This morning, the Army will be breaking another glass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody will become the first female American 4-star General. It’s not the first first for Dunwoody, whose career has been marked with declarations of “first female…”. Immediately after she gets her fourth star, she’ll be assuming a new command post - Army Materiel Command, responsible for outfitting, equipping and arming all soldiers. In June, when Bush nominated her, Dunwoody told an Army publication, “While I may be the first, I know I won’t be the last.”

Like most of the other women I know who have achieved firsts, she shrugs off the designation. She is, however, one of only 21 female Army Generals, and one of only 5 who have attained a rank above Brigadier General. We’ve actually come a long way in a fairly short time. The Army only appointed its first female General in 1970, 48 years ago. Today, with women making up 14% of the Army, they are represented among the ranks of Generals at the rate of 6.5% - 21 of 321 U.S. Army Generals are women. That puts us at about halfway there in terms of fair representation in the upper ranks of the Army. Compare that to the representation of women among top executives in private industry and among our lawmakers.

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I have heard so much from Sarah Palin and her supporters in the last few months about praying - praying Sarah into office, praying for a McCain win, calling on God to “defend” His own name against all those other gods of all those other people who are praying for an Obama presidency (remember? Hindu, Allah, and all the rest?) This morning, I can’t help but think - God has answered your prayers. You may not like the answer, but He has answered your prayers. And the answer is Barack Obama.

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Listen to the words:

God bless America,
land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
through the night with a light from above

From the mountains to the valleys
to the oceans, white with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home.

The right wing Christian conservatives have taken this as their anthem - made it a declaration. Listen to Sarah Palin declaring from the stump that God has so wonderfully blessed America - and then go on to incite her followers to rape the land with drill baby drill, mine baby mine. Listen to her carefully, and you’ll hear the background echo that America has a God-given mission, that we are favored by God to be “that shining city on the hill”, set above all others, to which all others aspire and to which they all turn.

But those simple words are not a declaration that God has blessed us. They are a heartfelt and humble prayer for guidance and for help. I do not define myself as a Christian. I have, over the years of my life, separated my beliefs from my religion. I do not define the moving power behind the Universe as God, but there is no doubt in my mind that there is a moving force - a loving and benevolent spirit that lives in our hearts and our world. Even as one who believes strongly that the Christian God has no place in Patriotism and Nationalism, I would wholeheartedly endorse this simple, moving prayer as our national anthem.

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Earlier today, I commented on the phenomenon of those screaming loudest against Obama’s tax plans and complaining about tax-and-spend Democrats mentioning in passing that they’ve been the recipients of those social programs they decry. I didn’t realize at that point that the man who has come to symbolize the “common man” shared that hypocrisy with “real America” - take a look.

Joe the Plumber ” I once was on welfare, my parents twice!”

No need to say more.

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No, I’m not talking about the Republican party for a change. I’m talking about an interesting little phenomenon that I’m noticing on my favorite little discussion site, mylot.com, where it concerns talking ideologically vs. doing practically.

It’s hit me before, but it hit me even more forcefully in this discussion about a second economic stimulus package. Interestingly, those who have often been the most vocal against “socialism” and “spreading the wealth” and wasteful government spending - with a couple of exceptions - were the ones most likely to say that the last economic stimulus check “came in handy” and they’ll be happy to see another one.

On the other hand, those most likely to support Obama and his policies - regularly referred to as socialists and Obamunists - are questioning whether sending out small checks to taxpayers is of much use at all, and suggesting that a better use for that money might be to raise the upper limit for food stamp eligibility, extend unemployment benefits and provide local aid packages to be used for infrastructure improvements and maintaining current levels of staffing for civil service employees.

What’s most interesting, though, is how many of the people who chant the “lazy welfare” and “lazy poor people” song mention that they are on food stamps, are living on social security benefits or are receiving some sort of state aid themselves.

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Is it the battle of the internets? McCain said that he’d turn to former eBay CEO Meg Whitman as a possible treasury secretary. Today’s WSJ reports that Google CEO Eric Schmidt will back Obama and join him on the campaign trail.

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UPDATED 10-20-08

Hack voting machines to randomly change Democrat votes to Republican
In Winfield WV, three voters report that their votes for Barack Obama kept switching over to John McCain. This was after three voters in Jackson County told the Charleston Gazette that their votes kept flipping from Obama to McCain. Both counties are overseen by Republican electoral committees.

