This post originally appeared at Think Progress.

The League of Women Voters has filed complaints with police in Evanston, IL and the FBI saying that one of their officials has been targeted by death threats relating to a candidatess debate she moderated last week. Kathy Tate-Bradish was a volunteer moderator at the October 21 debate in the state’s 8th District and sparked conservative outrage when she expressed what was perceived as “lukewarm” support for reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Just as the debate was about to begin, an audience member asked Tate-Bradish whether the pledge would be recited. When she “explained the pledge was not scheduled to begin the event, almost all in the crowd of more than 300 stood and enthusiastically recited it anyway.” Tate-Bradish recited the pledge as well, but told the crowd afterwards that the Pledge is not typically recited at candidate debates moderated by the League.

Within a few days, Tate-Bradish went from an unknown local League official to a right-wing villain, thanks to Fox News host Glenn Beck, who devoted a significant portion of his October 25 show to attacking her personally:

BECK: We wanted to look at the moderator, Kathy Tate-Bradish, from the League of Women Voters. Oh, she sounds so neutral and everything. I mean, she’s even neutral on the Pledge, apparently — just a typical woman voter trying to get the truth out. No, not so much — not so much. READ FULL POST

Yesterday, Talking Points Memo’s Eric Lach reported that a second woman had stepped forward with allegations that the Republican candidate in Ohio’s 13th district had sexually harassed her.

For the second time in a month, Republican congressional candidate Tom Ganley, running in Ohio’s 13th district, has been accused of sexual harassment.

In late September, a married mother of four filed a civil suit against Ganley, in which she accused him of attempted rape and sexual assault. Ganley’s attorney called the charges “baseless allegations.”

Now, a woman named Dianne Hill has filed a report with the Cleveland police, over an alleged incident that occurred in 2005, at Ganley’s Chevy dealership in Cleveland. READ FULL POST

This post originally appeared at the Political Animal.

We’ll know soon enough what the midterm elections have in store for us, but it’s interesting to see how political observers prepare for the likely outcome. Given the expected rancor and gridlock, it’s not unreasonable to wonder just how bad things might get in 2011 and 2012.

For some, there’s no reason to be too worried. Over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen the White House change party hands more than once, and the same goes for fleeting congressional majorities. We’ve been pushed to the brink, and some constitutional crises have popped up, but we’ve generally weathered some unpleasant storms. For much of the ’90s, we even enjoyed peace and prosperity.

For others, the avoidable future poses a more a serious danger. Paul Krugman, expecting a GOP majority, noted yesterday that “this is going to be terrible.” READ FULL POST

The New York Times reports that employees in a Canton, Ohio McDonald’s received a pamplet with their pay-checks this week urging them to vote Republican “or possibly face financial repercussions.”

The pamphlet appeared calculated to intimidate workers into voting for Republican candidates by making a direct reference to their wages and benefits, said Allen Schulman, a Democrat who is president of the Canton City Council and said he obtained a copy of the pamphlet on Wednesday.

The pamphlet said: “If the right people are elected, we will be able to continue with raises and benefits at or above the current levels. If others are elected, we will not.”

It then named three Republican candidates after stating, “The following candidates are the ones we believe will help our business move forward.”

Schulman, a lawyer, told the Times that the practice violates a state law prohibiting electioneering materials from being attached to pay-checks. A spokesman for the national chain said the move represented, “an unfortunately lapse in judgment” on the part of the store’s owner, Paul Siegfried, who released a statement through the company apologizing for offending any potential customers.

A central theme in my book, The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy, focuses on the Corporate Right’s constant efforts to obscure the vast differences in the economic interests of working people and management and investors — between Bill Gates and the guy who cleans Bill Gates’ pool. READ FULL POST

This post originally appeared at Media Matters.

