Now We Fight

This was never supposed to be close.

I expected Hillary Clinton to win handily yesterday. I believed the polls. I believed the maps that said she had several paths to victory, and that Trump had to have a perfect night to win.

So I’m a victim of my own expectations, like many people. We never expected this to happen.

Too many people ignored the heinous nature of Trump and voted for him as “the Republican candidate.” They ignored the groping video and the religious bans and the crypto-fascist talk and the warmongering and everything else. They decided they wanted change, and so they supported him.

This man threatened to sue women who accused him of sexual assault. Millions of people still voted for him.

He told protestors in his rallies that they deserved to be beaten up, and that he would pay the lawyer's fees if his people beat up the protestors. Millions of people still voted for him.

I hate this. I hate that so many people were willing to mark the box for a racist sexist xenophobic pig for president. I hate it.

And let’s be real. So many people could not accept Hillary Clinton as a candidate. Many of them couldn’t support her because of who she was. And many of them, let’s be honest, couldn’t support a woman as president.

When they say “I could support a woman candidate, just not that woman,” they’re saying that the only woman they will support is a perfect candidate who matches their ideals in every way. That person doesn’t exist.

My father has had an American flag in his window for years. He took it down last night. He says he can no longer be proud of this country. It breaks my heart, but I can’t blame him. His heart was broken last night. Our hearts were collectively broken last night.

The media kept portraying Trump and Clinton as equally flawed. “So Trump has declared bankruptcy a bunch of times, and groped women, and maybe raped a child, and is on trial for fraud. Hillary had that email thing!” They are both flawed, but these two levels of flawed are not equal. That’s like saying a paper airplane and a Boeing Dreamliner are equal because both can fly in the air.

And then you’ve got the third party people. The “oh, no, they’re both so corrupt, I can’t support either of them” people. The holier-than-thou voters. They’re no better than the people who said “I could support a woman, but just not that woman.” So they supported Jill Stein or Gary Clueless Johnson.

Look at the vote totals in Florida and Ohio and the other states where Trump won. What would have happened if Gary Johnson had said, like his vice-presidential pick William Weld, “vote for Hillary Clinton because our first priority is stopping Trump?” Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe.

“They’re both equally flawed” is what I heard in 2000 when Bush and Gore were running. I almost fell for it. And then we got George W., and then we got 9/11 and the Iraq war and the war on terror and the PATRIOT Act and the recession. I don’t accept that both parties are the same. I refuse to accept it.

So, because too many people decided they would take a chance on a loose cannon, the country gets a monster for president. And a Republican House and Senate. He can’t do everything he promised to do, but he can do a hell of a lot of damage. For immigrants. For low-income people who need health insurance. For women. For minorities. He can do a lot of damage in that office, and now he has the keys.

So we fight. If Hillary had won, we would have had to fight to push her to the left. Now we’re faced with Donald Trump as our next president. The challenge is clear. We live in a country with deep racism, deep sexism, deep suspicion of immigrants. We need to work to heal that wound.

We need to fight, every day, to protect the most vulnerable people in our society. We cannot give up and hang our heads. Now we need to stand and fight.

Faith Restored

I figured he'd be miserable. It was election night and his guy lost.

I came to the election night party late. After the results had come in. I knew. We all knew. It was one of the races that was decided early. I arrived around ten, bought a drink, gave my friend a hug and asked him how he was doing.  And he surprised me. He said he was doing great.

My friend, B__, he's been doing political work for a long time. He's run a lot of campaigns. Some great, some disappointing. You win some, you lose some. It's a job. Even though he's young (younger than me), sometimes I see him as a grizzled old veteran of the political wars. He just does the job for whoever hires him. And that's where I was wrong.

B__ told me how proud he was to have worked on this campaign. He told me about the thousands of hours of volunteer service that the campaign had gotten. How he was the only paid staffer on a citywide campaign (!)  and yet, he was never the first person in the office. There was always some bright-eyed volunteer who got into the office before him because they just couldn't wait to get started.

And B__ told me about his candidate. Told me how proud he was to have worked for the candidate. He wasn't perfect, but he was dedicated to public service. He made decisions and he stuck with them, damn the consequences. And he was sincere. Too sincere, in fact, to make it as a politician.

But he had made an impression. Even in losing, he had made B__ proud to know him and work for him. And I think that this campaign, this losing quixotic campaign, renewed his faith in politics.

I believe in politics because I believe in people. I started in politics as a community organizer, and you have to believe in people to organize. You need to have a hard-wired belief that people are essentially good and that they will, given the choice, decide to do the best thing for the most people. That's politics, at its essence. That's what it's all about.

Politicians don't get into the job because they want to destroy people, or wield unrelenting  power. They do it because they care -  about their communities, about their neighbors, the kids on their block, the homeless people in their alleys. And political campaigners like B__ are seduced into the job. They fall in love with a candidate, and they devote themselves to a candidate. And win or lose, it's that love for the first candidate that they always hold onto. Sometimes it can just turn into a job. But at its heart, politics - and even political campaigns - come down to love.

I was proud that night to see that my friend wasn't mourning. There was fire in his eyes. He had rekindled his love for a public servant, someone who would rather be wrong than be victorious. He saw the goodness in his candidate and in the pursuit of victory for him. And he saw, for a brief few weeks, that that was the reason he'd gotten into politics in the field place.

A Gun Culture

I have friends who tell me that the problem isn't guns, it's our culture. It's our society.

I agree - the problem is our culture. And our culture is guns. We have a gun culture in this country. In our culture, when people collect guns, it's a hobby. Like collecting tea pots. Or rare stamps. People can talk about the stock, the craftsmanship, the rarity of the particular production year, and forget that what they're talking about is a weapon designed to kill.

I'm a parent. If I were not a parent, I'd be fully prepared to get medieval about this latest massacre. You know the way that anti-abortion people parade around photos of dead fetuses? It's the most grotesque, most shocking way to make your point. I'd be doing that with the pictures of the children who died in Newtown.