Register to vote in the wrong state for bigger stakes than one vote
Mark Jacoby, who runs Young Political Majors, the group that has been used by the Republican party to register Republican voters - and which has been accused of fraudulently changing people’s registrations from Democrat to Republican and registering Republican voters through false statements (most of them had no idea that they were signing a voter registration card) - has been arrested in California for fraudulently registering to vote. The reason? You can’t gather signatures for voter registrations unless you are eligible to vote in California. Jacoby’s lawyer says it is his parents’ home. According to the LA County DA’s office:

“We contacted people at the addresses where he registered, and they have no idea who he is,” said Dave Demerjian, head deputy of the public integrity unit at the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

Trick people into changing their party affiliation
So what’s the big deal? They can still vote Democrat, right? As the article points out, when you’re removed from the Democrat voter list, you may not get notices from the party, you won’t be allowed to vote in primaries, and it combats the image that the Democrats are far outstripping the Republicans in gathering voters. In addition, some counties in California base funding on proportion of registered voters of each party. updated above

Throw away voter registration cards for Democrat voters
75,000 voter registration cards and other voter documents which included personal information like addresses, names and social security numbers were found in a dumpster in working class Fulton County in SW Atlanta Georgia. Many were for active voters… no further details, though it sounds like a ‘clerical error’ - someone threw them out when they should have shredded them after they were entered into the database? Are they supposed to discard these cards? Were they actually confirmation cards? Can’t find a followup on this at all.

More trashing of Democrat voter registrations
This one is in Las Vegas from 2004 - who knows how many Democrat voters thought they were registered and found out that they weren’t at the polls?

Jam phones at the Democrat offices so that they can’t schedule rides to pick up voters to vote on Election Day
Sounds pretty bizarre, doesn’t it? But it happened in New Hampshire in the 2002 elections. The executive director of the NH GOP hired a telemarketing firm from Idaho to jam the lines to a Democrat get out the vote center for two hours on election morning - and it looks like it may have been connected to the White House. You don’t say.

Ignore Voter Fraud when it’s a high profile Republican
Anyone remember the Ann Coulter case? She apparently illegally registered to vote using her real estate agent’s home address - which was also the address listed on her drivers license even though she never lived there. Her actual home address was in another voting district - which is where she showed up to vote. When told that her address was listed wrong and she should change her address so she could vote, she asked where someone from her listed address would vote - and then dashed over to vote there. This wouldn’t be such a hoge deal except - the very few cases that the years of digging have ever turned up are even less an intentional attempt to cast an illegitimate vote. Nearly all have resulted from misunderstandings. They just didn’t have FBI boyfriends to call the county and tell them to lay off.

Hand in bogus registrations and deny it
Tennessee 2006… sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Register to vote in two different states
And the guy is a Republican politician currently living in Texas. In 2003, he registered to vote in both Fairfax County, VA and Newtown, CT, and voted in elections in both places.

Register to vote at your place of business so you can vote for measures that affect it
How about this Texas couple who registered to vote at their business address when they live in another town - after forming a PAC to support a political candidate? The reaction whne they were charged? “What’s the big deal?”

Mail out faulty absentee ballot applications to the opposing party’s constituents
In Milwaukee, the John McCain campaign sent out hundreds of thousands of mailers that included campaign literature and an absentee ballot application form - with the wrong return address - to Democrats.

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Trick people into changing their party affiliation

So what’s the big deal? They can still vote Democrat, right? As the article points out, when you’re removed from the Democrat voter list, you may not get notices from the party, you won’t be allowed to vote in primaries, and it combats the image that the Democrats are far outstripping the Republicans in gathering voters. In addition, some counties in California base funding on proportion of registered voters of each party.

Throw away voter registration cards for Democrat voters
75,000 voter registration cards and other voter documents which included personal information like addresses, names and social security numbers were found in a dumpster in working class Fulton County in SW Atlanta Georgia. Many were for active voters… no further details, though it sounds like a ‘clerical error’ - someone threw them out when they should have shredded them after they were entered into the database? Are they supposed to discard these cards? Were they actually confirmation cards? Can’t find a followup on this at all.

More trashing of Democrat voter registrations
This one is in Las Vegas from 2004 - who knows how many Democrat voters thought they were registered and found out that they weren’t at the polls?

Jam phones at the Democrat offices so that they can’t schedule rides to pick up voters to vote on Election Day
Sounds pretty bizarre, doesn’t it? But it happened in New Hampshire in the 2002 elections. The executive director of the NH GOP hired a telemarketing firm from Idaho to jam the lines to a Democrat get out the vote center for two hours on election morning - and it looks like it may have been connected to the White House. You don’t say.

