tab-clearing again

[solarbird]

okay i know this is already everywhere but: schwarzenegger vs. legislature lulz. he shoulda just said "yeah deny this."

in not funny news, now that focus on the family's state proxy has failed to either get a special-rights-for-them exemption from campaign spending and secrecy laws, the national focus on the family has started dumping anti-gay money into the local race for referendum 71, sending out mailers that try to make recipients think evil faggits will teach fag pervert sex to first graders if it passes. contemptible, as always; it's what they've been doing in maine and what worked in california, too.

don't forget to vote YES on referendum 71 btw. unless you hate me.

nationally, the obama administration working with democratic leadership have managed to remove all meaningful reform in the patriot act. I like this quote from Julian Sanchez in The Nation:

We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of "state secrets." We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance.

...because it's entirely how this system works.

You can tell I'm waking up because I'm starting to use capital letters. I think I'll leave it that way. G'morning. ^_^

Comments

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

Regarding Obama and the so-called "Patriot Act:"

My (brilliant) partner, Erik, pointed out that elected officials rarely give up power once it's given to them.

We should start a national referendum to repeal the Patriot Act and reform the idiocy that is the federal security system at our airports.

(I know. I'm not holding my breath.)

[solarbird]

People talk about national referenda and I never understand what that means. It's not like there's a mechanism for one.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

Then maybe we should create the needed mechanism for change, though I'm not sure how to do that.

[leftbase.livejournal.com]

The state of Washington seems to be disproportionately represented on my friends list, and I like to think everybody is already planning to vote for it, but I'll put a reminder about referendum 71 in my journal just in case.

[solarbird]

THE ACTUAL REPUBLIC OF CASCADIA
NATIONAL SONG
Printed Over the Objections of Very Nearly Everyone

Lyrics to the Cascadian national song, “Yank my Doodle, it’s a Dandy,” provided in secret by K——– T——– (of the Bad Wolf Board of Factual and Historical Accuracy), as reportedly sung by Cascadian infantry to taunt American loyalists in the Northern Idaho border wars of 1975:

Yank my doodle, it’s a dandy!
Yank my doodle through my fly!
Rub me gently until I see stars
Just like the 4th of July!
Be my doodle-yanking sweetheart
I’ve got doodle-yanking toys!

Yankee doodle went to Heaven
Ridden by a pony (ow!)
We are the doodle-yankin’ boys!

Hey there kid, you want some candy?
Yank my doodle, it’s a dandy!
We are! The doodle-yanking boys!

[leftbase.livejournal.com]

:D

[firni.livejournal.com]

That's because we're COOL.

[leftbase.livejournal.com]

There's no other possible explanation :)

[firni.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Arnie thought of that himself or had his son type it up.

[epawtows.livejournal.com]

Already voted yes on it when the ballot came in the mail last week.

It's it a bit late for anyone to be sending out political mailers? Haven't most people voted already?

[solarbird]

I dunno, mail-in balloting is still new and I don't know whether there are trends yet.

More importantly, it's an off-year election - very off-year - which means voter participation will be very low. If they can get anti-gay forces riled up and voting while everybody else does their usual thing, they can win this.

[shadesofmauve]

The off-year election is a big worry.

As far as my recent experience with media/publicity goes, epawtows has a very good point. I don't know that most people have voted yet, but a signifigant percentage have. It seems that classic last-minute campaigning is really too late in many cases. That's certainly true for election-eve tactics, and probably to a lesser degree for earlier, post-ballot-mailing ads.

No side has really adapted to the earlier schedule perfectly (I winced when I saw a "Help us pay for pro-71 ads" message this week -- too darn late, guys!). A few of the bigger newspapers have gotten better at writing their op-eds early, signage is everywhere, but my local newspaper is still hooked on election day, and fundraisers are clearly banking on last minute tactics (as in Family PAC's "But the rules shouldn't apply to US!" lawsuit).

Damn. I wish there was a good way to keep out-of-state money OUT of state campaigns. Hard to do without running up against free speech issues. Any ideas from the bright people here?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I had been very pessimistic about this election (across the board, not just R-71) but a couple of new polls are encouraging. Even figuring in the 5% or so who lie to pollsters, R-71 is looking like it might pass. I'm crossing my fingers.

I already voted, and I think a lot of people have. The election is next Tuesday, already, so there's not a lot of time for the FOTF mailer dump to do its work and fewer people for it to work on. Also, I might be fooling myself but the mailer I saw a picture of is so ridiculous it looks like it will alienate anyone who wasn't already a "Reject" on the measure.

That's not saying that the campaign has been great. I'm still peeved there's not a single phone bank session outside of the city on an issue that will likely be decided in the suburbs and can't just play to a liberal base that is not the likeliest group of off-year voters. Still, fingers crossed.

And thumbs up for Arnold (regardless of whether he's right on the underlying issue) and thumbs down for Obama's continued massacre of the US Constitution.