Bain Capital is a terrific, first class firm. Managing money mostly for foundations, for endowments, for pension funds on behalf of exactly the people Rick Perry thinks he’s trying to harm, and they had a great record with 80 or 90 investments, all of which made a lot of money for their investors… and he did it in a perfectly honorably, appropriate way. … – Steve Rattner, on “Morning Joe”

Mr. Rattner was Pres. Obama Administration’s Car Czar and Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury, and is a good Democrat. Are you seeing it clearly yet?

Can Mitt Romney survive this video and the 30-second spots that come from it? The states coming up in the primaries have been hard hit by a bad economy. However, Romney’s bankrolled to the teeth and the pressure’s on to quiet things down, so I’m guessing he can. The other side of this pile on is that at some point people are going to look at it and ask “Is Mitt Romney really the cause of all that ails us?”

What do people think will happen if a different Republican is nominated or if Pres. Obama stays in office? What huge difference will it make?

The caterwauling over Mitt Romney tapping the core of American capitalism for his own benefit is rooted in partisanship and doesn’t address the wider reality, which is that there are hundreds of Mitt Romneys in this country, many of whom got the Bush tax cut extensions, which Pres. Obama gladly gave and never really mounted a nationwide fight against. If you truly understand the calamity facing our middle class there is no way morally or in good conscience you could possibly back down from this fight, turning it into a war if you have to. Yes, a class war, but when Democrats hail compromise and gut Dodd-Frank or go along to keep things moving how innocent are they for watching what’s developed under their own backers and bundlers?

Using Steve Rattner’s defense of Mr. Romney and Bain Capital as an example, what are Democratic venture capitalists and heads of holding companies and investment bankers supposed to do in the shadow of this damning video that reveals the sausage making that is our economic system? As Rattner reveals, Democrats in his class can feel his pain and you can bet they’re just glad it’s Romney and not them.

That Wall Street Democrats are fleeing Obama’s side because of hurt feelings and would certainly find common cause in the onslaught that would be unleashed on Mitt Romney if he’s the nominee, who is one of their own, is another interesting tidbit of this tale. Sympathy vote, anyone? More likely, they’ll send cash.

If Occupy stays relevant, the entire American Corporation class will have to go underground, because Mitt Romney may be the star of the film, but they’re mirror images of this man and his methods and we’ve heard a lot about who’s been hurt lately, but now it’s in a film reel.

But where are the African Americans, Latinos and people of color? Evidently, they don’t get touched by the American Corporation class, besides, it’s white working class Mitt Romney will need to beat Obama, so let’s stay focused, people.

The whole event is obscene and the rot of our political class exposed.

What’s ironic is that this devastating video and the launch of it into the Republican primary season was made possible by conservative David Bossie, the president of the pro-Gingrich Super PAC. Bossie is the man who produced “The Hillary Movie” that culminated in the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United and the current flood of money we’re now seeing drown our democracy and put Mitt Romney and the entire Republican Party on DEFCON 1. Karma’s a bitch and she’s got one hell of a sense of humor.

That Obama reelect will trumpet the video and all of its parts in the general election season, freaking out their own Democratic version of the Mitt Romney class, is wrought with irony.

What we need is a different kind of conservation about the country we are going to be in the 21st century and that’s not coming from any direction or either political party. The only thing that matters to the partisans is putting their sock puppet in power, while the money men just keep on funneling the system to the top.

It no longer matters who ends up in the White House and Congress anymore, because the Mitt Romneys of this country are the ones really in charge and they won’t allow anyone else in, buying politicians and the presidency.

We the people are simply being held hostages by a monetary and political system that is out of control and which can’t be fixed, because the concentrated power is locked down and loaded for anyone who tries.

The post Capitalism Out of the Closet appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

Despite rising public concern about the federal budget deficit, Americans favor keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are rather than taking steps to reduce the budget deficit (by 60% vs. 32%). – Public Wants Changes in Entitlements, Not Changes in Benefits

This is starting early, so it’s time to revisit the facts.

When I came out for Hillary Clinton in July 2007, I was told by Obama loyalists I’d never recover from the investigative coverage I gave candidate Barack Obama, while others of that ilk tried everything to discredit me through lies.

On the day Clinton conceded, I immediately backed Obama. This infuriated many of Hillary’s fans, which resulted in the same thing Obama’s fan boys did in reverse, add in the oh, so cruel de-linking from dozens of blogs where I was considered a “traitor,” which I still hear to this day.

