Pentagon report provides justification to kill discriminatory DADT policy

In what can be described as “we already knew that,” the Pentagon released an extensive, nine-month report this week that says allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces posed a "low risk" of disruption, and it should deal a death blow to the discriminatory and unconstitutional “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Overall, the study showed that “about 70 percent of active-duty and reserve forces saw little or no problem with ending the 17-year-old policy,” and that overwhelming 70 percent reflects about what the general public believes.

In fact, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged the Senate to pass legislation killing DADT before it adjourns this month, with Gates saying "This can be done, and should be done, without posing a serious risk to military readiness.” That’s simply a no-brainer.

Granted, the 30 percent is very vocal, and the 30 percent in the military also expressed similar false arguments, such as “I cannot rely on someone who I don't feel comfortable with, nor can they trust me," one respondent wrote in one of more than 100,000 surveys returned by service members and their spouses, and comments collected from about 72,000 unsolicited opinions from service members submitted to an Internet drop box. "A lack of trust turns into a lack of cohesion, which eventually leads to mission failure."

Another said, “I believe this is not the time for us to make huge changes in the military. We are at war and our men and women overseas do not need any more distractions. This issue should be addressed at the appropriate time. That time is not now."

I’m sure similar responses were heard back in 1948 when President Truman integrated the military, but one thing I have admired about the military is that it is the most equitable organization I have ever been a part of, and people advance simply on their demonstrated ability.

As for combat troops, among our allies serving along side our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, England and Canada allow gays to serve openly in the military. In fact, more than 25 other countries also allow gays to serve openly in the military with no problems, such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Uruguay. Like “Mr. Conservative” Arizona Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater once said, “You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight."

A Senate panel hearing on the Pentagon report continues today, where Arizona Republican Senator John McCain continues to flip-flop on the issue and embarrass himself.

GOP wants to abolish the 14th Amendment

Fear mongering has long been a stable of the Republican campaign platform, and illegal immigration from Mexico is the latest issue to the GOP has grabbed onto.

With high unemployment, Republicans and teabaggers have jumped all over illegal immigration with the false claim that they are taking American jobs, while ignoring the people actually hiring them at substandard wages. The recently passed Arizona unconstitutional racist “show-me-your-papers” law is little more than another attempt by Republicans to suppress minority voting.

The fact is deportations are up under President Obama. In fact, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of undocumented workers and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers. According toe CBS News, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007.

That begs the questions, where were the teabaggers when Bush was ignoring the immigration problem, just like they were silent was Bush was running the economy into the ground and turning a budget surplus into a deficit?

Not only has President Obama sent the National Guard to patrol the border with Mexico, just today he signed into law a $600 million border security measure that will put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border. It will fund the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas along the border, as well as more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones.

As expected, that will not sway GOP teabaggers from making the false claim that the federal government is not securing the border nor will Obama get any credit.

Teabaggers and other prominent Republicans, including Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, are now calling for repealing the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to all people born in the United States to combat the so-called “anchor babies.”

The 14th Amendment is one of the three Reconstruction Amendments, adopted in 1868 to ensure freed slaves are citizens of the United States. Its Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses have gone a long way toward combating institutional racism and equality.

Republicans claim that people enter the country illegally in order to have children who are automatically U.S. citizens and who will "anchor" their parents to America.

Lindsey told Faux “news” that “people come here to have babies. They come here to drop a child. It's called 'drop and leave.' To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons."

The problem with that rant is that the facts do not bear that out. According to an AP story, “People who study patterns of illegal immigration say that this statement is probably not true in the vast number of birthright citizenship cases. The co-author of the Pew study told Time's Kate Pickert that "well over 80 percent" of the 340,000 births to an illegal immigrant in 2008 were to a mother who had been in the country for at least a year, suggesting they did not come to the country specifically to have a child. And "birth tourism" — in which people purportedly come to America specifically to have a child and then return with the child to their country — seems to be relatively uncommon.”

This is really a non-issue because children have to “wait until they are 21 to seek legal status for an illegal-immigrant parent. According to Politifact, "Only 4,000 unauthorized immigrants can receive such status per year, and the alien has to have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years."”

Clearly, we need comprehensive immigration reform.

I guess if Republicans want to abolish an amendment, perhaps they can look at the 2nd Amendment. After all, a well regulated militia is called the National Guard and the U.S. Army.

Rocker makes strange bedfellow for GOP sheriff

The Republican Party bills itself as the party of family values, but not only does it fail to support middle class families, they associate themselves with some strange people: like rightwing extremist ex-rocker Ted Nugent.

In a brief in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, “Republican gubernatorial candidate and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard this week "joined" rock music legend Ted Nugent to call for an amendment to Michigan's Constitution to create a "legal right to hunt and fish."”