This post originally appeared at Think Progress.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker, a disciple of disgraced former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, released a campaign ad comparing the judge who recently struck down the unconstitutional Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy to Al-Qaeda:

Recently, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ordered a worldwide injunction to overturn the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals serving in the military.  With a stroke of a pen, this Clinton appointed judge—who got her law degree at Berkeley—unilaterally made the biggest single change in military policy in American history. . . . Most people believe that Al-Qaeda is one of America’s biggest security threats, I think it’s time to add liberal activist judges like Judge Phillips to that list. READ FULL POST

Rumors have been flying lately that former Pres. Bill Clinton urged Democrat Kendrick Meek to drop his bid for Florida’s open U.S. Senate seat in order to deprive the Tea Party-backed Marco Rubio of a win next week. Also in the race is Gov. Charlie Crist, who was a Republican until he appeared headed for defeat in the G.O.P. primary. Crist jumped ship in August, and became an independent. Clinton today issued a statement denying the rumors. Sort of.

READ FULL POST

By Brittney Cooper, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Alabama,

Race-talk is American’s national hiccup. This is nothing new. Many perspectives have been bandied back and forth about NPR’s recent and unceremonious firing of conservative commentator Juan Williams. I am personally not a fan of Williams. Even so, his termination was an opportunistic move by an organization looking for an excuse to let him go.

However, I think that this incident offers a window into a very insidious trend in racial discourse in this country. Recently, we have seen a spate of incidents of public white figures—Harry Reid, Vice President Joe Biden, tv personality Dog the Bounty Hunter, and of course the infamous Don Imus– making incendiary, misinformed, and offensive comments about race. Without careful analysis, we might make the mistake of reading Juan Williams comments within the same parameters, as a kind of unfortunate and ignorant racial diarrhea.

However, 2010 has shown us something new. In July, we witnessed USDA official Shirley Sherrod be swiftly removed from her post when comments surfaced from a March 2010 NAACP speech that she gave in which she admitted to having racial bias against poor white farmers in rural Georgia in the 1980s. Taken out of context by conservative hacks, her remarks seemed to indicate a kind of troubling racism. In just a few short days, it was revealed that she had actually used this incident with a poor white farmer as a teachable moment about the need to rethink our racial biases and to put them in a larger context. Juan Williams attempted in his remarks to do the same thing. He was not arguing that Muslims are terrorists, but rather acknowledging his own biases against them in our post-911 world. And he was attempting to acknowledge that bias as a way to demand that we deal with the irrationality and unfairness of our racial fears. Rather than invoking the usual staid conservative critique of the problems with political correctness, Williams pointed to the very real issue of the ways in which political correctness often impedes our ability to be honest, and by extension our ability to address the reality of ingrained racial bias.

These comments uttered by Williams and Sherrod then are qualitatively distinct from the comments uttered by Don Imus, Harry Reid, and others. Whereas the latter comments reflect broad ignorance, continued adherence to antiquated racial stereotypes, and a troubling lack of reflexivity on matters of racial identity, the comments of Sherrod and Williams indicate a high degree of conscientious and self-reflexive engagement with the politics of racism, in ways that have the potential to be transformative. Sherrod’s message is powerful because she attempts to think through the broad sets of concerns, for instance not just race, but also class, which subjugate large subsets of people regardless of race. Williams’ message is powerful because it acknowledges America’s rampant Islamaphobia, a diseased condition that is at best a nuisance and at worst deadly to our Muslim brothers and sisters. It is no coincidence, I would argue, that the two figures who are thoughtful and self reflective about racial politics and their own potential for racism are African American. No, African Americans are not inherently more virtuous on racial matters. But our history of subjugation in this country often compels us to think more critically about the tangled tentacles of racism that threaten to entrap us all.

Having just finished teaching a unit on Derrick Bell in an undergraduate course on Black intellectuals, I am left with the profound sense, however, that moral conviction and the striving for ideals of racial truth and equality are poor racial strategies for Black folks. The moral rightness of Williams’ choice to be honest might help us sleep well at night, but it has not had the transformative impact that this kind of transparent racial discourse is meant to evoke. Bell admonished in Faces at the Bottom of the Well that “that racial patterns [will always] adapt in ways that maintain white dominance.”

