MODERATE GOPers ABANDONING SINKING SHIP
"Swift Boaters" continue to attack Hillary's sex, her aggressiveness, her supposed lack of sexuality. They ridicule Obama's middle name and talk about his minister, while still, somehow, characterizing him as a non-Christian. They're the loud mouths who want to talk through the movie you just spent eight bucks to see. But these silly ad hominem attacks haven't masked the fact that continuing to support the war and apologizing for the fiasco that has been the last eight years is having a tremendous impact on the folks in "THE MIDDLE". The middle is not just the class. It isn't dependent on one's income. It's all of us who have been caught in the raging cultural, political, and ideological noise and want the shit to just stop. For example, a newspaper syndicate's computer analysis has found that hundreds of people who gave at least $200 to Bush's 2004 campaign have donated to Obama. Among them are Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the granddaughter of the late GOP president Dwight Eisenhower; Connie Ballmer, the wife of Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer; and Tom Fanning, the chief operating officer of the Southern Company. Is this just the "Big Dogs" hedging their bets, a Limbaugh-like conspiracy to put up a strawman, or is the country's political DNA going through a permutation? I have friends who fall into the category that is spoken about in this story. They're not the Microsoft Execs, but they make up the bulwark of the Republican Party. They're culturally liberal and economically conservative. They work their asses off. They party just as hard, maybe not always legally. They may or may not go to church and consider your decisions about your God to be your business. I've always wondered how they could continue to make excuses for folks with whom they really share little. Judging from my recent conversations with them, at least some of them have stopped. Some of them supported McCain because he was the most progressive, some Hillary and some Obama and that could be the real Bush legacy; that the blowhards will be silenced long enough so we can get the real picture. Pass the popcorn, please. (TRUTHOUT)

t r u t h o u t | The Fall of Conservatism

BEING RIGHT
"The era of American politics that has been dying before our eyes was born in 1966. That January, a twenty-seven-year-old editorial writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat named Patrick Buchanan went to work for Richard Nixon, who was just beginning the most improbable political comeback in American history. Having served as Vice-President in the Eisenhower Administration, Nixon had lost the Presidency by a whisker to John F. Kennedy, in 1960, and had been humiliated in a 1962 bid for the California governorship. But he saw that he could propel himself back to power on the strength of a new feeling among Americans who, appalled by the chaos of the cities, the moral heedlessness of the young, and the insults to national pride in Vietnam, were ready to blame it all on the liberalism of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Right-wing populism was bubbling up from below; it needed to be guided by a leader who understood its resentments because he felt them, too.
(TRUTHOUT)

Op-Ed Contributor - Puerto Rico’s Moment in the Sun - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

MOMENT IN THE SUN
This article about Puerto Rico and the national election was sent to me by my good friend Connie Acevedo whose uncle was the "go to" guy for Muñoz Marin (our FDR).
(NEW YORK TIMES, unearthed by Connie Acevedo)

Too Poor to Parent? | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet

TOO POOR TO PARENT?
At lunch yesterday I watched as the Texas FLDS children were loaded on buses in order to rightfully return them to their parents. It seems a misplaced concern to worry about children who are being cared and loved (if they are not truly being abused) and not worry about the countless kids out there who are being abused and who we know do go hungry every day as a routine matter of course. As this article shows, black children are twice as likely to enter U.S. foster care than white children. While some just use this as kindling for their own racial notions, the real culprit is our inattention to poverty.
(MS, unearthed by AlterNet)

Noel Luis Rios

REMEMBERING
I got an email recently called "Meaning of Flag Draped Coffin". It was one of those well-meaning but jingoistic emails that is spreading a slough of urban legends about the flag. In responding to the sender I sent her these sites that debunk the email's contents and another that had interesting facts about the flag:

http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/more/folds.htm

http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/flagetiq.html

I also ran across this page I had put together about five years ago about my cousin Noel Luis Rios who died in Viet Nam. Since Monday is Memorial Day, I thought it was worth a read.

t r u t h o u t | Liberals Work to Change McCain's Image

OUTTING MCCAIN
Changing the media image of John McCain won't be easy. Outside groups, though unaffiliated with the presidential campaigns, are doing the Democrats' dirty work.
(TRUTHOUT)

