| October 13, 2008 |
Whatever you believe as a Democrat or Liberal, we need to not elect John McCain as a nation.
Check out this link to make a last-minute June donation to the DNC and derail the RNC next November.
Seriously. Now.
President George W Bush requested and received funding of $400 million (£200 million) for the plan after he made a secret appeal to Congressional leaders last year.
The money is likely to be used for operations carried out by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, according to the New Yorker magazine.
The appeal for funds “was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change” said the magazine.
In the scenario concocted by Cheney’s strategists, Washington’s first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran’s uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.
This information was leaked by an official close to the vice president. Cheney himself hasn’t denied engaging in such war games. For years, in fact, he’s been open about his opinion that an attack on Iran, a member of US President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” is inevitable.
On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol said that President Bush is more likely to attack Iran if he believes Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is going to be elected.
…so how do we stop it?
If you were trying to run the country, if you were going to personally see to it that bills were signed into law, wouldn’t you - perhaps - make an appearance at your current job that made those things happen in lieu of being the POTUS? Especially if that job was paid for by taxpaying Americans? McCain does not think so.
This is a couple days old, but worth a mention.
One of McCain’s top advisers, Charlie Black, said that a terrorist attack would be a “big advantage” to McCain’s campaign. This, of course, makes sense; if someone’s breaking into your house, you want daddy to come out with a baseball bat, not a diplomat. And John McCain seems willing to bomb the crap out of anyone.
McCain, of course, responded with “I cannot imagine why he would say it. It’s not true. I’ve worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America. My record is very clear. I cannot imagine it, and so if he said that — and I don’t know the context — I strenuously disagree.” Ah, quoting doesn’t quite capture the stammering as well.
It’s a tough position: if he agrees, he appears monstrous for thinking such unthinkable thoughts; if he “strenuously” disagrees, it looks like posturing and naivete. I guess he opted for bullshit. Par for the course.
John McCain is proposing a prize of $300 million to show he cares about the environment, too, durnit!
The Arizona senator proposed a $300 million prize for whoever can develop a better automobile battery, and $5,000 tax credits for consumers who buy new zero-emission vehicles. The latest proposal is in addition to his support for overturning the federal ban on offshore oil drilling.
How much better? Eh, he didn’t say.
Is there a end date, a realistic goal? Eh, he didn’t say.
Does McCain have any practical knowledge of how batteries work that would lead him to believe - aside from tapping his fairy wand - that this is a tangible goal? Eh, he didn’t say. And if he did, he’d probably cite Moore’s Law and then call anyone who corrected him an intellectual elitist.
This is the most half-assed political posturing I’ve seen in a while.
The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.
In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.
…
Mr. Elliott, a chain smoker, began taking Chantix last fall as part of a VA experiment that specifically targeted veterans with PTSD, opting to collect $30 a month for enrolling in the clinical trial because he needed cash as he returned to school. He soon began suffering hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, unaware that the new drug he was taking could have caused them.
…
“You’re a lab rat for $30 a month,” Mr. Elliott said.
We’ve started an illegal war halfway across the world and young men and women went to support our country at any cost. When they’re there, we don’t give them what need, farm out their meals, their suppliers - their health and safety - to no-bid, private contractors like Halliburton who steal from the soldiers in providing sub-standard services and products and steal from Americans by charging 3 to 20 to 100 times reasonable cost from what we pay in taxes. When they come home, if they’re injured, they stay in slum medical facilities “maintained” by our government. If they’re not physically injured, they don’t receive proper attention and care for mental illness or PTSD. And we still haven’t passed a decent GI bill to toss out a few “gimmies” - like fully-paid college education - to our deserving veterans.
And now it comes to light that our own government, knee-deep in Big-Pharm money, are taking on veterans - already hard-up for money because of lack of proper government care - who would sell their sanity, what health they have left, for $30/mo. $30 a fucking month!
It doesn’t matter what you think about the war(s) or how they got started: Why are we not taking proper care of the men and women in our country who felt the call to fight on the behalf of our leaders?
How could we let a man who honorably served in the military get to the point of “needing” $30/month?
How do we allow drug companies and our government to treat these heroes like rats?
What the hell is wrong with our country?
If early 1800s represented an Era of Good Feelings, our times should go down in history as the Era of Bad Feelings. Nowhere has that been better exemplified than in the current nastiness pervading the Democratic Party. Although Barack Obama has for all extensive purposes won the nomination, the forces of Hillary Clinton claim she deserves to be the candidate and that they would rather vote for someone else or not vote at all than vote for Obama. (more…)
Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. No details were immediately available.
Russert, the recipient of 48 honorary doctorates, took over the helm of “Meet the Press” in December 1991. Now in its 60th year, “Meet the Press” is the longest-running program in the history of television.