Many of these same people became “pumas,” a group I disavowed and fought against from the start, including in every media forum where I was asked, on cable networks across the spectrum. It was obvious “puma” was going to try to hurt Barack Obama’s candidacy, which also meant hurting Hillary, so I twisted the arm of a blogger to guest post here until the Democratic convention, with a few of her posts here, here, here, here.

Liberalism means something to me and anyone trying to ignore it or destroy it deserves what he or she gets. That my analysis is solid infuriates many Obama loyalists, but the foundation of my criticisms directed toward Pres. Obama is that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Democratic principles, priorities or policies. The noise from fan boys and girls in my direction is because they can’t take the truth.

The other day I began a column with the following sentence: “If you want one reason why Pres. Obama doesn’t deserve reelection this is it.”

That was before the Washington Post broke the story that had been floating for weeks and weeks, which is that Obama was going to serve up the New Deal for real, something I’d warned about in November 2007. I could broaden the economic criticism to include matters of war and more war, because our Nobel Prize-winning President has created no peace, with his Bushesque stubbornness on Afghanistan proving the point, along with his illegal military action in Libya.

On the other side, after the post went up, more than one person suggested that Sarah Palin is the alternative! It’s puma, circa 2012, and just as delusional. Palin’s fans are the bookend on the Right to Obama fans, both sides infatuated with their One, with “pumas” part of this problem as well.

The notion that I’d ever vote for anyone like Palin who believes freedom is just for men is ludicrous, though it would be great fun to see Sarah freak out the current Republican field by running. But with Michele Bachmann tearing up Iowa, what’s the point of Palin? Her fans will provide an answer for that question, I’m sure.

What’s ensued under Pres. Obama’s watch has been deplorable, but nothing surprising to me, which amounts to a sell out of Democratic Party ideals for one man and his administration. What he’s done to the Democratic brand is incalculable, starting with moving the debate far right, which has set up Republicans in a dream scenario.

That is, if the American people didn’t have their say, too. Read the latest in the Pew Poll to see just how badly Pres. Obama has handled the public’s trust, which he no longer deserves.

Anyone who thinks I am obligated to aid Pres. Obama’s reelection because I’m a liberal is sadly mistaken. I’m under one obligation and that is to tell the truth as I see it and provide political analysis that, at its best, hopefully helps you get clarity on your own thoughts.

Barack Obama came into office with the people, the press and the world at his feet. What he’s done with the power he had in 2008 is nothing short of political malpractice, with his lack of leadership on the debt ceiling debate not only a travesty, but an embarrassment for Democrats and a horror for voters who put their trust in Obama’s hands.

There’s no way in hell Hillary would have been humiliated by Republicans as Obama has been in economic negotiations and there’s no flipping way she’d have served up entitlements. I don’t say this as a “fan,” but as someone who knew the record and the philosophical underpinnings of the politician I supported.

Obama loyalists can’t say that about him, because he hasn’t any.

Liberalism is the shining philosophical star that can change the world, set women free, marginalize misogynistic religious zealots and stabilize countries and regions around the world, equalize injustice and open doors to a wondrous future. We need more of it, not less.

There is no reason to support Barack Obama for the sake of it or because he’s not as bad as whoever is on the Right, because there’s no evidence that’s true. There’s not a Republican around who could force Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cuts down Democratic throats and likely wouldn’t try.

Pres. Obama is not our friend. If you think he is, you’re part of the problem, too.

The post Fan Politics appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

“If we can prove that a biological attack originated in a country that attacked us, then all bets are off.” – Sect. Hillary Clinton

Women can do it, too. Call her Obama’s pit bull.

Sitting next to her good friend and colleague SecDef Gates on “Face the Nation,” Sect. Clinton said what I wrote the other day after Pres. Obama announced his new nuclear policy. That “all options are on the table” at all times when it comes to U.S. national security, regardless of who is president. It’s just unfortunate she was the one who had to imply it by channeling male lingo. We get Pres. Obama creating 21st century strategic nuclear policy using 21st language, while his female secretary of state is left to rattle sabers to send messages to America, but particularly to the right, that the Obama administration isn’t soft on national security. Considering Obama is targeting an American for assassination, going one step further than Bush-Cheney, it’s astounding that the Administration feels the need to go on the defensive at all.

However, that’s where we are, which was proven recently in a Democratic poll showing that since George W. Bush left office, the security gap is back.

On national security, the poll found that 50 percent of likely voters prefer Republicans, while only 33 percent prefer Democrats. It’s the return of a “security gap” that all but vanished in 2008 because of Obama’s popularity and Bush’s mishandling of Iraq, Bennett said.

