It's time to remember why so many of us were so passionate about one candidate or the other: We all want to see this country change course from the disastrous path we've been dragged along for the past 7+ years. We all know that we can't afford even four more years of the same. Not our for country, not for our communities, and not for our families.

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After all the histrionic punditfying throughout the campaign, after all the trivial media distractions over surrogates who blurt on mean things, after all the phony guilt-by-association attacks, the public unity around a progressive vision remains: an economy that works for everyone, health care for all, a clean energy future, affordable education and the end of the Iraq occupation.

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Call it holocaust, lynching, or apartheid -- whatever the atrocity, it always begins with language that privileges us, dehumanizes them, and somehow justifies their removal from our midst. The right has scored some very specific and tangible (and otherwise politically untenable) benefits by the simple act of grinding our discourse down the point where it's now mostly conduced in the coarsest of us-versus-them terms. Somehow, we need to find our way back to each other.

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Fox News personality John Gibson said I was one—which means, of course, it is true. On his radio show the other day, he opined that because I once worked at Brave New Films (which may get some George Soros money) and the publisher of my new book, The Real McCain, is a friend of Soros', well then case closed. I am on Soros' payroll, which is why one of the two cars my wife and I drive is a Subaru with 125,000 miles on it.

But this is a great anecdote to point out a larger virus that infects conservatism, and has for a long time now: Paranoia. For that, Soros is perfect. Jewish, of foreign birth, living in New York and a "financier," he is a fourfer!

If only he were gay too.

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Some people marry for love, some for companionship, and others for status or money. Now comes another reason to get hitched: health insurance.

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Even when the media reports on a critical issue, the media ignores it.

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Instead of a silly argument over a "gas tax holiday," we desperately need a serious discussion about the nation's infrastructure. And there is a good legislative proposal that could be the basis for that discussion.

There are bills in the House (HR 3401) and the Senate (S 1926) that would create a national infrastructure bank. It could be one way to bring some common sense to the task of rebuilding America's roads, bridges, sewers and public buildings. The creation of this bank should be part of the effort progressives are making in Congress to enact a second stimulus bill this month.

Such a bank would allow the federal government to finance these projects in the same way that states do: by issuing long-term, tax-exempt bonds or by making loan guarantees.

Both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have said they support the idea of an infrastructure bank, although it rarely comes up in their campaign speeches. And that's a shame, because they both need to spend their time reinforcing an emerging national mandate for repairing and improving our crumbling foundations.

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The failed partial privatization of Medicare shows us what happens when insurance companies have the power to run roughshod over consumers.

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Every day, most of us go to work and then come home. Next day: Rinse, repeat.

But some U.S. workers go to work and never come home.

In April 2005, Donald Wilcher Smith was one of them. The 22-year-old central Texas man was electrocuted at the Sanderson Farms processing plant.

This week, his father, Donald Coit Smith, described what it's like to lose his son.

I do not possess the capacity to adequately describe the horror that possesses my soul from my son’s death. To lose him caused me to reflect on faith in my God.

He testified Tuesday before a U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a hearing on "When a Worker is Killed: Do OSHA Penalties Enhance Workplace Safety?"

Smith, a workplace inspector for a polyurethane manufacturer who worked regularly with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), said his encounters with OSHA as an employer were far different from his dealings with them as a parent.

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Can conservatives defend McCain's radical health care plan?

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Dear Rick,

Greetings from Buenos Aires. You are always talking about how we need to invest more in our public infrastructure. How 'bout this street sign strategy from the Paris of Latin America?

Anne

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By an overwhelming bipartisan margin, Congress has passed what sponsors are calling the first civil rights act of the 21st century: the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. The Act, which President Bush is expected to sign, prohibits employers and insurance companies from denying people jobs, benefits, or health coverage because of their genetic make-up.

Past attempts to prohibit genetic discrimination failed after employers and insurance companies opposed them. But the Human Genome Project has given more and more Americans access to their genetic profile, and raised ever-greater concerns that DNA information will be used to limit opportunity and human rights in employment, health care, criminal justice, and other aspects of life. While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce still opposed the bill, it passed the Senate by a 95-to-0 vote and the House by a vote of 414-to-1.

The Act represents a welcome acknowledgement of how technological advances can both advance and threaten our national values and basic rights. DNA testing can help identify and prevent or ameliorate a range of debilitating diseases. Yet it can also feed societal biases—even lead to new ones—and stoke cynical and exclusionary business practices. The legislation is timely and important.
Two other issues at the confluence of science, equality, and human rights warrant quick attention from policymakers: subconscious bias and segregation from opportunity.

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Fox News Sunday fails in the eyes of the Watchdog, going 0-for-3 in its interview of McCain adviser and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

There were no questions about McCain's health care plan, no questions about Fiorina belief that offshoring American jobs should be considered "right-shoring," and no questions about how she "parked cash" overseas for Hewlett-Packard to avoid paying corporate taxes.

What questions were asked by host Chris Wallace instead?

'Fiorina is a quick study. Listen to how she deals with economic questions about McCain."

OK, that's not really a question.

"How painful was that?" Being fired by Hewlett-Packard that is.

And finally, "I don't have to tell you there is more and more talk about you as a possible vice presidential running mate ... Is it flattering to be mentioned?"

Perhaps only in the world of Fox News could a fired CEO with no record of public service who supports the offshoring of American jobs be seriously considered as vice-presidential material.

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If elected, John McCain would be the oldest person ever elevated to president. Voters are fully aware of McCain’s advanced age, and they generally consider advanced age to be a perfectly legitimate issue. So shouldn’t progressives talk about it?

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Will McCain's campaign adviser, former H-P CEO Carly Fiorina, be asked to explain what McCain's "radical" health care plan really does to working families?

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