John McCain appeared on Letterman last night to make amends for his having skipped out on the TV showmaster a couple of weeks ago. Then, McCain had claimed that he was canceling the appearance because of the financial crisis. Letterman however showed footage of Mccain preparing for a Katie Couric interview instead.
All this is water under the bridge and the Letterman Show was as usual interesting but Letterman didn’t make it all fun and games. He pressed McCain on the latter’s association with Gordon Liddy. Letterman asked:
“Did you have a relationship with Gordon Liddy?” McCain appears confused and says:
“Uh ahh – I’ve met him…”
Letterman then asks:
“Did you attend a fundraiser at his house?”
MCain replies, “Gordon Liddy’s?” And looks lost.
After a commercial break, McCain then more confidently adds:
“"I know Gordon Liddy. He paid his debt, he went to prison.... I'm not in any was embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy."
Now that’s a fascinating reply. Here are two things that should now be taken into account:
The Republican Party made thousands of phone calls last night to potential swing voters informing them that Barack Obama "had worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.” The same Bill Ayers who was convicted for his role in the Weathermen, served his sentence and is now such a model citizen that Chicago named him their citizen of the year in 1997
Gordon Liddy is a convicted felon who has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. Liddy also once famously gave his supporters advice on how best to kill federal officials (he recommended shooting them in the head because they might be wearing flak jackets). Liddy has also been unrepentant about his actions.
McCain, who seems too senile to appreciate the irony of the situation claimed during last night’s interview that he “was not in any way embarrassed to know Gordon Liddy.”
Of course not. The right wing is all about being against scumbags unless they’re in one’s own ranks, then they’re all for them.
McCain two faced? You betcha.
Friday, October 17, 2008
A Note To Mrs. Palin
From the Richmond County Daily Journal:
Note to Mrs. Palin and her supporters: Average Americans don't believe that the Earth was created 5,000 years ago. We don't ignore overwhelming scientific proof about global warming. We don't believe that the Iraq War is a call from God. We don't support states seceding from the country. We don't support banning books. We don't support using political power for personal gain. We do support sexual education that deals with STDs and contraceptives.
We do support alternate energy sources. We do want someone for our country who does not need to hire a city administrator to help with running a town of 6,000 and then put them in debt to the tune of $27 million. We don't believe that you can "pray away the gay." We do want leaders who (along with their families) practice what they preach.
We don't want a "Warrior For God" one heartbeat away from our nuclear arsenal. We do think that radical extreme Christianity is every bit as dangerous to us as a radical extreme of any religion. We do think unstable, belligerent religious extremists should be our enemies ... not our representatives.
Note to Mrs. Palin and her supporters: Average Americans don't believe that the Earth was created 5,000 years ago. We don't ignore overwhelming scientific proof about global warming. We don't believe that the Iraq War is a call from God. We don't support states seceding from the country. We don't support banning books. We don't support using political power for personal gain. We do support sexual education that deals with STDs and contraceptives.
We do support alternate energy sources. We do want someone for our country who does not need to hire a city administrator to help with running a town of 6,000 and then put them in debt to the tune of $27 million. We don't believe that you can "pray away the gay." We do want leaders who (along with their families) practice what they preach.
We don't want a "Warrior For God" one heartbeat away from our nuclear arsenal. We do think that radical extreme Christianity is every bit as dangerous to us as a radical extreme of any religion. We do think unstable, belligerent religious extremists should be our enemies ... not our representatives.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Garrison Keillor on Sarah Palin
Garrison Keillor is one of my favourite writers and he's now penned a stupendous piece in the Chicago Tribune which I am reproducing in part.
It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. When she said, "One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars," people smelled gas.
Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself—one stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Sarah Palin.
She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Sen. John McCain's first major decision as the Republican nominee for president. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will become a trivia question, "What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?" And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.
It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. When she said, "One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars," people smelled gas.
Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no cost to yourself—one stink bomb after another, and now Gov. Sarah Palin.
She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was Sen. John McCain's first major decision as the Republican nominee for president. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will become a trivia question, "What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?" And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
GOP Caging of Voters Stopped
The GOP process of ‘caging’ voters has been declared illegal by a Michigan judge as reported by The Raw Story. The ACLU is applauding the decision which disenfranchised thousands of voters around the country and targeted low income individuals and students.
