John McCain is Willing to Be Anything, Say Anything & Do Anything, Lobby-Anti-Lobby, Global Peace Index, Israeli Appeasers, Ted Kennedy,Alien Trucker

I finally got around to getting the garden done today, so I'm tired and looking for something east.

Thanks John McCain.

It's kind of incredible that John McCain is taken seriously as a presidential candidate.

But then, we still have the same Mainstream Media and the same fools who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 out there acting like "staying the course" is a viable solution.

Not much you can do with someone who experienced Bush's first four years and wanted four more of the same. But surely we can do something about the pitiful excuse for who passes themselves off as news organizations nowadays.

There are still a lot of folks out there who honestly believe that the media has a liberal bias. There are a lot of folks out there who still think that Obama is a Muslim. Hell, there's still people out there who think that we just haven't found Saddam's WMDs yet.

If you're one of them, you'd just as well stop reading now.

The MSM is so bad that Barack Obama is even pointing it out.

ABC News' Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., offered up a
criticism of the press' coverage of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign,
during a town hall with seniors in Gresham, Ore., today.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has an article titled, The Press Corps’ Unshakeable Crush on McCain Some straight talk about the media’s favorite ‘maverick’.

A candidate could only get away with such an elaborate and long-running con with
the media as willing accomplices. “The press loves McCain,” explained NBC host
Chris Matthews (9/10/06). “We’re his base.”

Talk about straight from the horse's ______. Add your own noun.

The Carpetbagger Report has some 20 odd McCain flip flops and they're still updating. Here's the latest.

* McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any
circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain if he were a “‘read my lips’
candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988
pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said,
“I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise
taxes.”

* McCain’s campaign unveiled a Social Security policy that the senator
would implement if elected, which did not include a Bush-like privatization
scheme. In March 2008, McCain denounced his
own campaign’s policy.

Just a couple of days ago John McCain showed just how tenuous his grasp of how the world works really is. I mean, he says if that's what the average American thinks, then he does too. Brilliant.

But as the National Security Network’s Ilan Goldenberg notes,
“if the ‘average American’ thinks that Ahmadinejad is the ultimate leader of
Iran” it would be McCain’s job as president “to dissuade them of this notion -
not reinforce it.”

Remember Obama's preacher? Of course you do. It's all the Mainstream Media could talk about for quite some time. McCain solicits a couple of way out there, religious nuts and that's hardly worth mentioning.

May 20, 2008 John McCain has some seriously screwed-up holy men surrounding
him. First, there's the Rev. John Hagee, a hate-monger and certifiable loon who
believes that Hurricane Katrina was God's judgment on New Orleans for planning a
gay parade, calls Catholicism a "false
cult system" that conspired with Hitler to exterminate the Jews, and
believes that America's divine duty is to destroy Iran. Then there's the Rev. Rod Parsley, who garnishes his bigoted theology by
calling Islam "the greatest religious enemy of our civilization and the world"
and saying that Muhammad was "a mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil."

Firedoglake has certainly noticed the media inconsistency, Welcome To An Edition Of “If A Democrat Did This It’d Be On The Evening News”.

If you've been paying attention, then you know all about McCain's lobbyists running his campaign problem. John McCain now wants to seen as the anti-lobby candidate. Here's what some of his own people think about that little brainstorm.

Some of McCain's advisers said Monday they are mystified by the new policy,
which they said gives Obama an opening to attack their candidate.

"The most interesting thing in every campaign is the self-inflicted
wound. This is a great case," said one GOP fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss
McCain's campaign decisions candidly. "When asked to name the 10,000 things
people think are the most important issue, this doesn't make the list."

Another adviser said: "There's scratching of heads. What is going
on? Why are we doing this?"

If this is an example of McCain's decision making, watch out if he gets elected.

But the McCain campaign does understand its strongpoints, get its non-thinking supporters to flood the internet with prepackaged McCain propaganda. Thanks Huffington Post.

McCain Campaign: Comment Trolls Wanted

Wishing you could be a campaign surrogate, but don't have a national platform?
Do you find blogging your own opinions tedious? Wish you could have someone tell
you what to think during this political season? Well look no further than John
McCain's new blog outreach!

You can even get McCain brownie points. Makes you wonder how these people could even come close in an election.

Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and
make your opinions supporting John McCain known. Once you’ve commented on a
post, video or news story, report the details of your comment by clicking the
button below. After your comments are verified, you will be awarded points
through the McCain Online Action Center.

Enough of John McCain. There's 167 days left until the election and I'm sure John will have plenty of stuff to keep us shaking our heads an saying, "Huh?".

According to the Global Peace Index, the U.S. ranks 97 out of a possible 140 countries. Not bad after seven years of George W. Bush. It's worth clicking on, just to see all the flags.

