Category: John McCain

I was wrong-anyone care to join me?


In an earlier blog I called this election for McCain.  Tonight I’m having crow for dinner.  Congratulations to the victor President elect, Barack Obama.  He has a daunting task ahead.  We should all do what we can to help him.

eatingcrow

John McCain winner of the 2008 presidential elections


Please vote for Barack Obama.  Vote for Barack Obama, please.  I sincerely hope Obama wins the elections this coming Tuesday and I urge all who are reading this to vote for the man. He is a better candidate and person than John McCain, but despite all I’ve said, I don ‘t think he will win.  There are three main reasons why I believe this.

Our Country been betrayed by three; the government we elect to represent us and pave the way for the preservation of our freedoms and the fulfillment of our potential as a society, an obsequious press which has spouted every lie mouthed, and a candidate himself who has allowed and exploited political expediency over principle in this campaign.

September 11, 2001 was an awful day in the history of the country. It rocked the very foundation of the nation and allowed politicians and those who served with them an opportunity to expand government in ways not attempted since the Civil War.  From September 12, 2001 until today,  Americans have been fed a steady diet of hate and fear which has been difficult to remove from our collective consciousness and which politicians and members of the press have used to advance separate agendas which have had ramifications for this present election.

Our government failed us, using the fear generated by the terror attacks of 911 to turn American citizen against another, in its quest to expand government, open new lands for military conquest and limit the rights and freedoms it knew would get in the way of government tyranny.   Increased surveillance, forced renditions of people with strange names or faiths, denial of people to due process and the coercion of other institutions to achieve these goals, notably telecommunications companies, were all a part of government’s utilization of 911’s terror.  People of faith trusted their government and believed what they were told and re-elected that government a second time, while sending an “opposition” party to power in the alternative branch of government, the legislative,  to pick up where and perhaps enhance what the executive failed to do or could not do.  Unfortunately that branch of government too failed us becoming a rubber stamp for a government out of control, echoing the “lie” that would lead to such horrible acts of legislation as the Patriot and the Military Commissions Acts , passed, ratified and in some cases passed or extended a second time. We believed what was being told to us even though those that told us knew they were lying and those that reported what we were told didn’t care they were passing along the lie.  The press confused corporate responsibility with corporate profit, making yellow journalism the order of the day, using it to pit us against one another, and boosting a poorly run and essentially racist campaign to legitimacy.

But unfortunately, Barack Obama shares some blame in this debacle.  He in the minds of some, and me didn’t really do a good enough job distinguishing himself from his opponent.  Sure, there is the obvious  which makes this an historic race of enormous proportions, but Mr. Obama fell prey to political expediency, the order of the day with politicians, which basically says don’t take a stand, always fall in-between, be middle of the road, let the absence of your actions make you a winner.  In doing so he allowed a significant portion of the population to be smeared, i.e. Muslims and Arabs, he did not clearly delineate his policies from those of his opponent and in the process showed an absence of character.  It is not enough to reduce campaigns to simple sound bites and one word slogans that are different from those of your opponent; leaders lead not imitate, and above all they challenge and inspire not duck and dodge.  People intuitively are able to sense the absence of leadership despite all the faux pas trappings surrounding it, and this may account for the close poll numbers in the final days.

Simply put we are not ready nor are our leaders for what it is Mr. Obama wants.  We have been traumatized by foreign and domestic enemies who have sapped our will and spirit in ways that heretofore were unimaginable.  We, in time, will recover but time will be the medicine that heals our wounds, not phony profiteering and slogans.  For now, and for reasons mentioned above, our destiny appears to be that of continuity, doing what we have been accustomed to these last 8 years and regrettably that’s more of the same, status quo….not change.  I wish it weren’t so but that’s how I see it from where I stand.  Meanwhile, please go vote Obama and let’s hope I’m wrong.

Palin has gone hog wild


It seems Sarah Palin is more than a maverick.  Here’s an interesting quote from a McCain insider from CNN,

“She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone….She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

“Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.”

