When I watched his endorsement of Obama, I not only felt better about Powell, but I thought he made a hell of a lot of sense when he described the problems within the GOP. It was refreshing to hear Colin Powell say the GOP has moved too far to the right, and that the RNC’s tolerance for connecting Obama with Islam and terrorists is unacceptable. I’ve been thinking this for a long time. From my point of view, the Republican leadership has been moving toward fascism since the “Republican Revolution” in 1994. Yes, fascism.

Now I’m not just using the term “fascism” to be inflammatory – I’m using it based on what I learned getting my Political Science degree, and from the balanced article on Wikipedia. And obviously I’m not the only one connecting these dots. Many people will remember a PowerPoint presentation that circulated the Internet back in Bush’s first term. It was based largely on an article by Laurence W. Britt. Britt’s article and those by several others have found lots of overlap between current Republican policies and the tenets of fascism. The Project for the Old American Century’s page on the subject does a good job, too.

I won’t reproduce what’s been written on the pages I’ve linked to above, but it’s worth looking at if you’re interested.

I heard a great Fresh Air interview with a NYT economy writer last night, and it really helped me understand a few things. The writer said that if indeed we do pursue a bailout of these irresponsible banks, a couple things should be set up in the agreement:

1. There should be a specific price for these "toxic" assets. Say, $0.25 to the dollar. No open-ended deals.
2. If, for some reason, the assets prove to be worth more than that, tax-payers should get ALL of the profit on their investment.

The administration is screaming for this to all get done immediately. I haven’t trusted these guys for a minute since they got into office, so I can’t imagine that there isn’t some kind of benefit to them or their cronies if we rush the job.

It also made me wonder if this isn’t a last run at massive corporate welfare for all of Bush’s buddies. Plus it has the advantage of seriously limiting the next administration’s ability to implement any new initiatives. Obama has already said as much.

Since there were so many amazing classics in the list, my B.S. detector went off. I looked it up on Snopes.com, and as it turns out, the email is false.

This kind of thing discredits liberals, making us look just as bad as those fire-breathing conservatives who keep insisting Obama is a closet Muslim (which is false to begin with, but also implies it’s scandalous to be a Muslim). We should rise above the hysteria and function from our strengths – empathy, intelligence, and dedication to social justice.

Take the high road, people.

Good Points

• Authored the Violence Against Women Act
• supports biodiesel and other renewable energies, but not ethanol (yes!)
• supports a guest-worker visa program
• voted to prevent nuclear proliferation
• advocates following the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations, and opposes the administration’s lack of respect for habeas corpus at Gitmo
• supports Roe v. Wade

Bad Points

• supports prayer in school
• supports abstinence education (ugh)
• supports building the wall between the U.S. and Mexico

I’ve never understood the need for people to pray in school. Muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day, so I can see not being able to pray at school kind of a challenge. But most of the time the school prayer advocates are the completely deranged Christian Right types. And they openly advocate the breakdown of the separation of church and state anyway. I think they talk a lot about 1st Amendment stuff, but that’s not really the top item on their agenda.

Abstinence education follows directly with the whole religious thing. The Heritage Foundation thinks abstinence programs are great (or at least they did in ’02). But in 2007, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy said the programs aren’t effective. I’ve never met a teenager who unswervingly did as he/she was told, so I can’t imagine that these programs would work.

I think everyone is just a little worked up about the immigration thing. There are legitimate concerns for national security, I’d say, but this country functions largely on the cheap labor provided by the people who risk their LIVES to come work here. A responsible path toward citizenship and a guest-worker program makes a lot more sense than building a big-ass wall. At least it does to me.

So we’ll see how it comes out with Biden in the mix. As of right now the media portrays the race as neck-and-neck. I’m no giant fan of Obama, but I’ll choose him over the alternative.