It’s Sect. Clinton’s job to defend Pres. Obama’s policies, but it’s easy to see how she got into trouble on Iraq, as her language remains moored in 20th century shaping. It’s one reason why Obama likely picked her for State, along with her world grasp of issues. But beyond her voice on women’s issues, Clinton’s language doesn’t do much for placing women beyond the 20th century macho military machine mumbo jumbo. The impression Clinton leaves behind using this “all bets are off” bravado is that women don’t own their own language, or can’t use it if they do, or they’d be considered soft.

After all, even though Pres. Obama is more like Bush-Cheney on security issues, at home and abroad, he’s got a security gap when compared to Republicans. We expect men to defend their positions using bellicose language. However, Pres. Obama is progressing forward by re-invigorating nuclear zero and putting it as a priority.

Perception is reality in politics, so get out there and rattle those sabers, Sect. Clinton, rattle them.

Even the smartest woman we have on the international scene won’t shake the 20th century language of war. As if talking about nuclear zero, plus the beefing up of conventional weaponry and other technology, isn’t enough to show toughness, without resorting to the macho, cringe-worthy swagger of “all bets are off.”

Clinton’s language is close to a defensive response to Liz Cheney speaking at the SRLC:

Cheney told the roughly 3,500 conservative activists and donors gathered for the conference that there are three prongs to the president’s foreign policy: “apologize for America, abandon our allies and appease our enemies.” “The Obama administration is putting us on the path to decline,” added Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Both women, though on opposite sides and of widely different stature, seeing who can one man up the men or at least perpetuate their talking points more effectively.

Segue to Sarah, who responded to Obama questioning her nu-cular, as Mrs. Palin pronounces it, acumen, saying “all that vast nuclear nucular expertise he acquired as a community organizer, a part-time senator, and a candidate for president.”
Palin went on to say that Obama hasn’t accomplished anything regarding North Korea or Iran.

“In foreign policy now we’ve got the makings of the Obama doctrine, which is coddling enemies and alienating allies.” – Sarah Palin

To Sarah and Liz, diplomacy is “coddling,” while expecting Israel to stop settlements that are causing trouble on peace “alienating allies.” Mrs. Palin even going so far as to say settlements in Israel were just “a zoning issue.”

We have come to expect women on the right to channel Margaret Thatcher, because they don’t have a prayer with their base if their language isn’t strapped on.

There is, however, no longer any excuse for Sect. Clinton, as she has no base to keep, her political years now behind her. But still we get the unimaginative machismo of “all bets are off.” It’s discouraging as much as it is lazy.

As for our current challenges with Pres. Karzai, as I predicted, Liz Cheney made brothers of Mr. Karzai and Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Afghan President Karzai, whose support we need if we are going to succeed in Afghanistan, is being treated to an especially dangerous and juvenile display from this White House. They dress him down publicly almost daily and refuse to even say that he is an ally. There is a saying in the Arab world: “It is more dangerous to be America’s friend than to be her enemy.” In the age of Obama, that is proving true.

So, we’ve got Sect. Clinton talking about “all bets are off,” while Obama invokes nuclear zero and a progressive 21st century nuclear policy. Liz Cheney accusing Obama of “appeasement.” While Sarah Palin criticizes Pres. Obama’s reaching out as “coddling.”

Pres. Obama gets to sound progressive and forward thinking, while the women remain stuck in 20th century war rumbling.

Pres. Obama talking softly as Sect. Clinton wields the big stick may be a good mix and useful for the Administration, but Clinton’s willing acquiescence perpetuates the stereotype of a supposedly serious national security spokesperson that can only be represented through swaggering male lingo.

If Hillary, Liz and Sarah are any representation, and they’re the leading women on the scene right now, even understanding that Hillary Rodham Clinton is out of politics for good. What we’re headed for in the future is a woman acting like a man as president. But women can’t simply mimic men, talk like them, manufacture machismo in order to effect change on national security and diplomacy, and hope to win the presidency and make the first female president matter by leading differently than her male counterpart might.

So, if we get a Liz or Sarah, what’s the big deal about having the first female president some day? That goes double because the left has no anti-Sarah/Liz. At this rate, the way these three talk on national security, I’d say it would be a wash.

Unless you think that looks are all that matter.

The post Do Women Have to Talk Like Men? appeared first on Taylor Marsh.

The interview with Obama by George Stephanopoulos wasn’t nearly as contentious as the interview with the Edwardses. No Republican talking points from Stephanopoulos yesterday, like when he accused Edwards of abandoning the troops with this beauty: “Do you think the Democrats should be saddled with the idea of completely cutting off funding for the troops?” Or this one: “You know, a lot of Democrats still in the Senate think that your position here is cynical political theater.” This week, George and Barack had just a nice, polite little chat. Likely because Edwards is more of a fire breather when it comes to getting out of Iraq. Obama is not. He is also not an ideologue, which is an understatement with frightening ramifications.

