September 28–October 4, 2008
Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982.According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007. The 10 most challenged titles were:
1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Here Spoon tells us that McBush's team--i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons-- have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.
"Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”"
“I came back because I wasn’t going to phone it in."
"On ABC’s This Week, McCain said he came back to Washington DC to get involved in the bailout negotiations. “I came back because I wasn’t going to phone it in,” he said. And yet, McCain did just that yesterday. He “did not go to Capitol Hill after coming back to Washington.” instead opting to phone it in. Salter explained, “He can effectively do what he needs to do by phone.” McCain did have time, however, to take in dinner at an upscale DC restaurant with Joe Lieberman (I-CT)."
"...his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn't like the way this campaign is going. The only thing that's changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling."
"John McCain has skipped more votes during this session than any member of the Senate except for Tim Johnson, who had major brain surgery. All of a sudden, McCain demands that the presidential race shut down so he can return to Washington."
"For all of his sudden urgency, McCain acknowledged just yesterday that he had not even read the administration's three-page bailout proposal."
"I think it is going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once."
"And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving."as does Josh over at TPM:
"I'm quite convinced that some drastic action needs to be taken to avoid a cascading and debilitating series of crises. But the more I look at this plan, the more wrongheaded it seems. But if I'm understanding this deal, the taxpayers are going to pony up close to a trillion dollars to take bad debts off the hands of financial institutions who were foolish enough to make the deals in the first place. And in exchange, I think the tax payers get nothing?"the last figure I saw was $2,333 from every man, woman & child. to bailout an industry that has been preying (& profiting) on those same people for years. with no hope of ever seeing that money again. that seems fair? once again we are rewarding bad behavior w/no consequences or incentive for those institutions to change that behavior.
Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.& that's not some quote from the distant past. that's from earlier this month. Idiot.
"Gov. Sarah Palin's husband has refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power, and a key lawmaker said today that uncooperative witnesses are effectively sidetracking the probe until after Election Day."
1. The penalty for blowing off your subpoena is a contempt charge
2. Charging a witness with contempt requires a majority vote of at least one house of the state legislature
3. The legislature is officially out of session until January
4. Therefore, there can't be any penalty against him until it's too late and the election is over
(via DKos)
"Sarah Palin likes to tell voters around the country about how she "put the government checkbook online" in Alaska. On Thursday, Palin suggested she would take that same proposal to Washington.
"We're going to do a few new things also," she said at a rally in Cedar Rapids. "For instance, as Alaska's governor, I put the government's checkbook online so that people can see where their money's going. We'll bring that kind of transparency, that responsibility, and accountability back. We're going to bring that back to D.C."
There's just one problem with proposing to put the federal checkbook online - somebody's already done it. His name is Barack Obama."
"I'm always for less regulation. I'd like to see a lot of the unnecessary government regulations eliminated."
-- John McCain
The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.
-- Herbert Hoover
"The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County, Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day."
"I hear McCain's amen chorus screaming, "Lipstick on a pig! Lipstick on a pig!" But they're well aware that Barack Obama was unambiguously talking about McCain's economic ideas, not his running mate. It seems incomprehensible that the McCain campaign would make so much noise about an allegation that clearly doesn't hold a drop of water -- until you realize that
the noise is the whole point...
Any day spent arguing about meaningless ephemera is a small but significant victory for a campaign that has nothing to say."
95 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2007.
100 percent of the time McCain voted with George W. Bush in 2008 so far.
164 lobbyists McCain enlisted to set policy and raise money for his campaign.
29 lobbyists from the oil and gas industry tied to McCain’s campaign.
$1.1 million amount of money McCain received in the month he adopted Bush and Big Oil’s off-shore drilling policy.
125 times John McCain voted against Choice ? he even said that he would overturn Roe v. Wade.
"She's the "American Idol" candidate. Consider. What defines an "American Idol" finalist? They're good-looking, work well on television, have a sunny personality, are fierce competitors, and so talented, why, they're darned near the real thing. There's a reason "American Idol" gets such high ratings. People identify with the contestants. They think, Hey, that could be me up there on that show!thumbs way, way down
My problem is, I don't want to be up there. I don't want a vice president who is darned near good enough. I want a vice president who is better, wiser, well-traveled, has met world leaders, who three months ago had an opinion on Iraq. Someone who doesn't repeat bald- faced lies about earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere."
"Is McCain against teaching little kids to beware of sexual predators?"
"...I wonder if the media will really take on this onslaught of half-truths and outright deception."that's a rhetorical question, right?
"Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 21/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska's government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it.
[...]
Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1."
"Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business."
“American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention. John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism. On the same day he agrees to join Barack Obama at Ground Zero on September 11, John McCain attacks the patriotism of Obama supporters who so proudly waved the American flag at our historic event in Denver just days ago.”
—DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney.
"In early 2007, Palin's administration approved an initiative to pay a $150 bounty to hunters who killed a wolf from an airplane in certain areas, hacked off the left foreleg, and brought in the appendage. Ruling that the Palin administration didn't have the authority to offer payments, a state judge quickly put a halt to them but not to the shooting of wolves from aircraft.
Detractors consider the airborne shootings a savage business, conducted under the euphemism "predator control." The airplanes appear in the winter, so the wolves show up like targets in a video game, sprinting across the white canvas below. Critics believe the practice violates the ethics of hunting, while supporters say the process is not hunting at all, but a deliberate cull"
Gordon Haber is a wildlife scientist who has studied wolves in Alaska for 43 years. "On wildlife-related issues, whether it is polar bears or predator controls, she has shown no inclination to be objective," he says of Palin. "I cannot find credible scientific data to support their arguments," he adds about the state's rational for gunning down wolves. "In most cases, there is evidence to the contrary."
"If I were a McCain adviser and wanted to have Palin sit with someone who is perceived as a "journalist" while knowing that no damage could possibly occur, I'd pick Charlie Gibson, too. There are many, many other equally good alternatives, but when it comes to wretched passivity and sycophantic establishment worship, the former "Good Morning America" host -- whose career was built on oozing amiability and inoffensiveness -- is as good as it gets."-- Glenn Greenwald
" Community organizers, which were part of George H.W. Bush's thousand points of light, provide comfort, help save jobs, create opportunity. In a nation ripped asunder by right-wing policies, they are often the last line of defense. Leaders of this nation like Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony, even Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, were community organizers. As this fellow writes today, Jesus was a community organizer and Pilate was a governor."so see, Sarah, they have great responsibilities.
"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."(h/t TPM)
"...how is our own Government's behavior in Minnesota any different than what the Chinese did to its protesters during the Olympics (other than the fact that we actually have a Constitution that prohibits such behavior)? And where are all the self-righteous Freedom Crusaders in our nation's establishment organs who were so flamboyantly criticizing the actions of a Government on the other side of the globe as our own Government engages in the same tyrannical, protest-squelching conduct with exactly the same motives?
Just review what happened yesterday and today. Homes of college-aid protesters were raided by rifle-wielding police forces. Journalists were forcibly detained at gun point. Lawyers on the scene to represent the detainees were handcuffed. Computers, laptops, journals, diaries, and political pamphlets were seized from people's homes. And all of this occurred against U.S. citizens, without a single act of violence having taken place, and nothing more serious than traffic blockage even alleged by authorities to have been planned."
