Fresh Loaf

Wow, this is crazy. Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich was just arrested by federal agents for trying to sell Pres.-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Now that’s ballsy!

According to U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald – the guy who nailed Cheny henchman Scooter Libby — Blagojevich had been more or less soliciting bids for the soon-to-be open Senate seat. Under state law, the governor has the sole power to appoint replacement senators.

According to the Washington Post, Blagojevich wasn’t shy about his alleged scam, as revealed on wiretap tapes:

In a Nov. 3 call intercepted by the FBI, Blagojevich told an ally that if he could not get anything personally from a candidate for the job, “then I just might take it,” according to court papers.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s [expletive] golden, and uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for [expletive] nothing,” the governor said in another conversation Nov. 5, the court papers said.

(more…)

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OK, so now the Obama for America folks have a snazzy new, four-year calendar featuring — guess who? — on the cover. It’s being offered at the special, low-low price of $35, so order today!

I guess every campaign sells candidate-related T-shirts, buttons and other trinkets in order to raise money. But in this case, the election’s already won, so it seems a bit odd that they’re still at it.

Oh well, I suppose it’s better than letting Cafe Press and the Franklin Mint make all the moolah off our new president.

Which reminds me — have you seen the ridiculous TV commercial for the “Historic Victory Plate™” that shows a bunch of old white people sitting around a dinner table toasting the election of our nation’s first African American president? Yeah, I’ll bet that’s exactly the demographic that will shell out 20 bucks to hang a cheesy plate with Obama’s picture on it over their mantle.

If you need a laugh, here’s the video of the TV ad.

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Rumors are like carnivorous pigeons — it’s best to shoot ‘em down before they cause trouble. (ba dum bum)

There’s been talk in some circles that Bev Scott, CEO and General Manager of MARTA, might leave the transit agency to take a position with Pres.-elect Barack Obama’s administration. Scott, a 30-year transit veteran, joined MARTA late last year and was a sought-after talent — so much so that the agency’s board paid $455,609 to former GM Richard McCrillis to step down early. In October, she was elected chair of the American Public Transportation Association.

Last night at 8:30 p.m., Scott — who was still at work — returned a call I placed to ask her about the rumors. She left this voicemail:

Hi, Thomas, Bev Scott of MARTA, here. I’m not interviewing for a position in the Obama administration. I don’t want to suggest — I have had several people that have contacted me, I’m not trying to suggest it was Pres.-elect Obama (laughs) — but they’ve talked to me [to see] if I had an interest in being considered for something.

You got me here in Atlanta (laughs). I said this was my last system and I’m gonna give it everything I can. I love the region and the people. We got a lot of challenges in front of us. I’m not getting it started and not seeing it through. Thank you very much for the call. Not doing any interviewing for anything. OK, take care, sir. Bye bye.

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Renee Glover, who has overseen the transformation of Atlanta’s public housing complexes into mixed-use communities, is on President-elect Barack Obama’s short list for a cabinet position.

Along with New York City’s housing commissioner and Miami’s mayor, among others, Atlanta Housing Authority Executive Director Glover is being considered for secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Glover has won nationwide acclaim — and some criticism — for using HUD’s HOPE VI program to tear down public housing and replace it with communities that reduce crime and improve neighborhoods. The improvements to the lives of the former residents, however, have been questioned.

Here are the contenders for HUD secretary:

• Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.
• Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.
• Renee Glover, head of Atlanta’s housing authority
• Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies
• Shaun Donovan, commissioner of New York City’s housing department.

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Six years ago, Saxby Chambliss authorized the most vilified political campaign ad of the past decade, one that questioned the courage of then-Sen Max Cleland — a triple-amputee Vietnam War veteran — by showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Well, prepare for deja vu. Last week, a new attack ad debuted on local TV channels, this one aimed at Chambliss’ runoff opponent, Jim Martin, and incoming president Barack Obama. This time, instead of using the magic of video to link the Democrats to bin Laden, they’ve chosen Mohamed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackings, to serve as the bogeyman.

On the left is Atta’s familiar FBI mug shot, taken from his Florida driver’s license photo:

… and on the right is a screenshot from about 10 seconds into the new anti-Martin ad; Atta’s mug shot is top center:

(more…)

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Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is known for his street-smart tactics and now, his sense of humor. He’s also missing a part of the most expressive finger on his right hand thanks to an on-the-job incident at  Arby’s. (Seriously.)