"You essentially send a first-class letter to a household where you suspect that that person no longer lives there but where they're still registered to vote," explained Allen Raymond, a convicted GOP elections fraudster who spent time in prison after the discovery of a phone-jamming scheme during the 2002 elections. "That letter comes back. ... Somebody [at the local polling place] then challenges that vote if that person comes in to vote."
The GOP in its present form is nothing but filth.
"You essentially send a first-class letter to a household where you suspect that that person no longer lives there but where they're still registered to vote," explained Allen Raymond, a convicted GOP elections fraudster who spent time in prison after the discovery of a phone-jamming scheme during the 2002 elections. "That letter comes back. ... Somebody [at the local polling place] then challenges that vote if that person comes in to vote."
The GOP in its present form is nothing but filth.
Monday, October 13, 2008
The 23% Ticket
ABC News reports thatBush’s approval rating has sunk to 23% which is below Nixon’s and just a point above Truman’s lowest. His disapproval rating is at an all time, record-whopping, 73%.
90% of those polled say the country is off on the wrong track which is the highest number ever recorded since that question started being asked in 1973.
The disturbing thing is that 23% of those polled still approve of the job he did despite the biggest economic meltdown of the past 50 years, a war in Iraq which yielded neither WMDs nor anything substantial and certainly not a democratic country with full support of the USA, an escaped Bin laden and a list of scandals that would have made the Bourbons proud.
Those 23% are the hope of John and Sarah, rolling up to promise another four years of the same. It’s hysterical. It’s Saturday Night Live, live! It's the 23% ticket.
90% of those polled say the country is off on the wrong track which is the highest number ever recorded since that question started being asked in 1973.
The disturbing thing is that 23% of those polled still approve of the job he did despite the biggest economic meltdown of the past 50 years, a war in Iraq which yielded neither WMDs nor anything substantial and certainly not a democratic country with full support of the USA, an escaped Bin laden and a list of scandals that would have made the Bourbons proud.
Those 23% are the hope of John and Sarah, rolling up to promise another four years of the same. It’s hysterical. It’s Saturday Night Live, live! It's the 23% ticket.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Republicans Do Some Straight Talking
William Milliken is a man to be admired. That’s good, because Milliken is about as Republican as they come, having been a lifelong party member. But Milliken, who originally backed MCain, is now withdrawing his support as reported by The Grand Rapids Press:
"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.”
Milliken, along with a number of notable Republicans are disgusted with the McCain/Palin campaign that has dissolved into a mudslinging campaign the likes of which have rarely seen before. Milliken continued:
"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."
Milliken is joined by the likes of Lincoln Chaffee, the former US Senator from Rhode Island who says he is voting for Obama and is encouraging other Republicans to do the same. Chaffee, who calls Sarah Palin “totally unqualified” for the post of Vice President says of McCain’s swing to the right:
"That's not my kind of Republicanism. I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what's happened now. In eight short years they've taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they've torn it into tatters."
Other republicans have voiced their concerns as the McCain straight talk express derails and goes crashing into the side of the mountain that is the support that Obama now has across the country. Milliken also voices concerns with the choice of Palin as VP:
"I know John McCain is 72. In my book, that's quite young. But what if she were to become president of the United States? The idea, to me, is quite disturbing, if not appalling.”
McCain is toast.
"He is not the McCain I endorsed," said Milliken, reached at his Traverse City home Thursday. "He keeps saying, 'Who is Barack Obama?' I would ask the question, 'Who is John McCain?' because his campaign has become rather disappointing to me.”
Milliken, along with a number of notable Republicans are disgusted with the McCain/Palin campaign that has dissolved into a mudslinging campaign the likes of which have rarely seen before. Milliken continued:
"I'm disappointed in the tenor and the personal attacks on the part of the McCain campaign, when he ought to be talking about the issues."
Milliken is joined by the likes of Lincoln Chaffee, the former US Senator from Rhode Island who says he is voting for Obama and is encouraging other Republicans to do the same. Chaffee, who calls Sarah Palin “totally unqualified” for the post of Vice President says of McCain’s swing to the right:
"That's not my kind of Republicanism. I saw what Bush and Cheney did. They came in with a (budget) surplus and a stable world, and look what's happened now. In eight short years they've taken one peaceful and prosperous world, and they've torn it into tatters."
