THE EMPIRE STRIKES BARACK

Even better than Baracky the Movie!



(YouTube video)

Brilliant!

YOU KNOW WHAT I DON'T GET?

This notion advanced by Hillaroids that she's somehow been "vetted" and that that somehow makes her bulletproof from the GOP smear-machine.

On her own already she has :

1. The Tigress of Tuzla flap
2. Claiming to have brought Peace to Northern Ireland
3. the Beer and a shot episode (only wasn't a "scandal" because it's still the primaries -wait til the GOP gets ahold of it)
4. Her Iraq war vote
5. Her Iran war vote ("Kyle Amendment" my ass)

But people seem to think that all of the 90's crap will somehow be ignored because it's been done before. Yeah. Right.

Of course the GOP will completely lay off of Whitewater, Vince Foster, Travelgate, File-gate, Sandy Berger, et al. because they wouldn't DARE beat those dead horses would they? And that's without even uttering the dreaded "M-word".

Have you been missing Gennifer Flowers? Me neither, but guess who's poised to make a stunning comeback? Did you think Paula Jones was gone for good? Guess again! Every attack that Bill ever weathered will be excreted right back up and shat on Hillary. And what's more -the spectre of a "co presidency" will be the new rallying cry for the trog base and shined up and hung around her neck.

People argue that because they've already tried it that they won't again -why not? It's already researched, formatted, packaged, shrink-wrapped and ready to go at their conventions (e.g. CPAC)

But wait -there's more!

So far Obama has been pretty low key against Hillary about this, but do you think that the GOP will lay off of the "Hillary worked for Commies" angle? Me neither!!! What about the "Bill pardoned two Weather Underground members" angle? Fat chance!! Mark Rich? Get out of town!!

They're psychotic -they don't care that it's been done before they'll just keep pounding away at it w/r it works or not. They have nothing to lose.

UPDATE: Oh, and I'm sure this will be completely ignored.

OBAMA DUMPS WRIGHT

The Reverend Jeremiah Wright has resurfaced and is making a tour-de-force across the pundi-sphere, starting with an appearance on Bill Moyers and culminating in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.

During the NPC speech Wright said that Obama was only distancing himself from Wright because was a politician and saying what politicians say. This set Obama off and in a press conference Tuesday he broke decisively with Reverend Wright saying:

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church, has built a wonderful conversation. They are a wonderful people and what attracted me has always been the ministries reach beyond church walls. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions, that the U.S. government is involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Louis Farrakhan represents one of the greatest voices of the 21st century, when he equates the United States' wartime effort with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightfully offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. That is what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today."

Obama also said that he's (Wright's) not the same man he thought he knew for 20 years, but it still hasn't stopped the Hillaroids and even some of the media from tarring Obama with Wright because he was a member of the church for 20 years.

The major flaw in the "what was he (Obama) doing there for 20 years?" argument is the assumption that Wright has remained the same person for the entire period. But let's look at (part of) Wright's NPC speech:



I found his smirking and preening at the press club truly odd behavior for the venue. I am one of the few who actually went back and viewed the entire sermons from which the controversial clips were culled and he didn't seem to be acting that way even then. His demeanor at the press club seemed to be rudely dismissive and disrespectful of the entire body of those who'd asked him to speak at THEIR venue.

Why speak there then? If you hold the national press in such high disregard why bless them with your presence? His entire "performance" as Obama put it was for his "fans" who were obviously liberally sprinkled throughout the hall as indicated by the racket they made. I understand that that's how some African-Americans behave in their churches and I celebrate them for it -but giving a public speach as a guest is another matter. E.g. when you're invited to someone's home as a guest you don't invite your buddies over and start playing poker in the middle of the living room. Examining the video of the speech you can notice a few times when even his supporters seemed uncomfortable.

All of this is to say that perhaps Obama is right and that Wright is not or is no longer the same person he was 20 years ago or for 20 years. Whether this is because of medication, advanced age, mental illness or just plain change we can't know without more. I'd be interested in hearing from a few of his (other) congregants to find out if they've noticed any change in him.

I also think it's highly suspect that Wright makes himself into the spokesman for the entire "black church" (whatever that is -blacks follow as many denominations as whites or anyone else) through his claiming that the attacks on Obama using his sermons are not in fact attacks on Obama or on him but on the "black church". This is an attempt to paint the attacks on his controversial stances simply as racism and that is, at best, intellectually dishonest.