The table below provides the GPI rankings for the 140 countries analysed in 2008
and the 121 countries analysed in 2007, as well as year-on-year comparison.
Countries most at peace are ranked first. A lower score indicates a more
peaceful country. You can click on a country to see the detail of its peace
indicators and drivers.

I just found out that the Israeli government is comprised of a bunch of appeasers. It looks like President Bush had better give them a history lesson.

Israel’s Vice-Prime Minister, Haim Ramon, admitted Monday that the government of
Israel has, for the last several weeks, been holding talks with the Hamas party,
in contradiction with Israel’s stated policy of 'isolating and attacking’ the
elected Hamas-led government of the Palestinian people.

Can you imagine what they were thinking while Bush was giving them his little "appeasement" speech?

I want to wish Teddy Kennedy the best in his latest fight, not against the Right, but brain cancer. He has been a part of history for most of my life and we need more like him.

And my buddy Rocky over at Alien Trucker been going through some bad luck. Rocky and I have a lot in common, we're both in our 50's (me more than him), we both have blogs, we both understand the need for medical marijauna and we've both had our legs stop working for a while.

But he's still putting that blog out tho', go over and and check out the music video 99 Red Balloons, I'm listening to it now. It's an anti-war piece that takes me back to the days when I started to have to think seriously about the draft.

Hump day, enjoy.

Later

Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Play the Race Card.

This image is from a fascinating photo essay by Anthony Karen for Mother Jones. It's about Ms. Ruth, the Aryan outfitter.

It's not a slam piece on the KKK and if you check out the essay and the audio with each picture, don't be surprised if you come away from it with a certain amount of admiration for Ms Ruth.

In the audio on the last picture, Ms Ruth talks about how the KKK would go after white men who didn't treat their families as well as they should have. Personally, I know of an instance involving my mother's sister in North Carolina, when the KKK gave her husband a good beating for not taking care of his wife and kids. That happened more than 50 years ago.

It's really worth checking out.

But it's not the KKK that I want to talk about. It's the kind of sneaky racism that's poping up in the Mainstream Media.

Who would have thought that the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal would allow thinly veiled racist remarks to disgrace their pages. They did and Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker are making big money for their garbage.

Here's some of what Peggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ.

Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama’s problem. America is Mr.
Obama’s problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous,
ambivalent candidate from Men’s Vogue, the candidate who loves America because
of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But
has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of
country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about
D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who
flocked to Sutter’s Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in
them thar hills? There’s gold in that history.

John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school,
in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa’s knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at
least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92.

I've never gotten misty-eyed over any of those things. Does Peggy want to question my love of country? I don't know what credentials Ms. Noonan has to make her the final arbiter of someones love of country or their patriotism.

Maybe she could get me on the fact that my relatives were just enlisted men instead of Admirals. My Dad was a PFC, 100% disabled from wounds he recieved from a German 88 round at St. Lo in France. His brother was a Staff Sargent, he was put out of the war by calling artillery in on his own position after being surrounded while trying to close the Falaise Pocket. He came home with a steel plate in his head and a glass eye. He also got a battlefield commisssion to First Lieutenant and a Silver Star. My Mother's first husband was KIA in the Battle of the Bulge. I was in the Army from 72 to 75.

I'm proudly voting for Barack Obama. Want to question this "snooty lefty's" love of country, Peggy?

How about Kathleen Parker's The 'Bubba' vote in the WaPo.

It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American
values. And roots.

Yet, white Americans primarily—and Southerners, rural and small-town folks
especially—have been put on the defensive for their concerns with "guns, God and
gays," as Howard Dean put it in 2003. And more recently, for clinging to "guns
or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them," as Obama described
white, working-class Pennsylvanians who preferred his opponent.

What they know is that their forefathers fought and died for an America
that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years. What they sense is that
their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes
the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the
remodeling of America.

In the first place, I don't appreciate being referred to as "Bubba". I do know plenty of people who will cast their vote based solely on one or all the God, guns or gay issues, even though it's not in their own best self-interests. They are good people, but they see crap like this and it only reinforces their prejudices.

I don't know what the hell "blood equity" is supposed to mean. The only hard-won American value that I can think of is freedom and that's the thing that the Republicans have been trying to take away from us.

I can at least respect Ms. Ruth because she comes by it honestly. Noonan and Parker are just rabble-rousing for a paycheck. They should hit the streets and try to make a honest living.

On the same subject, from Editor & Publisher.

(May 18, 2008) -- Liberal bloggers and commenters at The Washington Post op-ed
section are rightly criticizing a column this week by syndicated scribe Kathleen
Parker that questions Barack Obama’s “deep-seated” Americanism. But she is only
following the footsteps of Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal who raised
similar issues three weeks ago – and was praised by NBC’s Brian Williams for a
“Pulitzer” worthy effort.

From Salon.com.

