Monday, March 31, 2008

McCain: Economic Idiot

This devastating analysis of John McCain's economic illiteracy should be a warning to all Americans. A key section of the article:

McCain wants to extend the Bush tax cuts, which he once opposed as a needless sop to the rich in a time of war. (I await David Brooks' inevitable explanation of how opposing taxes in a time of war in 2001 and 2003, when deficits were low, but supporting them in 2011, in a time of war and high deficits, is deeply moral and admirable.) But McCain wants to see Bush's tax relief and raise it some. McCain would slash the corporate-income-tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent (because corporate profits as a percentage of GDP didn't spike enough this decade?), and he'd abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would be a welcome move for many upper-middle-class taxpayers. "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign," the Wall Street Journal reported.

And how to make up for the lost revenues? Hmmm. McCain promises to cut earmarks; to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse; and to reduce the projected growth of Medicare; but he won't provide many numbers. As the WSJ deadpanned: "The cost will make it difficult for him to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by the end of his first term." That's perhaps the understatement of the year. The 2009 budget calls for a deficit of $407 billion on projected receipts of $2.7 trillion*, as this table shows. Essentially, McCain wants to cut revenues by about 15 percent from current levels, with nothing close to that in spending reductions, in a time when, even after spending excess Social Security payroll taxes, the deficit is running at more than $400 billion. Here's some straight talk: McCain's fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.

Yes indeed, a very bad joke or a very sick fantasy. This country is already teetering on the brink of economic disaster and McCain apparently wants to give it one big final shove over the cliff.

Every way you look at it, electing this man would be a disaster.

Friday, March 28, 2008

From the Screw-Ups (Bush & McCain) Who Brought You Iraq...

it's a RECESSION.



Sick and tired of Bush? Then why in the HELL you would even CONSIDER voting for McCain?!?

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

McCain's Ties to Hagee Are a THOUSAND TIMES More Dangerous Than Obama and His Pastor

The Washington Spectator has the scoop here:

TWENTY MILLION ARMAGEDDONITES—Hagee's theology is at best bizarre and at worst toxic. It is rooted in the teachings of apostate Anglican preacher John Nelson Darby, who left the Church of England in the 1820s to found his own sect. Pre-millennial Dispensationalism divides the world into seven epochs, or "dispensations." According to Darby's eschatological calendar, mankind is nearing the end of the penultimate dispensation. The final dispensation will be 1,000 years of peace, which arrive after Christ's defeat of the Anti-Christ (and Satan) at Armageddon. For Hagee, this is not a metaphor but a place in the Middle East. Hagee's eschatology also involves "the Rapture"—the physical ascent into Heaven of sanctified and reborn Christians.

Before all that can come to pass, however, certain biblical prophecies have to be fulfilled: the reunification of biblical Israel under Jewish control; the in-gathering of the world's Jewry to the parts of their ancestral home made up of Israel, Judea and Samaria; the rebuilding of the Temple (on the spot now occupied by one of three of Islam's most sacred mosques); etc.

Hagee's focus on End-Times prophecy has turned him toward American foreign policy in Israel and Palestine.


He's not alone.

American Conservative co-publisher John Basil Utley cites Christian writer Gary North's estimate that 20 million Americans are Armageddonites. "Many of them," Utley writes, "have an ecstatic belief in the cleansing power of apocalyptic violence."

**********

John Hagee is committed to the cleansing power of apocalyptic violence. He preaches it. He writes about it. And he puts his money—or his congregants' money—where his theology is. Hagee has raised more than $8.5 million for Israel, much of it used to relocate Jews from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to settlements in the West Bank—to Hagee the eastern extension of biblical Israel. Only after a critical mass of Jews have been concentrated in Greater Israel can the End-Times prophecies begin to unfold.