I’m not sure why we need such an amendment, and that’s just a political ploy. But why would any supposedly family values political candidate want to be associated with someone like Nugent? The answer is the money and the press. Not only that, it’s hard for Republicans to find a pop or rock artist that supports Republicans.

You will recall that in the 2008 Presidential election, the rock group Boston told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee that he could no longer use the song “More than a feeling” as his theme song, and liberal rocker John Mellencamp told Arizona Republican Senator John McCain not to use any of his songs at events.

I guess Bouchard can use a Nugent song for his theme song. “Cat Scratch Fever,” or “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” would do nicely. After all, Nugent is quoted as saying:

"My man, Mike Bouchard, is the kind of leader and hunting buddy Michigan needs. We need a leader in truth who will continue to stand up for our guns, God and beliefs," Nugent said.

And what a guy to have as your man. Upstanding citizen Nugent could have faced statuary rape charges for sleeping with his 17-year-old Hawaiian girlfriend Pele Massa, so he talked her parents into allowing him to adopt her.

Like many Republicans, Nugent is pro-war, except when it comes for him to actually serve in combat. The famous story he has told numerous times has him stopping all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showing up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment from serving in Vietnam. However, since Nugent has become a darling of the Republicans and appears on Faux “news” regularly, he has changed the story and now says he enrolled at Oakland Community College and got a deferment. Events say that is highly unlikely, but at a minimum it makes him a liar.

Why he has anything to do the Governor’s race or Michigan is beyond me. He voluntary left Michigan in 2004 when he moved his family to Crawford, Texas, where George Bush once owned a sprawling ranch and spent the majority of his time instead of at the White House.

I was a Nugent fan in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I still like some of his early stuff. The irrelevant stuff he said on local Detroit radio stations was funny and rebellious, but it didn’t have the hateful, misinformed tone it does now. But I have also matured since then.

Listen to the Generals on the ground and kill don’t ask, don’t tell

Remember not too long ago when anyone who talked about strategy in the war in Afghanistan or the unnecessary war in Iraq, the Republicans response was to “listen to the Generals on the ground.”

But they are ignoring their own advice when it comes to the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military. The Senate Armed Services Committee took testimony last week on the issue, and military commanders and civilians from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they supported President Obama's decision to do away with the ridiculous and outdated policy.

"I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said. "For me, personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."

We have become accustomed to the hysteria on anything having to do with gays from the right and Republicans, and the hysteria and hypocrisy coming from Republicans did not disappoint.

Former Navy pilot Sen. John McCain‘s reaction was stunning.

In October of 2006 he had this to say on the don‘t ask, policy: "The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it," McCain said to an audience of Iowa State University students.

That day came last week, but McCain flip-flopped. In response, McCain declared himself "disappointed" in the testimony, according to the Washington Post. "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he said bluntly, before describing it as "imperfect but effective."

Obliviously he’s facing a primary election, and he has to veer to the right.

The criticism from the Republicans on the committee is just ridiculous. I have heard them saying the military is not the place “for a social experiment.” That’s sounds like the reaction on July 26, 1948, when President Harry S. Truman issued a then-controversial executive order that called for "equality of treatment for all persons in the armed services, without regard to race, color, religion or national origin."

I spent 20 years in the Navy, and for anyone to say there are not gays in the military is stupid or they have their head in the sand. It is working fine in the armed services of some of biggest allies, like Australia, Great Britain and Norway, and it will work fine here.

The military has survived and thrived with women in traditional combat roles, and the military will not skip a beat when it does the right thing and repeals “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

I don’t know they will accomplish getting rid of that discriminatory policy, but to quote a famous sales pitch, just do it.

McCain supporter plays Trick or Treat Grinch

Happy Halloween.

Even though I live next to a large park with few houses on my side of the road, I got a fair amount of kids knocking on my door for treats. Between them and my grandkids - and myself, I must admit - I was cleaned completely out of candy. I moved my Obama sign, Schauer sign and Vote yes on Prop 2 yard sign so the kids would not trip over them.

Relaxing on the sofa, I caught the 10 p.m. news on Fox 2, and I saw a disturbing story. This shrew of a woman named Shirley Nagel of Grosse Pointe Farms refused to give kids candy unless they said they were voting for John McCain.

She had a handmade sign on her door that said “No handouts for Obama supporters.” She had candy taped to McCain door hangers. Wow, what class. I had no idea 4 and 5-year-olds could vote.

Making kids cry is how she wins vote for McCain? The door hangers were a great idea, but they should have gone in every bag. I can’t imagine how you can turn a little 4-year-old child away from your door empty handed because they won’t say they support McCain. Most don’t even know who McCain or Obama is.

You’re all class, Shirley. Keep up the good work.

Who are the scheduling wizards who picked the same time as the Backyard Brawl

A group calling itself "The Our Country Deserves Better" PAC is trying to make up for John McCain's decision to abandon Michigan and is conducting a bus tour with 10 stops in Michigan.