She doesn’t trust her family, well so much for family values and the first dude, and she sees herself as a major player in Republican party politics in the future?  This woman has a huge ego. I’m sure McCain is kicking his own butt over the decision to have her as a running mate.  Or perhaps Palin is not as subservient as Cindy McCain who can take being called a *cunt* in public and still stand by her man. Either way it appears Palin is not much liked by her partners associates and has decided to carve out her own niche in the Party, beyond Alaska.  The latter would be unfortunate for her to pursue, since coming down to the lower 48 Palin has more often than not appeared like a moose in the headlights than as someone enlightened.

Palin is not helping matters


More than one person has said the choice of Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate was enough to convince them not to vote the Republican ticket.  That fact has been emphasized by a Washington Post article which states, ‘Perceptions of Palin grow increasingly negative’.

In polling conducted Wednesday and Thursday evenings, after the disclosure that the Republican National Committee used political funds to help Palin assemble a wardrobe for the campaign, 51 percent said they have a negative impression of her. Fewer, 46 percent, said they have a favorable view. That marks a stark turnaround from early September, when 59 percent of likely voters held positive opinions.

The declines in Palin’s ratings have been even more substantial among the very voters Republicans aimed to woo. The percentage of white women viewing her favorably dropped 21 points since early September; among independent women, it fell 24 points.

It was an insult to the electorate for McCain to choose Palin. It was a sexist choice; he wanted someone who looked photogenic next to him, physically attractive even if she had nothing intellectually to offer. However saying that you are voting for a pair of legs in a skirt is not the politically correct thing to say. Realizing they are being played the people are voicing their disapproval.

In reality Palin is her own worse foe, or enemy.  Public gaff after the next seems to follow her everywhere she goes, from the trooper gate scandal to being ill prepared for media interviews to revelations that the RNC has spent money for clothes she claims were off the rack but are really tailor made, etc. she is dogged by missteps and inaccuracies that are too easily documented.

Ashley Todd and the McCain campaign-working together to deceive you the voter!


More and more details are emerging about Ashley Todd and her role in the McCain campaign and the campaign’s role in dissemenating the false story about her being attacked. This unfortunate young woman was used by elements in THE REPUBLICAN PARTY who are heartless and deceitful to the brim and didn’t mind destroying her personal integrity or taking down America in their quest for power.  How else do you explain how this young woman was used by McCain Pennsylvania campaign communications director Peter Feldman who was out hyping details of her story before they were even known by any but the victim and the police?

Long before any facts about the Ashley Todd case had been established, McCain’s Pennsylvania campaign communications director told reporters the alleged attacker had told the woman, “You’re with the McCain campaign? I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

This notion that Todd was a campaign volunteer has also been as quickly eliminated. In an effort to distance themselves from her, College Republican National Committee’s Executive Director Ethan Eilon said, “We have terminated her effective today. Obviously, we had know(sic) idea she was making this story up.” There might be some truth to that because as most campaigns do, organizations are formed that are interconnected but at the same time independent enough in order to guarantee plausible deniability, but first news reports claim Todd was working on the Pennsylvania campaign’s as a phone operator volunteer which probably put her in some sort of contact with Feldman, the communication’s director.

In that capacity and as a “volunteer” she was not working for the CRNC, which was actually paying her to work for them at some point in the campaign.  She was on loan as it were to the campaign.  I assert that Feldman sexually intimidated and harassed this young woman into making up this story for obvious political reasons.  Not being able to say how she received her injuries is significant, especially the black eye, and shows she’s still in denial, protecting someone (the person who battered her perhaps) or hiding something about this strange story. Perhaps it was Feldman’s attempt to give meaning to a relationship he fully manipulated in some perverse way for his candidate, McCain.

Unfortunately, the media should pursue this story to see just how far it reaches into the McCain campaign, but it won’t, and to be fair, doing so would not be in the best interest of this young woman’s mental health.  However, it would expose the depths at which the “system” has gone to exacerbate the adversarial aspects of political campaigning to the detriment of the “political process”. At the very least, however, Feldman should join Ashley Todd in jail for workplace harassment and John McCain should insist on no less.  Don’t expect that to happen.