Earlier today, someone posted this image on the Tumblr social network, adding that it was sent by a friend who works on The Hill in D.C.

Emanuel’s offices were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday so we couldn’t confirm if this was his handiwork. If it’s a prank, well played, my Beltway friend!

(Screenshot from Tumblr)

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Barack Obama’s not even president yet, but he’s already honoring his controversial campaign pledge to hold face-to-face meetings with America’s worst enemies. Last week he met with George W. Bush.

Bush gave Obama a tour of some of the White House, including the Oval Office, the Lincoln Bedroom, the Nixon Incinerator, the William Henry Harrison Office Supply Closet, etc.

The pair also discussed policy. Details were scant, but one of the topics likely was the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran.

Obama’s promise to reinvigorate U.S. diplomacy by actually allowing U.S. diplomats to be diplomatic has many hoping our dangerously hateful relationship with Iran might improve.

Improvement is a reasonable expectation. Short of all-out war, relations with Iran can’t get much worse. But don’t expect Obama and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be sharing kabobs and O’Doul’s at the White House anytime soon.

The deep animosity between Iran and the U.S. predates the Bush administration. Heck, it predates Obama’s birth.

(Read the rest, or at least click the link to help artificially inflate our pageviews!)

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It’s not a visit from Pres.-elect Barack Obama to help U.S. Senate Democratic nominee Jim Martin, but it’s something. Below, listen to the ad that’ll brainwash every single Georgian over the age of 18 to visit the polls on Dec. 2 and vote for Martin in his runoff against incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss.

It might now be safe to say the Peach State won’t be getting a visit before the runoff. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza interviewed several anonymous Democratic operatives who say that a visit to Georgia may just not be worth the political risk.

I know, I know. I too am feeling a little…I don’t know…empty. But we’ll carry on, my fellow Atlantans. Be strong. Take comfort in this photo of a kitten.

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Former presidential candidate Fred Thompson has endorsed U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss in his runoff race against Democratic candidate Jim Martin. Big surprise there, eh?

But there was also this in the e-mail announcement, sent to reporters by Chambliss’ campaign, by Will Andrews of Thompson’s PAC:

The Georgia seat is key to all of these battles and many more. Barack Obama is going to Atlanta to drum up support for his Democrat candidate. The unions and ACORN and every other left-wing group is on the ground working night and day.

Night and day! Eating only Socialist food rations that we’ll all riot over on Jan. 21, 2009. Yo, Will! Let us know when Obama’s coming, please. Everyone here is saying it’s unlikely.

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The Obama for America campaign just won a landslide election, but it isn’t done yet. Now it’s looking to collect information from its many supporters and donors that, I can only assume, will allow our president-elect to achieve world domination and enslave the human race. Or perhaps I’ve been listening too much to Congressman Paul Broun.

Anyway, an e-mail survey is circulating with this preamble:

Your hard work and passion have defined this movement for change.
Now you can shape the next phase of our extraordinary effort by sharing your campaign experience and ideas about the future.
There are a few questions about you, your work with the campaign, and your interactions with this organization. At the end, you will also have an opportunity to share any thoughts you have that aren’t covered by the questions.

In addition to the usual name, address, phone number, etc., the survey asks about political leanings, past voting patterns, level of political involvement, occupation, level of religious involvement, issues of primary interest to the respondent and whether the respondent would be willing to “volunteer in your community as part of an Obama organization?”

(more…)

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— The right-wing whackos will never give up. Like the email I got this morning from Janet (Folger) Porter of Faith2Action. See, the Electoral College doesn’t meet until December 15, so there’s stlll time to stop this Obama thing. He’s not even a U.S. citizen. Can’t we just wait and beat him four years from now? No way. In four years, we won’t be able to recognize what’s left of our country. The time for action is now. Oh, boy … The good news is that Obama is still our president-elect and, reports Amy at Georgia Women Vote, he’s keeping his campaign offices open in Georgia in order to help out Jim Martin.

— DCup isn’t bothered by the citizenship issue. As she writes on Politits, her concern is about trust and power. We entrust power to a president and after eight years of Alfred E. Neuman, her trust feels kicked around and abused. She has her fingers crossed that we won’t be fooled again.

— For Sid at Cracker Squire, there’s reason for hope. He likes Obama’s first two major decisions: his selection of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff and his stance that Joe Lieberman shouldn’t be cast out for his case of man-love for Johnny Mac.