The next to last stop will be a rally in my backyard on Saturday at the Mill Pond in downtown Brighton at 3:30 p.m. I do agree with the bus tour's premise that our country deserves better, especially after eight disastrous years of Bush "leadership," but it will not get it with Bush clone Grampy McSame.

As just one more example of how out of touch McSame and his supporters are, I kind of doubt they will get that big a crowd. I would be there just to show my support for Sen. Barack Obama, but I will be sitting in my Lazy-Boy chair in Howell at 3:30 watching the kick-off of the Michigan-Michigan State football game at the Big House. I suspect quite a few of my fellow Michiganders will do doing likewise. It makes you wonder who schedules that stuff.

If you want to see a real bus tour, today is the last day to see the National Bush Legacy Bus Tour when it rolls into Ann Arbor from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday at South State Street and South University.

You would expect the McSame tour will find a big crowd in predominantly Livingston County, but a couple of recent stories in the local daily are showing Obama is leading McSame in raising money in GOP-rich Livingston County.

The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus reported another story that says Obama has increased his money lead, raising some $53,000 compared to McCain's $39,000 from November 2006 through Oct. 1, 2007. In the earlier story, county GOP chair Allan Filip used the ridiculous excuse that Obama is charging for yard signs. With a bigger money difference this time, Filip dropped that ridiculous excuse and has found another alibi. I know his job is to spin bad news like this – and like the news yesterday that the EPIC/MRA poll shows Obama's lead in Michigan has increased by 14 points –but give me a beak. At one point does spin become a lie?

This time Filip used the excuse that most county Republicans probably gave more money to Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. That may be true, but he is, of course, ignoring how close the race and how late it went between Obama and Democratic Presidential Candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. That race went all the way to April, and like Romney, she won in Michigan; granted, Obama's name was not on the ballot, but technically she won.

Speaking of former Republican Massachusetts Governors, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld endorsed Obama, citing the senator's steady leadership, good judgment and ability to unify Democrats, Republicans and independents. Weld was governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. In fact, Weld campaigned for the Mittster before he yielded to McSame in February.

Weld joins other prominent Republicans endorsing Obama over McSame in the campaign's final weeks, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson and Scott McClellan, former press secretary to President Bush.

Obama raises more cash from individuals in predominately Republican Livingston County

The Livingston County Press & Argus did a nice piece of journalism using Open Secrets to report that Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama has raised more money in predominantly Republican Livingston County that GOP nominee John McCain.

According to the report, Obama had raised $35,637 through Sept. 21; more than $3,300 that McCain‘s $32,267 in individual donations. It’s rather surprising because the county has long been a GOP stronghold, and the last time the county went for a Democrat was in 1964, choosing President Johnson over conservative icon Sen. Barry Goldwater.

The joke, originated by an editor at the newspaper itself, was that Livingston County Democrats could hold their meetings in a phone booth. It appears we will need a larger and more lavish phone booth.

The county’s Representative in Congress since 2000 has been a Republican, both state Representative and the state Senator are Republicans, all the members of the County Board of Commissioner are Republicans, all county-wide partisan offices are held by Republicans and only some five partisan township offices are held by Democrats. In light of that, Obama winning the money race is huge.

The spin Livingston County GOP Chair Allan Filip put on it is embarrassing. Since taking over as the chair of the county party less than two years ago, he has come out with some unbelievable whoppers, but this one is right up there. He claims it’s because the Obama campaign is charging for yard signs,

All I have to say to that is a lot of people must be paying a lot of money for those signs.

"What I do know is what could be contributing to some of that is he was charging for collateral, such as yard signs," Filip said. "Just out of speculation, that could be a part of it. I think the reason why he was doing it was because he was trying to get his total number of small donations up.

You are embarrassing yourself. The McCain campaign also charges for yard signs as well. I like their classy “nobama” signs, and for a mere $8.95 you can have one.

Better buy a lot of make up that $3,000.

Cox used AG's office for partisan attack

If you want to see a double standard at work, just take a look at Republican Attorney General Mike Cox.

He announced yesterday in media all across the state that he is charging Antonio Johnson, a former employee of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with six felony forgery charges for allegedly submitting false voter registration forms to the city of Jackson. Cox claims that Johnson, 23 of Hamtramck, filled out, signed and submitted to the Jackson city clerk six voter applications using two Jackson residents' names without their permission between May 20 and June 2. If convicted, Johnson faces up to 14 years in prison for each of the six counts.

The question is why hasn't Cox brought charges against Leon Drolet - the former Republican state Representative, current Macomb County Commissioner and executive director of the so-called Michigan Taxpayers Alliance (MTA) - for his illegal activities in the misguided recall attempts against primarily Democratic lawmakers who voted to increase taxes to avoid a government shutdown and eliminate a $1.8 million budget deficit in October.