Palin’s selective use of the term “terrorist”


It had to happen sooner or later.  Palin has put her foot in her mouth again in a nationally televised interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.  Not even John McCain, sitting at her side, could help her get out of the mess she put herself in, refusing to call some people who want to harm innocent Americans terrorists, while claiming the likes of Bill Ayers, and of course by extension Obama, qualify for the term.  Check it out here.

But isn’t that what terrorists are?  People who inflict death and destruction against “innocent people”?  It just so happens that those who Palin was hesitatnt to give that name to, the people she was referring to were those who oppose abortion!  (Eric Rudolph would probably go on air to endorse the McCain/Palin ticket with the news of that proclamation. ) It’s not enough that Palin has problems back home in Alaska with the troopergate scandal,(Republicans regret the day they gave Clinton such a hard time with his own trooper problems), now she has to go and minimize or redefine terrorism so that her political cause which sometimes has expressed itself violently in the Homeland escapes that designation.  One can only wonder how long will it take for Palin to deny she ever said that? Judging by her past gaffs, it won’t be long.

UPDATE

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is so steeped in political hypocrisy that they don’t know right from wrong, up from down.  In an effort not to offend their base, they dance all around terms like terrorism,domestic terrorism when talking about abortion, but use the same terms vigorously and glibly when talking about their opponents.  Keith Olbermann does a pretty good job of disarming the GOP’s terrorist bomb with this piece.

The Racist Campaign of the Republican Party and its surrogates


There are plenty of people willing to “front” for THE REPUBLICAN PARTY in its fight against the Obama campaign, and none more diligently than the pages of the Drudge Report.  They are still running, as I type this, a story about a McCain volunteer who was robbed and then assaulted after it was discovered she was a John McCain supporter. The woman’s story is apparently so fishy that even those on the right of Drudge don’t support it.

Police planned to administer a polygraph test to Ashley Todd, 20, because her statements about the attack conflict with evidence from the Citizens Bank ATM where she claims the incident occurred, police said.

When it’s debunked, that story of it being a hoax won’t grace the pages of PARTY surrogates like Drudge who will go on to other sleaze.  The image below also appeared on a DrudgeReport page with the caption below: Obama +7.3 There is much more THE REPUBLICAN PARTY has up its sleeve. The late surge of Republican supporters for Jesse Helms who aired a racially charged commercial in his race against African-American Harvey Gantt was produced by some of the same people who have played a part in Party politics up to this point! The art of subliminal advertising in an election as historic as this will be used to the maximum degree to give the advantage to McCain.

But let’s not forget that today’s REPUBLICAN PARTY doesn’t always feel the need to be so subtle in their message.  Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama has already been attributed to race by many on the Right.  Limbaugh suggests Powell is an “uncle Tom” and should give back his four stars to Ronald Reagan and/or George H.W. Bush because they weren’t black.  But the excuse that Powell’s endorsement is about race ignores the fact that a lot of other people are endorsing Obama that have nothing at all to do with race but with the direction they perceive their candidate is going to take the country.  Kenneth Adelman, Chris Buckley, Scott McClellan, former Republican governor of Massachusetts William Weld all come to mind.  Would Limbaugh et.co say that black supporters of McCain back him because he’s white?  The idiocy of THE PARTY’S surrogates and THE PARTY itself is apparent.  One should expect much more of the same thing in the days remaining.

UPDATE ON THE ASHLEY TODD STORY

It appears her story is already falling apart and all that remains is why she came up with such a really big lie.  It’s not unusual for people to use racism to cover their personal faults.  The man who shot his wife in Boston and blamed it on a non-existent black thug or the teenager who claimed she was kidnapped and raped by white men in upstate New York, or the woman who drowned her children in South Carolina and claimed they were hijacked by a black bandit said these things when elections weren’t at stake. So the fault for why this was tied to an election lies at the feet of a corporate media that likes to sensationalize, and to the political hacks who want to advance their candidate at the expense of the welfare of the society.  Ms. Todd has “issues” and I hope she gets them resolved, but we as a Nation have the same issues that need fixing and unless we get help for them, we’re as likely to continue down the same road of destructive behavior as this young woman.