In one of the most repellent columns one will ever read, syndicated
columnist Kathleen Parker defended Fry's claim that Obama is something other
than "a full-blooded American." Advancing an argument that Atrios guest blogger
aimai aptly described as "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!," Parker
said "we now have a patriot divide" in America that "has nothing to do with a
flag lapel pin . . . or even military service." Instead:

Slate.

First Obama had to distance
himself from some bizarre comments made by his former pastor. Then he had to
explain why he doesn't wear a flag lapel pin often enough to suit Charlie Gibson of ABC News. Then he had
to distance himself from a former
member of the Weather Underground to whom
he was introduced when he decided to run for the Illinois Senate but with
whom he has since had scant contact. Then he had to distance himself from Hamas,
a terrorist organization he has repeatedly condemned, simply because its chief
political adviser, Ahmed Yousefat, expressed admiration for him. Now Peggy Noonan of the Wall
Street Journal demands that Obama demonstrate he carries sufficient love
within his breast for … Sutter's Mill.

And Media Matters.

While Media Matters for America did not identify specific instances of
Obama's getting "misty-eyed" over the Wright brothers, the 1944 Allied invasion
of Europe, George Washington, the 1849 California Gold Rush -- or Henry
Ford, for that matter -- the title of his latest book,
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, suggests that
Noonan should have looked there before suggesting that Obama has yet to address
"[w]hat ... he think[s] of America." She needn't have read past the prologue to
find this:

I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the
world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and
competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial
identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think
much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not
be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least
as much as our GDP.

That's all, from a snooty, lefty, Bubba.

Later

The McCain Maverick Mythunderstanding.

Image from Slowpoke Comics.

If you believe that John McCain is a maverick, chances are that you're right of center or else you get most of your information from the Mainstream Media. Aren't you happy that you've got the internet.

While McCain may only be a maverick in his own mind, the Mainstream Media are happy to perpetuate John's fantasy.

Don't take my word for it. Eric Boehlert at Media Matters proves it.

"The campaign's general-election strategy is to sell the McCain brand to
show voters that he is distinct from President Bush and other Republicans," the
Post reported.

So guess what members of the press, including those at MSNBC, CNN, NBC,
The Washington Post, Newsweek,
the Politico, and The Boston Globe, have been doing incessantly in recent weeks.
They've been making glowing references to the durability and appeal of the
"McCain brand." I mean, how lucky can the Republicans get? The press is echoing
precisely the message that the candidate's advisers want repeated again and
again. What are the odds?

Still think that there's a liberal media out there doing its best to undermine everything that's great or good about this country?

Check this out. CNN does its part to keep President Bush from looking like the hypocritical, idiot that he is.

In reports during the 10 and 11 a.m. ET hours of the May 15 edition of CNN
Newsroom, CNN aired comments by Robert Gibbs, Sen. Barack Obama's communications
director, responding to President Bush's remarks that "[s]ome seem to believe we
should negotiate with terrorists and radicals," reportedly
in reference to Obama, but CNN spliced the audio clip to omit part of the
statement in which Gibbs noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like
Obama, has reportedly said that the United States needs to be willing to meet
with Iran. CNN had left intact Gibbs' reference to Gates in the audio clip of
Gibbs' comments it aired during the 9 a.m. hour of the program.

Pretty sneaky, huh?

But this isn't about the liberal media myth, it's about the John McCain/maverick myth.

To be honest, if you define maverick as willing to change your position in a heartbeat, then John McCain is truly a maverick.

After Bush's little Obama "appeasment" speech to the Israeli Knesset, John McCain jumped right on board with the President.

Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right,
and one of them is Neville Chamberlain. I believe that it’s not an accident that
our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the
United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists
in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.

I guess that thinking that you're a maverick effects the memory. Because he seemed not to remember Reagan's arms-for-hostages negotiations.

Now his campaign is saying that they never used the word "appeasement". Appeasement, appeasers, big difference.

PFOTENHAUER: Senator McCain responded directly himself and said he took the
president at his word, that those comments were not directed toward Senator
Obama. […]

SHUSTER: Nancy, does the McCain campaign believe that talking to our
enemies is the same as appeasing them?

PFOTENHAUER: We have never used the term appeasement and you know
that.

McCain conveniently forgets that, not too long ago, he was one of those appeasers.

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them,
one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous
administrations had such antipathy toward Hamas because of their dedication to
violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so ... But it's
a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and
a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving
them that."

So it shouldn't be too hard to believe that the man who made the following statement is now sucking up to the NRA.

