As usual, I'm out of pocket when the big story comes along. Fortunately, this story doesn't require much commentary:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.” … In an advance copy provided to The Associated Press, Dobson said that while neither candidate is consistent with his views, McCain’s positions are closer by a wide margin.

“There’s nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context,” Dobson said in a statement to the AP. “Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain.”

First he said he wouldn't endorse McCain on a bet or a dare, now he says he just might.

As Steve Benen says, the strangest thing about Dobson's reversal might be that he'll get absolutely nothing out of it. But then, as I've said before, Dobson is a friggin' idiot who wouldn't know how to use his influence to get himself out of a speeding ticket.

He likes to think of himself as a principled man fiercely committed to advancing "family values," but he measures progress by the deference paid to him and his organization. Which means that he's really just a prideful bigot, and an increasingly irrelevant one at that.

There is no way for Dobson to come out of November more influential than he went in. Which doesn't mean that the battle for reproductive rights and equality for gays and lesbians is won; far from it. It just means that this particular idiot is losing his stranglehold on our political system, one miscue at a time.

And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Welcome to Coffee Hour, the part of the StreetProphets day that most reminds me of the lobby in the hotel in Austin. I come here, find friends to chat with, have a snack and a drink, and a laugh or three, and learn stuff I wasn't planning on learning.  What more could I ask for? :-)

I"d love to say I have a wonderful coffee hour planned with pictures and reflections and whatnot about my time in Austin, but the truth is our flight was so delayed that I only got in at 3am, my luggage has not yet arrived (it took a scenic layover in New York) and I got 3 hours of sleep. Suffice it to say that the service was spectacular, that StreetProphets should be darned proud of the quilts that have been and will be produced, and that everyone should find a way to either get to Pittsburgh next year, or come via Second Life.

Kid Brillig is thrilled to have us home, always a gratifying thing :-).  So tell me... what are you all having for dinner? It's gotta beat our meal du jour... takeout pizza. Until I grocery shop, takeout is our friend.

Jerry Weller?  Who's he?  Some Republican backbencher...

...who decided to shoot his mouth off about Jim McDermott's proposal to change how the poverty level is calculated.

Background:  McDermott filed a bill to change how the federal poverty level is calculated, which would raise the federal poverty level for a family of four to (my guess) roughly $50,000 (or a little less).  Incidentally, Sen. Obama came out in favor of the bill today as well.

So what does Weller, the ranking member on the committee, have to say?

Rep. Jerry Weller (Ill.), the top-ranked Republican on the panel, said the proposal would guarantee that poverty would never be eliminated.

"That's like advancing the football five yards," he said, "but moving the goalpost another 20 yards further away."

Yes, because clearly we want to DEFINE poverty out of existence, not actually, you know, make people's lives better.

The following is part of the litany used at the Multi-Faith Worship Service at Netroots Nation this morning:

Good morning and welcome to our third Multi-Faith Worship Service at Netroots Nation. It is so good to be here again with you.

We gather this weekend at a moment of great hope. Progressives are hopeful that some kind of sanity and responsibility will be restored to our courts, our foreign policy, our domestic policy, our fiscal policy, our courts, our prosecutors, our Constitution and so on down the line until we get to the level of more and better dogcatchers. Throw all the bums out, and let's start over.

We are hopeful if for no other reason than that the illegal and immoral war in Iraq will finally come to an end in sixteen months or as best advised by field commanders to a new President of the United States.

There is so much to hope for, and so little time.

Promoted by Rain

ok... I have not done a diary for awhile. The last one was on Cheap Eats. So, given the recent state of affairs of our U.S. economy, I thought it would be good to start a thread on what we can do for ourselves in light of our present situation. Also, given many of the comments, here at SP, it has become apparent that living frugally:
Frugal Living

1.  Good for you, (fiscally, mentally, spiritually)

2.  Good for your neighbors, (using less is good for community and planet)

3.  Is about lifestyle and choices one makes

--- more under the fold ---

Update: Per the begging request of the front-pagers, I've moved the video below the fold. Next time I'll figure out how to turn off the auto-play.

It's slow, at least on my Macbook, but good. Text of my remarks forthcoming.

Things the Postwoman Brings

It was a good week for receiving packages.  I got my Stonewall Kitchens order--peanut butter, smooth and chunky, strawberry jam and some salad dressing.  I needed the peanut butter and jam for the most outrageously yummy peanut butter cookies--I will be making them for the Boston meet up on August 2nd, especially for Common Sense Mainer as Peanut Butter cookies are his favorite cookie.  If any of you would like to meet some dkos and Cheers and Jeers Denizens, let me know--I will get info for you.  

I also got my box o' Crocs!  I adore Crocs.  It is difficult to wear anything else after wearing Crocs.  I got a pair of the ballet flats with the backs that make them look like sling backs.  I also got strappy sandals with a 3 inch heel!  And a pair of wedge mules--I am so thrilled to be able to wear some heels again that are actually comfortable!  They have all kinds of new styles--check 'em out at Crocs.com. Especially if you have diabetes or any foot problem, go to their medical site.

