Dobson on Obama's America

James Dobson has released a "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America." The section on homosexuality is the first, and by far the longest. My personal favorite part:

Elementary schools now include compulsory training in varieties of gender identity in Grade 1, including the goodness of homosexuality as one possible personal choice. Many parents tried to “opt out” their children from such sessions, but the courts have ruled they cannot do this, noting that education experts in the government have decided that such training is essential to children’s psychological health.

Many Christian teachers objected to teaching first-graders that homosexual behavior was morally neutral and equal to heterosexuality. They said it violated their consciences to have to teach something the Bible viewed as morally wrong. But state after state ruled that their refusal to teach positively about homosexuality was the equivalent of hate speech, and they had to teach it or be fired. Tens of thousands of Christian teachers either quit or were fired, and there are hardly any evangelical teachers in public schools any more.

We Are All Joe the Plumber Now

I find this extraordinarily funny and revealing:

Joe's off on his book tour, or maybe planning his first country album. No point in jumping aboard a sinking ship.

Voting

There was an important segment tonight on Newshour about the voting problems and irregularities across the country.

It's an issue I care a lot about--- if you happen to care also, check out Why Tuesday?, an organization devoted to election reform, including raising the obvious (and eponymous) question: why in God's name do we vote on a Tuesday?

I have more revolutionary questions to ask, but I'll save them for a later post.

Extended Hours for Florida

Genuine kudos to Charlie Crist. Via the Miami Herald:

Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday extended early voting hours across Florida to 12 hours a day.

The executive order comes after record early voting turnout has contributed to long lines at polling sites.

Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends.

With Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting.

''It's not a political decision,'' Crist said moments after signing the order, which declares a state of emergency in Florida. "It's a people decision.''

Republicans, who get very nervous when they hear that Americans are voting in large numbers, are less enthused. From Politico's Ben Smith:

He just blew Florida for John McCain," one plugged in Florida Republican just told me.

Nice work.

A Blow for Syria

This whole thing is very troubling:

The Syrian government ordered an American school and a U.S. cultural center in Damascus closed on Tuesday in response to a deadly U.S. attack on a village near the Iraq border, the state-run news agency said.

U.S. officials said the raid killed a top operative of al-Qaida in Iraq who intelligence suggested was about to conduct an attack in Iraq, but Syria and the Iraqi government criticized the raid.

That "criticism," of course, is based on the fact that U.S. troops in four helicopters attacked a building near the Iraq border and killed eight people. It has been described, rightfully, as a "barbaric" act, and as an extreme violation of international law. All for the purpose of taking out a group allegedly planning an attack in Iraq.

How long will we continue doing dirty work for Iraq and the thugs who run their country?

Pennsylvania: By the Numbers

I believe this election will come down to Pennsylvania, and though Barack Obama is very unlikely to lose it, I still think there's reason to put more time and money into it. If he somehow comes up short in the Keystone state, I can envision an Election Night scenario where McCain also squeaks by in Nevada, Florida, and North Carolina--- in which case he'd win, if just barely.

So it's the one thing that's keeping me up at night: is Obama really so far up in Pennsylvania? According to this must-read article by Michael Barone, yes. And it'll probably stay that way:

High-income, high-education voters in the suburbs of big metro areas, my hypothesis goes, are preoccupied with long-term wealth accumulation—and react sharply against the Republican Party when their wealth is suddenly sharply diminished when there is a Republican president. Modest-income, modest-education voters in less affluent surroundings, it seems judging from McCain's relatively good showing in Pennsylvania outside the heavily populated southeast, react much less sharply, because they have never expected to accumulate all that much in the way of wealth anyhow, consider themselves reasonably well protected by the existing safety net and feel free to vote (as more affluent Philly suburbanites have done in better times) on the basis of their opinions (conservative in their case) on cultural issues. The affluent are less afraid of the tax increases that Obama promises them than they are shocked by the negative effect on their wealth from the collapse of the housing bubble and the sharp decline in stock prices.

That just sounds really true. So I'm gonna go with it, and find something else to lose sleep over.

Indiana Walks Out on John McCain

Good for them:

Nina Williams, a stay-at-home mom in Lake County, Indiana, tells us that her daughter recently called her from her job at the center, upset that she had been asked to read a script attacking Obama for being "dangerously weak on crime," "coddling criminals," and for voting against "protecting children from danger."

Williams' daughter told her that up to 40 of her co-workers had refused to read the script, and had left the call center after supervisors told them that they would have to either read the call or leave, Williams says. The call center is called Americall, and it's located in Hobart, IN.

These people have a lot of courage. And Americans are abandoning John McCain in exactly the same way--- tuning out, walking out, hitting the mute button. Thank God we only have 8 more days of this.

McCain : Bailout Package :: Kerry : War

It seems like John McCain is trying to have it both ways on the bailout bill. He's been attacking it for several days.

It reminds me a lot of John Kerry's late revelation in 2004 that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Kerry could have had the courage of his convictions if he'd opposed it from the beginning, or somehow made a strong pivot in really opposing it in all its tragic awfulness. But he never could make the case, because he'd been hedging all along.

I think that if McCain had taken a principled stand against the bailout, he could have gained (some) traction in the polls as a "free-market populist," or whatever the House Republicans are now calling themselves. But he didn't. In fact, as we all know, his handling of that situation has provoked nothing but embarrassment and scorn even among his party mates.

But it didn't have to be that way.

Things get John Grishamy

Sounds like jury deliberations are heating up over at the Stevens trial:

The trial, which began Sept. 22, has been beset by problems since the case went to the eight women and four men on Wednesday afternoon. Within hours, jurors asked to go home, sending a note to the judge saying that things had become "stressful." On Thursday afternoon, in a more explicit note, jurors asked the judge to dismiss one of their own.

"She has had violent outbursts with other jurors, and that's not helping anyone," the note read.

Sullivan did not send home the juror in question. Instead, he called jurors into the courtroom and told them to "encourage civility and mutual respect among yourselves."

Judge Sullivan then added: "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Scranton

If you're an Office fan--- or a fine, hard-working boy from Scranton--- this quiz from Radar brings the ultimate challenge: a face-off between Joe Biden and Michael Scott.