But I can't do that, because I can't even look at the pictures. I change the station when a story comes on.   I have a child. I have a son, and I'm going to go drop him off at his school this morning, and I'll probably take longer to say goodbye than usual.

I am heartsick, people. and I am every time this happens.

I remember the first time. It was in San Ysidro, California. A man shot dozens of people at a McDonald's restaurant, just like the one where my son and I had dinner on Wednesday. He had an Uzi, along with other weapons. It was 1984.

I remember Columbine. I used to live in Colorado, so that hit home for me. Before that, there was the kid in Moses Lake. And Kentucky. And Mississippi. And Jonesboro, Arkansas. Yes, there were school shootings before Columbine.  Lots of them.

Too many. Shootings in schools. Shootings in shopping malls. In restaurants. In homes. On street corners. Too many.

So what are we supposed to do, live in a police state? Station an armed officer at the door of every school, every mall, every public place? Turn our country into a military zone, all because we can't admit that guns are as much a part of our culture as Sunday football?

We have to do something. This is no longer acceptable. It wasn't acceptable in 1984. It wasn't acceptable in 1999. It's beyond acceptable now. We should all be rioting in the streets, demanding that our nation's leaders act now to keep guns off the streets and out of the hands of unstable people. We should all be angry. I'm angry. I'm sick - my heart is sick - but I'm angry. And today, we need to use that anger to demand change.

Romney: Sacrificial Lamb?

I'm not a professional political pundit, y'all. Just a smart-aleck sitting in his office writing stuff.

But I've never seen an election this weird in my life. Ever.

Romney may be the worst candidate this country has seen in a hundred years. He's an embarrassment. He is wooden, he's unbelievably bad speaking off-the-cuff, he has all the charisma of a turnip, and he doesn't seem to have any idea how to craft a winning policy.

But more than that - he seems to be doing this on his own.

I mean, sure, there are people like Reince Priebus who are paying lip service to him on the talk shows. but look at all the conservatives who have been undercutting him and questioning his candidacy. (This was happening before the damning videos came out, by the way. It's only going to get worse now.)

Erick Erickson:

But while we may be focused there, the fact is the Romney campaign isn’t functioning well. Lucky for you and me the election is not today. But something needs to happen in Boston and I am less and less hopeful anything will happen.

David Frum:

The policy problem is that the Romney campaign offers nothing but bad news to hardpressed Americans and the broader middle class.  How do you message: I'm doing away w Medicaid over the next 10 yrs, Medicare after that, to finance a cut in the top rate of tax to 28%?

 David Brooks:

Personally, I think [Romney is] a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. 

And these are people who should be in his corner. Obama will always get hammered by progressives for not being aggressive enough on issues like demilitarization, stopping climate change, supporting full equality for LGBT individuals, etc. But in the end, they'll vote for him because they know he's better than the alternative. I'm not sure everybody in the Republican party believes that.

So here's my theory. (It's not a new theory, but it's the theory I've come to believe.)

I think that the GOP never expected to win this election.

You know how baseball teams will dump all of their veteran players, bring in a bunch of fresh-faced youngsters, and say that it's a "rebuilding year?" Well, this is a rebuilding year for the GOP.

They don't think Romney will win. They don't even particularly want Romney to win. It's obvious that many of the powerful people in the Republican party don't like Mitt Romney - not because he's an elitist jerk, but because he's a "moderate." They'd rather have a Tea Party-style paleoconservative like Paul Ryan be their flag bearer. So they're using this election to say "you see what happens when we run pretend conservatives? Next time, let's run a real one!"

Mitt Romney's being thrown under the bus. Just think about his competition. Santorum? Gingrich? Nobody of any serious political stature ran against him, because nobody expected the GOP to win this election. Romney is their sacrificial lamb. So after the election, the real fun begins. Watch the turmoil that happens in 2013 and 2014 as the varying factions try to take the reins of a Republican party that's falling apart. We're going to see a civil war for the heart of the party. That's the real battle being fought here.

Egypt

This post will almost certainly be irrelevant in twelve hours.

Hearing now that a) the Egyptian army is taking control of the country, and b) Mubarak will almost certainly be stepping down today.

I know almost nothing about Egypt, but from what I understand, Mubarak's been running the country with an iron fist for decades. So removing him from power would be a tremendous step forward. But is it enough?

If Egypt remains under a state of emergency, is anything really changing?

If the military takes command and it continues authoritarian rule, is this really a victory?

Is the goal merely driving Mubarak from power, or is true democracy the goal? What is victory in Egypt?

When will the protestors know that they have won?

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Groupon

Groupon fucked up.

I can't speculate why they did it. Maybe they were forced to quickly develop an ad after they found out LivingSocial was running one. Maybe they seriously thought the ad agency that developed Burger King's Subservient Chicken was the perfect outfit to promote their brand. I dunno.

What I know, however, is that as soon as that Tibet ad for Groupon ran, all hell broke loose on Twitter. I started seeing boycott talk within minutes. Instant outrage.

What happened? Well, if you believe Groupon, they wanted to do something that would promote their brand by mocking people who felt passionately about causes.

Er ... no, that's not right.

No, they wanted to mock themselves. Yeah, that's the ticket. So they did it by making fun of the disappearing rainforest, dying whales, and the suffering of the Tibetan people. Sure, that's a great way to mock yourself.

Well, here, you can read what Groupon's CEO said, in his defense:

Our ads highlight the often trivial nature of stuff on Groupon when juxtaposed against bigger world issues, making fun of Groupon. Why make fun of ourselves? Because it’s different – ads are traditionally about shameless self promotion, and we’ve always strived to have a more honest and respectful conversation with our customers. We would never have run these ads if we thought they trivialized the causes – even if we didn’t take them as seriously as we do, what type of company would go out of their way to be so antagonistic?

Got it? So, by trivializing the causes mentioned in the ads, they never meant to trivialize the causes. Sure, that makes sense.

