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We can certainly take heart in the job his campaign staff is doing trashing their own candidate with these bonehead remarks. "Econonic adviser" Fiorina says he can't run a company (neither could she, she oughta know), "Domestic policy adviser" Holtz-Eakin says the old dude made the Blackberry possible, and so on.
More evidence of the return of the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight (and certainly not talk straight!).
(Zandra works over at Granite State Progress. Lots of good stuff at the link. - promoted by Dean Barker)
In a salute to my friends and former colleagues at NH for Health Care - those purple-shirted "I'm A Health Care Voter!" activists who never miss a political event - Granite State Progress had a little fun on the road to the raceway this weekend:
(Sample picture from Saturday's sign-making.)
If you believe that every American should have access to quality, affordable health care, but haven't signed up to be a Health Care Voter yet -
1) Where have you been?
2) http://www.newhampshireforheal...
Remember, there's strength in numbers!
And if you think I'm picking on McCain's health care plan (Check under the hood/of McCain's/health care plan/the paint is new/but the engine sputters), read on ...
To call a spade a bloody shovel means more than speaking plainly; rather, it means saying something that is true but unpalatable -- or impolitic.
During an otherwise stellar appearance on David Letterman's show last night, Barack Obama missed an opportunity to deliver a kidney punch to John McCain. In my view, this missed opportunity vividly exemplifies a weakness in the election style Democrats have used over the past three decades.
(I'm not saying Obama's campaign exemplifies this style; to the contrary, despite a few missteps -- and who among us could do better? I submit that, given the fact that Barack Obama has steamrolled over every obstacle thus far, this man just might know better than anyone how to correct the Democratic Party's mistakes of the past and finally, FINALLY beat these bastards in this rigged game. But I'm making a point here, so... bear with me.)
Letterman asked, and I'm paraphrasing,
"If you'd been able to pick your Vice-Presidential running mate after McCain picked Palin, would you have chosen differently?"
Obama answered -- and again, I'm paraphrasing:
"I chose the person I want in the room with me, giving me wise advice and different points of view..."
Intelligent, cogent and sincere.
But I think he should have phrased it thusly:
"Maybe this is another difference between Senator McCain and me:
I didn't pick my running mate because I thought he would help me WIN; I picked him because I thought he would help me GOVERN."
Stark, simple and true. Did John McCain pick Sarah Palin because he thought she was the best of all possible candidates for the role of Vice-President in a McCain Administration?
The very suggestion is a joke. Nobody could make that suggestion wit a straight face unless he worked for McCain or Fox News. McCain picked Palin to help him win the election.
Just one more in an endless series of proofs that John McCain's campaign slogan of "Country First" is an empty, shallow and insulting lie.
(Nice piece... Eyes on the puck everyone. - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
I have said it before and I will say it again: Gov. Palin is irrelevant. She is the decoy, the rodeo clown, the half-time show, the red cape, the cipher, the straw (wo)man, whatever flummery will serve to distract critical attention from the main puppet show (and from the Wizard of Rove behind that curtain over there) and attract more general attention from the cheap seats.
It's the oldest trick in a book written by P.T. Barnum, and his spawn are still getting the rubes to part with their pay envelopes when the carny comes to town. These operators are using every trick and shill they can think of to convince ordinary well-meaning and otherwise sensible folks to vote against their own best interests in favor of some special interests.
According to the AP, the McCains and their young ward Sarah are planning a pre-hurricane junket Sunday to Mississippi at the invitation of Gov.(and former RNC chair) Haley Barbour, natch.
Isn't that just what those folks need there, another Bigfoot going the wrong way down the evacuation route, complete with an entourage, media circus and plenty of well-managed photo ops and sound bites along the way. Perfect!
At least they are only going to Jackson, not NOLA.
One thing that is getting scant attenting in the taditional media is the fact that Sarah Palin's husband works or has worked for British Petroleum. Alaska has tons of money thanks to fossil fuel and our federal tax dollars going there. Corrupt Ted Stevens and BFF John Sununu have seen to that.
The oil and gas companies, so used to having their collective way with us through their BFF Dick Cheney, needed to make sure they have a puppet at the ready. Enter Sarah Palin.
From The Envoronment News Service (bold mine)
Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, has worked to protect the polar bear from climate change. Today he called the choice of Palin "shocking."
"Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming," he said.
"Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration."
"Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP, formerly British Petroleum, has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska's coasts, and put special interests above science," Schlickeisen said.
The fossil fuel industry is on its last legs, and like any beast it will not go down without a fight. And it doesn't care who or what gets in the way.
It also shows that this choice was made by the fossil fuel lobby, and was done to have a tool a heartbeat away from the presidency.
In the past week, Barack Obama and John McCain have given us a clear indication of how they would run their White House.
Sen. Obama chose Joe Biden to be his running mate, a smart, seasoned, and honest statesman, respected by both Democrats and Republicans and trusted by leaders abroad.
John McCain chose Dan Quayle in a pantsuit.
The choice of Sarah Palin, the undistinguished governor of a thinly populated state with no real accomplishments, is nothing more than a crass political move. Evidently, the McCain team has seen one too many silly "puma" story on Fox or CNN, and believes that simply putting a woman on the ticket will score political points.
Obama chose someone who will help him govern effectively. McCain went for cheap political points. That says everything we need to know about the choice we face in November.
In 2004, the Bush administration hit on a novel idea for coping with the loss of manufacturing jobs. A simple reclassification of a well known service job, and voila, assembling a fast food burger becomes a manufacturing job.
It is in that same spirit of creativity that McCain advisor John Goodman has solved the health care crisis:
"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American - even illegal aliens - as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.
"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."
This is the kind of innovative thinking that has gotten the GOP where they are today!
One of the items available at the John McCain store is a 3'x 6' "Your Name" for McCain yard sign. Which got me thinking, what could one do with 25 characters...
- George Bush Lovers for...
- Trollops for...
- Borrow and Spenders for...
- Oil Company CEOs for...
- No Presidency for...
What smarmy, elitist fun can you have with the 25 character limit?
TPM has been following the ongoing saga of John McCain's ties to the Hess Oil company. Two high level campaign officials were lobbyists for the oil company, whose executives and even an office manager and her Amtrak track foreman husband managed to max out to McCain plus fork over another $28,500 each to the RNC-McCain fund.
The FEC filings show that Alice Rocchio, who's identified as a Hess office manager, and her husband, Pasquale Rocchio, who's described as an Amtrak "track foreman," each separately donated $28,500 to the RNC-McCain fund, which is called McCain Victory 2008. They gave the money on June 24th, the same day that eight other Hess execs and family members each shelled out the same amount.
So the Rocchios, who live in Flushing, Queens, donated a total of $57,000 to McCain's efforts.
The Rocchios joined Hess senior executives and two Hess family members who all gave about $285,000 in total when McCain reversed his position and began to speak out in favor of off shore drilling. Hess stands to gain a great deal of money if the ban on offshore drilling is lifted, of course.
I guess a McCain presidency would include energy policy made by oil companies behind closed doors a la Cheney.
More on the lobbyists:
The two lobbyists are Wayne Berman, McCain's national finance co-chairman, and John Green, who's been the McCain campaign's chief Congressional liaison since March. Both men worked for a firm called Ogilvy Government Relations. The firm has been paid $800,000 by Hess from 2005 up to the present, including $720,000 during the period that both of the two lobbied for the company, the forms say.
Berman, a prolific fundraiser and bundler for McCain, appears to still be lobbying for Hess. The most recently filed form shows that he was lobbying for the company as late as mid-July. Green took a leave of absence from Ogilvy to join the campaign, but was still on the Hess account up through the first quarter of 2008, the forms show.
I had a rather horrifying experience the other day. There is a "gentleman" who lives in our town, who is, I believe, registered as a Democrat. He was a Hillary supporter in the primary. I saw him casually recently and he asked me how my day had gone. I told him I had worked in my garden (this was a Saturday), and also sent off my first LTE in a while, about how pleased I was about Obama's trip overseas, how wonderful it was to see an American greeted with such enthusiasm after all the years of cringing when Bush opened his mouth, or gave someone a shoulder rub!
I had heard this over the weekend, and then saw it in a McLatchy Press article - Republican senators who are or who may be skipping the Republican National Convention - including the Sprinter, John E. Sununu:
The National Journal also reported that three senators haven't decided yet if they'll attend: Roger Wicker of Mississippi, John Sununu of New Hampshire, and Gordon Smith of Oregon.