**********


All this would be harmless enough (perhaps) if confined to Rev. Hagee's temple. But John Hagee has a constituency that extends beyond his congregation. He used that constituency to build a foreign-policy advocacy organization—Christians United for Israel (CUFI)—that is now pressing for a pre-emptive war with Iran. CUFI brought 4,500 End Times activists to Washington for its July 2006 inaugural event, followed by a day of lobbying on the Hill.


Hagee was straightforward in announcing his agenda: "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West," he said. He saw this step as "a biblically prophesied End Time confrontation . . . which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation . . . and the Second Coming of Christ." [My emphasis]

**********

A REPUBLICAN RELIGION?—John McCain has been pressed to renounce Hagee. He cannot. Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, whose unsolicited "endorsement" created a problem for Sen. Barack Obama, can preach religious hate. But he works on the fringe of American religion and politics and is an unlikely guest at anyone's White House. The influence of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright—Obama's longtime pastor who is cut from a different cloth than Farrakhan—doesn't extend beyond the African-American community in Chicago. The Republican Party, on the other hand, is deeply invested in John Hagee and his followers.

On the Sunday before the 2006 election, for example, Texas governor Rick Perry and sixty other candidates (almost all Republicans) stood before the altar at Cornerstone Church with Hagee, each candidate angling for an election-day bounce with evangelical voters.


But John Hagee is bigger than Texas. In 2000 he was on presidential candidate George W. Bush's "values team." Since then the right wing of the Republican Party has responded to Pastor Hagee's altar call. In 2002, Republican majority leader Tom DeLay was the keynote speaker at Hagee's "Night to Honor Israel." In 2006 Hagee met with Elliot Abrams, Bush's fervently pro-Israel deputy national security adviser. Hagee later said he and Abrams are largely in agreement regarding Middle East policy.

Joe Lieberman (I-CT) got most of the media attention at CUFI's second annual gathering, in 2007, because the Jewish senator compared Hagee to Moses. But Republican house whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) attended and John McCain also joined the pro-Israel Christians when they met in Washington in July. McCain praised Hagee for "doing the Lord's work in Satan's city." That's not San Antonio but Washington
.

That's right, folks. McCain can crawl on his hands and knees and BEG for the support of this psychotic End Times fool and virtually nothing is said of it, certainly not compared to the Wright flap with Obama. Read the whole article, if you can bear it. Hagee is violently ANTI-CATHOLIC. Despite his so-called "Christian Zionism", HE BLAMES THE HOLOCAUST ON THE JEWS. He is a wretched fundamentalist lunatic of the worst kind, and a con artist to boot. And yet McCain is given a free pass on him. Outrageous.

Hagee is powerful and influential in the Republican Party. If "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain is elected, John "Pre-emptive War on Iran" Hagee will be an honored guest in the White House.

If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, I don't know what will

Monday, March 24, 2008

What 4,000 American Dead Look Like (in Mosaic Form)

And the two biggest advocates of keeping the war going.



Smashing McCain's "Cred"

Is there a bigger fraud on the American political scene than John McCain? He claims expertise in subjects about which he is a know-nothing; is allowed to tell lies because he's a "straight talker"; and generally, gets away with things no other politician possibly could. Check the links here at Kevin Drum's page, and see if you don't agree.

NO THIRD TERM FOR BUSH--NO TO McCAIN!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Radical WHITE Preachers Endorsing McCain? Hey, No Problem!

Read the exasperating details here.

Democrats, the MSM is in the tank for St. Johnny Boy. It's a reality we have to deal with.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Does McCain Even Know What He's Talking About?

See for yourself here.

And this guy has the nerve to assert that he's an "expert" on Iraq? On what planet?

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

McCain: Unfit for Command

Josh Marshall gets it out straight here:

But this is really just the tip of the iceberg with McCain. In almost every discussion of foreign policy, not just today but in previous years, what stands out is McCain's inability to see beyond the immediate issues of military tactics to any firm grasp of strategy or America's real vital interests. His free willingness to commit to a decades long occupation of Iraq is an example, his push for ground troops to be introduced during the Kosovo War is another. His refusal, almost inability, to grapple with the political failure of the surge is the most telling one if people will sift through its deeper implications...