Somehow, Groupon failed to notice that there are still a hell of a lot of us who take those "causes" seriously. I got very excited for a few seconds when the ad started, because I was so impressed that someone had managed to get a political ad running on the Super Bowl. And then Tim Hutton started talking about fish curry, and I realized I'd been tricked. And I got angry. A lot of us got angry.

Groupon has tried to defend themselves by noting that they started out as a "cause-based website," and therefore ... something. Therefore, they get why cause marketing is so important? Therefore, they never gave a fuck about those goddamn causes in the first place? It's hard to take them at their word when their own community forum has this lovely message from one of their staffers:

Cause-marketers bombard us with celebrity endorsements, emotional pleas and percentage-based models that passively generate donations without converting champions around the issue.

(I will note that there was a much more offensive version of this message posted earlier by someone named Patty H. That message said something about "manipulating people into giving." I should have taken a screenshot. That message has since been deleted.)

Hey, thanks for making all of us fundraisers in the nonprofit world look like assholes! I made my money for several years doing grassroots fundraising - oh, excuse me, bombarding people with emotional pleas.

Groupon also says that they're all about raising money for these important causes. That's why you saw a link to a major Tibetan NGO during the Tim Hutton ad. Oh, wait, you didn't. Whoopsie!

Groupon is getting slammed for these tasteless and heartless ads, and they deserve every bit of it. Look at their community forums. Every thread that tries to promote the "cause marketing" side of these ads is being bombarded by angry users and angry ex-users.

It is important to care about causes. The world changes when people stop thinking about their own lives and begin focusing on larger causes - like the Nazi holocaust, like the oppression of African Americans in this country, like the environment, like global warming. Groupon made a huge mistake in assuming that they could use serious causes as a backdrop for a cynical ad campaign.

So now they're apologizing. Fine. I'm not satisfied. I want to see some serious penance. Want to make up for this? Start running some serious prime-time ads promoting the people of Tibet, protection of the rainforest, and saving those whales that you don't seem to give a fuck about. Start writing your own checks to important causes, not just collecting donations while you rake in record profits. You want to show us that causes matter to you? Prove it.

Office Politics

This is the biggest company I've ever worked for. It's actually the first actual private company I've worked for in a decade - a sudden change from the nonprofit world. This is a real company with dozens and dozens of employees.

I'm used to small shops. In the past, I've been the one-person development team. I would write the fundraising appeal, walk it down to the printer, pick up the copies when they were done, print the mailing labels, fold and stuff the envelopes, take them to the post office, and enter the checks when they started rolling in. Here, I've got departments. There's a marketing department, a sales department, an IT department, an executive team, an events team, teams of people who do what I used to do by myself.

It's weird, people.

You would think it would be a relief to have a team of people to rely on, but it's the opposite. I'm not used to having other people taking on tasks. When I'm sending out a marketing email blast, I have four different people from three different teams that have to sign off on it. That's odd - I'm used to just writing the thing myself and sending it.

And then there's the office politics. When you work in a small office, everyone has to get along. You might have petty grievances, but everyone has to get along and fundamentally like each other - otherwise, you're doomed. Not the case at a big company. People have to work together, but they do not have to like each other.

So my team, the marketing team, is not thought of highly in the office. It's our job to protect the brand. We approve any writing that goes out from our company, and in my case, we monitor online discussions to see what people are saying about us. Everyone else in the office thinks they have better ideas than the marketing team, but it's not their job to come up with the ideas to raise our brand's profile and build new customers. It's our job. They can throw out ideas, but it's ultimately our job. So they resent us.

The IT team is generally seen as a bunch of know-it-alls who are notoriously dismissive of most new ideas for technology. So most people hate the IT team. They work with them, but people talk shit about the IT director behind his back.

It goes on like this. IT doesn't particularly like us, we're not particularly fond of the new products team even though we have to sell what they're creating. The events team gets a lot of flak. And the sales - yeesh. Everyone resents the sales team. Everyone thinks they can do a better job than the sales team. Everyone thinks the entire sales team should be gutted and replaced. (And I mean gutted literally. Think Wolverine.)

But at our best, we lay down the swords and work well together. I just had a meeting last week - the IT, marketing and sales teams were all in the same room together. And we were bonding well. We laughed at each other's jokes. We enthused over each other's ideas. It happens. At the best of times, we appreciate each other's ideas and we genuinely like working with the other teams.

But at the worst ... well, I've used the term "trench warfare" more than once.

I like it better when we get along. I love the people we work with, on all sides. I am always impressed by the dedication and passion of my co-workers. But the trench warfare gets to me sometimes. I start getting into the backbiting, the closed-door smack talking, the petty grievances. Anger is addictive. It's fun, to be perfectly honest. In a childish sort of way, it's fun to compile a list of the things you hate about your co-workers. But it's not healthy, and it's no way to run a company.

Why Health Care Matters

Some very smart people have written about what the historic vote on health care reform means.  What it means for Republicans, what it means for Democrats, what it means for the public's view of government, what it means for the country.  I'm not going to try and retread those well-worn paths.  Let me tell you what this battle means to me.

Yes, that's right, me.  All politics is local, and all politics is personal.  So let me tell you about my journey of learning about why health care matters.

Ten years ago, I started working in the world of social justice.  I was a canvasser.  I was one of those people who knocks on your door and asks you if you have a minute, and tells you about some political issue you probably weren't thinking about, and then asks you to take action or donate money so that the fight on that political issue can continue.

It was a job.  I had just been fired from my last job and had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  It was a decent-paying job that required no experience, just the ability to make a good argument and to think on one's feet.  I could do that.  So I became a canvasser.

I became an activist, in the parlance of the movement.  We weren't just canvassers.  We were activists.  We were community organizers, sowing the seeds of grassroots power, one doorstep at a time.  

But the problem was this.  We weren't talking about revolutionary issues.  We were talking about ... health care.  Prescription drug prices.  Access to insurance.  I didn't get it.  I thought health care was a pretty middle-class issue, not very exciting, not very revolutionary.  Health care just wasn't that big a deal.  Why weren't we talking about homelessness, or defunding the military, or banning nuclear bombs?  What did health care matter?