Colin Powell-In Your Face!


I  really was not that much of a fan of Colin Powell, but I might change my mind after his blistering endorsement of Obama where he scorched today’s  REPUBLICAN PARTY, taking no prisoners.  He said what Obama should have said, and what I have been hollering for him to say ever since the RACIST RIGHT has made being a Muslim an issue.  In case you missed it, this is what Powell said:

I wish more people would stand up to this right wing cabal that has played every racist card in their deck to keep Americans off balance and in the dark while they rob the country blind of its money and its wealth of freedom and liberty.  I hope Powell’s declaration in support of Obama will start a trend long missing in the political arena where people are confronted when they make racist, insane accusations against other Americans because of their dislike or hatred of them.  It’s clear we still have a tendency to do that here and not talking about it has only made it worse in the last eight years.  Powell said some things that needed to be said and I take my hat off to him.  Finally, some one with balls!  In fact, in my opinion, more balls than the man he’s endorsing, but at this stage in his life, Powell has nothing to lose and such a proclamation is appropriate for him to make.  Surely he’ll receive a lot of political fall out for it, but why should he or any of us care?  There’s more at stake than the professional career of someone who’s on the downswing of that career.  Powell’s imagery made us all confront our prejudices, that though we may have, should never get in the way of our rights and freedoms as citizens of this great country.  Oh, and it’s more than appropriate to show you the mother  who made Colin Powell proud to be American….and me too.

Sarah Palin-What is she good for? Absolutely nothing!


The abyss into which the Republican Party has descended has been filled with the vitriol and hatred that only 8 years of neoconism has brought this country, and it’s not a pretty sight.  It’s probably safe to say THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is no longer one which concerns itself with limited government domestically, fiscally and internationally, but rather it has become a hate-mongering party which draws battle lines based on race, religion and it’s own perverted sense of patriotism.  This is what fuels the rallies of both McCain, and Palin and lurches this country backwards so many decades ago.  If I weren’t so optimistic I would think we’re on the verge of a civil war.

“Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’s living room, and they’ve worked together on various projects in Chicago. These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes — remember that’s what Joe Biden had said. I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I’m afraid this is someone who sees America as ‘imperfect enough’ to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country.”

Notice the “fear” this young, Christian woman feels at the thought of the menacing Obama?  Such imagery is meant to deflect the intense criticism already coming her way from the party faithful.  Peggy Noonan laments,

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she’s not a big “egghead” but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? “I’m Joe Six-Pack”? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—”palling around with terrorists.” If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber…. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn’t, really, understand….. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

What Noonan doesn’t understand is Palin is not meant to think for herself, or make others think, Palin is a painter who draws a picture, a self-portrait as it were, of all that America has come to fear.  She is the bulwark rallying the crowds to stand against the hordes of whatever image they fear the most, be it terrorism, black people, militancy, urbanization, whatever.  Why else do crowds come away from her rallies with the sentiments expressed by people in this video:

Trying to keep score


This last week has been really fun to watch with so much going on.  I’m sure other bloggers have written about the shenanigans but here are my two cents concerning the political fiasco call the presidential campaign. The McCain campaign tried to capitalize on “Joe the Plumber” until it was learned he was closely related to the Keating scandal which McCain played a major role.

Turns out that Joe Wurzelbacher from the Toledo event is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher of Milford, Ohio. Who’s Robert Wurzelbacher? Only Charles Keating’s son-in-law and the former senior vice president of American Continental, the parent company of the infamous Lincoln Savings and Loan. The now retired elder Wurzelbacher is also a major contributor to Republican causes giving well over $10,000 in the last few years.

Opps! You have to ask yourself what was the Obama campain thinking when they let their candidate get sandbagged by an obvious political hack.  Why was Obama walking through this guy’s neighborhood?  Dumb and dumber, I suppose.