It is a laughable (painful) irony that Don Imus, certified racial philistine, has a pulpit from which to share his own thoughts  about the Williams controversy: “I’m not a fan…Juan will be okay.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/JvkhiWoO-2E

When Imus was fired in 2007 for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes,” he appeared on every news station apologizing and asking for racial vindication. After a few months out of the spotlight, he was back on the air. He had no problem casting his racial crisis as our national emergency, which makes his dismissiveness of Williams absolutely outrageous.  Dog, the Bounty Hunter was caught on tape in 2007, using the n-word gratuitously and telling his son not to date a Black woman. Yet, he insisted on his racial innocence, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and after a short hiatus for his show on A & E, he, too, is back on the air.  These men have done nothing to move national racial conversations forward, and while Williams’ conservatism is nothing to shout about, in this instance, he absolutely put himself on the line to have a much needed conversation about American anti-Muslim bias.

Unfortunately, we still expect Black folks to be the sacrificial lamb in matters of race. Moreover, the racial myopia of Black and white liberal organizations (NAACP/NPR) demands swift punishment for transgressing racial boundaries. This places Black folks who desire to speak about race in an especially vulnerable position; by punishing Black folks for racism, the gatekeepers of racial discourse appear “objective.” Moreover, the presence of racially problematic comments from African Americans acts as proof that “Black folks are racist, too,” as if the presence of racially prejudicial attitudes among Black folks in any way rivals the systematic benefits conferred by white privilege and the pervasive negative effects of the ideology of white supremacy. In being able to point to Black racism, white folks are absolved of guilt.

Moreover, according to Derrick Bell’s “rules of racial standing,” Black people have no racial standing  (legitimacy or authority) to address racial problems in this country: “No matter what their experience or expertise, blacks’ statements involving race are deemed ’special pleading’ and thus not entitled to serious consideration.” While Bell was speaking here about Black folks advocating for issues relevant to Black people, his statements hold true in the case of Williams and Sherrod. At best, the attempts of these folks to grapple in a more nuanced manner with the politics of race are inherently perceived as offensive and necessarily silenced. While it seems as if all Black folks talk about is race, the reality is that we are only allowed to speak of it in the most limited of scripts.

The notion that we can address racism without ever acknowledging personal bias is a deeply flawed one. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun said it best in 1978 on the eve of the Bakke affirmative action decision, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.”

###

Brittney Cooper Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Alabama. She earned her Ph.D. at Emory and her undergraduate at Howard.

Crossposted on Tikkun Daily

By Lauren Reichelt

Last night, Jon Stewart snagged an exclusive interview with President Barack Obama on filibuster reform which the President supports. A few weeks ago, I visited Washington and dropped in on my New Mexico Congressional delegation. Senator Tom Udall shared his thoughts on The Constitutional Option, a rules change he is proposing at the beginning of the next Congress to reform filibuster abuse. My exclusive video interview of Senator Udall on filibuster and health care reform is posted below.

President Obama’s high profile interview last night on filibuster reform is a wonderful sign for liberals. First of all, Jon Stewart caters to a young audience. He is explaining to them the details of the legislative process and the actions they can take to implement meaningful change prior to collection of their first social security checks. Change will NOT happen in this nation without the enthusiastic, passionate participation of our youngest voters.

Secondly, President Obama is prioritizing filibuster reform because he is confident about keeping the Senate in Democratic hands. Early voting trends are not living up to pollsters predictions about “likely voters.” While Democratic turn-out is so far not what it was in 2008 when the Democrats absolutely trampled the Republicans, it is well above 2006 levels and is a likely indicator that the utter route that has been repeatedly predicted by the mainstream media is not in America’s cards. It is quite possible that Republicans will retake the House but is by no means a fait accompli. It is highly unlikely that they will take the Senate.