Ignore Voter Fraud when it’s a high profile Republican
Anyone remember the Ann Coulter case? She apparently illegally registered to vote using her real estate agent’s home address - which was also the address listed on her drivers license even though she never lived there. Her actual home address was in another voting district - which is where she showed up to vote. When told that her address was listed wrong and she should change her address so she could vote, she asked where someone from her listed address would vote - and then dashed over to vote there. This wouldn’t be such a hoge deal except - the very few cases that the years of digging have ever turned up are even less an intentional attempt to cast an illegitimate vote. Nearly all have resulted from misunderstandings. They just didn’t have FBI boyfriends to call the county and tell them to lay off.

Hand in bogus registrations and deny it
Tennessee 2006… sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Register to vote in two different states
And the guy is a Republican politician currently living in Texas. In 2003, he registered to vote in both Fairfax County, VA and Newtown, CT, and voted in elections in both places.

Register to vote at your place of business so you can vote for measures that affect it
How about this Texas couple who registered to vote at their business address when they live in another town - after forming a PAC to support a political candidate? The reaction whne they were charged? “What’s the big deal?”

Mail out faulty absentee ballot applications to the opposing party’s constituents
In Milwaukee, the John McCain campaign sent out hundreds of thousands of mailers that included campaign literature and an absentee ballot application form - with the wrong return address - to Democrats.

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But The Anonymous Liberal beat me to it. I do still have a post in the works about the building of the ACORN smear, which started with Republican House members claiming that the Big Bailout contained billions in pork earmarked for ACORN. It was at -best- a misrepresentation of a clause that assigned 20% of any profits realized by resale of “troubled assets” to the Housing Trust Fund, which supports efforts to address the effects of the mortgage crisis on homeowners. It’s a huge leap to call it “billions in funding for ACORN” when that money is available to any agency or organization in the country who supports affordable housing and mortgage reduction efforts. It’s an even further leap to contend, as many Republican conservatives now do, that ACORN helped cause the mortgage crisis by forcing banks to lend to homeowners who couldn’t afford the payments when the agency’s path to homeownership program includes workshops on budgeting, saving for a down payment and credit counseling. Add to that the fact that ACORN is loudly outspoken against predatory lending practices and has been one of the largest proponents for disclosure in lending agreements.

This is a political smear campaign that happens every two years, consumes enormous public resources and costs the taxpayer a lot of money - and its only lasting result is to link ACORN, the Democrats and “voter fraud” in the public mind. The use of public servants like prosecutors, FBI agents, police officers and court personnel is the true fraud - and it’s being perpetrated on the American taxpayer.

But what about all those poor electoral office people that you see on television expressing disgust and shock that they’ve just started going through this stack of voter registration cards and the first (insert number here) have all been fraudulent?!?! Doesn’t that support the contention that the group is engaged in a massive effort to overpower the poor overworked people in those offices and open the floodgates to massive voting by people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote?

In a word, no. If anything, it absolutely supports ACORN’s version of things - that they are required by law to hand over EVERY SINGLE VOTER REGISTRATION CARD COLLECTED, and that they separate out the obviously fraudulent ones, flagging them as unverifiable when they hand in the registrations. After all, wouldn’t it make a heck of a lot more sense, if the aim were to set up massive ballot fraud, to scatter those fraudulent registrations throughout legitimate ones? There’s only one reason for any stack of registration cards to contain nothing but fraudulent votes - that they were bundled that way.

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Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country. This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500.
- robocall being played for McCain-Palin campaign in battleground states

I’ve been spluttering about this all day long, and every time it’s been played I’ve found myself more and more speechless. The reason it bothers me so damned much is that - until just now, not one person in the media has said what we can all see - the McCain campaign is making the clear implication that Barack Obama was involved in the bombing of the Pentagon, a judge’s home, the capitol and killed Americans. I’m sorry - you can tapdance like Sammy Davis, Jr. (thanks for the reminder of what a wonderful dancer he was, not-Joe-not-the-plumber) all around the world and you can not get away from the basic reality that that phone call strongly suggests that Barack Obama HELPED Bill Ayers commit acts of domestic terrorism.

Chris Matthews did finally say it out loud - but not to the face of a Nebraska Congresswoman who went on to suggest and urge that we should look for anti-Americans in the Congress. He saved it for an Obama spokesperson and for the editor of The Nation to bring up American Fascism - with a whey-faced Pat Buchanan demanding, yet again by implication, that Barack Obama should “repudiate” John Lewis’ parallels between what is going on at Palin rallies with the kind of jingoistic sloganeering and hate inspired in the Wallace campaign.