Finally, I think Obama has put himself in a win-win situation with his response: He's completely deflated any notion that he might secretly share Wright's more controversial views (except perhaps for the most die hard Hillaroids or Obamahaters) and if Wright comes back at him he'll only be seen as a victim.

LETS PUT THIS BS TO BED

Can we please get rid of the new canard that has arisen -particularly in the wake of the PA primary (which has somehow ridiculously become the template for the state of the entire democratic campaign) that Barack Obama has a "problem" with "white, working class voters"?

If this is true then why did Obama win

Alaska
Colorado
Connecticut
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Minnesota
Nebraska
North Dakota
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Wisconsin and
Wyoming?

(this list leaves out a few states mostly in the south that he has won but which have larger minority populations)

Just wondering. Is it just that Obama only has a problem with "white, working class voters" in the states where Clinton is favored to win? Or is it (heavens no!) simply more bullsh*t manufactured to keep the race more "interesting" for the media.

NAME THAT POLITICIAN

August 2nd, 2007:

"Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons," [politician] said. "Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons."

April 22nd, 2008:

"[Iran's] use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States, which personally I believe would prevent it from happening. And that we would try to help the other countries that might be intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran because they were a nuclear power, avoid that fate by creating this new security umbrella."

and:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran [if it attacked Israel]." "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,"

...but that's not a blanket statement of course.

I'll give you a hint: it's neither John McCain nor Barack Obama.

WOW, IT FINALLY HAPPENED

I just knew that the Hillary campaign was saving something to dump today as the last message before the PA primary tomorrow. Here is the ad that is Hillary's last-ditch stand:


(YouTube video)

Is that what it's finally come to? Usameh Bin-Laden? She has to invoke Bin-Laden? How utterly tragic. Here's the woman who has been running for president unofficially for the last 8 years and officially for a year and a quarter. She had nearly instant frontrunner status that lasted for nearly a year but since Obama won Iowa has plunged so far and so fast that now in a desperate last convulsion of negativity she pulls the ultimate fearmongering card? Wow.

To be honest though I've been bagging on Hillary a lot lately I never really thought she'd go this far.

And hasn't she basically run out this "ready on day one" meme by now? She wasn't even ready on Super Tuesday. Her campaign is run into the ground and running at a deficit, she praises McCain over Obama, she says how honored she is to be in the race with Obama one day and the very next day is shaming him, and now she finally uses the same vile fear-mongering Rovian atacks that gave us an 8-year Bush presidency? Is that how she's ready?

At one time I actually thought that the democratic ticket would be strong no matter who was the nominee. The field of candidates seemed equally strong -particularly the top 3. How deluded that thought was. I used to say that she wasn't my favorite, but that if she was the nominee I'd proudly vote for her in November. Then after a few of her antics I said that I wouldn't prefer it, but that if she was the nominee I'd march in lockstep and vote for her as a loyal democrat. Then after more I said that "well I hope she's not the nominee but if she is I guess I'll hold my nose and vote for her" (though in private in a few brash rants I threatened to sit out the election in November but I didn't really mean it.)

Now I honestly don't know what I'll do if she somehow pulls it out. I have ranted nonstop about the fearmongering tactics of the Bush cabal and how there used to be something to the idea that there were some things that were worse than death. FDR said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, and I took him literally. For the last few years I've used this as my "signature line" in emails and online: "In slightly over 200 years we've gone from "Give me liberty or give me death" to "Give up your liberty or you'll die". BushCo have turned the country so into a bunch of simpering terror pansies and the discourse into the black and white McCarthy-ite "you're with us or with the terrorists" tripe that passes for politics that I have to restrain myself nightly from tossing my TV out the window just to try to find out what's going on in the world. How can I countenance a candidate from my own party that uses the same dog-whistle scaring tactics as the people I've despised for the last 8 years? How can I rationalize that enough to vote for them?

Here is what should be the Obama camp's next ad:


(YouTube video)

V.O. "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message"

It's gotten so bad that one of the people responsible for bringing us the Bush years to begin with has come out for Obama.

I can only hope Pennsylvanians bring their garlic and holy water to the polls with them and put this woman to rest (politically speaking of course - can never be too careful on the "internets") for good. Otherwise I'll be in a serious funk until this thing's decided (and god forbid maybe afterward)

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED BABY!