The NRA is entitled to their advocacy. I don’t think they help the Republican
Party at all, but I don’t think they should in any way play a major role in the
Republican Party’s policy making. [CNN, 5/12/00]

You know a man must be a maverick if he says something like this,

“The political tactics of division and slander are not our values. They are
corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in
the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of
America shame our faith, our party and our country… Neither party should be
defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of
intolerance.”

and then seeks the endorsement of a lunatic like John Hagee, who says things like this,

“Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And
they the hunters shall hunt them” - that will be the Jews - “from every mountain
and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.” If that doesn't
describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust... you can't see that. So think about
this - I will send fishers and I will send hunters. A fisher is someone who
entices you with a bait. How many of you know who Theodore Hertzel was? How many
of you don't have a clue who he was? WOO... Sweet God! Theodore Hertzel is the
father of Zionism. He was a Jew that at the turn of the 19th century said -
“this land is our land, God wants us to live there”. So he went to the Jews of
Europe and said, “I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel”. So few
went, Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did
not went through the hell of the Holocaust. Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is
someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the
Bible says - Jeremiah righty? - “they shall hunt them from every mountain and
from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks”, meaning: there's no place to
hide. And that will be offensive to some people. Well, dear heart, be offended:
I didn't write it. Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How
did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God
said, “my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come BACK to the
land of Israel”. Today Israel is back in the land and they are at Ezekiel 37 and
8. They are physically alive but they're not spiritually alive. Now how is God
going to cause the Jewish people to come SPIRITUALLY alive and say, “the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is God”?"

Wow, I never realized that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves. I bet they were "appeasers" too. It's just amazing that there are people out there who actually believe this garbage. Bruce Wilson of Talk to Action really put a lot of research in on John Hagee. If you missed the link above, here it is again.

Maverick McCain does have a set of standards, but they seem to be mostly double standards.

John McCain and the Dictator Money Trail

John McCain will fire you for lobbying for Burma, but he'll still take
your money.

Speaking of money, John McCain shows what a maverick he can be when it comes to his budget as president. He's a maverick because he's the only person that thinks building up Bush's deficit is the right thing for the country.

McCain’s Budget Would Create Largest Deficit In 25 Years, Largest
Debt Since WWII

You gotta admit, that's different.

McCain's health care policy is more Republican than maverick.

In fact, John McCain is more Republican than maverick.

Bush to join McCain at high-dollar campaign event.

Later

The Myth of Appeasement: A Right Wing Fantasy, brought to you today by George W. Bush and John McCain.

I'm really starting to get tired of trying to find euphemisms to describe Republicans.

Right wingers have their own places to go in order to validate their faith in the fantasy land that they inhabit.

Fox News, WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, just to name a few. Plus they have the whole right wing blogosphere, that does nothing but parrot the official line. Dumbasses.

The Dumbass-in-Chief, while addressing the Knesset in Israel, showed us all just how important a knowledge and understanding of history is. He showed us by his absolute lack of it.

Bush said, in an obvious attempt to discredit Barack Obama,

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if
some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.

We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in
1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if only I could have talked to
Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this
what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly
discredited by history.

Not wanting to be outdone in the ignorance of history contest, John McCain jumped right in to agree with Bush.

Senator John McCain, who has been critical of President Bush on the
environment and other policies this week, on Thursday morning wholeheartedly
endorsed Mr. Bush’s veiled rebuke in the Israeli Knesset of Senator Barack Obama that talking to “terrorists and radicals'’ was no different than appeasing
Hitler and the Nazis.

Unfortunately, for Bush, McCain and the rest of the Right, history does not agree with their versions of appeasement, at least, according to the U.S. Army's Stratigic Studies Institute.

APPEASEMENT RECONSIDERED:

INVESTIGATING THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE 1930s

Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at appeasement within the
context of the political and military environments in which British
and French leaders operated during the 1930s. He examines the
nature of appeasement, the factors underlying Anglo-French policies
toward Hitler from 1933 to 1939, and the reasons for the failure of
those policies. He finds that Anglo-French security choices were
neither simple nor obvious, that hindsight has distorted judgments
on those choices, that Hitler remains without equal as a state threat,
and that invocations of the Munich analogy should always be closely
examined.

If you don't trust the Army, which is usually the wise thing to do, here's a couple of others.

War in our time: the myth of appeasment

The myth of appeasement at Munich

Everyone seems to forget that appeasement was our national policy toward the Soviet Union.

Fog Fact No. 3: Sometimes “appeasement” works well; it was American policy
for 50 years.

After the Second World War the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic states,
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, part of East Prussia and part of Slovakia. Then,
mostly through rigged elections, it turned Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Romania and Bulgaria into puppet states and used military force, when necessary,
to maintain that status.

Neither the United States — nor anyone else — seriously challenged any
of that.

In 1938 Great Britian was no where near being able, militarily, to get into a war with most modern and strongest military power in Europe.

