In a new ad released today, Jim Martin responds to Saxby Chambliss' false, personal attacks on Martin's record protecting children.  The truth is that Jim Martin has always fought to protect children and families, because he knows what it's like to have a child come face-to-face with violent crime.  

"Becky"

Martin's daughter Becky was kidnapped when she was eight years old.  Fortunately she was let go, but Martin never forgot the way Becky trembled when she came face-to-face with her kidnapper in court. Over his 18-year tenure in the state legislature and during his service as Commissioner of Georgia's Department of Human Resources, Martin built a reputation as a leading advocate for children.

The Progressive Democrat, as well as Culture Kitchen and Daily Gotham, the other blogs I write for, were featured in the left-wing Finnish magazine Kulttuurivihkot. For any Finnish readers out there, hyvä päivä.

This week I discuss the Georgia Senate race, alternative energy (particularly biodiesel), Mormon desecration of the victims of the Holocaust, marriage equality, and my usual state-by-state coverage (which is pared down to about 16 states rather than the 20 states I used to cover...I'd pare it down more but I know I have readers in those 16 states!) More below.

Federal judge Richard Leon recently ordered the release of five detainees in our torture camp on Guantanamo Bay. They arrived there January 20, 2002, and it is exceedingly unlikely that federal prosecutors will exhaust their options to appeal Judge Leon's ruling before the last day of the Presidency of George W. Bush, January 20, 2009.

A lawyer for one of the defendants has published a brief description of her client's confinement.

For a few minutes each day, he sees the camp guards who bring his meals. He has had no other human contact. The glaring lights in his cell are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we left the cell, we could hear Saber shouting -- brief, truncated cries. We could not understand what he was saying.

Gail Collins in The New York Times:

"Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. . . . Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush. In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. . . Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she'd defer to her party's incoming chief executive, and Barack Obama could begin governing. . . Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinio n/22collins.html?_r=1

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan and Co-Chair Jo Ann Davidson will make several campaign stops in Georgia on Monday, November 24 and Tuesday, November 25 to benefit Senator Saxby Chambliss as he battles Democrat Jim Martin in advance of the December 2nd run-off election.

The announcement that the RNC Chair will hit the trail for Chambliss comes a day after former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid a visit to Atlanta to urge voters to keep the two-party system alive in the nation's capital [Source:  Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Romney visits Atlanta to stump for Chambliss", November 21, 2008].

Also, next week, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is scheduled to make a campaign appearance in the Peach State on behalf of Saxby Chambliss [Source:  WSB Radio, "Chambliss Win 'Essential'", November 21, 2008].

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, former Vice President Al Gore will hold an Atlanta fundraiser for Jim Martin Sunday evening.

Read more for an editorial note...

It may seem like the economic contraction has been one long slide into the pit, and to some extent this is true, but there was a tipping point in September and the sickness is accelerating and becoming more out of control, both on Wall Street and on Main Street.  Leadership may be required before inauguration.  Obama may need to govern before he is in office.

This may not be politically practical, logistically possible, or legally do-able.  But it is economically essential.  The financial system is broken and the damage to Main Street is to the bone.  Two more months of this will turn a severe recession into a global depression.  The lives of millions, tens of millions, will be badly impacted unless we stabilize the economy soon.

George Bush and his team of clowns are leaving town with the economy on fire.  Their final contribution is to bar the men with hoses from reaching the scene.  Paul Krugman, NYT columnist and Nobel Prize winner, wrote on Friday under the head, "The Lame Duck Economy" on the parallels between Hoover/Roosevelt and Bush/Obama:

In an article entitled "Equal share in land, property for women urged" by Sikander Shaheen in The Nation (Pakistan) details a campaign by ActionAid within Pakistan, urging equal property rights for women.  (ActionAid is an international anti-poverty organization that has been in operation for over 30 years.)

(Cross posted at The National Gadfly)

On C-Span 2’s post election Presidential Election Analysis Panel by the Smithsonian Associates. That's how Howard Dean put it. See below.

“Washington doesn’t get it. They always get it last. This is the most underwritten story of this campaign… by the press… by the media.”

“Women my age, in my generation felt this really acutely. Because they were the ones that suffered all of the indignities that you suffer when you fight to win the battle for equality. As they did.”

“Nobody understood the agony that women, particularly of my generation, were undergoing about this…issue…and to this day, it has been swept under the rug and been forgotten because she didn’t win.”

"We thought we were past all this stuff and we weren’t. We weren’t surprised about the degree of racism or lack of it or whatever, that was endlessly examined. We did not examine the fact that we didn’t get, we haven’t gotten nearly as far ahead as we thought we were about equality between the sexes. And that ought to be revisited as a result of what happened.”

"and it happened to Sarah Palin too. All the stuff that happened to Sarah Palin, and I know God knows I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her political points of view, but a lot of the stuff that happened to her, as she pointed out, would not have happened had she been a man.”

Do you think an honest discussion of this topic is possible yet?