Drolet used - or at least those he was responsible for used - fraud and forgery – going so far as to copy names from phone books – to launch a successful recall against Speaker of the House Andy Dillon. The Department of State turned all evidence of forgery and fraud over to Cox and the Wayne County prosecutor’s office, yet we have not heard a thing from him.

This is part of the Grand Oil Party's war on ACORN, and this is happening for two reasons. They hate ACORN for daring to help make it easier for people to exercise their Constitutional right to vote, and the party that has made voter suppression an art form is setting up ACORN as a scapegoat for when they lose the White House next month by claiming the election was stolen.

As I have said before, ACORN hires people to collect voter registrations and pays them for each one. The crime of the people collecting registrations is padding their pay check, and they should be fired or charged with a misdemeanor, not imprisoned. The unofficial blog of the GOP is even going as far as claming Johnson is a convicted felon on parole. I'm not a 100 percent sure that is correct because there are a few Antonio Johnson's out there, but the one pictured from the MDOC offender tracker web site did some three years for addiction. It seems the idiot who runs that blog wants offenders thrown into prison forever with no chance of rehabilitation or a job when they get out.

That seems surprising when you consider how the GOP makes heroes of convicted felons, like Oliver North, convicted terrorist G. Gordon Liddy and Rush Limbaugh.

The GOP is even trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to ACORN as they vilify the organization. This is an organization that has worked to improve the lives of low- and moderate-income people since 1970, and it's being unjustly smeared in the name of politics. It’s funny that Grampy McSame was the keynote speaker at an ACORN-sponsored Immigration Rally in Miami in 2006 where he praised ACORN, and now he is smearing them. Is there anything he will not do to get elected?

What we have seen against ACORN is the unprecedented politicization of the U.S. Justice Department and the attorney firings, and now the Michigan AG's office is being turned into a partisan attack mechanism.

Quote of the Week: McCain pals around with terrorists

This installment of Quote of the Week is dedicated to Grampy McSame and his fading memory.

He apparently forgot that he actually "pals around with terrorists" not just serve on a board with a person where he has no control of. I am referring, of course, to McSame's friendship with convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy. The convicted terrorist has even gone as far as hosting a fundraiser for McSame in his home.

Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story that revealed the corruptness of the Nixon White House, wrote in his syndicated column recently that when respected University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

"Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," Republican Presidential candidate Grampy McSame to convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy when he appeared on Liddy's radio show in May, 2007.

Palin shares abuse of power gene with Bush Administration

If we need any more proof that a Grampy McSame administration will be nothing but a repeat of the crooked, secretive and incompetent Bush Administration, we now have the results of the investigation of the Alaska Legislative Council that found that Sarah “Spiro” Palin violated state ethics laws and abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.

Like Bush, Palin ignored the Constitution and did whatever it took to get what she wanted, and we see the absolute vindictiveness against people she and her husband perceived as wronged them. Granted, this is not illegal wiretapping, torture of prisoners or starting an illegal and unnecessary war, but given how small Alaska is, this is the best - or worse - Palin could do.

Could you imagine the havoc Palin and her husband Todd would cause with the power of the IRS and the already politicized Department of Justice in their hands? It’s as scary as having a totally inexperienced person like Palin as the Commander-in-chief.

Palin is also following the example of the incompetent Bush Administration by releasing a much anticipated report on a Friday when it’s hoped not as many people are paying attention and news rooms only have skeleton crews.

According to the Associated Press, the report said the inquiry looked into Palin's dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who was fired because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister. The retired prosecutor hired to conduct the investigation, said Monegan's firing was lawful. But the pressure Palin and her husband put on him was not.

According to the report, it was her husband, Todd, who led the charge. “Todd Palin had extraordinary access to the governor's office and her closest advisers and he used that access to try to get Wooten fired Gov. Palin knowingly "permitted Todd to use the Governor's office and the resources of the Governor's office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired," Branchflower's report reads.

It’s kind of funny, Palin is McSame’s attack dog spreading hateful lies and whipping the crowds up into a frenzy of hatred, and apparently Todd Palin is the attack dog for his wife.

The McSame campaign failed in its attempt to block the report until after the election, but they immediately tried to spin it as politically motivated and an attempt to tarnish the GOP VP candidate. That ignores, of course, the fact that the investigation began when no one had any idea Palin was even being considered as a VP candidate.

This is just more proof that conservatives cannot govern. I’m reading a great book by John Dean, the former Richard Nixon legal counsel, called “Broken Government.” The gist of the book is how Republican rule has destroyed the three branches of government.

This report shatters the farce that Palin is a reformer, and what she really is, is the queen of earmarks, and Dean’s book highlights how the Grand Oil Party used earmarks as bribes.