In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
This is truly upsetting. Tim, our thoughts are with your family.
“I will vote for the individual I think that brings the best set of tools to the problems of 21st-century America and the 21st-century world regardless of party, regardless of anything else other than the most qualified candidate,” Powell said at a news conference before delivering the speech, the newspaper reported. “Both of them certainly have the qualifications to be the president of the United States, but both of them cannot be.”
Asked whether he thought it was a difficult choice, he said: “I think so. Yes.”
Just not towing the party line - although “party” and “line” amongst Republicans is in disarray right now - is enough for a little joy jump. What a coup it would be if he threw his support behind Obama.
Glad to see Kucinich stand up. Sad to see so few others do the same.
Yesterday, Media Matters posted about MSNBC’s Brewer uncritically aired Bush’s misleading assertion that ANWR, continental shelf drilling would “give this country a chance to help” with gas prices.
Hannity and Buchanan and every other right wing nut is spouting this same drivel with absolutely no mind paid to the truth, reached by our own government studies: Legislation passed today would not impact our dependence on foreign oil until 2018. Ten years from now. Specifically, Sean Hannity claims we’d be pulling 1 million barrels a day out of Alaska. Considering we consume over 20 million a day, we’re looking at 5% relief which we could figuratively put in play today for, “Ahhh,” $.20 a gallon relief and figuratively watch disappear in the next 2 weeks.
Car companies had alternative fuel tech brewing 20 years ago. We do not need more oil, but plausible alternatives to oil. We need ubiquitous public transportation. And in order to get either of those, we need to stop being consumption monkeys, get off our asses, and demand change. From car companies, from oil companies, from legislators.
And that’ll happen right before we pay off and stop using our credit cards.
Personally, while I believe in a greater power, I really would hate to see God and Jesus (or Yahweh or Allah or Buddah or Shiva or Vishnu… you get the idea) bother Themselves with earthly politics but hey… let me say “thank you, Jesus” now.
A panel of researchers from the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity and Politics discussed the results of a survey aimed at gauging the voting tendencies among religious groups by splitting the groups in categories.
One breakthrough discovery the panel found was that for the first time ever, more mainline Protestants (approximately one-fifth of the electorate) support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party.
I think that pretty much sums up the situation at hand, folks.
This is my open letter to Senator Obama’s campaign staff and supporters, asking you to stop the madness and follow Obama’s mantra to “unify the party” and end “politics as usual”.
Republicans have tried to make political gains from the fact that we Democrats support the troops but do not support the Commander-In-Chief. Well, I support Barack Obama but, at the moment, I don’t support his “troops” - his campaign staffers and supporters, especially some of my friends in the blogosphere and the commenters in their blogs.
When it comes to Hillary Clinton, you have been making, and continue to make, the same mistake Republicans made throughout the 90’s with Bill Clinton. You are treating Hillary as if she’s some random public personality with no connection to friends and supporters who may be deeply offended by your outrageous insults and accusations. Much like we all treat Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan as a disconnected public personality, you criticize Hillary for her words, her clothing, her hair, her makeup, her family and more without any thought or caring as to how it affects her supporters, who make up nearly half of the primary voters, voters Obama will need to get elected. Some of you are the source of language like “monster”, “fucking whore”, “racist bitch”, and the C-word. Go to our Blogosphere page and select any headline that’s obviously anti-Clinton and you’ll find comments that include these outrageous insults, and some that cannot be repeated in this blog. And the endless debate about who dissed who first… will that help Obama’s movement?
Some of you have acknowledged Hillary’s supporters and admit there is “work to be done” to bring them over to the Obama camp; the white working-class and elderly women voters who have had a long-standing relationship with the Clintons. But many of you in the blogosphere and on cable news have decided to extend the insults to those supporters with language like “old, racist whores” and “Hillary’s getting the racist vote”. Rather than making an attempt to bring them into the Obama movement, you seem to have decided to prematurely reject them and destroy any possibility of merging the Clinton and Obama supporters, effectively handing their votes to McCain or throwing them away.
I live in Arizona where a large portion of the voters are elderly. Of those I speak with or read about, many in that age group do not vote for the party, they vote for the person. And they identify to people in their own age group, like the Clintons and McCain. I’ve heard many of you in Obama’s camp say that Hillary’s supporters will surely vote for Obama because it’s all about Iraq and Obama is their only possible choice. We’re talking about a generation that sacrificed financially, bought war bonds, and rationed through the Second World War. There were 1,076,245 US dead and wounded and 30,314 missing, so it was likely that they knew someone who was a casualty of that war. In contrast, the number of US dead and wounded in the Iraq War is around 44,321 - a terrible loss, but in a country of 300 million, much less likely they have a personal connection to the person lost. And Bush has asked for no financial sacrifice for this war, pushing the cost to future generations. So is the Iraq War really their main concern? Is it really all that likely that they will vote for a man whose campaign staffers and supporters are the source of outrageous insults, who arrogantly state they will have no choice but to vote for Obama?
