JolieSimons.com

Last week, the Barack Obama campaign created a new website at FightTheSmears.com, an entire website devoted to refuting those forwarded Internet rumors about Obama’s history and character. On the site, you can find direct refutation of such famous smears as “Barack Obama doesn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance” or “Barack Obama is secretly a radical Muslim.” You can read the Obama camp’s explanation here.

Slate had a great take on the whole Obama rumor mill, contending that trying to refute a smear campaign won’t amount to much gained in the way of public opinion. Those that choose to believe ridiculous rumors are probably predisposed to Obama-hating and won’t be swayed. Those who think critically probably never believed those silly rumors to begin with, the sort that would probably consider voting for Obama anyway.

Slate’s suggestion? Offer up some rumors of their own. The Obama camp must circulate an email right now talking about the “real” truth behind Obama, including the following rumor suggestions:

“Barack Obama has the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE tattooed on his stomach. It’s upside-down, so he can read it while doing sit-ups.”

“There’s only one artist on Barack Obama’s iPod: FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.”

“Barack Obama is a DEVOUT CHRISTIAN. His favorite book is the BIBLE, which he has memorized. His name means HE WHO LOVES JESUS in the ancient language of Aramaic. He is PROUD that Jesus was an American.”

“Barack Obama says that Americans cling to GUNS and RELIGION because they are AWESOME.”

Circulate this email widely to all your friends.

Recently, John McCain revealed on his campaign blog that he’s a huge ABBA fan. While that’s nice in a slightly gay-in-the-’70s way, can John McCain say that his iPod is filled with Francis Scott Key? Didn’t think so.

(P.S. If you’re unsure about the sarcasm, read this article about, well, sarcasm.)

I spotted the following picture about Barack Obama and I’m frankly quite sick.

Turns out some Republican-themed vendor is selling the above buttons at the state Republican convention in Texas. No matter how often John McCain denounces ignorance and hate within the more conservative sector of the country, there’s still no appeasing the completely ignorant.

Apparently, many of those ignorant people live in Texas.

As you may recall from earlier this year, a wealthy Colorado businessman was speaking at a trade show when he was taped telling this very “joke” to a large crowd that, like it or not, a few clapped after the joke was told. He caught hell because of that statement and he later apologized.

The same rule must apply in this case. This vendor should be pulled and offered no more contracts with Republicans. Also, we should take a long, hard look at this issue within ourselves. Barack Obama is probably acutely aware that his race will still be a struggle with a certain percentage of America. Frustrating, but ending racism is an uphill battle.

McCain, to his credit, has smartly embraced the idea of avoiding race altogether. After all, in our modern society, we are supposed to be colorblind.

Seems like people are getting really worked up about mixed martial arts. However, let’s take a departure from sport and delve into presidential politics.

Overcoming all the setbacks, Obama has recently been crowned by the media as official Candidate for the Democratic party. Clinton, however, has not yet officially stepped out of the race yet and Clinton’s camp is claiming that she is looking for a way to bow out gracefully. Or maybe that’s a lie and she’ll fight a presumably losing battle all the way to the Democratic Convention in August.

Obama is the most unlikely candidate in U.S. history and his candidacy is truly historic. Obama has overcome great setbacks in his campaign:

• Barack Obama is the first serious black candidate for President from the two major political parties to appear on the November ballot. Previous black candidates like Jesse Jackson never made it out of the primaries.
• Obama has fought back against a decentralized smear campaign, including allegations that he is secretly a Muslim, the Antichrist, and a non-loyal U.S. citizen.
• Obama has laughed in the face of media-heavy scandal, including arguments over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor. He has since quit his old church in Chicago. Polls have shown that most people don’t care, despite media coverage of the story.
• Obama is also quite possibly the most liberal serious candidate in years, certainly more liberal than President Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry. Democrats sigh relief. Finally, no more having to vote for a trumped-up moderate Republican candidate who masquerades as a Democrat.

We now have 22 weeks until the general election in November where Obama will face presumptive candidate John McCain.

If you have not done so, now would be a good time to register to vote or change your address. Remember, many states, including my home state of Missouri, have enacted tough voter ID laws, probably to keep Democratic voters–you know, the poor, minorities–away from the polls. Now is the time to review laws in your state. Most require you to show some sort of proof of residency like a photo ID, recent utility bill, or bank statement when voting.

Regardless of outcome, this election will turn out to be one for the history books.

Rick Jore is a very ambitious, no doubt about it. He’s also stupid.