Hillary Clinton has stipulated to McCain's qualifications as Commander-in-Chief; and Obama, implicitly, does the same. But his record actually shows he's one of the most dangerous people we could have in the Oval Office in coming years -- not just because he's a hothead in using the military, but more because he seems genuinely clueless about the real challenges and dangers the country is facing. He's too busy living in the fantasy world where our future as a great power and our very safety are all bound up in Iraq
.

Yes, a hothead and an Iraq obsessive (not to mention a lunatic on Iran). McCain would indeed be a disaster as Commander in Chief, and progressives need to communicate this to the world.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

No Third Term for Bush



BTW, this is the same John McCain who's not sure about the difference betweem Sunni and Shi'a, thinks Al Qaeda goes to Iran to train (it doesn't) and proclaims himself an "expert" on Iraq.

I Urge You to Set Aside 38 Minutes

and watch this:



Simply brilliant and remarkable.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Why Does Senator Inhofe Hate Our Military Men and Women?

The radical right-wing conservative Republican from Oklahoma has the most ATROCIOUS record in the Senate on veterans and active service members issues. Some telling details:


Something else that would probably surprise many victims of Republican propaganda is that they [The Republicans] have also been horrible for our veterans and horrible for our active duty military personnel. Let's look at the far right extremist senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe. Most folks just know him as a Climate Change Denier but that barely scratches the surface of what's wrong with Inhofe. For someone who is so aggressively pro-war, he's incredibly anti-veteran and anti-service member. The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America looked at his voting record and gave him a D-. On October 5, 2005 his deciding vote against the bipartisan Health Care for Veterans Amendment killed a bill that had passed in the House 398 to 19. The following month Chuck Grassley and Barbara Boxer co-sponsored a bill to get desperately needed funds for counseling, mental health, and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, or substance abuse. Again, Inhofe voted against our military veterans. That's been his pattern, a pattern that includes outrageous tax cuts for millionaires while short-changing vets.

But vets aren't the only people Inhofe has consistently short-changed. His
voting record on active duty military personnel is abysmal-- the worst in the entire U.S. Senate. Of the 14 roll calls involving the welfare of our fighting men and women since May, 2003, Inhofe has voted against them a breathtaking 14 times.


If any Republican deserves to be thrown out on his ass, it's James Inhofe. Go to Act Blue and send some love to his Democratic opponent, a great candidate named Andrew Rice.
America's military people will thank you.

Horrible. Sickening. Despicable.

Read this if you can stand to.

Bush and Cheney are war criminals. There can longer be any doubt.

This is UNAMERICAN. I refuse to see this as acceptable, DO YOU HEAR ME?

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Chicago Tribune: Obama Has Done NOTHING Illegal in the Rezko Matter

Read all about it here.

Now about John McCain's financial angels in Arizona in the 1980s...

Hey McCain! Where Are Your Tax Returns?

Kevin Drum discusses the issue here.

Funny, isn't it? The Washington press corps barks at Hillary Clinton regularly on this issue, but their fair-haired boy St. John gets a pass. Gee, what a surprise. Why, it's almost as if the mainstream media are in the tank for him.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Want to Fight Fox "News" and the Smears Against Obama?

You will after you see this. Watch it all the way. The punch line will astonish you.




Now, ACT. Spread this video as far as you can.

Obama: Integrity and Moral Clarity. McCain: Craven Pandering

Barack Obama's eloquent, convincing statement on his church, his faith, and his pastor is here.

John McCain's crawling to the likes of Hagee, Parsley, Robertson, and the (happily late) Falwell looks pretty disgusting in contrast. And remember:

HAGEE AND PARSLEY ARE CALLING FOR A WORLD WIDE RELIGIOUS WAR BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM. THAT IS A THOUSAND TIMES WORSE THAN ANYTHING OBAMA'S MINISTER HAS EVER SAID.