A more likely scenario is that the Clinton vote will be split, with a portion going to Obama, a portion to McCain, some to Nader, and many who will just stay home. In fact, Obama’s nomination has completely changed the balance of power - he can no longer win without Hillary’s supporters. With so much on the line for our nation and the world, does it make sense to reject Hillary’s supporters out of an ongoing anger and defense of your candidate? Or does it make more sense to stop the endless insults, charges of racism, and 90’s-like Clinton-bashing, and make the effort to reconcile with Hillary’s supporters and persuade them to get behind the Obama movement?
My appeal to you is to make the effort. Start with the blogs supportive of Hillary or a supporter you know personally - an acknowledgement that the insults went too far and an invitation to join the Obama movement could make a real difference. Continue with the blogs or supporters you know personally that are against Hillary and persuade them to make an effort, as well. The stakes are too high not to make the effort.
I’m not joking.
Welcome to the nutter cavalcade. We have a dedicated blog, a Snopes post (false!), and even Glenn Beck, resident douchebag, is seriously asking the question.
Unmentioned at all sources: how the book of Revelation, source of Antichrist dogma, and readily accepted by many biblical scholars as an allegory of Roman oppression of Christianity, is even moderately equatable to modern times.
Halloween stories and fairy tales, and a little extreme in execution, but more examples - and I’m afraid we’ll find them a-plenty - of Ways Republicans Can Hate Barack Without Appearing Racist. They’ll probably have a book out soon.
(And, if so, however did Obama find them?)
Salon has a story about Barack Obama tearing Joe Lieberman a new one in person; while both are ostensibly Democrats, Lieberman is playing Jewish grandmother to John McLame’s campaign.
Tell me if this doesn’t wrap up the situation in a sad twist.
Katha Pollitt of The Nation on the benefits of Hillary’s historic campaign (sorry, but if you’re looking for yet another Hillary-bashing post, you won’t find it here):
Some think Clinton’s loss, and the psychodrama surrounding it, will set women back. I think they’re wrong. Love her or loathe her, the big story here is Americans saw a woman who was a serious, popular, major-party candidate. Clinton showed herself to be tough, tireless, supersmart and definitely ready to lead on that famous Day One. She raised a ton of money and won 17.5 million votes from men and women. She was exciting, too: she and Obama galvanized voters for six long months–in some early contests, each of them racked up more votes than all the Republican candidates combined. Once the bitterness of the present moment has faded, that’s what people will remember. Because she normalized the concept of a woman running for President, she made it easier for women to run for every office, including the White House. That is one reason women and men of every party and candidate preference, and every ethnicity too, owe Hillary Clinton a standing ovation, even if they can’t stand her.
There’s another reason to be grateful to her. Clinton’s run has put to rest the myth that we are living in a postfeminist wonderland in which all that stands in women’s path is women themselves. Like a magnet–was it the pantsuit?–Clinton drew out the nation’s misogyny in all its jeering glory and put it where we could all get a good look at it. “Iron my shirt” hecklers. Wearers of Bros Over Hos T-shirts and buyers of Hillary nutcrackers. Fans of the Citizens United Not Timid website (check the acronym). Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It’s as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit.
Thinking of Bobby Kennedy’s real passion during his ‘68 campaign for the American worker highlights exactly why our candidates - and our next president - needs to pay some serious attention to the plight of Americans, especially those of the working and middle class.
Yet everybody better start paying attention to the American worker, who is greater in debt (less and less see any relief from debt outside of bankruptcy or death), more likely to have to work two jobs or more just to survive, less likely to receive appropriate and timely health care, and under greater measures levels of clinical depression, fatigue, and stress than ever before. See my next (up) post.
New studies show Americans across the board (rather than pockets of wild wealth in a sea of people who have relatively little to nothing in comparison) are doing much worse financially than their European peers, AND that both our height and life expectancy is turning from new longevity to a shortening (yes, we’re living less longer and no longer growing as tall as our European neighbors, which is believed due to our harsh working schedule, bad diet, and far less accessibility to health care since most civilized nations have some type of universal access to care).
Oh, and our infant mortality rate is on its way back up. Not good.
Interestingly, the beginning of the “change” we’re seeing in less health for Americans dates back to about 1982. Hmmm… Reagan was in office, and advocating an economy that allowed for a handful of rich fatcats with the rest forced to buy his bumper sticker foreign policy. Much of the rule since 1982 has been Republican. Coincidence?