One thing I did notice, though.  A lot of people didn't have anything to say, or didn't have time to talk.  But the ones who did would open up.  Their stories would come pouring out of them, often with tears and shaking voices and anger.  And the more I talked to people, the more I saw how important health care really was.  

I talked to men who would bring out their handwritten lists of medications - ten, fifteen, twenty different drugs - and tell me which ones they knew they had to have, and which ones they knew they could skip if they couldn't afford them.  "These pills all cost money," they explained, "and sometimes, you gotta make choices."  

I talked to people who faithfully paid their premiums every month, only to find that their insurance company refused to cover their illnesses when they became sick.  They did nothing wrong except to become sick, and their insurance companies suddenly found exemptions, exclusions, limitations in their coverage.  Profits over people.  It happens more often than any of us realize.  

I talked to people who were too young for Medicare, too ill to work, and too healthy to qualify for disability or Medicaid.  They were trapped without health insurance, holding their breath and hoping that they wouldn't get sick.  Prayer.  That was their health care plan.  Pray you don't get sick.

I talked to people who knew that if they got sick, their only choice was the emergency room.  They couldn't afford the bills.  They would get a payment plan if they had to go to the ER, and they would pay what they could, and they would fall behind, and the ER would send their account to a collection agency, and they would probably go bankrupt over it.  Over health care costs.

I brought people to Olympia to protest against the high cost of prescription drugs.  I helped organize rallies and town hall meetings to demand access to health care.  I fought with my heart and soul against proposed increases in health care costs for the poorest of the poor, against threatened termination of our state's Basic Health plan.  I met people who would weep when they thought about losing their health care.  I met people who knew they would die without health care.

I met people who are dead now.  They died because they had no health care, and they put off the visit to the doctor until the next paycheck came in.  They didn't get checked because they couldn't afford the bill, and their illnesses got worse, and then when they needed to see the doctor, their choices were emergency rooms and sliding scale clinics with lines going out the door.  Yes, people died.  Lack of health care kills people in this country, thousands of people every year.  People I knew and cared deeply about, and they died because of the injustice of our health care system.

I know that this bill will not solve everything.  I know that we - the activists, the grassroots, the netroots - have much work yet to do.  But twelve million more people are going to have access to health care now.  Medicare and Medicaid will be expanded.  More money will be available so people who can't afford health insurance can get it.  The foolish policies that kept people with pre-existing conditions from getting health insurance will go away.  Insurance companies will be banned from canceling health insurance policies when their customers get sick. 

Things are going to get better.  God willing, less people will die now because of lack of health insurance.  And when they do, goddammit, people will pay attention.  Because health care is one of the most important issues facing our country.  Our health care system is broken, deranged, a failed machine running amok.  This bill will make some long-needed repairs to the machine.  It's not a complete fix.  It's not a new machine.  But we needed a fix, and this is a good fix, and it is too long in coming.  

(Once again, thanks to the awesome Jamie Mulligan for the great canvasser picture.)

The Smoking Gun

Guy shoots up Fort Hood in Texas. Kills 13, wounds 30 more. How could we have possibly prevented this? Was it caused by depression? Anti-military fervor? He's a Muslim - was he a terrorist? (You know how those people are.)

How could we have stopped this?

The next day, a shooting in Florida. One dead, five injured in a highrise building. Oh, but this is totally unrelated to the Texas shootings. That was a military base, this was in a place of business. No connection whatsoever.

Last week, a police officer was shot and killed here in Seattle, shot in his own police car. But undoubtedly, it was unrelated to the other shootings. Different place, different motive. No connection whatsoever.

Yesterday, there was a shooting in the town where my wife works. Attempted murder-suicide, according to news reports. But of course, that had nothing at all to with the other shootings. No connection whatsoever.

Tonight, a man will be executed for committing a series of high-profile shootings in the Washington D.C. area. Any connection to the other crimes? Oh no, of course not. This was a serial killer, a psychopath, totally unpredictable. His crime was an aberration.

There's no connection at all.

Bullshit.

Here's the pattern that I see. Shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, and another shooting. The connection is guns. The connection is unmistakeable, unavoidable, and undeniable.

On the day that the Fort Hood shooting occurred, dozens of other shootings also happened and most of them never even made the news. Shootings in this country are an epidemic, and we're so inured to them that all we do is shake our heads when another one happens. What a shame, we say. Another senseless crime. Another unstoppable crime. We throw up our hands - what can you do?

Here's what you can do. You can call your member of Congress, call your city council, call your town's mayor. Ask them what they're doing to reduce gun violence, and make them get specific. Call the president and tell him to make gun violence a priority.

What can we do about it? Support sensible gun laws in your state and in federal law, like closing the gun show loophole.

What can we do? Support local organizations that are fighting the scourge of guns (we have a great local organization called Washington Ceasefire), or support the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Don't just turn your head. One hundred thousand people are shot in this country each year, and over ten thousand people every year die from gun violence. Our children, our neighbors, our families are all suffering from this plague. According to the Center for Disease Control's Leading Causes of Death Reports, from age birth until age 65 firearms are consistently among the top ten leading causes of death in our communities. And among our young people aged 15-24 firearms rank in the top three leading causes of death. Firearms take twice as many lives as AIDS does each year. (Thanks to the Brady Campaign and Washington CeaseFire for the statistics.)

These are preventable crimes, but we have to be brave enough to fight in order to prevent them.

Dragging ACORN Through the Mud

It's a damn shame what's being done to ACORN.

Disclosures:  Most of you know that I'm a former community organizer.  I have never worked for ACORN, but I have worked for organizations that worked with ACORN.  I worked along the same territory as them - fighting for the rights of low-income, disenfranchised people.  

I have written pretty bluntly about ACORN's failures in the past, so you know I'm not a cheerleader for them.  They have screwed up massively in the past, and like most large organizations or companies, they will probably screw up again sometime in the future.

Having said that, they don't deserve what's happening.