Jore has created an amendment to the Montana state constitution that legally defines life as beginning at fertilization rather than at any other stage. Currently the Supreme Court and others have ruled that life can’t really be established until viability of a fetus which is why it’s okay for states to regulate or even ban abortion for older fetuses that are viable–that is, they can live unassisted–outside the womb.

Jore, however, wants to change that. He wants life to be defined as beginning at fertilization. When sperm hits egg, Jore says, then life has begun. I wonder if Jore knows how terribly unsuccessful most fertilized eggs actually are, especially in humans. Up to half of all fertilized eggs created will not implant and will thus not become a fetus. So are we going to start charging all women with murder who don’t live up to Jore’s lofty goals of implantation?

His nutty amendment is certainly an all-out appeal to religion and doesn’t attempt to hide that fact. If you read the amendment’s language, including changes made to the amendment, you can see that words like “born free ” were crossed out and replaced with “created free, ” and obvious allusion to religion. I have no problem with being religious but, last I checked, there was separation between church and state. I have the right to believe what I want, and CI-100 makes it seem like there’s only one acceptable explanation of life. That sucks.

So defining a fertilized egg as an human isn’t just a not-so-nice way of pushing religious ideas. It also sets a dangerous precedent for women. Consider the following:

• All abortion could be outlawed, including abortions performed to save the lives of mothers. The Supreme Court, by the way, has ruled many times that it’s unconstitutional to force a woman to die for her unborn child, assuming that an abortion would save her life.
• Birth control would be in jeopardy. So not only does this guy want to outlaw abortion, he wants to outlaw the one thing that can eliminate the need for abortion? Smart, Rick Jore. Smart.
• Doctors who treat women with high-risk pregnancies could face serious problems if women miscarry. It’s unclear if a doctor who treats a high-risk woman could be prosecuted for not doing everything in his power to save the life of a zygote, assuming the woman has a miscarriage.
• Jore, that silly rascal, has also said publicly that this law could allow for the investigation of women who have miscarriages for not doing everything they could to save the pregnancy. That’s the ticket, Rick! Blame the grieving women who’ve just lost their pregnancy!

I’m not trying to push my views on abortion, women’s health, or birth control on anyone. I just feel like a law this stupid has to be stopped and the people who write these laws need to stop and think about what they’re doing. Even if this law was passed, it’s unlikely it would be held constitutional by even our now-conservative Supreme Court. The problem is that people get this idea that it’s okay to ignore the fact that women have some say in their bodies, including their rights while pregnant. Jore’s amendment is almost like telling women that they are less important than the fetuses they carry.

Also, where’s this idea coming from that birth control is bad for our nation? Birth control saves lives! It keeps women from becoming pregnant before they are prepared. It prevents abortions. Who can argue against that?

On Thursday, the California Supreme Court made the bold move to overthrow a state law, approved by voters, which prohibited gay people from getting married. This law was similar to laws enacted in states all over the U.S. in the past several years, including an unfortunate ban in my home state of Missouri. In as little as 30 days, Gays should be able to get married legally in California by judges and other authorized figures.

In the 4 to 3 decision, the Republican-appointed Chief Justice Ronald George wrote:

“In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation.”

The court also cited the state’s former ban on interracial marriage as inspiration for the ruling, saying that they could not reject a ban on interracial marriage while at the same time allowing a ban on gay marriage.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi—the same wonderful Portia from my beloved Arrested Development—have already announced plans to marry legally in California after many years of being together without the possibility of legal marriage. DeGeneres was quoted on Perez Hilton as saying:

“I’m thrilled that the California supreme court overturned the ban on gay marriage. I can’t wait to get married. We all deserve the same rights, and I believe that someday we’ll look back on this and not allowing gays to marry will seem as absurd as not allowing women to vote.

P.S. I’m registered at Crate & Barrel.”

Conservative groups in California are now pushing for a constitutional ban on gay marriage to be put on the November ballot, which would reverse the court’s decision. They are also asking that the court suspend their ruling until a vote can be put to the people in the fall.

Many of these unjust anti-LGBT laws were put on the ballots of several states as a way of swaying voter turnout. In my state of Missouri, the gay marriage ban appeared as a ballot measure right before the key 2004 presidential election. At the time, our Democratic governor managed to muscle back the vote to August leaving the November ballot clear, though the ban still passed. However, in many other states, bans were put on the ballot as a way of bringing out socially conservative voters who would also vote for Bush.

No word yet on how this ruling will affect court rulings in other states.

