Tonight's Random Notes... And Al Franken Contest

Eric Cantor moved rapidly to expel Boehner's wealthy Ohio buddy Rich Iott from the Young Guns program once it came out that Iott likes dressing up as an SS trooper and reenacting the Nazis' most glorious moments. Boehner responded by reassuring Iott that he wouldn't ask him to return his campaign contributions. (Other than what Iott gave his own campaign, he got more money from Boehner than any other donor.) Then Iott went on TV and defended the Nazi thing by claiming that the SS volunteers were just "defending freedom." That "defending freedom" thing is a little misleading when you hear a rightist talking about it. It means, very specifically, defending the freedom of the rich and powerful to exploit the vulnerable and society at large. And now John Boehner is camapigning with Iott against Marcy Kaptur in Lucas County.

Elan Steinberg, the Vice-President of American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants had a message for Boehner. "We ask Congressman Boehner to understand our pain and reconsider his appearance at the side of an unrepentant Nazi re-enactor. Congressman Boehner, your place is at the side of the victims of the SS-- civilian adults and children, Allied and American POW's-- not with someone who dresses up in the garb of mass murderers."

Tomorrow afternoon we'll be discussing the current campaign in Arkansas in greater depth. Meanwhile, though, I want to make sure that if there's anyone reading this blog in that state, there is an alternative to the two repulsive corporate whores, Blanche Lincoln and John Boozman. And that would be Green Party candidate John Gray, around whom progressives are rallying. Gray was the hands-down winner of the Senate debate.

Gray said, among other things, that:

—There is no reason for a private health insurance industry even to exist. No health insurance company ever stitched a wound or tended to a broken bone. We could save money by expanding our nonprofit and low-overhead Medicare to be the single-payer to doctors for everyone, not just the elderly. Doctors make plenty of money and they would continue to make plenty in such a system, Gray said. We’d have less need for torts, and thus for tort reform, he argued, if the single-paying government had the right to kick out of its reimbursement pool any physician who mangled patients.

—If you rely on cheap labor alone for jobs, you are doomed because there always will be somebody who will come along and work people or children for less.

—This idea that corporations and people have the same free-speech rights is “nonsense” because his 91-year-old mother is ailing and hearing-impaired and there is no way in the world her speech rights are as accessible and powerful of those of, say, Wal-Mart.

—There is no remotely sane reason to deny a gay person the right to serve openly in our military. Our military needs competent people and we behave as some kind of “American Taliban” if we worry about what people are doing in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

—Any graph will plainly show that Republicans run up deficits and Democrats bring them down, which is one reason that he, in the miraculous event he got elected, would caucus with the Democrats.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the Gold's Gym franchise owner was more than a little embarrassed when it came out that the owner of Gold's Gym International Inc. (rabid right-wing nutcase Robert Rowling, who also owns the Omni Hotels) has been helping to finance Karl Rove's execrable anti-gay jihad (AKA, the Republican election campaign) to the tune of $2,000,000. That's a big donation which basically comes right from the pockets of a lot of gay muscle boys.

"Our member base made us aware of this, and we decided on a course of action," Don Dickerson, the franchise's director of operations, said in an interview. After 22 years, he said, it's walking away from a storied brand whose name is affixed to gyms in more than 40 states and 30 countries, and has a claimed 3 million members worldwide."

Do you think voters enjoy negative ads? Meg Whitman was vociferously booed at a non-partisan woman's conference when she decided to stick with the negative ads even after Jerry Brown proposed ending them on the spot. He's now turned her gibberish into the ultimate negative political commercial-- her talking:



And... tonight's contest: autographed copies of Al Franken's book The Truth and Al Franken's DVD God Spoke. How do you get 'em? Well, just pick one Democratic candidate running for Congress and donate to his or her campaign at the Blue America '10 page. Any candidate you like, any amount you can afford. Tomorrow I'll pick one winner randomly to get the Al Franken signed book and DVD. Easy, huh?