Britain was not in a position to project military power east of
the Rhine;
the Royal Navy was preoccupied with the Italian and
Japanese threats; and
the Royal Air Force was in the middle of
rearming. Moreover, as Richard
Overy points out, Chamberlain had
been prime minister for only a year, and
he was “understandably not
prepared to crown that period by deliberately
courting a war that all
his military advisers warned him would destroy the
Empire.”

Britain was not even in a position to contribute to the ground
defense of France and the Low Countries. The British army had
no defined
strategic role in the 1930s outside of home and imperial
defense, and it was
not until after Munich that the Chamberlain
government reintroduced
conscription and concluded that a
continental commitment for the British
army was unavoidable.

France wasn't much better off.

Yet as General Maurice Gamelin, the Chief of the French
General Staff,
confessed after Germany’s military reoccupation of
the Rhineland in 1936,
“The idea of sending a French expeditionary
corps into the Rhineland, even
in a more or less symbolic form, is
unrealistic. . . . our military system
does not give us this possibility.Our active army is only the nucleus of the
mobilized national army. . . . None of our units are capable of being placed
instantly on a complete war footing.”

If you would like to really get into the appeasement debate, I would suggest, Appeasement and Rearmament: Britain, 1936-1939 by James Levy.

Oh yeah, and that Senator whose quote Bush used was a Republican.

And here's another right wing dumbass, radio talk-show host Kevin James showing that a knowledge of history is not required by the Right Wing Propaganda Machine.

Later

Olbermann: Mr. President, the war isn't about you.

I saw Olbermann's commentary tonight. Ithink it's well worth seeing or reading. The transcript is here. It's about time someone in the MSM really tells it like it is.

Blue Girl went over this yesterday, with the experience of her own knee problems, she says Bush is lying, too.

That makes three of us.

Robert Novak, Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Associates, Frank Donatelli and Roy Blunt appearing in Republicans are just crazy.

There's more important news out there, we still have troops dying, for apparently no reason, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mess in Burma and the earthquake in China.

But this morning I was just trying to comprehend, what on earth would make any rational human being want to vote Republican.

While I'm no fan of Bob Novack, I did read his piece about Huckabee wanting to deep six McCain's presidential run.

You remember Mike Huckabee? He ran for the Republican nomination and he is the poster boy for the Religious Right. He's also the guy who wants to do away with the Constitution and replace it with his own interpretation of the Bible.

"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I
believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change
the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the
Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's
standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life
amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

Well, Huckabee's been making kissyfaces at McCain for quite a while now and Novak comes along and says that's all a front for an evil plan to help Obama win in November. Somehow the country deserves the plague of an Obama presidency to get it back on the right track and open the door for the Right Reverend Mike Huckabee to take over the country in 2012.

Nevertheless, reports out of the evangelical community dispute Huckabee's
support. One experienced, credible activist in Christian politics who would not
let his name be used told me Huckabee in personal conversation with him embraced
the concept that an Obama presidency might be what the American people deserve.
That fits what has largely been a fringe position among evangelicals, that the
pain of an Obama presidency is in keeping with the Bible's prophecy.

Of course, Huckabee's denying everything. Would a Baptist preacher lie?

I e-mailed Gov. Huckabee for a response, and he quickly shot back: "it’s total
and absolute nonsense! I told Bob this last week in a phone call. He went with
the story with his 'unnamed source.' Should have been listed as an 'unbrained
source.' He must have liked the story no matter how ludicrous it is. There was
NO conversation between Mike Farris and me to that effect. None. I don’t know of
anyone who feels that 'America deserves Obama.'

I, for one, do believe we deserve Obama.

Over on Huckabee's own blog, his denials are most vociferous and he even manages to put the usual right wing innuendo on Obama's character. Pretty slick for a country preacher.

Where do people dream up this stuff? Forget the “anonymous” sources—there’s
nothing anonymous about my stand and here it is. We don’t “deserve” Obama—we
DESERVE a President with the character, convictions, experience, and wisdom to
see the problems we face and try to lead us to solve them. We deserve a
President who truly loves this country and from whom there is no doubt as to his
respect for Faith, Family, and the kind of Freedom that those before us have
given their lives to pass on to us. John McCain meets that criteria and that’s
why I am campaigning for him and not hoping for Obama. The nonsense that I want
Obama to win this year so I can run in 2012 is absurd. I love my country more
than my own ambition. So let the record and truth be clear. And let the
“anonymous” sources either show the courage to stand up and be accountable for
their comments or shut up and leave commentary to people who aren’t afraid of
their own shadow.

Somehow, I just can't make myself believe that Mike Huckabee puts very much before his ambition.

If you go to Mike's blog, be sure to read the comments. Are these really the kind of people that we want making the decisions for our country? You can just feel the zeal dripping from their commentary.

Getting away from Huckabee, here's a quote from John McCain.

The people that surround me are honorable people.” - John
McCain [Town Hall Meeting, Exeter, NH 03/12/08]

And here's some of those "honorable" people that he surrounds himself with. They are all good Republicans, they'll do anything for enough money. The list is long, but here's one example.

