Opinion - HuffingtonPost.com

Today, the Connecticut Supreme Court took an historic step by joining California and Massachusetts in the fight to provide marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples.

In a year full of surprises to the conventional political wisdom, the greatest story yet may be unfolding in West Virginia, where Senator Obama's campaign is rocketing to competitiveness in a nearly all-white state that went comfortably for George W.

To the children of same-sex parents: You Are Bad.

Today my office issued the following statement, which includes my comments

I posted the following article on the Guardian's Comments is Free site yesterday. It says things that I think need to be said, about the moral crassness of the commentators who have taken to blaming poor people for the financial collapse we're undergoing. With the permission of the Guardian, I'm republishing it today on the Huffington Post. If you've already read it, please forgive me. If you haven't, I hope it will be of interest.

It's hard out there for a shill. A bipartisan panel in Alaska finds that Sarah Palin abused her power and broke the law, and the best defense the campaign can muster is that she "acted within her proper and lawful authority in firing Walt Monegan." Sure, she broke the law and abused her office, but she did some things that weren't illegal.

"Big bottom drives me out of my mind, how can I leave that behind..."

Back in the days of Willie Horton and the Jesse Helms "hands" ad, a healthy garnish of racial fear would almost guarantee an election victory for the offending party. Flash some dark flesh in an ad, allude to white girls put in jeopardy by the colored menace, and you could pretty much start measuring curtains for the executive mansion.

The crash continues to roll from one market to the next, and huge new bailout talks are underway. We're analyzing this morning's events live at Clusterstock -- please feel free to join us. We'll keep the discussion open until about 11:30 ET. Then we'll post the transcript here.

The comments made by the partners of Sequoia Capital at their recently held "CEO Summit" have been widely covered by leaks to numerous bloggers. These bloggers have disseminated the details and spread the contagion of the sentiments to the public at large, unfortunately running the risk that the words become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Without challenging the comments, which expressed a heightened degree of doom and gloom for the economic prospects of young start-up companies particularly, I do think it calls for a somewhat more restrained response on the outlook and required action before throwing the baby out with the bath water. Certainly, we are going through a period of enormous economic and political uncertainty. The loss of confidence, primarily in our financial system, as a result of the excess of the past five to ten years (if not longer -- we may never know how long some of the flawed practices have been going on) is one of the leading contributors. We are also at the moment looking for leadership on the political front and both because of very low public support for the president and because we are in the midst of a heated election for his successor, we have no real voice of authority to provide some guidance, reassurance, and inspirational confidence that the bus has a driver who knows where he is going.

I was watching formidable reporter Christiane Amanpour on Real Time with Bill Maher this week as she argued that Sarah Palin "connects" and, "whether you agree with her policies or not, it's actually good there is a woman on a major ticket... it's important... it's progress."

In a new low, not just for this campaign, but for the history of American politics, Senator John McCain's campaign today defended threats against Senator Barack Obama.

I've been thinking a lot about trust recently. When it is abundant everything goes more smoothly: from love to commerce, from sports to politics. When it is lacking, everything else can seem broken or meaningless.

With the disastrous market reaction to his last bailout plan, Hank Paulson is now preparing to ratchet up the rescue by pouring capital into frightened financial institutions in return for equity shares.

Senator John McCain: If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as "not one of us," I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.

I've been working on other posts, but then I saw today's paper, and the stock market drop. You want good reading? How about 60% of Americans say depression likely (A CNN poll). Or the much more reassuring Then and Now. I recognize that my place in blogging is something like baby-boomer ex-hippy MBA entrepreneur, which doesn't include this post.  But I can't help it. 

The Republicans tried to make fun of Barack Obama as a community organizer at their national convention in Minnesota, which I guess just goes to show how little Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to fear from right-wing "humor."

Back in June, many of us laughed and laughed at the idea that John McCain (R) and the RNC was putting the top staff to Rudy Giuliani's (R) disastrous presidential campaign to run the general election ground game.

McCain today released a shockingly inflammatory Obama-is-a-pal-of-terrorist-Bill-Ayers ad. Here's the link via Andrew Sullivan.

After seven years of the Politics of Terror, and with only three months left to go, they decided to make one last play for power. The original bailout plan presented by Hank Paulson was to be the final Shock Doctrine maneuver of the Bush/Cheney Presidency. As with 9/11, the Administration tried to exploit a tragic situation for their own ends. And this five-day stock market plunge shows that, as with 9/11, they've made a grave situation even worse.

In his latest attempt to raise questions about his Democratic rival for president, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told a crowd in Ohio today that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) has been lying about his name being "Barack" and that his actual first name is "That."

Both John McCain and Barack Obama took turns during the second presidential debate on Tuesday night claiming credit for having warned of an imminent economic crisis.

For the better part of a week now, the McCain campaign has been playing the barbecue cable news people like the ribs-eating, tire-swinging sycophants they are. And yet, unlike when a news story is negative about the McCain campaign, they aren't employing their phony-baloney "both sides are wicked awful" fake balance routine this time.

John McCain and Barack Obama are the nominees of the Republican and Democratic parties for president of the United States. One has publicly acknowledged Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Just about every economist who supports bailing out the banks thinks that taking an equity stake through a direct infusion of capital is the way to go. While Secretary Paulson had pushed for his buying bad assets approach, he is now playing Hamlet and flirting with the idea of going the equity route.

Jesse Lee is the Online Rapid Response Manager for the DNC, this is a daily update on the day's messaging.

In 2004, America's malleable mainstream media allowed itself to be manipulated by artful Republican operatives into devoting weeks of broadcast attention and drums of ink to unfairly desecrating John Kerry's genuine Vietnam heroics while obligingly muzzling serious discussion of George W. Bush's shameful wartime record of evasion and cowardice.

The Republican Party and John McCain hate regulation. Hate government oversight. As a result, they have brought America to the edge of disaster.