Category: Ethics

ABC News Projects Democrat Andrew Cuomo Will Take N.Y.

Posted on by TL

I heard his father speak years ago at the University of Notre Dame. In the spring.

I got into the speech with the NBC film crew.

The topic in 1985? Abortion.

I don’t think his dad’s views were nuanced enough. Too simplistic.

All other issues aside, I look forward to hearing from this Governor Cuomo, the man who will define the role for himself.

From ABC News:

ABC News projects that Democratic candidate Andrew Cuomo will defeat Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino for the New York gubernatorial seat, in what has been a violent campaign of mudslinging from both sides.

In what was once a close race, Cuomo, the current attorney general, slowly crept up in the polls to take a double digit lead over Paladino, who was plagued by controversy in the final weeks of his campaign.

The Republican candidate was dogged by reports of racy emails he sent out containing inappropriate images and racial slurs. Paladino also made headlines when he threatened a New York Post reporter.

Cuomo will succeed the "accidential" Gov. David Patterson who did not seek re-election after Gov. Eliot Spitzer left office in 2008.

Good luck to Governor Cuomo. The new guy.

World Series Goes To SF – Game 5 Final: Giants 3, Rangers 1

Posted on by TL

From the New York Times:

Shortstop Edgar Renteria’s three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning broke a 0-0 tie and sent San Francisco on its way to a 3-1 victory over the Texas Rangers in Game 5 on Monday night, giving the Giants their first World Series title since 1954.

Tim Lincecum, who was also the winner in Game 1, was the winning pitcher. He allowed 3 hits and struck out 10 in eight innings. The only run he allowed was a solo home run by Nelson Cruz in the bottom of the seventh.

From Sports Illustrated:

Instant analysis from the Giants 3-1 victory in Game 5 to win the World Series:

• This is the Giants’ first World Series title since moving to San Francisco in 1958. They had won five previous championships back when they called New York home, last winning in 1954.

• By virtue of his three-run homer in the seventh — his second game-winning RBIs of this series and second series-winning RBIs of any World Series, having won the 1997 series — shortstop Edgar Renteria was named Series MVP. He batted 7-for-17 with two homers, six RBIs and six runs in the series.

• Tim Lincecum was brilliant, throwing 71 of his 101 pitches for strikes and getting 16 swing-and-miss strikes, 10 of them on his slider, a pitch he only fully incorporated into his arsenal over the past month. He struck out 10 while allowing only three hits, two walks and one run.

• Seven of the last eight World Series now have ended in four or five games.

The League of Women Voters DEFINES Patriotism

Posted on by TL

The League of Women Voters is clearly patriotic.

Glenn Beck is clearly insane.

I am a member of the League of Women Voters of the Park Forest Area.

Glenn Beck is still insane.

From Elisabeth MacNamara, President of the League of Women Voters:

It is unbelievable that anyone would suggest that the League of Women Voters is unpatriotic, but it is happening, right now. And frankly, it’s a bit scary.

League offices and League volunteers are receiving threats because of the League’s nonpartisan role in sponsoring and moderating a congressional debate in Illinois.

We are just not going to stand for it. With your support we will stand proud, “Making Democracy Work” in our fair and nonpartisan way.

Here’s the almost unbelievable story: someone in the crowd at a Congressional debate hosted by a local League in Illinois called for the Pledge of Allegiance, and when told that this was not part of the pre-negotiated agreement reached by the candidates, many stood and recited it anyway.

One of the candidate’s campaigns put the video up on the Internet soon afterwards—so it was likely a planned stunt. And now, fueled by Glenn Beck, conservative extremists are calling in threats to League offices and local League volunteers’ homes, accusing us of opposing the Pledge and being unpatriotic.

But you and I know the truth.

The League of Women Voters and our members are patriotic to their core—in the way that makes a difference each and every day.

And we need your immediate support now to take our message of informed voter participation to the public. That’s real patriotism. Please contribute today.

Like you, we are average citizens who put our time and money into making democracy work in our communities.

We sponsor nonpartisan debates. We publish nonpartisan voters’ guides. We assist in voter registration. We are active in our communities not only at election time but throughout the year.

No matter what craziness Glenn Beck and the misled and misinformed circulate, the League of Women Voters and our members will continue our important work.

These far-fetched attacks are just a distraction from next week’s pivotal midterm elections.

Please help us keep the focus on making democracy work. Please make a contribution today.

Thank you for helping us keep the discourse civil and advancing our work to engage citizens in meaningful and productive ways.

Support the League of Women Voters today!!!

NPR Fires Juan Williams After Comment About Muslims; Sarah Palin Tries to Capitalize

Posted on by TL

Sarah Palin, opportunist par excelence,has worked her way into a story that has nothing to do with her at all.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

NPR has fired longtime news analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O’Reilly that he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane. Sarah Palin has called for NPR to lose its federal funding over Williams’ firing.

In a statement late Wednesday, National Public Radio said it was terminating Williams’ contract as a senior news analyst over his comments on Fox’s "The O’Reilly Factor."

NPR executives had previously complained about his remarks on Fox and asked him to stop using the NPR name when he appeared on O’Reilly’s show.

The latest comments came Monday, when O’Reilly brought on guests to discuss his own appearance last week on ABC’s "The View," during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set to protest his views on Muslims.

"Where am I going wrong here, Juan?" O’Reilly asked.

Williams, 56, responded that too much political correctness can get in the way of reality.