“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama (on ABC’s “This Week”)

Now I think bringing people together is very important, especially after the scorched earth years of George W. Bush. But there’s one alarming issue I’ve raised before that continues to bother me about Obama. For one, if he’s our nominee we’ll likely get another convention like 2004, which wasn’t nearly as illustrative in the us versus them differences department as it needed to be. But considering the utter and complete collapse of not only the Republican Party but conservatism itself under George W. Bush this matters a great deal. In fact, nothing is more important than finishing off this gang, along with the myth and mystique that has strangled this country since Reagan. We’ll never have a better opportunity than in ’08.

Rudy is digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself while giving us sound bite after sound bite on his ever evolving views on abortion.

Slick Mitt is flip flopping on the same issue, while telling tall tales about his hunting escapades, no doubt while reading the next installment of Battlefield Earth or some other Scientology sci-fi novel, as his sons regale us all on thinking of serving in the military without actually serving.

You’ve got John McCain recovering a bit from his cratering collapse just in time to say he’s ready to go back to Bahgdad without a military escort. D’oh!

As three of ten Republican candidates admit that they don’t believe in evolution. They don’t believe in evolution. Seriously, that’s a Wow! moment if ever one was created.

All of this coming after an election that had more Democratic veterans running and winning elected office than ever before, as we reassert our FDR-Truman-Kennedy national security legacy. But Mr. Obama hints that he will employ his “capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other” in his potential presidency. Fine. Groovy. Let’s all join hands. But is it too much to ask that we do it while also asserting, even stressing that the Democratic Party has the policy answers that those other people should get used to? Because when we take the White House back and have a majority in both houses of Congress we’re going to put into action Democratic Party principles and the policies that follow, because our principles and policies are way better than what those other guys have to offer.

Cokie Roberts and George Will were thrilled with Obama’s lack of vitriol. Cool.

But not once in the Stephanopoulos let’s-all-get-along interview did I get the feeling that Barack Obama wants to be president to install the beliefs of the Democratic Party, or that we even had the ideas that will take this country where we need to go after the most disastrous presidency in modern times. Or that Obama wants to take advantage of the Republican collapse to drive a stake through conservatism’s very heart. Instead I got the distinct “capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other” impression. I don’t want any Democratic leader, especially a Democratic president, seeing conservatism in themselves.

Democrats are facing an opportunity that comes once in a generation (if that) because of the utter and complete collapse of the Republican Party and conservatism, which has failed utterly. Frankly, I want our nominee to finish the job. That can only happen if we elect someone who is hell bent on making sure the Democratic Party ideals are understood and held high, while contrasting them with the complete bankruptcy of the Republican Party and conservatism. Otherwise, this once in a generation Democratic ascendancy moment will come and go as just another personality politician takes charge in the White House, with American voters not really understanding the importance of the policies Democrats represent and bring to the table, because we aren’t telling them. It will be a moment where the kumbaya candidate wins, with the policy principles secondary, because Candidate Kumbaya can’t alienate the other guys.

In the midst of all of the Republican Rudy-SlickMitt-McCain-Neanderthal gifts that are sheer political manna from wingnut heaven, the last thing I want to see is a convention where all of the Democratic speeches that have any fire and contrast are relegated to off hours because they are considered not kumbaya enough for primetime.

Again, I’m all for getting along to get things done. However, when Democrats are in charge the Republicans need to know it. Otherwise, why get elected in the first place? With George Will actually saying that there’s something Reaganesque about Obama’s sunny disposition and lack of vitriol, excuse me, but can anyone argue this wouldn’t be a gift to conservatives? Or maybe the torch is going to be passed to a different kind of politician ushering in a new kind of politics to America. Someone that brings consensus and kumbaya to the White House so Democrats and Republicans can join hands and finally walk side by side, with deals made so everyone is happy. If that’s the case there will be one outcome. The Republican Party will get up off the mat, dust themselves off and then the conservatives will stab us in the back with a smile on their faces, and this once in a generation opportunity to finish off the wingnuts so they’ll truly have to start a twenty year rebuilding process will pass us by. If Obama is president when it happens it’s likely he won’t know what hit him until it’s too late for us all.

Tell me how a Candidate Kumbaya would be good for Democrats, because right now I’m just not seeing it at all.

The post Obama’s Kumbaya appeared first on Taylor Marsh.