Just like Maddow said today:

Iraq to Open Oil-Field Bidding
Big Companies to Compete for Exploration, Production Rights


By Jonathan
Stearns and Glen Carey
Bloomberg News
Thursday, April 17, 2008; Page D06

Iraq will open at least six major oil and natural-gas fields for exploration and production in the first bidding for licenses since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq, which pre-qualified international oil companies this week for the bidding, will open the southern fields of Rumaila North, Rumaila South, West Qurna and Zubair for exploration, Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in an interview in Brussels yesterday. In the north, international oil companies will be invited to develop the Kirkuk oil field and the Akkaz gas field.

"At least six giant fields will be included, including some gas fields," Shahristani said. "There will be other bid rounds next year, and more companies will be qualified as we go along."

[...]

Iraq pre-qualified 35 of 120 U.S., European and Asian companies that submitted documents between Jan. 9 and Feb. 18 to participate in the licensing round, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said Monday.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, and Europe's two biggest, Royal Dutch Shell and BP, were among the 35, as were ConocoPhillips, Chevron and Total. Others included Russia's Gazprom, the world's largest natural-gas producer, and Lukoil, the Russian oil producer with the most overseas assets. Mitsubishi and Inpex Holding of Japan and China's Sinochem were also accepted.

Pre-qualified.

4000+ US troops, 90K documented civilian deaths (that's just the documented ones), 30k+ "official" wounded, civil war, instability in the region, torture, destroyed US credibility in the world so that Exxon, Shell, Chevron, Philips, and BP could be pre-qualified.

There's a special ring in Hell reserved for them.

MCBUSH

This is a great new ad from Progressive Media USA, the group formed to carry on the mission of the Campaign to Defend America -who created the "McSame" ad that ran in Ohio.



More please.

MCCAIN'S "TROLLOP" IS A PLAGIARIST

Apparently Grandpa's wife (I don't call her "grandma" as she's his second wife and nearly 20 years younger) whom he has been documented affectionately calling a "trollop" and a "c--t" has posted several "McCain family recipes" at his website which she has stolen from the food network.

Oddly, the recipes have now been removed from Gramps' website and replaced with "page cannot be found".

It's Ok though, she can just hang on to his walker as he continues his free ride from the press.

BARACK-Y THE MOVIE

Pretty funny.



Adding: Obama seems to be riding out the latest wave of hypocritical bullsh*t from both the other republican candidates.

This "elitist and out of touch" stuff is amazing. The republicans dust it off every election and it still packs a powerful punch even though it's been debunked over and over. We'll see in a few days if it really does any damage this time. There are several factors working against its effectiveness this time around.

First is simply Obama's own life story. A child of a Black man and a white midwestern woman born in 1960 would not have been raised in the lap of luxury - and Obama wasn't, though he doesn't lay any claims to having been poor. Having risen from middle class to the editor of the Harvard Law Review without any "legacy" help is astounding. Afterward he decided not to take the big-bucks Wall Street route but went to work as a civil rights lawyer and later law professor -neither of which will buy you any private jets. As someone else has remarked, this makes Obama elite not elitist.

Secondly, this attack coming from either of the other candidates is laughable. John McCain 's father and grandfather were admirals, he spent his life in the Navy (the particulars of which are well documented) and went directly into Congress after retiring from the Navy. He's never been "in touch" with mainstream Americans because he's lived his life in a series of bubbles.

Clinton's barely better. Republican for Goldwater, Wellesley undergrad, Yale Law school (though like Obama she was not a "legacy"). As she likes to tout she's had 35 years of experience in Washington (not exactly a lifeline to the "regular folk") and last year she and Bill claimed 109 million dollars on their taxes. And yet she claims Obama is out of touch?

Finally, I think people are catching-wise to this tactic. Despite the psychotic babbling of the talking-head class (quintessentially elitist themselves), I think people are getting tired of being told that they're too stupid to know when they're being pandered to. Ironically, while Hillary slams Obama as out of touch, her incessant calculating, "triangulating" and sticking her finger in the wind before she pounces on the latest manufactured outrage is what will do her in in the end. The same people she tries to turn against the nominee from her own party are growing tired of her patronizing pandering to them, and this is just the latest installment.

Still, with the terminal memory loss of the electorate anything's possible, and this tactic keeps being dredged up because it works. I'm just a little sad that it has to be from a "democrat".

JOHM MCCAIM FOR PRESIDEMT?

