Be INFORMED

Saturday, August 16, 2008

New Republican Slogan

  I've been having one of those days of not wanting to do to much of anything so I've not been keeping up with Russia, Georgia, or anything else.

  However, I was just browsing around cyberspace when I came across a website that features funny videos and such, and I found this vid which was made after it was discovered that the McCain campaign had used a drug manufacturers slogan, which had copy-write protection.

FunnyorDie.com

See more Adam "Ghost Panther" McKay videos at Funny or Die

See more Adam "Ghost Panther" McKay videos at Funny or Die

Friday, August 15, 2008

John McCain or Barack Obama: Who is The Real Elitist?

by now you have all heard about Barack Obama going to Hawaii to visit with friends and family and that the Repugnicans and their media stooges ( Cokie Roberts and Michael Crowley ) have made a big deal out of it and have called Obama both exotic and elitist because of the trip. Never mind that shit though.

 Huffington Post

Bob Cesca

The Exotic Candidate Is The One With Eight Houses

Posted August 13, 2008

   "It is possible," Gore Vidal once wrote, "for any citizen with time to spare,and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions."

The barbecue media script for this election, a work of unabridged fiction and co-written by the modern Rove Republicans, has crow-barred Senator Obama into the incongruous frame of the exotic effete elitist, irrespective of the fact that, on all counts, he's absolutely none of those things. It's the same script that's been wheeled out during the last several presidential elections -- designed as a way of sculpting reality into a neatly packaged prime time dramatic narrative that both reinforces and exploits fear-based stereotypes.

This week, for example, Cokie Roberts and Michael Crowley, along with a creepy monster squad of Republican stalkers, have been trying to peg Senator Obama's vacation in Hawaii as proof that the script is accurate. Hawaii, they say, is only for exotic elitists. Senator Obama is in Hawaii. Therefore, Senator Obama is an exotic elitist. See how that works?

Never mind that this Hawaii-is-exotic-and-elitist gripe came from a not-elitist millionaire with the not-exotic name "Cokie." This Cokie phenomenon is a solid example of the script's paradoxical, fictitious awfulness. Despite similar griping from the McBush Republicans, the truth is that Senator McCain is far and away the more elitist and exotic of the two candidates. Fact. No bias here.

Let's start with Hawaii and do the list.

Senator McCain met and fell in love with his current wife, Cindy Hensley, while on vacation in... exotic and elitist Hawaii. He was 42, she was 24. He was still married to his first wife at the time, who was disabled as the result of a car accident, by the way. The whole scene -- Hawaii, cheating on a disabled wife with a super-rich beer heiress -- is just about as exotic and elitist as it gets according to the standards of the script.

So... Cokie?

For the sake of contrast, Senator Obama and Mrs. Obama's biography as a couple is about as ordinary and traditional as Americana itself. No weird cheating or ugly divorces. No trophy heiress nearly half his age. Just an ordinary American love story. How the barbecue media and far-right talk radio has managed to spin the Obamas as the African-American version of Mickey & Mallory is one of the most wicked examples of dishonesty from this dark ride -- worthy of the most backwards of Karl Rove's non-reality-based conspiracies against the truth.

Cindy McCain's beer distributorship pulls in upwards of $300 million annually. Hardly relatable to the middle and working class families who are losing their homes to foreclosure -- one of many consequences of the last 30 years of the Republican war on the middle class. So it's not a stretch to suggest that being married to a woman whose family business is worth a quarter of a billion dollars is -- what's the word? -- unusual? Atypical? Irregular? How about exotic?

Such cash allows for certain not-elitist and not-exotic perks. A private jet for example. According to Mrs. McCain, getting around Arizona is hard work so thank goodness the McCains have their own jet. Just like you and me and the Obamas, right? But maybe it's unfair to badger the McCains about their personal jet airplane. How else are they going to travel around to their eight houses (this one, for example). Walk? Drive a car? That's just silly talk. Senator McCain would totally ruin his not-elitist and not-exotic $520 Italian shoes engaging in such an effort. Then what would he wear while he's hosting SNL or visiting the set of a movie he's appearing in? Jelly shoes from Payless? Yeah right. Try installing Senator McCain's lifts inside of those hideous things.

The only truly "ordinary" thing about Senator McCain is that his first name is "John" (there are just over 5 million guys named "John" in the United States, so they win this one). He's also white. Really, really white. Like, squishy subterranean cave dweller white.