Got it?

Thursday, March 13, 2008

It's Not Just Hagee: McCain's Other Lunatic Friend

Another right wing radical demagogue who supports John McCain is coming under scrutiny: the demented Rod Parsley, who has called for the extermination of Islam as a religion. And no, I'm not exaggerating:
Parsley is not shy about his desire to obliterate Islam. In Silent No More, he notes—approvingly—that Christopher Columbus shared the same goal: "It was to defeat Islam, among other dreams, that Christopher Columbus sailed to the New World in 1492…Columbus dreamed of defeating the armies of Islam with the armies of Europe made mighty by the wealth of the New World. It was this dream that, in part, began America." He urges his readers to realize that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable: "We find now we have no choice. The time has come." And he has bad news: "We may already be losing the battle. As I scan the world, I find that Islam is responsible for more pain, more bloodshed, and more devastation than nearly any other force on earth at this moment."
Yes, folks, the whole point of America is to destroy Islam. Parsley evidently agrees with Osama bin Laden that we need a worldwide religious war between Christianity and Islam.
And John McCain is delighted to have his support.
It's time to ask some hard questions to the Arizona Senator, whether he likes them or not.
(Oh, and if you want deleriously funny delights, Google the following search term: Rod Parsley+UFOs. Heh heh heh.)

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

McCain: Screwing American Workers to Help Out His Lobbyist Pals

Check out this highly revealing post about Mr. Straight Talk and Airbus:

The Boeing deal would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs across 40 states -- jobs that will be shipped to Europe and elsewhere as a results of the tag-team combination of McCain in the Senate and McCain's lobbyists pals on K Street. At a time when the economy appears to be faltering and America faces tepid job growth -- or even job losses -- it's not clear to me that the American public is clamoring for someone who is so tone deaf about employment issues.

McCain can, and likely will, try to spin this as an example of his reformist ways. But looking at all of the details, it's becoming ever more clear that McCain's interest is not as much in reform as it is whatever is in the best interest of his lobbyist supporters and pals.

Read the whole thing and tell me again about McCain's "integrity".

Monday, March 10, 2008

Do You Really Want the Truth About the Bush-McCain War?

Then read this enlightening piece, a guest editorial on Juan Cole's page by William R. Polk, an authority on the history of the Middle East. It's a long post, but it will be worth your time. And you may be struck as hard as I was by the concluding section:

The strategy behind these operations is what the Neoconservative advisers to President Bush have called “the Long War.” A leading member of the Neoconservatives, James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, said he hopes it will not last more than 40 years. The cost of such a generational conflict has been estimated at more than $17 trillion dollars.

More important, in the long period of stress, the American way of life would be severely challenged, perhaps irreparably damaged. The real cost could be the destruction of the world in which we live and the replacement of our civic, cultural and material “good life” by something like nightmare George Orwell predicted in his novel 1984.

At minimum it would greatly increase the risk to us of terrorism.

But we should be aware that what Woosley and others have discussed is not just rhetoric or speculation – it is given substance by operational plans, dedicated military personnel, operating from 737 – I repeat seven hundred and thirty seven -- existing bases worldwide, with already constructed and positioned weapons, and sustained by an already allocated budget.

In the spring of 2006, before he left office, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved three plans to fight the “long war” beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other actions that have now been implemented, the Special Operations Command – now made up of 53,000 men and working with an already allocated budget of $8 billion for fiscal year 2007 – has dispatched Special “Ops” forces to at least 20 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. These teams are loose cannons, not under the control of regular American embassies and allowed to engage in covert warfare not only against groups regarded as terrorists but even against states. Although they could involve us in war with any number of countries, they are treated as though not subject to Congressional oversight or decision.