In a revealing interview with media outlets Politico and Yahoo! News, the Associated Press is revealing that President Bush has given up golf as a way of standing in solidarity with soldiers in Iraq.

In his interview, Bush is quoted as saying, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

So our commander in chief wants us to know that he’s making sacrifices, too? He’s not sending one of his kids to the front line or anything, but it’s a sacrifice nonetheless. No word on whether Bush will also be giving up fishing and horseshoes with Dad, downing cold brews with those crazy kids Jenna and Henry, or giving up reading celebrity gossip blogs in the morning before his daily security briefing.

Life as president must be tough.

This story is finally breaking, but it’s been a long time in coming.

Barack Obama was famously put through the wringer recently over controversial comments made by his former paster, the Reverend Jeramiah Wright, regarding race and politics in America. Obama has famously denounced these statements and even got a little hot under the collar when Rev. Wright returned to the spotlight to speak again in public. Previously, Wright had stayed out of the public eye, presumably to help Obama’s chances with voters.

Wright’s statements are a good example of black liberation theology, a movement in in some protestant churches that cater to the African American community. This brand of theology became popular during the late sixties and in the midst of the civil rights movement. The idea behind black liberation theology is that the writings and ideas of Christianity can also apply to issues like civil rights.

John Hagee, on the other hand, is another one of those hot-aired evangelical mouthpieces, much like Pat Robertson or the late Jerry Falwell. Hagee has famously endorsed John McCain in the current presidential race. The only problem is that John Hagee has said some very controversial things, too. While Obama has denounced the statements of Rev. Wright, McCain has been much slower in denouncing the comments of Rev. Hagee. He has also not refused the endorsement of Hagee.

Recently, The New York Times did a piece about these controversial views and how the media are treating Hagee differently from Rev. Wright.

Here are some of Hagee’s famous ideas. Many of his bombastic sermons are available on YouTube if you want to see more.

• Hagee supports the invasion of Iran, a pre-emptive “holy war.”
• He believes that Hurricane Katrina was a result of sinfulness in the city of New Orleans, more specifically a gay parade that was to take place within the city.
• He called the Roman Catholic Church a “great whore” and claimed that the Catholic Church “drinks the blood of Jewish people.”
• He has, on several occasions, made televised and public statements that could be construed as anti-woman, bigoted, anti-semitic, and prejudiced against Catholics.

Currently McCain has denounced some of Hagee’s statements but continues to be proud of the pastor’s endorsement.

In truly one of the saddest and most touching speeches ever given by a politician, Robert F. Kennedy, former presidential candidate and brother of John F. Kennedy, delivered a speech at a rally in Indianapolis on this day in history, April 4th, 1968, forty years ago today. His speech is considered one of the great speeches ever delivered by a politician.

RFK was in Indianapolis to give a stump speech as part of his presidential campaign. As a politician, Kennedy had changed over the years. He was no longer the same man he’d been only a few short years before. Once the hawkish Attorney General during his brother’s presidency, Kennedy had changed in a short period of time after his brother’s tragic assassination. He’d changed his position on nearly everything: the war in Vietnam, poverty, and the awful racial tension that was about to explode in the country. In fact Kennedy’s police escorts refused to accompany him to his speech in Indianapolis fearing racial violence.

The crowd in Indianapolis had not yet heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated and killed in Memphis, and Kennedy took it upon himself to tell the crowd. In a short speech, he not only told the mostly black crowd the awful news, but calmed them. He reminded everyone that his own brother had been similarly assassinated and he knew the pain of their loss. He also quoted Aeschylus with this powerful quote about despair:

And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

–Aeschylus

That night, in hundreds of cities across America, riots broke out over the news of King’s death. In Indianapolis, however, the streets were quiet as the country, and also the world, mourned King’s death.

RFK would later die the same year, also assassinated.

You can see Robert F. Kennedy’s powerful speech in Indianapolis below:

Here’s another in a long line of Muslim fear-mongering emails intended to discredit Barack, probably because he’s not white. There are two components to this email, the first being a comment obviously written by someone OTHER than the author of the column that immediately follows. We should note that the author of the column did NOT write this little header bit of information. I don’t want to imply that Ken Blackwell had anything to do with the initial beginning of the email.

You’ll notice how the author of this essay claims that Obama has “Hollywood, San Francisco” values rather than “Middle American” values, which we can only assume to mean “white values.” After all, aren’t people in Hollywood and San Francisco just as American as everyone else? I mean, they do hold citizenship, don’t they?