— How scared are the Republicans that Martin can upset the Big Sax Machine? Andre at Georgia Politics Unfiltered says the Republican National Committee is sending $2 million to help make sure Martin isn’t the 60th Democrat in a filibuster-proof Senate.

— Blog For Democracy predicts that the youth vote is going to be Martin’s secret weapon. The Young Democrats of Georgia have launched a campaign through places such as Facebook to get out the vote in the Dec. 2 run-off.

— And, finally, on a day when a former CIA bigwig visits the Wren’s Nest, they also get a call from a desperate grandmother. And then there was the pimp’s answering machine. Certainly a strange day for the house that Joel Chandler Harris built. But at least he was a certifiable U.S. citizen.

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Seriously, why didn’t I know about this guy before the election? His name appears to be Iman, he’s part of a Mad.TV contest, and he’s got Obama down. I especially like his version of Obama doing De Niro. (”Saturday Night Live’s” Fred Armisen tries, but has always sounded more like Tiger Woods.)

If anyone knows of any others, please let me know.

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The same folks who gave us a video-shopped image of Martin Luther King shilling for a French telecom company are now hoppin’ mad that street vendors across the country are selling T-shirts bearing images of MLK that celebrate President-elect Obama’s historic election – without having paid the appropriate licensing fees to the King estate.

From an AP story:

Isaac Newton Farris Jr., King’s nephew and head of the nonprofit King Center in Atlanta, said the estate is entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees – maybe even millions.

“Some of this is probably putting food on people’s plates. We’re not trying to stop anybody from legitimately supporting themselves,” he said, “but we cannot allow our brand to be abused.”

Our brand. Think about that.

I guess Farris was called upon to speak because the King offspring are too busy suing each other. This is all very sad.

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The Nov. 4 totals in the race for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat left Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss literally a fraction below the necessary 50 percent-plus one in his race against Democratic nominee Jim Martin. As ballots were still being counted — and talk of recounts abounded — both candidates said they weren’t waiting for the last vote to be tallied. The runoff, they said, had begun.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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It was hard to breathe last Tuesday night on the campus of Morehouse College. The election season often felt like someone was pushing our head into and out of water. But then the time came to sit back and watch the tide of electoral votes come in. This community of black men was confident that the right thing would happen. However, no matter how beautiful we saw the potential waves of change, we feared being yanked down by the undertow of history and deep-seated inequality.

Thankfully, the only threat of drowning that we faced that night was the inundation of tears by even the most manly of men — black men who are usually depicted as devoid of emotion.

We have a unique culture on our campus. No matter the individual’s socioeconomic background, we live with a reminder of how far we can fall if we slip on any side of the narrow path. We assume our cool and sometime violent posture to save face in a hostile world. We live embattled from all sides. Hope is not a campaign slogan. Hope has a more significant meaning for us who everyday look at the face of nihilism, sometimes in our peers, sometimes in the mirror. The tension broke when we saw the electoral count tip in Obama’s favor. I have never in my life seen such eruption of pure elation that broke out on the Atlanta University Center campuses. This was not just an election. For us, Obama’s win was a victory for the affirmation of human dignity. And for the first time we took off our “face” and our cool, and some of us cried.

November 4, 2008, 11:26 p.m, at Fredrick Douglass Hall, Morehouse College

(Photo and Text by Wendell Hassan Marsh)

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Everyone’s aware of the marquis problems Obama’s likely to tackle: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the global financial meltdown, global warming, and the iPhone’s piss-poor battery life and spotty 3G network connection.

But there are a couple others that are just as big, though not as well known. Perhaps Obama can take a look after the puppy is White House-trained.

Read the rest

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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As results came in election night, some conservatives were warning that Barack Obama’s presidency would prove a disaster for America. The morning after, talk-radio hosts and bloggers echoed those concerns.

“To me, it feels like the devastation of 9/11 again. And I feel like I just want to say to everybody, ‘Welcome to the end of America as we know it.’”

— Republican Zoe Walker, interviewed by GPB News at Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ campaign party

“Some of you people really drank the Kool-Aid. This guy is just a shyster who was born in Kenya. I’m not going to partake in this affront to my sensibilities. I refuse. Kumbaya my ass.

— Election-night comment left by “gamefan” on PeachPundit.com

“If you look at Nazi Germany, how many Jews said, ‘Oh, c’mon he won’t do that?’”

