MBTA Thinks the Truth is too Confrontational: Denies Factual Ad on Scott Brown's Big Money Interests

From Daily Kos:

You’ll note it’s not particularly rude—it shows a perfectly nice picture of his handsome face, and just recites the facts: he took money from polluters, and he voted for their interests.

The good news?

We’ve heard from lawyers today saying that’s almost certainly unconstitutional, and I imagine we’ll find out in some courtroom soon.

Let's hope the anti-free speech BS stops, because that ad is the best kind of good: the cold, hard truth. Nothing hurts worse than that.

Scott Brown is not on our side, and if this goes to show anything, it shows that no matter what, the activist base of this state won't let another election go by without the voters knowing the truth.

My cousin, who was murdered

Normally, I'm a huge fan of the Kossack community, but they tend to diverge greatly on the issue of guns. There was a front-paged diary yesterday about how we should just leave the gun issue alone, that it wasn't worth persuing after the conservative Roberts court overturned decades of legal precedent and struck down the Chicago gun ban.

I wrote a diary challenging that notion, recalling my cousin Laura and the great struggle I went through after losing her. She was such a sweet, innocent person, and -- having died in her late teens -- she barely had the chance to live her life. I hope people will check it out; we cannot cede this issue to the Roberts court and the NRA, not when so many lives are at stake.

Ah, Republicans

They just can't help themselves.

The anti-gay "Bradley effect."

Interesting blurb over at dkos today.

There is a sort of "Bradley Effect" for gay-rights ballot questions.

The Haas Jr. Foundation hired NYU political scientist Patrick J. Egan to study 167 polls in the 33 states that had a gay marriage ban from 1998-2009 – and compared it with the results on Election Day. And as we already knew – having painfully experienced this in state after state – the results after votes are counted are worse than what polls had said. Moreover, as Dr. Egan reported, poll results throughout the campaign were mostly static.

Did people lie? Yes and no. Egan’s analysis showed that polls accurately predicted the pro-equality vote – i.e., people who voted “no” on Prop 8 – but that they undercounted people who voted to ban gay marriage. So if a pre-election poll would show us winning a plurality of 48-45 (which campaigns find encouraging), it would mean that we lost 52-48.

Unlike a traditional Bradley Effect, in which voters say they'll vote for the black candidate, then vote against it, in this case, a chunk of haters simply were too embarrassed to say they were haters, and claimed they were undecided.

This means that any gay rights group trying to fight off a ballot question -- or fight for one to pass, as it may come in the future -- should just assume "undecided" means no. Don't go into election day without striving to win a majority of support in the polling data ahead of time, not just the plurality.

Legislative Bigotry

Thankfully, this video isn't from Massachusetts, but it still pains me to watch it (along with the news that marriage equality is again delayed in NY, though that's much better than defeated).



Here's a woman who speaks at length about how she can't get legally married in her state demonstratively hurts her everyday life, speaking openly and honestly about a very frank issue, and how is she answered? Her state legislator ignores everything she said, doesn't try to solve any of her problems, and just says he's only for marriage bigotry. It makes me so sad to be in a country where hatred and intolerance is so widespread. No one should have to deal with this crap.

Republicans Finally Expressed Real Idea

Texas Republicans are evenly split over whether or not they should leave the union. I guess they're now too proud to be an American. Note: I didn't say it was a good idea, just that they finally expressed one.

The Hypocrisy of the National Blogs

John Avarosis has on numerous occasions blasted progressive organizations for not advertising on progressive blogs. Here's his latest. What's interesting is that he's finally not the only one. Kos, Jane Hamsher (of FDL) and John Amato (of Crooks and Liars) are finally speaking up about the subject too. Blogging full time means struggling to make ends meet, all the while progressive organizations spend hundreds of millions on often-ineffective ads and consultants (who are sometimes paid tens of thousands just to reach out to bloggers) -- instead of contributing pennies on the dollar to progressive blogs, who have been at the forefront of pushing for the progressive agenda.