I’m constantly offended that somehow having populist values gets you discredited by calling your values “liberal Hollywood” values, as if Mel Gibson, Arnold, and Bruce Willis didn’t also come from Hollywood, all noted conservatives. So liberals like me who live in a city of more than a million people, we aren’t Americans too? Strange because I feel American. They keep letting me vote like an American. I’m pretty sure I was born in this country which, under The Constitution, gives me American citizenship. Strange.

Here’s the most interesting bit of the whole email:

Subject: Kind of scary, wouldn’t you think?
Remember–God is good, and is in time, on time–every time.
According to The Book of Revelation the anti-christ is:
The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal….the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many times as you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet…do it!
If you think I am crazy..I’m sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the “unknown”

First off, let’s get one thing straight about the book of Revelations. It was written a long time ago and was meant to be a cautionary tale about the fall of Rome, or at least that’s how I’ve heard the  literary interpretation. Sorry to disappoint you, but Revelations didn’t predict the Kennedy assassination, nor did it predict that the twin towers would fall or that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston would break up. Instead, all of that obfuscated language is really supposed to be a tale about the fall of Rome and Roman society, once the mightiest empire on the planet. I’m no biblical scholar, but I feel I can safely predict that the “Antichrist” isn’t Barack Obama because the “Antichrist” is also an allegory.

Of course, I don’t put a whole lot of faith in the idea that God is going to terrorize the living crap out of us with this fire and brimstone stuff anyway. Literal interpreters just scare me because anybody could be the Antichrist, and it always seems like the Antichrist is right here, right now. How many hundreds of years have people been crying wolf about the existence of an Antichrist? When are we all going to stop freaking out about such hateful speech and ignore nuts who claim these things?

If someone is powerful or hated enough, he (or she) could be the Antichrist. And who hasn’t been called the Antichrist? Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and more have all been called the incarnate of Satan. Frankly I’m a little tired of all this hate-mongering speech. And you thought the things Obama’s pastor said were bad. Sorry to disappoint, but everything in Revelations already happened. Stop worrying about the end of the world and go get yourself some ice cream.

Now, onto the accompanying editorial which was NOT written by the same person who wrote the inflammatory statement above. As it says, this column did, in fact, appear in the New York Sun which, by all accounts, is way inferior to other newspapers in New York. But I digress. This column was published February 14–yes, Valentine’s Day–of this year. Enjoy.

Ken Blackwell – Columnist for the New York Sun

It’s an amazing time to be alive in America. We’re in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front-running freedom fighter over 70. The next president of America will be a first.

We won’t truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won’t arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics.

The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the frontrunner, and its time America takes a closer and deeper look at him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He’s not. He’s the next George McGovern. And it’s time people learned the facts.

Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential frontrunner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost.

Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he’s not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But let’s look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial “beauty.”

I realize this column was written before the pastor at Obama’s church came into some pretty hot water, but I must protest this point. If this election was really being treated like a beauty pageant, then why would the media focus on clearly embarrassing issues like this one?

Start with national security, since the president’s most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong II, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists – something no president has ever taken off the table since w e created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk.

Here’s an important point to make about the president of Iran. I realize that Ahmadinejad is a scary guy. He says scary things and makes scary threats. Here’s the problem: he doesn’t have any actual authority. It’s true. The president of Iran has a diplomatic role only, but has no authority or power to change things. In fact, this rests with a rather scary-sounding position called the “Supreme Leader.” Ahmadinejad is the one we’re scared of, but we don’t even know the name or face of the Supreme Leader, the one actually mankind decisions. But let’s move on…

Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on “the rich.” How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck.

Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, “All praise and glory to God!” but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have “hijacked” – hijacked – Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against a statewide ban – ban – on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values.

The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don’t start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of “bringing America together” means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs.

But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and – yes – they’re talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama’s radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton.

It’s time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let’s first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war.

Now the points made in this article are all rather ridiculous and I’ll save those arguments for another time. The point is that people are needlessly afraid of Barack Obama. This is why the point of this column is flawed. Blackwell claims we should forget the issue of race in this election, yet this email arrived with a header claiming that Obama isn’t worth voting for because he’s not white and therefore is somehow the Antichrist. He’s not just a bad leader, he’s the incarnate of evil.

See, race is an issue. There is still racism to battle, unfortunately. Until then, remember your critical thinking skills. Don’t let religious zealotry cloud you from the real issue. This is an election, not a religious war. Let’s treat it accordingly.