"I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

He went on to say that not everyone in a religious group — Christian or Muslim — should be lumped together with extremists.

In statement on her Facebook page, Sarah Palin called for NPR to lose its federal funding over the incident.

Sarah Palin, the Pol Who Quit, campaigns from Facebook.

God Bless America.

Obama Has Ethics: Pakistani Troops Linked to Abuses Will Lose U.S. Aid

Posted on by TL

From the New York Times:

The Obama administration plans to refuse to train or equip about a half-dozen Pakistani Army units that are believed to have killed unarmed prisoners and civilians during recent offensives against the Taliban, according to senior administration and Congressional officials.

The cutoff of funds is an unusual rebuke to a wartime ally, and it illustrates the growing tensions with a country that is seen as a pivotal partner, and sometimes impediment, in a campaign to root out Al Qaedaand other militant groups.

The White House has not told Pakistan of the decision, even though senior Pakistani military and civilian leaders are here for a series of meetings, according to officials from both countries.

It has privately briefed a few senior members of Congress, but it has not given them details about which Pakistani units will be affected by the suspension. One senior administration official said there was “a lot of concern about not embarrassing” the Pakistani military, especially during a week in which officials are here for the third “Strategic Dialogue” in a year.

Well, I guess Pakistan knows now. Let’s hope they hear about this from Turning Left!

‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Is Back, For Now… (Yawn)

Posted on by TL

From The Christian Science Monitor:

A federal appeals court in California granted a temporary stay on Wednesday, reversing aworldwide injunction against enforcement of the US military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The action means the Pentagon’s ban on service members who are openly homosexual is, once again, in full force.

The policy was thrown into doubt last week when a federal judge in Riverside, Calif., declared the 17-year measure unconstitutional. As the government scrambled to halt the injunction, military recruiters for the first time began to consider openly gay recruits. Those efforts are now on hold.

In granting the stay, the three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing government lawyers more time to prepare their argument. The government is seeking a longer-term stay that would hold the injunction in abeyance for the duration of the appeal.

More.

Look.  There are already gays and lesbians serving in the military.  Gays and lesbians have shed  blood for the United States of America.

Really.

Let them serve.

Let them serve as they are.

Retire From Chicago Politics in Style

Posted on by TL

Retire from Chicago politics in style.

Keep your campaign contributions.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Mayor Daley isn’t the only elected official who could retire from Chicago city government and take a pile of money in campaign cash with him.

Twenty-two of the city’s 50 aldermen also would be eligible, when they retire, to keep some or all of their campaign funds, a Chicago Sun-Times review finds. The amounts they could walk away from office with range from as little as $629 to $2.4 million.

When he retires next year, Daley can keep nearly $1.5 million or, if he chooses, do whatever he wants with the money, the Sun-Times has reported.

The amount of campaign money that the aldermen could keep is largely a matter of whether they took office — and took in campaign contributions — before June 30, 1998.

An Illinois law enacted that year barred state and local officials from converting campaign funds to personal use but also left an exception: Anyone who had money in their campaign accounts as of the 1998 date could keep the amount they had in the bank then whenever they eventually might retire.

Like Daley, four aldermen have announced they won’t run for re-election next year.

Too bad for those of us who contributed before 1998.

The numbers are incredible.

Check the Sun-Times.

Have You Met The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Behind Bars?

Posted on by TL

From The Economist:

THE Nobel peace prize committee’s announcement on October 8th that they are giving the award to an imprisoned Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, will infuriate Chinese leaders. It may well give extra ammunition to hardliners in China who argue that the West is bent on undermining Communist Party rule. This is the same faction that argues the party should take advantage of the West’s economic malaise to assert its own interests more robustly.

China reacted with outrage in 1989 when the Nobel peace prize was awarded to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader in exile, to all appearances as a rebuke to the government for having crushed the Tiananmen Square protests earlier that year. Though China regards Tibet as an integral part of the nation, Mr Liu stands apart as an ethnic Han Chinese who has devoted himself to addressing the politics of China proper.

Mr Liu is precisely the kind of dissident that the party regards as most threatening. He is a seasoned campaigner, a veteran of the Tiananmen protests who has shown no sign of succumbing to the party’s intimidation in spite of three periods of incarceration over the past two decades (more than five years in total). He is a mildly spoken literary critic who has created the sort of consensus that is unusual to forge among China’s infighting intellectuals. Mr Liu’s Charter 08, a document that calls for democracy, was signed initially by more than 300 liberal thinkers (and then by thousands of others online). It struck a reasoned tone to which radicals and moderates alike could subscribe. The debate over “universal values” that it helped to fuel still rages within the party today.

More here.

Americans Agnostic About Gay Marriage: The Economist

Posted on by TL

From the Economist:

THE debate over gay marriage is at the heart of many races in America’s mid-term elections. On Sunday October 10th Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, said that children should not be “brainwashed” into thinking that homosexuality was acceptable and that he would veto any gay-marriage bill. But that view places him in a minority. For the first time since the Pew Research Centre began conducting polls on the subject in 1995, fewer than half of Americans (48%) are opposed to gay marriage, while 42% are in favour. All religious groups are more accepting than they were in polls taken between 2008 and 2009. The most notable shift has been among white mainstream Protestants and Catholics, 49% of whom are now in favour, and that figure was even higher for those who attend church less than once a week.

American opinion on gay marriage

This is good news for our gay and lesbian friends.