It sounds like senators who are in tight re-election campaigns have decided they should avoid any close contact with George W. Bush or the Republican Party or even their nominee, John McCain.
However, as the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck, even if said duck decides to duck the duck convention.
(Between Tim C. and YouTube and Bill Duncan, John McCain might do better here just avoiding this state altogether. - promoted by Dean Barker)
McCain's "We are gonna withdraw; we will withdraw" quasi-surrender to reality has gotten some coverage, but the massive, ground-shifting -- and, as far as I can tell, entirely unnoticed, -- switcheroo comes about a sentence later:
"If I thought that al-Qaeda was completely defeated, I would say all of us should come home right away."
That's right: without so much as a press release, John McCain has announced that the sole purpose for our remaining in Iraq is the defeat of al-Qaeda.
Not stability. Not democracy. Not peace. Not a friendly government. Not a non-Iranian-proxy government. Not a non-radical-Shia-Islamic-extremist government. Just the defeat of al-Qaeda. Period.
A continuation of what Rachel Maddow referred to as John McCain's "No good very bad week" seems to be getting only worse. Will it be reported anywhere but "Countdown" and the blogosphere?
According to Huff Po, McCain made the first gaffe of Obama's trip with a geography error.
Asked by Diane Sawyer whether the "the situation in Afghanistan in precarious and urgent," McCain responded: "I think it's serious. . . . It's a serious situation, but there's a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border."
But as ABC's Rick Klein noted: "Iraq and Pakistan do not share a border. Afghanistan and Pakistan do."
If that weren't enough, The New York Times rejected McCain's Op-Ed piece because it criticizes Obama's position on Iraq without articulating what McCain would do differently.
More if you follow the link.
Now we're sure to hear howling about the Times. They broke the story about the now less than scarce Vicki Iseman.
What a double standard! With all the gaffes, etc. McCain has made thus far, a Dem in his position would be Post Toasties.
I guess trad med needs the horse race.
Still, we can't count on McCain to hoist himself by his own petard--Lieberman would save him somehow, so we have to work hard for our entire ticket!
We were minding our business, enjoying the sunshine at Red River Beach in Harwich, Cape Cod this afternoon, when what pulls up in the parking lot, but the "Beatty Mobile Headquarters."
Jeff Beatty is apparently challenging John Kerry for his senate seat, with a tag line, "It's time to replace John Kerry with one of us."
As my husband reads that aloud, my 5 3/4 (going on 15) year old son Andrew (from here forward in italics) asks, Who's John Kerry?
A Senator from Massachussetts.
What's a Senator?
A senator is someone who works for us in Washington to help make laws. Each state has two senators that go to Washington.
If each state has 2 senators and there are 50 states, how many senators are there? (Have to try and get some summer math in there with our civics lesson) 900?
Okay, what's 50 +50? 100.
Right so there are 100 Senators.
Is being a senator a hard job?
Yes, it's a very hard job because you have to get most of the people in the whole state to vote for you and when you get to Washington you have to make very difficult decisions.
Remember, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are Senators? Oh, like John McCain?
Right.
If I were president, I would make very good laws, like: no littering, be good to mother earth, no smoking, use both sides of a piece of paper...
Those would be very good laws. I think if you were president you would be a very good president.
Who is our worst President ever? Wait a minute, let me think... no, don't say it... George Bush.
Why is that? Because he is mean to people. If he's so bad, how did he get to be president anyway?
That's a good question! When he was running for president he told people he would do all kinds of good things and that he would be compassionate.
What does compassionate mean?
It means he would care for people.
Well, then he's a fibber.
Right, and he has put this country in debt. What does "in debt" mean?
It means that he has spent money that he didn't have and that your generation will have to pay for it. Instead of spending money on education and health care, he has spent money on war.
Why did he go to war?
Because he wanted to get control over a lot of oil.
Isn't that stealing?
In a way, ,I guess you could call it stealing, because he went in to another country, took control, and will now let his friends who own big oil companies make lots of money off of the oil there.
Where is this war?
Iraq.
Iraq. Where's that?
In the middle east... very far away.
I don't think John McCain should be president.
Why not? Because I think he will be just like George Bush.
So do I.
I think Barack Obama will make a good president.
So do I.
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