Other republicans have voiced their concerns as the McCain straight talk express derails and goes crashing into the side of the mountain that is the support that Obama now has across the country. Milliken also voices concerns with the choice of Palin as VP:
"I know John McCain is 72. In my book, that's quite young. But what if she were to become president of the United States? The idea, to me, is quite disturbing, if not appalling.”
McCain is toast.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
It's Alive And Well In America
Racism that is.
So often I read material by affronted white people who rant about people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a vitriolic preacher who preaches, certainly angry words about white supremacists.
Obama is associated with this man in only the most loose of interpretations, but that doesn’t stop the right wing pundits from jumping on the bandwagon and claiming that Obama himself is by proxy a radical. Only one vital piece is missing from the equation: the hate and disrespect that so many, really so many white people still have for African Americans.
The Reverend Wright is certainly not a figure to be applauded for his rhetoric. Yet one has to understand, that the man preaches in a context, as reported by The Raw Story.
75-year-old Wade Williams, arrested Wednesday morning, was angry that he hadn't yet received his voter registration card. According to the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office, Williams threatened a state official over the phone that he would "empty his shotgun," stating an urgent need to vote to "keep the nigger out of office."
Wade Williams has spoken for millions of whites across this country. Not only for the radicals, but all those who won’t say the ‘N’ word, but will say “that one.” He speaks for millions of Republicans horrified by the thought that a black man might ascend to the most powerful post in this country.
This was yesterday. The same people, the Wade Williams of forty years ago, were lynching blacks across the South.
So to put it in context, very little has changed, and yet so much has changed. An African American will be the next President of the United States and those that want to keep “that one” out of office, will have lost their footing again.
The hate filled words that McCain spat at the crowd when he said “that one” will one day be a thing of the past. But for now, they are still present and the McCains and Williams of this world still believe in their own superiority because once, not so long ago, their forefathers bullied, coerced and tortured men, women and children of African descent onto ships and, with no regard for their well being, transported them over the ocean to serve at the whim of the white man, to be raped and beaten by the white man and to be degraded by the white man.
Come November, there will be a severe dent put into the belief that a black man is inferior to a white and there will be a tear in the fabric that supports men like McCain with his disguised racist slurs and maybe even the foundations upon which white supremacists built their castle of hate, will finally have cracked enough to bring the whole thing down.
Maybe.
So often I read material by affronted white people who rant about people like the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a vitriolic preacher who preaches, certainly angry words about white supremacists.
Obama is associated with this man in only the most loose of interpretations, but that doesn’t stop the right wing pundits from jumping on the bandwagon and claiming that Obama himself is by proxy a radical. Only one vital piece is missing from the equation: the hate and disrespect that so many, really so many white people still have for African Americans.
The Reverend Wright is certainly not a figure to be applauded for his rhetoric. Yet one has to understand, that the man preaches in a context, as reported by The Raw Story.
75-year-old Wade Williams, arrested Wednesday morning, was angry that he hadn't yet received his voter registration card. According to the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office, Williams threatened a state official over the phone that he would "empty his shotgun," stating an urgent need to vote to "keep the nigger out of office."
Wade Williams has spoken for millions of whites across this country. Not only for the radicals, but all those who won’t say the ‘N’ word, but will say “that one.” He speaks for millions of Republicans horrified by the thought that a black man might ascend to the most powerful post in this country.
This was yesterday. The same people, the Wade Williams of forty years ago, were lynching blacks across the South.
So to put it in context, very little has changed, and yet so much has changed. An African American will be the next President of the United States and those that want to keep “that one” out of office, will have lost their footing again.
The hate filled words that McCain spat at the crowd when he said “that one” will one day be a thing of the past. But for now, they are still present and the McCains and Williams of this world still believe in their own superiority because once, not so long ago, their forefathers bullied, coerced and tortured men, women and children of African descent onto ships and, with no regard for their well being, transported them over the ocean to serve at the whim of the white man, to be raped and beaten by the white man and to be degraded by the white man.
Come November, there will be a severe dent put into the belief that a black man is inferior to a white and there will be a tear in the fabric that supports men like McCain with his disguised racist slurs and maybe even the foundations upon which white supremacists built their castle of hate, will finally have cracked enough to bring the whole thing down.
Maybe.
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