There are so many facetious fallacies in this whole ridiculous line thrown up as a smokescreen by the GOP and the McCain campaign that I can’t count them, but let me try.

1. The Democrats are partly at fault for decrying the shouts of “Kill him” and “terrorist!” from the crowds when what they SHOULD be decrying on is the words from the stage that incite the cries of treason and terrorist. She has the right to free speech, indeed, but by focusing on the shouts from the crowd and not the cheerleading from the podium, they weakened their own argument. Seriously, are we actually at the point that we have to PROVE that the mood at those rallies was -ugly-. It was ugly enough that one friend posted that her niece and a friend had gone to a Palin rally and left in the middle because they were AFRAID FOR THEIR SAFETY. They were Palin supporters - and they were afraid for their safety at a Palin rally.

2. The issue is not with a few fringe lunatics in the crowd. It is with the words from the campaign and the words from the candidates themselves. John Lewis does not speak for the DNC or for Barack Obama. Obama immediately came out and stated that he disagreed with Lewis’ drawing of a connection between the Wallace campaign and the McCain campaign, but did have concerns about the tone of the attacks from Sarah Palin. It is reasonable for the Obama campaign to feel that Palin should take responsibility for the tone those words create.

3. It is not up to Barack Obama to “repudiate” John Lewis, and for once, I’m glad to see Obama standing firm on this. The truth is that I started talking about the ugliness of those crowds and the cheerleading that Palin was doing from the platform days before the media started discussing it. If anything, I wish Obama had the stones to commit political suicide by seriously taking this shit on.

I guess I’m going to stop counting at three, because I’m sidetracked by this: this is what I wish Obama had the stones to say out loud about Jeremiah Wright, about Bill Ayers and about ACORN:

I will not repudiate the church to which I have belonged for 20 years because some people disagree with my pastor’s opinion that our country is doing us wrong. I proudly belong to a church that rolls up its sleeves and wades into the community to help clean it up. I proudly belong to a Church that cares enough to challenge itself to do better, to educate its children, to refuse to sit down and shut up when it sees wrong. I do not agree with all of Reverend Wright’s views, but I do believe in the good that my church does. I challenge the media to shed as much light on the good that our church has done for its community as it has shed on a few sentences from its pastor.

I will not repudiate the work that I did with Bill Ayers in an effort to better the educational opportunities available to the children of Chicago. I do not condone his actions in the 60s and I do not believe in violence as civil disobedience. But it is not my place to atone for his sins, and I refuse to punish the children of Chicago by refusing to work with an entire coalition of very conservative and Republican people for their benefit because he is a part of it.

I will not repudiate my ties with ACORN just because the Republican party is pulling out its biennial smear campaign accusing them of voter fraud so that they can congratulate themselves if they win and provide themselves with believable deniability if they lose. The Republican party has raised these same bugaboos every single election cycle, and has gone so far as to fire over 20 of its own lawyers for the crime of refusing to falsely prosecute people who made honest mistakes - like, oh, I don’t know, writing Samuel J. Worzelbacher instead of Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. Yet, after all these years of investigation, they have uncovered “the worst case of voter registration fraud ever perpetrated on the American people” - half a dozen young people who figured out a way to cheat the company that hired them.

Furthermore, the idea that ACORN was responsible for the fall of the mortgage market when they have spent the past five years putting out literature in low-income communities warning people to avoid the kinds of subprime loans that have tanked this economy is laughable, as is the Republican contention that there were billions of dollars of pork in that bill for ACORN. That money was for the Housing Trust Fund, whose most recent use is to help fund President Bush’s mortgage relief program. If Senator McCain lied to you about that, what else is he lying to you about?

There are so many reasons that Barack Obama cannot say these things (and I don’t presume to know what he is thinking or to speak for him). I know that it would cement the Republican base’s feelings about him, and I suspect that it might move enough undecided voters to the right to lose the election. But I wonder too, if he had said these things, if from the very start he had refused to distance himself from the things he believes as if it is shameful to understand that only God is perfect, and America seriously must change the way she deals with the rest of the world, work to educate its children and shore up the middle class that has been footing the bill for everyone else for far too long, if he had declared from the start that he will not abandon his core beliefs because he is running for president anymore than he could have allowed his core and central beliefs to be changed by being in contact with others of more extreme views - I wonder, if he had done that, if he might not have inspired even more people to think outside their own little boxes.

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