Yet irrespective of what white, upper-class Republicans or Mark Penn or Very Serious Mark Halperin or Pat Buchanan might think, Senator Obama quite literally looks like 21st Century America. Mixed-culture, mixed-heritage, middle class roots. Senator Obama, in terms of his racial composition and family history, has more in common with average Americans than just about any modern Republican presidential nominee.

The only way he's not is if somehow we've been transported into an episode of Leave It To Beaver -- or if by "America" the Republicans and the barbecue media mean to suggest "Kentucky." Even with that as a qualification, half of Senator Obama's racial composition is rooted in rural Kansas. His parents were divorced. He barely knew his biological father.

Now, Cokie, drive down (or have your driver take you) to the nearest Wal-Mart. Line up 100 people and ask them whether they can relate to a man who owns eight houses and whose wife is a gazillionaire, or if they can relate to a man who represents the American melting pot -- a man who just recently paid off his student loans -- a man who was raised by a single mother -- a man who is (shock horror!) still happily married to his only wife. Then drive back (or have your driver take you) down to ABC's Newseum studio this Sunday and look directly into the This Week cameras tell us that Senator Obama is the more exotic or elitist of the two candidates.

And that goes for you, too, Buchanan. (Pat Buchanan has recently been engaging in some concern-trolling by wondering aloud, "Why can't Senator Obama close the deal?" This is one of Buchanan's more subversive race-baiting tricks. The answer he's begging is very likely his favorite lamentation about the senator: "Because he's too exotic.")

The modern Republicans have hijacked the label "real American" and stapled it onto the foreheads of a platoon of phonies. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, John Sidney McCain, Rush Limbaugh. Hell, even the poster boy for this hillbilly dark ride, Larry the Cable Guy, is a fraud in redneck drag. And the very serious barbecue media has accepted this trickery as reality because it fits perfectly into their antiquated election year narrative.

Throughout the course of this seemingly interminable election cycle, it's been well-documented by various blogotubers that the key to winning this election will be to fight the barbecue media's script -- to debunk the "series of flashing fictions." I would suggest that reversing this "exotic elitist" frame is, to borrow a familiar phrase, a central front in the war on the barbecue media. In the case of Senator Obama, reality is on our side. It's simply a matter of repeating the reality until the script is slowly immolated and the truth rises to the surface. And in the process, perhaps the barbecue media will begin to realize that the modern liberal movement has more in common with "average Americans" than any fraud or flimflam artist the Republicans have dropped onto the stage.

Bob Cesca's Goddamn Awesome Blog! Go!

McCain Gets Ripped By Bush's Pastor

  This should go a long way towards pissing off the evangelicals that John McCain has been pandering to as of late.

Crossposted at Strategy "08

Bush pastor RIPS McCain over Sturgis, backs Obama

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Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, the pastor that presided over Jenna Bush’s wedding ceremony and is considered a close personal friend of President Bush, absolutely ripped into John McCain today on a conference call with reporters. Rev. Caldwell took issue with Senator McCain’s remarks that he made at the Sturgis bike rally last week when he volunteered his wife for the rally’s “beauty” pageant, the Ms. Buffalo Chip pageant. For those who were not familiar with that story, the Ms. Buffalo Chip pageant is a topless modeling contest, that among other things, involves a section with a banana.

Caldwell comments highlight exactly why true family values conservatives should have a problem with John McCain.

“Well, I don’t know a lot about John McCain’s family history, I do know, however, that as recently as last week I think it was, the Senator made a comment in South Dakota regarding his wife entering some Buffalo Chips contest which is this topless deal and if she were to enter she would probably win it and my personal opinion and based on my understanding of the Christian faith, that’s not not, N-O-T, not the type of expression that a presidential candidate, or anyone for that matter who is a follower of the Christian faith, ought to make,” said the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell. “I don’t know if that is a perfect case in point, but it surely does help to juxtapose the DNA of Senator Obama, if you would, versus the DNA of Senator McCain.”

The article also points out that Caldwell is backing Obama for president, and is a member of the Matthew 25 network. For anyone who is not familiar with the Matthew 25 network and the great work they do, you can check out cardboard’s Daily Kos diary currently on the Recommended list there.

During the conference call, Rev. Caldwell also hits John McCain on his adultery during his first marraige:

His marital history has been duly recorded,” said Caldwell, referring to McCain, “and as recently as yesterday I think it is, our pastor from Saddleback, Rick Warren indicated that he would not feel comfortable voting for an adulterer and I don’t know exactly to whom he was referring but I think the data speaks for itself, and again, at the end of the day, and I really appreciate you raising this because, at the end of the day again I think the American public deserves full revelation of the candidate’s character and competency. Character and competency. So, whatever questions that should be asked that would give the voting public an indication as to who they are and what they’ve done should be fair game.”