Frank Donatelli

McCain Tapped Lobbyist Frank Donatelli To Run His Efforts At RNC. McCain
tapped lobbyist Frank Donatelli to become deputy chairman of the Republican
National Committee. The New York Times reported Donatelli will “act as the
main liaison between the committee and the McCain campaign.” Donatelli is
a lobbyist at McGuire Woods and previously served as a lobbyist at Akin Gump
Strauss Hauer & Feld. His clients have included AT&T, Exxon Mobil,
PhRMA, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Verizon. [New York Times, 3/7/08; McGuire
Woods, accessed 5/12/08; Senate Lobbying Disclosure Records, accessed
5/12/08]

Donatelli Enlisted to Improve Ethiopia’s Relationship with U.S. In a
September 2005 letter sent to Ambassador Kassahun Ayele of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Donatelli set forth his obligations under their
contract, namely to provide “government relations and related public
communications services to assist and work with Ethiopia in Washington, D.C., in
promoting and strengthening Ethiopia’s relations with the United States and, in
general, providing such other appropriate advice and assistance as will serve to
achieve these purposes.” [FARA Database, accessed 3/18/08, Letter signed by
Frank Donatelli on 9/6/05] •

Human Rights Watch: “The Ethiopian Government’s Human Rights Record
Remains Poor.” According to Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2008, “The
Ethiopian government’s human rights record remains poor, both within the country
and in neighboring Somalia, where since early 2007 thousands of Ethiopian troops
have been fighting an insurgency alongside the Transitional Federal Government
of Somalia. Government forces committed serious human rights violations,
including rape, torture, and village burnings, during a campaign against
Ethiopian rebels in eastern Somalia Region (Region 5). Abuses took place
in other parts of the country, notably in Oromia State where local officials
carried out mass arrests, extra-judicial killings and economic sanctions.”
[Human Rights Watch, accessed 5/12/08, emphasis added]

It's not just the Republican presidential candidates that are so out of touch that they don't seem to realize what they're saying. House Minority Whip Roy Blunt went on CNN and admitted that McCain would be just like a third term for Bush. He thinks that's a good thing.

Why would anyone, with even a semi-functioning brain, vote Republican?

It's Wednesday. Think about it.

Later

Bad Ballot Design, Bush Being Bush, Mad Cow, Mad India, Mad Iraq, GOP Depressed, Religious Right, Redneck Evolution and Wingnut Humor.

It's Monday!

You'd think that almost eight years after the fiasco in Florida that the problem of having your vote correctly counted would be a done deal.

Naw, it's still all screwed up.

Here in Oklahoma we just have to connect the arrow right next to who we want to vote for.

And then we feed it to the scanner. It seems to work. It's fast and simple. And it makes for an easy, accurate recount.

It also prevents mistakes.

Like this.

Fortunately, for the country, the Republicans tend to prove the old adage, "Give 'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves.", true.

The head hangman is still tightening the noose. How out of it do you have to be, to be a proponent of mad cow disease?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals
court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease,
but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

Probably, out of it enough to combine Econ 101 with a complete lack of knowledge of anything else and ticking off a nuclear power with a feeble attempt to pretend that he has some idea of what's actually going on.

NEW DELHI, May 7 -- A brief comment by President Bush about the role of India in the world food crisis has set off a firestorm of
criticism in this country.

Or, maybe fighting a war five years after he'd declared that the war was won.

Little has changed in the 11-square-mile corner of northeast Baghdad, but the
stakes are higher now. An Iraqi military offensive launched against Shiite
militias in late March has drawn in U.S. troops and has led to near-constant
fighting in Sadr City. Sadr has threatened "open war" if the offensive does not
end. U.S. troop deaths have climbed to their highest level in seven months,
mainly because of the clashes in and around Sadr City, and the additional
American troops will be gone by July. On Saturday, the Iraqi government said it
had struck a deal with Sadr's aides to halt the fighting, but the two sides
disagreed on its terms and it was unclear what it would yield.

It looks like we've finally given them enough rope.

Also in April, as the President’s Approval Rating slipped, the number of Americans who consider themselves to be Democrats
remained near the highest levels ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports.

I doubt if even the Religious Right's all out effort to subvert the Constutition will be of much help this year.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least
one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a
court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional.
Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged
partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to
help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is
scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general
election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular
part of the political debate.

The Republicans have done such a horrible job of running things that, even in the South, the race card is taking a backseat to issues. It's way past time for the southern white working class to realize that they have a lot more in common with the black working class, than they do with the Republicans, who don't give a crap about them in the first place.