They are, as I said, loose cannons. But they are not working on their own. Their use has been justified by the March 2005 “National Defense Strategy of the United States of America” which calls for the US (and I quote) “to operate in and from the global commons-space, international waters and airspace, and cyberspace...to surge forces rapidly from strategic distances [to where adversaries may seek to deny us access and] to deny adversaries sanctuary...[These campaigns]may entail lengthy periods of both major combat and stability operations [or] require regime change...”

Not surprisingly, the conservative journal, The Economist, editorialized, “the Neoconservatives are not conservatives. They are radicals. Their agenda adds up to a world-wide crusade. With all its historic, anti-Muslim connotations, it is precisely the word most calculated to perpetuate movement down the path desired by the Neoconservatives, permanent, unending war.

Is permanent war – one Iraq after another – to be our future?

**********

Now remember which presidential candidate is most devoted to the "long war", and which of them has promised Americans will stay in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. Remember which one says this war was the right thing to to do. Remember which one is warning there will many more wars. Remember which one is now TOTALLY beholden to the radical right that wants a worldwide religious war with Islam.

Now remember what the price of John McCain winning the White House would be.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Is McCain Mentally Stable Enough to Be President?

It's a legitimate question, explored here:

Saturday, March 08, 2008

McCain: Consistently WRONG on Iraq

He tries to come off like the big expert on this issue, and brags about the "success" of the Surge (i.e., escalation),but Steve Chapman nails him here:

The point of the surge was to catalyze rapid progress that would facilitate our departure. But now the Pentagon says that come July, we'll still have more troops than the 132,000 we had before. When Lt. Gen. Carter Ham was asked if the number will fall below 132,000 by the time Bush leaves office, he replied, "It would be premature to say that."

McCain says the current "strategy is succeeding in Iraq." His apparent definition of success is that American forces will stay on in huge numbers as long as necessary to keep violence within acceptable limits. We were told we had to increase our numbers so we could leave. Turns out we had to increase our numbers so we could stay.

Five years after the Iraq invasion, we've suffered more than 30,000 dead and wounded troops, incurred trillions in costs and found that Iraqis are unwilling to overcome their most basic divisions. And, no end is in sight. If you're grateful for that, thank John McCain.

Yes, folks, the Bush-McCain war grinds on day after day after day. And yes, it DOES matter who gets elected president on 4 November.

Friday, March 07, 2008

McCain Doesn't Just Court the Radicals, He IS a Radical

From the great Charles Pierce here:

One waits in vain for the television and newspaper pundits to abandon their novelization of John McCain, Renegade Maverick Moderate Centrist Tough Guy. John (Jesus Is My X-Man!) Hagee wasn't enough. Standing there like a garden gnome while President 19 Percent fairly well soaked him in a great shower of Fail wasn't enough. And I suspect this won't be enough, either. But, make no mistake. The CNP is the nuttiest of the wingers and the wingiest of the nuts. This is the creme de la crazoid. Throw all of these people in a sack, roll it down a hill, and there'll always be an influential lunatic on top. To call these people medieval is to insult Charlemagne. To call these people ultramontane is to insult Pius IX. To call them reactionary is to insult two generations of Buckleys. Anyone who wonders why St. John hasn't distanced himself from a raving nutball like Hagee need only look here to discover why. He doesn't want to do so. He not only needs the likes of these people to get nominated, he prefers their company. He agrees with them. His entire campaign has been an extended negotiation regarding the terms of the lien on his soul he's given them in exchange for their support. They are the most important part of his base outside of that part of it currently wearing Tim Russert's underwear.

Ha ha! Priceless!

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Why Does McCain Get a Pass on Bigoted Scumbag Hagee?

Steve Benen wants to know here:

OK, I’ve just about given up. John McCain actively sought the support of an anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-woman, and anti-Semitic televangelist, and despite widespread condemnations from a variety of circles, reporters simply won’t cover the story or push McCain for an explanation. As Andrew Sullivan put it, John Hagee is “a white Farrakhan, but the media has essentially given McCain a pass.”