When the Edwards scandal first came out, a lot of people thought it would be bad for Democrats. But the truth is that the scandal has put the issue of infidelity into the spotlight, which forces McCain to have to answer about his own history with adultery.

The article contains a few other good nuggets, including an admission by a McCain campaign spokesperson that Senator McCain was aware that the Ms. Buffalo Chip Pageant was a topless pageant before he made his remarks at Sturgis, and is worth a read.

But what the article really hits home is that this year, the Republicans no longer have the morality wedge issue to try to scare voters away from the Democratic candidate, and the John McCain is not longer going to be able to count on the evangelical vote as being locked up this year.

UPDATE: The McCain campaign came back at Obama with this amusing response:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers has responded to Caldwell’s criticism by saying: “These people are Obama campaign surrogates. These kinds of personal attacks are disgraceful. This absolutely exposes the hypocrisy of Obama’s claim to represent a ‘new kind of politics.’”

A Republican strategist speaking on the condition of anonymity reacted to the Caldwell comments by telling ABC News: “My advice to the Obama people: ‘proceed with extreme caution.’ They don’t want to get into a discussion of character and background. They are opening a door that they will not be able to close. They are putting on the table issues and personalities that they do not want to discuss.”

Like the Republicans weren’t going to bring all of the “character issues” into the election? The response shows me that they seem to be legitimately scared over the issues of family values and how McCain looks on those issues vs. Obama.

And to make it perfectly clear, Rev. Caldwell is not an Obama surrogate.  The McCain campaign is just automatically trying to paint anyone who criticizes the Senator as a surrogate of the Obama campaign.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Grassroots Anti-McCain Ad From DailyKos Diarist

     This ad does totally rock and it should be on television and all over the Internet!

 

  Kudos to to kossack cartwrightdale, who created this . Pass it along to all of your friends.

Deployed Troops Give More Money To Obama By 6:1

  From OpenSecrets we learn that our troops have given more money to Democrat Barack Obama than they have to Republican John McCain. I guess that our troops actually do want the Democrats to bring them home?

OpenSecrets

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.

Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Individuals in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps have all leaned Republican this cycle, but the only branch in which that ideology has carried over to the presidential race is the Marine Corps, where McCain leads Obama by about $4,000. In each of the other branches -- including the Navy, in which McCain served when he was taken prisoner during the Vietnam War -- Obama leads by significant margins.

Hillary Clinton's Name To Be Put On Nomination At Convention

  This is supposed to be just a symbolic thing in order to show the appreciation for all of the work that Hillary Clinton has done and also her accomplishment while seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, but I smell a rat in the kitchen!

  Yahoo News

Clinton is scheduled to speak on the second night of the convention, August 26, two nights before Obama accepts the nomination.

"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong, unified fashion," Obama said in a prepared statement.

A Clinton aide said there will be a roll call vote for the nomination but details were still be working. Such a procedure would allow Clinton's supporters to vote for her on the convention floor, even though they would not have enough votes to deny Obama the nomination.

The Obama campaign hopes the move will dispel any lingering tensions, but it could also highlight those tensions to a national television audience. Clinton has privately supported a floor vote recently but Obama has been less enthusiastic.

  The Democrats convention could get really interesting when this crap comes up!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Gunman Kills Arkansas Democratic Chairman

  50 year old Timothy Dale Johnson, from the Little Rock area, apparently ran into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters and shot Chairman Bill Gwatney, who died 4 hours later. The shooter ran off in his pickup truck but was killed by police after chasing him for 30 miles.

   A worker at the crime scene said that Johnson had said, " I lost my job."

Yahoo News

Witnesses said the gunman entered the party offices shortly before noon and said he wanted to see Gwatney.

"He said he was interested in volunteering, but that was obviously a lie," said 17-year-old party volunteer Sam Higginbotham. He said that when the suspect was refused a meeting with Gwatney, he pushed past employees to reach the chairman's office.

Hastings said the suspect and Gwatney introduced themselves to one another, at which time the suspect "pulled out a handgun and shot Gwatney several times." Hastings didn't say what the two discussed, but said their discussion was not a heated one.