In the book, Dean talks about how earmarks increased under GOP rule and how it was used to pay off lobbyists for their role in the K Street scandal. Dean says over the past 50 years there have been 9,242 earmarks in highway bills. Of those, 8,505 or 92 percent have been inserted in the three highway bills enacted since Republicans took the House 10 years ago prior to 2007. That’s how we got the infamous bridge to nowhere that Palin lied about when she said she said, “Thanks but no thanks” failing to revel she took the money anyway.

Report card says McCain does not support the troops

Despite Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's Navy service, his alleged support of the troops appears to be littlie more than lip service.

The nonpartisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) recently released a report card of Congresses votes on veteran's issues, and McCain received a D while Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama received a grade of B.

The report card is based on the legislative priorities outlined in IAVA's Legislative Agenda, and it selected 22 key votes on veterans' issues in the 110th Congress. The votes cover the entire range of issues facing new veterans, including veterans' health care, the new GI Bill, mental health and support for homeless veterans

Among Michigan Legislators, Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow both received an A+.

Members of Congress from Michigan receiving A's were Rep. Bart Stupak, Rep. Dale Kildee, Rep. Fred Upton, Rep. Mike Rogers, Rep. Joe Knollenberg, Rep. Candice Miller, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, Rep. Sander Levin, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick, Rep. John Conyers Jr. and Rep. John Dingell.

Republicans getting increasingly desperate and turn campaigns even uglier

Extremist Tim Walberg is becoming a little unhinged as he desperately tries to chip away at the lead of Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, in the race for the 7th Congressional seat in the U.S. House.

Walberg's most recent lie-filled ad compares Schauer to Michigan filmmaker Michael Moore, and it calls Schauer "dangerous." This is the same Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore who founded and is the president of the extremely successful Traverse City Film Festival. Moore has done far more for Michigan than Walberg ever has.

Walberg then stoops to the old, reliable Grand Oil Party tactic of fear and discrimination by making the false claim that Schauer voted to give illegal immigrants' driver's licenses. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Folks, no illegal immigrant can get a driver's license in Michigan. There was controversy last year over this issue when Attorney General Mike Cox issued a totally unneeded opinion on December 27, 2007 that says driver's licenses can only be issued to permanent residents of the state. That was already the case, but in his early campaign for Governor, Cox issued this opinion to please the base. This spring the Legislature had to correct it because it denied a license to the thousands of foreign nationals living and working legally in Michigan.

The false attack ad against Schauer referenced House Bill 5497. The bill was passed on February 7, 2002 when Schauer was in the Michigan House. It passed the House, but the Senate did not even take it up. Like Cox's misguided and unnecessary opinion, it was not needed, and it claimed it would ban illegal immigrants from getting a license. It would do the same thing as Cox's opinion; deny a license to the thousands of foreign nationals living and working legally in Michigan. Those against the bill were the Michigan Catholic Conference, Catholic Social Services Refugee Services and The Michigan AFL-CIO.

There was also a blurb about Schauer voting for the gas tax, but I have no idea what he is talking about.

The attack ads by the GOP is a disturbing trend. We have seen GOP VP candidate Spiro Palin make the false claim that Sen. Barack Obama is "paling around with a terrorist," because he served on two nonprofit boards with Bill Ayers, a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former Vietnam anti-war activist.

It seems ironic that no one is bringing up Grampy McSame and Spiro's connections to a terrorist and an anti-American group, so I will. Convicted felon G. Gordon Liddy has made four contributions totaling $5,000 to Grampy's campaigns. Grampy went on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign and Liddy greeted him as "an old friend," and McCain replied. "I'm proud of you, I'm proud of your family. Liddy - of Watergate fame, or better infamous - was convicted to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of conspiracy, burglary and illegal wiretapping. As a Watergate burglar, he concocted several plots that included firebombing the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., kidnapping anti-war protest organizers and transporting them to Mexico and luring mid-level Democratic campaign officials to a house boat in Baltimore where they would be secretly photographed in compromising positions with call girls. In sharp contrast, Ayers has not been convicted of anything.

McSame's nasty and disrespectful behavior at Tuesday's debate was unprecedented when he called Obama "that one there."

The Grampy McSame and Palin rallies are becoming increasingly ugly, and the pair are close to inciting their followers to violence. At recent rallies, the pair have stooped to calling Obama a terrorist, and the crowd has responded with cries of "terrorist" and "kill him." McSame and Palin must put a stop to this and denounce it instead of pretending they did not hear it.

Debate shows Palin missed her calling

After watching the Vice-Presidential debate last night, I got the impression GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin missed her calling: she should have stuck with reading baseball scores or better yet she would make an excellent happy talk meteorologist or a happy talk TV news anchor.