But bloggers continue to gift-wrap this controversy for the media, making it especially easy to cover this story, which they surely would if McCain were a Democrat and Hagee weren’t a conservative white evangelical.


And Matthew Yglesias wants to know here.

McCain and his staff actively sought out Hagee's endorsement, he appeared and campaigned with Hagee, he said he was proud to be backed by Hagee. Hagee is, in short, part of McCain's political strategy. Now he tells us he doesn't agree with Hagee about everything. Well, which things? Are we supposed to believe that McCain's not into the bigotry, or the foreign policy aimed at apocalypse, but just likes Hagee because of their shared opposition to gay marriage? Is McCain going to be courting Osama bin Laden's endorsement? It's reminiscent of McCain's on-again, off-again quest for the support of "agents of intolerance" like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. McCain's trying to wink with one eye to a segment of the electorate, wink with his other eye at his fans in the media, and somehow maintain a reputation for straight talk throughout all this.

Boys and girls, it's simple. The major media--especially NBC's "Big Three" of Tim Russert, Brian Williams, and Chris "Tweety" Matthews are totally and utterly in the tank for McCain. Remember, folks, the phrase "Liberal Media" is right wing bullshit. Large, conservative corporations now control vast areas of our news media, and they want the Democrats to go down again. They always will. This is the reality we're up against.
If a Democrat had actively sought the support of demented scum like Hagee, NBC would be covering it 24/7, and everybody damned well knows it.


Wednesday, March 05, 2008

And Now, Some Words from John McCain's Favorite Preacher

I Will Be a Viciously Negative Bastard From Now On

The current primary season has left me emotionally numb. If you want to know the God's honest truth, I've never really worked up a huge amount of enthusiasm for either of our contenders, although I prefer Obama. (I just wish he had waited until 2016, but that's another issue.) Just thinking about Hillary being our nominee makes me feel tired and depressed, although I will not renege on my earlier pledge to support her. But in fact, I have given Obama and Clinton $0 this year, and I've just felt strangely detached. So tell ya what I'm gonna do: since I can't work up any enthusiasm FOR anyone, and I'm feeling pessimistic about our chances in November (given the rancor and division in our party) I'm just going to attack St. John McCain.
Every. Freaking. G-d damned. Bloody. Day.

*I'm going to go after him for being a fraudulent "straight talker", the "enemy" of the lobbyists who has 59 different lobbyists working for him, accepts favors from them, and is essentially bankrolled by them.

*I'm going to go after "Mr. Honesty" who hid hundreds of thousands of pages of Abramoff documents when he was in a position to do so.

*I'm going to after the man who begged ANTI-CATHOLIC, APOCALYPTIC LUNATIC John Hagee to support him for an entire year.

*I'm going after the man who has a ZERO rating from the League of Conservation Voters.

*I'm going after the phony "maverick" who votes with his party 80-90% of the time.

*I'm going after the man who crawled to the very people who slimed his own family in 2000, asking for their support.

*I'm going after one of the biggest cheerleaders for what can rightly be called THE BUSH-McCAIN WAR, one who has pledged to make our country's involvement in this tragedy PERMANENT.

*I'm going after someone who may yet involve us in a devastating war with Iran.

*I'm going after the one man in the whole Senate who should NEVER have caved in to Bush on torture--but yet did.

*I'm going after "Mr. Strong Principles" who has changed his views on taxes, overturning Roe v. Wade, seeking support from the Religious Right, and any number of other issues--whatever was expedient.

*I'm going to go after the economic simpleton who wants to make Bush's catastrophic tax cuts for the rich permanent.

*I'm going after the man who will do NOTHING about our health care problems, and who has been consistently hostile to women's rights and labor unions.

*I'm going after the man who will appoint more Scalias to the Supreme Court.