  I should note that Chairman Gwatney was a Democratic Party Superdelegate.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

John McCain Says Corporate Taxes To High. Not Quite Right John

   About two-thirds of corporations operating in the United States did not pay taxes annually from 1998 to 2005, according to a new report scheduled to be made public today from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.        Source

  You can download some corporate numbers to look at Here if you are interested in seeing how little corporations actually pay in taxes.

New DNC " Exxon John " Ad

  This ad is a hoot. Of course, unlike the GOP smear ads with their half-truths, if any at all, this ad on john McCain is 100% correct.

John McCain and the Attack On Georgia By Russia

  Read the following article and then think, do we really want John McCain in the White House? The old fool does not have a clue!

DailyKos

McCain on Georgia: Even Cheney isn't bellicose enough

by smintheus Mon Aug 11, 2008

Nobody outside Georgia tried harder to get the US to rush precipitously into the conflict with Russia than John McCain - even though by Monday he'd retreated to the point of merely urging more diplomatic pressure. His first reactions tell you what kind of president he'd be, however. And clearly he's bellicose in a way that makes even Dick Cheney look like a wuss.

On Friday as soon as fighting broke out McCain put all the blame on Russia and called for the involvement of NATO. His campaign, via Georgian-lobbyist turned foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, also immediately set about politicizing the crisis by trying to use it to score points against Barack Obama.

[Scheunemann] also criticized Obama for calling on both sides to show "restraint," and suggested the Democrat was putting too much blame on the conflict’s clear victim.

Of course Georgia was not merely a "victim" in provoking this crisis, and the only country Obama actually singled out for blame was Russia for invading Georgia's sovereign territory.

"I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis."

But Obama did call for restraint and that was so inexcusable that the McCain campaign has inflated its attack further.

In fact, the initial response from the Obama campaign was characterized by precisely the kind of rhetoric that the leaders of these nations warn against--a meaningless statement that equates the victim with the victimizer by calling on both sides to show restraint. Asking the Georgians to show restraint is like asking the Hungarians to show restraint as Russian tanks rolled into the country in 1956, or for restraint from the students in Prague in 1968.

The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment--it answers them.

Except that Obama's statements, unlike McCain's, were in fact in sync with the statements of America's allies and of McCain's personal ally, George Bush:

"We urge restraint on all sides — that violence would be curtailed and that direct dialogue could ensue in order to help resolve their differences," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters.

What's more on Sunday, two days after McCain began denouncing Obama's call for "restraint", Dick Cheney praised Georgia for its "restraint".

"The vice president praised President Saakashvili for his government's restraint, offers of cease-fire, and disengagement of Georgian forces from the zone of conflict in the South Ossetian region of the country," the statement said.

With even the blustering Cheney on board, it looks like just about everybody thought the Georgians needed to show some restraint - except John McCain. That shows the kind of president he'd make.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Kuwait Getting Ready For U.S. War With Iran?

  It would seem to be that way as Kuwait has activated its "Emergency War Plan" according to reports. This would be in response to reports that the United States and a European fleet are heading to the Gulf area.

   According to Middle East Times, a U.S., Briton, and French joint task force are now headed to the gulf in what could be a possible confrontation with Iran.

The naval force comprises a U.S. Navy super carrier battle group and is accompanied by an expeditionary carrier battle group, a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine.

Leading the pack is the nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and its Carrier Strike Group Two; besides its 80-plus combat planes the Roosevelt normally transports, it is carrying an additional load of French Naval Rafale fighter jets from the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, currently in dry dock.

Also reported heading toward Iran is another nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan and its Carrier Strike Group Seven; the USS Iwo Jima, the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal and a number of French warships, including the nuclear hunter-killer submarine Amethyste.

Once the naval force arrives in the Gulf region it will be joining two other U.S. naval battle groups already on site: the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS Peleliu; the Lincoln with its carrier strike group and the latter with an expeditionary strike group.

Telephone calls to the Pentagon were not returned by publication time.

  That drop in the price of gasoline that we have been having as of late?  Expect that to disappear in the coming weeks and to go up even higher.

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Sunday, August 10, 2008

" Job Killer John " Video Released By Erie,Pa. DNC

  Not a bad video either, but, it could have had a little more punch to it.

   Senator John McCain was in Erie today to spout off some more of his usual half/truths and lies about Democrat Barack Obama and his supposed inability to lead the United States as President.

   The local Erie DNC had a video waiting for dear old John when he arrived.

   Here it is from YouTube, which is the only place that the ad will run.

  " Job Killer John "? That is pretty good!