William Buckley’s son Chris has come out endorsing Obama and has had to quit his post as a contributing writer on the National Review as a result.  Conservatives, or rather the truest party loyalists among them, those I consider brain dead and members of THE REPUBLICAN PARTY can’t stand the idea that a born and raised conservative doesn’t see anything conservative about their present party.  They forget, those on the National Review, how their publication’s founder distanced himself from Bush and his foray into Iraq, pretty much declaring himself a heretic from his own magazine and the modern day conservative right neocon cabal.

“With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn’t the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago. If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war.”

The conservative right has also distanced itself from Palin’s choice as the vice presidential nominee.

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for?

*snip*

In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.

You betcha’!

What’s with Republicans?


They put Sarah Palin on the ticket in order for her to attack Barak Obama and play the damsel in distress when she is attacked, even though her attacks against Obama don’t even come close to her own issues of associating with terrorists or terrorist minded individuals and organizations!

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.

Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)

AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. “She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler.”

You can find out more about this “Party” that until recently Sarah Palin’s husband used to belong to here.  One can see all too quickly why the Pallin’s must distance themselves from this group as they’ve distanced themselves from her, choosing to endorse the Constitutional Party’s presidential candidate over Sarah Pallin’s.

What is shameful in all this is the mock outrage the McCain/Pallin ticket expresses when they meet people who, having listened to the campaign rhetoric express themselves in ways the candidates really want them to!

John McCain was booed by his own supporters during a rally on Friday after he described Barack Obama as a “decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.”

McCain was responding to a town hall attendee who claimed he was concerned about raising a child under a president who “cohorts with domestic terrorists such as [Bill] Ayers.” Despite the fact that McCain and his campaign have repeatedly used Ayers to hammer Obama in recent days, the Arizona Senator tried to calm the man.

“[Senator Obama] is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared about as President of the United States,” he said, before adding: “If I didn’t think I would be one heck of a better president I wouldn’t be running.”

The crowd groaned with disapproval.

Later, McCain was again pressed about Obama’s “other-ness” and again he refused to play ball. “I don’t trust Obama,” a woman said. “I have read about him. He’s an Arab.”

“No, ma’am,” McCain said several times, shaking his head in disagreement. “He’s a decent, family man, [a] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign is all about.”

Yeah, lady, there’s definitely something wrong with being an Arab….plausible deniability is the intended meaning of this dog and pony show.  The McCain campaign has done a pretty good of planting all the seeds of hatred and distrust towards Obama among the American citizens and it wants the fruits of those efforts to be that people forget the financial “crisis” America finds itself in, some saying it’s the largest economic crisis the country has faced since the Great Depression.

America’s mortgage crisis has spiralled into “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression” and there is now a one-in-four chance of a full-blown global recession over the next 12 months, the International Monetary Fund warned today.

The US is already sliding into what the IMF predicts will be a “mild recession” but there is mounting pessimism about the ability of the rest of the world to escape unscathed, the IMF said in its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook. Britain is particularly vulnerable, it warned, as it slashed its growth targets for both the US and the UK.

The report made it clear that there will be no early resolution to the global financial crisis.

The failed Iraq/Afghanistan war with a 12 billion per month price tag has also significantly contributed to this economic problem, and the WOT, which is being shown for the sham it really is each and every day it has an appearance before a government body NOT fully controlled by this Administration.

Today, for the first time, a federal court ordered the release into the United States of 17 innocent Uighur men who have been imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay for nearly seven years. The men are refugees who would face persecution and imprisonment, if not death, if returned to their native China.

“In the history of our Republic, the military never imprisoned any man so harshly, and for so long, let alone men who are not the enemy. We have broken faith with the rule of law, and been untrue to the generosity of spirit that is our national character,” said Sabin Willett, Partner at Bingham McCutchen who argued the case for the detainees today.

“This is a historic day for the U.S. Finally, we are beginning the process of taking responsibility for our mistakes and fixing them,” said CCR Attorney Emi MacLean. “For years, the United States has begged other countries to clean up the mess we made in Guantánamo, but the hypocrisy of this appeal was evident abroad. Perhaps now other countries will be less reluctant to come to our aid.” MacLean continued, “Allowing these wrongfully detained men a fresh start would also provide the U.S. a fresh start — an opportunity to turn a page and finally take a position of leadership in closing Guantánamo.”