I will do this out of despair. Our party needs a compromise candidate for president desperately, but that won't happen. (It wouldn't be fair, I suppose, but I think it's the only way out. Parties have done it before.) The Republicans will turn our own words against whoever our nominee is, and do so relentlessly. And, in my semi-professional opinion, Hillary Clinton has essentially poisoned the well for Obama. Her remarks that McCain has experience and Obama doesn't will be played over and over and over again if Obama is the nominee. She has killed Obama, politically, with that statement, which she has repeated. It was always going to be hard as hell to win white voters over to Obama; 20% of Democratic voters in Ohio said race was a factor in their decision. Now, Hillary has given them cover. They're not bigoted; they just prefer experience. She has made it unlikely that Obama can pevail in the GE by the amount of blood she's drawn from him. (Humphrey did the same thing to McGovern in '72. I saw it personally.) Hillary is saying, if I can't have it, nobody on our side can. And she is the weaker of our two candidates, and will be a major drain on Red State Democratic tickets.

I've watched politics for over 40 years. This year SHOULD have been our golden opportunity, but being a Democrat, I have plenty of reasons to doubt that it will be. So instead of just bitching and moaning, I think I'll sublimate my grief into rage and take it out on McCain. What else can I do?

Oh, and one more thing: our greatest leader, Al Gore, chose not to run (and I can't blame him, but I wish he had); our most eloquent defender of the poor, John Edwards, was knocked out, and the man who has the best combination of progressive values and long experience was a non-starter: Christopher Dodd, defender of the U.S. Constitution in the Senate.

You better WATCH yourself, Mac!

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

The True Voice of the Conservatives

Sometimes they really let their guard down and tell you exactly what they think. I took this post verbatim and in full. See what you think:

Deadly Ricin Poison Found In Vegas Hotel

Could this be used to clean out the trash candidates we have in our Presidential Campaign this year?


Ricin poison is easy to make from castor beans. Castor beans are legal to buy, can be gotten throughout the country or via the internet. Even more interesting is that the internet is full of "how-to" information explaining how to cook the husks of castor beans into this poison, but if you inhale it while you're making it, you're dead!Since as little as 500 micrograms of ricin can kill an adult, I wonder if smearing some on a glove then shaking hands with. . . . . . Barak Obama or Hillary Clinton or John McCain. . . . would have some effect? Probably not. But I wonder if loading some in a straw equipped with a one-way valve at one end to protect the user, would allow ricin powder to be blown in the direction of a candidate for inhalation? HMMMMMMM. It's a good thing that I obey the law and have no intention of doing something like this personally!


I bet there are folks out there, however, who might agree with me that the political choices we have this year warrant dramatic action to save our republic. After all, do we really want a mixed-race, mongrel negro, half-breed in the most powerful political office on the planet? I can see it now, Barak Obama doing for America what Robert Mugabe did for Zimbabwe. . . . or what Nelson Mandella did for South Africa. . . . skyrocketing crime, disease and a collapsed economy. No thanks.


How about Hillary Clinton -- who is so pathetic, she couldn't even stop her husband from getting blow jobs in the Oval Office! Yea, she'd make a great leader. NOT!


Then we have John McCain, who allegedly betrayed his fellow Vietnam vets while they were in a P O W camp during the war. McCain allegedly got medical care that his fellow troops did not; allegedly got good food that his fellow prisoners never got and who, just last year, voted to give away our country by offering a sort of Amnesty to the millions of illegal aliens here. No thanks.


Yes, I see good reason for the political candidates this year to be gotten rid of and from my viewpoint, ricin could be used by some nefarious person to accomplish that. It's the type of weapon that Secret Service cannot protect anyone from. What are they gonna do, check everyone for straws as they enter a campaign venue? And once the poison is delivered, there is no treatment and no cure. Death is 100% guaranteed.


Hal Turner is a good buddy of Sean Hannity, the greasy little punk who spreads right-wing propaganda on Fox "News". Little Seany Boy has said nothing about any of this. If this post by Turner isn't an incitement to violence--and thus NOT protected as free speech--then I'm not sure what qualifies as incitement. It's putting the suggestion into the head of some right-wing cretin out there to go ahead and be a "hero".