It just seemed a little creepy to me that the talk was about nuclear weapons, war and an economy where people are losing everything they spent a lifetime working for she was smiling and giggly and winking at the camera. Democratic candidate Sen. Joe Biden clearly won, but based on Palin's disastrous interviews with that tough interviewer Katie Couric, if Palin just completed a sentence without breaking into a Miss Teen South Carolina "such as the Iraq" speech, right-wingers will say she won.

In her closing remarks she took more shots at the media she is avoiding like the plague, saying she liked debates where there is no filter. I would like her to explain what filter she is talking about when a reporter simply asks her a question and simply plays the video. We know why she is avoiding the media because they will not allow her to duck questions like the debate moderator did, and she will not get softball questions like Couric served up.

I heard from a few women who were offended at her cutesy delivery on some very serious issues, even winking at the camera and giving shout outs to a school class. I have a hard time imagining her staring down Putin or some other dictator from across the table. I can, however, see Joe Biden doing it, and in fact he has looked Slobodan Milosevic in the eye and called him a war criminal.

The bottom line is Joe Biden is presidential, Sarah Palin is not.

Palin did not answer a single question the moderator posed. I don't think Jim Lehrer would have let her get away with that. She gave Biden a hard time about looking at the past when he pointed out Grampy McCame's support of Bush's failed policies, but she couldn't identify a single area where she or McSame would change Bush's economic or foreign policy positions. Her "say it ain't so, Joe," and her Reaganisqe "There you go again" lines were ridiculous.

If you were playing a drinking game where you took a shot when she said certain words, you would have been pretty drunk if you chose the word "maverick." That's why I was so happy when Biden debunked that one.

In an ABC-Washington Post poll released Thursday, six in 10 Americans said Palin lacked the experience to be an effective president; a third of those surveyed said they were less likely to vote for McCain because of her. I think this debate should increase those numbers.

Quote of the Week: Please do not pay attention

This week's Quote of the Week goes to GOP Presidential nominee Grampy McSame, who is looking for any excuse to get out of a planned debate with Democratic nominee Barrack Obama set for Friday evening at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

A few days ago McSame said he'll suspend his campaign and return to Washington to join talks over the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. He also said he wouldn't take part in Friday's scheduled debate unless the crisis is resolved. Obama said president's have to do more than one thing at a time, and you wonder how much effort it takes to hop on a place from DC to Tennessee to debate for 90 minutes then fly back.

Obama said he plans to be there, and there is word a deal in principle on the bailout has been reached, meaning McSame may have to go to class and get schooled.

"I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying attention, then we get good government and good leadership. And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government and politics.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA, MSNBC interview, Sep. 25, 2006

McSame and the Republicans are desperately hoping the American public is not paying attention.

Quote of the week:Fake pig outrage

This week's Quote of the Week is dedicates to the presidential ticket of Grampy McSame and Spiro Palin and their fake outrage.

You will recall that the McSame campaign came unglued recently when future President Barack Obama said McSame's policies were the same as Bush's failed polices but with a little lipstick to dress them up, using the old cliché that you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig. The fake outrage came immediately from the right when they accused Obama of calling Palin a pig, based on her "joke" in her acceptance speech where she said she was a hockey mom and the only difference between pit bull and a hockey mom was lipstick.

But before Grampy launches into another made up controversy, he should have checked if he had said it, because he did, at least three times. The quote of the week is when he said it about then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's health care plan. This time, McSame was referring directly to a woman, unlike Obama who was referring to McSame.

Was McSame calling Hillary pig? I doubt it. He just needs to remember when he flips and when he flops.

It’s vaguely, not vaguely, eerily reminiscent of what they tried in 1993. I think they put some lip stick on the pig, but it’s still a pig, John McCain, talking about Hillary Clinton’s health care plan.

Revived Quote of the Week feature highlights GOP VP pick

The recent open mike situation showed that right-wingers are just as appalled as the rest of the country is over the choice of the inexperienced and ethically-challenged Sarah "Spiro" Palin as the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee.

A new feature here at The Conservative Media is the Quote of the Week. This is similar to our Ann Coulter Quote of the week, but this will not always be as disgusting as those that come from the queen of hate. However, she may be featured on occasion. You never know what stupid, hateful crap will come out of her mouth.

This inaugural quote comes from conservative radio talk show host and self-styled family expert Laura Schlessinger where she talks about Grampy McSame's pandering pick of Palin as his running mate:

"I’m stunned - couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors probably didn’t want a “mature” woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?
I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family’s newborn."

Brewer squashes McCain’s false maverick claim

HOWELL -- Michigan Democrat Party Chair Mark Brewer was supposed to talk about the sweeping Reform Michigan Government Now ballot question Tuesday, but a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court to keep it off the ballot put a crimp in that.

“You all probably know by now that the Supreme Court tanked the speech he was going to give,” said retired Livingston County Circuit Court before Judge Daniel Burress, who introduced Brewer. “The court is not going to let Joe six-pack like us vote on it.”

