by Cody Lyon
Here it is, the second week of September and despite a Congressional Budget Office report saying the United States deficit is projected to rise to $407 billion, along with a continued rash of failing financial institutions, the nightmare of misled war in Iraq, a mere treading of water in the land of the Taliban, Afghanistan, despite the fact that 50 million un-insured, a disappearing middle class, the headlines are filled with talk of pitbulls, swine and lipstick, as if some sort of Animal Farm like fever had stolen the meat from the potato's of reality that politics is meant to address.

It is, or should be by now, plainly evident to most observers that the current crop of Republicans will run the kind of Rovian sleazoid campaign that has worked so well for them in the past.

They will co opt the message of the Democrats at every opportunity and swift boat anyone who gets in their way. They will, as in the past, use the politics of personal destruction, of sneer and smear, a style that has become a necessity in modern Republican strategy as it so purely reflects the mentality and ethos of a sizable and increasing fraction of their base.

The party that has come to reflect the endemic racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and the rapidly widening schism between economic classes in this country has nowhere else to turn. They have become directors of a noisy, and potentially dangerous lynch mob. A criminal mob acting to serve the interests of an out of control business culture and an irrational priesthood that sees the face of God in its own self righteousness.

Republicans dare not run on their party's record of governance over the last eight years. The record is abysmal and they know it. As much as possible that record will be kept in the dark dank shadows with the sordid history of the modern Republican Party. It will be hidden in that shameful place where they will store Bush, Cheney, their denial of health care to America's children, denial of decent wages to America's workers, our terribly fractured economy, serious unemployment, two misguided and mismanaged wars and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents.

by Cody Lyon
"Is Palin and her party's attempt to elevate her into a tomboyish tough love Mom with conservative virtues a party that deep down, at least appears to be complacent with a woman knowing her place in the grand political game of the true powers that be in the western world? While it might be true, that the Republican party claims to be a party that endorses a stronger philosophy of individual responsibility, does the scent of hypocrisy not waif through the minds of millions of women who recognize it is also a party that would deny them the right to choose? "

***

What was Sarah Palin thinking? On August 4, she gets the urge to sing the praises of Barack Obama's plan for tapping Alaska's fields strategically for US energy needs to augment the supply of gas and oil.

Palin said she liked also Obama's proposed cash rebate for those struggling with fuel costs.

This can't be what the McCain folks had in mind for the pick for vice-president.

It's getting clearer now with each passing hour that John McCain and his team never checked Palin out carefully.

They did not visit Alaska, speak to associates, family or scour the records ahead of the announced pick.

So far we know this. McCain picked a person who has less than 2 years experience in statewide office, whose energy and even Iraq policy sounds closer to Obama's than to McCain's. Who in January 1997 set out to fire the police chief and city librarian (Irl Stambaugh and Mary Ellen Emmons) because they had supported former incumbent mayor John Stein in his re-election bid in 1996.

As a mother and now a professional, can someone please enlighten me or set me straight on this about Alaska's Sarah Palin.

If a mother gives birth on April 18 and now has a 4-month old, can she do mothering and be a campaigner for highest office?

Become a veep who is ready there to handle world crises and step into the role of running the country? Mother of an infant child?

by Cody Lyon
(OPINION)
But, with his tremendous speech, Obama, if only for a moment, lifted the nation's psyche, he attempted and many say succeeded in showing all Americans that the dream is still alive and well in this land of freedom, where the bells of democracy occasionally ring with messages of hope, not fear, gloom that has crippled the very essence of who and what we as a people stand for and strive to be.

John McCain's speech and policy constructs on Global Warming have gotten a bit of attention from the Energy Smart blogging world. The following are few of the worthwhile discussions to date.