Then I received a gift from a dear friend who commissioned 2 mugs for me--one for each to look like Zanzibar and Maggie!  Here they are with their mugs:

What a great idea!  I LOVE them!

It is a rainy day here--a good day to get some work done in the house.  What ate you up to?  What is the best thing the mailman/woman has left at your door step?  Any plans for the week?  Grab some cinnamon rolls and coffee, pull up a chair and sit for a bit.  Say a prayer for wren that her dog does ok with the rescue, Lassie she loves so, when they are introduced tomorrow.  And a prayer for comfort for Russell King for the loss of his incredible father. And traveling mercies for all returning from NN in Austin.

I'd like to borrow John Cole's reaction to a Michael Gerson column in consideration of this piece from the New York Times Sunday magazine titled "Can Leah Daughtry Bring Faith To The Democrats? (This despite religious believers making up some 80% of the party.)

Cole says of Gerson's take on environmentalism:

Got it? Environmental activists are to blame for not working enough with the people who oppose them, denounce them, mock them, work openly to sabotage their efforts, and have created a cottage industry creating and spreading pseudo-scientific babble.

What twisted bastard at the Washington Post reviews these op-eds and thinks they are worth printing? What kind of jackass believes the real problem regarding the environment is the environmental movement, and not James Inhofe. This is like blaming doctors for not being willing enough to work with the tobacco industry to prevent cancer.

Now, this is far from an exact parallel. Evangelicals are not the enemy of the Democratic party. And while it's idiotic beyond belief that the Democratic party's faith outreach team has three Evangelical members, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim but no mainline Protestants, everything I've heard about Leah Daughtry says that she is a thoughtful and effective political operative.

But for crying out loud, can the religious concern trolls please stop kicking the party in the nuts?

The aim, realistically, has been not to win endorsements but to alter thinking, both immediately and over the long term. During the 2004 campaign, by contrast, Terry McAuliffe, was introduced to Warren, whose congregation numbers more than 20,000 and whose books have sold millions. According to “The Party Faithful,” a book by Amy Sullivan, a Time magazine editor, McAuliffe put out his hand and said, with a blank gaze: “Nice to meet you, Rick. And what do you do?”

The fact of the matter is that the Republican party has invested millions, if not billions, or dollars and decades of effort in order to separate conservative Evangelicals from the Democratic party. They have made vilification and downright demonization of Democrats their stock in trade, routinely making the case that they hate faith, people of faith, God, and God's puppy. Yet for all we hear, it's Democrats fault because Terry McAuliffe blew a single conversation four years ago.

Maybe if we work harder all those conservative Evangelicals will fall into our laps!

Richard Land, who has long been the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the public-policy arm of the nation’s largest evangelical denomination, with 16 million members, credits the Democratic Party for reaching out respectfully to the born-again. “It’s certainly a better approach than that of the recent past,” he told me. But the idea that evangelicals, even young evangelicals, are going to subordinate their commitment to protecting life from the point of conception is, he argued, a notion born of Democratic blindness. “I don’t think the pro-choice community has ever really conceived of the anguish and moral outrage experienced by pro-life people over the issue,” he said, then referred to a poll showing that 18-to-29-year-old born-again Christians are more conservative on abortion than their elders. The young, he insisted, may be demanding “an expansion of the agenda” to include peace, poverty and the environment, but they do not want “an exchange of agendas” that would diminish the absolute priority of defending fetal life.

Or maybe they won't.

And please, pretty please with sugar on top, can we have an article on Democrats and religion that doesn't involve a retelling of Mara Vanderslice's life story? I've got nothing against her personally, but surely there is more to the story than the minor career deflation of a single 33-year-old woman.

Sorry 'bout that title.  Couldn't resist the alliterative and sibilant possibilities!

Anywho.  Rain is off on a nonNN-related trip, and I'm the designated volunteer.  We've got coffee, espresso, and various breakfast-style products.

You're going to have to put up with a fair amount of short form blogging from me in the next couple of days. I'm too scattered and too busy.

But already things are pretty cool here at Netroots Nation. Saw Paul Krugman getting a cup of coffee as we came in, and Al Gore - Al Freakin' Gore!! - singlehandedly delayed this morning's panels with a barn-burning keynote this morning.

And I heard about this program to pull together 1,000,000 volunteers in the next couple of years: Service Nation. You can go and type in your Zip Code, and they'll hook you up with events and opportunities to serve in your area.

Can't argue with that.

Can it possibly be Friday again?  I just managed to screw up the settings on my Outlook mailbox linked to school, so now I can't access all my old mail....grrrr......We are having some rollicking storms, so I am going to keep this short--What are you up to?  Any plans for the weekend?  What are you eating and drinking? See you later!