— Radio host Glenn Beck, warning listeners about Obama’s agenda

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Jeanne Cummings of The Politico writes about the Saxby Chambliss-Jim Martin runoff:

President-elect Barack Obama may risk some of his newly earned political capital in Georgia, where a Dec. 2 Senate runoff could move Democrats a step closer toward a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the upper chamber.

Cummings, who was a reporter for the AJC in the early ’90s, writes of “eerie similarities” between Obama’s dilemma and President-elect Clinton campaigning in the 1992 runoff that Democratic Sen. Wyche Fowler lost against Paul Coverdell.

… Republicans crowed that it was a signal of Clinton’s already weakened political standing.

Clinton’s allies scoffed at the criticism, but it stung, all the same.

Clinton’s experience and the history of runoffs suggest that Obama’s safest course may be to keep some distance.

That could be one reason McCain’s committed to campaign for Chambliss while Martin hasn’t yet secured a visit from Obama. Then again, the president-elect’s probably a bit more busy.

Obama may end up helping with support from his campaign’s Internet lists and radio ads geared toward increasing black turnout in the runoff, rather than by stumping the state, according to one of Cummings’ sources.

See the full story: “Senate runoff a test for Obama.”

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Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress

Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job

Republican Party, Average Working Joe Bid Each Other Adieu Until 2012

Hillary Clinton Resumes Attacking Obama

John McCain Gets Hammered At Local VFW

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

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NPR’s interview on the significance of Obama’s victory with Atlanta’s own U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

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Less than an hour after Pres.-elect Barack Obama’s victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, more than 300 people gathered early Wednesday morning at the intersection of Jackson Street and Auburn Avenue outside the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church — the same house of worship where Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. preached and organized.

Chants of “Yes, We Did,” drum circles and blaring car horns motivated the crowd of young and old and all races and ethnicities. There was even the electric slide.

I left at 1:45 a.m. and people were still going strong. Here are just a few of the photos. We’ll post more tomorrow as well as snapshots and reports of the Georgia GOP party held in Buckhead.

(more…)

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• Georgia Democratic Party and the Obama campaign at the Hyatt Regency downtown
• Jim Martin at Park Tavern
• GOP bashes at the Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead
• Libertarians at the Mansour Center in Marietta
• The Watchtower at Sugarhill
• DeKalb County Democratic Election Night Celebration at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in Decatur
• The usual suspects at Manuel’s Tavern
• Election Day Costume Party at Cenci
• Election Party at 595 North Ave.
• Huge Election Watch Party at Amsterdam Atlanta
• Stonewall Democrats Election Night Party at Halo Lounge
• Barack Obama Official Yes We Did Final Watch Party at Fox Sports Grill
• Yes We Have! Obama Presidential Election Results Celebration at Verve Restaurant and Lounge
• Presidential Election Watch Night Party at Encore in Duluth
• One Nation Under a Change Election Night Party at Luella’s Restaurant in Jonesboro
• Election Results Party at McCray’s Tavern on the Square in Lawrenceville

Did we miss one? Leave it in the comments for your fellow election watchers.

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The students of Atlanta’s Ron Clark Academy keep true democracy in mind with their remix of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like.” It gets a little hard to figure out the “arguments” toward the end, but I’d want to be in this class. CNN captured the video.

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FiveThirtyEight, one of the most entertaining and informative online resources for this Presidential election, posts an excellent Georgia-centric rundown on the state’s demographics and political dynamics — and how the combination of the two may determine who runs the country come Jan. 20.

From the site:

Since native son Jimmy Carter was on the ballot, Democrats have found Georgia tough sledding. But with African-American turnout soaring to unprecedented levels, Georgia may be a state where the public polling models are off, and indeed Barack Obama has put last minute advertising resources into the state in an effort to both go over 400 electoral votes as well as help a rising tide lift Jim Martin’s boat against Max Cleland-smearing incumbent Saxby Chambliss.

It’s a long read, but it says Georgia’s may be one of the closest races we’ll see on Nov. 4. Definitely worth checking out.

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In the last of its Jawja polls of the day, Rasmussen says John McCain still leads Barack Obama by five points in Georgia.

Interesting tidbit:

In the latest poll, Obama now leads 53% to 44% among unaffiliated voters in the state. Last week, McCain led those voters by an identical margin. McCain leads 73% to 26% among white voters in Georgia while Obama earns overwhelming support from black voters. While men favor McCain 55% to 45%, women are split between the candidates at 49% each.

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