For those who haven't been following the stories, there have been a series of videos supposedly showing ACORN workers giving two individuals - a "pimp" and a "prostitute" - advice on setting up a brothel.  The videos have been shown repeatedly on Fox News and have been picked up to a lesser degree by other media.  The "pimp" was O'Keefe, wearing a completely ridiculous outfit.  The "prostitute" was Giles, masquerading as a prostitute who apparently favored the name Kenya.  (There's nothing racist at all in her using that name, I'm sure.)  

This is character assassination, plain and simple.  Two people with a hidden camera are targeting ACORN offices, recording embarrassing videos of staff members.  Both of the participants, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, have admitted to having a political agenda.  They're not out to find the truth.  They're out to get ACORN.   They're out to get ACORN, because in the feverish minds of some conservative activists and writers, ACORN is at the heart of Obama's election and bringing down ACORN will inevitably lead to Obama's collapse.

Look, I've worked as a door-to-door canvasser and I've worked as a community organizer.  I've walked into some situations I thought were a little sketchy.  I'm pretty sure that if someone wanted to catch me on video saying something embarassing, and they followed me around for long enough and caught me off-guard, they might be able to do it.  It might happen.  And so it's gone with ACORN that they've caught some workers saying some fairly embarrassing things. 

Do the videos show the truth?  Well, some staffers probably said some things they shouldn't have.  But we don't know the whole story, because the full unedited videos haven't been released and probably never will.  They could be edited.  They could have manipulated the audio, or the video, or both.   We don't know what actually happened in those rooms, and we will almost certainly never know.

Is the behavior of the ACORN workers criminal behavior? There have been no criminal charges filed in any state in connection with these videos.  Why?  Well, O'Keefe and Giles aren't police officers, they're private citizens.  They have no legal authority to conduct "sting" operations.  They aren't out to find criminal behavior - they're purely interested in embarrassing ACORN, and they have.

What criminal activity?  All of the criminal ideas came from O'Keefe and Giles.  They posed as a pimp and a prostitute and talked about setting up brothels.  They talked about bringing in underage immigrant women to work illegally as prostitutes.  All the criminal activity came from their own twisted minds.

As it turns out, there has been one lawsuit filed in Maryland in connection with these videos.  ACORN filed it.  Turns out that it's illegal in Maryland to record audio of another person without their permission.  Guess our cutting-edge filmmaker didn't take the time to check out wiretapping laws before swooping in with his super-fantastic sting operation.  

One ACORN worker, after giving them advice on setting up their house of ill imagination, allegedly confessed to having murdered her husband.  That got her a call from homicide detectives and the local newspapers, where she admitted that she made up the whole story because she know that they were trying to set her up.  (She also mentions conversations she had with O'Keefe and Giles that never made the video tape that ran on Fox.  Big surprise.)

Another worker called the police after the clowns/filmmakers came to them with a story about smuggling underage immigrants for sex work. 

Think about this:

• We know that one of the videotaped workers lied to the filmmakers/clowns deliberately. We don't know how many others may have made up stories, or deliberately given false advice, because they knew they were being had.
• We know that one worker called the police on them after his visit.  We don't know how many others called the police.
• We don't know how many offices the filmmakers/clowns visited in order to get their supposedly incriminating videos.
• We don't know how many offices threw them out without a second glance.
• We don't know how many staff members they actually talked to.
• We don't know what actually happened on the tapes, because no one except O'Keefe and Giles has apparently seen the unedited videos.

And over all this, Congress has seen fit to withdraw all federal funding going to ACORN, an organization which has been helping people of color low-income people in this country for thirty years.   Over all this, people have been declaring ACORN to be a criminal enterprise.  Over all this, ACORN has been denounced by left and right and in the halls of our Congress.  

President Obama was right.  There needs to be an investigation into these videos.  There needs to be an investigation into these malicious filmmakers and their gutter tactics of manipulation, distortion, and character assassination.  

ACORN has made mistakes in the past.  That is different that what's going on here.  What's happening now is that someone with great friends in the media has gone on a personal crusade to destroy a social justice organization.  He's doing it for ratings, for personal glory, to raise his own profile as an "activist" and as a "cutting-edge filmmaker."   Well, he can call himself anything he wants.  What he's doing is shameful, despicable behavior. 

R.I.P. Senator Ted Kennedy

Note: this comic isn't coming out right for the way my blog is formatted. Please click on it to see the full image. It brought tears to my eyes.

As Joe Biden said, he was a man who restored our sense of idealism. He was one of the greatest politicians I ever saw, a true public servant. Vision. Persistence. Passion. He was one of the greats. Rest in peace, Senator. You've earned it.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince; and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

The Future

That's the only prediction I'm going to make. Look, nobody comes to this blog to get cutting-edge punditry. Go to TPM or Kos or the Group News Blog.

Go vote, if you haven't already. I voted for Obama, Chris Gregoire, and I voted yes on Initiative 1000. I would have voted for Darcy Burner, but I'm not in her district. That's as much as I'm going to share about my choices.

Stop reading. Go vote. Do it now. Get yer free coffee or your free ice cream or your free I have no idea what this thing does, but go vote.

I'm on pins and needles waiting for the results to come in, but I think it's going to be a very good night tonight.

ACORN - Demons and Smokescreens

Look, I don't like ACORN. But nobody deserves what's happening to them right now.

McCain and Palin have as much as accused them of running a criminal organization. The National Review called the organization "Obama’s wholly owned vote-fraud division." And guess what happens when you stigmatize an entire organization as criminals?

Death threats. That's what happens.

"You liberal idiots. Dumb shits. Welfare bums. You guys just fucking come to our country, consume every natural resource there is, and make a lot of babies. That's all you guys do. And then suck up the welfare and expect everyone else to pay for your hospital bills for your kids. I just say let your kids die. That's the best move. Just let your children die. Forget about paying for hospital bills for them. I'm not gonna do it. You guys are lowlifes. And I hope you all die."

Canvassers get assaulted. That's what happens.