This is the reality of life in America now. Deal with it. And if Barack Obama--"a mixed-race, mongrel negro, half-breed" as this piece of racist filth so charmingly puts it--is indeed made a target, you'll know who to look to.
[Thanks to Davefromqueens and poster State Department for this.]



Monday, March 03, 2008

You Need to Read Glenn Greenwald Every Day

If you have the time. No one is doing a better job of attacking the right wing idiots and weak kneed Democrats who are destroying this country than he. I've added a link for him on the right side of the page. His column today on right wing media hack/propagandist Howard Kurtz is here and is absolutely deadly. Greenwald knows an important truth: the Beltway Media have been doing their damnedest to torpedo every Democratic candidate for president over the last three decades. Kurtz is a fraud, and Greenwald destroys him. Go read Glenn and learn how to take these little conservative media whores apart like a cheap watch.

Sunday, March 02, 2008


DAMN IT, Stir Up a Firestorm About McCain and Hagee!

John Hagee is one of the most dangerous people in America. Hagee is ACTIVELY trying to bring on his lunatic vision of the Apocalypse, as you can read here in Sarah Posner's outstanding article in AlterNet two years ago. The merest summary of his insanity is terrifying. Hagee advocates a preemptive war with Iran, and is working feverishly to achieve it. Hagee is also one of the crudest, ugliest bigots in America, attacking the Catholic Church as "The Whore", blaming Jews for bringing the Holocaust on themselves because of their ancestors' "disobedience"(!), and declaring that New Orleans was destroyed for planning a Gay Pride parade! Hagee is a horrifying, evil, sick man. And he's warmly endorsed John McCain, after McCain actively solicited Hagee's support.. My question is: what are YOU going to do about it?

We can't just let this die. We progressives have shown many times that when we work as a team, we can get big results. We helped cripple ABC's fairy-tale, anti-Clinton propaganda about 9/11. We helped spread the "Macaca incident" that helped destroy George Allen. We can keep this story rolling, too. The right wingers frame so many things successfully because they grab them and refuse to let go. Well, I say, let's refuse to let go of this. Let's use it as a club to smash McCain every single damned day. McCain is cynically trying to kiss the ass of the worst right wing religious fanatics and lunatics in America while presenting himself as a "maverick", a "moderate", and a "straight shooter." We need to call McCain on this, and do it relentlessly. So far today I've written The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Washington Post, and Meet the Press. But there's a lot more I intend to do. The national press has to HEAR FROM US.

First, here's some background on the whole Hagee record:

Evangelical Right: the John Hagee Archive

Bill Moyers Journal

The Jewish Daily Forward: When We Let John Hagee Speak for Us

A Christian Denunciation of Hagee's Eschatology

Another Outstanding Article by Sarah Posner.

Second, here's a set of links you can use to send your opinions:

Contact MSNBC, Today, Brian Williams, Dateline, and Meet the Press here. (Links are on the page).

Contact any of the CBS News programs here. (Form will allow you to choose various programs.)

Contacts for ABC News programs can be found here.

Contact CNN here.

Contact USA Today here.

Contact The Los Angeles Times here.

Contact PBS here.

Contact The Washington Post here.

Contact The New York Times here.

Contact The Chicago Tribune here.

Please post any other contacts you wish in the comments. Everything will help.

Remember, McCain is trying to have it both ways, sucking up to bigots while soliciting votes from moderates and independents. With the Hagee endorsement, McCain has handed us a powerful weapon to ruin his campaign. We can reveal McCain for the two-faced, double-talking fraud that he is. We can also inflict serious damage on his support from Catholics.

Do you want John Hagee visiting a McCain White House, giving advice to "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" John McCain? If not, let's get to work! There's too much at stake here for you NOT to act.

Just in Case You Weren't Sure