A major topic of discussion was the state Supreme Court race between Cliff Taylor and Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Diane Marie Hathaway. Taylor leads the Republican majority of activist judges known as the “Gang of Four” that has been rated the worst court in the country.

Burress has his own view of the court, and it’s not good. He said he got a sense of the court’s disdain for the common person over a simple slip and fall case when a blind man slipped on ice and injured himself using the restroom. He said it was tossed out of court because the hazard was “preventable and obvious.”

“That’s the type pf ruling the court has used to throw cases out of court,” he said.

The comprehensive RMGN will amend the Michigan Constitution, and it will fundamentally change Michigan government. To name just a few of the many complex changes it will address, it cuts the Supreme Court Justices to five members, from seven, reduces the Court of Appeals by seven members and adds 10 circuit court judges. The House would be cut to 82 members from the current 110 and the Senate to 28 from 38 and half of the Senate seats would be decided at each election. It also cuts pay and benefits of legislators.

“We have some fine state legislators, but they are not sharing the sacrifices everyone else is making,” Brewer said. “It’s about sharing sacrifice.”

A ballot question to have a constitutional convention will automatically be on the ballot in 2010, and Brewer was asked why not wait until then. Brewer said it would take at least five years before any changes were seen, it would be too expensive and too partisan.

“We can’t wait, it’s too expensive, and too partisan,” he said.

Brewer had plenty to day about the McCain/Palin ticket.

“I really have to laugh when John McCain and Sarah Palin claim to be reformers,” he said. “He says he will fight the lobbyists, but he has Washington lobbyists running his campaign. “

He said the two have received massive amounts of money from big oil, and McCain’s claim to be a “maverick” is ridiculous.

“When he first came to Washington he was part of the Keating 5, a major scandal,” he said. “That wasn’t a very good start.”

He said Palin was vetted so badly by the McCain camp that news is breaking daily on her dismal record and questionable ethics. The most recent is she accepted per diem for travel when she worked at home.

“It’s our job to be the truth squad for the next two months,” he said.

Party faithful gear up for historic election at MDP convention

LANSING -- Gov. Jennifer Granholm hit the nail on the hard when she questioned the RNC’s convention theme of “A change is going to come” when GOP Presidential nominee John McCain voted with current President George Bush more than 90 percent of the time and has been in Washington for almost three decades.

“We have John McCain out of his own mouth saying he voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time,” she said. “But there he was in Sterling Heights Friday running away from the Republicans.”

Granholm gave a signature fiery speech at the Michigan Democratic Party Convention Saturday at the Lansing Center before an excited crowd.

Granholm said the absence of George Bush, the leader of the Republican Party, and Vice-President Dick Cheney spoke volumes. McCain said he would put the country back on the road to prosperity, but at the same time wholeheartedly supporting Bush’s failed economic policies. He stole Barack Obama’s change theme because he is trying hard not be Velcroed to the failure of Bush.

“People will remember when the country was prosperous a Democrat was in the White House,” she said. “The Republicans are putting on a mask because they are trying to fool the American people.”

Granholm talked about the latest Jobs Report that showed the U.S. jobless rate jumped to a 5-year high at 6.1 percent, and the leading job losses were in the manufacturing sector, automotive and auto suppliers.

“Who gets hit by that, Michigan does,” she said.

Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero welcomed the Democrats to his city, and he outlined how the failed Bush policies have hurt the Capitol City.

“Cities are under siege,” he said. “Cities are canaries of our economy, and they are hurting.”

Bernero said he didn’t watch much of the RNC convention on TV, but it only took him a few minutes to know it was the same old Republicans rhetoric.

“I watched and listened, and I hear the same old thing; get government out of the way,” he said. “They got government out of the way by deregulating the financial industry that led to the foreclosure crisis. They got government out of the way for criminals by getting rid of police and killing the COPS program.”

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow talked about McCain’s chief economic advisor, the same guy responsible for deregulating the financial industry, who said the recession was a “mental recession” and we are a nation of whiners: former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

“Now I ask you: when you lose your job or your wages go down, are you just hallucinating.” Stabenow said. “America is not a nation of whiners, it’s a nation of workers.”

Sen. Carl Levin said the excitement, hope and inspiration generated by Barack Obama’s campaign reminds him of the first political campaign he participated in: President John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign. He said reception Obama recently received by one of our best allies, Germany, demonstrated that Obama can repair our tarnished reputation around the world.

“Barack Obama is greeted by 250,000 cheering people: George Bush is greeted by violent protests,” he said. “That told a lot pf people in this country that our reputation can be won back.”

Longtime U.S. Congressman Dale Kildee introduced the Democratic Congressional candidates, including State Sen. Mark Schauer, who is opposing the most extreme member of Congress; Tim Walberg in the 7th District.

“The Club for Growth certainly got what they paid for, but the people of the 7th District did not, “ he said.