“The next thing I know he’s telling us we’re not his people, we’re probably with ACORN, and he started screaming and raving. He grabbed me by the back of the neck. I thought he was going to rip my hair out of my head. He was pounding on my head and screaming. The man terrified me.”

ACORN offices get broken into. That's what happens.

When employees arrived at work Thursday morning they discovered that the office had been ransacked, desktop computers stolen and internet and phone lines ripped out of the wall. The group believes it has become a political target.

Now, here's the truth, children.

Point 1: ACORN is not going to steal this election. Know why? Because canvassers who turn in fake registrations are not registering people falsely. They're writing up fake names for people who do not exist. Mickey Mouse and John Smith and Strawberry Shortcake are not going to show up at the polls.

If John McCain loses - when John McCain loses - it will because Obama won fair and square. So STFU about ACORN stealing the election.

Point 2: ACORN is not committing fraud. Any people who submit fake registrations are defrauding ACORN. (Didn't we already talk about this?)

Point 3: The Republicans have an ulterior motive to attacking ACORN. ACORN has been fighting predatory lenders and crooked banks for over a decade now - the very same people who cozied up to losing horse McCain. They've been fighting for those dirty, rotten, terrible, poor people for over thirty years now, and they've had victory after victory. Republicans are using all the "voter fraud" hysteria to demonize ACORN, so they can't continue their work fighting for the rights of low-income people.

Allison Kilkenny connects the dots:

Getting rid of ACORN will be another feather in the Bush administration's cap. This grassroots community organizing machines runs in direct conflict with the Bush dream of a privatized planet. ACORN demands housing regulation at a time when the Bush administration is still trying to clean up the mess from years of market deregulation. ACORN demands representation for poor minorities (who overwhelmingly vote Democrat) during a time when McCain is desperately clawing for votes in states that are normally Republican strongholds. ACORN demands good public schooling at a time when McCain is hollowing out schools with his vouchers that will effectively rob poor children of a chance at public, secular education and stick them in private classrooms with religious agendas.

The "voter fraud scandal" isn't about voter fraud, people. Look deeper.

ACORN Haters Gotta Hate

ACORN is doing another massive voter registration drive this year. They have registered 1.3 million new voters for the 2008 election. And once again, there are a few people who are cheating the system by submitting false registrations. This has happened before, and not just with ACORN. But they're one of the largest organizations doing voter reg work, so of course, they're also going to be one of the biggest targets. That's the way it works. If you're successful, you become a target.

Republican haters are saying that ACORN is basically a voter fraud operation. One even called them a "quasi-criminal" organization and a "threat to public safety." This, to use a technical term, is horseshit.

I've got my beefs with ACORN, as has been well documented. But don't hate on them for registering new voters. They register low-income voters, disenfranchised voters, young voters, people of color. In other words, the people who are most likely to support Obama and progressive candidates. And look who's complaining about ACORN's work. This isn't brain surgery. Republicans hate anyone who empowers the powerless. That means community organizers. That means nonprofit organizations who do any social justice work. And that means groups who register people to vote.

ACORN is doing important work, work that supports and strengthens our democracy. And yeah, a few low-wage workers will find ways to cheat the system. How can ACORN stop it? Maybe they should pay their people more, so cheating isn't such a temptation. Maybe they should do more stringent background checks. There's ways to do it, and ACORN needs to start taking some serious steps to fight fraudulent registrations.

But think about this. Most of these workers have a certain amount of registrations they're supposed to collect. Either they have a quota or they're getting paid per registration. Every time one of these cheaters submits a false registration, ACORN is paying them as if they collected a valid registration. So when ACORN workers submit fraudulent registrations, they are cheating ACORN. ACORN isn't committing fraud - the cheaters are committing fraud against ACORN. (Thanks to Salon writer Alex Koppelmann for spelling this out in his excellent War Room post.) They are also damaging ACORN's public reputation - you think ACORN likes being called names in the media? No. They don't.

So now John McCain and his Republican thugs are trying to draw up a connection between Obama and ACORN. Ooh, scary - Obama spoke to them at a training! Oooh, scary - ACORN might have given Obama money at some point for doing sneaky lawyer stuff! Now they've got a commercial out, trying to make ACORN look like the mafia. "They even endorsed him for president," says the creepy voice. Ooh, scary!

Look, if you work in the progressive world, you're going to run across ACORN at some point. I've met ACORN organizers a bunch of times, as recently as this summer. I saw Wade Rathke speak once in Seattle, a few years ago. They're a player in the social justice world, and unless you're completely isolated, you'll run into them.

Obama is connected with ACORN only because he has connections with the social justice world. ACORN isn't a criminal enterprise - they're an organization dedicated to fighting injustice and poverty. They've got their problems, but that's not Obama's fault. Obama had nothing to do with the embezzlement. He has nothing to do with the mismanagement of the organization.

I want to be absolutely clear, since I've attacked ACORN before for their internal problems. An attack of ACORN's voter registration work is the same as the attack on community organizers. It's an attempt to take good, honest, patriotic work and turn it into something suspicious. Barack Obama has worked throughout his career with the people who make change happens, and that means that at some point, he crossed paths with ACORN. There is no shame in that.

Update: There is truly no shame in working with ACORN, and John McCain knows that. That must explain why he attended an immigration event that ACORN co-hosted back in 2006.



Ha, ha, ha.

The Organizers Strike Back

Note: thanks to Jaime Mulligan, whom I have never met, for the awesome picture.

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"And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." - Sarah Palin

Yeah, I'm still stuck on that one line. Because it pissed me off, friends and neighbors. Because it was a cheap shot at every organizer in the country. Everyone who's ever held a clipboard on a street corner, everyone who's ever knocked on the door of a stranger, everyone who's ever invited someone to a rally or a community event. Sarah Palin just spat in the faces of every single one of those people.

She attacked us.

And it wasn't just Palin who attacked us. Rudy Giuliani took a swing at community organizers. So did George Pataki.

Here's the truth, folks. Cesar Chavez was a community organizer. Ralph Nader was a community organizer. Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer. Mahatma Gandhi was a community organizer. Susan B. Anthony. Lech Walesa. Vaclav Havel. Aung San Suu Kyi.