Wonkroom's McCain Wants it Both Ways on Global Warming: Ends up attacking his own plan highlights the contradictions inherent in John McCain's messaging, trying to create an appearance that he represents a middle way between Global Warming deniers and a strawman of those pursuing "crippling regulation".  What is a McCain example of crippling regulation?  Increasing energy efficiency in building codes. Message John:  this is profitable path toward change.  That radically liberal group, the business consulting firm McKinsey and Company, "has found that mandatory energy efficiency standards, far from being crippling, overcome present market failures and policy distortions and can drive massive return on investment. Is McCain calling McKinsey "extreme"?"

UPDATE 8/30:

Original cortex post (before the Gallup update)>>

Obama 4 points up, or all tied up?

USAToday buried the headline. The poll number finding from last weekend (before the convention hooplah) with Obama ahead – is below.

Obama holds a 47%-43% edge over McCain among registered voters and a 48%-45% edge among likely voters.

[In the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll a month ago, Obama led McCain by 3 percentage points, but McCain held a 4-point lead among likely voters.]

And Obama is pulling a few points higher than this now following the Dems confab and coverage of Denver.

When San Francisco blogger Sasha McGee noticed that Gavin Newsom was being feted by PG&E and AT&T at the Denver convention, it wasn't much of a surprise to see a DLC candidate running for governor of the largest state. What was a surprise, was that Moveon was also listed as a sponsor.

Amid skyrocketing oil, gasoline, coal, and electricity (coming to a neighborhood near you) prices, 2008 offers Americans quite serious and stark choices between knowledgeable, impassioned, and thoughtful candidates when it comes to findaing paths toward a prosperous 21st century economy, on the one side, and Fossil-Fool candidates focused on tightening our shackles to the ever-more costly (pollution, financial, otherwise) and archaic oil-coal based energy system.

Possum was an easy, albeit sentimental, choice for membership in the ranks of the Energy Smart Act Blue page.  A fellow blogger, concerned about energy and environmental issues, who has dedicated himself to Crashing the Gate to bring more sensible policy-making, including on energy and global warming, to Washington, DC.

Join me after the fold for some indications as to why.

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

There has been a good deal of blogospheric chatter about the public antics of the leader of the free world, in full view of cameras, at the olympics. Much of it speculation about whether or not he's drunk off his ass.

The folks at BuzzFlash have been digging a little deeper into the trash heap, for a bit of the back-story. The tabloids have been dishing dirt about a potential split between George and Laura. Reason: his drinking.

If the Edwards scandal has taught us anything, it's that tabloids may traffic in sleaze, but their sleazy reporting is also often true.

by CODY LYON

(Cross posted by author from Oh My News International)

But in the end, it appears that in the rush to convict law enforcement officials used inappropriate interrogation techniques that led to what are called coerced confessions, apparently obtained from each of the accused in the Central Park Jogger case.

It would take years before the shameful second tragedy of the Central Park case would play out, under less media scrutiny than the highly publicized horror of that night in spring.

Al Gore gave us a momentous challenge this past Thursday by calling upon us to have the same spirit that birthed this nation to address the climate crisis and make no mistake about it, this is just as much an issue of Democracy as it is an economic, environmental, or national security issue.

by CODY LYON
On February 5, 2005, the New York City Department of Health in conjunction with the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center called a press conference and issued an urgent health alert to the public. The event was especially targeted towards men who have sex with men. According to health officials, one individual had been infected with what appeared to be a never before seen particularly potent and apparently mutated strain of HIV that had rapidly progressed to full blown AIDS.

Doctors treating the patient said the man was resistant to three out of four classes of drugs available used to treat HIV/AIDS, a condition clinically called 3-DCR-HIV.

At the press conference, New York City Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden, warned "virtually no one is immune" saying the new super strain virus could quickly progress into full-blown AIDS, perhaps in as little as two to twenty months, a process that normally takes up to ten years.

by CODY LYON
In fact, the increasingly famous "New Yorker" cover held up a mirror to the campaign, the media and more importantly to America itself. The cartoon revealed some offensive truths about how this campaign has been conducted and covered, but also, about America in general and how out of touch with reality so many of us truly are.