McCain, et.co want Americans to forget all this and instead concentrate on the spin they are putting to an Obama association that is tangential AT BEST, while being able to say they have had nothing to do with the conclusion. It should be painfully obvious to any and all that at staged public appearances this late into the campaign process, candidates are able to control who gets in and who says what.  Dirty and cheap politics have been a hallmark of the GOP the last several elections.  It’s sad it’s being bought, lock, stock and barrel, but should come as no surprise.

UPDATE

John McCain gets mugged very nicely by Juan Cole, who calls McCain out for using demagoguery and then withdrawing it.

John McCain quickly shed his last vestiges of decency when he allowed his campaign to try to smear Barack Obama for having been in the same room with Bill Ayers, who had been a Weatherman in the 1960s when Obama was a child. McCain knows very well that Obama is a centrist, not a radical, that Ayers had long since been rehabilitated and has ties to the Republican governor of South Carolina, and that Obama had very little to do with Ayers. The ‘terrorist’ charge is supposed to work subliminally, and to subconsciously suggest other smears.

However, I disagree with Professor Cole when he says the two messages of the McCain candidacy, the decent high road McCain versus the wallow in the mud McCain are conflicted.  To the contrary, I think McCain is trying to have his cake and eat it too.  He’s appealing to the wine and cheese crowd of the party with his attempts at calming the lynch mob out to get Obama, while inciting that very mob to action!  McCain has been on the receiving end of this lynch mob mentality during the primary of a few campaigns ago so he is a testament to its effectiveness. It’s a shameful display of hypocrisy.  I also like the fact that Cole says what Obama dare not say and it’s another reason why I’m not fully behind the man Barack Obama.  He should be man enough to speak for himself and not let others do the talking for him.

Mr. McCain, Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans are decent, family-oriented citizens. The only thing wrong with calling Obama by either of these modifiers is that it would be incorrect. He is not an Arab ethnically, but rather northern European and Luo (Nilotic). He is not a Muslim but a Christian.

McCain’s insinuation that “Arabs” (whether he and his friend actually meant “Muslims” or not) are not decent and not family-oriented and not citizens is obscene.

Perhaps Juan Cole is the one who should run for the presidency.

The Republican Party’s dirty tricks-at it again


What should you expect from the party of whiners and liars.  Let’s just go and put it on the record before it gets lost in the memory hole amidst all the shouting about Gwen Ifill’s book and the liberal media and minorities who can’t pay their mortages. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is out distributing a flier intended to scare black voters in Philadelphia.

An anonymous flier circulating in African-American neighborhoods in North and West Philadelphia states that voters who are facing outstanding arrest warrants or who have unpaid traffic tickets may be arrested at the polls on Election Day.

The flier starts off by identifying its origins from an Obama supporter; the underlying assumption of the hit piece is that those who might support Obama in the targeted communities are criminals or on the run from the law.  You can read the flier here.

Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Everett Gillison, who learned of the flier last week, said that the message is completely false.

Typical for the party of whiners and liars.

George Bush and John McCain are on the same page


“I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.” – Jan. 29, 2001(GWB)

“I just want to make a comment about the obvious issue and that is the failure of Congress to act yesterday. Its just not acceptable. […] This is just a not acceptable situation. I’m not saying this is the perfect answer. If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently.” September, 2008- John McCain

An Unintended Consequence


The Obsession movie distributed to newspapers in so called swing states has produced an unintended consequence, the gassing of a place of worship of Muslims.  It doesn’t help that the place of worship, masjid, was inhabited at the time and full of children and infants.  This is not exactly what the purveyors of the filth called “Obsession” wanted because it forces Americans who are good hearted people and hate injustice to be sympathetic towards Muslims and that’s not what is wanted.  What the organizers of “Obsession” want is for people to vote for John McCain and any acts of violence done towards Muslims in America that can be tied to their efforts, the attack in Dayton happened on the very evening the DVDs were distributed by the Dayton newspaper earlier that day,  will have a negative impact on that outcome.  Perhaps that’s why the news has only been passed along on Dayton’s media outlets and not picked up nationwide.