Schauer said he has unseated a Republican incumbent before. He highlighted some of Walberg’s more extreme positions, such as saying everyone has healthcare, they just have to walk into an ER; he wants to drill in the Great Lakes; he voted against Head Start and he believes Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

“It takes a grassroots effort to win an election,” Schauer said. “That’s how I beat an incumbent Republican who was also out of touch.”

I missed 90210 for this

After wasting my evening watching the exciting Republican National Convention Tuesday night, I realized I would have been more entertained and informed if I had watched the debut of the new “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Obviously, the excitement was not on the convention floor. Apparently, it was at the many parties sponsored by the lobbyists that run Grampy McSame’s campaign. It started with Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn. The good news is he will leave the comedy to Al Franken when Franken unsets him in November.

A series of unknown and uninspiring speakers led up to the Bush/McCain satellite speech. The one exception was batty Michele Bachmann, but her speech was not very noteworthy.

Laura Bush good some good applause, and she did a good job of spinning Bush’s record. The line that got the biggest applause was “he kept America safe.” She apparently forgot about the attack on Americans soil on his watch on Sept. 11, 2001. His response was to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans so he could invade a sovereign country that had nothing to do with the attack.

Bush’s prepared speech was the same old stuff, and we don’t need eight more years of that.

“The angry left?” I know this, I’m angry that he has sullied this country’s honor just to line the pockets of his cronies. Bush/McCain claims Grampy McSame will tell you when he disagrees. I would like to hear something that Grampy disagrees with Bush/McCain on. He has flip-flopped on that small 10 percent he didn’t vote with Bush on.

Somebody woke Fred Thompson up to give the keynote speech. He used some untrue things to props up the VP nominee, but that is to be expected. Apparently, being the mayor of a city smaller than Howell and able to field dress a moose qualifies her to lead the free world. Being the Washington lobbyist and Hollywood actor he is, Thompson sold the convention faithful a bill of goods.

It seems kind of ironic that Thompson can bring up the military service of McSame’s sons, but they go berserk when Palin’s daughter is brought up. Why is that? Most of the speech was on his POW experience. I still don’t see how that qualifies him to be president alone. Thompson describes the torture McCain endured in detail, so why is he endorsing the U.S. disgusting torture policy?

All in all, it wasn’t a bad speech, even if it was filled with outright lies and half-truths. It makes you wonder why we saw none of that from Thompson on the campaign trail. Perhaps he might have won more than just three delegates.

I skipped Lieberman’s speech. I couldn’t’ stomach the turncoat.

Huge crowd turns out so see Obama in Detroit

DETROIT - I was part of the largest crowd I have ever seen in my entire life in Hart Plaza to see Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama on Labor Day.

Their were numerous lines snaking up and down streets trying to shoehorn into Hart Plaza, and the lines were crossing past one another. There was no way to fit that many people into Hart Plaza, so my wife and I found ourselves with thousands of other people in he middle of Jefferson Avenue near Cobo Hall watching the speech on a huge monitor. Despite the heat and the crush of people, I saw no one unhappy, upset or disappointed.

They, like me, are inspired by leadership that will restore dignity to our country, and our country will be respected in the the world again as the good guys who respect law, freedom and liberty. He will help us regain the moral high ground that treats the weak and vulnerable with dignity, and we do not torture people.

On a day that honors organized labor and the positive effect its has had for millions of workers, union or not, he briefly spoke of the accomplishments of labor that included the eight-hour day, the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, overtime and a safe workplace from a time when workers had no idea if they would return home from work at all or would return home from work with all of their limbs.

Obama cut the speech short out of respect for the fast approaching Hurricane Gustav as it moved closer to landfall in the Gulf Coast, so it took far longer to get there than his speech took. Instead, he asked for a moment of silent prayer and asked people to contribute to the relief effort. No one seemed disappointed at the shortened speech.

I have now seen both presidential candidates, and the contrast between the two could not be more stark. The excitement generated by the Obama rally was infectious.

The trip up was a unique experience. Always looking for a carpool or to share a ride, a friends emailed me that the AARP was sponsoring a bus trip with pickups in Okemos and Southfield. The trip was sponsored by the Divided We Fail campaign, a nonpartisan partnership between AARP, the Service Employees Union (SEIU) and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). It’s dedicated to finding bi-partisan solutions to ensure affordable, quality health care and long-term financial security for all Americans.

I met some great people, and had a blast, both on the bus and at the rally. It was fun to share the experience with people of like mind, and I got to see a lot of downtown Detroit snaking through the long lines. I also saw many different designs and varieties of Obama T-shirts and memorabilia.

Because the group is nonpartisan, they are also doing the same thing for Grampy McSame’s The purpose of the trip is to show the colors, so to speak, with the distinctive red t-shirts, The organizer asked if anyone want to take the same trip Friday. There were no takers.