Media Matters Action Network: Fear and Loathing in Prime Time

HATE TV
There are many serious problems facing the United States today: a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the ongoing war in Iraq, to name a few. Yet, in certain corners of the Hate TV one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.
(MEDIA MATTERS)

Government May Have Massive Surveillance Program for Use in "National Emergency" | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

WHY? DO I LOOK GUILTY?
“Main Core,” part of so-called “Continuity of Governance” plans, is a program that authorizes computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases in order to discover potential threats in the event of a national emergency. The database can identify and locate perceived "enemies of the state" almost instantaneously. One source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. “Main Core is the table of contents for all the illegal information that the U.S. government has [compiled] on specific targets,” said a former military operative.
(ALTERNET)

Straight talk - News - The Phoenix

STRAIGHT TALK NEEDED
It's time to start covering John McCain. Not by trotting out the usual war-hero-turned-blunt-maverick narrative, but by taking a hard look at the strengths and weaknesses he'd bring to the presidency.
(BOSTON PHOENIX)

Truthdig - Reports - Render Unto Darwin That Which Is Darwin’s

THE CULT OF SCIENCE
The New Atheist writers have become the high priests not of science but the cult of science. Science is not always directly empirical. Science is not governed by absolute, immutable laws. Science, far from telling us we can know everything, tells us that there are things that we don't know. Science affirms the complexity and mystery of the universe. Science, like the religious impulse, opens us up to a world where we face mystery.
(TRUTHOUT)

The cordial zone stops here—a classic expletive-laden eruption from Bill O'Reilly - 236 - The Feed

ANY WAY YOU SPELL IT
This outburst by Bill O'Reilly wasn't too surprising as it shows him to be the same bully he plays on TV. The only real question it left me with is wondering whether Bill O'Reilly is a douchebag or a douche bag?
(23/6)

The Harper's ( Bazaar ) Index: Hillary Clinton's "Sexless" Style, Julianne Moore, & Orgasm-Inducing Luggage

HARPER'S INDEX
Yes, I confess. Back when I had a subscription to Harper's, I would immediately turn to the Index and probably not much more in the magazine. Here is a compilation of the most recent Indexes.
(JEZEBEL)

The Associated Press: Study of 'Daily Show': It's a lot like O'Reilly

JON STEWART SHOW IS LIKE O'REILLY
A journalism think tank studying The Daily Show doesn't believe many people get their news from Jon Stewart — because otherwise they wouldn't get the jokes. The Project for Excellence in Journalism also said it was surprised at how much the Comedy Central late-night program resembles The O'Reilly Factor,Hardball and other cable news shows in content.
(AP, unearthed by Media Bistro)

WHAT KIDS TEACH US
Carlos lives with his mom. I was miffed at him the other day because he hadn't called me in a few days. When he came over for the weekend I was so happy to see him that I let it go. But that night when we were having a quiet moment, I thought about it. I reminded him that I worry about him, that it hurts my feelings when he takes me for granted, and that he's old enough to take responsibility for letting me know he's okay.
And then I told him that if he was "ever, ever lucky enough to have children" he'd know what it really means to love someone and how important a child is to a parent. "You'll also have a lot of regrets about things you did or didn't do and you'll miss me. But know, this, I love you with all my heart and nothing that you do can change that," I told him.
He had tears in his eyes and apologized. I assured him that everything was okay, that I wasn't nagging and that It really was a sincere effort by me to let him know that everything was okay between us, that I was proud of him, that I loved him tremendously, that everyone makes the same mistakes and has the same regrets and that what I wanted him to know was what kids teach us - true, full, real love.

Los Angeles Asian Plastic Surgery | Los Angeles Asian Rhinoplasty | Los Angeles Asian Cosmetic Surgery

ASIAN NOSE SURGERY, ANYONE?
So, this ad for "Asian Nose Surgery" shows up on my google mail page. "Hmmmm," I wonder, "do people in Beverly Hills want Asian noses or is it a service for Asians?"