The Clarion Fund is an Islamophobic organization that has inserted itself into American politics.

Clarion Fund was founded by the writer and executive produce of “Obsession,” Israeli-Canadian Raphael Shore. The group also runs the Web site Radicalislam.org – an educational site which implores its readers to “take action against radical Islam” by exploring its resources under four headings: “fueling terror,” “Sharia law,” “vote 2008,” and “radical Islam overview.” Because of Clarion Fund’s nonprofit, tax-exempt status, it is not permitted to sway voters in a partisan manner. But Radicalislam.org reportedly was, until it was recently pointed out in the media, carrying an article that explicitly endorsed McCain.

Perhaps that last fact is why a writer has called for John McCain to denounce the inflammatory, anti-Muslim message of Obsession; and to do everything in his power to stop any further campaign activities by his supporters that have the potential to incite violence.  I’m betting he won’t do that.

The Republicans’ hopes for shotgun weddings and being AWOL


This campaign is about as bad as the 1996 contest between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton.  The Republicans have chosen a hapless candidate and an even more pathetic running mate for him.  I can see John McCain gnawing his teeth in absolute anger at the decision thrust upon him to take Sarah Palin, for this is what her candidacy has been reduced to.

Inside John McCain’s campaign the expectation is growing that there will be a popularity boosting pre-election wedding in Alaska between Bristol Palin, 17, and Levi Johnston, 18, her schoolmate and father of her baby. “It would be fantastic,” said a McCain insider. “You would have every TV camera there. The entire country would be watching. It would shut down the race for a week.”

*snip*

Johnston was greeted with a handshake and friendly slap on the back by McCain in St Paul, Minnesota, and treated as a member of the family during the Republican national convention when he appeared on stage after Palin’s speech.

The ice-hockey player wrote on his MySpace page he was a “f****** redneck” and stated, “I don’t want kids.” But a McCain insider predicted he would marry Bristol whenever his future mother-in-law wanted. “It’s a shotgun wedding. She kills things,” the source joked.

If we’re lucky at all, perhaps she’ll kill any chances of this ticket winning the election. Once again the party of family values is swirling in hypocrisy. Palin’s daughter was off limits as a target by McCain/Palin opponents but can be used to garner sympathy and votes?  And did you get the part about how such an event would shut down  the campaign for a week?!  There’s a lot of that going on lately with this bunch of folks.

On another note, I was taken to task by a reader for a blog I wrote where I questioned McCain and Bush’s decision to not attend the Republican Convention because of a hurricane.  Unless they both were going to go to the affected areas and fill sandbags to help residents protect their homes I thought such pronouncements on their part was political grandstanding.  McCain this campaign season has made it a habit of suspending his campaign or getting out of appearances because of perceived emergencies that didn’t always turn out to be emergencies.  There is his withdrawal from the David Letterman show because of his claim he had to go to Washington, DC to deal with the financial crisis. Letterman aired a live feed of McCain sitting down for an interview with Katie Curic a couple of blocks from the studio of the Letterman show during the time he agreed to appear with Dave to refute the urgency McCain gave for getting out of appearing on his show.  He wanted to suspend the first debate because of the same reason, the economic crisis, but was obliged to show up when Obama insisted he would be there.    This last gaffe is equally distasteful. Simply there was no need for the announced drama by the McCain campaign that their candidate needed to take a hands on approach to the negotiations surrounding the economic bailout but they did, and he was caught making phone calls from his limo instead of going to Capital Hill or meeting with other congressmen/women. He was irrelevant upon his return just as he was during the natural emergencies of the hurricane before the Republican convention, but the necessity of him being personally involved was spun that way and he was caught up in a lie, much like the Letterman fiasco.  It really makes one think perhaps this campaign and its strategist are pathological sociopaths, with all the lying, implied violence and sensational sex and sexism taking place in it.