Even more importantly, the Democrats who will suffer most horribly at the polls this November are the Blue Dogs: little yappy mutts that have nipped consistently at the heels of every important important piece of legislation until they’ve managed to drag out a chunk of its bowels. The Democratic caucus in both houses will shine with the deep pristine blueness of the winter New Mexico sky.

The Republican caucus will likely be divided between Tea Party Republicans who wear Nazi uniforms for fun, tout the wonders of East German social policy, and disagree with the first amendment in the Bill of rights, and Rovian Corporate brownnosersshirts who want to eliminate all regulations, give tax windfalls to the wealthiest Americans and prop up the stock market with the social security trust fund.

I’m not saying that a Republican House will not be a problem if it comes to pass. They will invent an endless stream of scandal to investigate. Every federal official and useful non-profit organization will be subject to doctored video “exposes” purportedly revealing their true nature as pimps, whores, murderers, and masturbating child molesters. Acorn and that unfortunate USDA official will have plenty of company.

Tea Party Republican House members will use their bully pulpit to promote violence against gays, people of color, Muslims, physicians who provide reproductive health services to women and (for that matter) women.

The bar for victory is actually fairly low, thanks to the perpetual MSM drumbeat about the coming apocalypse. All Dems have to do to win big is not to lose too badly. If they lose the House, it will be perceived as breaking even. America will still be moving towards reform, albeit cautiously. If they lose seats but keep their majority in both houses, it will be an amazing come-from-behind rout presaging a mandate for continued reform.

Everything depends on youth and minority turn-out in this mid-term election. Let’s hope that the deluge of advertising painting Democrats as panderers to scary, illegal, brown-tinted criminals helps to energize people who believe in the diverse American multi-cultural dream to show up at the polls.

In the meantime, it is appropriate to begin thinking about governing in an environment where Dems are bluer but less populous. And to do that, we need what Senator Tom Udall has called “The Constitutional Option.” The videos and transcripts of my exclusive interview with Senator Udall on this topic follow below.

Senator Udall on The Constitutional Option, Part 1

TFLS: And so my question for you today is, I want you to tell me what the Constitutional Option is and for the folks who will be listening, a lot of them are people who really care about health care reform. So if we had a Constitutional Option, how might that bill look different and how could it be different and how could it be different in the future.

Senator Udall: Sure. The first thing for people to really understand about the Constitutional Option is that people are frustrated with the rules of the Senate and I don’t blame them. The reason they’re frustrated is because when we campaigned and when President Obama campaigned, we were gonna do all these great things, make these great changes, move the nation forward, and that’s not happening as quickly as we would want it to happen. So that’s a critical issue — that we’re not getting the change that people want. And so what the Constitutional Option is about is doing rules reform in the Senate at the beginning of a Congress and the crucial thing is that at the beginning of Congress you can set rules with 51 Senators. You can end the debate and you can adopt new rules. Now is the time for rules reform.

Now the background for this is very important because three vice presidents have already ruled that at the beginning of a Congress, you can change the rules with 51 votes. Also there is a very strong constitutional principal and that constitutional principal is one legislature cannot bind a subsequent legislature. What we’re talking about there – let’s use health care reform as your example – if we had passed health care reform and put a provision in the bill that said the next Congress is going to need seventy-five votes to change this proposal, that would be unconstitutional. And so essentially what’s happened is that we are bound by a previous Senate. The last Senate to change the rules in this area was in 1975. Ninety-eight members of the Senate have never voted for rules change because we’ve been bound by that previous action.

So that’s where we are. We’ve been trying to get filibuster reform. There’s been a lot of press coverage of it. The New Yorker has done a piece about authored by George Packer. There’s a lot of information out there about how the Senate’s broken and what are the ways we need fix it. I’m leading out on this rules reform and the Constitutional Option

Part 2: The Constitutional Option Would Have Enabled a Public Option

Senator Udall: I believe, Lauren, that every single one of our citizens should have health care. And they should have good, quality health care in their local communities. And so that’s why, when we brought up the health care bill, there was a big fight over what was called the public option. And what the public option was all about was setting up enough competition so that we could see which was the best way to move. Do we want a non-profit pursuing health care? Or do we want insurance companies pursuing health care? And that was the big fight we had on the Senate floor. I was obviously for having a public option and moving in that direction. If we were able to refine the rules and reform the rules, I think we would be getting closer to a public option than the bill we passed.