This is a screen shot from the end of Grandpa's latest ad:




















(from instaputz)

I guess old hawkeye's proofing his own stuff now? (or should I say "proofing his owm stuff mow?)

As Instaputz says: "If McCain can't spell his name properly, how can we expect him to beat the terrorists?"

Truly.

GRANDPA STRIKES AGAIN

Yep. You guessed it -Gramps just can't get the whole sunni-shia Al-Qaeda thing straight:

McCain: There are numerous threats to security in Iraq and the future of Iraq. Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat?

Petraeus: It is still a major threat, though it is certainly not as major a threat as it was say 15 months ago.

McCain: Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall?

Petraeus: No, no sir.

McCain: Or Sunnis or anybody else then? Al Qaeda continues to try to assert themselves in Mosul, is that correct?

Petraeus: It is senator, as you saw on the chart. The area of operation of Al Qaeda has been greatly reduced in terms of controlling areas they controlled as little as a year and a half ago.

Think the "journalists" will pause their circle-jerk around grampy to comment on it? NAAAAAAAH!

ONLY ONE QUESTION FOR PETRAEUS

How will we know when we've won in Iraq?

Every party line bloviation from the cheerleaders insists that we're working toward something, and every voice supporting our continued occupation says that we can leave when we've won. Ok then, how will we know?

RANDI RHODES SUSPENSION

Oh boy.

Air America host Randi Rhodes has been suspended because, while delivering a "standup routine" off the air at an Air America event for an affiliate, she called Hillary Clinton a "dirty f*king whore".

Over the line a tad? Yeah.

Look, it's one thing to slam a candidate for something they've said or done, but this is pure ad hominem name-calling of the most offensive kind. Even that could be defensible if it were funny, but it's not.

I understand what she was trying to do -be shocking and over the top, but in and of itself that isn't funny -particularly not in this context. Rhodes is noted for her pitt-bull style of political commentary and so a certain amount of aggression is expected, and because it's expected, it's not funny when she goes over the top. If it were unexpected -it would be funny. For example if Mother Theresa called Hillary a "dirty f*cking whore."

This is the same thing Michael Richards was trying to do, and just as when he did it, it wasn't funny. In his case it wasn't funny because he already has a "crazy" type of persona. Crazy and racist isn't a funny juxtoposition because it's not a far enough jump, i.e. you might expect a crazy person to utter racist statements.

The unexpected is funny -as an analogy consider the difference between people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a morgue, and people ignoring a dead body lying on the table at a fancy dress dinner party.

In the latter case -the more outrageously disgusting the dead body is the funnier it is, whereas adding disgusting features to the body in the former scenario doesn't make it any more funny.

Additionally, Air America was completely justified in suspending her. True, this was not on the air, but it was at an Air America sponsored event, and the network can't be seen as sanctioning that kind of behavior -it'd kill them.

Moreover this is not a case of "censorship. The 1st Amendment only protects people from having their speech restricted by the government or by those acting under government authority. Having an FCC license doesn't make them a government entity any more than having a liquor license makes a liquor store into one. Air America is a private entity and is perfectly within its rights to have a policy restricting the behavior of its employees at one of its events. I would think they were incredibly stupid if they didn't suspend her.

So now Rhodes has been suspended and her career is in jeopardy, which is a shame because she has proven herself to be one of the more capable talk-radio voices because of her skill in distilling the issues and presenting them in an "average Joe" format.

Finally, it was horribly myopic of her not to realize that in the YouTube age -anything you say or do in public can be videoed and used to nail you.

Ironically, the person she was slamming (the Tigress of Tuzla as some have called her) found that out before she did

GRANDPA CONTINUES HIS FREE RIDE

Gee the MSM has completely absolved John McCainBush of his senior moments, and is happily ignoring his insisting on at least 4 occasions that Iran and Al Qaeda are working together to take over Iraq. Worse yet his minions like Sloppy Joe are spreading the ^&*% even more.

*sigh*

History Lesson (in a nutshell) folks:

"Al Qaeda" is the name given by us to the movement that was started by Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri based on the teachings of Said Qutb. Qutb was a Sunni Muslim from Egypt who, while attending school in America in the 1950's, became disenchanted with western ideas because he thought that they were leading to immorality and decadence (I mean boys and girls were actually dancing together for crying out loud!)