But what about the other side? Gary Bauer and Pat Robertson were community organizers when they created the Christian Coalition. Focus on the Family's James Dobson, whether you like him or not, is doing community organizing. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh has a bit of community organizing to him. Change happens in this country and in this world because community organizers - on the left and on the right - are doing the hard, frustrating, thankless work they do. And Sarah Palin and her Republican buddies think we're all worthless.

Now, I could go on and on, but I'm not the only one who's offended by this. Some big names have joined the chorus of outrage against this cheap shot.

When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate. She attacked an American tradition --- one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors.

All across the country, in every state and every community, there are community organizers helping people find shared solutions to the shared problems they face. The candidates for President and Vice President should be working to solve our shared problems, too, rather than attack others who are trying to do the same. - Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Center for Community Change

Contrary to Palin’s disparaging remarks, organizers have major responsibilities for creating policy changes. Feeding the hungry and housing the homeless are clearly responsibilities of people of faith. We do that by providing food and shelter and more importantly, by organizing to address the causes of injustice and inequity which lead to hunger and homelessness. - Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice and the co-author of “Organizing for Social Change"

Politicians should thank community organizers, not insult them. As a longtime organizer, I’ve seen time and time again the we are the ones who make government work for the poor, the powerless and the marginalized. Politicians’ policies and promises would amount to nothing without grassroots activists to hold them accountable. We are leaders of faith and stewards of democracy. In a time when the face of faith in politics is often ugly, community organizing is a valuable example faith’s positive role in public life.- Pastor Mark Diemer, senior pastor of Grace of God Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio and a DART community organizer.

These groups, and the millions of individuals they represent, are dismayed by the recent dismissal of their efforts in the form of political attacks. Community organizations have been at the heart of every major reform in modern history – from the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement for example, the quest for civil rights began when community organizers mobilized the disenfranchised. - USAction

ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending attacks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country. The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their lack of touch with ordinary people. Every great movement in the history of the world has community organizing. - Maude Hurd, President, ACORN

(Note: I know I talk a lot of smack about ACORN, but they're doing good work and I've said that over and over again. And the fact that they underpay their community organizers doesn't change the fact that they're doing righteous work.)

This is just a sampling. More responses can be found here and here. And also, you must read this Kos diary.

Don't piss off community organizers. There are a hell of a lot of us, and we're proud. We work damn hard to make the change that happens in this world, and none of us are going to stand still while someone uses for a political punching bag.

Oh, and also this: community organizers don't just know how to use a rapid response network. We run the rapid response networks. We run the phone trees. We're activists. We're hellraisers. Don't pick a fight with people who fight for a living.

Democrats Don't Attack Working Mothers

Look, there are a hundred reasons to oppose Sarah Palin's nomination. One is that she was nominated by John McCain, who is a frightening prospect for president.

Her astonishing lack of qualifications. The lies about the Bridge to Nowhere. The lies about her connections with Ted Stevens. Her near-impeachment as mayor of Wasilla. The firing of the head of public safety for personal reasons. The earmarks she got to benefit her small town. The fact that she fought to keep polar bears off the endangered species list.

Lots of valid, political, meaningful reasons to oppose her nomination.

The fact that Sarah Palin is a working mother is not a reason to oppose her nomination. Mean-spirited attacks like Sally Quinn's piece are not going to help our case at all.

Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make? I'm the mother of only one child, a special needs child who is grown now. I know how much of my time and energy I devoted to his care. He always had to be my first priority. Of course women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I've done both. Yes, other women in public office have children. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she didn't get heavily involved in politics until they were older. A mother's role is different from a father's.

Mrs. B is a working mother. Do we really want to start attacking mothers for working outside the home? Take away the number of kids, the concerns about the kid with Down's Syndrome. This is an attack on working mothers.

And it's also an attack on fathers, incidentally. I was a stay-at-home dad for nearly a year of Oliver's life. He was still nursing when Mrs. B went back to work. I fed him bottles of breast milk. I put him to bed. I took care of him. He survived. A mother's role is different from a father's, true, but if Palin's husband is the chief caregiver in the family, there is no shame and no harm in that. And shame on Sally Quinn for insinuating otherwise.

We are attacking our own best interests as progressives and as Democrats when we attack Sarah Palin for daring to work while raise children. Let's get back to the issues at hand and not get distracted by the circumstances of her family. We're better than this.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Sarah Palin's place on the ticket didn't last the week. If/when she resigns her position as vice-presidential candidate, she will blame the Democrats for attacking her and her daughter. She will accuse us of trying to destroy her and her family, and she will say that the Democratic party is anti-working woman and anti-family. Sally Quinn's piece feeds into that argument. Every time a progressive gleefully talks about what a terrible mother Sarah Palin must be, they feed into that argument.

We're better than this.

Barack Obama, My Candidate

Barack Obama is just eight years older than me. He is of my generation - the generation that missed the sixties, the generation that grew up under the specter of the Cold War and Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He is my candidate, the first candidate with whom I could truly emphasize.

I loved his speech tonight, but two parts in particular jumped out at me. He built a strong case for the power of government - yes, the federal government itself. The big bad bureaucracy. Like me, Obama believes that government is not only necessary, but is in fact the proper mechanism to tackle society's problems. Like me, he believes that government at its best works on our behalf and in line with our best instincts.

What is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

He also recognizes that not everybody believes him. He spoke directly tonight to the people who have given up on politics, on government, and maybe they've even given up on him. And he pointed out how that apathy was far from benign - that ignoring politics would merely let the bastards keep doing what they've been doing. Obama as just another politicians, in an effort to get them to sit out the election. He called on the sideline-sitters and the cynics to stand up and get involved.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer, and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values.

And that's to be expected, because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.

And you know what? It's worked before, because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping and settle for what you already know. I get it.

He does get it.