I would still say the bill we passed had some important provisions. You know, we bring 30 million new people into the system. Those are the estimates. We take care of pre-existing conditions, so people can’t be barred because of pre-existing conditions. And as of today, if you’re a young person and you can’t get insurance out of the market, up to the age of 26 you can stay on your parents’ policy. That’s a big thing for people to be able to do. And there are going to be insurance exchanges, more competition and trying to get cost control in the future, all of those kind of things.

But the real issue here is the Senate should be producing on the change the American people want. And the Senate’s broken now, and so I’m trying to lead out on reform.

TFLS: And so how does that look? I guess you can’t really know if you have the votes if you don’t know who’s in the Senate but–

Senator Udall: Well, we have an election so a third of the new Senators will be coming in. A couple of things we know. First of all, Harry Reid has said, if he returns – and I think he’s going to return – he thinks there should be rules reform, and he’s given two great examples. These are sports examples, but he’s said, you know, when they had the spitball, they tolerated it for awhile, but then the ball got so soggy it was dangerous, and they banned the spitball. In basketball, when they had the procedure of players being in the four corners of the court and just tossing the ball around and not trying to get a basket and wasting time? Well, they created the four corner rule and they banned that kind of activity.

And [Reid] said, “That’s abuse.” When you have abuse – and that’s what we have now – abuse of the rules by Mitch McConnell and his team. So what we’re going to do is make that clear to the American people and move with the Constitutional Option to change the rules so that the majority can govern. But we’re not going to deny the minority the right to make their points and be heard.

TFLS: Okay! Thank you!

Senator Udall: Is that good? Did I hit it on the head?

Crossposted at Blogistan Polytechnic Institut

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The latest national poll numbers from Gallup, which has been tracking public opinion on cannabis legalization since the late 1960s, shows that Americans’ support for ‘making marijuana legal’ is now at its highest reported level of support ever.

New High of 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana
Liberals, 18- to 29-year-olds express the highest levels of support
via Gallup.com

While California’s marijuana ballot initiative is garnering a lot of attention this election cycle, Gallup finds that nationally, a new high of 46% of Americans are in favor of legalizing use of the drug, and a new low of 50% are opposed. The increase in support this year from 44% in 2009 is … a continuation of the upward trend seen since 2000.

These results are from Gallup’s annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 7-10. Approximately 8 in 10 Americans were opposed to legalizing marijuana when Gallup began asking about it in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Support for legalizing the drug jumped to 31% in 2000 after holding in the 25% range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s.

Political Leanings, Age Divide Americans’ Support for Legalizing Marijuana

Across numerous subgroups, liberals’ support, at 72%, is by far the highest. There is widespread support for legalization among 18- to 29-year-olds (61%) as well.
Majority support is also found among Democrats, independents, men, and political moderates.

A large majority of those living in the West, which encompasses California, are in favor of making the drug legal. Support is significantly lower in the South and Midwest.

Political conservatives and Republicans are the least supportive of legalizing marijuana. Seniors express a similarly low level of support.

Women are 10 percentage points less likely than men to favor legalizing the drug.

These demographic, political, and ideological differences in support are much the same as they were in 2009.

Bottom Line

Support for making the drug legal in general, however, is growing among Americans. The public is almost evenly split this year, with 46% in favor and 50% opposed. If the trend of the past decade continues at a similar pace, majority support could be a reality within the next few years.

The latest Gallup numbers reinforce the question: ‘If a government’s legitimate use of state power is based on the consent of the governed, then at what point does marijuana prohibition — in particular the federal enforcement of prohibition — become illegitimate public policy?’

It’s time for our elected officials to answer.