He left America and went back to Egypt where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood (another sunni extremist group founded in the 1920s.) and wrote a book called "Milestones" which stated that Egyptian leaders had become so corrupted that they were no longer to be considered muslims and therefore could be killed. Qutb was executed by the Egyptian government for conspiracy.

This book and Qutb's teachings influenced Ayman Al-Zawahiri who, after Qutb's execution went into hiding forming a terrorist cell to implement Qutb's teachings. This cell later became the Egyptian "Islamic Jihad" which tried a coup which Egypt defeated. Al Zawahiri was imprisoned. After he was released he met and became close with Usama Bin Laden who went to Afghanistan to help the Mujhaddin fight the USSR. The two reunited after that war, and Al Zawahiri merged his group with Bin Laden's.

There's much more detail to the story, but the point is that Al-Qaeda is a Sunni muslim group. Iran is a Shiite state.

McCain claims that Shiite Iran is training Sunni Al Qaeda against the US effort in Iraq. Here's what Al Zawahiri says:

"The dispute between America and Iran is a real dispute based on the struggle over areas of influence, and the possibility of America striking Iran is a real possibility. As for what might happen in the region, I can only say that major changes will occur in the region, and the situation (US attacking Iran) will be in the interest of [Al Qaeda] if the war saps both of them. If, however, one of them emerges victorious, its influence will intensify and fierce battles will begin between it and [Al Qaeda], except that the Jihadi awakening currently under way and the degeneration state of affairs of the invaders in Afghanistan and Iraq will make it impossible for Iran or America to become the sole decision-maker in the region." (emphasis and parentheses mine).

he also says

"With regard to Iraq, Iran achieved an agreement with the Americans before the latter's entry into Iraq. The agreement provided for partitioning Iraq. The Shiite militias trained, funded, and armed by Iran for years advanced violently and quickly into Iraq following the collapse of the Saddam regime. They were merged into the Iraqi Army and other Iraqi security services. They were and remain the Crusader occupier's paws used to strike at Muslims in Iraq"

Oh yeah, but Al Qaeda's training with Iran too?

Thank God McCain's got that Foreign Policy experience and has "passed the Commander in Chief threshold".

Keep on talking grandpa- right into insignificance.

MOVING UP IN THE WORLD?

HEY! I got "HuffPost's pick" for a comment I left regarding this article by Carlotta Cooper at Huffington Post about how Obama "risks alienating Clinton women and blue-collar supporters" -the subject of which -contrary to the headline- seems to be that if Obama doesn't say anything about his supporters asking Hillary to bow-out that he'll piss-off Hillary's supporters particularly her "base" of "older white women", and yet when he came out and said that Hillary has every right to stay in the race he was patronizing. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Here's what I said:

What amazes me about when people toss around the term "older white women" is that they ignore the first two words of the phrase and zero in on the third. This primary has in more ways than one become a decision about whether we want to hand the torch off to the next generation or keep it in the hands of the current older white ruling class.

Senator Clinton regardless her gender represents all the facets and foibles of the past. Would electing her be a positive milestone in our nation's history? Certainly. Would it dramatically change the power structure in Washington? Not a scintilla. She has spent her entire career trying to be accepted by the Washington circle tragically to find at last that a majority in the nation no longer want that in a president-a fact made all the more apparent by the convergence of two factors: the desperation to scrape off the slime of the bush years and the wild success of an unlikely candidate -Senator Obama.

The older white women need to realize that Clinton would provide them a Pyrrhic victory at best in the gender wars and that, for the sake of their progeny, they need to hand off that torch.

Not bad for an armchair pundit, eh?

HILLARY CLINTON CONCEDES

Via CNN:

AT LONG LAST!

Hillary's released her tax returns!!!!




(Hat-tip to the jed report)

THIS'LL GET YA'

...Unless you're a Republican or a Hillaroid.

From Bob Cesca at HuffPo:

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME?

This is a picture of Hillary:

With Richard Mellon Scaife. Yes. That Richard Mellon Scaife.

She's giving an interview to his newspaper. Read that last sentence again.

What the hell is she doing in the same room with this guy?

This is, after all, the the Fuhrer of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.

This is the the same guy who dedicated all his resources to destroying her and her husband for a decade!

-It's not as if this is some sort of reconciliation meeting.

-It's not as if her campaign needs his newspaper's coverage

-It's not as if his rag sheet is ever going to endorse her

SO WTF IS SHE DOING THERE?

Must be Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe BPS?