Tonight confirmed everything I was hoping about Obama. He's not just resting on his laurels and his 80,000-strong rockstar receptions. He's ready to fight for this election, ready to fight McCain toe to toe and call him out on every lie and deception. He can deliver the soaring rhetoric and take roundhouse swings at McCain at the same time.

More reassuring to me was hearing that Obama believes what I believe about government. I won't agree with him on every decision, but I'm relieved to hear that he has the same understanding that I do of the role of government. Our finest presidents - Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson - have used the power of the federal government to attack the deepest problems of society. Obama's not running from the legacy of the "New Deal" Democratic party - he's proud to be a member of that party. And I'm proud to be a part of his party.

"How Many Homes Do You Own?"

So have you heard the one where the reporter asks John McCain how many houses he owns? And McCain says he doesn't know how many houses he owns?

Seriously. This actually happened.

I'll let my good friend Barack Obama explain how it went down.

"...somebody asked John McCain, how many houses do you have? And he said, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. True quote. I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. So they asked his staff, and he said, at least four. At least four. Now, think about that. I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective. And by the way, the answer is John McCain has seven homes."

Here's the video of Obama's response.

Here's the audio of McCain actually saying it.

Obama is going to town on this quote, and on McCain's fundamental inability to understand the economy or average Americans. Check out this list of campaign events, all focusing on McCain's bonehead line.

I don't want to just call it a gaffe, because a gaffe implies he said something he didn't mean. John McCain is a wealthy man. He owns more homes than he can keep track of. This isn't a gaffe - it's an accidental admission of his wealth.

I'm hoping this becomes the quote of the year. The "I voted for it before I voted against it" of 2008. Of course, I'll also be happy if he says something stupider than this, but this will work for now.

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

The Vice President will be ...

So the NY Times is reporting that Obama has selected his vice-presidential pick, and he'll make the announcement soon.

Really soon.

Like, Wednesday.

So, being a pretend internet pundit, I have to get my pick in, so when Obama names my selection, I'll look all brilliant and prescient and insightful.

and so, let me punditize. Allow me to present to you the 2008 vice-presidential nominee for the Democratic party.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Brian Schweitzer.


And who dat, you may be asking yourself? Well, let me paste some stuff from Wikipedia tell you everything I know about him.

Brian Schweitzer is the Democratic governor of Montana, a state not exactly known for left-wing politics. Schweitzer served in the Clinton administration and, in 2004, ran for the Senate against incumbent Conrad Burns, and nearly beat him. (51-47.)

He ran for governor after Judy Martz (rhymes with ... um ... um ... Martz) stepped down. As kind of a shocker, he announced that he would be running with a Republican, John Bohlinger, as his lieutenant governor. (apparently, you run on a ticket in Montana.) See how nicely that fits Obama's message of a new kind of politics?

Montana's in the Rocky Mountain West, which is sizing up to be an important region in this election. Schweitzer is a Democrat that appeals to conservatives and independents. He's a non-traditional Democrat like Jon Tester or Jim Webb. Montana is only two states away from Colorado, so he'll get a hero's welcome in Denver.

As proof that I am not just pulling this out of my hat, here's the words of an actual pundit - Sean Q. from fivethirtyeight.com.

The first time I heard Brian Schweitzer speak, I thought: "This guy is going to be President." That is not a common reaction on my part to politicians. I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of Democratic politicians speak, and I've only had that reaction twice in my lifetime. The first was Barack Obama, the second was Brian Schweitzer.

People have asked me what it was that made me feel so strongly in reaction, and the way I'd put it now is that Brian Schweitzer and Barack Obama are the two "new Democrat" styles that are extremely effective in the post-Clinton era. Both emphasize solutions over partisanship. Both are suspected by Republicans of talking a good game of bipartisanship and hewing to traditional Democratic Party ideology. Both are great communicators, but with different rhetorical strengths. Obama rose from an mainly urban and intellectual background; Schweitzer's breakthrough is probably the single best example of why the Democrats chose Denver as the convention site this year.

So will it happen? I dunno. Probably not. But he's my pick. Brian Schweitzer. Write it down.

Songs for Independence Day

It's hard for me to find songs about this country that a) aren't angry and bitter, or b) aren't too overused and cliched and, y'know, kinda sappy. But here's a good collection of songs that conjure the right images for me.

Several of the songs called out the uniquely American image of going somewhere and starting your life over again. The concept if reinvention is embedded in the history of this country, and at its best, America is the place where it's never too late to become who you might have been.

Several other songs focused on the immigrant experience. My paternal grandparents came to this country from Mexico and found schools, housing, and opportunity for themselves and their family. My father, a first-generation American, is one of the most patriotic people I know - both in terms of love of country, and in terms of being angry with America for not living up to the ideals that it embodies. Nobody gets this country metaphorically better than the most recent immigrants.

I pulled out the angrier songs into a second playlist instead of omitting them completely. I think it's important and honorable to love your country even as you hate its actions. I hate the war that we started for no good reason in Iraq. I hate that nearly 50 million people in this country have no heatlth care. I hate that so many people are being laid off or have no hope for finding work or opportunities for themselves or their families. But I love this country - for what it is and for what it could be.

"Chicago" - Sufjan Stevens
"Different Trains: America - Before the War" - Steve Reich
"Fourth of July" - Charles Ives (because any holiday needs a little chaos)
"America" - Simon & Garfunkel
"This Land is Your Land" - Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger
"I Am a Patriot" - Little Steven
"America the Beautiful" - Ray Charles
"America" - Soundtrack, West Side Story
"American Land" - Bruce Springsteen
"Ashes of American Flags" - Wilco
"City of Immigrants" - Steve Earle
"The Hands That Built America" - U2
"A Change is Gonna Come" - Sam Cooke (but performed here by the amazing Ryan Shaw)

Angry Patriot Songs:

"Bullet the Blue Sky" - U2
"The Star Spangled Banner" - Jimi Hendrix
"(Who Discovered) America?" - Ozomatli
"Christmas in Washington" - Steve Earle (this is the live version - it's nine minutes long but worth it)

Happy Independence Day, folks.