In response to Mr. Obama’s energizing of black Southern voters, enlightened
self-interest may well convince many of the region’s undecided superdelegates to
endorse him. Over the last two years, there have been little-noticed Democratic
gains in Congressional and state legislative elections across the South, as the
solid black Democratic base has been joined by whites disenchanted with the Bush
administration. New concern about the economy may be adding momentum.

It's Monday, so I'll leave you with a little right wing "humor".

Free Tickets

I have 4 extra tickets for the Robbie Knievel event at the State Fair Grounds next weekend if anybody wants them. He's going to attempt to jump 500 Democrats with a bull dozer.

Later.

John McCain Typical Republican, McCain Sees "Evil", Than Shwe: Burma's Stalin, Bracknophobia, Global Warming Hoax, Medical Pot and Sub-Prime Reality.

If this is a Bush speech, you really can't blame him.

But, as far as politics goes, what is John McCain really like? From what I can find out, he's your typical narrow-minded, tight-assed Republican. The whole "maverick" thing must be some kind of inside joke. There's hardly any evidence to back it up.

Crooks and Liars. com has John McCain’s Top 10 Out-of-Touch Moments. It's just the latest ten really stupid things that John McCain has said. You'd better read it, because I doubt if you'll be hearing or seeing these kind of things on the mainstream media. Excepting, of course, Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Meanwhile, on the same network, Chris Matthews and Tim Russert admit that they're giving John McCain a free ride.

During Tuesday’s Democratic Presidential Primary coverage on MSNBC, Chris
Matthews and Tim Russert both admit to ignoring the countless gaffes and
blunders committed by John McCain.

Meanwhile, on the same network, Morning Joe: Scarborough and Carlson Call The Media’s Love of Obama A “Ninth Grade Love Affair”.

Meanwhile, this image takes most right wingers back to their ninth grade love affairs and they look at their right hand and give it a knowing wink.

Some way this was supposed to segue into John McCain's views on women, it didn't. Here they are anyway.

McCain on equal pay: ‘I don’t think you’re doing anything to help the rights of women.’

And from NARAL, their scorecard on McCain and women's rights.

Just like most typical Republicans, McCain puts his rich friends before the good of the country. How much more of that can we put up with.

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona
rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of
valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap
that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign
fundraisers].

Betts is among a string of donors who have benefited from McCain-engineered
land swaps. In 1994, the senator helped a lobbyist for land developer Del Webb
Corp. pursue an exchange in the Las Vegas area, according to the Center for
Public Integrity. McCain sponsored two bills, in 1991 and 1994, sought by donor
Donald R. Diamond that yielded the developer thousands of acres in trade for
national parkland.

In the late 1990s, McCain promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto
National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance,
a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to
national political parties and presidential candidates.

And his foreign policy, well it looks and sounds a lot like Bush's. He's even starting to use the word "evil". He evens plans to have a war with "evil".

Sen. John McCain has evil on his mind.

On Wednesday, he vowed to take the fight to religious persecution, human
trafficking, child pornography and other "evil" if elected. Speaking at Oakland
University in Rochester, Minnesota, CNN
said the event was part of the Arizona' senators efforts to reach out to
conservative voters.

I have to give McCain credit for one thing, there is definitely "evil' in Burma. Big time. From Attytood.

Until now, the thing that Than Shwe had going in his favor that few people
outside Burma were paying attention. Unfortunately it's taken the tragic death
of tens of thousands of his subjects, but that's not true anymore. In the wake
of Saturday's deadly cyclone, Than Shwe and his thug regime are not only
blocking more foreign aid workers -- including
America, which already had relief ships in the region on a training exercise
-- but even went so far as to hijack the
first shipment that reached the country.

There seems to be a bit of "evil" going on in this country, too.

Take Family Security Matters, it appears to be a place that folks on the right can go to, in order to get their fears validated. This is there latest slime job on Barack. People actually take this crap serouisly.

Inside Obama’s Psyche

A caller to a radio show recently theorized
that mixed-race individuals like Obama are resentful that while they're
half-white, they always come out black. They can never take advantage of their
white half because while the black community accepts them, the white community
doesn’t.

If this is true, it could be a legitimate reason for
anger – possibly the same rage that fuels Rev. Wright, given that he is looks to
be of “mixed” parentage.

Wow, with sources as good as a caller to a radio show, they must be right.

Don'cha just love the Right. For all their supposed morality, they sure play fast and loose with the truth. Like global warming, for instance.

New Zealand climate scientists are upset their names have been used by an
American organisation wanting to challenge the increasingly accepted view that
climate change is human induced.

"I object to the implication that my research supports their position ...
they didn't check with me."

He said that he and the other New Zealand scientists all felt their
work had been misinterpreted.
"We say global warming is real."

You can understand the Right's position, all the Left wants to do is legalize pot.

With drug trafficking and violence from international cartels on the rise, "do
you think the DEA's limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement
raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally
under California law?" House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a letter to the agency.