John, John, Jane and Kos are all right. However, they're all thinking of themselves, too. If this is a conversation about "what have you done for me lately," I'd like to ask the national big boys the very same question. As a full time/small time blogger, I used to spend a huge, inordinate amount of time reaching out to the national blogosphere. I've had a few of my stories linked to on national blogs that get tons of hits -- such as Towleroad.

However, I stopped doing that, because more often than not I found that these blogs wanted my expertise in being able to find the story, but wouldn't link to or even provide a hat tip to Ryan's Take. This happened frequently on gay rights issues: I'd get the story, send it out, the bloggers would cover the story, but they'd either link to the media version of the story (usually printed later) or looked for some Cooler Kids to talk about it, such as the BMG version. I can't count the number of times this happened.

All of this is fine. Honestly. If national blogs don't want to promote smaller blogs, no big deal. If they'd rather print the MSM article instead of promoting a blogger they don't know well, whatevs. The blogosphere has become so big that it's a giant chorus -- our voices are inevitably drowned out at some point.

However, when they start to complain about similar, related things -- other people wanting all the results, all the spoils, but not sharing the work or helping by buying some ads -- then I'm going to scream "Hypocrite." John Avarosis may have trouble paying his mortgage as a full time blogger, but small bloggers who spend nearly as much time blogging have trouble paying for the gas to go to events they're begged to cover. One link by a site like Americablog or Towleroad, however, may pay for some of that gas to cover that event which they'll then cover on their blogs.

In the end, John Avarosis should be angry and complain about groups like Americans United for Change not spending tens of thousands on a single banner ad. However, I'll be criticizing the big gay blogs and national blogs for not spending the 10 seconds to bother linking to the small blogger who first uncovers a story that becomes nationally important, but happen at a local level. If they're so worried about fostering progressive talent -- and that's what Avarosis says this is all about -- then they could do a whole lot more themselves by just stepping a foot outside of the Blogger Status Quo.

Kos is a Partisan Tool

Bill O is right!

The Race is Tightening

Obama's still up a healthy margin, but it's been getting a little closer now that we're less than a week away. It almost always does!

It's time to go do something about it.

Best Video Ever

h/t kos.

Keller Cackles Antagonistic Sympathies

Anyone else a little suspicious when Jon Keller tries to give Democrats good advice? Ah, that concern trolling, it's one of Rightwingtopia's favorite hobbies. Apparently, Obama's New Hampshire loss wasn't his worst day, it was the day when John Kerry officially endorsed him. Anything you say, Jon.

This reminds me of a favorite movie scene: When the Wicked Witch of the West exploded onto the scene in Munckinland, Glinda told her, "you have no power here, be gone." If only Wicked Witches would listen to such sage advice.

Today's Musings: Cape Wind, Daily Show, Moving Mainstream?

• Cape Wind was on the Daily Show last night - and I must have had seriously good karma to catch it, because I just haven't been watching the Daily Show much lately. However, BMG has the clip, just be warned it'll be axed from YouTube in no time. Look for it at Comedy Central soon, though.
• Is the blogosphere moving mainstream? The quick answer is "of course." If the Ykos convention proves anything, it's that we're mainstream now. All the Presidential candidates coming for a debate we sponsored? Mainstream is a given. However, we have to be careful not to become a part of the Democratic establishment - as I talked about in my blog of the week, over at LeftAhead. It's one thing to move America to the left, it's another to watch the Blue Dogs give away our freedoms to Mr. 25%.
• Speaking of LeftAhead, catch catch this week's episode on warrantless wiretapping. We even had a pesky libertarian phone in to just talk about how angry he was with President Bush, then lecture us about why public schools are bad. Interesting conversation, it's just too bad Mike's the one with the 'end chat' button and isn't one to pull a Howe and toss people off the air.