Right on, Congressman Conyers.

Now for something really important. The sub-prime lending mess hit home while I was cruising the blogs of people I don't know personally, but think of them as friends anyway. Stephen Herron, whose blog is Drinking Liberally in New Milford, has just lost his home.

He don't have his hand out, he's found a place to live and he's making the most of a really bad situation. Go wish him well, he's one of us.

Have a good weekend.

Later

So Long Hillary, John McCain Fantasyland, Bloggasm, Swiftboaters are Back, GOP Depression, Bush Will Veto Housing Bill & Rush Limbaugh Chaos Theory.

Even though she's needed a miracle for at least a month now, Hillary's hung in there hoping for it.

She didn't get it.

I would imagine that after West Virginia, which she's expected to win, she will finally admit defeat.

Analysis: Democrats quietly send word to Clinton it's over

Hopefully, the Democrats will figure out how to have a primary election over the next four years. I mean, this one has been a mess, even though it worked out well. Maybe they'll grow a set of balls while they're at it, too.

I think that we can thank Bush, the Republicans, the Democrats who voted with them and the whole conservative policy/ideology for the resurgent enthusiasm we've seen during the primaries. But then, everything that Bush has done, turned to crap.

Cut taxes on the rich, it will bring in more revenue and create more jobs. I don't know how stupid you had to be to believe that, but not as stupid as you are if you still believe it. Iraq is an imminent threat. Yeah, but only if you go there. And these are just the biggies. Someone has a big job to do to get the country back on track.

The effects of the Right's domination of national policy are going to be felt for a long time to come.

Just look at Bush's Supreme Court Justices. Fussy old school marms with a Bible in one hand and a strap in the other. How many years will it take to have a Supreme Court that's not a right wing rubberstamp?

Poor old John McCain's just jumped Barack for not voting to appoint Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Republican John McCain criticized Democratic rival
Barack Obama for voting against John Roberts as U.S. chief justice, reaching out
to the Christian right on one of their chief concerns: the proper role of judges
in government.

That's right, John. And that's just one reason we'll be voting for him instead of you.

Hillary voted against Alito and Roberts, also. So if John McCain is cognizant of who he's going to be running against, then you know that the Right Wing Propaganda Machine is cranking up for a major smear job on Barack Obama. We'd best prepare.

A good place to start would be Simon Owens' Bloggasm. Simon is keeping a close eye on the online media. He's just written an article on how the right wing blogosphere is handling Barack Obama.

He's a better man than I am, 'cause right wing blogs tend to make me ill. But I think that I'll be using a lot of his stuff in the future. Bloggasm will be in my links right after I post this. Thanks for contacting me, Simon.

Just a couple of examples of what to expect from the Right. First, from Media Transparency:

Floyd Brown and David Bossie: Back in the Swift Boat captain's
chairs

Two longtime practitioners of negative campaigning are mainstreaming
attacks on Clinton and Obama

And from The American Prospect:

How Deep Is Your Love?

Republicans are up to their usual tricks -- questioning the patriotism
of their opponents. The media, as usual, is playing along because it lauds
political success, not virtue.

They're going to have to be especially nasty and dirty this election year, because apparently, that's all that they have.

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present
Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November,
and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member
worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by
Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House
Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

I don't really know what else that they can expect, considering how they've screwed up the country. Their current president has shown and is still showing absolutely no concern for the working class folks in this country.

President Bush has threatened to veto the massive housing bill that should pass
the House on Wednesday, casting doubt on wide ranging legislation that had been
crafted with the help of a number of Republicans in Congress and in the
administration.

What the hell, hundreds of billions for a war for no reason, but zilch for working Americans? As much debt that he's gotten this country into, two or three billion to help out regular Americans is a no-brainer, just like Bush.

The Republican's wannabe president, John McCain, figures that pissing off Russia and China would be a really good idea.

In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8,
the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in
the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on
Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks
of the old Russian Empire as well. McCain also proposed that the United States
should expand the G8 by taking in India and Brazil-but pointedly excluded China
from the councils of power.

I'm telling ya'll, the Republicans couldn't run a snow cone stand. Even their great draft dodging, drug addicted philosopher is starting to crack under the strain.

Conservative radio host leads Tuesday broadcast with news reports, testimonials
he says he’s getting from the field of Republicans participating in crossover
voting to keep the Democratic race going.

Unfortunately, as is almost always the case with Rush, the facts are different.

The numbers are in and they confirm what has been obvious for, oh, 30 years now:
Rush Limbaugh is an egotistical buffoon who, in fact, has no influence on
anything but the opinions of his few gullible dittohead listeners.

And just so we won't be like the mainstream media, don't forget that we are still losing people in

Bush's war for no reason. Here's the latest developments.

Be sure to check out and sign up at the War on Greed.

Have a good Thursday.

Later